An Unexpected Ally

Part 2

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...

Jane Bennet's blue eyes grew cloudy as she allowed her imagination to run wild, picturing the most perfect of spring days. Her hair would be curled just so, pinned in place and decorated with flowers. She would wear a beautiful dress, chosen specially for the occasion, and beside her would stand...

"Mr Darcy?"

Jane flinched, spinning away from the looking glass to glare at Lizzy who burst into her room without knocking, pausing for a moment with a merry laugh.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Jane said, crossly, letting go of the hair she held in place and smoothing away some imagined creases in her dress. "Don't you knock?"

"Not always." Lizzy bounded in, landing on the bed with a thump. "You were daydreaming." Her eyes danced with amusement. "Admit it! You were daydreaming about your wedding day." She sighed, clutching her hands to her breast in an affectation of romance. "Oh, how beautiful I will look, with my hair pinned just so, surrounded by spring flowers and with the Colonel Fitzwilliam beside me..."

"Hush!" Jane tossed a pillow at her sister, the heat in her cheeks intensifying with the accuracy of Lizzy's speculations. Am I so easy to read? She perched opposite her, eager to change the subject.

"What were you saying about Mr Darcy?"

"Oh, nothing." Lizzy hugged the pillow to her, burying her head into it so that when she spoke, her voice was muffled. "Merely that Father has been corresponding with him."

"Oh?" Jane frowned. "I did not realise they were friends."

"No more did I!" Lizzy groaned, and when she lifted her head, her features folded into a scowl. "I do not believe they are, merely that Mr Darcy must forever poke his nose into everybody else's business, even when he is not in Hertfordshire! He still seems to think everything that happens here is of his chief concern, though we all remain, of course, far beneath his notice."

If Jane was concerned about the transparency of her own feelings, Lizzy seemed oblivious to hers, her agitation about Mr Darcy's interference - if that was truly what was behind his letters to Mr Bennet - proving nothing more than that she thought of him often. Jane turned this thought over in her mind, wondering how she had not noticed it before.

"What?" Lizzy straightened. "What hmm? You are thinking, Jane. I do not like it."

"That is the pot calling the kettle black!" Jane retorted, reaching for her pillow before Lizzy continued squashing it flat. "I merely reflected that it is quite interesting how often you succeed in mentioning Mr Darcy's name, despite claiming still to care absolutely nothing for him and thinking of him even less. As you say, he has been absent from Meryton for quite some time now and has not yet faded from your memory."

"He will be absent no longer!" Lizzy replied, trying to appear unconcerned and only slightly succeeding. "That is what I came to tell you. Papa has had word that he is returning to Netherfield."

Jane's eyes widened, her question answered before she even had a chance to formulate it.

"Alone." Lizzy frowned. "I do not know what has become of Mr Bingley. And it is but a fleeting visit."

"You seem to have deduced a great deal of news from Papa's correspondence," Jane remarked, striving to keep her voice and her features neutral. "I am surprised he was willing to share as much."

"He may have left the letter out on the side for anyone to read...." Lizzy confessed, tracing a line of embroidery on Jane's quilt. She glanced up, two pinpricks of colour dotting her cheeks as she grinned. "Anyone of an enquiring disposition, anyway."

"Which means you." Jane sighed.

"Don't lecture, Janey! If I had not read the letter, we should not know that Mr Darcy is to grace us with his presence once more. Now that we do know it, we can plan our next steps."

"What next steps?" Jane stood, turning back to the mirror and returning to the task of pinning her hair up, which had been sacrificed for a moment's idle daydreaming before Lizzy burst in. "You still claim you want nothing to do with the man."

"It cannot be nothing," Lizzy remarked, with a philosophical shrug that might have convinced someone who did not know her as well as Jane did. "Not if you are set to marry his cousin!"

"Lizzy!" Jane scolded, turning to check that the door to her room was closed and Lizzy's comment couldn't have been overheard. "I told you that in confidence!"

"I know." Elizabeth's smile dimmed just a fraction. "But it can't be very long until it is common knowledge, surely? How long before Colonel Fitzwilliam speaks to Papa? I am surprised it is not already all agreed." She frowned. "I hope he is not playing some game..."

"He is not!" Jane insisted, colouring at the thought. How could she explain to her sister that it was she, not Richard, who delayed speaking to Papa? He would have the whole thing arranged and settled already, had she permitted him to. It was what she wanted, wasn't it? Why then did she delay matters?

"He is to dine here this evening," Lizzy said, her eyes already bright with a plan. "I am sure he will speak of it then. I guarantee it! Oh, how exciting, Jane! A wedding is just precisely what this family needs! What a welcome home it will be for Mary!"