Elizabeth and the Entail: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Amaritta Beane

Author:Amaritta Beane
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Not in Amazon Library, To Transfer, Alternate Universe, Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms
Published: 2022-10-24T04:00:00+00:00

4

How to approach the issue, however, was a delicate and a thorny problem. Most especially when John came down to breakfast the next morning, as civil and warm and charming as the favourite son of any family in the county – except so much more lovely and beloved than any of the others could possibly be. All of these things, he was without doubt – and yet when he chose, he was also impenetrable as a cliff-face, as unforthcoming as – well, indeed, Elizabeth could have stamped her little foot in frustration, at the impossibility of getting any communication out of him barring the most puerile inanities, the same old saws mouthed away at every breakfast table in the land.

But to get any meaningful and deeply thought answer from him regarding the Bingleys, or Charles Bingley, or the events of the previous night? One might as well have sought to yank out a wisdom tooth with a delicate pair of jeweler's pincers, for his face was tranquil as a millpond when challenged, and his comments anodyne as milk.

“Think you we shall see the Bingleys again at any near point in time?” she challenged him over toast and preserves, the rest of the Bennets already assembled and chattering, or yawning, or eating according to preference. “They were off in such a hurry last night! It seemed very strange, in truth – and Charles Bingley did not appear quite himself. Quite discomposed, towards the end of the evening, you might say!”

“Doubtless we shall,” John replied with unruffled equanimity, forking up a plate of smoked fish and rice as he spoke, and according Elizabeth, she could not but feel, only the very most minimal part of his attention. “For they are resident in the neighbourhood for some little while yet, and have been very agreeable in their attentions to us thus far.”

“Oh, inarguably,” Elizabeth agreed – for, though she was rendered almost speechless by such paltering with the facts, such a re-shaping of reality to suit his own comfort and presentation of a reserved and unknowable secret heart – well, still one must say something.

It was no good. Clearly, John would carry on most uncommunicative upon the subject of Charles Bingley, and his pestilent sisters.

But Elizabeth felt in her own heart a great hunger to understand their relations better. For John was cherishing a great sorrow, she was sure of it, and Charles Bingley – well, that eager clubbable fellow seemed still most keen to number John amongst his greatest friends and closest intimates.

Why, then, such angst, such sturm und drang between them?

Well, if Elizabeth was not the woman to get to the bottom of it, she felt, then those depths were destined to remain forever unplumbed.

After breakfast, then, she left John to his own affairs, and went about her business. But in the fullness of time, and ready to embark upon the day, she sought out the members of her family in order to quiz them one by one, and see what light she could throw upon the matter.

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