September Storm Relay Story Part 9

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Read part 8 here. Now, on with the show!

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Mr. Bennet swiveled and turned to see his favorite daughter in a state of dishabille, her flimsy nightgown revealing her slender form, while Mr. Darcy, in his purple nightmare costume, stood close enough to touch her. His half naked chest was closer to her body than should ever happen with any young man and woman before their nuptials.

“Lizzy!  What has happened? Surely Mr. Darcy has not – has not – “

Darcy stepped aside from Elizabeth, his face now as purple as his banyan, from embarrassment. “Mr. Bennet! You cannot think that I would harm your daughter – Miss Elizabeth – in any way. I am, I hope, a man of honour, and I assure you I only wanted to be assured of her safety, nothing more.”

“Safety! Yet you come down from the attic with her in a positively unclothed state! Explain yourself, Sir.”

“Oh, Papa, I can tell you,” Elizabeth protested. “I only went up there to have some quiet – Jane could not sleep, you know.” She looked at Bingley, and seeing his rose-covered nightgown, did what would one day be called a double take. “But how, or I should say why, do you come to be wearing Jane’s night dress, Mr. Bingley?” she inquired.

“I might ask the same question,” added Mr. Bennet severely.

“I can tell you that,” put in Lady Catherine. “Mr. Bingley, of whose character I had previously entertained a fair opinion, intruded upon my sleep dressed as you see. As a girl!  Curls, night cap, roses, every thing. I suppose you conceived he was after your daughter Jane’s hand, Mr. Bennet, but it should be quite apparent that he is a different sort of creature than you thought him.”

It was a long speech, but Mr. Darcy broke in at the end of it. “Aunt Catherine, what exactly are you saying?”

“I do not have to say any thing. The fact is evident.  Mr. Bingley is a pouf, who in the privacy of his own bed chamber attires himself like a girl.”

Bingley spluttered, “Lady Catherine! I do no such thing! The banyans ran out!”

“Where could they run, Mr. Bingley, where could they run,” asked Mr. Bennet, shaking his head. “I assure you I find this situation any thing but farcical. The man whom I thought – who seemed to be forming an interest in my daughter – “

Darcy and Bingley stared at each other, neither certain what to say. Bingley’s love for Jane Bennet was not Darcy’s secret to share with the company; and as for Bingley, he was not about to ask for his beloved’s hand without her presence, and while dressed in her pink roses.

“I believe my friend’s intentions to be fully honourable,” Darcy attempted with a hesitant bow, which unfortunately looked ludicrous owing to his violently iris-colored attire.

Mr. Bennet looked closely at Elizabeth. “You are sure, my dear Lizzy, that this man has not harmed you?”

“Oh! No, father. I only offered him some cake. Perhaps we ought not to have been alone together in the attic, properly speaking; but the whole house is upside down,  you know, and there seemed nowhere else to shelter. It was but for a few moments.”

“I beg your pardon for any impropriety,” Darcy said formally. “I will withdraw, only…where is Mr. Knightley?”

“What do you want with him?” Mr. Bennet asked suspiciously.

“Nothing, I assure you. Most uncomfortable chap I ever have had the ill fortune to pass part of a night with. All I wanted was some quiet and solitude.”

“That was what I wanted,” Bingley nodded, “but I woke up to find Lady Catherine in my bed.”

“Even I,” said Mr. Bennet austerely, “cannot believe that; and with five such daughters I have grown accustomed to believing a great deal.”

“Your daughters, Mr. Bennet, are not ladies!” burst out Lady Catherine.  “One attempting to allure my nephew with her dark arts, and the other sinking her claws into his friend. Never was any thing so shocking.”

“Your presence in Mr. Bingley’s bedroom,” observed Mr. Bennet, “is a matter of some surprise in itself. I should not have thought such behavior possible in a lady of your age and reputation.”

“My reputation! My character!  They have ever been famed for their spotlessness,” she frothed.

“Let us have no more of this,” said Mr. Bennet, cutting off her diatribe. “Will every one return to his proper bed, before Longbourn becomes positively known as a house of ill fame.”

“We would be most glad to oblige,” said Mr. Bingley plaintively, “but who can remember now which bedroom belongs to whom?”

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