Chapter Text
When Elizabeth Reynolds was ten years old, her mother showed her the BBC miniseries of Pride & Prejudice 1995 for the first time. She instantly fell in love… with Charles Bingley. She didn’t really like Mr. Darcy; he seemed serious and boring. When she had a more mature vocabulary, she would say he looked like he had a stick up his ass for most of the series. She didn’t find Colin Firth very attractive at all, unlike her mother and her mother’s friends. It was all well and good that Elizabeth Bennet wanted Mr. Darcy, but this Lizzy was happy to let her (and her mother) have him.
Mr. Bingley however, here was a man she could admire! He was fun, kind, and modest. He liked to party. He had great sisters, in her opinion. Elizabeth was one of those kids at school who was generally liked and floated between social groups. She didn’t mind the “mean girls,” perhaps because they weren’t cruel to her and occasionally invited her to sleepovers. They liked to practice make-up on her and they always knew everything happening at school. She daydreamed about being married to Charles and hanging out with Caroline and Louisa. She was sure they had the best dirt on everyone in London and they could totally help her make those cute Regency curls with her hair.
Her mother was not at all amused by these opinions. “Caroline is a vicious social climber!” Elizabeth calmly replied, “She’s ambitious, what’s so wrong with that?” Yes, Elizabeth knew that one should not step on others on the climb to the top, but it wasn’t like Caroline was the spiteful harpy that some people made her out to be. Elizabeth even thought that Caroline’s protectiveness towards her brother was admirable. Charles fell in love too easily; she was sure Caroline had saved him from fortune hunters already. Jane Bennet wouldn’t have even had a chance to meet Charles if Caroline hadn’t been there to keep him single!
Her mother also didn’t like Charles, she called him “weak and indecisive,” but Elizabeth whole-heartedly disagreed. She loved that Charles was modest; it was so much better than Mr. Collins or Mr. Darcy, proposing without any prompting and being so sure of a positive reply! Why did everyone insist on calling men who aren’t arrogant “weak?” Charles Bingley was precious! He was cute! You could hardly call Mr. “Tsundere” Darcy cute.
The 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie came out when Elizabeth was sixteen. She watched it with her friends. They all drooled over Mr. Darcy but Elizabeth again only had eyes for Bingley. She didn’t like that this movie made him into a bit of a himbo, but she still loved him. She was also charmed by his red hair, which matched her own. Later, she watched the BBC miniseries from 1980 with her mother, and once again, she was in love with the same, but differently-presented man.
She finally read the original novel at seventeen. Elizabeth felt that she was fully justified. Charles Bingley was so funny in the book! He was conflict averse, just like her, but he did make fun of Darcy a few times and got away with it. The way Charles got excited about his friend getting married at the end was endearing! He was so earnest at Pemberley, hoping for any news about Jane. She only wished he was in the novel more. No one appreciated Charles Bingley properly, not even Jane Austen. Elizabeth read over his parts of the novel over and over and wished for more.
When Elizabeth Reynolds was twenty years old, having read Pride & Prejudice (and all Austen’s other novels) several times in the past few years, she closed her eyes in 2009 and opened them in 1809.
Elizabeth’s other media obsession was Asian dramas, so she was very familiar with a transmigration plot. It occurred to her right away that she was in a story, most likely a Jane Austen one, just by the appearance of the room and clothes hanging in her view. This didn’t cause her any concern, she was excited! She began to look about her to figure out where she was.
She was sleeping in a narrow bed with another bed beside her in a small room. There was only about a foot between the two beds and both were pressed against opposing walls. In the other bed was a lovely young woman. Elizabeth could tell the other woman was beautiful despite her being both asleep and dishevelled. This observation made Elizabeth curious as to what she looked like herself, she quietly slipped out of bed and tip-toed to a vanity.
Instead of her usual red hair, she had thick, dark brown locks which fell all the way to her waist. Her eyes were very dark brown instead of blue. She undid her lose braids and brushed her hair with what she found in front of her. The question foremost in her mind -who was she- was quickly answered.
“Lizzy?” the half-awake woman in bed asked.
“Yes?” Elizabeth replied, almost choked with fear. Could she be who she thought? Also, her voice sounded different and her very accent had changed!
“Tell mamma I will be down in half an hour.”
Elizabeth replied in affirmative and thought she would quickly change and go downstairs. However, the gown in the wardrobe that she selected, a lovely white muslin, was too complicated for a woman used to wearing pants and a t-shirt. Fortunately, a maid heard her struggles, came in and set everything to rights. Her hair was quickly styled and her gown adjusted with only a slight look of confusion from the maid.
She descended a narrow staircase and found herself in the kitchen. Lizzy quickly discerned that she had used the servant staircase instead of the family one, and feeling too awkward to try to explain herself to the bustling cook, she just ran back upstairs and tried the other direction. This proved a better choice. She found herself in a sitting room which opened on one side to the dinning room. Inside the dining room was an older man, woman, and three teenagers.
Her suspicions had been correct. She was Miss Elizabeth Bennet in the novel Pride & Prejudice and she was going to have to marry that terrible Mr. Darcy. What an awful fate! What if she really was stuck here forever until she died of old age? It was never certain when a transmigration would end.
“Will you join us, Lizzy?” said the man in a lazy tone, not looking up from his newspaper.
“Jane will be down in half an hour,” Elizabeth repeated faithfully and then sat down. Then she got back up. The breakfast was laid out at the side table and she needed to fill her own plate. Mary regarded her curiously (Elizabeth knew it was Mary, because Lydia and Kitty where whispering to each other), but she said nothing. Elizabeth sat back down and buttered some bread. Then she looked at each person around the table.
Lydia, Kitty, and Mary all looked fairly similar, in the way that close siblings do, but Mary had very rough skin that gave her a worse appearance than the other two, whose faces were paler and clear. Elizabeth wondered about her for a moment, as she had never seen a person whose skin looked that way. It was close to someone with severe acne but not quite. All of them had dark brown hair and eyes, unlike Mr. Bennet, who was dirty blonde. The three sisters were dressed in a similar manner: pastel-coloured muslins. Well, Elizabeth assumed they were muslins, wasn’t that what everyone wore in the Regency? It certainly wasn’t wool.
Elizabeth turned to the other side of the table and nearly gasped in shock. Mrs. Bennet was strikingly beautiful and dressed more like her daughters than the matronly look that most adaptations preferred. Her hair was very black, her skin clear, and her complexion gave the impression of good health. Elizabeth was no longer surprised that Mr. Bennet had married her or that Jane was the most beautiful creature on earth. She felt certain that this woman would have been a movie star if she lived in the present day.
Mrs. Bennet saw her daughter staring at her and waved a delicate hand near her own face, “Lizzy? What are you looking at so intently?”
Elizabeth recognized that “her” mother thought something was wrong with her appearance, “I was…” she paused, how would Elizabeth Bennet say it? Elizabeth Reynolds was no wit! This scene wasn’t in the novel, so she didn’t have anything memorized that she could use. She only knew to avoid certain modern words and felt she must never use a contraction. “I am still a little tired, my eyes fixed on nothing,” she said and thought she had done quite well.
Mrs. Bennet lowered her eyes to her plate and Elizabeth looked away. She focused on her breakfast. The food was good; she loved homemade bread and fresh butter. She knew she’d be missing modern flavours before long, but for now it was enjoyable to taste something this fresh.
Elizabeth couldn’t discern just from the conversation at the meal where she was in the story. She hoped it was near the beginning. Maybe, just maybe, she could change the course of the story if she had enough time. There must be some way to not end up with Mr. Darcy. She didn’t know how long she would have to stay here, maybe it would be forever, but she had no intention of marrying or even becoming engaged to that awful man.
“Sorry, Elizabeth Bennet,” she thought to herself, “I’m going to ruin your happy ending.”
Later that day, Mrs. Long visited and the Bennet family first learned about the coming arrival of Mr. Bingley. It was the beginning of the novel and Elizabeth needed to make a plan.
The next few weeks before the assembly ball, where everything would be set in motion, Elizabeth spent all her time planning her encounter with Mr. Bingley and trying her best to seem like Miss Elizabeth Bennet. The latter was difficult enough! Jane even pulled her aside twice to ask if she was unwell. Compared to Elizabeth Bennet, Elizabeth Reynolds did not laugh or talk half as much! Fortunately, no one could have ever suspected the truth.
Elizabeth was at first wretched to consider stealing Mr. Bingley from Jane, but eventually she reasoned thusly: if she succeeded in attracting Charles at the ball, it was all fair game. Jane would have her chance and so would she, it wasn’t like she was sabotaging an existing relationship. If she failed, then she must find a way to avoid both Mr. Collins and Mr. Darcy (she was practicing proper forms of address in her mind), but she would leave her beloved Mr. Bingley to Jane. Everything rested on that single night.
As she plotted, she also learned a lot about her new family. Mrs. Bennet had a melodious voice that drew one in, until you realized she was talking nonsense. Her gossip was almost always petty or cruel, while appearing to be neutral. Who was her friend and who had become a rival changed from day to day. Mrs. Bennet seemed to care very little for her daughters’ daily comfort, besides slipping Lydia money. For example, Mrs. Bennet arranged dinners to her preferences, which always had something to do with one-upping a neighbour, even though Kitty couldn’t stomach half of what was served.
Jane liked to sleep in and had trouble falling asleep at night. She twirled her hair when nervous, occasionally ruining her updos. Kitty had the neatest writing. Mary’s face had been “ruined,” in Mrs. Bennet’s words, by a bout of smallpox when she was a child. That was the cause of her strangely marked skin. Mr. Bennet almost exclusively ate meat and potatoes, avoiding anything green as if it would kill him. (Could she teach him modern nutrition and keep him alive longer? She dared not talk to her father too much because he would detect her!) Lydia had learned French just to read the “best” (most salacious) novels and Mary read each of them after her, though she pretended she hadn’t.
Finally, the ball came. Elizabeth was as curious as the rest of her sisters to finally see Mr. Bingley. After all, everyone else had surprised her in appearance thus far and been different than any adaptation she had seen. She wondered if the way that everyone appeared to her was how Jane Austen had really imagined them when she wrote the novel. The Netherfield party entered the room. “Tallest is Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth mumbled to herself. He was blonde and, she was forced to admit, very handsome, but the expression on his face was everything she abhorred about him. Mr. Bingley, for he must be the man who was not the rotund Mr. Hurst, was dark haired and his sweetness was written across his adorable face. This was certainly the man she admired.
Mr. Hurst she ignored, as he did them. Caroline and Louia looked very lovely and they regarded the room with the same haughty disdain as Mr. Darcy, but Elizabeth readily forgave them. She knew that they would at least dance and mix with the crowd, unlike him. Elizabeth tried to be calm. She would dance with Mr. Bingley, this was absolutely certain, he would ask her after Charlotte Lucas and her sister Jane. She just needed to wait patiently.
It was very difficult. She danced with her first two partners, men from Meryton whose names barely appeared in the novel (was one Mr. Goulding? She could hardly understand what he said in her nervous anticipation). Fortunately, her body knew how to dance, something she had discovered when practicing with her sisters, and she flew through the steps with ease. Then it was time.
She was finally standing opposite to her childhood crush.
She blushed very prettily and stammered out the most basic of greetings. She wasn’t usually this shy! It was like she had just met her favourite celebrity. Luckily, he was friendly and casual. Very soon, they were speaking easily about the most mundane topics. This, however, would not be enough to win his heart! She needed to make an impression even more overwhelming than Jane’s beauty.
Elizabeth’s senses finally snapped back into action and she glanced down at her arm, where near the elbow and above her gloves, she had deliberately placed a mark of ink. She thought that Jane Austen might hate her for this petty trick, but she did really admire Charles, she just needed to make him notice her. Unfortunately, due to Miss Austen’s writing of Mr. Bingley, she knew very little else about him, but perhaps they could bond over this.
“Oh no!” she said in false alarm, “I did not manage to wash off all the ink. I was writing a letter this morning and I blotted a few letters and got ink on my arm. My ideas flow so quickly it seems that my hand cannot keep up with them!”
This was the first look that Elizabeth had elicited from her dance partner that seemed to express more than commonplace courtesy. He gave her a bright smile and said, “That is what I have felt myself! My sister always says I ought not write to her at all, as she can hardly read any letter.”
Elizabeth smiled back at him. What she said wasn’t exactly untrue, her handwriting was messy. She hadn’t tried writing with a quill yet, but unless the skill was stored in this body, she was guaranteed to be terrible, “She ought to appreciate that you have written to her, not all brothers are so considerate, from what I have heard.” Elizabeth Reynolds was an only child.
He heartily agreed with her, and it was only the demands of the dance that stopped them from speaking on this subject.
The ball continued. The moment of truth was approaching. In the novel, Mr. Bingley would choose Jane for a second set, after that, their fate must be considered sealed. This time, however, he asked Elizabeth.
She was overjoyed. Her obvious admiration of her partner had not gone unnoticed by him. Charles had never seen a girl so obviously charmed by him so quickly, and he did have the discernment to know that this was not forced or pretended. The way that she looked at him was novel and it had captivated him beyond the charms, which he did acknowledge, of her elder sister.
When they were between the two dances in the set, he stepped aside for that moment which has echoed forever in the minds of romance readers, but this time it was Jane Bennet who was sitting down and Mr. Darcy, who still said that she was the most handsome woman in the room, found himself being introduced to her. Elizabeth was for the first time called from her object of admiration and witnessed a scene that could only stun herself: Mr. Darcy was actually dancing with Jane Bennet!
She was able to turn her attention back to Mr. Bingley for the rest of the dance, but when it ended, she was confronted by another strange circumstance. Mr. Darcy, who was resigned to his fate after dancing with Jane, moved on to the next tolerable Bennet sister. She accepted, as she knew she should, but now had to think of how best to keep him from being attracted to her.
She needed to be Caroline Bingley. And not the mean girl side that he liked the gossip with, the fawning side.
After all, was this not what Elizabeth had said after the second proposal? Darcy loved Elizabeth because she didn’t treat him like other women, who were always gushing over him and his wealth. He was tired of them. She would make him tired of her! Or she could be vulgar, either of those would probably work well.
“I heard that your house in Derbyshire, Pemberley, is one of the best in the country,” Elizabeth said, trying to make her manner and tone as disgustingly ass-kissing as possible.
He looked at her solemnly for a long moment and then nodded in response.
Elizabeth wanted to jump and pump her fist; she was killing this!
“I heard you are related to an earl, how distinguished!” Elizabeth oozed. She continued in this manner for a few more minutes and succeeded in making her partner pale in either anger or disgust, when suddenly a different thought occurred to her: what if Darcy ruined her relationship with Bingley over such a display? It was the very thing that Elizabeth Bennet had feared at the Netherfield Ball! Mrs. Bennet’s vulgar conversation at dinner was part of the reason Mr. Darcy convinced Mr. Bingley to stay in London.
Paralyzed by indecision, she fell silent and completed the rest of the dance without speaking a word. Her partner had visible relief as he found Mrs. Hurst for the final dance, but Elizabeth sat down in misery. Had she both succeeded and failed? After such careful planning, she might have ruined everything!
Her catastrophizing lasted for the next set and was only stopped by the voice of the very man she had considered lost to her forever. Mr. Bingley had come to wish her a good night. He saw her distress, it was impossible not to observe it, and said quickly, “Is anything the matter, Miss Elizabeth, can I bring you some wine?”
“No,” she said softly, before seizing upon a fresh idea, then added rapidly, “I was so surprised that your friend, Mr. Darcy, distinguished me for a dance and I am afraid I made a fool of myself. I had only heard my mother’s gossip and when our conversation failed…” she covered her face in her hands, “I must have seemed like some sort of fortune hunter.” “Or an annoying fangirl,” she thought to herself.
When she had begun explaining herself, she thought it was only a ploy to explain her actions and secure Mr. Bingley, but the emotional pressure of the night fell upon her and she actually shed a few real tears. She had made an abominable mistake!
Whether Mr. Bingley noticed her tears or not, she could not tell, but he did lean close to her and say in the confidential manner of a friend, “Do not be concerned, my friend Darcy was being rather stupid and I am sure he frightened you. He is a very imposing figure.”
At this, she felt she could finally breathe. She lowered her hands, flicked away a tear, and gave him a small smile. He smiled back. Her heart skipped an entire beat, something she had really thought was impossible. Her cheeks flushed and she lowered her head again. They said good night to each other. It was over.
There was no hatred of Mr. Darcy from Mrs. Bennet that night. During the ride home, Elizabeth only heard about how lucky she was to have charmed Mr. Bingley and that if Jane could catch Mr. Darcy with all her beauty, they would never have anything to worry about again.
Elizabeth Reynolds collapsed in her bed, her nerves shot, her whole body fatigued, and her entire heart full of hope. She had changed the plot, unmistakably, since Mr. Darcy had danced with Jane and Charles had chosen her and not Jane for the second set, but what would happen next? Would Mr. Bingley really fall in love with her? Would she be free of that detestable Mr. Darcy?
Only time would tell.