It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no such thing as Fate or Destiny and everything is a matter of chance. As for Fitzwilliam Darcy, his entire future hinged on the woman that his friend happened to urge him to dance with and who he happened to slight.
It was at the Meryton assembly, shortly after having arrived at Netherfield in Hertfordshire, when the ever rich and handsome Mr. Darcy was standing about in a stupid manner, that his dear friend, Charles Bingley, approached him to urge him to join in the dance.
Bingley himself had been dancing with Miss Kitty Bennet, and offered to introduce his friend to one of her sisters. When Darcy turned to look at the youngest Miss Bennet, he scoffed and exclaimed to Bingley that the girl, though tall and stout, was not handsome enough to tempt him to dance.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, for Mr. Darcy, Miss Lydia Bennet had overheard his rejection. Any other young lady present might have been offended or even amused, but Lydia merely saw an eligible opportunity for a dance, which was her favorite activity. Due to the shortage of gentlemen, Mr. Darcy was the only one not dancing and he was, after all, fearful handsome. Lydia, being the boldest of the five Bennet daughters as well as the silliest, approached Darcy and said, "how can you say you do not wish to dance sir, it is great fun. You have been teasing me mercilessly by saying I was not handsome enough to tempt you. Come now, you are the only man left without a partner and I promised myself I would not sit out any dances this evening. It is not fair, for Kitty gets to dance with Mr. Bingley." She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the dance floor. Darcy, ever the gentleman, reluctantly followed.
Although Lydia was lively and playful and cared not for Darcy's good opinion, admirable traits to be sure, he could not help but note the total want of propriety constantly betrayed by her actions. When the dance was finished, Lydia had determined that Darcy was the most serious man she had ever danced with. She had enjoyed teasing him, though, and when Mr. Bingley danced with Kitty a second time, and it was consequently decided that Kitty and Bingley would soon be married, Lydia resolved that she would have Mr. Darcy who was twice as rich and twice as handsome. This would make Kitty wild with envy to be sure.
During the evening he was approached by Miss Bingley who, in a pathetic attempt to gain his attention, guessed his thoughts regarding the evening. He enlightened her that he had been thinking of the very great pleasure which can be bestowed by a pair of fine . . . eyes on a pretty woman. When asked to name the woman who inspired these reflections he replied, "Miss Lydia Bennet."
When she arrived, having acquired the carriage from her father, her suspicions were confirmed. Kitty was quite well. The two girls, however, agreed to keep up the ruse in order to remain in the house.
Luckily for Lydia she was able to join the family for dinner while Kitty was forced to remain in the sick room to keep up the pretense. After dinner, she saw that the others were at cards, and suspecting that they were playing high, joined the game. Miss Bingley observed that "Miss Bennet is an excellent card player, she adores cards and takes no pleasure in anything else."
"I take pleasure in many things," said Lydia suggestively, glancing towards Mr. Darcy, "I enjoy dancing and shopping and gossiping." As these accomplishments were quite apart from those commonly possessed by young women, and Darcy as we all know had grown quite bored with the more common women of his acquaintance, he could not help being enraptured by her candid and innocent admissions.
He had never been more bewitched by a woman in his life, and if she had any less to recommend her, he was sure he would be in some danger.
Darcy took the first opportunity of dancing with Lydia, which occurred rather late in the evening as her card had been quite full with the names of officers. He was quiet through most of the dance, until Lydia insisted that he converse with her. He offered to talk of books, but she admitted that she did not read. In the end, they talked of bonnets, of which Darcy knew a great deal, due to his having a young sister, more than ten years his junior, and a lifelong friendship with one Henry Tilney.
By the time the dance had ended, both had agreed they would have great fun trimming a bonnet together. But Darcy was rather uncertain as to the propriety of bonnet trimming with a young lady to whom he was not engaged. Yet, his nights were filled with images of leaning over Miss Lydia, while she sat working, and picking out a trim or a lace to adorn her headwear. He shook these fantasies from his mind, as he recalled that she could never be his, though he could not think of a anything preventing it.
The remaining inhabitants of Netherfield followed Mr. Bingley to London, and Mrs. Bennet sent Kitty there forthwith as well, in pursuit of Mr. Bingley with the strict instructions not to come home until she had become engaged to him.
One day, Lydia was forced to go walking out to escape her tedious cousin. She encountered Darcy on the lane and made sure to tell him that he had found her in her favorite spot and that she walked there everyday at this time. And so they continued to meet there. Their conversations always directed by Lydia to the idea of marriage and the possibility of her staying at Rosings rather than Hunsford on her next visit.
Lydia had a conversation with Colonel Fitzwilliam, wherein he told her that Darcy had purposefully separated Kitty from Bingley because he knew Lydia wanted to be married first, and would be greatly distressed if her sister beat her to the altar. Lydia was so pleased with this news she could not wait to see Darcy again.
Lydia replied, "well of course you do. I am, after all, the tallest of all my sisters, and I think I am nearly as pretty as Jane and lots more fun."
Darcy took her in his arms and continued, "my dearest, loveliest, Lydia, will you do me the great honor of consenting to be my wife."
After struggling vainly, with the direction of this story, the authoress has determined that it would be so utterly incomprehensible for Lydia to reject a marriage proposal, any marriage proposal - and as the authoress has no desire to deviate even in the slightest from the original characterization of our beloved characters, which she has heretofore adhered to most fastidiously - that there will be no trip to Derbyshire with the Gardiners for our heroine, no meeting with her hero at Pemberley, and definitely no second proposal.
However, since some details are too important to be overlooked, whether they were actually in the book or not, our heroine did have one slight requirement before she could consent.
Accordingly, we resume with Lydia throwing her arms around her beloved's neck and kissing him shamelessly. Taking her actions as an affirmation of his inquiry he participated quite fervently in the activity. During this interlude, while distracting the gentleman with the allure of her rich, full lips, she deftly untied his cravat, removed his coat, unbuttoned and removed his waistcoat, and removed his boots and stockings. Once he found himself in this state of undress Darcy realized he must add to his future wife's list of accomplishments.
Lydia then turned away from her passionate lover and, taking a glass of water from the table, she threw its contents at him. His shirt now drenched, she said, "there, that is much better. Yes, I will marry you."
Once they were married, Darcy tracked down Wickham and Elizabeth and brought about a marriage between them, though his wife did not really see why he bothered with it. Once the Darcys returned to London, where Kitty still resided since she was not allowed to come home as she was not yet engaged, Mr. Darcy disabused Bingley of the notion that Kitty was indifferent to him, and eventually, they were married. Jane Bennet was often sent to stay with Mrs. Darcy, and Lydia immensely enjoyed being her eldest sister's chaperone in society. Lady Catherine de Bourgh had disapproved the marriage between Darcy and Lydia, so Darcy never spoke to her again.
Mr. and Mrs. Darcy lived happily ever after at Pemberley and polluted its shades repeatedly with the activities they often committed within its woods. Lydia did not die leaving Darcy free to marry another. In fact she outlived him, and being lonely she invited her sister and brother Wickham to live at Pemberley, where she soon took up with her sister's husband, who had grown quite indifferent to his wife soon after their marriage but found her sister, Mrs. Darcy, excessively appealing.
Elizabeth and Lydia were sitting in Pemberley's parlour sipping tea, as the latter's husband was enjoying himself in Bath and the former's was . . . oh, there he is . . . .
Darcy walked through the door, in his breeches and lawn shirt, carrying his coat, waist coat, and cravat. He was soaking wet. When he entered the room, both women looked at him longingly. He rolled his eyes.
"Again?" asked Elizabeth.
"Yes, I don't know why they keep doing this to me, it wasn't even in the book!!"
Just then Lydia's and Darcy's story pagers went off. Darcy checked his and then said, "I've got to change." He pecked his wife on the cheek and ran upstairs, leaving Elizabeth to wonder why she had not been summoned, and to conclude that it must be a scene wherein Darcy would be tracking down Lydia in London. Wickham would have to be disturbed in Bath.
A little while later, Darcy was at the Hunsford parsonage saying, "in vain have I strug . . . wait a minute, what is she doing here? Where is Elizabeth? This is all wrong."
"Oh no," replied Lydia, "this is the way it's supposed to be, you get to marry me in this story. It's about time, don't you think?"
Darcy was aghast. "You? I don't think so. What crazy sicko author thought this up?"
A clearing of the throat was heard, and suddenly Darcy was teetering on the edge of a cliff with large pointy rocks underneath him, "alright," he said, "you are a very sweet young lady, I am sure."
A pleasant feminine voice was heard, "and?"
Darcy knitted his brow, "um, dearest, . . . er, loveliest, . . .ah . . ." the authoress whispered in his ear, and he finished, "Alicia." The authoress sighed dreamily, then remembering Darcy's precarious position returned him to the Hunsford parsonage to propose to Lydia.
Darcy looked at the authoress earnestly and said, "please, be reasonable. Don't make me marry her."
"Look," replied the authoress, "you've been married to Anne, many times, to Caroline, repeatedly, and to various others, not to mention zillions of incarnations of Lizzy. I have never caused you to be married or even engaged to anyone but Elizabeth Bennet until now."
"Well, there is that one story you have on disk."
"Shhh, the DWG does not know about that one. And, I might add, that I've never had Elizabeth married or engaged to anyone else, either."
"I believe there are two stories on that disk . . ."
The authoress sighed impatiently, "actually it's a different disk, and I'm talking strictly about stories that I have actually posted."
"Fine," he said, "I had to be friends with Wickham because of you."
"Very true, but that was a very low angst story for you and wasn't it much more pleasant to be his friend? He never hurt Georgie or lied to Lizzy or ran off with Lydia."
Darcy allowed it to be the case.
"Look, you don't really have a choice, but if you stop complaining and get on with it, I'll make you a deal, you only have to propose to her once."
Darcy's look brightened. "Then I'll stay . . . dry . . . for the whole story?" he asked hopefully.
"Well, I can't promise you that, but it's a short story, only three pages long."
Darcy sighed heavily. "Why are you doing this?"
"Blame RitaH! She taunted me and provoked me, and my courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."
"Where have I heard that before?" he muttered, then said bitterly, "I know exactly who you're talking about. This RitaH is a menace."
"She thinks she's Lizzy you know."
Darcy erupted in peals of laughter.
When he was quite finished he said, "alright, if you truly wish to negotiate, let's talk about this other story you're writing," then he remembered to add, "and posting."
"What would you like to happen?"
"I want to be engaged to Elizabeth for real, by Saturday, before she leaves for London."
"Hmm, but if I promise you anything, then everyone will be able to read it and it will ruin my story."
"Well," said Darcy blushing, "you could whisper in my ear again."
The authoress whispered her plans for ODaM in Darcy's ear, and after some further quiet discussion, he was satisfied and said, "fine, let's get this over with."
Later, Darcy stormed into Pemberley, with Lydia grasping his arm and laughing. "What is it my dear?" asked Elizabeth.
"That's it, that is the last straw. I am through with fan fiction."
"Such a choice is hardly within your power, dearest."
"I agreed to do the story, I married Lydia," a giggle was heard and Darcy glanced at his sister in law, "but the author did not tell me that you would marry Wickham."
"Oh," said Elizabeth, blushing. "Well, it's over now. Do calm down dear."
"That RitaH! It's all her fault."
"You do not blame Alicia M?" asked Lizzy in surprise.
"No, never," he said with feeling, "I could never be angry with dearest, loveliest Alicia."
Elizabeth's look was a mixture of surprise and jealousy, then he kissed her hand and, with a wink, said in a low voice, "I know who's writing this, and I have learned not to say anything negative about the author." Elizabeth nodded her understanding.
As a reward for his loyalty and as recompense for participating in the aforementioned story, the authoress then determined that Lydia spent her afternoon trimming bonnets alone, and Darcy and his wife spent it upstairs, alone, in their rooms indulging in marital felicity, undisturbed. Indeed, their story pagers did not go off again until the next day.