Posted on: 2009-08-18

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when men of good fortune move into a small town the daughters of the region will flood the local seamstresses, seeking their good offices. So it was in Meryton when Netherfield was let at last.

For days on end there was nothing but talk of lace and fabric. And that was when disaster struck for an infestation of rare devouring moths arrived in a shipment of silk from India received by Mr. Fuller, the draper.

Before the mothers and daughters of the fair community could realize it, all new fabric and lace coming into Meryton had become so frail it would crumble to dust at a touch. Because it preferred to attack those fabrics the ladies favored, it left the gentlemen relatively well clad. However, the women of Meryton were reduced to contriving coverings out of straw bonnets and woven grass stalks.

Worse, since the moth would infest any new cloth shipped to the locality, relief of a material kind was unlikely. Which made things very dire indeed at the Bennet household, as the date to the assembly approached.

"Has anyone seen my lorgnette?" Kitty asked, running down the stairs in a cunning contrivance made of rhubarb leaves sewn together so as to mimic the attire of certain south seas natives.

"Unhappy girl," cried Mrs. Bennet, whose oak-bark bodice chaffed, increasing her ill humor. "We are all ruined and you want your lorgnette?"

"Oh, mama," Kitty said, coughing, due to the ventilated nature of her attire and the deadly nature of air currents. "Only I want my lorgnette to effect a closure in the lawn dress I'm to wear to the assembly tonight."

"Your lawn dress is left untouched?" Mrs. Bennet asked. "Well, you must give it to Lydia forthwith. She is much livelier than you and more likely to catch Mr. Darcy."

"You always give her all that is mine," Kitty said, and stamped her foot causing leaves to fall all over the floor. "And it is not my dress of the fabric called lawn. I meant a dress I have woven entirely out of grass."

As night fell it became clear that three of the Bennet sisters had managed to create suitable attire for the evening festivities. Or rather, two of them had contrived attire and one of the them was forced to share with the third.

Jane looked ravishing in a dress made entirely of dried petals and secured with rose thorns. The rather itchy nature of her attire didn't dim her smile one jot.

Kitty, in her lawn dress, might not have been the best dressed, but the hastily woven material let her flesh peep through in a most enticing way.

Lydia, wearing Kitty's first attempt at a dress – a woven concoction of rosemary and mint which was fragrant as well as beautiful – kept saying "I think I'm the most ravishing of all. What if he were to pick me?"

"Well, that would mean he likes his roasts well spiced dear, so you'd best pick a good cook," Mrs. Bennet said. "And where are Lizzy and Mary? I shall run mad. We're all going to be turned out to starve in the hedgerows." She thought about it a moment. "No, forget the hedgerows. The Lucas used them to make dresses."

Mary and Lizzy were in fact in Lizzy's room, faced with the ruin of all their attempts at attire.

"I should perhaps," Mary said. "Have given up on piano playing for the sake of learning to weave."

Lizzy sighed. "Indeed. I feel that our education in weaving and contriving cloth out of the most unlikely materials has been sadly neglected. I should not have spent so much time improving my mind by extensive reading and my body by tireless walking."

"Oh, well," Mary said. "I infinitely prefer the pleasures of conversation and discussion to dancing anyway."

But the thought of how she had improved her body had sparked an idea in Lizzy's mind. "Oh, no indeed," Lizzy said. "We will go to the assembly."

"But how?" Mary asked. "We cannot attend naked!"

"Oh, yes we can," Lizzy said. She smiled serenely. "When no fabric is to be had, we shall have to be nudists, Mary."

"Nud–"

"It is a belief some people hold that going about naked not only betrays an innocence like that in the garden of Eden, but also is healthier for the body and mind."

"But..." Mary said. "Fordyce..."

"Did Fordyce ever contrive to explain how Adam and Eve were naked BEFORE the fall, but clothed after?"

"Well, but we're not in the time of man's innocence and..."

"Mary," Lizzy looked her sister in the eyes. "It is being in the time of man's innocence or missing the assembly. And I don't know about you, but I am planning on stealing Mr. Bingley's blue coat first chance I get. It might not do for going out, but I'm tired of being naked in these drafty rooms."

Mary could not argue with such inescapable logic. "Well, the piano bench does chafe most alarmingly."

"Indeed," Lizzy said. "And so we will go to the assembly in the state we first came into the world."

"Oh, no," Mary said. "We must wear our best straw bonnets." And to Lizzy's confused look, she added. "To show we made an effort."

Thus it was that two of the Bennet sisters attended the assembly that evening wearing nothing but their best straw bonnets. Which is how it came about that in the middle of the amusement, when Miss Bingley – dressed entirely in orange peels -- told Mr. Darcy "You are thinking how unbearable it would be to spend many evenings in this way" he disabused her with "To own the truth I was thinking on the very great pleasure a pair of er... lively... er... on the body of a pretty woman bestow on those who watch her."

And though he was at first very shocked by Miss Eliza Bennet's attire, he was so over bowled by her philosophical discourse on innocence – as well as by a pair or pretty... er... lively... er – that by the end of the night, he had overcome his overbearing pride and asked her to relieve his suffering and consent to become his wife.

Since Bingley had reached the same conclusion around the time that some of the dried rose petals crumbled on Jane's dress, leaving her rather scantily attired, and since Denny had fallen headlong for Mary whose body was rather prettier than her face, it was decided to make it a triple match.

Mr. Collins arriving a few days earlier than planned, due to Dawkins having koshed him and put him on a fast stage to Meryton in order to not have to listen to another word about Lady Catherine's mantelpiece, was confronted with the request that he marry the three couples forthwith. Since he happened to have three special licenses in his pocket at the time, the thing was easily contrived. And though Mr. Collins was somewhat shocked at the attire of the brides, he delivered himself of the opinion that a little nudism in an assembly of this kind, attended by respectable people, could have no evil tendencies.

The brides carried away no wedding clothes, so as to prevent the moth infesting other localities. And though Mrs. Darcy later wore very fine gowns, it must be admitted that Mr. Darcy always preferred her in the state he had originally met her.

"You see, my dear," Mr. Darcy said. "I've always been a prudish being. And if it were not for the dear moth and you, so I might still be. It was the moth and you that redeemed me, loveliest, shapeliest Elizabeth."