Elizabeth set out after breakfast on a bright, November day to visit the Lucases, specifically John Lucas and his wife, so that she could invite them to dine at the same table as Georgiana Darcy.

The past day had been full of cloudy prognostications of doom for her purpose. Mrs. Bennet talked once Georgiana and Jane left at thudding length about those scheming Lucases, the condescension she had shown to Lady Lucas, and the way England had fallen into decline in these latter days.

Mrs. Bennet had never entirely forgiven Lady Lucas for Charlotte’s deeply lamented marriage to Mr. Collins, and this latest provocation heaped great addition onto existing complaints. Elizabeth received some of the opprobrium heaped upon Lady Lucas; after all, the woman would never have dared such a thing if her daughter was not to inherit Longbourn.

Elizabeth had always known Mrs. Bennet held some confusion about the details of the entail, but to forget that it was Mr. Collins, not Charlotte, who was the inheritor, struck her as a worsening of the misapprehension. Though the laws of England did make a man and his wife one person.

Who was the man?

Mrs. Bennet predicted Elizabeth would suffer a ghastly failure when she asked Mr. Lucas to attend their party. Why would John Lucas, a dutiful child, undercut Lady Lucas’s desperate, doomed leap for social superiority over the Bennets and Bingleys?

There might be something to her mother’s mistrust of her dearest friend. Elizabeth nonetheless thought her friendship with Lucas and his wife would overcome family loyalty.

“Hullo! Hullo!” Elizabeth smiled broadly as the housekeeper shooed her into the low-ceilinged drawing room. She was not sure if it was fortunate that Lady Lucas was absent, but Maria sat embroidering with Mr. Lucas’s wife and the gentleman himself.

“Good day! Good day!” Lucas stood enthusiastically, and with rustic sophistication took Elizabeth’s hand and kissed it. “My dear Eliza, as always you brighten our day.”

Elizabeth smiled back and pressed her hand to her face. “Goodness you make me blush.”

Lucas’s wife Felicia said, “’Tis true. Even if my husband speaks as a coxcomb.”

“I confess, I am here to brighten the day,” Elizabeth replied as she sat. “First, what news.”

“All of Johnny's teeth have arrived!” Felicia laughed. “I can sleep at last now that he is not gnawing and crying every day.”

“Sweet boy!” Elizabeth laughed with a feeling of relief — teething was a frequent cause of convulsions, digestive dysfunctions, and sometimes the untimely death of children. The wait for teeth to erupt always worried those who loved the child. “Bring this paragon forth, so all may admire his magnificent jaws and teeth.”

John Lucas rolled his eyes. “Do not talk of my son like a horse to be sold at auction.”

“I do not — such a grand beast would never be sold.”

Felicia laughed. “For my part, you can freely call the boy a grand beast. Though I love him dear.”

As she spoke the maid brought the giggling toddler into the room.

“I believed you would want to see him,” Felicia said. “I called for Johnny as soon as I realized who our visitor was.”

The child crawled in Elizabeth’s lap and cooed and touched her face. “Luzzy!”

“Wholly correct! Luzzy!” Elizabeth giggled. “How many teeth do you have?”

The child held up his chubby fingers as he counted out all of the teeth, before losing track half way through. He then proudly opened his mouth so Elizabeth could examine for herself. “Teeth!”

Adorable. If only she had her own child to cuddle, kiss and play with.

That was a new thought. What strange quirk of the female animal gave her now this desire for her own little child to climb about her, and to beg for her attention, and to wholly depend on her.

Lucas pulled his chair closer to Elizabeth’s. “What errand brought you?”

Elizabeth felt a slight nervousness before asking the question. She would feel terrible if she could not introduce Georgiana to these friends. Worse, a refusal would occasion a substantial degree of awkwardness.

Lucas would accept her invitation. They had been friends forever. Not so close as her and Charlotte before Charlotte’s marriage, but close. Lucas even had a tendre for her when they were both younger.

“I have an invitation to dine at Longbourn. But only for two of you” — Elizabeth gestured to Lucas and Felicia, then waggled her finger at Maria — “No disappointment! You are too impressionable in your maidenly state to survive contact with Georgiana Darcy.”

Lucas and Felicia looked at each other. Lucas asked, “You wish Miss Darcy to be introduced to the neighborhood in a circumscribed manner?”

“Circumscribed! A fine word. We hope the circle shall widen — never fear, Maria, your maidenliness will protect you from contamination.”

“Who else? The Gouldings?”

“And perhaps an extra man so it will be a set of matching couples. All of an age with us. If a success, Bingley shall throw a private and exclusive ball for her to be showcased to the best — that is the least Missish — of the neighborhood. You would not wish to miss it.”

“Oooh! A ball!” Maria exclaimed, clapping her hands. “What would I wear?”

“You would not be invited.”

“But—”

“Remember, your maidenly delicacy!”

Maria stuck her tongue out, showing that she’d been acquainted with Elizabeth since before she could walk. “I want to meet Miss Darcy. She cannot be so indelicate in her speech as our Mrs. Wickham. And no one stops me from talking to Lydia.”

“Yes, Maria,” John Lucas said, “but Lydia was a married woman — you should know nothing else about the matter.”

“Oh Lydia told me everything about the matter.”

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and asked in a slightly breathless voice. “What matter, pray tell?”

“You know the matter.” Maria blinked a little helplessly, plainly having not expected to be questioned on the matter.

“I know nothing of the sort. Which matter?”

“Ummm, when two—” Maria blushed and looked at her brother and his wife before looking down. “The matter.”

Elizabeth seriously nodded.

Maria said accusingly, “You are teasing me.”

“She always is,” Lucas replied for Elizabeth. “I shall talk to Father about reducing the circle of your acquaintances.”

“It is a matter too late,” Elizabeth replied, giggling internally at using the word matter. “Ignorance of the matter cannot be regained.”

“I want to go to the ball! There are never enough balls. The neighborhood is too small. I wish I’d had a season in London!”

“Do not worry.” Lucas patted Maria on the shoulder. “I shall tell you every detail.”

“Faith! You never remember anything.” Maria crossed her arms with a huff. “I want to go.”

“If it cheers you,” Elizabeth said, “Mrs. Bennet hopes to keep your mother away, due to her horrid efforts to elevate her consequence above her natural consequence.”

“Lady Lucas was pleased that she was listened to, and that the committee agreed it was a kindness to exclude your mother from the decision.” Felicia wryly shaped her lips. “But it was entirely done in kindness.”

“She was being kind.” Lucas pushed his wife’s arm. “You and Lizzy always seek hidden motives. It was right to ban her. No matter how good of a girl she is, a standard of decency must be maintained. I am my parent’s child that far. This is Hertfordshire, not London where anyone might do as they please.”

“Not in the London I’ve visited!” Elizabeth replied with a quick laugh.

Lucas rolled his eyes, but there was also that squire’s mulishness about him.

Elizabeth suppressed the desire to argue that Georgiana should have been permitted to attend the assembly. It was wrong, of course, what Georgiana had done, but not such a terrible sin. Elizabeth recalled what Mama said about Lady Lucas being advanced with Charlotte when she married. “I will not argue with you, but even if she cannot be expected to be treated as an ordinary young Miss of twenty, even if you think she should be kept away from girls such as Maria—”

“Our Lydia is the one who should be removed from contact, as proven by our conversation here. If you believe there is no harm in Miss Darcy, I trust you. So long as such contact is limited and private — not intimacy or showing particular attention to Miss Darcy, I would not hesitate to allow Maria to meet the young lady.”

With that Elizabeth knew she had her old friend. “You mean you do not think she must be kept from all the impressionable young women?”

“It is the men I worry for,” Lucas replied solemnly. “She might make a great impression on the bachelors with her loose ways.”

“And her thirty thousand.”

“A yet greater impression with that.”

“Will you then enter the den of iniquity our angelic Jane has transformed Longbourn into?” Elizabeth grinned.

“You seriously wish our presence?” Felicia asked.

“I do — I confirm Jane’s report — no one ever trusts her when she describes a person as good, because she is Jane — nothing except sweetness and excess of shyness in Miss Darcy. The opposite of her brother; though the family connection can be traced.”

“Is this to flirt with Mr. Darcy?” Lucas replied quickly, smirking.

He laughed at the way Elizabeth’s mouth fell open. “Ha! Our Lizzy, at last. You want to impress him! Grown so desperate in your spinsterish years as to—”

“Mr. Lucas, to claim a woman — a spinster—”

“Darcy claimed you were a spinster.”

“To claim a respectable old maid would actively seek to impress a gentleman.”

“Fie! I saw how taken you were with him. I see through you!”

“Never.”

“Oh yes! You were taken by him. Deuced tall fellow.” Lucas held his hand up high above his head to demonstrate.

“I did not deny that — just your ability to see through me. I hide depths.”

Felicia inserted, “She does.”

All of them laughed. Lucas and Felicia looked at each other, and she nodded. Lucas said, “Lizzy, I dare say we’ll be attending your dinner.”

“Oh! I wish I could meet Miss Darcy,” Maria exclaimed.

Mr. Lucas elbowed his sister. “Running to perdition with Lydia? Not today.”