Curtis Sittenfeld - Eligible

“We’re friends of the family who owns this place,” Charlotte said. “Friends of Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

The man appraised Charlotte, then Liz. “Is one of you Caroline Bingley?”

This wasn’t what Liz had expected him to ask, and if she’d thought the situation through, she’d never have uttered what she did next. But she did not think it through. Instead, she raised her hand and said, “I am.”

The man’s demeanor became marginally friendlier. He said, “Just a minute.” He held a phone to his ear, but before they could hear him say anything, his window rose. Charlotte turned and whispered excitedly, “We’re on a caper!”

“What’s wrong with me?” Liz said. “Why did I tell him that?”

The tinted window descended again, and the man said, “Fitzwilliam will meet us in front of the main house. Follow me.” By some invisible mechanism, the hulking doors of the gate opened, and the man drove through.

“Let’s get out of here,” Liz said.

“I thought Darcy was in Cincinnati,” Charlotte said.

“So did I.” Panic was quickly overtaking Liz. As Charlotte turned left up the driveway behind the van, Liz said, “What are you doing?”

“I’m not leading that guy on a chase. What if he has a gun?”

“Charlotte, we can’t see Darcy. Stop the car. Let me out.”

“What are you worried about? You and Darcy know each other biblically now.”

“He’ll think we’re stalking him. Charlotte, right before I left Cincinnati, Darcy told me he was in love with me! Except in this completely weird, unfriendly way, and I was really rude back to him, and the whole thing was bizarre.”

Charlotte laughed. “Liz Bennet, you seductress! Is there any man who hasn’t fallen for you this summer? Besides, we are stalking him. Or at least his land.”

In front of the house, though house did not seem an adequate descriptor for the gargantuan structure before them, near the steps leading to an enormous front door was a figure that, even from a distance of twenty yards, Liz could tell was Darcy. She thought of the two of them writhing in the bed in his apartment and felt a multifaceted confusion. Near Darcy, the black van made a U-turn and continued back down the driveway, the way they’d come; Charlotte stopped in front of the steps and without warning automatically lowered Liz’s window. Darcy walked closer to them, and by the time he recoiled — in surprise, Liz hoped, rather than revulsion — he was truly upon them.

“Liz?” He looked shocked.

Charlotte leaned forward and waved. “Hi, Darcy.”

“Charlotte?”

Liz heard Charlotte say, “We were in the area,” and it was impossible not to believe that her friend was relishing this encounter.

“That guy,” Liz said. “Your bodyguard or whatever — he assumed I was Caroline Bingley, but I’m not.”

“No,” Darcy said. “You’re not.” He didn’t, as Liz had feared, seem angry; he still seemed simply puzzled. “I thought you’d gone back to New York.”

“I came to visit Charlotte.”

Darcy glanced at Charlotte. “I understand you’ve become a Californian.”

“Who’d have thunk, huh?” Charlotte said.

“Why are you here?” Liz asked Darcy.

“At my own house, do you mean?” But Darcy sounded warm, not mocking — indeed, he seemed to Liz warmer than he ever had in Cincinnati, though perhaps the difference was less his affect than her perception of it. “Georgie and I hold a Labor Day get-together every year,” he was saying, “or we host it the years I don’t have to work. That’s why Roger confused you with Caroline Bingley. She’s due here tomorrow.”

Liz tried not to demonstrably register this troubling bit of news and instead strove to sound pleasant and breezy. “With Chip?” she asked.

Darcy shook his head. “No, he’s still filming, but a few of our classmates from med school are coming from San Francisco, and some friends of Georgie’s.” Darcy looked between Liz and Charlotte. “As long as you’re here, would you two like to see the house?”

“We’re actually—” Liz began, and Charlotte said, “We’d love to.”

As Charlotte turned off the engine, Darcy said, “I hope Roger wasn’t rude. He’s the caretaker, not my bodyguard, but he can be overzealous because we sometimes get people snooping around the property.”

FOR ONCE, LIZ wouldn’t have asked, but Charlotte did, in a way that somehow seemed as neutral a question a person might pose about an exhibit in a museum, and Darcy answered in kind: The main house at Pemberley was nineteen thousand square feet and contained twelve bedrooms and seventeen bathrooms; there also was a guesthouse, a caretaker’s cottage, and a currently unused stable.

They entered through the foyer, made a right into a hallway with a high, arched ceiling, made another right, and found themselves in a ballroom, a vast space with a walnut floor, mostly empty save for two spectacular crystal chandeliers, matching marble fireplaces at either end of the room, and a half dozen murals featuring scenes from what Darcy identified as England’s Lake District. He said, “I suspect that my great-great-grandfather thought a veneer of British elegance would distract from his having run away from his home in rural Virginia at the age of thirteen.”

“Rags to riches,” Charlotte said, and Liz said, “So Pemberley has been in your family all this time?”

“Which is why my sister fears that we’ll be letting down all our ancestors by donating it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, whereas I think the opposite. Neither Georgie nor I will ever have a family big enough to justify this kind of space. Nobody has a family big enough.”

They walked from the ballroom into a trophy room, then an oak-paneled study with an oil painting over the fireplace of a balding, somber man wearing a black tie, a white shirt with an upturned collar, a black waistcoat, a black jacket, and a pocket watch whose gold chain was visible.

“That’s the original Fitzwilliam Darcy, my great-great-grandfather,” Darcy said. “He started building Pemberley in 1915, by which point he’d established himself as a railroad and borax-mining magnate. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying about every fortune being built on a great crime.”

Liz, who had spoken little since entering the house, tried to sound normal as she asked, “Should I pretend to know what borax is?”

“Charlotte, I bet you know from Procter & Gamble.” To Liz, Darcy said, “Sodium borate. A compound that’s in everything from detergent to fiberglass.” They were in the library, where scores of leather-bound books sat on built-in shelves, and an enormous Persian rug covered the floor.

“Are the books fake?” Liz asked. “No offense.”

“They have pages with words on them, if that’s what you’re asking. But yes, I’m sure that even when they were first acquired, they were a bit of an affectation. I once read a copy of Treasure Island I found in here, but we mostly lived upstairs. The whole first floor, as you can see, has a public feel to it, and my mother was very civically involved. She and my father hosted lots of fundraising events.”

“It’s like the White House,” Charlotte said, and Darcy said, “In a way, I suppose.”

From the library, they proceeded through the reception room, which was a sort of mini — living room; the drawing room, which was another sort of mini — living room, this one apparently intended for women to retire to when the men enjoyed their post-dinner cigars and brandy; then the dining room, the butler’s pantry, and the kitchen. In the reception room, Darcy had gestured at the doorway, which was framed by columns and a peaked roof, and said to Liz, “All that trim is known as an aedicule — that’s a good word for a writer, huh?”