The Zephyr: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

by Grace Gibson

Again and again, I pondered the evils of my upbringing, using the effigy of Lydia’s reputation hanging in the bonfire of reasons why we should behave like ladies instead of recalcitrant brats.

How many ways could be used to condemn a lady? Many! She was a shrew, a vixen, a flirt, a skirt, a goose, a tart—the list was long indeed.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You are here, Lizzy. Is my chin heavier than it used to be?” “Is it weighing you down?” I asked.

Mrs. Bennet, at her dressing table.

Upon this occasion, Mr Darcy pretended to have backed into me, and under cover of an apology, he looked appraisingly at me and purred, “Charming. Have you combed your hair perhaps?”

“I am quite familiar with your well-applied torments, Elizabeth. Might you be pleased to know I suffer no less longing after repeated exposure to them?” “I am somewhat mollified to know you will be in agony.”

“That matchstick halo of yours is only glued in place, Saint Elizabeth. Have a care you do not accidentally knock it off your head while dancing those circles around my relations.”

Had I not already fallen in love with the humourless grump who sat next to him, I would have sprung to life with interest in this new prospect.

Lizzy, upon meeting Colonel Fitzwilliam.

We sat in silence, and a more blessed interlude in a secret engagement could not have been contrived, for we spoke without words, loved without kisses, and merged into the scenery of ancient lands, son and daughter of so many people before us. “I

“Like a treasure from an exotic land to be proudly brought home.” “Shall I have a pedestal?” “Hmm. Made of gold and marble and ebony and jade.” “How dreadful! Shall I not look like a dowdy muffin teetering atop such a splendid perch?”

In my old age, would I begin to resemble the gorgon of Kent?