Page 47 of Pride, Prejudice & Wicked Pleasure

These clandestine visits will not do, Lizzy admonished herself. And yet, when Mr. Collins and Charlotte had left to attend dinner at the home of a friend in town, and Maria, complaining of having a headache, took to her room early, Lizzy could not resist having a horse saddled and making her way to Trenwith House. Lizzy apologized profusely for the disturbance when she was admitted to see the lady of the house.

“You should never have offered up your hospitality, for I fear I may trespass upon it often,” Lizzy told Abby as they sat down in the drawing-room.

“I pray it will be so!” Abby declared with sufficient enthusiasm that Lizzy would not have doubted the sincerity of her words, were she not always inclined to vivacity. “I only wish I could promise you that I will always be here to receive you, though you are to make Trenwith House your home in my absence. Are you here for your second lesson?”

Lizzy coloured. “I would not expect a lesson, as I had provided no prior notice.”

“Let us see what can be done, shall we?”

Making her way to a writing table, she found paper and pen. She scrawled a brief note and rang for Mr. Singh. Lizzy waited, knowing she had a chance to put a stop to the effort, as she had considered doing the other day. She had even contemplated confessing to Charlotte but decided against burdening her friend and risking their friendship. In the end, Lizzy came to a partial reconciliation that she was, simply, a selfish being. She craved the knowledge that Abby Trenwith, and only Abby Trenwith, offered. Such an opportunity would not avail itself elsewhere in a lifetime.

“I commend you for your bravery,” Abby said when Mr. Singh had departed with the note.

“Or reprove me for my depravity.”

“There are enough of those who would condemn us for what we do and what we believe. Do not add to their voices with your own. There may yet come a time when we shall not regard with sanctimony the withholding of that most natural act between all creatures, the concealment and avoidance of which encumbers the fair sex more. In this, I would almost believe that God had punished women for the sins of Eve, for our pleasure is not as easily discerned. But to counter the argument for this inequity, we are rewarded with more possibilities.”

“I would that I had the conviction of your eloquence.”

“Patience, my dear Lizzy. Yours is a bold frontier. It is natural to feel a mix of emotions: fear, excitement, guilt, and shame.”

“I have felt all those. Sin that goes unnoticed can only mask itself as virtuous. What are these additional possibilities you speak of?”

Abby smiled. “You will learn soon enough if you continue the lessons. Though I do not think a reminder required of you, I should nonetheless warn you of becoming partial to your instructor. I had once thought to engage a different instructor for each lesson, such is the danger of attachment, but it was impractical, and the trust that builds between instructor and pupil over time is an asset to learning.”

“You have no fear with me. I do not fall in love easily.”

“Have you ever?”

“Fallen in love? I thought affection to grow once for a certain gentleman in regimentals, but it was too fleeting to approach love. Nay, I wonder that I ever will fall in love. My criteria are far too substantial.”

She paused, contemplating another person whose standards might exceed her own. The discussion had occurred, while she was visiting Jane at Netherfield, between her, the Bingleys and Mr. Darcy .

"It is amazing to me," Bingley had said, "how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."

"All young ladies accomplished!” Miss Bingley had exclaimed. “My dear Charles, what do you mean?"

"Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know anyone who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished."

"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," Darcy had said, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."

"Then," Lizzy had observed, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."

"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."

"Oh! certainly," his faithful assistant had cried, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved."

"All this she must possess, and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women,” Lizzy had said. “I rather wonder now at your knowing any."

"Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?" Miss Bingley had asked.

"I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united."

Lizzy felt she could apply a similar assessment to the other sex. And despite the rarity of any one individual possessing all the traits she desired in a partner, she nonetheless felt she required the presence of them all before she could fall in love.

“I would be content to leave love to my sisters. They take to matters of the heart more readily than I,” Lizzy said to Abby.