Chapter Text
Longbourn, a tiny town on the outskirts of Augusta Georgia, could not be expected to hold news of any sort very long from the rest of its occupants- not when it was full of meddling and busy body women, aunts, grandmothers, and mothers alike. Thus was the conclusion of Richard Bennet when his wife came barreling in to the living room from her bi-weekly visit with Angie Lucas, the next door neighbor who was equally as much of a gossip as his wife.
“Ricky! Ricky! Oh, good lord heaven on high and strawberry pie- Richard, you will never guess what Angie told me today!” The torpedo of a woman, usually referred to as Jennifer Bennet, laid down her large tote bag and took a Pioneer Woman casserole dish out of it and sat it on the coffee table as she flurried around like a windy snowstorm that wore perfume from the clearance section of Walmart.
Richard glanced at her over his latest edition of the Georgia Outdoor News magazine. “There’s no telling. Either someone got murdered on Sculder street again, or there’s a sale at the… what’s it called again? The simpleton southern store?”
Jennifer sniffed derisively at her husband as she flopped down into the hideous Barney purple wingback chair beside her husband’s La-Z boy recliner, separated only by a side table stacked with books, magazines, and reading glasses. “It’s simply southern, Ricky. Anyhow, no! Don’t be a dolt. This news is important to the society of Longbourn as we know it!”
“Regardless of if I want to hear it, you want to tell it, so out with it,” Richard said dryly, though secretly he was becoming increasingly intrigued by this news.
“Oh Richard!” She exploded, “Angie told me, that Bobbie Ann told her, that her realtor told her, you remember Remus Johnson that went to school with Jane, don’t you? If he was as handsome as he was tall, he might be married by now, you know, but anyhow, he’s a realtor now! and he just sold the big four-thousand square feet house on Netherfield Drive to a young gentleman. Well, Bobbie did some digging, and apparently his name is Charlie Bingley, and he’s from a big lawyer family up in Asheville! He’s a lawyer, himself, and apparently he’s thinking of moving his practice down here! And you know what the most important bit of this news is, my honey pie?”
“He knows what a search warrant is?” Richard said weakly, leaning forward in his chair for more.
“Don’t be ridiculous. No, my darling danish cheese- he’s ridiculously rich and single. What a great thing for our girls!”
And there it was. The event that every meddling southern mother looks forward to.
“I see. Well, I suppose he’ll make a good match for Jane or Liz- goodness knows the other girls are much too silly,” he said frankly, leaning back now that his wife had relieved herself of her news, and picking up the magazine that he had not realized he had set down.
Jennifer tsk’d her husband. “Too cruel to your own daughters. Anyhow, I think Jane will succeed with the task, it will take a unique man to put up with Liz and her smart mouth.”
“Better a smart mouth than a smart ass, my dear. Besides, some boys find that attractive I guess.”
The exasperated wife opened her mouth to demand if he found such a quality attractive himself, when the two youngest silly girls burst in, all giggles and arguing between them.
Catie and Lydia were joined at the hip proverbially, and twins literally, with Catie holding a whole seventeen minutes over Lydia’s head. At 19 years old, they had just graduated a year earlier, and worked at the same restaurant in town. Though they looked alike, their styles were all together similar yet distinct. They were both statuesque, standing at five-feet and nine-inches, but Lydia completely bleached her light brown hair, whereas Catie added streaks of black and blue into her natural hair color. Lydia opted for pastel colors, which looked quite well with her fair skin, while Catie went for a more gothic palette of black, grey, electric blues, and reds.
And ever since they had been introduced to the Longbourn society when they were toted into church by their parents, they had always been known as “Catie and Lydia,” before either of them could bat their eyelashes over their large round blue eyes and swindle peppermints from the old women at church. Lydia conspired and plotted, while Catie stood guard and observed. And if the girls had ever tired of this arrangement, neither of them had admitted it.
“Mama!” Lydia exclaimed, interchangeably unbuttoning her oxford shirt and untying her Vans to slip them off, “you’ll never believe what I’ve found out!”
“Is it about a certain man buying a house?” Richard said boringly, his eyes still trained on his magazine, though he hadn’t flipped a page in ten minutes.
“I heard that too, but figured Mama already knew that. No, apparently there’s a new strawberry farm being built on the outside of Longbourn!”
“And where there’s farms,” Catie said cheekily, “there’s farmers.”
“You’re very observant,” Richard said drolly. Jennifer threw a stray knitted coaster at his head from the coffee table, but he expertly dodged it, which Catie and Lydia simultaneously giggle at.
“Have more respect for my nerves, Ricky, you’re so clumsy with them.”
“The opposite, Jen- they’ve kept me company these twenty-six or so years.”
The girls, having spilled their bit of gossip, dumped their purses on the floor and took off upstairs to their shared bedroom, cackling the whole way.
“Where are Jane and Lizzie?” Richard asked.
“Lizzie is working at the cafe until closing, and Jane is currently volunteering at the nursing home,” Jennifer answered while waving a foldable fan she’d procured out of some cranny or another, “and Maggie is teaching piano at the notes galore, thank you for asking.”
“And what’s for supper?”
“I don’t know, Ricky, what are you ordering?”
Richard rolled his eyes and set his magazine down with a sigh. “Point taken, my dear.”
And this was just a common day in the Bennet household.