First Impressions: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Adaptation

Chapter 15

Mr. Bennet returned to Meryton several days later, on Sunday. He was met by three over-excited daughters, all bursting to speak at once. "Dad! Oh, thank God you're back, he's driving us nuts!"

"Mom keeps inviting him over for dinner, I don't know if I can take it anymore!"

"Please, please, please you have to tell Mom to stop letting him eat at our house."

"If he tries to tell me about banking one more time, I'm going to scream!"

He bit back a laugh as he looked at their wide-eyed, frantic faces. "I've been away a week and not even a hello, girls?"

Liz stepped forward. "Welcome back, Dad. Tell mom to stop inviting Bill Collins over to dinner or one of us is going to stab him in the eye with a fork."

"And then Mom'll have to deal with blood stains on her carpet and bail," Lydia chimed in.

Mr. Bennet ignored her, frowning instead at Liz. "Bill Collins? I thought your mother hated the man."

"She used to. But now he comes to dinner almost every night and I can't take it anymore!" Cat cried, almost yelling.

"What's he doing in Meryton?"

"Trying to decide what he wants to do with the golf course. But he wouldn't talk about it in detail until you got back. Because you're the man in charge." Liz rolled her eyes.

Mr. Bennet bit back a chuckle as he pulled his bag out of the backseat. "Lizzie, I think it's more that it's my name on all the accounts."

"But he could have told Mom what he was planning, even if he couldn't actually, like, enact any deals or anything," she argued back as they all walked towards the house together. "I'm honestly more surprised he's been so quiet about it. He certainly likes the sound of his own voice enough when he's talking about other things."

"If I have to hear about"—Lydia put on a high, dreamy voice—"Lady Catherine one more time—" She cut herself off with a high pitched shriek in the back of her throat.

"Hmm... I see." He pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose and hefted his bag more comfortably in his hand. He entered the house, his daughters filing after him, and greeted his wife. He expected her to say something on the matter, but when she was silent for several hours, he brought it up before dinner, especially when she said nothing of any possible guests.

"Genie," he said somewhat gently, "the girls have been telling me you invited Bill Collins over for a meal four out of the six days I was gone."

"Hm, dear? Oh—yes, Bill Collins. He's a nice young man. Very polite. Doing very well for himself." She smiled.

"And may I ask what occurred for you to reconsider your stance on him? If I remember last December you were not quite as—"

She made a little noise in her throat and waved one hand to push away his arguments. "Yes, yes, I know what I said. But that was when he was planning on continuing to own the golf course exclusively."

"And he doesn't anymore?"

"Well, I told him I really wasn't interested in all the specifics. You'll have to ask him about it. But he mentioned something about... mending bridges."

"Ah," he said softly, not quite to his wife. Liz was justified in complaining about the man, but at least Mrs. Bennet had put him in the position of not explaining the business details.

~~~~

"Please tell me Bill isn't coming over for dinner tonight too," Cat said first thing as she came down for breakfast.