Mr. Darcy Goes Overboard: A Tale of Tide & Prejudice

you will recover to see Salcombe soon overflowing with young men of good fortune, and our girls will have the courage to speak with them direct.”

There was a clanking on the wooden stairs. Lydia, the youngest Miss Bennet, dressed in buttock-revealing pink-spotted pants and a lacy singlet top, shuffled into the kitchen, robotically put on the kettle, fumbled in the cupboard for a mug, blobbed in a teaspoon of Nescafé, slumped down onto one of the six pastel blue kitchen chairs, and yawned vigorously. Her presence created a pause between Mr and Mrs Bennet. Mrs Bennet had temporarily run out of steam, unable to maintain continuing signs of dangerous stress, and, after a formal “Good morning, Lydia” to his daughter, from which he expected, and obtained, no response, Mr Bennet returned to his paper.

Chapter 2

At lunchtime, Mr Bennet did indeed venture to the Yacht Club and there, just as Mrs Bennet had predicted, was the young man in question, sitting in the window, having a quiet gin and tonic whilst earnestly tapping away on his laptop. Mr Bennet introduced himself as Mr Bennet, and the young man leapt to his feet and shook hands.

“Delighted to meet you, Mr Bonnet.”

“Bennet.”

“No, I’m Bingley. Mr Bingley.”

“And I’m Mr Bennet.”

“Who then, sir,” asked the beaming Mr Bingley, “is Mr Bonnet? I am new around here and not familiar with the names.”

“There is no Mr Bonnet.”

“How strange! I’m sure you mentioned him earlier. Perhaps he is a shy fellow, but I would be pleased to meet him, as I have few acquaintances in Salcombe. But what a splendid place it is, is it not Mr Bonnet?”

“Bennet.”

“Oh, Bennet! Bonnet! Such similar names. It must cause you quite a confusion.”

Mr Bennet found the young man in question most amiable and discovered that his new acquaintance had quite a unique and captivating understanding of the world. On the effect of a credit crunch, the young fellow enthused that as far as he understood, it was a fabulously healthy cereal, that employing hedge fund managers was the only way to keep the rabbits out of one’s vegetable garden, and, from what he had seen so far in Salcombe, the bottom line seemed jolly attractive. Mr Bennet was rarely so entertained and invited Mr Bingley round to a barbeque that very evening, an invitation which the young man, having no acquaintances in the vicinity, accepted with alacrity.

* * *

The hot summer’s day, meanwhile, had passed in the usual Salcombe manner for Mrs Bennet and her five daughters. After breakfast the girls had set out for town, armed with regulation jute bags to gather supplies for a picnic. Lizzy and Jane had queued at The Upper Crust for six deliciously soft dough rolls sprinkled with sunflower seeds, whilst Lydia and Kitty had gone round to the deli to buy slices of ham and little quiche pies. The younger girls were seriously delayed by a detour into Cranch’s, the sweetie shop, where they spent a good fifteen minutes holding little plastic baskets and selecting with plastic tongs fizzy cola chews, luminous green snakes, rainbow crystals, and pink shrimps, before exiting, clutching pink-and-white-striped paper bags of goodies. Mary, meanwhile, remained back at 3 Island Street in the front room, where passers-by could peer in and see her swotting for her AS exams. She perched her physics textbook in the window so people could see that she was a girl of intellectual substance, not one to be drawn into softy subjects like media studies—the very thought! The baffled frown on her face showed the intense challenge that such a mission as physics could present even to the brightest student.

The picnic at last prepared and packed into outsized waterproof bags printed with strawberry patterns, the little party was ready to venture out to the beach.

Beaches at Salcombe are either a little distance from the centre of town, North and South Sands, or across the estuary—or dendritic ria , as Mary had once discovered and enjoyed correcting anyone ignorant enough to get the distinction wrong—where lie the glorious ribbons of golden sands known as Fisherman’s Cove, Small’s Cove, Mill Bay, Sunny Cove, and, for those with boats, The Bar.

Visitors delight in the fun of the ferries to get about from the town to the beaches or even up to Kingsbridge. The sturdy Salcombe to South Sands ferry ploughing back and forth, with its gaily fluttering flags and packed with holidaymakers waving buckets and spades, who have the added pleasure of disembarking onto a fine sea tractor to ensure a dry landing on the beach, is a regular sight. Many locals and holiday house owners, however, have invested in some sort of craft to take them from beach to beach at their leisure. So it was a pleasant hundred-foot walk to the wooden jetty where Angelica , a twelve-foot grey inflatable, dearly loved by the Bennet family, was patiently waiting, that the girls and Mrs Bennet headed, laden with one large wicker picnic basket, three Cath Kidston-patterned picnic bags, buckets, spades, cricket kit, rugby ball, tennis ball, towels, swimming gear, handbags, books, magazines, newspapers, windbreakers, and life jackets. Mrs Bennet liked to think of herself as “good in boats.” Her inability to start the six horsepower engine, distinguish a bowline from a clove hitch, or cast off did not deter her from barking instructions. Transferring her weight from the pontoon and down into the bouncy boat always caused Angelica to lurch alarmingly and cause a slight heart flutter in Mrs Bennet’s bosom, but she was game and shouted and bossed the girls around so efficiently that she had a hand to help her from the pontoon, a hand to catch her into the boat, a hand to steady her posterior onto the thwart, and a hand to pass her the overflowing and very unseaworthy handbag that accompanied her everywhere.

Lizzy pulled at the engine, and, after two attempts, it chuckled into life. “Cast off! Cast off!” shouted Mrs Bennet imperiously. “Oh look! There are the Lucas’s in Fly-By-Night . Yahoo! Yahoo! I say, Marcia, yahoo! Wave girls! Wave!”

The Lucas family were sailing by in their splendid Salcombe Yawl, a traditional wooden boat with two masts—main and mizzen—much beloved by Salcombe society.

“Oh I say! Frances! Yahoo!” echoed Mrs Lucas, spotting the overloaded Angelica . “Wonderful news! Charlotte’s “A” level results!”

“What did you say?” cried Mrs Bennet across the water, standing up as if she could get a little closer by doing so. “Go over to Fly-By-Night , Lizzy! I can’t hear what Marcia is saying.”

“She’s like, trying to tell you how brilliantly Charlotte has done in her “A” levels,” interjected Kitty mischievously.

As Mrs Lucas’s official best friend, Mrs Bennet would naturally want to share in such happy news, but her girls were expecting results, too. It could be awkward.

“Sorry, Marcia! Can’t hear you. Catch up later!” shouted Mrs Bennet, adding the command, “Head for the beach, Lizzy!” to which Lizzy responded with such alacrity that Mrs Bennet, caught off-balance, was pitched headfirst across the bows, her legs shooting up into the air in a most unladylike fashion and her handbag flung skyward. The girls could not help but dissolve into peals of laughter, fortunately catching the airborne bag, saving it from a watery grave. The whole incident would have been forgotten if it had not been splendidly caught on camera by a passing professional photographer in a speedboat, who specialised in capturing those magical family moments. Later that day, Mr Bennet, recognising his wife’s legs, her handbag, and his merry daughters on display in a picture in the photographer’s shop window, was so taken by the artistic merit of the shot that he ordered a large print immediately, which gave him much cause to chuckle for many years to come.

Mrs Bennet and handbag now recovered, the party continued on their voyage across the estuary, dodging lasers, toppers, and luxury cruisers, reaching Mill Bay without any further adventure, where Lizzy skilfully drove the boat to shallow water, and Lydia and Kitty leapt out in bare feet, screeching and laughing partly at the coldness of the water and partly for the benefit of some fit young men in Jack Wills pants. Within five minutes, the little party had joined another fifty or so families on the beach, shielded by colourful windshields, with picnics at the ready, books to read, the sparkling sea before them, and nothing much more to do than chill out. Bliss.

* * *

As they settled down on multicoloured beach towels to read, or in Lydia’s and Kitty’s case, to gossip, Mr