23rd October, 1811. The Lucas Low-down.

A sex scandal follows later in this post, so I'm just warning the delicate among you (not my buddies, then!).

But first, the shocking facts about us being POOR. It would take the pen of a Dickens to describe our poverty. Good thing I’ve got one then! (Goose-breeders from Meryton way, the Dickens family make the best pens, and young Charlie slipped me a stash of them in the hope of a flash of ankle.) We here at Longbourn, until we get kicked out into the snow by the totally unfair entail, get by with a mere handful of servants and barely have a horse between us, which we never get to use. We have to do sewing and mending and similar indignities, which seriously impacts on my hands and nails which are in a truly tragic condition. My allowance is pitiful. What we need is an injection of wonga, and sharpish. When I told Hill about the Bling sistas’ fashionable finery, she said straight out, that I can’t afford even home-made copies of most of their stuff. Gah! Still I shall do what I can. I hope my buddies on the Net will credit me for my constant high spirits in the light of this darkness of being in which I live. Or exist, more like.

So I was scribbling away updating this blog, but occasionally tuning in to the convo. Poor Charlotte, dowdy as ever, was playing one of her psych games which Lizzy never seems to twig.

‘Poor Eliza! To be only just ‘tolerable’!’ she goes, fake sympathy you see.

They all start slagging off Arsey, which is just as well as Ma and Lady Lucas have been trading veiled insults till they’re just about at bursting point.

 ‘Oh, la, my dear, your daughter looked a vision, still Mr Bingley danced with mine first.’

‘Oh no, yours was so much the prettier my dear, but Mr Bingley did dance with mine more than any other girl,’ you know the sort of thing.

Charlotte goes straight back on the attack. ‘I wish Darcy had danced with Eliza.’

I’m like, yeah, right! Like hell.

**** Now here's the scandalous bit! I must divulge something to you dear Reader which I beg you will keep to yourself. You might think from the above, that Charlotte Lucas was trying to undermine Lizzy’s self esteem by harping on about her rejection by the Alpha Git, out of bitchiness. Ah, poor innocent, you little know the human heart as I, despite my tender years, do. For Charlotte has had a massive girl-crush on Lizzy for like, ever. Charlotte is definitely one of those Sapphires I once saw something about in one of Pa’s filthy books he’d left out on the table when I took him his tea. It was in foreign or secret code or something, but the pix were pretty explicit, girl on girl action in some Greek island watering place. Can’t really blame Charlotte considering the male talent available hereabouts. Look at her now, stroking Lizzy’s hand like in sympathy for her public humiliation, really she’s saying, ‘see what men are my darling, I can give you what he never could, don’t think of him.’ Lizzy, clueless as ever, squeezes her hand back and a blush mounts to Charlo’s pasty cheek.

I can’t help myself. ‘Get a room, girls, why don’t you, and get it over with, FGS,’ I say.

Kitty chokes over her tea and pretends to be coughing again. The others look at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.

‘Madam, I beg you to correct Lydia’s speech,’ goes Lizzy to Ma. ‘This youthful vernacular is somewhat ill bred. Lydia, I beg your pardon but I cannot comprehend your meaning.’

I’m like, ‘Whatever.’

They just look mystified. I wonder if my older sisters were ever young?

Charls changes tack. She starts praising Darcy to the skies - when the others call him proud, she’s like, ‘Oh well, with family, fortune, everything, in his favour, he has a right to be proud.’ She’s testing whether Lizzy will agree with her or not.

Lizzy’s like, ‘True, I could forgive his pride if he hadn’t mortified mine.’

 Charlotte looks relieved but wary. My super-quick instincts can read the poor girl like a very short book. She’s worried Lizzy likes the guy! She’s like, picked up on some chemistry or something between them. This makes me even more confident in my plan to get some readies into this fail of a family pronto. I give Charlotte a sharp look, like, as if to say, I know your game missy! She looks back, not sure how much I know, while Mary drivels on about ‘Pride’, like it’s a sin or something, and Lizzy looks calmly around for the usual wrinklies’ admiration for her prettily turned phrases. Totally outclassed by my brilliance, as per. Could be, Charlotte’s liking for the laydeez could work out to my advantage at some point, who knows.

So, to sum up, I’ve got to a) get Jane and Bingley together, while 2) keeping a beady eye on his sistas, while stealing their fashion know-how, and at the same time b) see if there’s any way to get Lizzy and Darcy into an LTR, all to get some moolah into Longbourn and my future, while I’m also keeping up style standards single-handed, keeping up with my soaps, updating this blog, and trekking miles into Meryton every day to check on the progress of the regiment of man-meat shortly to camp on our mudcaked doorsteps. I tell you, a lesser woman would be overcome, but multi-tasking is my watchword and I know I can do it! I mean, them.