dolevalan | 15 minute fic, word 153

Title: Blank Page
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Rating: G

A/N: Dedicated to the lovely

blackdeathdenia, for her birthday. A tiny little bit of silliness; I meant Darcy to be in it, but this popped out instead.

No matter which way you looked at it, it had been a very, very long day. Lizzie couldn’t help but sigh contentedly as she collapsed into her favorite chair, trying to expel the stress that had been building in her shoulders since early that morning when her mother had started screeching. This shrieking diatribe had continued for a good quarter of an hour before Jane could calm her enough to see what the cause could be; in fact, it was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Lydia who was the root of the problem.

Normally, of course, Lydia’s follies took the form of eating the supply of cream that should have been used at the family tea, or at accidentally ruining one of her fathers books by knocking ink onto it while admiring engraved portraits of soldiers and admirals. While Lizzie found it hard to forgive the destruction of books, she did have to remind herself that Lydia was only ten, and could only half be expected to know better. However, such incidents were seldom a cause for the two oldest Bennett girls to get involved beyond appeasing their mother and mopping up whatever could be salvaged.

Today, however, Lydia had carelessly let out their father’s favorite dog, a rather expensive setter named Jip who was both well-loved and rather valuable, at least relative to the family economy. As usual, Mr. Bennett had confined himself to his study, and when informed, had looked annoyed but made no move to go in search of the creature, indicating that if a girl let it out, a girl could go find it. Mrs. Bennett, in turn, had shrieked that Lydia was a baby and couldn’t simply be let loose upon the county. Privately, Lizzie agreed with the second half of the argument, regardless of the truth or exaggeration of the former portion. And so, it fell to the two girls deemed old enough not to get hopelessly lost to retrieve poor Jip and return him if at all possible.

Jane had gone into town, to ask if anyone had heard of a family finding a loose dog, or if he had been seen by any of the soldiers stationed there. She took Mary with her, for propriety’s sake, though Mary remained sullenly quiet, clearly resenting being pulled away from her books and her pianoforte. Lizzie, on the other hand, set off through the neighboring parks, dirtying her skirts horribly and calling for Jip in a very undignified manner. Though she attracted some attention, unfortunately none of it was canine.

Finally, it had been at the large deserted park called Netherfield that Lizzie found Jip, happily camped upon the front steps as if he had, after much consideration, decided to let the place himself. Lizzie, while gently scolding the dog, glanced up and the large manor, privately wondering if anyone would ever move in; it had been empty for almost a year, with no clear prospects of being let anytime soon. The girl smiled to herself, shaking her head as she started leading Jip away. Jane had often glanced at the place and quietly wished for a dance or a social of some sort, but Lizzie knew what her private wish for Netherfield was. She quite simply wished for something interesting; but privately, as soon as she was back in earshot of her mother’s screech and Lydia’s giggle, she became more certain that nothing extraordinary in the least would ever befall her.