She doesn't know where she is but she's fairly sure she doesn't approve of it.

[onceandfutureex]

Enter: a young lady with a wonderful profile. She's willowy, blonde, imperious, and very well and expensively dressed in a 1930s-intellectual kind of way. She sweeps in confidently, tugging at one glove as she walks, then comes to an abrupt halt as she takes in her surroundings. This isn't Bumpleigh Hall. How could it not be Bumpleigh Hall?

Comments

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

Second entrance, a young lady with fine eyes (to go with the other's wonderful profile, we suppose). Elizabeth, passing through on her apparently endless hunt for a ballroom, looks up at the stranger with a polite "Yes? May I help you?"

Typist: Ah! I love you for having a Wodehousian. ^___^

[onceandfutureex]

At last, someone sane. Florence thaws visibly. "It's quite absurd, I'm afraid, but I seem to have no idea where I am or how I arrived." She can't help feeling this is something that Ought Not To Happen to a young lady, and she goes on with a touch of exasperation, "Everyone I've asked so far is full of nonsense about magic and paradoxes, and I can't even find the door outside."

And I love you for loving me for having a Wodehousian. ^_^ And also for having an Austenite.

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

Elizabeth looks quite sympathetic. "Oh, dear. I'm afraid, you see, and this may be quite difficult to believe, that the nonsense is not entirely nonsense. There really is no door outside. Oh, there is an out of doors - the park is beautiful no matter what the season, and there are gardens and a lake and a wood that stretches on for miles...But," and she speaks here rather gently, "we have yet to discover a way to get back home. To wherever your home may be."

[onceandfutureex]

"But surely...!" But surely what, she's not sure. Having it put in terms she can understand, it's still a little boggling, and Lady Florence Craye isn't accustomed to boggle. "Doesn't anyone know why we're here?"

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

"Oh!" laughs Elizabeth, "many people! But you see, they are all here. We do not seem to have much, or indeed any, communication with the outside world...And there, too, one gets into a bit of a puzzle, as there are so very many outside worlds to speak of."

[onceandfutureex]

"Many outside worlds?" asks Florence, bewildered. (She doesn't read the right sort of books to be familiar with multiple universes.)

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

In truth, nor does Elizabeth (though she has discovered the bizarre delights of science fiction novels, in the Mansion library, to her great embarrassment and amusement), but an active mind can get used to many things. (Except the idea that Darcy might be in love with her. That? That's crazy talk, that is.) "I fear it is true," Elizabeth says, trying to be as gentle as possible -- she knows exactly how Florence must be feeling. "It is a dizzying concept, is it not? Live here but a short whole and you will begin to understand, I think. There are so many people, and of such...divers sorts."

[onceandfutureex]

"Oh dear," says Florence. She's not insensible to the sympathy Elizabeth's displaying, but she's about as fond as a cat is of looking like she needs gentle handling - i.e. not at all - and Lizzie's laugh a moment ago made her just a touch defensive as well. Is she really supposed to welcome the idea of being swept away from everything she knows? "...I see."

Well, if there's nothing else in life, there's proper etiquitte. "I do apologise - Lady Florence Craye, of Bumpleigh Hall, Steeple Bumpleigh, Hampshire." She offers her hand.

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

A little awkwardly, Elizabeth takes Florence's hand and shakes it - or, rather, touches it lightly and lets it drop again, and then offers the kind of greeting to which she is more accustomed, in a small curtsy. "It is not quite so dreadful as I may make it sound," she says in response to that very slight defensiveness apparent in Florence's tone and face.

[onceandfutureex]

"I'm sure I shall manage." After a moment, she echoes Elizabeth's curtsy.

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

"Very well, then," she says politely. "It was good to meet you, Lady Craye. If you have no need of anything else..."

[onceandfutureex]

"Oh. Well. You've not told me your name," says Lady Florence.

[lizzy_fine_eyes]

'Forgive me and my typist! I am Elizabeth Bennet.'