Oh look. Soapdish.
etherscript [2:08 AM]: lol randy's crying again : (
etherscript [2:08 AM]: really because to me it sounded like WAAAAAAAAAH
etherscript [2:08 AM]: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
etherscript [2:09 AM]: WAAAAAAAAAH I ACCUSE PEOPLE OF HAVING PROSE EVEN THOUGH EVERY AUTHOR IN FICTION HISTORY USES IT
etherscript [2:09 AM]: he's ( Read more... )
CHAPTER I (1)
IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be
on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well
fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is
considered as the rightful property of some one or other of
their daughters.
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' said his lady to him one day, ``have
you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?''
Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
``But it is,'' returned she; ``for Mrs. Long has just been
here, and she told me all about it.''
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
``Do not you want to know who has taken it?'' cried his wife
impatiently.
``_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing
it.''
This was invitation enough.
``Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield
is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of
England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to
see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed
with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession
before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the
house by the end of next week.''
``What is his name?''
``Bingley.''
``Is he married or single?''
``Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large
fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for
our girls!''
``How so? how can it affect them?''
``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' replied his wife, ``how can you be so
tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one
of them.''
``Is that his design in settling here?''
``Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very
likely that he _may_ fall in love with one of them, and
therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.''
``I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you
may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still
better; for, as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley
might like you the best of the party.''
``My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of
beauty, but I do not pretend to be any thing extraordinary now.
When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give
over thinking of her own beauty.''
``In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think
of.''
``But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he
comes into the neighbourhood.''
``It is more than I engage for, I assure you.''
``But consider your daughters. Only think what an
establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and
Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in
general, you know they visit no new comers. Indeed you must
go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do
not.''
``You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will
be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to
assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying which ever he
chuses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my
little Lizzy.''
``I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit
better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so
handsome as Jane, nor half so good humoured as Lydia. But you
are always giving _her_ the preference.''
``They have none of them much to recommend them,'' replied he;
``they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy
has something more of quickness than her sisters.''
``Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such way?
You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my
poor nerves.''
``You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your
nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention
them with consideration these twenty years at least.''
``Ah! you do not know what I suffer.''
``But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young
men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.''
``It will be no use to us if twenty such should come, since you
will not visit them.''
``Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty I will
visit them all.''
Reply
Two words for you: grow up.
Reply
The villagers of Little Hangleron still called it "the Riddle House," even though it had been many years since the Riddle family had lived there. It stood on a hill overlooking the village, some of its windows boarded, tiles missing from its roof, and ivy spreading unchecked over its face. Once a fine-looking manor, and easily the largest and grandest building for miles around, the Riddle House was now damp, derelict, and unoccupied.
The Little Hagletons all agreed that the old house was "creepy." Half a century ago, something strange and horrible had happened there, something that the older inhabitants of the village still liked to discuss when topics for gossip were scarce. The story had been picked over so many times, and had been embroidered in so many places, that nobody was quite sure what the truth was anymore. Every version of the tale, however, started in the same place: Fifty years before, at daybreak on a fine summer's morning when the Riddle House had still been well kept and impressive, a maid had entered the drawing room to find all three Riddles dead.
The maid had run screaming down the hill into the village and roused as many people as she could.
"Lying there with their eyes wide open! Cold as ice! Still in their dinner things!"
The police were summoned, and the whole of Little Hangleton had seethed with shocked curiosity and ill-disguised excitement. Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up son, Tom, had been, if anything, worse. All the villagers cared about was the identity of their murderer -- for plainly, three apparently healthy people did not all drop dead of natural causes on the same night.
The Hanged Man, the village pub, did a roaring trade that night; the whole village seemed to have turned out to discuss the murders. They were rewarded for leaving their firesides when the Riddles' cook arrived dramatically in their midst and announced to the suddenly silent pub that a man called Frank Bryce had just been arrested.
"Frank!" cried several people. "Never!"
Frank Bryce was the Riddles' gardener. He lived alone in a run-down cottage on the grounds of the Riddle House. Frank had come back from the war with a very stiff leg and a great dislike of crowds and loud noises, and had been working for the Riddles ever since.
There was a rush to buy the cook drinks and hear more details.
"Always thought he was odd," she told the eagerly listening villagers, after her fourth sherry. "Unfriendly, like. I'm sure if I've offered him a cuppa once, I've offered it a hundred times. Never wanted to mix, he didn't."
"Ah, now," said a woman at the bar, "he had a hard war, Frank. He likes the quiet life. That's no reason to --"
"Who else had a key to the back door, then?" barked the cook. "There's been a spare key hanging in the gardener's cottage far back as I can remember! Nobody forced the door last night! No broken windows! All Frank had to do was creep up to the big house while we was all sleeping..."
The villagers exchanged dark looks.
"I always thought that he had a nasty look about him, right enough," grunted a man at the bar.
"War turned him funny, if you ask me," said the landlord.
"Told you I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of Frank, didn't I, Dot?" said an excited woman in the corner.
"Horrible temper," said Dot, nodding fervently. "I remember, when he was a kid..."
By the following morning, hardly anyone in Little Hangleton doubted that Frank Bryce had killed the Riddles.
But over in the neighboring town of Great Hangleton, in the dark and dingy police station, Frank was stubbornly repeating, again and again, that he was innocent, and that the only person he had seen near the house on the day of the Riddles' deaths had been a teenage boy, a stranger, dark-haired and pale. Nobody else in the village had seen any such boy, and the police were quite sure Frank had invented him.
Then, just when things were looking very serious for Frank, the report on the Riddles' bodies came back and changed everything.
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