Lydia Read online

  “Lady Catherine’s hens must be very fine indeed,” she said.

  How could she? How could any of them listen to this man’s babble? I don’t care how much control he might have over us one day. No one should be allowed to be so dull.

  If Jane had been herself, she would have restrained me. But Mr. Bingley went to London yesterday with no date given for his return, and Jane is of no use to anybody.

  Someone had to say something.

  “I should like to meet Lady Catherine’s hens,” I declared. “Truly, I cannot think which introduction I should like more – the lady or her chickens.”

  The others slowly returned to life. Jane dragged herself back from thoughts of Bingley. My father’s lips twitched and even Lizzy smirked as I twisted my napkin round and round my fingers beneath the table to stop myself from bursting, and we all waited with bated breath for Mr. Collins’s reaction.

  He laid down his knife and fork. His cheeks still bulged with Hill’s apple pudding, yet as he squared his shoulders and peered at us down his turnip nose, he was a picture of injured dignity.

  “My dear cousin,” he cried, spraying apple compote all around him. “Are you comparing Lady Catherine to a chicken?”

  And I burst. Oh, it felt so good! I laughed and I laughed and I laughed, until tears ran down my cheeks and Father ordered me to leave the table.

  At the door, I dropped into a low curtsy. “Cluck, cluck!” I said.

  “LYDIA!”

  I ran.

  Outside, the light was dying and the air smelled of wet leaves. Sparrows twittered in the laurel hedge and in the cowshed across the track the milkmaid sang. I sat upon the big cornerstone with my back against the wall of the house and closed my eyes.

  Skirts rustled beside me. I opened my eyes. Mary was standing in front of me. There were tear streaks on her face.

  And at last I understood.

  The reading last night. Saint Augustine. Her extraordinary new interest in chickens.

  “No!” I cried. “Mary, you cannot be serious!”

  She sighed and sat down next to me.

  “If I marry Mr. Collins,” she said, very slowly, as if she were speaking to a child, “we will all be safe.”

  “If you marry Mr. Collins,” I replied in exactly the same tone, “you will be very unhappy.”

  Mary was silent.

  “You can’t marry him!” I exploded. “Mary, nobody should ever have to marry Mr. Collins! He’s an abominable man!”

  “He is not an abominable man,” Mary said. “He is pompous and self-important and not very handsome, but I believe he means well and—”

  “Please do not talk about Longbourn and inheritance!”

  “I love it here, Lydia,” she whispered. “I know you cannot wait to get away, but I never want to leave. I love it all. This stone we are sitting on, the Waire, the trees, the farm . . . My little room and our good, solid furniture, my chair before the fire, my desk, my pianoforte, my books. The orchard in spring when the blossom comes, the autumn harvest, even the winter mud. To know that I should come back to live here, that it would one day belong to my children . . . If Mr. Collins is the price to keep it, then I assure you I am willing to pay.”

  For a while, I could only stare at her in astonishment. I have never heard Mary express so much emotion. I inched closer to her and took her hand. It is so pale compared to mine, and she is so very clever and bookish. It is a ghastly thought, but what if Mr. Collins were right for her? And what if I have made her lose him?

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think.”

  “That’s your trouble. You never do.”

  “I will apologise. I will tell him I’m mad – no, not mad. Then he will worry lest madness runs in the family. I will tell him I am immensely silly – that I am renowned for it – but that you are perfectly brilliant. I will tell him anything you want!”

  But Mary said, very quietly, “I think you’ve done enough, Lydia.”

  She left. Jane, Lizzy and Kitty came out, wrapped up against the cold. They called out to Mary as she walked towards them, and as she drew near Jane held out her arms. Together they headed towards the lane. As they reached the rise in the road, I saw the four of them silhouetted quite clearly against the sky.

  “Wait for me!” I wanted to call, but they were already too far to hear.

  Saturday, 30th November

  I dreamed of Wickham last night – a lovely dream, of the two of us playing cards together and laughing over our piles and piles of winnings. At some point in the early morning, I was conscious of the sound of horses, the carriage being brought round to drive Mr. Collins to the coach, but it was daylight when I stirred again, a beautiful morning, not like winter at all. Kitty opened the curtains and I woke to the feeling of sunlight warming my face through the glass. It was a while before I could rouse myself to get out of bed. It felt too good to lie daydreaming between the sheets. But rise I must, and did. Hill brought a jug of warm water and I splashed it everywhere as I washed and then skipped downstairs to a hearty breakfast of toast and ham and eggs and marmalade and two cups of coffee.

  I didn’t apologise to Mr. Collins, and he didn’t propose to Mary before he went. “I’ve been thinking,” I whispered to her while the others ate. “No one but you could be mad enough to want Mr. Collins. He will never marry. Then, when Father dies, you can stay and keep house for him.”

  “You are the one who is mad,” Mary said.

  “But isn’t it the perfect solution?” I insisted, and she almost smiled as she admitted that it was.

  Then Charlotte came. She and Lizzy went out for a walk. I began work on a new project, which is to re-trim every single one of my bonnets. It is slow work, but there will be precious else to do on damp winter days. Once I grew used to being still, I had a lovely afternoon. Today I worked on the little straw poke, which I am re-crowning with a scrap of pale blue satin from an old skirt of Mamma’s. Napoleon snuck into the drawing room and curled up purring beside me, and despite the nice day we lit a fire, and everything was altogether cosy and pleasant and felt like nothing would ever go wrong again. But then Lizzy came back with a face like thunder, and before we could find out why, Charlotte’s father arrived, all friendly and neighbourly on the surface and perfidious snake beneath, to tell us that Mr. Collins is to marry his daughter.

  Charlotte! Maria’s sister! That mousy, boring, plain old maid! Why, she must be nearly thirty! Charlotte Lucas, our friend, one day to be mistress of Longbourn! Stealing our cousin from under our noses when she must know we need him for ourselves! It was incredible. More – it was impossible.

  “We shall all be cousins!” burbled Sir William. I thought that Mary was going to cry.

  “Good Lord!” I exclaimed, to deflect attention from her. “Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?”

  Sir William went very pink and assured me that Mr. Collins was definitely marrying his daughter. Mary pulled herself together and picked up a book.

  When he finally, finally left, I walked down to the stream. Lizzy was already standing on the bridge, throwing pebbles one by one into the water. I gathered some of my own and went to stand beside her.

  For a while we both stood there, not talking. Without saying a word we began to compete, and it was like being children again, seeing who could throw the farthest, as if no time had passed and nothing had changed since those days when we all played together before some of us became grown-up.

  But time has passed and things have changed and we do not talk of the same things now as we did before.

  There is a small ledge low on the wall of the bridge. If I stand on it, I can lean right over and stare straight down at the stream. The winter waters are darker than summer, and faster, too, but there is a deep pool to the side where the water is dammed, near the beach where I tried to swim. I dropped my final stone into it and watched the ripples spread out.

  “I cannot believe,” Lizzy s
aid, hurling her final stone, “that Charlotte will marry that man.”

  “I hope they have really ugly babies.”

  “Lydia!”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t agree.” I hesitated. “Did you know that Mary wanted to marry him? Do you think he would have asked her, if I hadn’t made a fool of him?”

  Lizzy joined me on the ledge and together we stared into the Waire.

  “We both made a fool of him,” she said. “Poor Mary.”

  “She didn’t like him, you know. She just didn’t want to lose Longbourn. And now Charlotte will live here instead.”

  “Well, I can’t say I envy her,” Lizzy said grimly. “Much as I love Longbourn, it seems a heavy price for anyone to pay.”

  “I shall put it all about Meryton that he only asked her because he could not have you,” I grumbled.

  “And what good will that do?”

  “It will stop Sir William the Great giving himself airs.” I grinned.

  “You mustn’t do that, Liddy. It isn’t dignified.”

  It was cold and damp out by the water. We stepped down from the ledge and turned towards home. Lizzy pulled her pelisse closer. She looked so lovely – it seemed quite unfathomable to me that Mr. Collins should have moved on from her so fast to pick Charlotte. We reached the edge of the lower lawn, where everyone says you get the best view of Longbourn – the sweep of grass, the gravel drive, the soft grey house and the coppice of sycamores, the rosemary hedge Grandfather Bennet planted beneath the breakfast-room windows that smells so good in summer.

  “Don’t you regret it just a little?” I asked. “Refusing Mr. Collins?”

  A slow, wicked smile spread across Lizzy’s face.

  “Not for a second,” she replied. “I cannot imagine anything worse than marrying a man I don’t respect.”

  “Or love,” I added.

  “Or love,” she agreed.

  “Especially when he looks like a pig.”

  “Lydia!”

  I slipped my arm through hers. She did not pull away.

  “Do you realise how often you all say that?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Lydia!”

  “That is because you are impossible!” she laughed.

  I would give everything – Wickham, the next ball, my new bonnet – just for the feeling of walking arm in arm across the lawn with Lizzy. I felt taller. More graceful. Prettier.

  Equal.

  Jane saw us from the breakfast-room window and waved as we approached. My heart bubbled over with love for her, too.

  “Mr. Bingley will come back soon, won’t he?” I asked. “And propose to Jane, and marry her, and make her stupendously rich?”

  “Of course he will,” she said lightly. “Who could resist Jane?”

  “And then everything will be all right.”

  She actually squeezed my arm. “As long as we all take care of each other,” she said, and together we stepped into the house.

  Tuesday, 17th December

  What a strange day it has been.

  It began badly, with a letter from Caroline Bingley saying that she and Mr. Bingley have settled in London now, and don’t intend to return to Netherfield this winter. Jane read the letter and wilted. Later Lizzy told us what it said. My mother wailed, Kitty sobbed, and Mary declared that it was only to be expected. Mr. Collins, who is staying with us again and driving us all to distraction, said how very sorry he was for us all and he wished everyone could be as happy as him and Charlotte. We ignored him.

  “But you said Mr. Bingley would come back!” I told Lizzy. “‘Who could resist Jane?’ that is what you said!”

  “Clearly, I was wrong.”

  “But I believed you!”

  “Well, how was I to know!” Lizzy cried. “This is his vile sisters’ doing, I am sure. I dare say we are simply not rich or grand enough for them.”

  My mother wailed even more when she heard that, and hurried to the library to give Father the news. Jane drooped past in her cloak and bonnet. Lizzy marched her out for a walk. Kitty and I sat on the settle, feeling helpless.

  “Is this what rich people do?” Kitty whispered. “Take a house and install servants and footmen and horses and carriages, only to give it all up after a few weeks?”

  “I wish I were a man,” I said. “Instead of a girl, obliged to sit around waiting for no-good suitors to decide if I am fancy enough, or to throw myself at idiot clergymen. If I were a man, I could do something. I could become a soldier.”

  “But then you would have to go to war,” Kitty said. “You would have to fight.”

  In the parlour, Mary started to thump out a funeral march on the pianoforte. Mamma, finding no comfort from Father, staggered towards the kitchen to seek consolation from Hill.

  “I shouldn’t mind fighting one bit,” I said. “I imagine I’d be quite good at killing people.”

  “Well, my husband won’t be like Mr. Collins or Mr. Bingley,” Kitty decided. “My husband shan’t have to rent a house like Netherfield, for he will have a dozen houses of his own. And he shan’t disappear for weeks without a word either. He will be kind, and concerned only with making me happy, and he will adore me.”

  She screeched as Napoleon leaped suddenly on to the bench, a mouse twitching helplessly in his maw.

  “Horrible beast!” she cried. “Make him go away!”

  “Never more this winter!” Mamma lamented from the kitchen. “And we were all so sure that he would marry Jane!”

  The funeral march turned into a dirge. The mouse squeaked helplessly. I ran outside before I started to scream.

  If Bingley won’t have Jane, I told myself, what hope is there for me? I am not half so beautiful, nor kind, nor good. Not even a curate will want me, let alone anyone of consequence, and then when Father dies and Charlotte and Mr. Collins turn me out, I shall have to sleep in ditches, and beg for food from kindly farmers, and probably die before I am twenty.

  That is how I felt this morning when I ran out of the house.

  Jane was on the big lawn, walking arm in arm with Lizzy. I started towards them. I wanted to say something to her – anything. I wanted to hug her, and then for her to tell me that everything would be all right.

  But then I saw someone was riding down the lane. A scarlet coat – it was Wickham!

  My heart turned a somersault.

  He met Jane and Lizzy at the top of the drive. He dismounted and bowed, they curtsied, and then the three of them walked away along the lower path, with the horse following behind. They did not wait for me. Had they not seen me? I broke into a run to catch up with them, then slowed again – how vastly tragic would it be for them to turn and see me galloping across the lawn towards them! Away they walked towards the Waire, with Wickham leading his horse and Lizzy in the middle but slightly closer to him than to Jane. Again, I wondered how she does it . . . She never flirts – quite the opposite. She is always perfectly proper, and never raises her voice, and she never seems to make any special effort with her clothes but always looks so nice, even when she has been for a walk and is all windblown and muddy. She just smiles and says clever things and everyone is smitten.

  I had to hear what they were talking about. They had disappeared behind the thicket that borders the lower path towards the paddock. Nobody knows this except me, but if you are prepared to get a little dirty, you can walk alongside the path through the thicket right to the end without being seen. I only hesitated for a moment. Then, after making sure nobody could see me, I ran lightly along the edge of the lawn and into the cover of the trees. Brambles scratched at my clothes and face. I pushed them away as quietly as I could, ducking and weaving my way through the undergrowth. A twig snapped beneath my shoe. I froze. No one seemed to hear.

  Still hidden, I finally caught up with them as they drew level with the entrance to the paddock, when they were already turning back.

  “A short visit,” Wickham was saying. “I must hurry back, but the company at Longbourn is simply to
o pleasant to keep away.”

  My skirt caught and ripped on a low branch. Again, I froze. The others exchanged a few more pleasantries, then Jane and Lizzy walked back to the house. Wickham stayed behind, claiming he had to check something on his horse’s saddle. I breathed again. They had not heard me.

  “You can come out now, Miss Lydia.”

  My stomach lurched as the trees in the thicket began to rustle. I tried to crawl away. Above me, branches were parted and Wickham’s head appeared.

  “Miss Lydia,” he said. “Oh, Miss Lydia.”

  He held the branches back for me. Blushing furiously, I crept out, ducking farther under his arm before stumbling on to the path, where I made sure to stand sideways from him so he would not see the rip in my skirt.

  “You have mud on your face,” he observed.

  I rubbed my scarlet cheeks.

  “And twigs in your hair.”

  I tried to smooth it. My bonnet was halfway down my back, hanging from twisted ribbons. Wickham said I was only making things worse.

  “How did you know I was there?” I sulked.

  “I’m a soldier. I am trained to detect spies.”

  “You’ve been a soldier for about six weeks,” I objected.

  “Well, you are not a very good spy.” He laughed.

  We walked together to the beginning of the path where it joins the drive, with the horse snorting behind us and occasionally nudging us to go faster. I wanted to smile and be clever like Lizzy, but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. We went on to the main gates, where Wickham prepared to remount. I looked up the drive, to where Jane and Lizzy sat with their backs to us on the stone seat facing the house. Suddenly, I could bear it no longer.

  “Do you like Lizzy very much?” I asked.

  Wickham did not look offended, or even surprised by my question.

  “She is very beautiful and agreeable,” he said.

  “And I just make you laugh,” I said sourly.

  Mary is right – I open my mouth without thinking, and words fly out. I blushed the hottest red I have ever felt, and stared at my feet, but when I looked up he was smiling – a teasing grin.