Lydia Page 6

  Surely friends do not leave without saying goodbye?

  The officers left early, when it began to snow again. Hill, who claims to know about these things, says that January will be bitter, and she wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed for days. It can’t – it mustn’t! We have been snowed in at Longbourn before, when I was twelve. I remember the desolation of it, even at that age – the weeks of boredom after the first excitement, seeing no one, eating only potatoes and jam. We were fit to kill each other by the end.

  Which would be worse: marrying Mr. Collins, or being stuck in a house with your sisters? Charlotte’s wedding is on Thursday. Mamma says if we have to, we will walk through the snow to attend it, just to show that we don’t care.

  God! I already want to kill everybody now.

  Thursday, 6th February

  It did not snow for days, it snowed for weeks. I don’t even want to think about it. We managed to avoid murdering each other, but it was a close thing on my part at times. Mary’s music! Mamma’s nerves! No visitors apart from the Lucases, who unlike us have a sleigh. No letters – no news of Wickham. Thank heavens for Kitty and Napoleon.

  Anyway, it is all over at last. The air is warmer, we have had TWO WHOLE DAYS of sunshine, and the snow is finally melting. Soon the ground will be dry enough for riding again. Visitors will come to Longbourn, and Wickham and I can finally have our Christmas gallop. Though we have not heard from him for over a month, Sir Lucas (who has gone by sleigh to Meryton) assures us that he is still there, and I cannot wait to remind him of his promise. The lanes are still icy and treacherous and black with mud, but none of us cares a fig. There are new books at the library, Mary says, that she is desperate to read. There is fresh gossip to be had from Harriet Forster that Kitty is longing to hear. There is a fur tippet in Savill’s I have had my eye on since before Christmas, which now, thanks to the money my aunt and uncle Gardiner have given me, I can finally afford.

  Tomorrow, come rain or shine, we walk to Meryton.

  Friday, 7th February

  I was so happy this morning.

  The weather couldn’t have been better for our excursion. The sun shone brightly, and it was just possible, by skipping from side to side of the lane, to avoid the worst of the mud. Even Mary forsook her studies, donned her sturdiest boots, and set out with us to Meryton. I started to sing and for once nobody stopped me. Lizzy, Kitty and Mary even joined in the chorus.

  We will rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,

  We’ll rant and we’ll roar all on the salt sea.

  Until we strike soundings in the channel of old England;

  From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.

  That is how jolly we were on our walk – even my sisters were singing a sailor’s song. The breeze came up but the sun stayed out. We were still laughing as we entered Meryton, cheeks flushed, skirts and hair swept by the wind. Kitty dared me to sing another verse as we walked down the street, but Lizzy forbade it.

  Mary went straight to the library. Lizzy and Kitty and I spilled into Savill’s.

  “It’s still here!” I cried, rushing to the glass case where the tippet lay in all its glorious, honey-furred splendour. “And I have just enough money!”

  And then we saw him.

  Wickham, standing with his back to us at the end of the counter, every bit as dashing as ever with a dark cloak thrown over his red coat.

  “Wickham!” I cried. “We are here at last!” He did not turn. As I started towards him, I glanced at what he was holding.

  “Good God!” I said to my sisters.

  Lizzy followed the direction of my gaze.

  “Goodness,” she said.

  It was a hatbox. Huge, pink and black, with matching ribbons.

  “Wickham?” I called.

  At last, he turned. For the ghost of a moment, he held my eye, but he immediately turned away. Something caught in my throat – what could be the meaning of this?

  A girl was standing at the other end of the counter. Scrawny, red-haired and freckled, about the size of a shrimp, accompanied by an older lady. She called him to her.

  “It is Mary King,” Kitty murmured. “And her companion, Mrs. Roberts.”

  “Wickham!” I repeated, louder this time. I waved, sending a pile of glove boxes crashing to the floor. Everyone turned to stare. Mr. Savill huffed. I scrambled about the floor, attempting to pick up the gloves. Wickham could not ignore that . . . Excusing himself for a moment, he stepped towards us, still carrying his ludicrous box.

  He bowed. “Miss Elizabeth, Miss Kitty, Miss Lydia.”

  “The snow’s melted!” I informed him, hot with embarrassment as Lizzy pulled me up. “When shall we have our Christmas gallop?”

  “Lydia!” Lizzy nudged me.

  “What? He promised!”

  “Hush,” she said, with a meaningful nod as Miss King and Mrs. Roberts were approaching.

  Kitty and I exchanged astonished glances. More curtsies, and then Mrs. Roberts enquired, how long had we been snow-bound at Longbourn, and how did we manage, so isolated out there? Lizzy said we tolerated it as best we could. And in summer, so close to the water – the gnats! Lizzy said we tolerated those, too. And then the Shrimp sighed and said please could they go, for there was nothing in Savill’s to her liking, and the shop door gave a great tinkle as they all left.

  I understood then, about the hatbox.

  He was carrying her shopping!

  It was my aunt Philips who told us about Miss King’s ten thousand pounds. “She had it from her grandfather,” she told us when we called on her. “And Wickham, who as you know is without a penny, has been like a bee to a honeypot ever since. Oh, my dears! I wanted to come to Longbourn to tell you, but the snow! It has been all the talk of the town. A most imprudent match for her, but then he is so very handsome!”

  Lizzy said, “Thank you, Aunt, we had better be off.”

  Kitty cried most of the way home.

  “Nobody will marry us,” she wailed between sobs. “We will all grow to be old maids like Mary, and our only companions will be cats.”

  “There is nothing wrong with cats, unless they are like Napoleon,” Mary observed. “And what does Wickham pursuing Miss King have to do with us?”

  “We all thought he liked Lizzy!”

  “Yes, but not really,” Lizzy said calmly.

  “Don’t you mind?” I cried.

  “I only mind if people think I care. Oh, stop looking at me like that! Wickham is very handsome and agreeable, but he is not the sort you marry! He is for . . . amusing conversations, and making you feel pretty. It is very different altogether. People can’t marry where there is no money – it is not sensible. I know it makes you wild, Lydia, but it is just the way of the world. You must have known it could not last for ever.”

  “But he betrayed us!” I told her. “Didn’t you see, in Savill’s? He cut us. All those times he came to Longbourn, all that talking and dancing, yet he barely spoke to us. Are we not good enough for him now?”

  Lizzy is right. In my heart, I always did know it could not last for ever – that Wickham could not keep coming to our house, that with no money on either side he could not marry Lizzy. But where did that leave me?

  What of friendship, I would like to know?

  I don’t know how Lizzy can be so calm. We were just coming to the bridge. I picked up the largest stone I could find, and hurled it into the water.

  Monday, 10th February

  I burned my candle late into the night going over this diary, and the memory of what I read still mortifies me.

  I thought he was my friend, but he is no different from the rest. He is no different from Mr. Bingley, who thinks we are not rich enough, or Mr. Darcy, wincing at Mamma at Netherfield, curling his lip when I asked about the ball. Wickham is embarrassed to be seen with us – he thinks we are not good enough.

  It’s early, but I am already awake, and I am in a rage. I hate Miss King and her stupid ten thousand pounds! Why coul
d I not have ten thousand pounds? I’m sure I deserve them infinitely more than she does. If I had ten thousand pounds I would go straight out and buy a house with no entailment for stupid male cousins, with my own horses to ride and a fine carriage so I never had to walk through muddy lanes to Meryton again, and everyone would think I was marvellous because I would let my sisters live there, too, while I went about the world having adventures that people would write about in the papers. What will Miss King do, but marry Wickham and gawp at him and buy more and more hats?

  “I think that you and I could be great friends,” he said.

  Fool, fool, FOOL! We were never friends.

  I am going to burn this diary. It is too mortifying. What if years from now somebody reads it, when I am old or dead or languishing in the poorhouse? How they will jeer at me! Or worse . . . what if they read it NOW? My sisters! While I am still alive! Here, living under the same roof, quite close enough to hear their sides split as they roar with laughter because I was stupid enough to believe that Wickham liked me.

  I did not know it was possible to feel so disappointed in a person.

  But if Wickham thinks I am going to lie mooning about just because he is trotting around town carrying a freckled heiress’s hatboxes, then he doesn’t know Lydia Bennet.

  Thursday, 30th April

  Well, I did not burn the diary – I just shoved it out of sight beneath my mattress and forgot all about it. Hill found it this morning when she decided to turn all the mattresses for airing, and I suppose I may as well write as not.

  Life carries on much as it did before Wickham abandoned us for Miss King. Thank goodness the other officers are not so fickle. We walk into town, we visit Savill’s or the library (which has become quite the meeting place since they have taken to serving tea there). Meryton is very elegant these days, and I am glad for all my re-trimmed bonnets. I have embarked on a new exercise for spring, the Revival of Ancient Cloaks. I have found an old one of Mamma’s, parrot green. She was going to give it to the poor, but I rescued it from the basket. I have cut it down to a short and swishy cape, added an ivory satin collar, and am trimming it all round with ribbon of the same colour. It will be quite the smartest thing you ever saw when it is finished, and I cannot wait to show it off. At the library, we drink tea and chat (Mary says flirt) with whomever is about. There is always someone, and it is all tremendously gay. I have bought a coral bracelet, which will look very well with the green cape. I wanted the necklace, but did not have enough. Then when the library closes, we step across the street to Aunt Philips’s, or we call on Mrs. Forster. I am great friends with her now. It makes Kitty cross, because she says she was Harriet’s friend first, but she is always ready for a party or a dance or a game of cards. And then there is dinner, and cards, or we push the furniture back for dancing, and we eat and drink some more. We return late in Uncle’s carriage, or sometimes we even stop at his house for the night, and don’t come home at all. It is all very merry and jolly, and all the more so since Lizzy left. She went into Kent last month to visit Charlotte-the-Husband-Stealer-Collins and the Pig-Faced Clergyman. I am glad she is gone – she only nagged when she was here. “Must you go out again, Lydia?” – “Can you not talk of anything other than uniforms?” – “Mamma, you must tell Lydia to be sensible!” I love Lizzy, I really do, but ever since Wickham deserted us, she is become boringly grown-up.

  Of Wickham himself, there is little sign. Miss King the Great Heiress does not attend parties with officers, or dance or drink wine or play cards. Miss King visits a close circle of family friends where doubtless she executes impeccable concertos on the pianoforte, and warbles a few polite songs chosen for her by Mrs. Roberts before retiring early to bed. Wickham, I am told, trots about her like a well-trained lapdog, panting for his ten-thousand-pound reward. When our paths do happen to cross, in the library, in a shop, in the street, I am careful to show him how little I care about his defection. I laugh – God, how I laugh! The first time it happened, I was walking with Carter, who nearly jumped out of his skin with the honk I made! Lord knows what he thought of me, but I don’t really care. He laughed back, that was the main thing, and I am sure that Wickham noticed.

  I am the most carefree girl in England.

  Sunday, 10th May

  It is all changed again.

  Firstly, Miss King is gone to Liverpool, to stay with her uncle! Aunt Philips says she was seen walking alone along the Waire with Wickham, close to the soldiers’ camp. Mrs. Roberts wrote to the uncle to ask what she should do, and he wrote back to say she was to go North immediately. And quite right, too, says Aunt, forgetting how much she enjoyed gossiping about them before. “A young lady like her, carrying on so with the likes of Wickham!” I did feel a little sorry for Miss King when she told us. Banishment to Liverpool seems a very big reaction to a walk along the river, and why does no one talk of punishing Wickham?

  “How long will she be away?” Kitty asked.

  “Oh, indefinitely!” Aunt replied. “For there are prospects for her up there. Good prospects, with the son of her uncle’s business partner.”

  “How does Wickham bear it?” Kitty is so gullible. I think she honestly believes Wickham was fond of Miss King.

  “Poorly, I should think,” Aunt replied. “For there are few prospects left for him here.”

  He joined us this evening – strolled into Harriet Forster’s drawing room for the first time in months, as tranquil, jolly and handsome as ever. “Miss Lydia,” he said with a smile. “I believe I owe you a ride in the country.”

  “Mr. Wickham,” I replied coldly. “I am sorry to hear your financial interests have gone north.”

  “Lydia?” He looked at me closely. “Are you angry with me?”

  “As if I cared enough to be angry!”

  “I have upset you,” he said gravely.

  “No! Yes . . .” I gave up. “Wickham, you dropped us! For Miss King. Lizzy says you pursued her because she is rich, and that it is the way of the world, but we were friends.”

  “I am sorry.”

  I looked up at him. He stood with his head bowed and hands clasped, and did appear truly contrite. “I had . . . I did not . . . Lydia, would it help to know that it was Miss King who pursued me?”

  “Surely you do not expect me to believe that?” I cried. “Why would she do that?”

  “Am I not pleasing enough?” Wickham looked offended.

  Yes, I do despise myself. Yes, I do still feel sorry for Miss King, and yes, I wish I were not so easily bought. But oh, I do so want that gallop! I did try to remain aloof as we sat down to play, but I caught his eye as he dealt, then looked at my cards – once again, his magic had given me a winning hand. And then there was dancing, and a jolly reel with him about the room, and I had forgotten how much I like to dance with him.

  How we laughed tonight! Harriet devised the idea of dressing one of the officers in women’s clothes, and sent me to my aunt’s to fetch a gown to fit him. I ran all the way there, nearly knocking over Aunt’s friend Mrs. Perry as I went. “One of those wild Bennet girls,” I heard her tell her companion as I ran on. Harriet says Wickham is a scoundrel, but what has he done, really? Miss King is rich and ugly, and he is handsome and poor. It is just the way of the world, as Lizzy would say. I wonder what she will think when she hears the news. Even if Wickham is “not the sort you marry”, she must be pleased. I am going to write to tell her – no, it is only a week until she returns. I am going to wait, and tell her to her face. How happy it will make her, and what a jolly spring and summer we shall have now that we are all friends again!

  That is what I was thinking as I scribbled away happily in bed. Then I became aware of Kitty sniffling beside me, and put down my pencil to ask what was the matter.

  “They’re leaving!” Kitty sobbed. “The whole regiment! Harriet told me tonight. They are leaving by the end of the month for their summer quarters in Brighton! Harriet says they may never return.”

  Leaving? The whole regiment?<
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  “Surely you are mistaken,” I said. “Surely Wickham . . . one of them would have said something. Why did no one say anything?”

  “Only the colonel and Harriet know. He received the orders today, and is to tell the men tomorrow. I asked Harriet if I could go with her, and she said she would speak to the colonel.” Kitty was coughing now, the way she always does after crying. “But what if he says no?”

  Kitty, go to Brighton, and not me? I could not let that happen!

  “Maria’s cousin went to Brighton last year,” she sniffed. “Do you remember?”

  “We should all go!” I said. “We should tell Father we want to go for the summer. We’ll say it’s for your cough. Seawater is the best thing for coughs – everyone knows that. Mamma will back us up.”

  “But will Father agree?”

  “He’ll have to.” I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. “Just think, Kitty. Us, in Brighton! Sea-bathing, and walking along the beach.”

  “Maria’s cousin said . . . the dearest little shops . . .” Kitty was beginning to drift into sleep, still coughing gently. “And monstrous smart assemblies . . .”

  I will catch Mamma as she is dressing in the morning, and make her speak to Father straight after breakfast. He is always most amiable when he has eaten. Brighton! I shan’t tell Wick-ham we are going. What a surprise that will be! We shall have a chance meeting, on a cliff, or perhaps a beach, or at a ball . . . Yes, a ball, so that we can dance. We shall have a chance meeting, and he will say, “Why, Miss Lydia, how well the sea air becomes you,” and perhaps we will go for that ride at last. We will gallop along the beach!

  How wonderful life is. Kitty’s coughs have turned to snores. I am going to sleep now, too.

  Sunday, 17th May

  Father said no, of course, despite Mamma pressing and me begging and Kitty coughing a great deal. He said, why should he go to such vast expense to entertain us, when all he wants is to stay at home? If we want to bathe, there is always the Waire.