Chapter 24
“Ah, Mr Darcy,” sounded Colonel Forster’s voice, its tone both amiable and commanding in a way that reminded Darcy of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Good to find you here again. My wife rises later, and I often eat breakfast alone before I join the troops.”
Darcy folded and laid down the newspaper he had been reading on the table and smiled politely at his host. This would be their third day in the Forsters’ rented house in Brighton.
“My sister is still in bed too,” Darcy remarked pleasantly. “I have been enjoying your excellent tea.”
“And Miss Elizabeth Bennet?” enquired the colonel keenly, looking around the room as though expecting her to spring out from behind a bookcase or curtain.
“Miss Bennet has gone early to try and speak to her sister before the next rehearsal begins at the theatre,” Darcy explained. “I would have accompanied her, but she believes she has more chance of gaining Miss Lydia’s confidence alone.”
“It is a bad business, Mr Darcy, a bad business,” commented Colonel Forster, breaking the top of his egg with a spoon and shaking his head.
“Terrible for the Bennet family, especially the older girls. My wife and I would never have brought Lydia Bennet to Brighton if we had suspected it could end like this.”
Darcy nodded, breaking a piece of bread roll.
“It is not over yet,” he said. “Lydia Bennet’s name is not presently on any of the theatre’s publicity material, and there is still the chance of bringing her home from here without this story getting out publicly.”
“Only for a little while,” responded the colonel dubiously. “The opening night of that accursed show is just over a week away. After that, there will be no going back or covering up possible, Mr Darcy.”
“There will not,” Darcy agreed. “But we are not at that point yet. I understand Elizabeth’s youngest sister to be a girl of fickle interests and passions. Even if persuasion fails on every front, I retain the hope that she might simply grow bored.”
He realised that he had once again referred to his sister’s companion by only her Christian name and hoped that his host had not noticed. If he had, he was too polite to venture any remark.
“Lydia Bennet will not grow bored before the opening night, I wager, and after that it will be too late. The oldest Bennet sister is engaged to your friend Bingley, is she not? I only hope that the recklessness of the youngest sister will not wreck the happiness of the eldest.”
“I should not think it will,” answered Darcy. “Charles Bingley is a man of the greatest loyalty. This crisis has made him more devoted rather than less.”
“Well, at least there is that consolation for their parents,” said Colonel Forster. “But the prospects of the other Bennet daughters…”
This was a subject that weighed too heavily on Darcy’s own mind at the moment, having his own very personal views on the prospects of one daughter, but feeling unable to share these, even with her.
He was glad when the door handle turned and Elizabeth Bennet herself came into the room, a little subdued in her usual manner, but as pleasing a sight to him as ever.
She greeted them both politely before she took her seat and bade them sit down again.
“I tried to call again at Mrs Brown’s boarding house, but Lydia claimed still to be too busy learning her lines with her new friends,” Elizabeth reported before either man could question her.
“I must write home again today and report my lack of success in bringing Lydia to see the error of her ways.”
“Do not be too hard on yourself, Miss Bennet,” responded Colonel Forster sympathetically.
“We have all tried and failed. While your father was here, we even brought the young officers with us to the Hyperion, in the hope of luring her home with red coats. Denny and Wickham might have been invisible for all the interest she showed.”
Darcy tensed at the mention of George Wickham but held back, seeing a similar flaring of resentment in Elizabeth’s eyes.
“I fear the theatre has replaced the militia in Lydia’s heart,” Elizabeth told them. “If Lieutenant Wickham now finds himself ignored by my sister, it is only his just deserts for his wrongness in introducing her in such an environment.”
“I will not defend that young man,” said Colonel Forster.
“Frankly, if I had known him then as I know him now, he would have received no commission in my regiment. And I should hope that if Lieutenant Denny had known him better, he would never have vouched for him in the first place. You would not credit the trouble George Wickham has caused us in both Meryton and Brighton.”
“I certainly would,” Darcy could not stop himself from saying now, his voice deeper and angrier than he intended. “There is nothing you could tell me that would surprise me, Colonel Forster.”
“Mr Wickham was the son of the old steward at Pemberley,” Elizabeth explained. “He and Mr Darcy grew up together in Derbyshire, but Mr Wickham has repaid the Darcy family very ill indeed for all the kindnesses they showed him.”
“Yes, a most disappointing young man,” tutted the colonel. “I cannot imagine he will remain with our regiment very long. But let us not dwell on George Wickham. Is there anything more we can do today to retrieve your sister, Miss Bennet? Or any further messages for me from your father?”
“No,” Elizabeth returned. “The only letter this morning has been from my mother. It contained nothing that could be useful to us.”
“Mrs Bennet wrote regularly while Mr Bennet was here,” her host remarked. “She usually demanded that we get a warrant from the magistrates and have our officers take Lydia home from the Hyperion by force, but your father would not have it.”
“Yes, my mother is still of that opinion,” Elizabeth admitted with some frustration.
“I have advised her that physical force would be counter-productive in this case. Lydia would only run away again, and next time we might not be able to find her. Then, too, there is the scandal such a scene would inevitably cause. I still have to hope that she will leave voluntarily.”
“You will try to call on her again tomorrow?” Darcy inquired.
“Yes, and the next day, and the next,” Elizabeth confirmed wearily. “What else can be done?”
“With your permission, I would like to call on Mr Michelson,” Darcy proposed, and she considered this philosophically.
“Ah, the theatre owner,” Colonel Forster commented. “He seems a good, solid sort of man, for someone in that profession. No doubt he would be happy to wash his hands of her if he could.”
“You are very welcome to try speaking to Mr Michelson, but I do not have the feeling that anyone at the Hyperion has as much influence on Lydia as she has on them,” replied Elizabeth. “That includes Mr Michelson.”
“I have an idea of something he might still be able to do,” Darcy told her, “even if he cannot persuade your sister to leave the Hyperion. There is something small that might protect her from the ton’s notice for a little longer yet.
I shall not get your hopes up, Miss Bennet, but it is worth trying. ”
“What’s the idea, Mr Darcy?” Colonel Forster asked him later in the hallway, after Elizabeth had departed upstairs to write her letters. “I could tell that you did not wish to speak it in front of Miss Bennet, but is there any way I could help?”
“If Lydia Bennet goes on stage, it need not be as Lydia Bennet,” Darcy said quietly. “Many actors and actresses use a stage name, I believe. If we cannot prevent Lydia from appearing in My Favourite Girl, perhaps we can at least have her do so under another name, one of her own choosing.”
The colonel nodded thoughtfully
“Yes, that might work as a temporary measure. Miss Lydia certainly does have a taste for the dramatic, and she might well jump at the idea of changing her name. Well, good luck with it, Mr Darcy. I must go and meet with my officers, and then we have a court martial.”
∞∞∞
Four more days passed, and the opening night of My Favourite Girl approached rapidly. Aside from the briefest of conversations, Lydia Bennet continued to avoid her older sister’s calls.
To Darcy’s frustration, after first agreeing to Darcy’s requested meeting and then taking receipt of a letter which explained the idea of changing Lydia’s name, Mr Michelson then cancelled, pleading pressure of work.
Nor was he present in his office at the theatre on any occasion when Darcy called there.
The box office staff was happy to show him an empty room each time, as like as not prearranged by Michelson.
Darcy having fruitlessly called at the Hyperion first thing that morning, while Elizabeth attempted yet again to seek out her sister at Mrs Brown’s boarding house, they both returned to the Forsters’ home downcast. Mrs Forster brought them into the drawing room where she was sitting with Georgiana, knitting as the younger woman played quiet music on the pianoforte.
“I fear that I have failed entirely,” Elizabeth confided in Mrs Forster as she joined her on the sofa. “This morning Lydia was already gone from her lodgings when I arrived, and the other girls could not tell me where she was. She is avoiding me until after the opening night, I believe.”
“Michelson is avoiding me too,” observed Darcy, standing by the mantelpiece near the two ladies.
“I thought he was the kind that would at least be straight with me, as he was when we first met him in the theatre. I think you are right, Miss Bennet, that they both wish to keep us at a distance until the show has opened.”
At the pianoforte, Georgiana’s music gradually faded away and came to a standstill as she listened to them talking.
“Only three more days,” said Elizabeth unhappily, “and then…”
She fell silent without completing her sentence as the sound of the door knocker reached their ears.
“Who could that be?” Mrs Forster wondered, getting to her feet.
“I am not expecting any guests, and it would be most inconvenient if it is someone who expects small talk or gossip. No one has yet asked me directly why Lydia is no longer in the house, but some of the officers’ wives are nosy creatures. It is only a matter of time.”
Darcy heard the sound of voices, a man’s and a woman’s, and then footsteps approaching across the hallway. Elizabeth rose from the sofa, ready to greet the visitors, and Georgiana came from the pianoforte to stand beside him, always a little shy with strangers.
All four of them were stunned, however, to see the couple who were shown into the room.
Lydia Bennet stood there before them in a lavish dress of puce silk with a fine feathered hat, on the arm of Mr Michelson, proprietor of the Hyperion Theatre, who looked also to be dressed in his finest.
Mrs Forster regarded her former friend with cold anger, unable to say even a polite word of greeting.
“Do excuse me,” she said icily to Mr Michelson, and then turned to Georgiana. “Miss Darcy, will you join me in the small parlour? I believe that there must be a private conversation, to which neither of us should be a party.”
Darcy nodded his agreement and patted Georgiana on the shoulder, indicating that she should do as Mrs Forster suggested. A few moments later, the door closed, and the four of them were alone in the room.
“Well then, since you have both been so keen to find us, we decided it was best that we came here together and killed two birds with one stone,” said Mr Michelson as cheerfully as he could manage, although Darcy detected a nervousness in him that had not been evident in their first meeting.
“Does this mean that you have finally seen sense, Miss Lydia?” Darcy addressed the girl sternly.
But his reproof elicited only a merry laugh, as though he had just made the best joke in the world. “Miss Lydia indeed!” she chortled. “How silly that will sound in a few moments.”
“Lydia,” sighed Elizabeth with great frustration. “Please behave yourself. You are a guest in someone else’s home, the home of a lady whose trust you betrayed —”
“Yes, yes, I have heard all that before, Lizzy,” Lydia brushed her sister off impatiently.
“You did make some good points on the day you first came to the theatre, certainly better than all Mother’s weeping, wailing, and threatening, I can tell you.
Anyway, you no longer need to worry for me at all. Everything is taken care of.”
Unable to believe what he was hearing, Darcy immediately suspected some trick or evasion.
“You will be leaving with us?” Elizabeth asked incredulously, causing Lydia to laugh so hard that she had to lean on Mr Michelson for support, holding him in a manner that was far too familiar for Darcy’s liking.
“That would be impossible, I am afraid, Lizzy,” Lydia pronounced once she had recovered sufficiently. “After all, I cannot leave my husband!”