Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Had Elizabeth realised Lydia and Mr Wickham were approaching from behind, she would have pulled Mr Darcy over to the punch table. It was not until the lieutenant’s ingratiatingly smooth voice sounded over her shoulder that she understood the awkward situation they were in.
“You look quite the tulip this evening, Darcy. You deigned to think the rabble worthy of the view through your quizzing glass?”
Hiding her disgust under a polite smile, Elizabeth said, “If you refer to my family and neighbours, gathered here in my home to celebrate my sister’s engagement to Mr Bingley, as rabble, then I wonder at your presence amongst us, Mr Wickham.”
“Oh, Miss Elizabeth, I merely jest. My old friend here is not known to mix with locals, and to see him with his father’s treasured quizzing glass outside of London society is quite perplexing.”
Had she not learnt proper manners, Elizabeth might have kicked the man. It was fortunate Mr Darcy, his expression stone-like, knew how to disabuse his nemesis of his unwarranted befuddlement.
“I have brought the glass to Meryton for a purpose, as I am told the finest ribbons in the country can be found at Bracknell’s, which is the favourite milliner of the Bennet ladies.
” He glanced at Lydia, who stared at him wide-eyed as she nodded.
“Now, tell me, George. Being that Bracknell’s sells bonnets and gloves to ladies, it would not be one of the many establishments where a man might incur debt, would it? ”
Mr Wickham’s expression shifted quickly from a pretence of pleasant fulsomeness to one of fury. “You cannot desist from hounding those like myself who deserve so much more.”
Mr Darcy scoffed, replying, “Those who apply themselves to their studies and work hard are the deserving ones.”
“Those not born to it must make our way as we can,” said Mr Wickham, who promptly leant over to Lydia, said something quietly in her ear, turned on his heel, and strolled away.
For a moment, confusion clouded the girl’s expression, but soon she wore a more familiar smirk.
Elizabeth knew her youngest sister remained unconvinced of the man’s duplicity, and drew her closer to say quietly but urgently, “Lydia, you must stay away from Mr Wickham. While he is all charm and ease in society, truth and honour are less—”
“Stop it, Lizzy, you sound like Mr Collins,” Lydia said, laughing.
“Mr Wickham says Mr Darcy lacks charm and honour. Shall I order you to keep out of his company?” She turned from Elizabeth and looked up smugly at the gentleman she stupidly impugned.
“What say you, Mr Darcy? Will you do me the honour you did my sister and trust me to peer through your quizzing glass?”
Panic surged through Elizabeth as she realised Lydia must have seen her and Mr Darcy together by the stream. She looked up to find Mr Darcy looking at her, alarm in his countenance, and lifting his hand protectively to the pocket of his waistcoat.
“No,” he began, turning his attention back to Lydia—but he was too late to keep the impetuous girl from reaching for the handle of the quizzing glass, pulling it from his pocket, and dashing away.
Gasping, and without even a glance at Mr Darcy, who she knew must be horrified, Elizabeth gave chase, moving swiftly but sedately through the crowded drawing room, following the trail of Lydia’s foolish laughter.
Desperate not to raise attention, she hissed her sister’s name as she moved around her neighbours.
Mr Darcy followed; his height would gain him a better view of Lydia’s whereabouts, but she knew—they both knew, unfortunately—whom she wished to impress by her mischief: Mr Wickham.
A moment later, Elizabeth spotted Lydia in the corridor with two young officers. She moved towards her with no little urgency, pleading, “Lyddie, give it to me, please.”
Lydia smirked, stuck out her tongue, and put the quizzing glass to her eye.
Elizabeth could see the abrupt change in her sister’s bearing as she stared out at their neighbours.
White-faced and breathing heavily, she lowered the glass and rubbed her eyes, before again looking through it—and shrieking.
Those in the corridor quieted; a few heads peeked curiously out of the drawing room.
Thank goodness most of their neighbours were familiar with the noise and fury of the youngest Bennets and overlooked Lydia’s hysterics.
Elizabeth was aware that Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley were now standing near, and together, they shielded her sister from view.
“Off with you now,” Mr Darcy snapped at the two redcoats.
As they scurried away, Elizabeth whispered, “Lydia, give it to me.”
“No,” she said, staring at Elizabeth through the glass. “You are aglow, Lizzy, radiant. Everything looks different, strange, through it. It must be enchanted.”
Mr Bingley chuckled nervously. She could feel Mr Darcy’s anxiety, but he remained silent, his expression careful.
“No, Lydia. You are too full of punch to convince me of that.” Elizabeth reached for the handle, closing her hand around it and gently tugging it from her stunned sister’s grasp.
“Lizzy, you have looked through it, you know it is magic!”
“It is nothing of the kind, Miss Lydia.”
Mr Darcy’s firm but mild denial provoked the white-faced girl to anger. “Perhaps it is witchcraft, then! Wickham said you cast a spell on Jane with it to make her ill. Who else?” Lydia’s eyes grew wide. “Did you cause Peter Lucas’s pony to go lame?”
“What? Of course not.” Mr Darcy, clearly stunned, gave Elizabeth a desperate look.
“I shall take care of it,” Elizabeth said quietly, slipping the glass into his hands. He tucked it deep into his pocket.
“No, Lizzy! Do not return it to him!” Lydia stomped her foot. “Look through it! You will see it is enchanted!”
“I shall do no such thing, you foolish girl.” Elizabeth continued speaking in a low voice, taking Lydia’s arm and gently steering her towards Longbourn’s front entry.
Mr Darcy opened the door, and the four of them stepped outside.
It was cold in the night air, but they would be safe from witnesses to their conversation.
“I tell you, it is magic. Perhaps witchcraft!” insisted Lydia.
“Mr Darcy appears golden and you are a shimmering silver, and I must look at myself with it in the mirror and see how astonishing I might appear! It was so incredible, which makes it far more valuable than merely its jewels! Mr Wickham says I am to have the ruby—Oh!” Lydia blinked and shook her head.
“Lizzy, give it back to me. I must take it to Mr Wickham. It belongs to him. Mr Darcy’s father left it to him. ”
“That is a lie. George Wickham was given everything he was due, and this glass was not included with the one thousand pounds and a living he was bequeathed. Was it he who asked you to take it from me, Miss Lydia?” said Mr Darcy, in a far gentler voice than she deserved but which provoked a quiet ‘yes’ from her.
“There is no magic or charm in a piece of glass,” he continued, “only help for one’s eye—one particular person’s eye—to see more keenly. Do you understand?”
“But—”
“Lydia, take a deep breath,” Elizabeth said clasping her sister’s hands firmly. “You have taken liberal enjoyment in Mama’s punch, and the cool air will clear your head.”
The girl looked at her, confused, and shivered.
Slipping her arm round her, Elizabeth urged Lydia back into Longbourn’s warmth.
Mr Darcy followed, and with Mr Bingley, stepped towards the parlour, evidently intent on dealing with Mr Wickham and his schemes.
Elizabeth offered her sister both a warning and explanation as she led her in the other direction, towards their mother’s back parlour.
“You should not peer through another’s spectacles or quizzing glass,” she said as she steered Lydia into the thankfully unoccupied room.
“A lens has been shaped and polished in such a way as to be meant only for the owner’s eye, to improve it, and looking through it could harm your own eyesight.
It seems Mr Darcy’s quizzing glass provides him an acuity and discernment in his vision that has overwhelmed yours, made worse by the three or four glasses of punch you have enjoyed. ”
“But it all looked so vivid, so much better and interesting. Mr Darcy was so very bright—”
Whatever Lydia might have said to add to her earlier description of Mr Darcy as ‘golden’ was forgotten as Mrs Bennet, followed by Mary, entered the room.
From her flashing eyes and half-wild expression, it was evident to Elizabeth her mother was a dangerous combination of indignance and exuberance—and half in her cups.
“What is happening here, Lizzy? Lady Lucas says you and Mr Darcy marched poor Lydia through the entire house.”
“Mama, Lydia was persuaded by Mr Wickham to behave poorly. We have been discussing her error in taking a gentleman’s possessions and overindulging in punch.”
“Behave poorly?” cried Mrs Bennet. “It is a celebration for her sister and Mr Bingley. My dear Lydia is enjoying herself!”
In fact, her dear Lydia appeared rather green around the gills. “It was only a joke, Mama. I wanted to look through Mr Darcy’s quizzing glass.”
“Mr Darcy is the cause of this?” Mrs Bennet tucked an arm round her youngest daughter. “Come, Lydia. I know he is Mr Bingley’s particular friend, but he must apologise to you.”
“He will do no such thing,” Elizabeth said sharply. “Mr Darcy did not ask Lydia for an apology but instead was kind to her. Tell her, Lydia, that it was Mr Wickham who urged you to act as you did.”
Scowling, Lydia nodded.
Mary tutted. “You should bear in mind the Lord’s eighth commandment. Taking another’s possession without permission is against the word of God.”
Her assertion of the obvious received no acknowledgment, for she recited it almost weekly at Longbourn when a quarrel over missing ribbons and surreptitiously borrowed gowns broke out between sisters. Elizabeth gave her a brief smile before saying the words that would truly horrify her mother.
“Mama, just before you found us, I was cautioning Lydia that looking through a glass lens made for someone else’s weak eye could damage her eyesight.”
Mrs Bennet shrieked for Mrs Hill as she tugged Lydia away, leading her up the stairs for a cool washcloth as she blathered on about her youngest’s beautiful blue eyes and how awful they would look if she went blind.
Mary shook her head. “I do not understand. When Lydia looks through my spectacles, it merely gives her a headache.”
Elizabeth, eager to find Mr Darcy—if dreading the mortification of apologising for her family—only laughed. “I think she will never do so again, Mary.”