Chapter 28
Despite every inclination and all of her best efforts, Elizabeth fell asleep, the emotional swings of the evening depleting even her ample energies.
Her sleep was deep and dreamless until the moment she heard the click of the door latch.
She woke, lifting her head as Lydia entered her bedchamber with a stomp of her shoes and the swish of whoever’s trousers she had appropriated for her ruse, and tossed herself onto Elizabeth’s bed.
“Lydia!” She scrambled upright. “You are here! Are you well? What time is it?” She reached for the lamp on her bedside table, the wick sputtering to life and casting dancing shadows on the whitewashed walls.
She turned back, running her eyes and hands over Lydia to check she was in one piece.
“Please tell me you were able to leave the party with no one the wiser?”
Lydia flipped onto her back and kicked her feet against the side of the bed. “No, no one knew, but that is just idiotic! That spoils half the fun! A joke is only a joke once someone knows they’ve been fooled, and now no one will ever know how clever we were.”
“Clever? Lydia, this was not some harmless joke. Had you been discovered, it would have been a great scandal both for you and for Miss Darcy. And both of your families.”
Lydia narrowed her eyes. “Wait… How do you even know I was at a party?”
“Apart from you turning up in my bedroom in the middle of the night dressed as a man, you mean? Denny spotted you and sent me a note. And you ought to be thankful that he did, for you were clearly out of your depth. What were you thinking, dressing like this and going to such a gathering?”
Her sister was unmoved and only scoffed loudly. “I hope you are happy now, because everything is ruined! How could you send that odious Mr Darcy in to ruin all our fun?”
“You were there with his sister! What did you think he would do when he found out what the pair of you were up to?” After a moment, she added, more quietly, “Was it he who discovered you, then?”
“Yes, and those horrid cousins of his.” With that, Lydia was off on an epic tale in which she had managed to evade not only the hateful Mr Darcy but his equally despicable cousins, who had made every attempt to cajole, persuade, and eventually bodily remove her from the party.
Her voice grew shriller with each detail, making Elizabeth wince.
“But at length, he won. He would have his way of things and held my debts over my head.”
Elizabeth gasped, the lamp flame wavering with her sudden movement. “Debts? You ran up debts?”
Lydia lifted one shoulder. “Mr Darcy paid them.” Then she sighed petulantly.
“How was I to know they played for real money? Nobody ever asked us to pay anything at the other parties. They ought to post a notice or something of that sort! All the talk was of chits and antes and vowels. I had no notion they were worth anything.”
Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose, the smell of oil from the lamp making her slightly nauseated. “How much?”
“I hardly know.”
“Of course you know, just tell me.”
“A few hundred pounds. Maybe five.”
“Five hundred pounds!”
“Not more than a thousand, to be sure.”
Elizabeth gasped. “Lydia!”
“Pray do not lecture me, Lizzy.”
“How are we ever to repay him?”
“Dunno.” Lydia shrugged carelessly, picking at the muslin blanket. “You are the heiress in the room. You pay him back.”
Elizabeth had never wished to hit Lydia as much as she did in that moment, confined as they were in this tiny space with nowhere to escape her sister’s crass thoughtlessness. “Lydia, hear me now. I will speak to Mr Darcy tomorrow and arrange what I can with him, but—”
“I cannot think how you will manage that. We will be halfway back to London by the time you wake.”
“We?”
“He means to return us home. Georgiana to London and me to Longbourn. He would scarcely let my uncle get a word in edgeways, just told him how it was to be!”
“He spoke to Uncle Gardiner? Yes, of course, he must have.” Elizabeth rubbed her head, wishing she had been awake to see Mr Darcy, but supposing it would not have been the best moment for a heartfelt conversation in any case.
“Had it all arranged to suit himself, he did!” At once, Lydia began to cry. “Papa is going to lock me in my room for a twelvemonth.”
“I doubt any of this suits Mr Darcy, Lydia. What he wishes for is to avoid scandal, as do I. As do we all!” Elizabeth replied absently, already calculating how early she would need to rise to catch Mr Darcy before his departure—even briefly wondering how reckless it would be to run to Marine Parade for a second time this night, just to ensure that she did not miss him.
Mr Darcy would likely come to retrieve Lydia at first light.
There would be no time for private conversation, and if there were, he would likely be too vexed or too tired to hear it properly. “I need you to do something for me.”
Lydia crossed her arms over her chest, the mattress creaking with the movement. “Well, I need you to do something for me, too, and that is to tell Papa I have been good all summer.”
“How am I to tell our father that you were good when Mr Darcy arrives to deposit you on Longbourn’s doorstep? I will warrant some explanation! And you cannot think Uncle will be silent on the matter.”
“Then pray tell him not to punish me too severely. Please, Lizzy?”
Elizabeth had thrown off the bedclothes and risen.
She went over to the small desk by the window where she had written most of her letters in her weeks there.
“I will say what I can, but what Papa does is up to him. And for my effort, you must promise me to give a letter to Mr Darcy. And do it in a quiet way!”
“What letter?” Lydia asked.
“The letter I mean to write now. Get ready for bed, Lyddie. Morning will come early for us both.”
After changing into one of Elizabeth’s shifts, Lydia climbed into the bed and pulled the covers over her head. Elizabeth ignored the fact that she lay right in the middle, leaving no room for her; she had more important business to attend to than sleep.
It required many hours and many drafts until she had a letter which expressed something of what she meant to say.
Or at least she hoped it did. She was too tired to know by then, with the pearly grey dawn beginning to lighten the sky.
She signed it only with ‘Yours, E’ and then fretted about her own brazenness.
She considered it as a young maid entered to see Lydia dressed and had only just resolved to change it again when the sounds of a carriage approaching came from outside the window.
Looking down, she saw Mr Darcy’s fine carriage, and her heart leapt.
“Silly girl,” she murmured to herself. “It is only his carriage you can see, not even him!”
He did not get out but sent a man—his valet, she thought—to the door.
Hurriedly, she sanded and sealed the missive. “Here,” she said, thrusting her letter towards her sleepy sister. “Pray, do not forget to give it to him.”
Lydia mumbled something that seemed like agreement and then left the room.
Elizabeth watched from the window until she saw her sister appear and be helped into the carriage.
Moments later they were off. Elizabeth pressed her fingertips to the glass of the window, watching them round the corner.
“Please, please do not forget, Lydia,” she whispered, hoping desperately Mr Darcy would not think her too bold in sending it.
Darcy always enjoyed travelling at the earliest possible hour when the roads were least busy and the temperatures were coolest. This particular early departure proved to have an additional advantage: Miss Lydia Bennet, still tired from the events of the night prior, fell immediately into slumber.
His sister and Mrs Annesley did likewise, and though Darcy knew he was not asleep, Fitzwilliam nevertheless closed his eyes and rested quietly against the squabs.
Georgiana, Darcy had been informed, had not slept a wink in the night, and he was not sorry for it.
He had blamed himself extensively for her near-elopement with George Wickham, telling himself he had been negligent in her care.
But this time he could not take so much on himself.
She ought to have known better; there was more rebelliousness and defiance in her than he had ever suspected.
“We will talk about this in London,” was all he and Fitzwilliam had said to her.
It proved a long day. Even with Darcy’s excellent equipage, it required nearly ten hours to reach London, and much as he might have wished Miss Lydia to sleep through it, she did not. At length she woke, and as soon as she saw that Georgiana, too, was awake, she began to talk.
She was diverting, he had to own, occupying his sister and Mrs Annesley, and even on occasion making Fitzwilliam chuckle with gossip of the regiment, Meryton, and any other person she knew. All persons save for one, that was, for she had remarkably little to say of Elizabeth.
It was Georgiana who mentioned her, right as they rolled down Grosvenor Street. “Are you excited for your sister’s engagement?”
Miss Lydia tilted her head and looked at Georgiana. “Jane’s?”
“Miss Bennet is engaged?” Darcy asked.
“To Mr Bingley?” Miss Lydia exclaimed.
“Bingley?” Fitzwilliam asked, clearly as bemused as Darcy felt.
“I knew he had returned to Netherfield,” she explained, “but I am sure I had no notion he had proposed to her.” She huffed a little and said to Georgiana, “Jane and Lizzy are two of a kind, both so secretive about everything! You would think their own sister would be the first to hear of any engagements!”
“I do not know anything about Mr Bingley proposing to your sister,” Darcy interjected. “I merely mistook what you said for news of an engagement. But I daresay my sister meant Miss Elizabeth’s engagement to Mr Hartham.”
“Oh that!” Miss Lydia said with a blithe wave of her hand. “That was nothing at all.”