Chapter 13 Desperate Times
“Lizzy, when are you going to tell us about your adventure? How far did you get?”
Everyone at the dinner table gasped and stared at Lydia in surprise and varying degrees of consternation.
Lydia was unperturbed. “Do not stare at me like that. I may be a nick-ninny, and of course, you all know Kitty and I are two of the silliest girls in the country; but I am not completely stupid. I made sure the servants were gone before I said anything.”
Elizabeth said not a thing but stared at her sister in shock.
Mrs Bennet started speaking, but Mr Bennet over-spoke her violently. “Lydia, what are you going on about. Your sister was—”
Before he could even get his excuse out, Lydia huffed.
“All right! Pretend we did not work it out, but do you seriously expect me believe Lizzy went on a trousseau shopping excursion for a week without Mama or any of her sisters—not even Jane?”
Bennet grumbled. “Her mother, her sisters, and even my own self, are in her brown books, Lydia. It is perfectly sensible.”
“Ha! So where is whatever she bought?”
Bennet snapped back, “Where any sensible person would put it—away from prying eyes and grasping fingers.”
Lydia just huffed and replied in a bit of an impertinent singsong tone.
“All right, I will play your game and tell everyone in the world that Lizzy was trousseau shopping.” Then she rolled her eyes violently.
“They will believe me, mostly because everyone thinks I’m too dumb to lie successfully, but—”
“No buts—” Bennet snapped.
Lydia continued without slowing or paying the slightest attention to her father (as usual).
“But, really, why is it so terrible if Lizzy ran away. I do not blame her one whit. It is not as if she likes dour Mr Darcy. Even if he is rich, he does not hold a candle to a red coat, and if she wants to run away from this silly family, she should run away. You are all worse than Mary—all worried about our reputations, as if that will make the slightest difference in our prospects. There are no marriageable men in this accursed village anyway.”
Everyone was struck dumb by the reply, and Elizabeth wondered just what kind of mayhem would ensue when her letter arrived in a few days.
She had taken dinner in her room the previous evening when Mr Baker returned her to Longbourn, not even bothering to speak to anyone at all after the tremendous row with her father.
Most of her sisters had either been told to leave her alone, or they had enough sense to avoid walking into a room full of gunpowder carrying a burning torch.
The next day, she breakfasted early and retired to her room again.
The day passed miserably, and she would have called for a tray yet again, but her father put his foot down for once in his life, and insisted she eat with the family to preserve what little was left of her standing among the servants.
He reckoned there was entirely too much gossip floating around already and prayed that his fabrications would hold over the much more rational explanation that his stubbornest daughter just did not want to marry Darcy.
Elizabeth kept silent, not speaking a word other than asking for things or the barest of civilities.
Mrs Bennet kept trying to speak to her, but so far, she had not answered her mother with even a single word.
She tried to imagine the rest of the time waiting for the dreaded event, and was just making an estimate of how long she would hold out before throwing a screaming fit over her mother’s silliness.
Lydia’s comment snapped her out of that downward spiral, and she stared at her sister for a minute, waiting for the small row between her father and her youngest sister to subside.
When Lydia paused to scoop more food onto her plate, Elizabeth said, “Thank you, Lydia. Those are the first supporting words I have heard in this entire debacle. I confess that I, like our indolent father, previously did consider you quite silly, but I can see you at least have a head on your shoulders, and I thank you for your support.”
Lydia’s head snapped around to stare at her sister, surprised by the statement. It might have qualified as the nicest thing anybody other than her mother had ever said to her. She smiled, and began to speak, but Elizabeth held her hand for silence.
“Yes, Lydia, I do appreciate it, but let me ask you one thing, if I may.”
Lydia looked at her suspiciously, but then giggled, “Of course, Lizzy.”
Mr Bennet cleared his throat and looked threateningly at his second daughter, but she ignored him. His recent bout of familial authority aside, she thought she could hold her own.
“Are you aware that nobody in Meryton is surprised that a Bennet damaged the family reputation—they were only surprised by which Bennet was thrown to the wolves. Most assumed it would be you… or maybe Kitty.”
Lydia started standing up abruptly, but Elizabeth just said, “Pray, sit and listen, Lydia. In less than a fortnight, I will not be here to advise you, so just listen. Your behaviour could very well put you in the same position I am in, and I can assure you of one thing: You do not want that! I beg you to find a way to enjoy yourself without putting yourself and your family at risk. You do not have to become Mary, but somewhere between the two of you would be to everyone’s benefit, most especially your own. ”
Then she turned back to her plate and sat her fork down gently. May I be excused?”
Mr Bennet grunted assent, and Elizabeth fled the table.
That evening, Elizabeth spent half the night trying to work out a way out of the debacle.
She was locked in at night and watched like a hawk during the day.
She had no money at all and was forced to endure the humiliation of having her father search her belongings and her room to ensure she had none hidden away.
Mr Bennet knew Elizabeth was a climber, so when he noticed a tree outside the window, he had it nailed shut.
Lastly, but most humiliatingly, he openly gloated that she need not go hunting for an extra key, nor waste her time picking the lock, because he tied the doorknob closed with rope when he went to bed.
For two days, Elizabeth endured this humiliation, spending nearly all her time in the guest room lately occupied by Mr Collins.
She walked in the gardens, but her father went with her, or sent his valet, Nathaniel.
Neither were exactly spring chickens, so Elizabeth did not bother with any sort of real ramble. It all seemed so pointless.
In the middle of her third night locked in the guest chamber, in what she estimated to be only a few days before her letter to Mr Bennet arrived, she had an epiphany.
When she worked it all the way back to basic principles, she reckoned that it was all a matter of reputation—Mr Darcy’s and hers.
She suspected Mr Darcy was working under the assumption that she was desirous of marriage, and she would put up a fuss if one did not occur.
Perhaps, if she could convince him otherwise, or better yet—
In the end, Elizabeth thought it funny that the entire enterprise would turn on a file.
That had been the only bit of steel she could get that was sufficient for the job at hand.
She noticed an old one laying around the garden from a workman’s forgotten project a few months earlier, so she contrived to have a boot crisis right over the top of it lasting long enough to fool old Nathaniel.
She was prepared with several alternate strategies including indigestion from dinner, injured ankle, or if she got desperate, vague female problems. The latter was sufficiently terrifying to send any man running or at least blushing and looking away.
Her epiphany occurred the night previously, when her father came by to wish her good night, with a nasty smirk she hated.
“Good night, Miss Bennet. Remember, just in case you get any ideas about the lock, it will be tied from the outside. If you wish to beat your head against the wall with a clever escape plan, feel free.”
The smirking, condescending way he said it made her blood boil for a while, until she worked out that anger was doing nobody any good, least of all her. She needed to think.
In the end, the answer was obvious. He could rope the door from the outside because the door swung inward.
That meant the hinges were inside, which meant she had a chance.
Perhaps it was not a good chance, but it was a chance.
If she became desperate, she was fully prepared to simply throw a chair through the window and take her chances with a fast flight down the tree, but a bit more time would not be amiss.
The file seemed like a noisy contraption, even if she could get a hammer, so Elizabeth politely requested the loan of one of her father’s favourite books.
It was of good hefty size, not too big and not too small.
Elizabeth thought it was a particularly vile piece of literature, and even though it was a good fifty years old, she had not the slightest guilt about using it to beat on the file to drive the pins out of the hinges.
She seriously considered throwing it in the fire when she finished but eventually decided that would be a step too far into vindictiveness (half a step, at least).
Much to her relief, the pins came out easily.
Mrs Bennet’s nerves were driven to distraction by any unwanted squeals or squeaks, so the servants kept all the hinges in the house well lubricated.
She had been afraid the hinge pins might be sealed, but she had seen a different door taken off for repair earlier and saw no reason this one should not work the same.