Chapter 1 #5
The “little ones” were three children under six years of age, currently engaged in a game that involved running in circles around the cottage’s main room. One of the girls, perhaps four years old, crashed into a table and began to wail.
Kitty found herself moving without thought, crouching to examine the child’s forehead. There was a tiny scrape, and she had no doubt it had hurt. “Not so bad as all that,” she said gently.
Mrs Harper looked torn between gratitude and mortification. “I apologise, miss, they are usually better behaved.”
“Nonsense,” Kitty said firmly. “Children run and fall. It is what they do.” She turned to Mrs Harper’s mother. “Pardon me, but do you have a clean cloth and some water?”
The children’s grandmother smiled and nodded.
Soon she reappeared from the pump with a basin and pulled a clean cloth from a cabinet.
Kitty tended to the child with a competence that surprised her.
When had she learned to do this? At Longbourn, she had avoided the younger children in the neighbourhood, finding them tiresome and loud.
But her hands knew what to do, and the little girl’s crying subsided into hiccups.
“There now,” Kitty said after she had done all she could. “All mended. Run along, but perhaps a bit slower this time?”
The child nodded solemnly and rejoined her sisters, who had discovered the basket of items Lizzy had brought. With Georgiana and their grandmother’s help, they investigated its contents with great interest.
Lizzy caught Kitty’s eye and smiled. It was a small moment, barely worth remarking on, but Kitty felt it nonetheless, for the smile conveyed recognition and approval.
They stayed a quarter of an hour, Lizzy and Mrs Harper discussing practical matters while Lizzy held the baby, Georgiana and Kitty kept the other children from destroying the cottage, and Mrs Harper’s mother took herself outside for a breath of air.
As they walked back to Pemberley through the crisp morning air, Lizzy said, “You were very good with the children.”
Kitty felt heat rise in her cheeks. “They were not so difficult.”
Georgiana laughed lightly.
“They were very difficult,” Lizzy said, her eyes dancing with amusement. “Mrs Harper’s children are dear souls but utterly wild. You managed them beautifully. I was impressed.”
“I once spent an entire afternoon trying to teach Lydia’s favourite bonnet to fly by throwing it off the upstairs landing,” Kitty said, surprising herself. “I was not a very abiding child myself.”
Lizzy laughed, a cheery, delighted laugh. “Did you really?”
“I was eight. I had heard that some people in India could make carpets fly, and I thought bonnets would be similar. I was very disappointed to discover they simply fell.”
“What did Lydia say when she found out?”
“She threw my bonnet into the fishpond. Mamma was furious with us both.” Kitty found herself smiling at the memory, though it was tinged with sadness. They had been so young then, and the world had seemed full of possibilities, even for flying bonnets.
Georgiana said, “I once convinced myself that if I practised very hard, I could learn to breathe underwater like a fish.”
Both Kitty and Lizzy turned to stare at her.
“What happened?” Kitty asked.
“I nearly drowned in the bath. My nurse was quite cross.” Georgiana’s voice was prim, but there was a hint of mischief in her eyes. “I was four, I believe.”
“Georgiana Darcy,” Lizzy said with mock severity. “I had no idea you were such an unruly child.”
“I prefer to think of it as an early interest in natural philosophy.”
It felt good to laugh, to share something absurd and innocent, to be with people who made her feel lighter rather than smaller.
But as they neared Pemberley, the laughter faded. Through the gates, she could see the house rising before them, beautiful and imposing, and she thought of Lydia’s letter still unanswered in her room.
After luncheon, Kitty excused herself for a walk. The day was cold but bright, and she needed movement, needed to be alone with her thoughts.
She followed the path that led out of the walled garden down towards the river, her half-boots crunching on the frozen ground.
The landscape was all winter browns and greys, the trees bare-branched against a pale sky.
It should have felt desolate, but Kitty found it oddly comforting.
There was an honesty to winter. It hid nothing, pretended to be nothing other than what it was.
Her mind turned over the same painful truths.
She had not just been Lydia’s follower. She had been just like Lydia.
Every time Lydia had said something unkind about Mary or mocked their elder sisters or flirted outrageously with officers, Kitty had laughed.
She had encouraged her youngest sister’s cruelty.
She had believed that such behaviour was acceptable, even admirable.
When someone had invited Lydia to Brighton, she had begged to go as well, had envied Lydia the invitation, had thought it monstrously unfair that she should remain behind. If she had gone, would she have stopped Lydia from running away with Mr Wickham? Or would she have helped her do it?
The thought made her feel ill. Because the truth was, she might well have helped.
She had thought Mr Wickham so handsome, so charming.
She had not seen what Lizzy had seen, the calculating coldness behind the smile, the selfishness that would sacrifice a girl’s reputation for his own convenience.
She had been stupid, blind, and thoughtless, and it was only luck that had prevented her from following Lydia into absolute ruin.
But it was not entirely her fault, was it?
That was the other uncomfortable truth she had to face.
She had been lonely at Longbourn. Her father had barely acknowledged her existence except to make sardonic remarks about her silliness.
Her mother had encouraged her to be exactly what she had been, boy-mad and thoughtless, because Mamma could only help them all marry as quickly as possible.
Mary had been no help, lost in her books and her moralising. Jane and Lizzy had been kind enough to invite her to join them, but they had been so far above her that they had seemed to inhabit a different world entirely. Lydia had been the only one who valued her company.
Except that Lydia had not valued her, not really. Lydia had wanted an audience, an admirer, a follower. She had wanted someone who would never challenge her, never question her, never suggest that running away with a man who had no money and no prospects was a terrible idea.
And Kitty had been that person. She had been proud to be that person.
The path had led her to a small bridge over the river.
She stopped there, leaning against the cold stone, watching the water move beneath the ice.
How could she love Lydia and know that Lydia was selfish and mean-hearted, and unable to see anyone else clearly?
How could she mourn the loss of their friendship and also feel relief that their friendship no longer trapped her?
Love was supposed to be simple. But it was not simple at all.
She thought of Lizzy and Mr Darcy yesterday, the tenderness between them, the way they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. She thought of Jane and Mr Bingley, who were almost offensively happy together. Those were marriages of respect and affection. Those were partnerships.
Lydia’s marriage was nothing like that. Mr Wickham used her for his own pleasure and ignored her needs.
He controlled the money and spent it on himself.
He left her alone in a town where she had no true friends, nothing to occupy her time, and no prospect of improvement.
And Lydia, rather than acknowledging the disaster she had created, wanted to drag Kitty into it.
You must bring all your allowance money.
The audacity of it was breathtaking. Lydia expected Kitty to fund her entertainment, to pay for the life that Mr Wickham would not provide. And if Kitty refused, she would be the selfish one, the spiteful one, the sister who had abandoned Lydia in her time of need.
This was not a time of need. This was a time of consequence. Lydia had made her choices, and now she was living with them. That was not Kitty’s fault, and it was not Kitty’s responsibility to fix.
But love did not care about responsibility or fault. Love simply existed, painful and complicated and impossible to dismiss.
The most painful truth of all: she loved Lydia still.
She loved the sister who had made her laugh, who had shared secrets with her, who had been her companion in their childhood.
But that Lydia was gone, if she had ever existed at all.
The woman who had written that letter was someone else, someone who saw Kitty only as a means to an end, someone who warned Kitty not to change for fear of losing Lydia’s preference.
And Kitty would not go back to being who she had been, not even for love.
She stood there for a long time, the cold seeping through her pelisse, until her fingers were numb and her nose was running. Then she turned and walked back to Pemberley, no closer to knowing what to write but perhaps a bit closer to knowing what was true.
Dinner was a livelier affair than the night before. Mr Darcy was in better spirits, and Lizzy was in one of her teasing moods.
“I had a letter from Charlotte Collins today,” she announced as the footmen served the fish. “She writes that Mr Collins has taken to delivering sermons to the chickens when he feels his oratorical skills require practice.”
Kitty nearly choked on her wine. “The chickens?”
“Indeed. Apparently, they are a most attentive audience, though they do sometimes interrupt at inopportune moments.”
Even Mr Darcy smiled at that. “I am sure Lady Catherine is gratified to know her rector is so dedicated to his calling.”