Chapter 26
A RARE AFFECTION
“L ydia, you do not seem to understand what we are telling you. One-hundred pounds a year between two people is barely enough to get by. One or both of you will have to find work.”
“I do not see why. Plenty of people live on a lot less.”
“Not people who need to employ a cook because they have never learnt to make their own supper. Or people who wish to travel twenty-four miles to show off their wedding rings. Do you even know how much your fare from London cost?”
Lydia shrugged. “Two shillings?”
Mary closed her eyes and shook her head, but Elizabeth persevered.
“One pound and sixteen shillings.” Seeing her sister was unmoved, she pressed, “That would be doubled for a return journey. If you visited Longbourn three times a year, that would be over a tenth of your annual income spent on travel.” She realised her mistake when her sister’s eyes grew vacant.
She changed tack. “You will not be able to afford to make long journeys.”
“Then I shall make only short ones.”
“And you will not have the use of a carriage whenever you want it, as you are used to.”
“Then I shall ride.”
“You will not have enough money to keep a horse.”
“That is well by me. I do not like horses anyway. They smell.”
“In which case, you will have to walk a lot more than you do now.”
“What of it? You walk everywhere, and I do not hear you complaining about it.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath, wishing profoundly that her aunt Gardiner were still at Longbourn to help make Lydia understand. “Do you know how much a new pair of walking boots costs?”
“Yes, I do! Two pounds. I saw a pair in Meryton yesterday.” At the mention of shopping, her sister forgot to be defensive, and a softer look overcame her countenance. “They had little bows on the top edge, and red laces, and—”
“Two pounds would be a whole week’s allowance!” Elizabeth interrupted. “Would you go without food that week to pay for them?”
Lydia flounced in her seat. “Why are you being such a bore?”
“We are trying to prepare you for what your life will be like now,” Jane said, her tone softer than Elizabeth’s. “You are going to have to learn to live more frugally. We only wish to make sure you understand what it takes to make ends meet.”
It was a mission the three eldest Bennet sisters had taken upon themselves when it became clear that their mother would not.
Mrs Bennet had spent the last two decades fervently applying herself to the task of seeing all her daughters wed and wasted not a whit of attention on what would come afterwards.
Now that the deed was done—Lydia having returned home of her own volition the previous Tuesday afternoon, quite unaided by either her father or her uncle, and with her new husband in tow—the problem was more immediately before them.
As well as persuading her father against annulling the marriage for fear of the ensuing scandal, Elizabeth had also convinced him not to throw Mr and Mrs Wickham out directly, that she and her sisters might have more time to instil in Lydia some sense of parsimony, some understanding of wifely responsibilities, or at the very least, to teach her how to boil an egg before she left for her new life.
Alas, Lydia wore her ignorance like a suit of armour, and not even the stoutest good sense could penetrate it.
“This cottage in which you say you will live—will you tell us about that?”
“It is in Clerkenwell—”
“An awful place.”
“How would you know, Mary?” Lydia retorted. “You have never been farther than Longbourn churchyard, so you can shut your bone box.”
“Lydia!” Elizabeth admonished.
When Jane gently suggested that it would be more helpful to encourage Lydia than chastise her, Mary lost all patience and quit the parlour.
“Clerkenwell is not so very bad,” Lydia said with a pout. “There are clockmakers and a print shop. And you cannot even see the prisons from our street.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. She almost wished Lydia could remain this innocent forever, but reality would obtrude upon her notice soon enough. “Do you know when the rent is due?”
“Oh, not for two years. We have ages before we must pay that.”
“Two years? Why has Mr Wickham paid for two years of rent when you did not have coin enough in your pockets to pay for the chaise from London?”
“It was stipulated in the lease agreement, Sister.” They all looked up to see Wickham saunter into the parlour. “Decent lodgings are not ten a penny. When they become available, it is prudent to secure them by whatever means are necessary.”
Jane assured him they understood. “Is it a comfortable cottage, then?” she asked Lydia.
“It will do. The landlady lives next door and is very friendly. She said if we ever have any difficulty, we are to ask her. Indeed, you were with her for over an hour the other day, were you not, Wickham? Something to do with the roof, was it? Or the chimney? I cannot recall. Anyway, she is exceedingly obliging. If ever I cannot find Wickham, I always know he will be next door with Mrs Younge.”
Elizabeth froze. She glanced at Wickham; he was smiling, and if she had not been looking for it, she doubted she would have noticed how fixed his expression had become, or how wary his eyes.
Fury, pity, nausea all pinned Elizabeth to her seat.
Mrs Younge, the same woman who aided Wickham’s failed attempt to seduce Miss Darcy, was now Lydia’s closest neighbour and, from the sounds of it, her husband’s lover.
Wickham abruptly looked her way, and his slight frown made it clear he had perceived her alarm, and suddenly there was a good deal more agitation in the air.
“That is good,” Jane said, oblivious to it. “It will be easier starting out if you have friends around you.”
Elizabeth really thought she might be ill. “I wonder whether Mary is right, Lydia. Perhaps you ought to find more suitable lodgings.”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “We have told you, we cannot. We have paid two years’ rent.”
“If lodgings are in such short supply, I am sure Mrs Younge will find another tenant easily. She seems fairly undiscerning.”
A glance at Wickham revealed his usual, self-satisfied smirk to have distorted into something a lot more like a snarl.
“Where should we live then, Lizzy?” Lydia enquired.
“You would do better the farther away from London you go. Perhaps the Outer Hebrides.”
“There is not much work to be found there,” Wickham said.
“You do intend to find work, then?”
He cocked his head. “Or Lydia may.”
Lydia thought this a fine joke and snorted her appreciation of it.
Then she stopped laughing and sprang to her feet.
“Look! Pen and her mother are coming along the drive. They must have heard my news.” She squealed with delight and rang the bell, declaring that they would have tea and cake to make it more of a celebration.
Elizabeth stole quietly out of the parlour.
She would apologise to Jane later for abandoning her, but she could not partake in another spectacle such as those that had been occurring all week.
Every day, at least one of the neighbouring families would call.
Lydia would strut about, brandishing her ring and gloating of her good fortune.
Her mother invariably joined in. Their visitors would nod, smile, and feign interest, all the while casting amused glances at each other and smirking behind their hands.
Their whole family was the object of ridicule—an only marginally better fate than being shunned altogether from society.
She changed her shoes and exited the house via the kitchen. As she walked around the corner of the house, she saw Wickham coming towards her on the path. She turned and walked away across the lawn, but he caught up with her in two strides.
“There is little point in being vexed with me, Lizzy. We are brother and sister now, and there is nothing you can do about it. You or Mr Darcy.”
She inhaled deeply, comprehending why he had sought her out.
He wished to know how much danger he was in from that quarter.
While it was true that Darcy neither could nor likely would wish to intervene, Wickham did not deserve the relief of having it confirmed.
“Why did you marry her?” she asked. “You clearly do not love her.”
“What a quaint notion, that one should marry for love.”
“Do you love Mrs Younge, then?”
He laughed unpleasantly. “I have a very great affection for Mrs Younge’s talents and connexions. It would not do to lose her good will.”
Elizabeth fought to conceal her revulsion. She recalled with abhorrence her attempt to defend this man’s character to Darcy—and at such a moment, as he laid bare his most intimate feelings. How he had found the heart to forgive her for it, she would never know.
“I have shocked you,” Wickham said. “I confess, I thought you rather more practical. When I directed my attentions towards Miss King earlier this year, you declared it a wise and desirable measure for both.”
“I assumed you felt some affection for her. I know better now. I know you felt none for Miss Darcy, either. You certainly cannot feel any for Lydia, since you have set her up next door to your mistress. And what of her ? I have no reason to think well of Mrs Younge, but neither can I approve of your refusing to marry her whilst taking full advantage of her ‘talents’. Do you feel no shame in treating people so coldly?”
“Why should I? Will Darcy feel shame for marrying a rich heiress?”
“Who says he will?” she replied, struggling to repress a surge of feeling.
“How else will he replenish the Pemberley coffers when his precious sister does, eventually, marry? You are aware, I take it, that her fortune is thirty thousand pounds? Darcy must pay that from the estate. It is a vast amount to find, but find it he must, and since he will never condescend to selling off land, you can be assured he will marry a lady whose fortune matches his sister’s.
You see, he is really no better than I am. ”
Elizabeth stopped walking and glared at him. “You have said many things with which I disagree, sir, but none that I have objected to as much as that .”
“Oh yes, I forgot that your opinion of him had improved. I would advise you not to like him too well. You are not rich enough for him.”
“I was not rich enough for you a few months ago, and I am no richer than Lydia, so I ask again, sir, why did you marry her?”
“Would you believe me if I said I liked her better than you?”
“Yes, quite easily, but it does not answer my question.”
“I think it does.”
It did not—it made no sense at all! “How will you provide for her—for your children, when they come along?”
He smirked grotesquely. “Perhaps I shall join in your mother’s prayers for the rest of her daughters to marry well.”
Elizabeth strove to emulate Darcy’s calm demeanour, though every part of her wished to rail at her new brother. “Regrettably, your actions have made that considerably less likely.”
She walked away. Her legs itched with the urge to run, and she was beyond relieved when it became clear Wickham meant to let her go.
He watched her, though, and she directed her steps towards the hermitage at the other side of the garden, desperate to be out of sight before her equanimity shattered.
Darcy would not come for her now. The more she saw of Wickham’s true character, the more certain she was that no sane person would voluntarily allow such a man into a sister’s life, even as a brother.
It was why she had refused her aunt’s offer, made again the day she departed for London, for her uncle to write to him.
Elizabeth could scarcely tolerate her new relationship to Wickham; the thought of what Darcy’s feelings on the matter would be left her cold.
She would much rather he remembered her as she was in Derbyshire.
This was not a new source of sorrow, however; Elizabeth had understood that all hope was in vain the moment Lydia stepped down from her carriage, wafting her wedding ring under their noses.
But Wickham’s mentions of Miss Darcy’s fortune had compounded this grief with yet another cause of regret.
How ignorant, how childish she had been to blame Darcy’s reservations about marrying her on pride alone.
He certainly had been proud, there was no denying that—but in offering for her, he had overcome far greater concerns than a trifling dislike of what society might say.
He had effectively forfeited his sister’s fortune.
Elizabeth had been to Pemberley; she had seen how many people relied on Darcy for their livelihoods and homes.
She had discovered what the house itself meant to him, and how conscientiously he cared for it.
For the first time, she properly understood the responsibility he bore to marry well, for the sake of the estate and all its hundreds of dependents.
That obligation was even greater at present, for he must pay for the repairs to the house as well.
In disregarding that onerous duty, in choosing her, he must have decided that she was more important to him than any of it.
Remorse wrung her heart, for nobody was fortunate enough to be loved in such a way twice in one lifetime.
She would never feel such devotion again, and it was a bitter truth to swallow.
She sat alone with her regret until she could be sure the visitors would be gone, then returned to the house, only to find everything had worsened.
Jane had sent for the apothecary to attend their father, whose condition had deteriorated upon reading a letter recently arrived from their cousin in Kent.
Mr Collins, it seemed, had heard from his wife, who had heard from her family, that Lydia was now Mrs Wickham, and he had written with barely concealed contempt for her choice of husband and her method of ensnaring him.
Elizabeth dared not suppose what Mr Collins had discovered of Lydia’s ‘methods’, but if news of her dalliance with ruin had reached Kent, then all hope of containing it was lost.
Mr Bennet’s declining health and the exhaustion of her own forbearance induced Elizabeth to press for Mr and Mrs Wickham’s expeditious departure. They left Longbourn the next morning, and it felt to her that they stole all her dreams with them.