Chapter Twenty-Seven
Brighton Ends
Lydia returned from Brighton tanned, louder, and unruined.
Elizabeth nearly crushed her.
"Lizzy!" Lydia protested from somewhere against her shoulder. "Let me breathe."
"No."
"You're wrinkling my gown."
"I don't care."
Lydia laughed. "You are so strange."
Elizabeth released her and looked carefully at the face she had once seen too late in a London drawing room: defiant, over-bright, clinging to a marriage she had not understood because the alternative was ruin.
This Lydia had freckles across her nose and a ribbon tied badly in her hair.
Kitty demanded stories before Lydia had removed her bonnet.
There were hundreds.
Officers. Dances. Mrs. Forster's awful hat. Mrs. Bell's rules. A picnic ruined by rain. A bathing machine Lydia declared the stupidest invention in England. Three proposals made in jest and one young lieutenant who attempted to kiss her behind a pavilion.
Elizabeth went cold. "What happened?"
Lydia grinned. "I slapped him."
Mrs. Bennet gasped. "You did not!"
"I did."
"Why?"
Lydia looked offended by the question. "He had not asked."
Elizabeth laughed.
Then, humiliatingly, she cried.
Lydia stared. "Why are you crying?"
"Pride."
"Oh." Lydia brightened. "Miss Harcourt said I did exactly right. Mrs. Bell did too, though she said I ought not to have been behind the pavilion with him in the first place."
"Also correct."
Mr. Bennet, who had been standing in the doorway, looked at his youngest daughter. Something in his face softened. "Well done, Lydia."
She glowed.
Elizabeth saw.
There.
One sentence from a father.
How hungry Lydia had always been for praise.
Elizabeth looked at Mr. Bennet.
He noticed.
Perhaps understood.
Later Lydia dropped herself onto Elizabeth's bed and said, "Mr. Wickham was not there."
Elizabeth kept her voice casual. "No?"
"He left the regiment. Apparently he owed everyone money. Colonel Forster would not say much, but Mrs. Forster said he had behaved badly."
"Did she?"
"She used a more interesting word."
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow.
Lydia grinned. "I shall not repeat it. I am improved."
"Miraculous."
Lydia threw a cushion at her.
After the laughter faded, Lydia grew thoughtful. "I suppose handsome men can be awful."
"Frequently."
"Mr. Darcy is handsome."
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes. "Careful."
Lydia laughed and ran from the room.
Elizabeth stood by the window after she had gone.
Darcy had not saved Lydia alone.
Elizabeth had not.
Mr. Bennet had not.
Miss Harcourt, Colonel Forster, Mrs. Bell, Lydia herself--a hundred small choices had changed the road.
That felt truer than rescue.
Before Jane left Longbourn as Mrs. Bingley, she and Elizabeth spent one last evening in the room they had shared during visitors and illnesses throughout girlhood. Jane sat before the dressing table while Elizabeth unpinned her hair.
"You are happy," Elizabeth said.
Jane met her eyes in the mirror. "Very."
Elizabeth's throat tightened.
The first time, Jane's happiness had come after months of believing Bingley lost. This Jane carried fewer scars into marriage.
Jane turned. "You are crying."
"I am allowed."
"You cry more than you used to."
Elizabeth laughed softly. "Perhaps I notice more than I used to."
Jane studied her. "You have said things like that all year."
Elizabeth's pulse jumped.
"Like what?"
"As though you remember being someone else."
For one dangerous moment Elizabeth could not speak.
Jane smiled. "I do not mean literally. Only that you seem to have forgiven everyone for things they have not yet done."
Elizabeth looked down at the hairpins in her hand.
"Perhaps I became tired of being certain I understood people," she said.
Jane reached for her hand. "I like you this way."
Elizabeth's eyes filled again. "You liked me before."
"Of course."
"Even when I was insufferable?"
Jane laughed. "Especially then. It gave me practice for Charles."
Elizabeth stared.
Jane's smile turned mischievous.
"You have been spending too much time with me," Elizabeth said.
"I blame Mr. Bingley."
They laughed together until Mrs. Bennet called from the corridor demanding to know why brides required sleep when there was still packing to inspect.