Chapter Thirty-Six
Lydia Chooses
Lydia did not marry at sixteen.
Or seventeen.
Mrs. Bennet worried about this loudly enough to suggest her youngest daughter had already entered spinsterhood.
"She is nearly nineteen," Mrs. Bennet told Elizabeth during one visit to Pemberley, as though announcing an incurable condition. "Jane was married younger. You were married younger. Even Kitty is being courted, and Lydia does nothing but laugh at gentlemen who come to Longbourn."
Elizabeth looked across the morning room, where Lydia sat on the carpet with Clara and had apparently decided a wooden horse ought to be taught how to curtsey. "Perhaps she does not wish to marry the gentlemen who come to Longbourn."
Mrs. Bennet stared. "That has never stopped anyone sensible from considering the matter."
Elizabeth laughed.
"Lizzy, this is not amusing."
"Mama, Lydia is eighteen."
"Nearly nineteen."
"A terrible age."
Mrs. Bennet narrowed her eyes. "You have become very difficult since marrying Mr. Darcy."
"I was difficult before."
"Not this expensively."
Elizabeth laughed harder.
Lydia looked up from the floor. "What is Mama complaining about?"
"You," Elizabeth said.
"Again?"
"Marriage."
Lydia groaned and turned to Clara. "You see what awaits you?"
Clara, now nearly three, held up the wooden horse. "He bow."
"Better than most men," Lydia said solemnly.
Darcy, entering with Bingley, heard and stopped. "I refuse to take offense on behalf of an entire sex."
Lydia grinned. "You bow very well, Mr. Darcy."
"Thank you."
"You used to look terrifying while doing it."
Darcy glanced at Elizabeth. "Used to?"
Elizabeth bit her lip.
Lydia had no idea how true the word was.
By twenty, Lydia had become no quieter. She remained lively, vain about new gowns, fond of dancing, and entirely capable of talking over three people if the subject interested her. But she had also learned to pause when attention arrived and ask whether the man offering it interested her in return.
That distinction changed everything.
She met Captain James Howard at Pemberley during a summer house party. He had recently sold out after a leg injury left him unable to remain on active service. He was thirty, possessed a modest inheritance, a dry sense of humor, and a face handsome enough that Elizabeth distrusted him immediately.
Darcy found this hilarious.
"You are prejudiced," he told her after the first dinner.
Elizabeth stood before the mirror in their dressing room removing an earring. "Be quiet."
"He has done nothing."
"He is handsome."
"So am I."
She turned. "You were dangerous."
Darcy looked pleased. "Were?"
Elizabeth threw the earring cloth at him.
Captain Howard did not adore Lydia instantly.
This fascinated her.
Their first disagreement concerned horses. Lydia declared one of Darcy's young mares too spirited for ordinary riders. Howard said the mare was merely poorly exercised.
"You are wrong," Lydia informed him.
Howard looked at the animal and then at Lydia. "Possibly. But not because you say so."
Lydia stared.
Elizabeth, watching from the terrace, nearly choked on her tea.
Howard explained himself. Lydia argued. He listened. She argued better. He changed half his opinion and said so.
That evening Lydia came to Elizabeth's room without knocking, threw herself into a chair, and announced, "Captain Howard told me I was wrong."
Elizabeth looked up from a letter. "How dare he?"
"Exactly."
"Was he right?"
Lydia frowned. "Partly."
"Disgraceful."
Lydia laughed. "He explained himself."
Elizabeth smiled slowly. "Dangerous indeed."
Howard courted Lydia for a year.
Not continuously. They quarreled twice. Once Lydia refused to speak to him for nearly three weeks because he had criticized an officer friend too sharply. Howard later admitted he had been jealous and apologized without pretending jealousy excused him.
That mattered to Elizabeth.
It mattered more to Lydia.
When Howard finally proposed, Lydia did something that would have been impossible at fifteen.
She asked for a week.
Mrs. Bennet nearly died.
"A week?" she cried when Lydia told the family. "Why would you require a week? He is handsome, he has a respectable income, he loves you, and he has all his own teeth!"
Mr. Bennet lowered his newspaper. "An exacting standard."
Mrs. Bennet ignored him. "What is there to think about?"
Lydia looked uncomfortable but did not retreat. "Whether I want the life he is offering."
The room became quiet.
Elizabeth crossed to her and hugged her.
Lydia complained into her shoulder. "Everyone keeps doing that."
"Get used to it."
After six days Lydia accepted.
Her marriage was noisy, affectionate, occasionally explosive, and happy.
Howard did not attempt to make Lydia quiet. Lydia learned that speaking loudly did not prevent listening.
Years later, when both women had children of their own, Lydia sat with Elizabeth at Pemberley and admitted, "I used to think being wanted was the same as being loved."
Elizabeth watched her sister's face. Age had not erased Lydia's brightness. It had given it direction.
"And now?"
Lydia looked toward the lawn where Howard was arguing with Darcy over a breeding mare. "Now I know being known is much more inconvenient."
Elizabeth laughed. "Yes."
Lydia smiled. "Worth it, though."
"Usually."
"You cannot say usually. You married Mr. Darcy twice over in spirit, if not in fact."
Elizabeth froze.
Lydia frowned. "What?"
Elizabeth recovered. "Nothing."
"You looked strange."
"Age."
Lydia rolled her eyes. "You have used that excuse since you were twenty."
Elizabeth laughed until the danger passed.
Some habits, apparently, had consequences.
The family gathered at Pemberley each Christmas often enough that the house developed new traditions unrelated to the first life.
Lydia organized ridiculous charades. Mary insisted upon one evening of serious music and tolerated Lydia's complaints only because Lydia attended anyway.
Kitty sketched whoever fell asleep after dinner and threatened to publish the least flattering results.
Bingley cheated at children's games.
Darcy accused him annually.
Jane defended him without conviction.
Mrs. Bennet spent the first visit overwhelmed by Pemberley's scale and the second acting as though she had always belonged there. Mr. Bennet discovered Darcy's library and had to be physically summoned to meals.
One Christmas Elizabeth found all five sisters in the old morning room at once. Jane was mending a child's sleeve. Mary was copying music. Kitty sketched Lydia, who complained about being required to remain still. Elizabeth sat near the fire.
For a moment no husbands, children, mothers, fathers, or servants interrupted.
Only sisters.
Elizabeth looked at them and felt the weight of both lives.
Lydia noticed. "Why are you staring?"
"I like the view."
Kitty snorted. "She means Jane."
Mary said dryly, "Statistically, that is likely."
Everyone stopped.
Then Lydia laughed so hard she nearly fell from the chair.
Mary began laughing too.
Elizabeth joined them.
This was what she had wanted without knowing how to ask for it the first time: not improved sisters, but room for each of them to be more than the role the family had assigned.