1. Chapter One #4
The word pleased her immensely. It gave shape to the injustice.
It made Lizzy smaller and Lydia injured in a grander fashion.
Jealousy explained lectures. Jealousy explained warnings.
Jealousy explained why Lizzy had been so grave at dinner—perhaps she thought Lydia was already halfway to infamy merely by wishing to visit the seaside.
“She will be sorry,” Lydia announced.
Kitty looked eager. “What shall you do?”
Lydia walked to the wardrobe and opened both doors with a flourish. “I shall never forgive her.”
“Never?”
“Never.” She began pulling out gowns one by one and tossing them over her arm. “When I marry a colonel, she will not even be invited to visit me.”
Kitty giggled. “That will punish her very much.”
“It ought to.”
“And if she begs?” Kitty laced her fingers together.
“I shall say, ‘No, Lizzy, you once prevented me from going to Brighton, and now you must remain at Longbourn forever while I attend balls and have a barouche.’”
Kitty clasped her hands together. “Will your colonel have a barouche?”
“He had better.” She rifled through the wardrobe in search of her favorite shawl. It would probably be freezing in the north.
“What if he has nothing but a curricle?”
She shrugged. “Then he must be very handsome.”
This was sufficient to restore them both for nearly half a minute.
Lydia selected her pale blue muslin, considered it, then threw it onto the bed. “I shall take this.”
“For Derbyshire?”
She nodded. “For suffering becomingly.”
Kitty nodded as if such a thing was sensible.
“And the sprigged muslin,” Lydia continued. “And the pink. And the white, if Mama lets me have it altered.”
Kitty’s brows drew together. “But if there are no officers…”
“There may be gentlemen.” I hope.
“In Derbyshire?”
Lydia rolled her eyes. “Gentlemen must live somewhere, Kitty.”
“Yes, but do they dance there?”
Lydia paused with one hand on the wardrobe door. That question deserved serious attention. “I suppose they must,” she said at last. “People cannot simply exist without dancing. Even in Derbyshire.”
Kitty appeared reassured.
Lydia was less certain. Derbyshire, in her imagination, consisted of steep roads, rain, elderly relations, gloomy inns, and large houses inhabited by people who spoke sensibly about views.
Aunt Gardiner would want to walk everywhere.
Uncle Gardiner would want to look at trout.
Lizzy would be pleased by both. Lydia might be forced to sketch a ruin.
She had never in her life been so abused.
“Do you suppose Aunt Gardiner means to make me sketch old buildings?” she asked abruptly.
Kitty’s face fell. “Oh, Lydia.”
“She likes those sorts of things. Looking at landscapes for hours and saying how picturesque everything is.” Lydia shuddered. “I cannot think of anything more miserable unless perhaps it involves poetry.”
“Mary would enjoy it.”
“Mary would enjoy prison if someone allowed her to moralize there.”
Kitty shrieked so hard she fell back against the pillows.
Lydia joined too, because it was funny, and because Kitty’s laughter always made laughter easier.
For a little while, the room became almost cheerful again.
They began discussing what Lydia ought to wear if she met a handsome stranger upon a mountain path, whether a gentleman who admired waterfalls could be trusted, and whether Derbyshire assemblies might include officers passing through on mysterious military business.
Then Brighton came to her mind again. It rushed in all at once with the image of the sea, promenades, music, officers in bright regimentals, Mrs. Forster whispering scandalous observations behind her fan, and Lydia herself moving through it all as the most admired girl in the place.
Gone. Gone because Lizzy had sat at dinner with serious eyes and spoken of consequences as if consequences were fashionable.
Lydia’s laughter faded. She went to the window and pressed her forehead against the glass.
The pane had cooled with the evening air.
Below, the lawn stretched dim and dull beneath the fading sky.
Somewhere in the house Mary began practicing the pianoforte with grim determination, each note plodding after the last until the music itself sounded like a moral lecture.
“I hate being directed and ordered about,” Lydia burst out.
Kitty sat up. “So do I.”
“No, you do not. You dislike being left behind.”
Kitty looked hurt. “That is managing of a sort.”
Lydia waved this aside. “Lizzy speaks as if I am a child who must be locked away from enjoyment. She thinks if she says ‘imprudence’ and ‘reputation’ often enough, everyone must bow down before her wisdom.”
“She did look very serious.” Kitty sounded uncertain again.
“She loves looking serious. It makes people think she is clever.”
“Lizzy is clever,” Kitty said, then seemed to realize this bordered upon disloyalty. “But perhaps too clever.”
“Far too clever.” Lydia moved from the window. “Cleverness ruins everything when people use it against their sisters.”
Kitty nodded solemnly.
A better thought came then, bright and wicked enough to chase away some of the humiliation.
“I shall have revenge,” Lydia said.
Kitty’s eyes widened. “What sort?”
“I do not know yet.”
“Oh.”
“But it shall be very good when I think of it.”
Lydia resumed pacing, this time with purpose. A proper revenge required imagination. It could not be something ordinary, such as refusing to speak to Lizzy, though she intended to do that as well whenever she remembered. It must make Lizzy regret every word she had spoken.
“I might write to Mrs. Forster,” Lydia said.
Kitty sat forward. “And tell her what?”
“That I am being held against my will.”
“Are you?”
“Morally.”
Kitty considered this. “Would Mrs. Forster come and rescue you?”
“She ought to.”
“But Papa would not let you go.”
“Then perhaps she might write a very severe letter.”
“Mrs. Forster does not write severe letters.”
“No,” Lydia admitted. “She writes amusing ones.”
They both sighed.
Lydia paced again.
“I might behave so dreadfully in Derbyshire that Aunt Gardiner sends me home in despair.”
Kitty brightened. “Then could you still go to Brighton?”
“Perhaps.”
“But if you were sent home in disgrace, Papa would be angry.”
Lydia stopped. “That is true.”
“And Lizzy would say she had been right.”
This possibility was intolerable.
“No,” Lydia said. “That will not do at all.”
She threw herself into the chair by the dressing table and stared at her reflection again. Revenge should not make Lizzy right. Revenge should make Lizzy sorry. There was a considerable difference.
“Perhaps,” she said slowly, “I shall become so admired in Derbyshire that everyone speaks of it. Aunt Gardiner will write home that I am the delight of the party, and you will be forced to hear Mama read it aloud. If I meet a very handsome gentleman, I shall mention him constantly in my letters.”
“To me?” Kitty asked.
“To everyone.” Lydia warmed to the scheme. “I shall torture Lizzy with proof of her insignificance the entire time we are gone. She will deserve it for ruining my fun.”