2. Chapter Two #2
“That is a formidable power. I shall try to wield it sparingly.”
Jane looked away, but not before Elizabeth caught the edge of her smile.
Mrs. Gardiner observed Elizabeth with an expression that steadied her more than praise would have done. “Lizzy, perhaps you and Jane might help Lydia consider what is necessary.”
“I will not be helped by Lizzy,” Lydia declared.
Mrs. Gardiner did not raise her voice. “Then you may be helped by Jane, and Elizabeth may help me with my lists.”
Lydia considered whether this counted as victory. Apparently it did, for she flounced back against the sofa and said, “Very well. Jane may help me. Jane does not enjoy ruining people.”
Jane’s expression softened. “I promise to be very respectful of your suffering.”
“That is all I ask.”
Mr. Bennet closed his book with a snap. “Excellent. We have arrived at diplomacy. I shall withdraw before peace collapses.”
“Do not abandon us,” Elizabeth murmured as he passed her chair.
“My dear Lizzy,” he replied under his breath, “a man must know his limits.”
And with that he escaped.
The remainder of the morning became a campaign of trunks, gowns, opinions, and contradiction.
Elizabeth had thought Lydia would refuse to pack at all.
Instead, she refused to pack sensibly, which proved far worse.
By midday, her bedroom resembled a chaotic scene from a milliner’s establishment disrupted by an armed invasion.
Gowns lay across chairs. Gloves spilled from a drawer.
Ribbons trailed along the carpet. Kitty sat amid the wreckage with a bonnet in her lap, alternately admiring and mourning it.
“This one must go,” Lydia declared, holding up a gown trimmed with pink. “It is my most becoming.”
Jane, kneeling beside the open trunk, folded a chemise with patient care. “You have already said that of four gowns.”
“They are becoming in different ways.”
Mrs. Gardiner stood near the wardrobe, sleeves neatly pinned back, surveying the disorder like a general unwilling to be defeated by muslin. “Then choose which way you most wish to be becoming.”
Lydia frowned at the gown in her hands. “That is cruel.”
“It is practical.”
“Practicality is always cruel.”
Kitty sighed over the bonnet. “I wish I were going. I should be practical if I were going.”
Lydia snatched a ribbon from the dressing table. “You would not. You would take every bonnet you own and borrow two of mine.”
“I would ask first.”
“No, you would not.”
Jane stood up next to the trunk. “Lydia, the sprigged muslin or the pink. Not both.”
Lydia clutched the pink gown to her chest. “But the sprigged muslin is better for morning.”
Mrs. Gardiner crossed to the bed and picked up the sprigged muslin herself. “Then the pink must remain.”
Lydia gasped. “Aunt!”
“Unless you prefer the pink.”
Lydia stared between the two gowns like she was being forced to choose between beloved children.
Elizabeth held Mrs. Gardiner’s travel list on her lap. “You might always wear the sprigged muslin in the morning and cease requiring a gown for every possible shade of daylight.”
Lydia rounded on her. “No one asked you.”
“You are mistaken. Aunt asked me to assist with the lists.”
Her sister huffed. “The lists are not suffering without your aid.”
“They will become so.”
Mrs. Gardiner came to Elizabeth’s rescue by taking the pink gown and laying it aside. “The sprigged muslin goes; the pink remains. The white may come if it can be made ready without tormenting every maid in the house.”
Lydia opened her mouth.
Mrs. Gardiner fixed a stern glare in her direction.
Lydia shut it again.
Elizabeth wrote two lines on the list to avoid laughing outright.
Her aunt’s success with Lydia bordered upon miraculous.
She did not flatter; she did not scold without purpose; she offered Lydia structure as if it were an ordinary fact of life, no more negotiable than the weather.
Lydia resisted them, but without the same success she had long enjoyed at home.
Elizabeth had not realized until now how tiring the household had become.
Kitty, however, had begun to droop. “I shall be the only one left with Mary.”
Jane reached over to touch her arm. “You shall have Mama and Papa and me.”
“That is not the same.”
“No,” Lydia said, with sudden generosity now that she was the one leaving, “but I shall write to you. Perhaps every week.”
“Every week?” Kitty repeated, wounded.
“Every few days, then.”
“Every day.”
Lydia made a face. “Kitty, I cannot write every day. I shall have adventures.”
Kitty’s lower lip trembled.
Elizabeth watched Lydia’s expression shift. Not much. A flicker of discomfort, followed by impatience, then something almost like guilt.
“Oh, very well,” Lydia said, tossing the ribbon into Kitty’s lap. “I shall write whenever something happens. And if nothing happens, I shall write to tell you how nothing is happening and how miserable I am.”
Kitty brightened. “And describe everyone’s gowns?”
“Of course.”
“And any officers?”
“If there are any officers, I shall fill three pages.”
Mrs. Gardiner took another pair of gloves from Lydia’s pile and examined them critically. “You may fill three pages with anything you like, provided you do not spend the journey hunting for officers.”
Lydia dropped backward onto the bed. “Aunt, how can one hunt for officers? They are either present or they are not.”
“One may place oneself in their way with remarkable industry.”
Lydia wiped her eyes. “Has Lizzy been speaking to you?”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled as she returned the gloves to the acceptable pile. “I was young once.”
This produced the first true silence Lydia had offered all day.
Kitty appeared astonished. Jane smiled as she turned her head away to hide her amusement. Elizabeth paused with her pen above the list.
Lydia studied her aunt with new interest. “Were you very admired?”
“Enough to know admiration is pleasant,” Mrs. Gardiner replied, “and not enough to mistake it for good sense.”
Lydia considered that, then wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like something Mary would say if she had ever been admired.”
“Perhaps. But I hope I say it with better timing.”
Kitty giggled.
Lydia giggled and stopped looking affronted for a few moments.
For a time, they worked without quarrel.
Jane folded gowns and linen; Elizabeth marked what had been decided; Mrs. Gardiner reduced chaos into order with impressive firmness.
Lydia continued to protest, but her protests became more decorative than sincere.
By the time the trunk contained more useful garments than rejected ones, the room no longer resembled a battlefield. Lydia stood before the glass, holding two ribbons to her bonnet, unable to decide between blue and white.
“Blue,” Kitty said.
“White,” Jane suggested.
Lydia appealed to Elizabeth despite herself. “Which?”
Elizabeth considered it. “The blue.”
Lydia’s mouth thinned. “Then I shall wear the white.”
Elizabeth returned to the list. “Naturally.”
Mrs. Gardiner took the blue ribbon from Lydia’s hand and held it against the bonnet. “The blue suits the trim better.”
Lydia examined it in the mirror, trying very hard to remain displeased. “Perhaps for travel.”
“Very wise,” Jane said.
Lydia gave her a suspicious look. “You sound like Lizzy.”
Jane patted her sister’s hand. “I hope not when I am complimenting you.”
Elizabeth did not look up. The ink had pooled slightly at the end of her pen, leaving a dark spot beside Lydia’s name. She blotted it with a scrap of paper and found her thoughts slipping, without permission, from Longbourn’s noisy bedchamber to another house she had never seen.
Pemberley.
Her aunt and uncle had spoken of it more than once in planning their tour.
Lambton remained dear to Mrs. Gardiner, and Pemberley was among the sights every traveler of sense desired to see.
When the scheme had involved herself and the Gardiners, Elizabeth had told herself she could view the place with perfect detachment.
Mr. Darcy would not be there. The house could not accuse her.
Its woods and waters could say nothing of Hunsford.