8. Chapter Eight #2
Without Darcy and Bingley present, Miss Bingley abandoned even the effort of appearing pleased by Lydia’s existence.
“My dear Georgiana,” she said while rearranging silk thread beside the lamp, “you must allow me to help organize your callers while we remain here. Country visits become so disordered without guidance.”
“I think Mrs. Reynolds manages everything very well,” Georgiana replied.
Miss Bingley smiled indulgently. “Housekeepers manage households. Society requires a different touch.”
Lydia raised her head from petting Horace. “What sort of touch?”
Miss Bingley came gracefully toward her. “Discernment, Miss Lydia.”
“There is that word again.”
Mrs. Gardiner coughed into her handkerchief.
Miss Bingley continued without acknowledging the interruption. “One cannot admit every acquaintance equally.”
“Why not?”
“Because distinctions exist.”
Lydia considered this. “I dislike distinctions. They make conversation tedious.”
Elizabeth murmured, “Lydia.”
“No, truly.” Lydia scratched Horace behind the ears while the dog groaned with contentment beside her slippers. “If everyone must speak correctly and admire the same people and discuss curtains in whispers, society sounds dreadful. I should expire from boredom.”
“Refinement is not dreadful,” Miss Bingley replied. She appeared ready to burst from frustration.
Perfect. Lydia shrugged. “I did not say refinement. I said boredom.”
Georgiana bent abruptly over her embroidery to hide another laugh.
Miss Bingley saw that.
After that, the room never became easy as it had before the Bingleys’ arrival.
Georgiana began speaking less often. Miss Bingley moved beside Darcy whenever opportunity allowed.
Elizabeth hesitated before joining conversations she would previously have entered naturally.
Darcy remained perfectly polite, though as the evening drew on, his answers grew shorter.
Lydia grew thoroughly sick of the entire performance.
Pemberley had been delightful before these people arrived. Now everyone spoke like they expected marks deducted for errors.
By the following afternoon, Lydia’s patience failed entirely.
The party gathered near the south terrace where tea had been arranged outdoors beneath striped awnings. Bees drifted lazily through the roses. Horace slept under Georgiana’s chair with one enormous paw twitching in dreams.
Miss Bingley had spent the last quarter hour correcting Lydia’s affected French accent.
Lydia had never claimed to produce French correctly. Indeed, she had been speaking atrociously to make Georgiana laugh.
“Your accent becomes delightfully provincial at times,” Miss Bingley remarked with a smile intended to soften the insult. “Though perhaps that cannot be helped in Hertfordshire.”
Lydia stirred her tea violently. “How tragic.”
Miss Bingley accepted fresh tea from a servant. “Exposure to polished company improves everyone eventually.”
“Oh, certainly.” Lydia fixed Miss Bingley with a direct look. “Myself, I hope to become very polished after another week at Pemberley. Perhaps by then I shall stop speaking entirely and merely stare at people until they feel inferior.”
Mr. Bingley burst into laughter so suddenly tea splashed onto his cuff. Darcy redirected his attention toward the gardens much too quickly. Georgiana made a sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh. And, as Lydia had intended, Miss Bingley’s color rose.
Elizabeth pressed fingers against her forehead. Mrs. Gardiner rescued the conversation before actual disaster occurred, but Lydia scarcely listened afterward.
Her attention remained fixed elsewhere—on Georgiana. Every time Miss Bingley addressed her directly, Georgiana shifted slightly. Her shoulders hunched. Her answers shortened.
Lydia found herself watching Georgiana constantly by then.
That evening, after cards had ended and Mrs. Hurst retired complaining of a headache, Lydia escaped into the gallery with Horace lumbering behind her.
The house had grown dim and warm. Candlelight flickered along the portraits. Somewhere below stairs servants still moved about settling the evening.
Footsteps approached behind her.
Georgiana.
“There you are,” Lydia said. “I thought Miss Bingley had finally locked you inside a cabinet for safekeeping.”
Georgiana chuckled despite visible fatigue. “She does not mean harm.”
“Then I dislike her naturally.”
Horace collapsed heavily across the carpet between them.
Georgiana rested one hand against the back of a chair. “You should not quarrel with her on my account.”
“I quarrel with her on my own account as well. She behaves as though she owns the house.”
Georgiana’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Lydia stepped closer, lowering her voice instinctively though nobody else remained nearby. “Why do you let her order you about?”
Georgiana furrowed her brows. “She does not order me.”
“She does. Constantly.” Lydia crossed her arms over her chest. “She tells you what to play, where to sit, whom to speak to, what to wear, when to rest, and apparently how to think besides.”
“That is not fair.”
“It is perfectly fair,” Lydia insisted. “I have listened to her for too long already.”
Georgiana bent to scratch Horace behind the ears rather than answer. The dog thumped his tail once against the carpet.
Lydia waited.
At last Georgiana spoke very softly. “She has always been attached to my brother.”
“Yes. Blind people could perceive that.”
Georgiana laughed before catching herself and glancing toward the hallway.
Encouraged, Lydia continued. “And she dislikes Lizzy.”
Georgiana hesitated longer this time. “I think… she is troubled.”
“Because my sister belongs here better than she does?”
Georgiana glanced up abruptly.
“Oh, do not stare so astonished,” Lydia said. “Everyone sees it except Lizzy.”
It was all Georgiana could do not to laugh.
The following morning, Lydia escaped Miss Bingley before breakfast had concluded.
This required strategy.
Miss Bingley had developed a habit of capturing Georgiana directly after the meal and steering her toward whichever room best displayed refinement at eleven o’clock in the morning.
Yesterday it had been the music room. The day before, the small morning parlor where watercolor portfolios lay arranged upon tables no one genuinely used.
Lydia suspected Miss Bingley selected rooms with alarming strategy.
Lydia chose hers differently. She waited until Miss Bingley began explaining the superiority of Italian instruction over English masters.
Then Lydia dropped her napkin deliberately beneath the table, kicked it farther beneath her chair while retrieving it, and whispered, “Run,” to Georgiana before anybody understood what had occurred.
Georgiana stared at her. Lydia darted from the room. Three seconds later footsteps hurried behind her.
By the time Miss Bingley reached the doorway calling, “Georgiana, my dear—” they were already halfway down the corridor laughing breathlessly like schoolgirls fleeing punishment.
“I cannot believe we did that,” Georgiana gasped.
“I can.” Lydia seized her hand and pulled her faster toward the terrace doors. “Quickly. Before she organizes us.”
Sunlight flooded the lawns outside. The morning still carried traces of dew beneath the trees. Somewhere near the stables a groom shouted good-naturedly at an impatient horse. Horace came bounding around the side of the house with enough enthusiasm to suggest he had escaped discipline himself.
“There,” Lydia declared triumphantly. “We are safe now.”
“Miss Bingley will be offended.”
Lydia snorted. “She is offended by weather and breathing. We cannot help her.”
Georgiana pressed her fingers against her mouth, trying unsuccessfully to conceal laughter.
Lydia liked that laugh.
It never carried the air of performance. Many ladies treated amusement the way they arranged flowers, with attention to posture and audience alike. Georgiana’s delight arrived without warning, sudden enough that she occasionally appeared startled by it herself.
They crossed toward the rose gardens while Horace bounded ahead between the gravel paths, nosing enthusiastically at every hedge he passed.
The dog vanished into shrubbery and emerged carrying a gardener’s glove in his mouth.
“Oh dear,” Georgiana murmured.
Lydia folded her arms. “I support his criminal career fully.”
A gardener appeared around the hedge moments later looking exasperated but resigned. “Horace, you great brute. Bring that back.”
Horace ignored him.
Lydia whistled sharply. “Come here, beast.”
To Georgiana’s astonishment, Horace obeyed.
“Well,” Lydia said smugly while reclaiming the glove, “someone in this household possesses authority.”
The gardener accepted the glove with a grin. “Thank you, miss. Mr. Darcy spoils him shamefully.”
“He deserves spoiling,” Lydia replied. “Look at his face.”
Horace leaned heavily against her skirts in agreement.
They wandered farther afterward where the gardens transformed into less ordered grounds. Pemberley possessed endless paths. Lydia had already decided one might live there ten years and still discover hidden corners unexpectedly.
Outdoors, Georgiana spoke more quickly. Indoors, particularly near Miss Bingley, she weighed every sentence first. Lydia noticed it in a trice. Inside the house, she often paused before speaking, particularly when Miss Bingley lingered nearby. Outside she forgot to hesitate.
“Do you ride every day?” Lydia asked while balancing along the low stone edging beside the path.
“When weather permits.”
“I should like to ride better. Kitty bounces alarmingly and Jane refuses to race. There is not much opportunity to ride at home anyway. We have just Nellie for our use. She is dreadfully slow.”
“You race?”
“Of course. Maria Lucas lets me borrow her mare.”
Georgiana appeared pleased. “I love racing across the fields. My brother worries I shall be thrown, however.”
Lydia grinned. “Miss Darcy, your life has been tragically deficient in recklessness.”
“I believe my brother would call that a blessing.”