Page 125 of A Most Beloved Sister
Elizabeth watched the exchange with foreboding. She had tried to catch her mother’s eye for assistance, but Mrs. Bennet kept her gaze fixed firmly on the floor.
“How?” Kitty asked warily.
“By taking me to Brighton with you! You can introduce me to all the other officers and help me find a husband. I’m muchprettier and livelier than you, so I will definitely catch the eye of someone far better than Wickham.”
Kitty was already shaking her head to deny the request before Lydia had even finished speaking. “I’m afraid my husband won’t allow that.”
“Oh, but hewill,” Lydia smirked nastily. “Remember, I was his favorite first. Depend upon it, I will be going to Brighton.”
Gaping, Elizabeth searched for something she could say, but before she thought of the proper words, her father had entered the room.
“Yougo to Brighton? I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne, not for fifty pounds! No, Lydia, it is clear you and your mother”—he gave Mrs. Bennet a hard look, and she blushed—“have not yet learned to be cautious, and you will once again feel the effects of it.”
The room fell deadly quiet; everyone was staring at Mr. Bennet, who had paused for effect.
Then he said, “As of this moment, you are not to be allowed out of the nursery. Not for meals, not for visitors, not even for church. You will remain there until I have secured a place for you in a boarding school.”
“Boarding school?” shrieked Mrs. Bennet, dropping her teacup. It shattered, and she collapsed over onto the settee, moaning for her smelling salts.
“I shan’t! You cannot make me!” screeched Lydia, coming to her feet and stamping them on the ground repeatedly. “You’ll have to take me in irons because I’ll never go! Nev—”
Mr. Bennet crossed the room and placed one large hand over her mouth, cutting off her tirade mid-word. “I can, and you shall. Irons can be arranged.”
With that, he picked her up and carried her kicking and screaming from the room. Her shrill howling could be heard allthe way up the stairs and from the third story, where the nursery was located.
Elizabeth and Kitty looked at each other with wide eyes. Hill came bustling into the room with a vial of smelling salts and began waving them under Mrs. Bennet’s nose. The matron coughed, and Hill looked over at her mistress’s two daughters.
“Get out while you can, before she comes to!” she whispered.
Kitty and Elizabeth did not need to be told a second time. They quickly gathered their things and made their way to the door, the shrieks of Lydia and Mrs. Bennet echoing in their ears.
Once outside and in the carriage Bingley had graciously allowed them to use, they looked at one another and collapsed on each other in hysterical laughter.
“I have never felt so frightened in my life when Lydia said she wanted to come to Brighton,” Kitty said, gasping for breath.
Elizabeth nodded. “I daresay that was the first time in my life that I felt at a complete loss for words. I knew what I felt and what I wanted to say, but saying it in front of our mother without knowing if we had any support from our father…”
Her voice trailed off, and Kitty replied, “Precisely. Each time she says that Wickham preferred her first or was in love with her, I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. She doesn’t know how wrong she is. He might have thought her fun at the very beginning, but that was all. He could never confide in her the way he does with me.”
Kitty flushed at this last bit, and Elizabeth wondered exactly what sorts of things Wickham confided—or at least when and where he did so—to cause such embarrassment in her sister, but then she decided she preferred to not know.
“It is good you are confident in his esteem for you,” Elizabeth said. “For what it is worth, he told me the same thing at the assembly when he said he wished to marry you.”
“Yes, he told me that as well,” Kitty said with a smile. “I am so grateful to you for giving him the encouragement to propose. I had no idea that Papa had saved so much money for dowries for us! But I can see why he didn’t want us to know.”
“Can you imagine what sort of chaos Lydia would cause if the officers knew she had a fortune? I’m fairly certain that rumors of her poverty are the only thing that have kept her from ruining herself,” Elizabeth said with a hint of bitterness in her voice.
“At least the rest of us are married well, or at least about to be,” Kitty replied. “Your settlement papers have been signed, have they not?”
“Yes, and if Darcy were to throw me over for something Lydia did, then I wouldn’t wish to marry him anyway,” Elizabeth said hotly. “He has dealt with scandals far worse.”
The carriage slowed, signaling their arrival at Netherfield. Just before they exited the carriage, Kitty said, “Well, hopefully going away to school will sort her out, at least until Mr. Darcy can return. It’s only a few months, after all.”
Yes,thought Elizabeth,but as Shakespeare wrote in Henry IV, “How slow the time is till your sorrow cease.” What could be more appropriate?
Chapter 34
In the manner typical of time, the days seemed to drag on endlessly, but the weeks seemed to fly by. Before Elizabeth even realized, the entire month of May had passed, and she was being told that it was time for baby Emma Jane to be baptized and Louisa to be churched.
