Lydia

by Natasha Farrant

  “The first time we met – in the street at Meryton – you told me you had sailed the Mediterranean on a ship called Lydia. Do you remember? Was that true?”

  “Of course it was true! What do you take me for, a liar?”

  I didn’t dignify that with an answer. “What were you doing on a ship?”

  “I had a monstrous gambling debt to pay off to her captain, and no means of doing so other than slaving away for six months on his blasted merchant vessel.”

  I smiled in the darkness at the thought.

  “Wickham?”

  “For God’s sake, what?”

  I fell asleep listening to him telling me about the Mediterranean.

  Saturday, 25th July

  We have arrived at Mapperton Abbas. They are here – so close! The innkeeper confirmed it – the whole family, Esther and Mrs. Lovett, Theo and Alaric, even the maid Marie.

  Esther’s estate is ENORMOUS. I don’t know what Denny was thinking when he said it was small – it is at least as big as Netherfield. And I bet if Shakespeare himself were to see it, he would spontaneously write whole volumes of sonnets in its praise, because it is lovely. The house is built of pale grey stone and sits in a wide sunny valley surrounded by hills. There are meadows full of flowers and sheep, and paddocks with fat horses, and dairy cows to make Mr. Collins weep. Around the house there are white roses, and lavender and thyme and rosemary and marjoram, and there are woods with cuckoos and blackbirds and robins and doves. There are cotton-tailed bunnies in the fields, and as Wickham and I walked over from the inn this morning, I saw the long twitchy ears of a hare.

  We went at daybreak, to survey the land before any of the family rose. My boots and the hems of my dress and petticoat were soaked with dew, but the sky was pink and blue and gold, and the sun was already warm on our backs.

  “It feels like the world is just beginning,” I said to Wickham.

  “The start of your new life.” He smiled.

  We walked through the woods on a white gravel path that opened on to a lake, with a rowing boat painted a bright buttercup yellow. A wicked gleam entered Wickham’s eye as he led me to the water.

  “We can’t!” I said. “It is Esther’s boat!”

  “Esther will never know.”

  And oh, the joy of cutting through with your hand trailing in the water, when the mist is still rising, and all about you there are lilies, and frogs are jumping and birds are singing and a heron is fishing among the reeds! If life could be always like that, I would be absolutely happy.

  My stomach rumbled as we rowed back to shore. Wickham tied the boat to its mooring post and produced an apple and a roll.

  “Don’t you want any?” I asked as I fell on them.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  He lay back on the bank, careless of the morning dew, and tilted his face towards the sun.

  “One day,” he murmured, “all this could be yours.”

  “Not mine.” I spat out an apple pip. It landed on his nose, and he brushed it away with an exasperated sigh. “It is Esther’s, remember? I am for the tea plantation in India.”

  “I should like to see you on your plantation,” Wickham said with a smile. “Riding about on your elephant.”

  I spat out another pip. “You can’t ride about a plantation on an elephant,” I scoffed. “It would trample everything. I shall have a dear little pony . . .”

  “Someone’s coming.”

  He was on his feet like a cat, dragging me away from the bank and into the shelter of the woods. I craned my neck to see.

  “It is only a servant,” Wickham whispered. “But the household is waking up. Come, let us go. We have an idea of how the land lies, and we can form a plan.”

  Wickham has gone, to find a housemaid he will bribe to take a message to Alaric. Oh God! I know now why Mamma complains so about her nerves – I think that I am going to be sick.

  Alaric will come . . . I will speak to him . . . I will remind him . . . When he sees how far I have come, all that I have done . . . He will stand up to his sister. Yes, that is what will happen. We may not have to run away at all . . . He will see me, and he will tell Theo we are to be married, and we shall ride back to Longbourn together, and oh, how impressed they will all be.

  When Alaric comes . . .

  Three o’clock

  I am sitting close to where we hid this morning, in the trees beside the lake, and I am waiting for him.

  Wickham found a housemaid. She would not take a message for him, but she gave him some information, and Wickham told me exactly what to do.

  “Every afternoon, at about half past three, your young man goes to our yellow boat to read,” he told me over luncheon – more bread and cheese. “The lake is easily reached from the village via a water meadow. There is a side gate, which is not locked during the day.”

  I still felt I was going to be sick.

  “Thank you,” I stammered. “You have been . . . You are actually very good to me. When all this ends well, I will tell Colonel Forster, and Father, and everybody . . . I will explain that this was all my idea . . .”

  “I am not entirely unselfish in all this, you know. Miss Lovett is my principal reason for being here.”

  “Oh, you are . . .”

  He put a finger to my lips. “Now, are you ready?” he asked. “Got your bonnet, your best frock, your walking shoes? Look at me – very pretty. No man could resist you, Miss Bennet, be he the King himself. Go, hurry – do not keep him waiting.”

  The path from the village wound round the meadows, bordered on either side by rushes and pink flowers, so tall in places they formed an arch over my head. Mapperton Abbas, with its cottages, church, inn and pastures, disappeared from view, and for a few minutes I was completely alone in the wood. Then the vegetation thinned, the path disappeared, and I found myself standing before a gate. It was open, as Wick-ham had said it would be. I entered, walked a hundred yards to the lake, came to this bush, and waited. Am I ready? These last days have been so unreal. Part of me feels I never want them to end. But that is fear, nothing more.

  It is just my nerves. The thing is not to let Theo see me. She is the enemy here. It is she who has taken Alaric away, I am quite sure of it. All will be well, as soon as I speak to him.

  Someone is coming!

  Seven-thirty

  It is all over. I am back at the inn – in bed, with a blanket about my shoulders and a glass of brandy on the table beside me brought by Wickham.

  Alaric appeared at half past three, just as the housemaid said he would, but he was not alone.

  Esther Lovett walked beside him. No – Esther Lovett walked with him, on his arm.

  I don’t want to write of what came next. Of how Alaric rowed into the middle of the lake and then put down the oars. Of how the boat rocked as Esther came to sit beside him. Of how she rested her head on his shoulder – how he put his arm about her waist . . .

  I gasped. My movement startled the heron, which took off in a great flapping of wings and came to settle with much commotion across the water from where I hid. I am mistaken, I thought. It is only a friendly gesture – between two people broken-hearted – a cousin consoling a cousin . . .

  Alaric shaded his eyes to watch the heron. Esther pointed. The ring upon her finger glinted in the afternoon sun.

  Esther – who never wears jewellery, who balked at the plainest pearl earrings before a dress ball – was wearing a ring . . .

  And now it is all confirmed. Wickham found the housemaid again and made further enquiries, and learned that they are engaged, and plan to marry soon. Alaric is not to go to Oxford after all – or India, or anywhere else. He is to stay here with Esther and run the estate. They have great plans, the housemaid said, of improving the workers’ cottages. She has seen his drawings, while she cleaned the study.

  “It is all Theo’s doing!” I sobbed in Wickham’s arms. “I see it now – she never liked me, from the very first time we met at the Chalybeate Spa. He pressed me
to come to Tara, but she did not want me to. And when we went swimming – I thought she was being so friendly, but she was trying to warn me off – she said she would do everything she could to protect him. I did not realise she meant from me! All the time, it has been Esther, Esther, Esther – all that time he was ill! He said himself it was only a little cold, but she forced him to stay behind so he shouldn’t see me – so that he should see only her! And those dresses!” I burst into fresh sobs as I thought of Esther, tiny and ethereal, so much more elegant than me. “But why?” I wailed. “Why does she hate me so much?” Furious now, I paced about the room. Wickham put out a hand to still me, drew me to him.

  “Lydia, calm down.”

  “He loves me!” I wailed. “And now he is engaged to Esther Lovett!”

  There was a knock at the door. My heart beat wildly, thinking it might be him, but it was only a serving girl bringing supper. I burst into tears again and flung my arms about Wick-ham’s neck.

  “Darling Lydia,” he murmured as the serving girl left. “We have to leave this place.”

  “I won’t go home!” I cried.

  “Well, there is nothing for either of us to gain by staying in Mapperton.”

  “You’re right.” I gazed over his shoulder out of the window. Evening already! Hours since I saw Alaric and Esther, but at this time of year the sun was a long way from setting. If the weather was like this at Longbourn, they would be taking tea out on the lawn – just as they always did, just as they always would. The very thought filled me with horror.

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  “I have to go to London,” he said. “I must find some money, and it is the best place.”

  “I will go with you,” I said.

  “Lydia . . .”

  “I shan’t be a burden! I will think of something to do, soon enough. I don’t know what yet, but I will think of something! And if I don’t . . . well, if I don’t, I suppose I will have to go back to Longbourn.”

  Wickham sighed. “Very well. I have spoken to the innkeeper. The next Shrewsbury coach passes on Monday afternoon. From there, it is but two days’ travelling to London.”

  I felt drowsy after my tears. The food on the table was growing cold, but I did not move.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He tightened his arms about me. I fancy he even dropped a kiss on my head.

  “I’m sorry about Esther,” I said. With Wickham being so nice, I felt guiltier than ever for lying to him. “I promise that when I last saw her, she was still madly in love with you.”

  “Well, that’s a comfort at least.”

  So off we go tomorrow, and I have to think of what to do . . . I have to think of something . . .

  But what?

  Friday, 31st July

  We have been in London two days now, sharing a room again at this inn in Holborn, and I am working on a plan.

  It was Theo, of all people, who gave me the idea. The Comtesse de Fombelle, with her workroom and her silks, her grand ideas of becoming a famous designer of clothing, of one day having drawings published in La Belle Assemblée. Much as it pains me, I have re-read my account of our conversation on the beach. I promised myself that we would never be poor again, she said, and that one day, I would show the world that a woman can be as good in business as any man.

  Why should the same not apply to me?

  My new plan is to set up in business as a hat maker. I know that I can make this work. It is true, I have meagre capital – well, no capital at all, if I’m honest – but I have brought all my sewing things from Brighton, and all my ribbons, and Mamma is always saying how clever I am at making things – last winter, all those bonnets I re-trimmed! My green cape! Since we have been in London, I have walked every shopping street and arcade in the entire city, looking only at hat shops, and I am quite sure I can do it. All I need now is a shop, and stock and customers – which is daunting, but the key thing in all of this is to have the idea in the first place and to believe in yourself. That is what Wickham says. He thinks my plan is excellent, and has gone out now to find more money to help me make it happen. This afternoon, as soon as I have finished writing this, I am going to take apart my single bonnet, and reassemble it like one I saw in a shop this morning. I am going to cut up my pantaloons to cover it, with the ruffles all along the brim! Wickham was leaving as I was setting everything out, and he said, “You know, Lydia, I really admire you – what you are doing. You never give up, do you?”

  “Never,” I said. I did not even look up – too busy with my planning – but it made me feel warm inside.

  How surprised everyone will be when they hear my plan! There will be an outcry at first, of course. Working in trade! Lydia, a businesswoman! Whoever heard of such a thing! She is bound to fail! But I shan’t. I shall be a storming success, and all the best people will come to my shop – Theo herself, though I may refuse to serve her. There will be articles about me in La Belle Assemblée – even before there are articles about Theo. Alaric will be sick to the teeth, knowing what sort of a person could once have been his wife, and I will make so much money suitors will be falling over themselves to propose to me, and everyone will think me monstrous remarkable . . .

  Someone is outside – it must be Wickham, back already. Goodness, how much I have written! I must hide my diary before he sees me, lest he thinks I have not been working!

  Later . . .

  It was not Wickham. There were three strong raps at the door. Then, without waiting for an answer, it flew open – and Mr. Darcy strode in! He of all people!

  His imperious gaze swept the room. I saw it suddenly as he did, the pantaloons spread across the table and my clothes strewn about the chairs, the narrow bed, Wickham’s blankets on the floor, and I cringed.

  “I have come to take you home!” he declared.

  It’s extremely hard not to feel small when you are confronted with someone like Mr. Darcy, but I did my best to appear outraged.

  “I do not wish to go home,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” he snapped. “Your family is anxious. Your parents – your aunt and uncle – your sisters . . .”

  Oh, I thought. My sisters! That is why he is here . . .

  “Where is he?” said Mr. Darcy. “Wickham . . . where has he gone?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “Well, no matter. Pack your things, and come with me.”

  “I have already told you – I am not going back to Longbourn.”

  It seems quite unbelievable, but I swear that when I said that, Mr. Darcy doubled in size. He is a big man anyway, but his anger seemed to fill the room, and his dark eyes were like blazing coal.

  “I am not taking you to Longbourn,” he said. “We are going to your uncle Gardiner at Gracechurch Street. He will decide what is to be done with you.”

  “My uncle!”

  “For God’s sake, Lydia!” I noticed that he had dropped the “Miss”. “How can you think to stay here with this man! If you only knew what he is capable of – what he has done! Come home with me now, and all will be well. Your family will protect you. I will protect you, for the sake of . . . for the sake of . . .”

  He could not say it. He sat down heavily upon the sofa, and frowned at me. I glared back. For some time, we appeared to be in a deadlock. Then there were more footsteps outside, the door was flung open – and Wickham entered.

  “Good Lord!” he cried. “You here, Darcy – what are you doing in my room?”

  “I have come to take Miss Lydia,” said that gentleman in tones of ice.

  Wickham crossed the room to stand by me – put his arms about me – drew me to him. What was he doing?

  “You will have to kill me first,” he said.

  Darcy actually rolled his eyes. “No one is going to kill anyone,” he said. “Miss Lydia, come with me. If this is to be the shape of things, let us go to my own home for now.”

  “To your home?”

  “You had better go with him, my l
ove,” Wickham said, sighing. “I will follow you shortly.”

  “Go with him? Wickham! What are you talking about?”

  He pulled me to one side, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked straight into my eyes. “Lydia,” he whispered, “do you trust me?”

  “No.”

  A faint trace of a smile, then, “Well, you should.”

  “She will go with you,” he said, turning to Darcy. “Though I must tell you neither of us appreciates your high-handed tactics.”

  Five minutes later, I was in a carriage, on my way to Mr. Darcy’s house.

  It is the grandest house I have ever stayed in, all silent and cold with closed-off rooms and marble everywhere. My very bedroom is the size of an entire floor at Longbourn, which is just as well because I refuse to leave it.

  Monday, 3rd August

  Today they brought me to my uncle’s house, which is narrow and dark, with small rooms and a garden just big enough for a few shrubs. I will choke if I stay here any longer. I will die.

  Nag, nag, nag . . . Aunt Gardiner never stops.

  “What were you thinking?”

  “How could you do this to your family?”

  “Have you and Wickham – have you – oh, never mind if you have or not! You must marry him, and fast!”

  “Why on earth would I marry Wickham?” I asked.

  “Impossible girl! Everyone knows you are in love with him . . . Kitty says your letters are full of him, and a mysterious project!”

  “Kitty understands nothing.” I sighed.

  “Were you planning on living for ever in sin? Were you never going to marry him?”

  “Oh, I dare say we would have got round to it sooner or later, maybe,” I snapped, to shock her into silence.

  “I am going to fetch your uncle.”

  In came my uncle, with my aunt right behind him.

  “You must marry him! Think of your sisters!”

  “Who will marry them, when you are such a disgrace?”

  “Be careful, Lydia, that they do not cast you off.”

  My family would not cast me off – would they? A memory – Aunt Philips’s visit to Longbourn when the regiment first came to Meryton, the whispered conversation about Annie Atwood, who ran off with a soldier and was never spoken of again. Nothing has happened between Wickham and me, nothing – unless you count the running away – the shared rooms . . . But I have lost . . . I risked everything, and have lost! Perhaps if I explained, if I told them it was not as they all thought . . . Would it be better to know that I ran after Alaric?