Lydia (5 page)

Thursday, 28th November

M
r. Collins disappeared straight after breakfast on another long walk. The rest of us went into Meryton, where we found Wickham already returned from London, talking to Denny outside Savill's. He smiled gloriously at each of us as we approached, but then, after offering to walk us home, he spoke only with Lizzy. They walked together ahead of us, and I followed straight behind, glowering. Lizzy was wearing her new
noisette
pelisse, with rose-pink gloves and bonnet. I wish I had asked for a pelisse, too, instead of my new red cloak. A close-fitting pelisse is so much more willowy and elegant. As we walked, I tried to carry myself as she does – very straight, with long, even steps and this way she has with her arms, neither swinging them nor keeping them still. It is not as easy as it seems, and though I think I succeeded tolerably well, Wickham did not look at me once.

Maybe, if he had paid more attention to me and I hadn't been so irritated about Lizzy, I wouldn't have been so impatient with Mr. Collins when he returned for luncheon. I might
even have felt sorry for him. As it is, I sat down in a foul temper, and all through the meal, as he droned endlessly on, all I could think was that it was
his
fault, because if he had not been so dreadful Lizzy might have accepted him, and then Wickham would be all mine.

When he is not boring us with the lives of saints, Mr. Collins continues to advise us on all matters farming, from Better Cow Husbandry to The Auspicious Sowing of Oats. Today's chosen topic was Hens and How to Improve Their Laying. Did we know how vastly improved the flavour of eggs was by feeding chickens exclusively on a diet of corn? There was nothing like corn to ensure a good yellow yolk! Did we grow corn, ourselves? Lady Catherine's hens indeed had no other diet. But then Lady Catherine's hens were an altogether superior breed of bird – why, their very coop is built of the finest ash by a French carpenter who used to be a duke before the Revolution forced him to flee Paris.

I shouldn't wonder if Lady Catherine's hens slept on silk cushions and produced solid gold droppings.

Lord, it was unbearable! I wanted to pull the cloth off the table, just to make him stop. I don't know how the others managed to stay so calm. They just sat there munching away as he wittered on, with only Mary showing the slightest bit of interest.

“Lady Catherine's hens must be very fine indeed,” she said.

How could she? How could any of them listen to this man's babble? I don't care how much control he might have over us one day. No one should be allowed to be so dull.

If Jane had been herself, she would have restrained me. But Mr. Bingley went to London yesterday with no date given
for his return, and Jane is of no use to anybody.

Someone
had to say something.

“I should like to meet Lady Catherine's hens,” I declared. “Truly, I cannot think which introduction I should like more – the lady or her chickens.”

The others slowly returned to life. Jane dragged herself back from thoughts of Bingley. My father's lips twitched and even Lizzy smirked as I twisted my napkin round and round my fingers beneath the table to stop myself from bursting, and we all waited with bated breath for Mr. Collins's reaction.

He laid down his knife and fork. His cheeks still bulged with Hill's apple pudding, yet as he squared his shoulders and peered at us down his turnip nose, he was a picture of injured dignity.

“My dear cousin,” he cried, spraying apple compote all around him. “Are you comparing Lady Catherine to a chicken?”

And I burst. Oh, it felt so good! I laughed and I laughed and I laughed, until tears ran down my cheeks and Father ordered me to leave the table.

At the door, I dropped into a low curtsy. “Cluck, cluck!” I said.

“LYDIA!”

I ran.

Outside, the light was dying and the air smelled of wet leaves. Sparrows twittered in the laurel hedge and in the cowshed across the track the milkmaid sang. I sat upon the big cornerstone with my back against the wall of the house and closed my eyes.

Skirts rustled beside me. I opened my eyes. Mary was
standing in front of me. There were tear streaks on her face.

And at last I understood.

The reading last night. Saint Augustine. Her extraordinary new interest in chickens.

“No!” I cried. “Mary, you cannot be serious!”

She sighed and sat down next to me.

“If I marry Mr. Collins,” she said, very slowly, as if she were speaking to a child, “we will all be safe.”

“If you marry Mr. Collins,” I replied in exactly the same tone, “you will be very unhappy.”

Mary was silent.

“You can't marry him!” I exploded. “Mary, nobody should
ever
have to marry Mr. Collins! He's an abominable man!”

“He is not an abominable man,” Mary said. “He is pompous and self-important and not very handsome, but I believe he means well and—”

“Please do not talk about Longbourn and inheritance!”

“I love it here, Lydia,” she whispered. “I know you cannot wait to get away, but I never want to leave. I love it all. This stone we are sitting on, the Waire, the trees, the farm . . . My little room and our good, solid furniture, my chair before the fire, my desk, my pianoforte, my books. The orchard in spring when the blossom comes, the autumn harvest, even the winter mud. To know that I should come back to live here, that it would one day belong to my children . . . If Mr. Collins is the price to keep it, then I assure you I am willing to pay.”

For a while, I could only stare at her in astonishment. I have never heard Mary express so much emotion. I inched closer to her and took her hand. It is so pale compared to mine, and she is so very clever and bookish. It is a ghastly thought,
but what if Mr. Collins
were
right for her? And what if I have made her lose him?

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't think.”

“That's your trouble. You never do.”

“I will apologise. I will tell him I'm mad – no, not mad. Then
he
will worry lest madness runs in the family. I will tell him I am immensely silly – that I am renowned for it – but that you are perfectly brilliant. I will tell him anything you want!”

But Mary said, very quietly, “I think you've done enough, Lydia.”

She left. Jane, Lizzy and Kitty came out, wrapped up against the cold. They called out to Mary as she walked towards them, and as she drew near Jane held out her arms. Together they headed towards the lane. As they reached the rise in the road, I saw the four of them silhouetted quite clearly against the sky.

“Wait for me!” I wanted to call, but they were already too far to hear.

Saturday, 30th November

I
dreamed of Wickham last night – a lovely dream, of the two of us playing cards together and laughing over our piles and piles of winnings. At some point in the early morning, I was conscious of the sound of horses, the carriage being brought round to drive Mr. Collins to the coach, but it was daylight when I stirred again, a beautiful morning, not like winter at all. Kitty opened the curtains and I woke to the feeling of sunlight warming my face through the glass. It was a while before I could rouse myself to get out of bed. It felt too good to lie daydreaming between the sheets. But rise I must, and did. Hill brought a jug of warm water and I splashed it everywhere as I washed and then skipped downstairs to a hearty breakfast of toast and ham and eggs and marmalade and two cups of coffee.

I didn't apologise to Mr. Collins, and he didn't propose to Mary before he went. “I've been thinking,” I whispered to her while the others ate. “No one but you could be mad enough to want Mr. Collins. He will
never
marry. Then, when Father
dies, you can stay and keep house for him.”

“You are the one who is mad,” Mary said.

“But isn't it the perfect solution?” I insisted, and she almost smiled as she admitted that it was.

Then Charlotte came. She and Lizzy went out for a walk. I began work on a new project, which is to re-trim every single one of my bonnets. It is slow work, but there will be precious else to do on damp winter days. Once I grew used to being still, I had a lovely afternoon. Today I worked on the little straw poke, which I am re-crowning with a scrap of pale blue satin from an old skirt of Mamma's. Napoleon snuck into the drawing room and curled up purring beside me, and despite the nice day we lit a fire, and everything was altogether cosy and pleasant and felt like nothing would ever go wrong again. But
then
Lizzy came back with a face like thunder, and before we could find out why, Charlotte's father arrived, all friendly and neighbourly on the surface and perfidious snake beneath, to tell us that
Mr. Collins is to marry his daughter
.

Charlotte! Maria's sister! That mousy, boring, plain old maid! Why, she must be nearly thirty! Charlotte Lucas, our friend, one day to be mistress of Longbourn! Stealing our cousin from under our noses when she must know we need him for ourselves! It was incredible. More – it was impossible.

“We shall all be cousins!” burbled Sir William. I thought that Mary was going to cry.

“Good Lord!” I exclaimed, to deflect attention from her. “Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?”

Sir William went very pink and assured me that Mr. Collins was definitely marrying his daughter. Mary pulled herself
together and picked up a book.

When he finally,
finally
left, I walked down to the stream. Lizzy was already standing on the bridge, throwing pebbles one by one into the water. I gathered some of my own and went to stand beside her.

For a while we both stood there, not talking. Without saying a word we began to compete, and it was like being children again, seeing who could throw the farthest, as if no time had passed and nothing had changed since those days when we all played together before some of us became grown-up.

But time
has
passed and things
have
changed and we do not talk of the same things now as we did before.

There is a small ledge low on the wall of the bridge. If I stand on it, I can lean right over and stare straight down at the stream. The winter waters are darker than summer, and faster, too, but there is a deep pool to the side where the water is dammed, near the beach where I tried to swim. I dropped my final stone into it and watched the ripples spread out.

“I cannot believe,” Lizzy said, hurling her final stone, “that Charlotte will marry that man.”

“I hope they have really ugly babies.”

“Lydia!”

“Don't pretend you don't agree.” I hesitated. “Did you know that Mary wanted to marry him? Do you think he would have asked her, if I hadn't made a fool of him?”

Lizzy joined me on the ledge and together we stared into the Waire.

“We both made a fool of him,” she said. “Poor Mary.”

“She didn't like him, you know. She just didn't want to lose Longbourn. And now Charlotte will live here instead.”

“Well, I can't say
I
envy her,” Lizzy said grimly. “Much as I love Longbourn, it seems a heavy price for anyone to pay.”

“I shall put it all about Meryton that he only asked her because he could not have
you
,” I grumbled.

“And what good will that do?”

“It will stop Sir William the Great giving himself airs.” I grinned.

“You mustn't do that, Liddy. It isn't dignified.”

It was cold and damp out by the water. We stepped down from the ledge and turned towards home. Lizzy pulled her pelisse closer. She looked so lovely – it seemed quite unfathomable to me that Mr. Collins should have moved on from her so fast to pick Charlotte. We reached the edge of the lower lawn, where everyone says you get the best view of Longbourn – the sweep of grass, the gravel drive, the soft grey house and the coppice of sycamores, the rosemary hedge Grandfather Bennet planted beneath the breakfast-room windows that smells so good in summer.

“Don't you regret it just a little?” I asked. “Refusing Mr. Collins?”

A slow, wicked smile spread across Lizzy's face.

“Not for a second,” she replied. “I cannot imagine anything worse than marrying a man I don't respect.”

“Or love,” I added.

“Or love,” she agreed.

“Especially when he looks like a pig.”

“Lydia!”

I slipped my arm through hers. She did not pull away.

“Do you realise how often you all say that?” I asked.

“What?”

“Lydia!”

“That is because you are impossible!” she laughed.

I would give everything – Wickham, the next ball, my new bonnet – just for the feeling of walking arm in arm across the lawn with Lizzy. I felt taller. More graceful. Prettier.

Equal
.

Jane saw us from the breakfast-room window and waved as we approached. My heart bubbled over with love for her, too.

“Mr. Bingley will come back soon, won't he?” I asked. “And propose to Jane, and marry her, and make her stupendously rich?”

“Of course he will,” she said lightly. “Who could resist Jane?”

“And then everything will be all right.”

She actually squeezed my arm. “As long as we all take care of each other,” she said, and together we stepped into the house.