Page 12 of Wickham Likes 'Em Young
As she wrote about more recent events, Elizabeth made a bonnet squabble between Kitty and Lydia sound humorous rather than immature, she made her mother’s upset at Mary’s practice at the pianoforte sound entertaining rather than tiresome, and she elevated the description of that morning’s fog to high drama as she sought to find her way to the stableyard pump.
While the ink of her letter dried, Elizabeth went outside with a sketchbook and pencil to try her hand at sketching Longbourn’s manor house. She sat on a handy stump located near a curve of the gravel drive, and she worked hard to achieve proper perspective and proportion. She was quite proud of her fourth attempt. The other three sketches were relegated to the fire, but Elizabeth happily folded the sketch into the letter, sealed it with wax, and carefully wrote the direction.
After putting the letter onto the salver meant for outgoing mail, Elizabeth asked her father if he had any books about mines, especially about the engineering necessary to create mine tunnels and to make those tunnels safe. He looked very surprised but quite eager as he looked for a volume on civil engineering. He said, “I remember a certain chapter….” He paged through the book and then said, “Ahh, just as I thought.” He passed the book over to Elizabeth and asked, “Mines, eh?”
Elizabeth carefully kept her face neutral and said, “Mr Darcy’s much younger sister, who is Lydia’s age, is quite lonely; she has no other siblings. So she wrote to me and sent me a sketch of her kittens. And since one of the things the Darcys are dealing with right now is a landslide, which has made the mine located on their estate dangerous, I began to wonder how mines were built to be at all safe, in the first place. So I thought I would at least try to find out.”
“So I am to understand that you are exchanging letters with Miss Darcy?”
“Yes. I wrote her one, and she replied, and I just wrote another.”
“You are not, of course, writing to Mr Darcy? You know that?—”
“Of course not, Papa. I know I cannot write to an unrelated man, especially not an unrelated single man.”
Her words were entirely true. After all, he had not asked ifMr Darcyhad written toher. She maintained eye contact with her father, knowing that he would see that she had not lied. He nodded and said, “Very well. I hope the chapter on mines is comprehensible. I am not positive I would be able to help if you have any questions, but if you do, we should at least attempt to discuss them.”
“Thank you, Papa.”
Only Mary seemed to notice Elizabeth’s change of mood. Elizabeth felt her next youngest sister’s gaze several times during dinner, and she felt a surge of affection for Mary. Now that Jane was so caught up with Mr Bingley, Mary was the only person who really noticed her state of mind, and it occurred to Elizabeth that she was the only person who cared enough to even try.
Elizabeth knew that she was her father’s favourite. He treated her as if she were the son he never had, and he had invited her to his bookroom so many times, she felt welcome any time of the day. She only had to give him a courtesy knock, calling through the door, “Papa, it is me,” before she waswelcomed inside. There was rarely a time when her visit was not allowed.
But the older she became, the more she had realised that her father’s attention to her was more self-serving than solicitous. She was very rarely gloomy, but it was Mary and (in the past) Jane who noticed and attempted to raise her spirits, never her father.
Elizabeth also knew that her mother loved her, in her own way, but her mama was solely focused on her own emotions, even ignoring the feelings of her avowed favourites, Jane and Lydia. Mrs Bennet fiercely defended Elizabeth if anyone outside of the house should dare to insult her. Long ago, William Goulding had called Elizabeth a hoyden when he had seen her running, and recently a militiaman passing through town had hinted that her friendly manner surely meant that she would be liberal with her favours; both the young boy and the soldier deeply regretted their words once her mother had finished upbraiding them, at full volume, in public.
But in the privacy of their own home, her mother seemed to need to insult Elizabeth almost every day. She was too bold. She walked too much and would end up as brown and wrinkled as a walnut. She was too clever and not pretty enough—and both of those characteristics would likely mean that no man would ever marry her. Elizabeth could sense that all of these insults sprang from her mother’s worry for her future, but that awareness did not make it easier to bear her mother’s incessant disparagement.
Having realised how supportive Mary’s quiet gestures had been, Elizabeth realised that she was not equally supportive of Mary.That ends now, Elizabeth promised herself. She launched a campaign of paying more attention to Mary.
Thus the next few days passed with more attention paid to mines and to Mary, as she made increasingly less contact with Jane. Even at night, a time when the two sisters used to lie in bedand process in whispers all that had happened that day, Jane seemed disinclined to talk. She was very dreamy and smiley, and Elizabeth was certain that she was falling deeply in love with Mr Bingley. Elizabeth was very happy for Jane, who deserved every happiness. (Although, truth be told, she did feel resentful about Jane’s uncharacteristic inclination against Mr Darcy.)
Elizabeth happened to be with Lydia—whose company she never sought—and Jane—whose company she had only rarely had, recently—when a scene from her nightmare became reality.
CHAPTER 6
30 October 1811
Elizabeth was walking through Meryton with Lydia and Jane when a perfectly beautiful young man with golden curls and bright blue eyes stepped out of her uncle’s office.
She had seen the beautiful man in person nine years ago, and although he now looked taller, broader, and stronger, he had not changed very much at all.
Worse still, she had seen him more recently in a nightmare, when he chased Lydia and Miss Darcy through an unfamiliar dreamscape.
It was Mr Wickham.
The world seemed to want to call attention to the man. The universally leaden sky had suddenly been rent by a single sunbeam, and that shaft of light poured down on Mr Wickham, making him look decidedly seraphic. He also looked every bit the gentleman, from his well-tailored frock coat to his lion-head-handled walking stick, and he accompanied another well-dressed man and the Bennets’ Uncle Philips.
Lydia hurried towards the group, and Jane and Elizabeth followed as quickly as decorum would allow. Soon the three ladies were being introduced by their uncle to a barrister named Mr Nelson and his assistant, Mr Wickham.
All three bobbed curtseys. Mr Nelson nodded and politely expressed his pleasure to meet them, but Mr Wickham bowed quite deeply and looked into each of their eyes as he said, “I am extremely pleased to meet you. I had no idea that Hertfordshire could possibly offer so much…loveliness.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the three ladies chorused.
Elizabeth was not pleased in the least, of course. She could not believe that her nightmare of being in company with two other ladies when confronted with Mr Wickham was seemingly coming true. Of course, in her dream she was with Lydia and Miss Darcy, and in reality she was with Lydia and Jane; another important difference was that Mr Wickham did not appear to be attempting to murder or even deflower anyone.
Elizabeth felt her cheeks heat at the thought.
