Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“Easily,” said Lydia sulkily. She surveyed herself in a mirror. “What dreadful clothes you wear, Lizzie! I want money to buy new things-fashionable things. And I refuse to wear black!”

“You may have the money and the clothes, but not here. Fitz has found a nice house called Hemmings, outside Leek. There you may live in the same sort of comfort as Mama did at Shelby Manor. You may shop for apparel in Stoke-on-Trent or Stafford-Fitz has given you accounts at certain modistes in both towns. Your companion, Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe, has a list of the shops.”

Lydia sat up straight. “Companion? What can you mean, Lizzie, companion? I have no need of one!”

“I think you do, dearest.” Oh, what a wretched situation! Fitz had been happy to explain matters to Lydia himself, but that would have led to such ructions! So Elizabeth had begged to tell Lydia the news herself, thinking it best she wear the witch’s hat. She tried again. “My dear, your health is not what it should be. That means you must have company, if only until you build up your health. We have engaged a respectable lady to look after you-part nurse, part companion. As I have already said, her name is Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe. She hails from Devonshire.”

Scrubbed clean of its paint, Lydia’s face looked curiously bald, for her fairness was extreme enough to extend to her brows and lashes, absolutely colourless. The puffiness had vanished; she had had no further access to wine or other intoxicants since Hoskins had given her port, and that had been six days ago. Which meant Lydia had now reached craving point, and was ripe for mischief.

“I want two bottles of claret with my lunch,” said Lydia, “and I warn you, Lizzie, that if I do not get it, I will create a scene that will pale the last one to insignificance. Is Fitz afraid of Caroline Bingley, then? Well, not as afraid as he will be of me!”

“No wine,” said Elizabeth, iron in her voice. “Gentlewomen do not drink to excess, and you were born a gentlewoman.”

“This gentlewoman drinks! Like a fish! And I am not the only one! Why do you think Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst are so prim and proper? Because they drink-in secret!”

“You know nothing about either lady, Lydia.”

“It takes one to know one. Is Fitz really afraid of Caroline? He won’t be after I get through with her!”

“Lydia, compose yourself!”

“Then give me claret with my lunch! And if you think that I am going off tamely to Leek or anywhere else with a dragon for my companion, you are mistaken!”

“You go tomorrow, Lydia. Fitz insists.”

“He can insist until he turns in his grave, I will not go!”

Elizabeth fell to her knees, tried to take the clammy, restless, plucking hands in hers. “Lydia, please, I beg you! Go to Hemmings willingly! If you do not, you will go anyway. That fearsome man Ned Skinner is to escort you, and he puts up with naught. Try him, and you’ll be treated as he treated you when Mama died. For my sake, Lydia, please! Go willingly! Once you are ensconced at Hemmings, what you do will be your affair provided you are quiet and discreet. I am led to believe that there will be plenty of wine, though you will not be permitted to entertain men.”

“What a mouse you are, Lizzie! Did the jewels, Pemberley and enough pin-money to buy the Royal Pavilion strip you of all spirit? Fitz snaps his fingers, and you scurry, squeaking. Once you used to stand up for yourself, but no more. You are a bought woman. Well, I would rather be an army wife than the chatelaine of Pemberley! Oh, George, George!” The tears began to pour down her face, her body rocked. “I am a widow at a mere thirty-six! A widow! Doomed to black crepe and veiled bonnets! Well, I won’t! How can I find another husband if I’m shut up at Fitzwilliam Darcy’s dictate? Do you really want to be rid of me? Then send me to Bath!”

“To become the talk of that place? No,” said Elizabeth, more iron erupting from beneath her pity and grief. A bought woman! Was that how her friends from Longbourn days saw her? Head turned by the material things Fitz could give her? “You will go to Leek and live at Hemmings with Miss Maplethorpe, there to drink yourself silly if such is your desire! Accept it, Lydia. The alternative, I have been informed, is to see you dumped in Cornwall with nothing more than the clothes you stand up in.”

The lids dropped over Lydia’s pale blue eyes, shielding her thoughts from her sister. “Let me hear this from Fitz.”

“Lydia insists upon hearing her fate from you,” Elizabeth said to her husband in the small library.

“I take it she doesn’t like her fate?”

“‘Like’ is too mild a word. She’s full of wild threats, and wants to go to Bath to live.” The smoky eyes turned up to his, full of an agonised pleading. “Couldn’t she be allowed that, Fitz? In no time she would become a joke to all and sundry, and no one would heed her.”

“A joke who is known to be my sister-in-law. No, Elizabeth, she cannot go to Bath, and that is final. She goes to Hemmings.”

“I fear it won’t hold her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’ll venture out in search of men. There is a side to Lydia that I don’t understand, and it involves lovers. The drink is only part of her trouble. She is-on heat.”

“Indelicate, coming from you, wife, but a very good description. I would prefer to call her a strumpet.”

“I don’t believe it can be so lightly dismissed.”

“Oh, grow up, Elizabeth! Your family always showed a lack of propriety. That Kitty turned out so well was a minor miracle, but not one I can hope for with Lydia. She always was self-willed, and would go to any lengths to achieve what she willed. I knew George Wickham very well, and I can tell you that eloping with Lydia wasn’t his idea. She was crazed about him, and could see only one way to keep him-an elopement. George consented to the marriage only because I agreed to pay his debts. And have been paying his debts ever since, thanks to the identity of his wife.”

“Yes, Fitz, I understand all that,” Elizabeth said steadily, “but it is past history. You won’t keep Lydia at Hemmings.”

“Miss Maplethorpe comes highly recommended. Most of her work has been with the mentally afflicted, and so I regard Lydia.”

A cold sweat broke out on Elizabeth’s brow. “I cannot permit you to imprison my sister, sir.”

“That will not be necessary, madam. Miss Maplethorpe will not attempt to limit Lydia’s drinking, which will answer, I believe. She’ll be too drunk to go in search of lovers.” His eyes had turned to obsidian, a black, hard glitter. “It is a year since the Prime Minister was assassinated in the very halls of the Commons, and things have been in flux ever since, with Wellesley guarding the bone. I am within an amesace of becoming Mr. Perceval’s true successor, and I am not going to be cheated of office by a trollop like your sister!” The cold fire died out of his eyes. “I suggest you go back to Lydia and explain the facts more harshly than, it is apparent, you have thus far.”

“Oh, Fitz, what is this passion to be prime minister? Couldn’t you abandon public life in favour of your family? Of me?”

He looked astonished. “Family and wife are excellent in their place, but they cannot fulfil an ambitious man’s aspirations. I am determined to be prime minister and lead my country to a position of unparalleled power and respect. Our British reputation was severely damaged when we conceded the war in America to the rebels of the thirteen colonies, and we seem unlikely to win this fresh conflict there. However, we have beaten Bonaparte, and that must outweigh all else. Our navy rules the oceans, but strong action must be taken to turn our army into a body of soldiers even the French would quail to meet.” His chest swelled, he looked invincible. “I intend to turn Britain into Great Britain!”