Chapter 10

Ten

"Her behaviour is entirely disgusting. Even Mama is beginning to grow weary of her, which I could never have imagined a week ago!" Kitty fell back against her pillows, her exasperation temporarily spent.

Mary, seated at the end of the bed with her knees drawn up, was shaking her head in commiseration. "Lydia has always taken her status as Mama's favourite for granted. She does not see that even lifelong partiality has its limits."

"Did you see the look on Mama's face at dinner when Lydia had the temerity to disagree with Mr Darcy over the pheasant? As if she would be pleased to hear that not everyone thought it was roasted to a turn." Kitty rolled her eyes. "What could she be thinking?"

"I doubt she was thinking at all, merely attempting to make Mr Darcy look foolish. She achieved the opposite aim."

The sisters giggled softly, and somewhat guiltily, at Lydia's expense.

"Can I assume, then, that you genuinely have no interest in going to Newcastle?"

Kitty wrinkled her nose at Mary's suggestion. "I should say not! Good Lord, can you even imagine how horrid it would be? Trapped in a carriage for days on end with those two, and then living with them for weeks?—"

Both of them jumped when the door suddenly was flung wide open. Over the threshold stepped the object of their shared derision, dressed for bed and loudly making demands. "Kitty, you must help me—oh! Mary, what do you do here?"

Kitty, irritated that Lydia barged into her room without so much as a knock, crossed her arms and glared at the intruder. It might once have been Lydia's room as well, but not since she had deserted them for Wickham. "I invited her here. Mary is our sister too, you may recall."

Lydia groaned with apparent exasperation. "Yes, yes, I know. Now leave, Mary. I must speak to Kitty in private."

Kitty bristled and was about to tell Lydia that she should be the one to leave when Mary stood. "Goodnight, then."

Kitty grasped Mary's hand and attempted to pull her back to the bed. "You do not have to go because she says so."

"I do not mind, Kitty," Mary said with a soft smile. Throwing a sharper look at Lydia, she continued, "I suddenly find the company in here not to my tastes. Shall we attempt that new song after breakfast?"

"Of course. Then a walk to Meryton?"

Mary nodded and brushed past Lydia. She gave their younger sister a final sniff and exited into the hall, closing the door behind her.

Lydia huffed and slumped her shoulders. "Finally! I thought she would never leave. I cannot believe you are willingly spending time with her, though I suppose Jane and Lizzy cannot spare you any attention since they became engaged." The last was spat with palpable animosity.

Kitty chose not to respond, knowing that Lydia would not listen anyway. She had never had any use for Mary before and likely never would—unless their middle sister suddenly showed promise in something Lydia valued, like becoming a seamstress. Even at that, Lydia's only interest in Mary would be cajoling her into making her a few frocks here and again. Kitty had never before considered it, but that was how Lydia treated everyone; they were only as important to her as whatever they could provide for her selfish wants. Kitty herself had only ever been a convenient dupe, someone to follow wherever Lydia led. No more—she had seen beyond her sister's jolly veneer and into her self-centred heart.

Lydia flounced over to Mary's abandoned place at the foot of Kitty's bed and collapsed there with enough drama to delight audiences on Drury Lane. "I have never been so ill-treated in my entire life! It is intolerable."

"What do you mean, ‘ill-treated'?"

"Why, surely you must have seen the way that everyone has taken Lizzy and Mr Darcy's part against mine! Even Mama has been convinced that he is the most admirable gentleman who ever lived and my Wickham nothing but a piece of dirt upon his shoe. It is unfair, I tell you!"

Kitty thought this was a wild exaggeration, but again held her peace. It was her hope—a vain one, most likely—that Lydia would finish her tirade quickly and be off to bed. To move this possibility along, she made a great show of yawning; Lydia did not seem to notice.

"In any case, I aim to do something about it."

Freezing in the middle of a feigned stretch, Kitty stared at Lydia with a creeping sense of foreboding tickling her brain. "Do something? Like what?"

Lydia leant closer and winked, a wide grin unfurling across her cheeks. Kitty shuddered. "Like teach them a lesson. Mr Darcy and Lizzy need to be taken down a peg, if you ask me. Look at them, thinking themselves so above us all—and Lizzy not even married yet. Where is the deference I am owed as a new bride? Mama does not even force her to go lower when we sit down to dinner."

"Lydia—"

"I have the perfect plan, though I require your assistance." Lydia's eyes narrowed. "You cannot tell Mary, for she would spoil our fun. I need you to?—"

"No!" Kitty cried, startling Lydia into an upright position. "No, whatever you are planning, I shall not be part of it. I think it despicable that you would wish to hurt our sister and future brother."

"Why are you being so missish? Has Mary been reading you too much Fordyce?" Lydia let out a braying laugh.

"No, I do not wish to be a part of whatever awful scheme you have concocted. You are jealous that Lizzy has picked a better husband than you."

Lydia drew herself up and glared at Kitty. "That is not true! Mr Darcy is nowhere near as wonderful as my dear Wickie. He is dull and haughty and cruel. He stole my husband's rightful living."

"Oh, please. Even if that is true, which I rather doubt, I cannot imagine your ‘dear Wickie' as a clergyman, can you?"

"No, but?—"

"Further, I am not inclined to help you with anything, given how you have betrayed us all."

Lydia tilted her head in a quizzical fashion. "What do you mean?"

An incredulous scoff dropped from Kitty's lips. "You did not think of your family at all before you eloped with Wickham, did you? I admit that I had not realised how serious the situation was until Lizzy explained it, but you put all of us, myself included, at great jeopardy when you ran off from Brighton. You cared nothing for the fact that your actions might have prevented any of your sisters from ever marrying, that we might be shunned by society! You are selfish and unfeeling, Lydia."

"Lizzy has made me out to be the villain, but she is exaggerating. Nothing so very bad would have befallen you, I am sure."

"I can assure you, it already had. No one would solicit our company in the wake of your infamy. Mama took to her bed. And the letter Mr Collins sent to us was awful! If it were not for Mr Darcy, our misery would be unending."

Lydia stood and jabbed her finger at Kitty. "Would all of you stop worshipping Mr Darcy for supposedly saving me and my wretched reputation? All he did was lay out some money—money he owed to my husband—to bring my marriage about quicker. It is not as if he galloped in on his noble steed and rescued me from the jaws of certain doom!"

Kitty smacked away Lydia's hand and, climbing to her feet, stretched to her full height. She was still shorter than Lydia by a good bit, but she felt as tall as a mighty oak. "As a matter of fact, that is exactly what he did. Except he did not merely rescue you, he rescued us all. Simply because he loved Lizzy that much and it was the right thing to do. I will not ever assist you in hurting either of them, not when I owe them so much and you so little."

Apparently taken aback by Kitty's speech, Lydia gaped at her, mouth open as she appeared unable to form a reply. After several long moments of this, she snapped her jaw shut, turned on her heel, and stalked from the room.

Kitty, much relieved by Lydia's retreat, fell back onto her bed in exhaustion. She would speak to Mary in the morning on what should be done about Lydia's plot against Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. Perhaps they ought to involve their father, too.

"Can you believe that?" Lydia hissed, pacing back and forth at the end of the bed she and Wickham were sharing during their stay at Longbourn. She had been ranting to him about Kitty's defection for the past quarter hour or so and had yet to run out of ire.

Wickham's responding grunt was muffled by the pillow he had clutched over his head.

"As if Kitty has any right to speak to me that way! I am a married woman and deserving of more deference than that. Has she found herself a husband? I think not!"

Wickham, at last throwing off the pillow, sat up and barked, "For the love of God, be silent, girl. I care nothing for some stupid spat you have had with your sister."

"I was defending you against Mr Darcy!"

"And? Darcy is always the one most esteemed, the one everyone falls over themselves to please. Even your sister, who hated him at first, has come over to his side of things, though I cannot imagine how he managed it. Wasted on him, she is." Wickham grumbled something here which Lydia did not catch. "Regardless, you ought to get used to it because the Darcys will be unfairly admired wherever they go." So saying, Wickham plumped his pillow and collapsed down into it.

Lydia glared at his back for this show of disrespect. He was always doing things like that now that they were married; it was as if he abruptly stopped being fun once his ring was upon her finger. He was no longer even interested in what they did between the sheets, either, though he had been eager enough prior to their wedding day when the act had been illicit.

An ingenious plan of revenge sprouted in Lydia's mind and a smirk curled to one side of her mouth. If her mother would not make everything right, if Kitty refused to help her, perhaps her husband might be willing. Given the right incentive, of course.

Lydia climbed onto her side of the bed and announced, "I need you to seduce Lizzy."

Suddenly, Wickham was more alert.