Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (11 page)

That made me choke on a laugh.  A more than slightly hysterical laugh.  If I had suspected Fate of unpleasant tricks before, this, surely, was its most spectacular joke yet.  My sister Mary has fallen in love with Lord Henry Carmichael.  The very last man in England I would like to meet with ever again.

Mary looked at me in some alarm.  “Are you quite well, Kitty?”

I stared at Lord Henry up ahead; the group was close enough now that I could see him clearly.  He was dressed in riding breeches and an immaculately cut superfine coat—and he looked exactly the same as he had last year.  Fair haired and blue eyed and … it is hard to put it into words. 
Glossily
handsome is the nearest I can come.  Sleek and smooth and very, very fully aware of his own physical beauty and charm.

He was saying something to the girl beside him—a brunette-haired girl I did not recognise—and she was positively shrieking with laughter; I could hear her from where I stood.

“I—  As a matter of fact, I believe I may be taking a … a cold.”  I changed my hysterical laughter into a cough.  Which was likely as unconvincing as Mary’s snores, but I did not give her the chance to protest or consider my claim.  “You go on and … and join the others.  But I think I had better make my way home.”

And then I whirled around and fairly ran from the park.

Mary has not yet returned, and I have spent all the time in waiting for her trying to imagine whether her infatuation can possibly survive an acquaintance of more than two dances.  One would not think so—if one looked in the dictionary for a definition of the word ‘shallow’, I am convinced that a likeness of Lord Henry would accompany the entry.  Not to mention the word ‘vain’.

Of course, I suppose I could equally say that I was no better than he, when we met a year ago last Christmas at Pemberley.

But I think I must be worrying for nothing.  However infatuated Mary may be, the Lord Henry Carmichael I knew would not have troubled himself to open his pocket watch to read Mary the time of day.

Here is my own dictionary illustration of Lord Henry—to appear opposite a word that on second thought seems to sum him up even better than
shallow
or
vain
.

I went to Darcy House to see Jane this morning.  I had not seen her since the night of the ball.  But I had Mary’s report that though Jane was still by physician’s orders confined to her bed, she seemed quite well.  So I was not unduly worried—not until, that is, I knocked at the door.  An extremely correct-looking butler answered, but Georgiana darted past him and practically dragged me inside.

“Kitty!  I am so glad you have come.”

I felt a lump of ice congeal instantly in my stomach.  “What is it?  Is Jane—”  Despite the butler’s presence, I was too frightened to bother with delicacy.  “Is the baby coming early after all?”

Georgiana shook her head.  “No, no.  Nothing like that.  I am sorry to have frightened you.  It is just—” She bit her lip as I exhaled a gusty breath of relief and fumbled to untie my bonnet strings.  “Here.  Give your cloak and hat to Maxwell and come into my sitting room.  We can speak there.”

 Georgiana’s sitting room looks exactly as she does herself—beautiful and refined and polished.  The chairs and tables and the little gilt desk in one corner were all constructed with slender, delicate lines; and the curtains, walls, and carpet were a soothing blend of pale blues and greens.

To look at Georgiana as she perched on the satin-upholstered sofa, it seemed impossible that just this past summer she was with me on the streets of Brussels, both of us sweat-stained and almost as filthy as the wounded soldiers themselves.

She rang the bell and asked the maid who answered to bring tea.  And I asked, “Is Edward not at home?”

Georgiana shook her head.  “No, he is at the War Office.  He was offered a position there after he resigned his commission in the army, you know.  That is why we are in London.” 

I did
not
know, as a matter of fact.  I felt a twinge of guilt that I had not bothered to ask.  I said, “He is recovered, though, from … from last summer?”

Edward lost his sight due to a severe blow to the head during the battle at Waterloo, but then against all odds he regained it.

Georgiana nodded.  “He still gets headaches occasionally, but they are much less severe and less frequent than they were.   He has not had any at all for … it must be two months now.”

A small, private smile flickered about the corners of Georgiana’s mouth as she spoke.  I doubt she was even aware of it.  But she cannot speak Edward’s name and not be suffused with a glow of happiness.

I ought to write out
I will not envy Georgiana
a hundred times in this journal.  The way my mother used to make me do when I had pulled Mary’s hair or stolen jam tarts from the kitchen.

I
am
glad of Georgiana’s happiness.  She truly deserves every good thing in life.

The maid came in at that point with the tea things, and we were both silent while she set the tray on a table by Georgiana.  At last when she had left the room, Georgiana said, “You know of course that I am happy to have Jane staying here with us for as long as she likes.  I know she worries that she and Amelia are an inconvenience.  But they are not—not at all.  Even with Jane in bed, I love having Amelia running about, and besides, everyone from Maxwell to the scullery maids is absolutely entranced with her.  I thought the discussion over who was to entertain her this morning would positively come to blows.  But—”  Georgiana stopped, her voice trailing off.

“You wonder what Jane is doing here in London?” I asked.

“Yes!  I cannot understand why she would have undertaken to travel at all, with the birth of the child so near.  And every time I mention Charles—”

“She gives her best impression of an especially uncommunicative oyster,” I finished for her.

Georgiana gave an involuntary gurgle of laughter, but she quickly sobered as she said, “Yes, exactly.  I cannot get her to tell me what is the trouble—not that I have tried very hard.  I did not feel it was right to press her, especially in her current state.  I was hoping she might have confided in you?”

“No.  She has said nothing at all to me, either,” I said.

Georgiana was occupied with pouring out the tea.  I got up and wandered over to the room’s big bow window, looking out over the street below.

Georgiana was still speaking.  “I have known Charles very nearly all of my life.  He and my brother are such friends.  I cannot imagine what can have caused a rift between him and Jane.  He is so very—”

But the rest of what she said washed passed my ears as meaningless noise.  Because at that moment, someone dumped a bucket of cold water down the back of my neck.

Well, not literally speaking, of course.  But that was how it felt.  As I stood at the window, I heard the rattle of carriage wheels coming very fast.  And then a barouche came rolling into view.  A very elegant barouche—far more expensively appointed than Mr. Dalton’s curricle.  It had Lord Henry Carmichael’s family crest of arms emblazoned in gold and red on the doors.  As quickly as the coach passed, I recognised it at once.

I ought to; I spent an embarrassing amount of time last Christmas sketching that same family crest and writing things like ‘Lady Henry Carmichael’ in the margins of all the novels I was reading.

But that was not what made me freeze, feeling all over again as though my insides had been scooped out and replaced with blocks of ice.

The barouche was—naturally enough—being driven by Lord Henry himself.  He had a little page boy—a tiger, men like Lord Henry call them—in the back, hanging on for dear life.  And in the seat beside Lord Henry was my sister Mary.

She looked absolutely terrified.  But with a rigid smile, as though she had pasted an expression of delight onto her face and was holding it there through sheer force of will.  I saw her mouth a stiff-lipped response to something Lord Henry must have said.  Lord Henry laughed.  And then the barouche rattled past the window and was gone, rolling away towards Regent’s Park.

I forced myself to draw first one breath, then another.  Not that it made me feel very much better, but I was able to keep my voice steady as I turned back to Georgiana and said, “Will you take me upstairs?  I will speak to Jane and make her tell me what the trouble is.”

Georgiana’s eyes widened slightly at my tone.  I suppose with reason; if my voice was steady, it had also come out rather clashing and grim.

“Don’t worry,” I said.  “I promise not to take Jane by the shoulders and shake her and demand that she tell me what has gone wrong between her and Charles.   But it occurs to me that it is silly to sit here speculating and theorising when we might know the truth simply by asking Jane herself.”

In fact, that had been Mary’s original idea.  Which would no doubt have made her gloat excessively if she had been here to hear me say it.

I found Jane in bed, reading to little Amelia.  Amelia was sitting curled up beside her mother, her thumb in her mouth, as she listened to the story—which seemed to be about a squirrel.  But she readily agreed to Georgiana’s suggestion that she come to the kitchen and see what could be found in the way of leftover treacle tart.

That left me alone with Jane.  I waited until the door had closed behind them, then sat down on the edge of the bed and said, “Jane, what is the matter between you and Charles?”

Jane’s jaw dropped open slightly, her cornflower blue eyes registering shock.  I
had
been rather more blunt than I had intended, but I suppose I was feeling rather grimly determined to help
one
of my sisters, at least.  If it could not be Mary, I would at least be of service to Jane.  Whether she especially wished for my help or no.

I did gentle my tone as I added, “Please, Jane.  I know I am not Lizzy, for you to confide in.  But please, will you not tell me what has happened to upset you so?  Plainly you are unhappy—enough to put both your own and your child’s life and health at risk.  Will you not at least let me see if I can try to help?  Is it Charles?  Has he done something—” I struggled to find a tactful way of asking whether he had taken to drink or fathered an illegitimate child.  Neither of which seemed likely, but I could not think what else could have caused such obvious trouble.  “Something wrong?” I finished at last.

Jane continued to stare at me for a long moment.  And then, quite suddenly, tears brimmed over in her eyes.  “No—Charles has done nothing.  Nothing at all.  It is
I
.”  Her voice broke on a sob.  “I have done something terrible.  So terrible I do not know whether Charles can forgive me.”

It was my turn to look completely blank with shock.  Jane has always been so absolutely without fault.  I cannot recall her ever having been so much as scolded, much less punished, when we were small.  The rest of us might quarrel and get into mischief, but never Jane.

And if Jane were about to tell me that she was the one who had taken to drink—or that the baby due next month was not actually Charles’s—I was fully prepared to lose my faith in the human race entirely.

Jane was still crying, though, so I leaned forward to hug her and said, “Jane—don’t cry.  Please.  It cannot be good for you—or for the baby, either.  And whatever the trouble is, it cannot be so very dreadful as all that.  Tell me, and we will think what can be done.”

Jane choked on another sob but at last grew a little calmer.  “I am sorry, Kitty.  I would have told you before, only I was so … so ashamed.”  She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and swallowed.  “It was a few weeks ago.  Charles’s sister and her husband were staying with us.”

“Caroline, do you mean?”

Caroline Bingley, the younger of Charles’s two sisters, married Edward’s older brother last year.

Jane shook her head.  “No, Louisa.”

Louisa is Mrs. Hurst.  Which means, I suppose, that Mrs. Hurst must have come direct from Jane and Charles to London and her mission to launch Miranda Pettigrew.

Jane drew a shaky breath and went on.  “While Louisa and Mr. Hurst were staying with us, we went to a dinner party at Lord Brompton’s.  He has the estate next to ours.  It was a very large party—there must have been sixty guests there in all.  And as it turned out, Louisa was previously acquainted with some of the other ladies present.  She … when we ladies had left the gentlemen in the dining room to enjoy their port, Louisa … she proposed that we play at cards to pass the time.”

Jane stopped and swallowed again.  “I … I do not care much for cards, as you know.  I have never been at all good at those sorts of games.  But Louisa pressed me very much to join in and promised me that she would help me.  She said that she would sit by me and be my partner.  That I need only follow her lead.  And I thought”—Jane’s voice shook—“I did not wish to seem discourteous, when Louisa had been so kind and had offered to go to so much trouble for me.  So I— what did you say, Kitty?”

“Nothing.”  I was beginning to suspect in which direction Jane’s story was heading.  And I would be—to borrow one of the soldiers’ expressions I learned in Brussels—a bachelor’s daughter if I believed there was anything remotely kind about Mrs. Hurst’s offer of help.  “Go on,” I told Jane.