Chapter Eleven: A Meeting in the Shade
The Longbourn drawing room, shortly after breakfast, was a monument to the suffocating power of a Hertfordshire summer. The heat had already driven Mrs Bennet back to her bedchamber, armed with a vial of smelling salts and a damp cloth, muttering dark prophecies about her impending demise. Mr Bennet had retreated to his study, fortifying his position behind a solid oak door and a volume of Roman history.
This left the drawing room to Mary and Kitty.
Mary sat at the pianoforte, her fingers moving lazily over the keys, tracing the delicate, airy notes of a Mozart sonata. It was a gentle, unhurried tune, suited for a morning where the air itself felt too heavy to move.
From the window seat, a tragic sigh echoed through the room.
"Mary," Kitty moaned. "Must you play something so relentlessly jolly? The notes are practically skipping. It is highly inappropriate for the state of the world. Could you not learn a dirge? Or perhaps a requiem? Something that acknowledges the fundamental decay of our existence."
"I am playing Mozart, Kitty, not a jig," Mary replied without breaking her tempo. "And I refuse to play a dirge before noon. It is bad for the appetite."
"My appetite is already ruined by the vanity of this household," Kitty countered, crossing her arms.
The entrance door creaked open, followed by Hill's shuffling footsteps. She entered the drawing room bearing a silver salver, upon which sat a single, crumpled letter.
"The post, Miss," Hill announced, her tone implying that she suspected the letter contained nothing but more trouble.
Mary stopped playing and crossed the room. She took the missive, inspecting the seal and the frantic, looping handwriting that practically shouted from the parchment. "It is from Kent. From Lydia."
Kitty's serious façade slipped instantly. She scrambled down from the window seat, the tragedy of human existence entirely forgotten in the face of fresh gossip. "Lydia? What does she say?"
Mary broke the seal and unfolded the two pages. They were densely packed; the ink smudged in places where the writer had clearly been gesturing wildly with the quill.
Dear Mary and Kitty,
Rosings is ENORMOUS and very echoey. If you sneeze in the long gallery, it comes back at you three times. I have tested repeatedly. Lady Catherine is a tyrant, of course, and her cane is a menace to everyone's shins, but she is not as awful as Lizzy made her out to be. Actually, she is quite useful.
She is teaching me to be formidable. We do drills! I have to walk across the drawing room balancing a book on my head while imagining the Prince Regent is watching me. Yesterday, Ipractised 'polite cruelty.' I told a visiting squire that his waistcoat was very brave, and he thanked me! He had no idea I was insulting his tailor! Lady Catherine says I have excellent raw material, and by next Season, I shall be perfectly equipped to catch a General, or at least a Colonel with a very large pension.
Anne is also a revelation. She is funny when she bothers. Yesterday, Mr Collins came to the house to read us a sermon, and Anne accidentally-on-purpose lifted her gown above her ankle. Mr Collins sputtered and choked on his own saliva. He left in a hurry. Ah, what a lark! Lady Catherine gave us a stern lecture after that, but I caught her smiling.
I have a new silk gown, and I am learning to stare men down in silence until they offer me cake. Write back and tell me if anyone is dead or married and if Charles has eaten another chicken from the yard.
Yours, Lydia.
Mary lowered the letter. The drawing room was suddenly very quiet. The ticking of the mantel clock seemed to echo in the space where Lydia's booming laughter used to reside.
Kitty stared at the letter in Mary's hand, her lower lip trembling slightly. She was not contemplating the sublime decay of the universe at this moment, only a seventeen-year-old girl missing her favourite co-conspirator.
"An ankle," Kitty whispered. "Mr Collins must have had an apoplexy."
"And she insulted a squire's waistcoat," Mary added, a strange, tight feeling forming in her chest.
They looked at each other. The unspoken truth hung in the heavy summer air: Longbourn was entirely too quiet. Thesilence they had all craved when Lydia was screeching through the halls was now an uninvited guest.
"I miss her," Kitty blurted out, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "I am trying to be serious, Mary, but it is so very boring without her."
"I know," Mary said softly. She folded the letter. "Go and write to her, Kitty. Tell her about the village. Tell her about Mr Bingley fixing the widow's fence. She will want to know the strategy."
Kitty nodded eagerly, already rushing to the writing desk. "I will tell her everything! I will tell her we are being formidable too!"
Mary watched her sister for a moment and the house felt suddenly suffocating. She needed air. She needed to move. "I am going for a walk," she announced to the room at large.
As she stepped out onto the terrace, a low, vibrating rumble sounded at her feet. Charles emerged from beneath a rosebush, his yellow eyes narrowed in mutual agreement. They both needed to escape.
The heat outside was a physical weight, pressing down on the fields and turning the air into a shimmering haze above the grass. Mary walked with no particular destination in mind, her bonnet shielding her face, her sensible half-boots crunching softly against the dry earth. Behind her, Charles stalked through the underbrush, treating every fluttering leaf as a mortal enemy requiring immediate assassination.
