Page 35 of Mr Darcy’s Quizzing Glass

“Lizzy, you have looked through it, you know it is magic!”

“It is nothing of the kind, Miss Lydia.”

Mr Darcy’s firm but mild denial provoked the white-faced girl to anger. “Perhaps it is witchcraft, then! Wickham said you cast a spell on Jane with it to make her ill. Who else?” Lydia’s eyes grew wide. “Did you cause Peter Lucas’s pony to go lame?”

“What? Of course not.” Mr Darcy, clearly stunned, gave Elizabeth a desperate look.

“I shall take care of it,” Elizabeth said quietly, slipping the glass into his hands. He tucked it deep into his pocket.

“No, Lizzy! Do not return it to him!” Lydia stomped her foot. “Look through it! You will see it is enchanted!”

“I shall do no such thing, you foolish girl.” Elizabeth continued speaking in a low voice, taking Lydia’s arm and gently steering her towards Longbourn’s front entry. Mr Darcy opened the door, and the four of them stepped outside. It was cold in the night air, but they would be safe from witnesses to their conversation.

“I tell you, it is magic. Perhaps witchcraft!” insisted Lydia. “Mr Darcy appears golden and you are a shimmering silver, and I must look at myself with it in the mirror and see how astonishing I might appear! It was so incredible, which makes it far more valuable than merely its jewels! Mr Wickham says I am to have the ruby—Oh!” Lydia blinked and shook her head. “Lizzy, give it back to me. I must take it to Mr Wickham. It belongs to him. Mr Darcy’s father left it to him.”

“That is a lie. George Wickham was given everything he was due, and this glass was not included with the one thousand pounds and a living he was bequeathed. Was it he who asked you to take it from me, Miss Lydia?” said Mr Darcy, in a far gentler voice than she deserved but which provoked a quiet ‘yes’ from her.

“There is no magic or charm in a piece of glass,” he continued, “only help for one’s eye—one particular person’s eye—to see more keenly. Do you understand?”

“But—”

“Lydia, take a deep breath,” Elizabeth said clasping her sister’s hands firmly. “You have taken liberal enjoyment in Mama’s punch, and the cool air will clear your head.”

The girl looked at her, confused, and shivered.

Slipping her arm round her, Elizabeth urged Lydia back into Longbourn’s warmth. Mr Darcy followed, and with Mr Bingley, stepped towards the parlour, evidently intent on dealing with Mr Wickham and his schemes. Elizabeth offered her sister both a warning and explanation as she led her in the other direction, towards their mother’s back parlour.

“You should not peer through another’s spectacles or quizzing glass,” she said as she steered Lydia into the thankfully unoccupied room. “A lens has been shaped and polished in such a way as to be meant only for the owner’s eye, to improve it, and looking through it could harm your own eyesight. It seems Mr Darcy’s quizzing glass provides him an acuity and discernment in his vision that has overwhelmed yours, made worse by the three or four glasses of punch you have enjoyed.”

“But it all looked so vivid, so much better and interesting. Mr Darcy was so very bright⁠—”

Whatever Lydia might have said to add to her earlier description of Mr Darcy as ‘golden’ was forgotten as Mrs Bennet, followed by Mary, entered the room. From her flashing eyes and half-wild expression, it was evident to Elizabeth her mother was a dangerous combination of indignance and exuberance—and half in her cups. “What is happening here, Lizzy? Lady Lucas says you and Mr Darcy marched poor Lydia through the entire house.”

“Mama, Lydia was persuaded by Mr Wickham to behave poorly. We have been discussing her error in taking a gentleman’s possessions and overindulging in punch.”

“Behave poorly?” cried Mrs Bennet. “It is a celebration for her sister and Mr Bingley. My dear Lydia is enjoying herself!”

In fact, her dear Lydia appeared rather green around the gills. “It was only a joke, Mama. I wanted to look through Mr Darcy’s quizzing glass.”

“Mr Darcy is the cause of this?” Mrs Bennet tucked an arm round her youngest daughter. “Come, Lydia. I know he is Mr Bingley’s particular friend, but he must apologise to you.”

“He will do no such thing,” Elizabeth said sharply. “Mr Darcy did not ask Lydia for an apology but instead was kind to her. Tell her, Lydia, that it was Mr Wickham who urged you to act as you did.”

Scowling, Lydia nodded.

Mary tutted. “You should bear in mind the Lord’s eighth commandment. Taking another’s possession without permission is against the word of God.”

Her assertion of the obvious received no acknowledgment, for she recited it almost weekly at Longbourn when a quarrel over missing ribbons and surreptitiously borrowed gowns broke out between sisters. Elizabeth gave her a brief smile before saying the words that would truly horrify her mother.

“Mama, just before you found us, I was cautioning Lydia that looking through a glass lens made for someone else’s weak eye could damage her eyesight.”

Mrs Bennet shrieked for Mrs Hill as she tugged Lydia away, leading her up the stairs for a cool washcloth as she blathered on about her youngest’s beautiful blue eyes and how awful they would look if she went blind.

Mary shook her head. “I do not understand. When Lydia looks through my spectacles, it merely gives her a headache.”

Elizabeth, eager to find Mr Darcy—if dreading the mortification of apologising for her family—only laughed. “I think she will never do so again, Mary.”

TWENTY-SIX