Page 1 of Brighton Rescue (Pride and Prejudice Variation #23)

Longbourn

Meryton, Hertfordshire

“I believe that I am ready,” Elizabeth Bennet declared, glancing around at her bedroom. Her trunk was neatly packed and her room tidy, which pleased her. She did not care to leave her belongings in disarray when she went on holiday.

“I will miss you, Lizzy,” Jane Bennet, the eldest of the five Bennet daughters, said from the window seat near Elizabeth’s window.

“I will miss you too, my dear sister,” Elizabeth replied, “but we will only be gone three weeks.”

Jane sighed and answered, “I am sorry that our uncle Gardiner’s business concerns shortened your trip. I know you greatly desired to see the Lakes.”

“Perhaps I can visit the Lakes another year,” Elizabeth said stoutly. “Derbyshire is a truly lovely county by all accounts, and I have no doubt we will have a charming time. I only hope you do not find yourself completely exhausted helping care for our young Gardiner cousins for these weeks.”

Jane’s glorious countenance brightened with joy. “I will enjoy every minute of it, Lizzy. Children are such a blessing, and our cousins are delightful.”

The door to the bedroom suddenly swung open to reveal the flustered form of one of the maids, Sally Childers.

The girl was a niece of Mr. and Mrs. Hill, the butler and housekeeper of Longbourn, and was still young and learning her tasks well.

Jane and Elizabeth looked up in mild alarm, fearful that Sally had broken another tea cup.

The last time she had done so, their mother, Mrs. Bennet, always prone to histrionics, had nearly fainted in anguish.

“What is it, Sally?” Elizabeth asked kindly, gesturing for the young woman to enter the room.

Sally was, her young mistresses noted in some astonishment, clutching papers in her hand. That was odd; few servants were literate, and even fewer had the time to write letters.

“Oh, Miss Bennet, Miss Elizabeth,” the girl moaned piteously, “oh, I do not know what to do!”

“Come here,” Jane ordered, though gently. “What is the matter? ”

“Tis this letter, Miss. I was ... I was cleaning Miss Kitty’s room and it was on the desk and I … I did not mean to read it but…”

“You read Miss Kitty’s letter?” Elizabeth demanded, her tone arctic. To read a private message was beyond the pale. For a servant to do so was almost beyond her capacity to imagine. Sally would lose her position for this travesty, and Mr. and Mrs. Hill would be shamed…

“Miss Lydia is planning to elope with a man named Wickham,” the girl squealed, causing both women’s thoughts to grind to a sudden, shocked halt.

Jane and Elizabeth exchanged horrified glances and Jane gasped, “Impossible!”

“But Miss, the letter says…”

Jane shushed the maid impatiently and, with only a sliver of reluctance, turned her attention on the letter. Elizabeth hurried up beside her to read over her sister’s shoulder.

Dearest Kitty,

Our plans continue apace. My dear Wickham and I are more in love every day, and I am quite confident we will be leaving for Gretna Greene soon to be married.

Can you believe it, Kitty? I, the youngest of us all, will be the first one married!

I promise you that I will wheedle Mama into having you join us; the militia is a wonderful way to find a husband!

Oh, I must tell you about my new bonnet. Harriet was full of admiration at my trimmings…

Elizabeth, to Sally’s astonishment, threw her arms around the young woman.

“Sally, you may have saved us all! Do not speak of this to anyone, please! Not even to Mr. and Mrs. Hill!”

“I will not, Miss. I promise.”

“Go back to your tasks and if Miss Kitty asks about her letter, tell her to talk to me.”

“Yes, Miss.”

As soon as the young servant had departed the room and shut the door, Elizabeth, her face pale with worry, turned to her elder sister. “We must go to our Father immediately.”

Jane was reading the letter again, a frown wrinkling her lovely brow.

“Lizzy, this is certainly of concern but is not our youngest sister merely being foolish? According to Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, Wickham is a fortune hunter. Our poor sister is not an heiress. Surely Lydia is merely engaging in an imaginary love affair. ”

Elizabeth stared at her beloved sister and swallowed a cry of exasperation. She adored Jane, she did, but for all her two and twenty years, the eldest Miss Bennet was still ridiculously na?ve.

“No, Jane,” she said steadily, “I have no doubt that Wickham has no intention of marrying Lydia, but I also think he is quite willing to engage in other forms of intimacy.”

Jane paled and actually swayed, and Elizabeth pushed her firmly onto the window seat. “I am sorry, but you must face reality now. Wickham is an evil man and I am confident he would not hesitate to take advantage of Lydia’s innocence and, yes, idiocy.”

“But, but,” Jane stammered, “even if he were willing to do such a vile thing, surely Lydia has too much honor and delicacy…”

Her younger sister snorted and began pacing across the wooden floor of her bedroom.

“Honor, Jane? Delicacy? You know that our youngest sister has been indulged since she was a baby. Our mother has permitted, no, encouraged her, to be the worst of flirts. You know that Mrs. Forster is only two years older than Lydia, and I never considered her a remotely suitable guardian for our sister. No, Jane, Lydia would doubtless give up her virtue if Wickham assured her that they would marry. Then he would abandon her because as you said, he is a fortune hunter. ”

“But Lydia is a gentleman’s daughter, and is under the protection of the colonel of the militia regiment in which Wickham serves! Elizabeth, even if he is so wicked a man, which I cannot believe, he would not dare!”

Elizabeth considered this thoughtfully. There was some truth to that point; Wickham could hardly ruin Lydia without immediate repercussions unless the girl could be convinced to keep quiet.

Which she would, Elizabeth realized grimly.

Lydia was foolish enough to think a clandestine affair quite romantic.

But Jane would not be able to understand her fears, looking as she did through rosy glasses at an often dark world.

The sad reality was that the entire Bennet family hovered on the edge of a precipice, inches away from total ruin.

If Wickham deflowered Lydia Bennet, her sisters would, one and all, be tainted by the shame.

Dear Jane, so beautiful, so kind, so perfect, would never find true love, and would quite possibly never marry at all.

Elizabeth herself, who had spurned two eligible offers in the past months, would find herself a lonely old maid.

In truth, the idea of remaining unmarried had never troubled her greatly in the past, but now, faced with the reality of being prevented from ever marrying, of being shunned and despised by society, a knot twisted in her stomach.

She recognized that she wished very much to marry a man whom she admired and respected, to bear his children, to be happy together.

This stark realization took her breath away; all that she longed for in life might be snatched away.

Nor would the ruination of the Bennets mean merely a life of loneliness for Elizabeth and her sisters.

Their mother, Mrs. Bennet, had brought only five thousand pounds into her marriage, and Longbourn was entailed away to the foolish clergyman, Mr. Collins; if none of the Bennet daughters married, they would be genuinely poor.

It would not be a question of not being able to afford new gowns; they might have trouble purchasing food itself.

Given that horrifying reality, Mrs. Bennet’s constant harping about being ‘thrown into the hedgerows’, while vexatious, could actually come to pass.

Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes; she was generally a cheerful, optimistic woman, but now she could only see doom stretching before her and her family.

She wondered, in this moment, if she had been a fool to turn down her opportunities to wed.

Not Mr. Collins – no, she could never regret that, for the man was an utter buffoon – but Mr. Darcy of Pemberley?

He was stiff and arrogant, but he was also honorable, wealthy, intelligent, well read, and he had loved her.

It was too late to repine; she had made her choice, and indeed she could not truly regret it.

It would not be fair to Mr. Darcy, who had genuinely adored her, to accept his offer for merely pragmatic reasons.

Nor could she imagine the horror of being married to Mr. Darcy, only to have his name dragged through the mud through his association with the Bennets through Lydia’s folly.

“Lizzy?”

Elizabeth looked up to observe Jane staring at her with concern. She considered sharing her gloomy thoughts, but there was no point in doing so. Jane would not, could not, understand her fears.

“Whether he would take Lydia’s virtue or not, our sister is a simpleton to even talk of elopement,” Elizabeth said. “We must go to Father with this!”

She turned resolutely toward the door and Jane, with a soft sigh of concern, followed her toward the stairway leading to the library.

Elizabeth could not muster up much hope that Mr. Bennet would intervene; he had already proven himself all too careless in his oversight of Lydia by permitting her to visit Brighton, where numerous militia regiments were currently stationed.

However, only Mr. Bennet had the authority to interfere in this dreadful situation.

She found herself fervently praying that for once in his life, her father would act to protect them all.

/

“My dear Elizabeth,” Mr. Bennet said patiently, pinching the bridge of his nose with his left thumb and forefinger, “you are reading far too much into this letter. Lydia is, without a doubt, the most ignorant girl walking the earth, but Mr. Wickham is a man close to thirty years of age, and hardly interested in marrying a penniless child.”

Elizabeth inhaled a deep breath and blew it out slowly, struggling to contain her temper. “You are entirely correct, Father, that Wickham will not marry Lydia. However, he may ruin her if she allows him to take her virtue.”

Mr. Bennet leaned back in his chair, his forehead creased in confusion. “What is this, my dear Lizzy? I thought the lieutenant was a prime favorite of yours.”

“He was,” Elizabeth admitted in some embarrassment, “but now I entirely loathe the man.”

“Why?”

“When I was in Hunsford visiting Charlotte Collins, Mr. Darcy was there visiting his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

“You did not mention that before.”

“No, because it was quite humiliating. The truth is that I accused Mr. Darcy of blasting Mr. Wickham’s hopes in the matter of the church living which was meant to go to the lieutenant.”

Mr. Bennet’s eyebrows hiked high in his forehead. “Did you indeed? That was rather forward of you, was it not?”

“I was angry with him,” Elizabeth confessed.

“Mr. Darcy has that effect on me. At any rate, he explained that Mr. Wickham requested, and was given, three thousand pounds in exchange for giving up all rights to the church living, and he ran through the money in short order. He then returned to Pemberley and demanded the living when the previous occupant died. Naturally, Mr. Darcy refused, especially since Wickham is a gambler and does not treat women … well. He in no way should be a clergyman.”

Her father leaned forward and said sympathetically, “My dear daughter, that must have been an unwelcome shock.”

“It was quite a horrible shock,” his second daughter acknowledged, her eyes filled with tears.

“I was so proud of my own discernment, of my ability to understand the characters of those I meet, and yet I embraced without question the lies of Mr. Wickham about his godfather’s son, and allowed myself to form a violent distaste for Mr. Darcy, when I now believe him to be a very honorable gentleman. ”

“He did insult you the day you met,” Jane murmured softly, gazing at her sister in concern.

Elizabeth shrugged a little. “Yes, he declared that I was ‘not handsome enough to dance with’ in my hearing. Well, that was exceedingly rude, but it is nothing compared to slandering the son of one’s godfather, and gambling thousands of pounds away, and mistreating women.

Father, do you not see that Wickham is a bad man, and that Lydia is in great danger? ”

Mr. Bennet looked upon his favorite daughter with compassion.

“Elizabeth, I understand now. You are naturally distressed that you were in error concerning the dispositions of these two young men, and it has caused you to give way to quite unnatural fears. You thought Wickham the very best of men, and now you are inclined to think him the very worst. I daresay he is like most men, somewhere in the middle. Now Lizzy, I will write a letter to Colonel Forster and inform him that your foolish youngest sister is inclined to think herself in love with Wickham; he will take any necessary steps.”

“But Father…”

“No, no,” the master of Longbourn interrupted. “I absolutely refuse to let you torment yourself in this way, my dear, bright Elizabeth. Go on your journey with your aunt and uncle to Derbyshire, and put the whole matter out of your mind. Lydia is safe enough. ”

Elizabeth began crying in anguish. Lydia was in danger and her father, as usual, would not lift a finger to prevent her from ruining not only herself, but her sisters as well.

“I do believe that the Gardiners have arrived,” Mr. Bennet said, eyeing his usually cheerful daughter with unease. “Jane, please take Elizabeth upstairs to her room so she can finish her packing.”

Jane obediently rose to her feet and grasped her favorite sister gently by the arm. “Come along, Lizzy. Father is right. Lydia will be well.”

Elizabeth, still sobbing, rose slowly from her chair and allowed Jane to guide her out the door and up the stairs.

What she had feared had come to pass; her father was too lazy, too indolent, too idle, to take the necessary action to save Lydia from herself.

Unless by some miracle Wickham turned his eyes elsewhere, all hope was lost for Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters.