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21th December 1812, Saturday

Elizabeth bit her lip to temper her smile as she read Fitzwilliam’s letter while strolling through the garden.

It would not do to look like a mawkish woman pining for her love though that was exactly who she was.

She was thankful that the colonel was well.

She had prayed for his recovery and his family’s peace of mind.

She had also, in only the recesses of her heart, hoped that it would also lead to Fitzwilliam’s return to her.

She was a stranger to this brand of impatience she felt in herself.

By all means, they were engaged!

They had confessed their feelings to one another, he had talked to her father, and they were also sending each other letters!

She was only twenty and he not even yet thirty.

They were young yet and Fitwilliam was his own master.

Truly, there would be no insurmountable impediments to their union and yet-

and yet there was an urgency within her that just wanted to marry the man and be done with it so that she could begin her new life at his side as his wife.

She was both restless and eager for what was to come and already a part of her no longer felt like the Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn she had identified herself as since the start of her life.

She reread the letter once, twice, each time finding something new to be diverted or endeared by, and would’ve started from the top a third time were it not for a carriage, large and ostentatious to the point of being garish, stopping in front of the Longbourn drive.

Lizzy paused, then curiosity overtaking her, she walked over just as a woman, stout and stern and probably somewhere in her late fifties, climbed out with the help of two footmen,

“Hullo.” She greeted in an attempt to get the woman’s attention.

The Lady, for her fine clothing and jewellery as well as her pompous comportment and lofty countenance suggested a bearing of the wealthy and genteel, looked at Elizabeth down her nose despite being an inch or two shorter,

“This is Longbourn , I presume.” She said the name of the estate as if she were tasting something distasteful and Elizabeth raised a delicate brow.

Hers was a very peculiar way of asking if she had the right address.

“Yes, my Lady. ‘Tis my father’s estate.”

This further sharpened the lady’s already shrewd gaze and she looked Elizabeth up and down as if she were a horse on sale, “And you are Elizabeth Bennet?”

“I am she.” Elizabeth conceded, even more curious than before, “Though, I do not think I have had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

The lady turned so that she was facing Elizabeth completely, her cane, which had a very ugly brass handle in the shape of a monkey, was thrust down on the cobblestone pathway with a harrumph,

“I am Lady Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings Park in Kent. Fitzwilliam Darcy is my nephew. My sister’s son. What have you to say to that?”

Ah.

Elizabeth bit her lip.

It seems her Fitzwilliam’s letter had come at a very serendipitous time.

He had not exactly warned her against his aunt, but in between his words, she could read that he found her quite ridiculous.

Combining that with all that she had heard about the lady from Mr Collins, Elizabeth was ready to label Lady Catherine a very absurd character indeed.

“Only that it is very nice to meet you, madam.”

“ Nice ?” The Lady scoffed, “Nice! You are adamant to persist in your ignorance, then?! For you can have no doubt about why I have come to you in this fashion!”

“Indeed, I could not say. Unless, of course, you have come to offer your felicitations to me and Fitzwilliam on our upcoming nuptials, but from that expression on your face, I dare say I’m wrong.” Elizabeth replied, and then gave her ladyship a very small, very impertinent smile.

Lady Catherine’s already red face reddened further at this little bit of cheek and she stalked closer to the younger woman with a decidedly venomous gleam in her eyes,

“You can be under no illusion of my reason for coming here.” She hissed more than spoke, the two footmen still standing behind her giving each other nervous looks, “Miss Bennet, you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with. That however insincere you may choose to be, you will not find me so. A report of the most alarming nature reached me two days ago, of you and my nephew having recently been betrothed. Though I know it to be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I can now be assured by your own words that such lies have been circulated by yourself and your family and I demand that you desist immediately!”

Elizabeth crossed her arms across her chest, her voice decidedly cool, “If you believed it to be impossible to be true, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship mean by it? ”

“I mean to have this report universally contradicted at once!” Lady Catherine once again struck her cane onto the ground in high dudgeon, “Such objectionable drivel about my family from the mouths of such upstarts as yourselves is not to be borne!”

“If that had been your objective, your ladyship would have been better served having stayed away. Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family will be rather a confirmation of it.” Elizabeth retorted.

“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in this world, and am entitled to know all of his dearest concerns.”

“Perhaps.” Elizabeth shrugged delicately, “But you are not entitled to know any of mine nor will such behaviour as this ever induce me to be explicit.”

“Let me be perfectly understood- this match, of which you have bandied about into the world, can never take place. No, never. Mr Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now, what have you to say?”

“Only this- if he is, you can have no reason to suppose that the news of my engagement to him, that you consider a falsehood- will have any impact on your family. Mr Darcy is an honourable man. He would not offer for a lady if he felt himself bound, either by duty or by inclination, to another. Do you refute this?”

Lady Catherine gritted her teeth, “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the dearest wish of his mother and hers. Do you have no regard for the wishes of his family? To his tactic engagement to Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? ”

“The feelings and wishes of Mr Darcy’s family can be nothing to me if they are naught to him. I will not be kept from my happiness simply by knowing his mother and his aunt wished him to marry Miss De Bourgh. If Mr Darcy is not confined to his cousin, why should he not make another choice? And if I am that choice, why should I not accept him?”

“Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay interest forbid it! Yes, Miss Bennet, interest! For do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends if you willfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censored, slighted, and despised by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never be mentioned by any of us.”

Elizabeth swallowed, then fisted her hands by her side.

The arrogance of this lady!

Her selfish disdain for the feelings of others!

“These are heavy misfortunes indeed.” She replied tightly, “But the wife of Mr Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.”

“You have no regard then, for the honour and credit of my nephew?! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?”

“Lady Catherine, your nephew has proposed to me, and I have accepted. We are in love and we are to marry. I have nothing further to say to you.”

“And this is your answer! This is your final resolve! Very well, I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you, I hoped to find you reasonable, but depend upon it, I will carry my point!”

In this manner, Lady Catherine talked on and on, even as she turned and started getting back up in her carriage.

Once she had seated, she placed a hand on the door to keep it open long enough to add, “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet! I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased!”

Elizabeth did not answer, only watched as the footmen once again got back on the box and the carriage started forward.

She did not know how long she stood in such a fashion, but it could not have been for long, for in the next moment, the door opened and Jane peered out,

“Lizzy? Who were you talking to? I did not recognize the carriage.”

Elizabeth raised her shoulders, heaved a sigh, then let them drop.

Turning around, she started walking up to the house, “Nobody important, Jane. They had the wrong address.”

22th December 1812, Sunday

Lydia stood on top of the stairwell, her eyes calculating the distance between her and the floorboard below.

It was Sabbath and the house was quiet.

The servants were in their quarters, her father was in his bookroom, and her mother had taken all her daughters to visit Mrs Phillips at Meryton.

Lydia herself had been urged to go but she had cried off, citing a terrible headache.

In truth, her head was fine, it was the rest of her that was in no condition to be going anywhere.

As of this week, she had missed two of her courses in as many months.

She thought of Wickham, a man that she was sure she would marry.

Even now she could not bring herself to understand why he had refused her.

He had promised that he would marry her.

He had taken her virtue on the condition that they would marry before any of her sisters and now Lizzy was engaged so it was time for him to come to the point and yet he had laughed !

He had laughed at her when she had demanded he keep his word.

Lydia did not understand.

Gentlemen were honourable.

They made few promises but they kept the ones they did make.

Wickham was a gentleman.

Despite being only a steward’s son, he had been raised as a gentleman and was a lieutenant in the army even if it was only the militia.

Try throwing yourself down the stairs.

Wickham had said when she had told him about the possibility of her carrying, and so she eyed the staircase now.

Thirty steps stood before her, and the distance that had never been any cause of concern to her ever since she had learned to walk now seemed awfully daunting.

But what other choice did she have?

If she did not, she would start increasing.

She remembered Aunt Gardiner had started looking noticeably fat only three months in and while she might hide it well from everyone else by wearing looser, darker dresses, she lived with five sisters between whom there was little sense of privacy even when they dressed or bathed or got ready for bed.

Only yesterday, while helping her with her stays, Kitty had commented that she thought Lydia was getting fat!

For a little while, Lydia had thought about confiding in someone, but she did not know who.

Jane would probably have an apoplexy, unable to comprehend something so raw and real in her otherwise rosy world of serenity and joy.

Lizzy would be furious and shower her with a tirade of told you so s and foolish girl s until Lydia’s head would spin.

Kitty would just end up crying, not understanding why Mr Wickham would not marry her and fix everything and her mama would just take to her bed demanding her salts and lamenting about getting thrown into the hedgerows.

Lydia could not even fathom confiding in her father.

No, she had no one’s counsel in this except her own.

Lydia took a deep breath.

Thirty stairs would not kill her.

She might break a few bones perhaps, but it would be a small price to pay for everything to be forgot.

Lizzy would be going to Derbyshire soon.

Maybe Lydia would beg her sister to take her with her and she will never come back to Longbourn again.

She would once again be Lydia Bennet, the youngest and the liveliest Bennet of the five Bennet daughters, taking up the world by storm and no longer Lydia Bennet, a terrified and unmarried pregnant woman on the verge of losing everything good in life.

She nodded to herself, shifted a little closer to the brink of the top most stair till half her foot was hanging off.

Her grip on the barrister was both tight and slick with sweat from her palms.

Only a few days ago she had been standing here, laughing and jeering as Mr Darcy came out of her father’s study with her sister in tow and then pulled her into an embrace so fierce, Lydia had found herself blushing though she had done far worse with her Goerge.

It was not fair!

Lizzy got herself a rich, romantic, tall, handsome man to propose to her, to shower her with attention and to have eyes only for her but Lydia could not get a penniless, pretty officer to even properly talk to her without having to first shove her bosom into his face.

Lydia tightened her lips, shifted a little further.

She was balancing precariously half in the air.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, and then let go .