at Ned Skinner, then decamped. Assisted by the terrified landlord of the Plough and Stars and his grim-faced wife, Ned had proceeded to force several doses of mustard-and-water down Lydia’s throat. Up came the wine bit by bit; only when he was sure no more of it was still to come did Ned cease his ruthless ministrations. The landlady had packed two small boxes of belongings — no decent protection from the cold in it, she said, just this ratty wrap. Lydia’s luggage strapped where the tiger would have perched, Ned had tossed his weeping, shrieking captive into the small seat and hustled Mr Darcy’s racing curricle out into the cruel night with scant regard for his passenger.
Dear Charlie! Somehow he persuaded Lydia to eat a bowl of porridge and some bread, convinced her that coffee was just what she wanted; bearing a somewhat restored Lydia on her arm, Elizabeth went to the bedroom wherein Mrs Trenton had laid out fresh drawers and camisole, petticoats, a plain black wool dress bearing a frill hastily tacked on at Pemberley to make it long enough for Lydia, the taller of Elizabeth by half a head.
“That disgusting man!” Lydia cried, standing while Mrs Trenton and Elizabeth stripped her, washed her as best they could; she stank of wine, vomit, dirt and neglect. “He dosed me to make me puke my guts out just as if I were one of his whores!”
“Mama is dead, Lydia,” Elizabeth reminded her, giving the filthy corsets to Mrs Trenton between two fastidious fingers, and nodding that she could manage alone now. “Do you hear me? Mama died peacefully in her sleep.”
“Well, I wish she could have chosen a better time!” The bloodshot eyes widened, curiously like two glass marbles in that scrubbed, pallid face. “How she used to favour me above the rest of you! I could always bewitch her.”
“Do you not grieve?”
“Oh, I suppose I must, but it is near twenty years since I last saw her, after all, and I was but a mere sixteen.”
“One forgets,” said Elizabeth, sighing, and deliberately shutting out the knowledge that, upon Papa’s death, Fitz had severed all the ties that bound the sisters, made it impossible for them to see each other unless he approved. Not a difficult task; they were all dependent upon him in one way or another. In Lydia’s case, it had been money. “You have spent more of your life with George Wickham than with Mama and Papa.”
“No, I have not!” snapped Lydia, glowering at the dress. “First he was in the Peninsula, now he is in America. I am an army wife, not even allowed to follow the drum. Oh, but fancy! Mama gone! It beats all understanding. This is a dreadful dress, Lizzie, I must say. Long sleeves! Must it be buttoned so high? And without my stays, my bosoms are around my waist!”
“You will catch cold, Lydia. Shelby Manor lies at least three days’ away, and while Fitz will ensure that the coach is as warm as possible, it is seventy years old, full of draughts.”
She gave Lydia a muff, made sure the black cap beneath the severe bonnet was tucked over her sister’s ears, and took her back to the parlour.
Jane and Charles Bingley had come in their absence, having set out from Bingley Hall four hours earlier. Charlie had gone back to Gibbon; Bingley and Darcy stood by the fireplace in stern conversation, and Jane sat slumped at the table, handkerchief pressed to her eyes. How far apart we have drifted, that even in this unhappy hour we are separated.
“My dearest Jane!” Elizabeth went to hug her.
Jane threw herself into those welcoming arms, wept afresh. What she was saying was unintelligible; it would be days before her tender feelings were settled enough to permit lucid speech, Elizabeth knew.
As if he owned some extra sense, Charlie put his book down and went immediately to Lydia, guiding her to a chair with many compliments about how much black suited her, and gave her no opportunity to snatch a mug of ale from the table where a jug of it had appeared to sustain the men. A snap of Fitz’s fingers, and Trenton whisked the jug away.
“Pater?” Charlie asked.
“Yes?”
“May I travel in Uncle Charles’s coach with Aunt Lydia? Mama would be more comfortable with Aunt Jane for company.”
“Yes,” Darcy said brusquely. “Charles, we must go.”
“Is Ned Skinner to ride with us?” Charles Bingley asked.
“No, he has other business. You and I, Charles, will be able to avail ourselves of an occasional gallop. The party will put up at the Three Feathers in Derby, but you and I will have no trouble reaching my hunting box. We can rejoin the ladies in Leicester tomorrow night.”
Bingley turned to look at Jane, his face betraying his anxiety, but he was too used to following Fitz’s lead to raise any objections to leaving Jane in Elizabeth’s hands. There was no denying that griefstricken ladies in need of succour were better served by sisters than husbands. Then he cheered up; Fitz’s Leicestershire hunting box was just the ticket to break the monotony of a two-hundred-mile journey to Shelby Manor.
Only her sisters and their husbands could be accommodated at Shelby Manor; the rest of the extended family would be at the Blue Boar and Hertford’s other good inns, Mary knew. Not that she had any say in such matters. Fitz would, as always, be arranging everything, just as he communicated with the various persons who saw to the running of Shelby Manor and even such minor things as the payment of her own pin-money. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the centre of every web he encountered.
It had been Fitz who had ensured that his mother-in-law would be extremely comfortably isolated far from all her daughters save Mary, the sacrificial goat; somehow people did not care to earn his displeasure even when, like Kitty, they had little to do with him. Poor Mama used to pine to see Lydia, but never had so much as once, and Kitty’s very cursory visits ceased long ago. Only Elizabeth and Jane had continued to come during the last ten years, but Jane’s constant delicate condition usually forbade her going so far. Be that as it may, in June Elizabeth always descended on Shelby Manor to take her mother to Bath for a holiday. A holiday, Mary was well aware, designed chiefly to give her, Mary, a holiday from Mama. And oh, what a holiday it always was! For Lizzie brought Charlie with her and left him to keep Mary company. No one dreamed the mischief she and Charlie got into: the games they played, the places they went, the things they did. Definitely not the sort of things commonly associated with maiden aunts shepherding nephews!
Coming from London, Kitty arrived the day after Mama’s death, tearful but fairly composed. She had done most of her weeping en route, soothed and commiserated by Miss Almeria Finchley, her indispensable lady’s companion, who would have to have a truckle-bed in Kitty’s room, Mary decided.
“Kitty will not like it, but she will have to lump it,” said Mary to Mrs Jenkins.
To Kitty’s face Mary tried to be more tactful. “I declare, Kitty, you are more elegant than ever,” she said over tea.
Knowing this to be the truth, Lady Menadew preened. “It is mostly a knack,” she confided. “Dear Menadew was top-of-the-trees himself, and enjoyed my taking the way I did. Mind you, Mary my love, it was a great help to have stayed at Pemberley with Lizzie for two years before Louisa Hurst brought me out. Lord, that fusty girl of hers!” Kitty giggled. “The chagrin when it was I made the excellent marriage!”
“Wasn’t Menadew considered past it?” Mary asked, her blunt speech unimproved by seventeen years of caring for Mama.
“Well, yes, in years perhaps, but not in any other respect. I took his eye, he said, because I was clay just crying out to be
