Lydia

by Natasha Farrant

  My diary – I could not leave that behind!

  The picture Jane drew of Napoleon – because who knows if I shall ever see him again? My sisters and my parents will still be here, when I return from India in a few years’ time, with my fine noble husband and pots and pots of money to save them all from destitution, but cats do not live as long as humans, especially cats like Napoleon, who roam about the countryside getting into fights and annoying farmers by making lots of baby kittens.

  I don’t want to think about never seeing Napoleon again.

  Harriet is out with the colonel. I said that I was ill, and she believed me. I have stuffed my bolster under the covers in my bed in case they look in on me when they come home. With luck, if they do not look too closely, I shall not be missed till morning. There is a note pinned to my pillow for when they do find me gone – my final revenge on Wickham! I have told Harriet that we have run away to be married. I almost died when I thought of that. He is still away, and cannot contradict it, and Harriet will believe it, too – she is so convinced that I am in love with him! That will throw them off the scent! By the time he returns to town, I will be far away and it will be too late.

  Farewell, Market Street. Farewell, dear Brighton, your beach and your bathing machines, your assembly rooms and library and shops, your crooked old cottages and fine new buildings! Farewell, Harriet and Denny and Carter and Colonel Forster and Theo and Esther!

  Farewell, Wickham . . .

  I am going to creep down the dark, narrow stairs and through the street that smells of fish, and walk close to the wall with my face hidden by the hood of my cloak, and I will not look up or back until I reach the Coach and Anchor and take my place in the London stage beside Alaric. Soon I will be Lydia, Comtesse de Fombelle . . .

  The clock has chimed. It is half past eight.

  It is time.

  Later still . . .

  How can everything change so fast? Earlier it was all so clear. Now everything has gone wrong.

  It is eleven o’clock, and I am sick with anticipation. I am writing this in hiding, sheltered on the beach beside a fisherman’s upturned boat, writing by the light of the moon.

  It is only a few minutes’ walk from Market Street to the Coach and Anchor. In my eagerness, I arrived early. The London coach was still being readied, and the yard was all bustle and shouting. A fine mizzle was falling, but I dared not go inside in case someone recognised me. I lurked in the shadows instead, with my bag at my feet and my cloak pulled close about my face. I could hardly breathe from excitement.

  The horses were brought from the stables and hitched. The coachman came out of the inn, rubbing his hands, his face still red from his supper, and took his seat. The postbag was stowed, trunks and parcels secured.

  Alaric did not come – he did not come, and he did not come.

  The postilion mounted one of the front horses. An elderly gentleman in an old-fashioned cloak took his place in the coach.

  Where was Alaric? Oh, where was he?

  A hand fell on my shoulder, making me cry out.

  “Shh!” a voice whispered.

  I turned. It was Wickham!

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed. “I thought you were gone away.”

  “That’s a fine way to greet a fellow! I could ask you the same thing.”

  Wickham, returned . . . The letter lying on my pillow . . . Harriet would know that I had lied. He was going to ruin everything!

  “You were meant to be away for days!” I accused him.

  “Unfinished business drew me back early.” Did he mean Miss Lovett? Did he know that she was leaving?

  “London, London! Last call for London!” the coachman cried.

  Oh, where was Alaric?

  And now the coachman was grunting, “Ho!” and the horses were setting off with a great shaking and creaking.

  He had not come! I stifled a cry and stumbled out of the shadows. As Wickham caught me, his eyes fell on the bag at my feet.

  “Lydia, what is this?”

  “Oh, do not ask, do not ask!”

  “Lydia!” He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then took me by the arm and led me to a dark corner of the yard, where he sat me upon a bale of straw and made me tell him everything.

  “They are leaving? With Miss Lovett?” So he hadn’t known! His face was pale in the darkness, his features drawn. “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure! Why would I make it up? Oh, Wickham!”

  “Then I have lost.” He sighed. “And I felt so sure that this time I might win.”

  He dropped on to the bale beside me and hunched over his knees, deep in thought. I have never seen Wickham look so despondent. I remembered what Harriet had said – about his mountains of debts, and the colonel running out of patience.

  “We have both lost.” I began to cry. I tried to stop myself, but the tears just came. Wickham reached out absently and squeezed my hand.

  “Maybe he has sent word,” I whispered. “Wickham, will you go into the inn and ask?”

  “Of course I will.”

  I wrapped my cloak closer about me, retreated farther into the shadows, and waited. I fancied there was a renewed spring to his step when he came out, but he shook his head as he approached.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “What shall I do?”

  “Lydia, let me take you home.”

  Home! I started. Glanced up at the clock. A quarter past nine. Harriet would still be out. I could creep back in and unpack my things, and she would never know that I had nearly escaped . . . And then what? A few more weeks of Brighton and parties, and then home to Longbourn, doubtless to die an old maid, never seeing the world and destined to live the rest of my days with my sisters?

  I would not give up so easily.

  “I’m not going home,” I said. “I’m going to find Alaric.”

  “What? Lydia, how?”

  “You have to help me get to Tara.”

  “Lydia, this is madness! Think what you risk – your reputation, ruin . . .”

  “Oh, that word!” I actually stamped my foot. “I will not be ruined. If I can but talk to Alaric, I know that all will be well. Something has detained him at Tara – his awful sister, no doubt.”

  “Can it not wait until tomorrow?”

  “He leaves tomorrow for Shropshire!”

  “And if you fail, Lydia? If he refuses to see you, if his sister wins?”

  “Take me to Tara, Wickham,” I begged. “Help me get to him before it is too late!”

  “How will we get there?”

  “On horseback, of course!”

  “But it’s dark . . .”

  “It’s a full moon!”

  “But . . .” Wickham sighed. I could tell that he was wavering.

  “Please, Wickham . . .”

  “Oh, very well, wait here.”

  Back he went into the inn, taking my valise. Some minutes later he came out again and, shielding me from view, led me around the side, where a boy waited with two saddled horses.

  “You will have to ride like a man,” he said. “Will you manage that? I could not risk asking for a side-saddle. The boy will not talk, for I have paid him handsomely, but the fewer people know a lady is riding about in the dead of night the better.”

  “I will do anything it takes,” I replied.

  I confess, as Wickham and I rode out together, I did temporarily forget about eloping and Southampton and India. Riding astride is completely different from riding side-saddle, and at first I was convinced that without my front knee wrapped about the high pommel, I would slip off. But Wickham is a good teacher – I had forgotten that – and I soon adjusted. He led and I followed, my horse nudging his. We took the sea road out of town to avoid detection. There is a bridle path on the cliff that Wickham knows, which connects eventually with the road to Tara. It was slow, hard riding at first. The path was sunken and rocky, muddy too from the afternoon’s rain. The horses picked their way carefully through
the roots of the trees that arched high above us, their tall branches silhouetted against the night sky. But when we reached the high ground . . . when the empty road stretched out before us like a ribbon beneath the high moon . . . Wickham took off at a gallop. I screamed, and my horse followed.

  Wind whipped past me. Tears streamed from my eyes, my cloak billowed behind me. It was . . . oh, it was like swimming in the open sea, but even better! The thundering hooves, the speed – the danger and the excitement!

  All too soon we slowed. “I seem to remember I owed you a ride!” Wickham laughed. “I had not imagined it in these circumstances.”

  “Why did we stop?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Look where we are.” He pointed to the side of the road. We were at the elephant gates.

  Wickham said, “All right, Lydia, what’s the plan?”

  “We creep up to the house,” I said, trying to sound confident.

  “And then? Are you planning to climb up to his window?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” I blanched, thinking of Alaric’s study right at the top of the house.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Wickham asked, and I nodded.

  We tethered the horses in a copse, and crept together down the moonlit drive.

  “Life is never dull with you, is it?” he whispered.

  “Shh!”

  “Admit it – you are enjoying the adventure!”

  We had arrived at the stables, all closed up for the night. I motioned at Wickham to stop.

  “I don’t like to leave you,” he said.

  “I will call if I need help. It will be worse if they see you.”

  On I went, alone. Through the tunnel of trees, past the turning circle and rosemary and the roses. The Indian palace gleamed silver in the moonlight. Everything was still after the storm. Not a rustle – not even the sound of Patch barking.

  I was breathless again, hot and cold with a mounting dread.

  I slipped round the side of the house – the furniture was gone from the terrace – ran down the twisted, narrow path to the summer house – peered in through the window . . . It was empty. The manikins, the bolts of cloth, the trays of pins and buttons . . . They were all gone.

  I sank to the ground and sat for a long time on the cold, damp stone, my back against the summer house wall, staring across the dark and empty garden. At some point, Wickham joined me. I did not look up.

  “The stables are empty,” he said. “I looked in through a window. The trap is there, but no horses.”

  “They have already left,” I said dully.

  I shivered. Wickham put his arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “It is his sister’s doing,” I said. “She will have found out somehow, and made them all leave. She thinks I am . . .” Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled . . . I gave a sob of anger. Why does everyone but Alaric think so little of me?

  “Come on,” Wickham said. “You can’t stay here.”

  He helped me to my feet. As I followed him up the path to the terrace, I began to shake with anger against the whole world – Theo for taking away Alaric, Lizzy for her unkind words, Mary for always being so superior, Mr. Collins for his patronising remarks, and my father, for always favouring my sisters over me . . .

  I will show them, I thought. I will show the whole lot of them. I will find Alaric and I will make him marry me at once and then I will march him to Longbourn, and if I fail and ruin myself in the process, at least I will have tried.

  “Lydia!” Wickham tugged at my arm. “We have to go.”

  I stopped to look at the sea. The moon was low on the water, its reflection a silvery path.

  “This is my only chance,” I said.

  “There will be other chances, Lydia . . . Other proposals.”

  “Not as good as this one.”

  A pause, and then Wickham asked, “So what do we do now?”

  “Now,” I said, “we go to London.”

  I lied to Wickham to convince him to come with me. It is wrong, I know, but I don’t care. I cannot very well travel alone. I told him that I had spoken with Esther – that she begged me to tell him she would marry him if only he would go after her. And he believed me.

  I did not tell him about the note I had left for Harriet.

  Once Alaric sees me, his sister will have no power over him. I know that he will remember India, and all the promises he made. Soon, the cold grey Channel will become the bright blue of the Indian Ocean, the thin moonlight that I am writing by will be the blazing sun of the tropics. There will be white scrubbed decks and full sails, and a dear little cabin with a round porthole and furniture screwed down to stop it being tossed about during a storm, like in the travel book the librarian gave me. There will be flying fish and dolphins and porpoises and whales, and it will all be wonderful.

  Wickham left while I was writing, and has just returned from the inn. He has found a chaise to take us to London. No alarm has been raised. No one is yet looking for me.

  Sunday, 19th July

  We are in London! It is not a bit as I imagined it – smart gentlemen and ladies riding about in fine carriages, and everyone vastly elegant. This inn is noisy and dirty, and it smells bad, and there are people everywhere, shouting in strange, harsh London voices. I want to go out and explore, but Wick-ham says I must stay hidden. I am writing from the room of the inn where Wickham has left me. He has gone out to see some people who can help us – people who can lend him money, for we spent the last of ours on a hackney carriage from Clapham (so that anyone pursuing us might lose our trail, he explained).

  The news from Grosvenor Square was not good. Wickham went to make discreet enquiries as soon as we arrived, to work out a plan for how to meet Alaric, but “They are not here,” he informed me when he returned. “I asked a tradesman – a fruit seller – if he could point out the home of Mrs. Lovett and I watched it for several hours, but no one came in or out. In the end, I tipped my fruit-selling friend to make enquiries, under the pretence of trying to sell his apples.”

  “And?”

  “The family was expected, but never came. The housekeeper received word last night that they have all gone straight into Shropshire.”

  The serving girl brought ale. We both drank, lost in thought.

  “Where exactly is Shropshire?” I asked.

  “A long way north-west of here. Some two days’ travel, perhaps.”

  “North?” I brightened. “Near Scotland?”

  “Not really. Closer than London, I suppose.”

  “Then let us go to Shropshire!”

  “Lydia . . .”

  “Wickham! Think of Miss Lovett!”

  We leave in the morning – if Wickham can get enough money . . .

  Friday, 24th July

  After days of travelling, we are finally approaching Shropshire. In another few hours, Wickham says, we shall reach Mapperton Abbas, the village closest to Esther’s grand estate. We have come a circuitous route – I wanted to go as fast as possible, but Wickham advised caution. There was nothing to be gained from charging after the Comte and Miss Lovett, and everything to be lost by being found, for by now people must be looking for us. Our route has taken us across country, through countless cities and villages. We have travelled by coach and hackney carriage, we have ridden in a farmer’s cart, we have even done a stretch of road on foot, Wickham carrying my valise and urging me forward by teaching me sailors’ songs he learned when he was at sea. It is a far cry from Romeo and Juliet, but it passes the time – no, I will be fair. It is a far cry from Shakespeare, but it makes me laugh.

  We take one room wherever we stop, to save money. Wickham sleeps on the floor and I take the bed. At first I worried that he might try to – well, ruin me. He is not exactly as gentlemanly as Alaric – the very fact that he is here with me at all is proof of that. But he has behaved very well. How much more space he takes up than Kitty! How much louder his breathing, his snores, and every other sound! He kick
s off his boots and they fly halfway across the room. Throws his coat on a chair and causes it to rock. Falls on to the bed (before taking to the floor) and makes the pillows fly. He paces continuously. He burps when he drinks beer.

  Yet for all that, when he is sleeping, he looks strangely vulnerable. He takes a blanket, but always throws it off. He lies on his back with his arms behind his head, and his hair, which he keeps so carefully swept back during the day, falls across his face. The first night, I watched it rise and fall softly with his breath. Up and down, up and down . . . He opened his eyes and saw me watching.

  “Lydia?”

  “You should lie on your side,” I said. “Maybe that way you would snore less.”

  At night, in these unfamiliar places, I stare out of the open window and try to picture those scrubbed decks, that bright blue sea. Sometimes what we are doing seems impossible, but we have come too far to turn back. If I do not succeed with Alaric, it will be Longbourn and virtual imprisonment for me, and Wickham says he cannot return to the regiment now that he has run away with me. His whole future rests, he says, on marrying Miss Lovett. He still does not know that I have lied to him. I am trying not to think about how that makes me feel.

  “Was I snoring again?” Wickham asked last night as we lay in darkness.

  “Snoring? Not at all.”

  “And yet you are still awake.”

  I rolled to the edge of the bed and looked down at where he lay, tangled in his blanket.

  “What if we are wrong?” I asked. “What if Alaric will not come away with me? What will happen to me then?”

  “This count of yours, is he a man of honour?”

  “Oh, most definitely!”

  “And he made you a promise?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Then he will keep it. And you have nothing to fear.”

  “He once told me that he and his sister had promised always to look after each other,” I said. “What of that, if he comes away with me?”

  “You have to fight, Lydia,” he murmured.

  “I’m frightened,” I whispered.

  “I know.”

  “Wickham?”

  “Go to sleep, Lydia.”