Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles)

by Elliott, Anna

  I was about to tell Rose to inform his Lordship that I was not at home. But before I could speak, Aunt Gardiner said, “Very well, Rose, let him come.”

  I suppose she wanted to see for herself the gentleman who had caused so much trouble for Mary. And she does not even know the half of all the confusion and upset that can be laid at Lord Henry’s door.

  Rose bobbed a curtsey and went out, returning a few moments later with Lord Henry. And I had a moment to wish (very disloyally) that my aunt were still ill. Not seriously so, of course. Just enough that she had remained upstairs this morning.

  It was not even as though I could request that Aunt Gardiner leave Lord Henry and me to talk alone together. She might not be especially strict, but she would never consent to anything so improper as that in her own home.

  She did at least—after I had presented her to Lord Henry and the usual formal greetings had been exchanged—move a little distance away, under the guise of watching Susanna play with her wooden animals on the small rug in front of the window. But I did not delude myself into thinking for a moment that she would not still hear every word that was uttered.

  I sat in an agony of anticipation, wondering what exactly it was that Lord Henry had come here to say. Though at the sight of him—dressed in tight buckskin breeches and a blue superfine coat, the cost of which would probably feed a family in the East End for several months—I felt anger begin to simmer within me, as well.

  He seated himself in the chair opposite mine, and I said, as coolly as I could manage, “You wished to see me?”

  He looked sober, at least, his gaze clearer than I had yet seen and something of his usual swagger lacking in his manner. He said, “Only to tell you that I have kept my part of our bargain, and to say that I hope that you will keep yours.”

  That made the anger explode. “Kept your part? I do not recall any part of our bargain including your luring my sister off and—” I caught sight of Aunt Gardiner looking at me with elevated eyebrows, and managed to both check my words and lower my tone. “And exposing her to the censure of the world,” I finished in a savage whisper.

  A flash of annoyance crossed Lord Henry’s handsome face. “I did not lure her—or rather, perhaps I did, but only with the best of intentions.”

  “The best of intentions,” I repeated. I could feel my eyebrows climbing towards my hairline. “Please, go on. I am all expectation to hear this.”

  Lord Henry blanched slightly at my expression; he must well and truly be afraid of losing his inheritance from his aunt. His immaculately starched neck-cloth rose and fell as he swallowed, and then he said, “I did not mean—that is to say, it occurred to me that I had made your sister fall in love with me. So it was up to me to make her fall out of love with me again. If you see what I mean.”

  I felt my jaw drop open slightly. “Do you mean to tell me that you took Mary off and … and orchestrated that performance of kissing her solely to make her fall out of love with you? It did not occur to you that you might simply tell her that there was not the least chance of your ever returning her affections in the smallest degree?”

  Lord Henry’s face flushed and he looked slightly defensive. “Whatever you may think, I have at least some of the scruples of a gentleman. One cannot simply tell a perfectly respectable, decent girl that she is boring and bothersome and that you would like nothing better than to tell her to go and jump in a lake. Besides, I thought the whole thing would be better if the decision to break off our acquaintance came from her rather than me. I took her off alone, kissed her—making sure to appear as complete a clumsy oaf as I could. And it worked, did it not? You cannot tell me that your sister is still in love with me now.”

  My mouth was still open in astonishment. Before I could find my voice, Lord Henry ran a finger around the edge of his collar and added, in somewhat awkward tones, “I had time to consider what you said to me before. About toying with other people’s affections. Treating other people’s lives as … as a game. And I realised that you were perfectly correct. And that I had a … a duty to make things with your sister right, if I could.”

  Only Lord Henry could see fit to execute that duty by compromising Mary and exposing us both to Miranda Pettigrew’s blackmail. And yet … I do not know.

  Lord Henry took his leave of us soon after. I was more than a little apprehensive about what my aunt would say when he had gone. But she said only, “Well. I take it I have missed out on a great deal of excitement while I was ill in bed?”

  I had to explain the truth of it all to her. She looked rather horrified several times while I was speaking. But she really is a dear. When I had finished, she let out a long breath and said, “Well, Kitty, I confess that your methods for coping with these matters should never have occurred to me—not if I lived to be a hundred. But I do grant you that they seem to have been effective.” She looked speculatively at the door, where Lord Henry had gone out. “I wonder whether his impulse to reform himself will last.”

  I wonder that myself. To be honest, I should say that the odds of Lord Henry Carmichael truly turning over a new leaf are even, at the very best—and yet even odds are surely better than none.

  And if there is hope that Lord Henry can change, then there may be hope for anyone.

  Sitting there with Aunt Gardiner, I felt oddly lighter, somehow. And then I realised something else: reformed or no, I do not seem to hate Lord Henry any longer.

  Aunt Gardiner took another stitch in her mending. Susanna was sitting quietly at her mother’s feet, gnawing industriously on one of her wooden blocks; she must have another tooth coming in. Then Aunt Gardiner said, “And what is this about Miranda Pettigrew extracting your promise that you not speak to Lance Dalton again?”

  Unfortunately, it is much easier to tell a whole truth than only a partial one. Miranda’s spying on Mary and Lord Henry had slipped out as part of the explanation I gave my aunt. And then of course I had to include the reason for her recent visit to me, which Aunt Gardiner had heard about already through Rose.

  A part of me wanted to confess to Aunt Gardiner everything about my feelings for Lance. But I was afraid that if I did, I would be tempted to rest my head on her shoulder and cry as though I were Susanna’s age.

  All of Mary’s favourite aphorisms about time being the great healer of all wounds do not seem to be applying here. Or rather, to be fair to Mary, I should say former favourites; she has thankfully not uttered a single one in the past several days.

  But thinking and speaking of Lance do not seem to be getting easier at all. Instead I feel— I am still determined not to sigh and moan. But to allow myself to moan slightly, just this once—I feel as though there is a cracked space inside my chest, and every mention of his name makes the cracks widen and the jagged edges scrape together a little more.

  I jumped to my feet. “Oh, just some nonsensical notion Miranda had got into her head about Mr. Dalton’s admiring me. Just because she has not yet managed to make him propose, she thinks he must be in love with someone else.”

  I fled the room before Aunt Gardiner could answer, and came upstairs to write this all down.

  Saturday 17 February 1816

  I feel … I feel as though I were standing on my head instead of my heels. So thoroughly stunned by the events of today that I scarcely know what is real—whether I am awake or lost in some incredible dream.

  Though it is at least a definite improvement over my earlier wish that I might roast Mary over a bed of open coals.

  She and I were at Darcy House today, visiting Jane. Charles the elder had taken Amelia out to the park to play, and Jane was asleep when we arrived. But small Charles was awake and wiggling in his swaddling blankets next to her in the bed. He was not crying or hungry—just looking about the room with big blue eyes that already look very like Jane’s. So Mary and I scooped him up and carried him into Jane’s dressing room, so that Jane might be left to sleep in peace for as long as possible.

  We laid the baby on a blanket sp
read on the floor and kissed and cooed over him—which small Charles took with calm acceptance; I think he is also going to have Jane’s tranquility and sweetness of temper. All the while, though, Mary seemed oddly distracted—nervously on edge, somehow. Several times I had to repeat something I had said before she seemed to hear me. And yet she kept cocking her head, as though she were listening for something.

  I finally asked her whether anything were the matter. But she shook her head. “No—I was just … wondering when Charles and Amelia would be back, that is all. I had promised Amelia that I would play with her at paper dolls.”

  And then she looked at the clock on the dressing room mantel, for what had to be the dozenth time in as many minutes. “Mary—” I began.

  But before I could finish, someone knocked lightly at the door—and I forgot all about Mary’s odd behaviour. Georgiana came in, keeping her voice to a whisper, so as not to wake Jane.

  “Kitty, there is someone here to see you. A Miss Dalton, she told me that her name is. She says that she needs to speak with you urgently.”

  My thoughts immediately flew to Lance—and the fear that the bullet wound from Mark’s pistol had turned poisonous after all went through me like a shard of glass. I scrambled up and almost ran down the stairs to the parlour, where Gwen was waiting.

  But it was not Lance, after all, who had prompted her visit; she told me as soon as I came into the room that Will, from the children’s ward at the hospital, had taken a turn for the worse. He was very ill and asking to see me—and would I return with her to the hospital now, at once?

  I hesitated momentarily—and Gwen added, “If you are afraid of seeing my brother, I promise that you will not have to. He is not at the hospital today.”

  I was already ashamed of even that brief moment’s hesitation. I had promised Will before that I would be back to play at pirates with him again—and yet between the crisis with Mark and small Charles’s birth, I had not been to see him all week. And now he was gravely ill. As though his young life had not already contained suffering enough.

  “Of course I will come,” I told Gwen. “Just let me fetch my cloak.”

  Outside in the hall, I bumped into Mary, who to my surprise asked whether she might accompany me to the hospital. “Charles decided that he was hungry,” she said, “so I had to wake Jane in any case. And I missed the charity fete to benefit the hospital. I should like to be more involved.”

  We all three of us, Gwen, Mary, and I, climbed into the carriage which Gwen had brought, and drove towards the East End. The drive seemed to last an absolute eternity of clattering carriage wheels and streets tangled with the usual dreadful London traffic. But at long last we reached the hospital, and almost before Gwen’s coachman had drawn the carriage to a halt, I jumped down—not even bothering to see whether Gwen and Mary were following me.

  I was afraid all the time that we might be too late—that if Will was so ill that Gwen had come running to fetch me, he might die before ever I got the chance to see him at all.

  But when I reached the children’s ward, almost the first sight I saw was Will—not looking ill in the slightest degree. His bed had been moved up to the head of the ward, and, grinning broadly, he was propped up with pillows as much as his back brace allowed. And beside him … I felt my heart lurch hard against my ribs. Beside Will’s bed stood Lance, dressed in his black coat and clerical collar and looking—

  Actually I had no attention to spare for trying to interpret Lance’s expression. The mere fact of his presence was enough.

  I whirled on Gwen, who had come up behind me. “You promised me—”

  “I lied,” Gwen interrupted cheerfully. Her smile was almost as broad as Will’s.

  Mary, slightly out of breath, came up to stand beside Gwen. “And I called on Mr. Dalton yesterday and told him everything, and asked him to meet us here.”

  That was when I succumbed to wishing that I might roast Mary over hot coals. I felt a hot blush of pure mortification flood my cheeks. “Mary, how could you—” I began.

  Mary took my hand. “You are my sister, Kitty,” she said—in an echo of what I had told her, days ago. “Of course I would not wish to see you moping about and making yourself needlessly miserable. Not if there was anything I could do to help.”

  “What about Miranda?” I managed to choke out. “Have you forgotten—”

  Mary smiled again. “No, I have not forgotten—only decided that I do not care what rumours she may spread of me. Let her do her worst; I am not going to worry over her any more.” She put her hands on my shoulders and turned me around, giving me a small push in Lance’s direction. “So go on, there is nothing to stop you,” she added. “As I said, I have already told him all about Lord Henry and the other nonsensical reasons you think you are not fit to marry him—even though you are hopelessly in love with him. So you need not worry about having to explain anything; he already knows.”

  Frozen with horror is another phrase that I had always thought a mere exaggerated figure of speech. Until today. At that moment, I was utterly unable to move—or even to think. I was vaguely aware of Mary and Gwen—looking infuriatingly pleased with themselves—linking arms and drawing away. Of Lance coming around from behind Will’s bed to stand before me.

  My face was still burning, and my heart was pounding sickeningly hard—and I could not bring myself to look up at him. Not until he cleared his throat and said, “Miss Bennet—Kitty—”

  That made me drag my gaze up to his face and forcibly swallow down the ache in my throat as I held up a hand to stop him. “Please, don’t.”

  Lance flinched at that, a look of pain—or perhaps it was only pity—flickering in his blue gaze. It must be pity; of course he would be sorry—he would not wish to wound the feelings of the girl whose sister had helpfully revealed that she was hopelessly in love with him.

  I let out a shaky breath and fixed my gaze on my clenched hands. “I mean to say that you need not— Just because our sisters have jointly conspired to manipulate you into this intolerable position does not mean that you are under any obligation to … to …”

  I had to break off; despite my best efforts, my throat had tightened up too much for me to speak another word. My eyes were prickling painfully.

  “Wait a moment.” Lance’s fingers cupped my jaw, forcing me to tilt my head back and look up at him again. I had not the energy to resist, no matter what I saw in his eyes. He did not look embarrassed or angry or even uncomfortable, though—only sheerly incredulous. “You think that I am here because I feel in some measure obligated? Kitty, I—” He stopped and shook his head. Cleared his throat. “When your sister came to see me yesterday, I had been sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper for over two hours. Trying not to write to you. Trying not to beg that you would give me another chance to tell you of my feelings—properly, this time, and without being half out of my head with laudanum. You had said that you did not wish to see me again, and I was trying to respect your wishes. But when your sister called at my lodging house and told me—” Lance’s voice turned husky and he stopped again. “It seemed like a miracle. That is”—a flicker of uncertainty crossed his gaze—“that is, if she spoke the truth? If you do … love me?”

  His face was a heart-stopping mixture of warmth and uncertainty. My chest tightened and I—I could not stop myself—reached up to touch his cheek. “Of course I do. But—” My voice shook, and I swallowed again. “I mean, surely you cannot really wish to marry me. Not after—”

  “I cannot wish to marry the bravest, most compassionate, loyal, and intelligent girl I have ever known? The one who makes me laugh and astonishes me at every turn?” Lance’s voice turned husky again, and he looked at me with that same wonderment I saw in his gaze that day in his lodging house. “I knew from the first night we met—the night you told me nothing would make you consent to dance with me, and compared my eyes to Lady Dorwich’s Persian cat—that I had never met anyone like you. And yes, I want to marry you. So muc
h that—” Lance broke off with a shaky half laugh, and brushed my cheek with the tips of his fingers. “So much that even though I practised again and again what I was going to say when I saw you today—how I might persuade you into giving me a chance—I have at this moment absolutely no memory of what I was going to say. Save to tell you that I love you. And that I do not even want to imagine a life—my life—in which you are not there, at my side.”

  I stared up at him, at the lean, handsome lines of his face. The tiny flecks of gold about the irises of his eyes, and the single lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. I could feel hot tears spilling over my cheeks—and for the first time, a tiny bubble of hope expanding inside my chest. But I had to say it; I shook my head and said, “I still do not think … I am not at all sure that I am at all the right sort of wife for—”

  Lance stopped me. His hands slid down to my waist, drawing me against him, and he covered my mouth with his. I was aware of someone—it must have been Will—letting out a raucous whistle. But only very distantly so. Lance’s lips were warm, soft and gentle against mine—and I felt myself melt against him, felt the touch run like fire through my every nerve.

  After a long moment, he broke away—but only far enough that he could rest his forehead against mine, his hands sliding up to tangle in my hair. He was breathing quickly, and he said, “If that is the only obstacle, then there is no obstacle at all. Because the trouble is not that you don’t love me—but rather that you do not yet love yourself. But I promise—” He stopped and bent his head to kiss me, just lightly, again, looking at me with eyes the colour of the clear morning sky. “I promise that loving you is not at all hard. Catherine Bennet, will you marry me and let me spend a lifetime showing you how?”

  I looked up at him, and felt something inside me melting, like frozen earth in a warm spring rain. I was still crying, but somehow laughter was bubbling up, as well, to mix with the tears. I reached up and kissed Lance back, so hard that he staggered backwards and then started to laugh, too.