Page 20 of What Change Entails

“No, you would not.”

Jane stood up next to the trunk. “Lydia, the sprigged muslin or the pink. Not both.”

Lydia clutched the pink gown to her chest. “But the sprigged muslin is better for morning.”

Mrs. Gardiner crossed to the bed and picked up the sprigged muslin herself. “Then the pink must remain.”

Lydia gasped. “Aunt!”

“Unless you prefer the pink.”

Lydia stared between the two gowns like she was being forced to choose between beloved children.

Elizabeth held Mrs. Gardiner’s travel list on her lap. “You might always wear the sprigged muslin in the morning and cease requiring a gown for every possible shade of daylight.”

Lydia rounded on her. “No one asked you.”

“You are mistaken. Aunt asked me to assist with the lists.”

Her sister huffed. “The lists are not suffering without your aid.”

“They will become so.”

Mrs. Gardiner came to Elizabeth’s rescue by taking the pink gown and laying it aside. “The sprigged muslin goes; the pink remains. The white may come if it can be made ready without tormenting every maid in the house.”

Lydia opened her mouth.

Mrs. Gardiner fixed a stern glare in her direction.

Lydia shut it again.

Elizabeth wrote two lines on the list to avoid laughing outright. Her aunt’s success with Lydia bordered upon miraculous. She did not flatter; she did not scold without purpose; she offered Lydia structure as if it were an ordinary fact of life, no more negotiable than the weather. Lydia resisted them, but without the same success she had long enjoyed at home.

Elizabeth had not realized until now how tiring the household had become.

Kitty, however, had begun to droop. “I shall be the only one left with Mary.”

Jane reached over to touch her arm. “You shall have Mama and Papa and me.”

“That is not the same.”

“No,” Lydia said, with sudden generosity now that she was the one leaving, “but I shall write to you. Perhaps every week.”

“Every week?” Kitty repeated, wounded.

“Every few days, then.”

“Every day.”

Lydia made a face. “Kitty, I cannot write every day. I shall have adventures.”

Kitty’s lower lip trembled.

Elizabeth watched Lydia’s expression shift. Not much. A flicker of discomfort, followed by impatience, then something almost like guilt.

“Oh, very well,” Lydia said, tossing the ribbon into Kitty’s lap. “I shall write whenever something happens. And if nothing happens, I shall write to tell you how nothing is happening and how miserable I am.”

Kitty brightened. “And describe everyone’s gowns?”