Page 8 of What Change Entails

Mr. Bennet leaned back in his chair. “Years of practice.”

“You have allowed Lizzy to poison you against your own child.” Elizabeth flinched despite herself.

Jane interjected, “Mama, surely no one intends Lydia unhappiness—”

“She will be miserable among old people and mountains!” Mrs. Bennet cried noisily.

“I hardly think Derbyshire consists entirely of mountains,” Mr. Bennet replied. “Though perhaps enough to improve Lydia’s volume by scattering the echoes.”

“Papa,” Elizabeth murmured, half reproachful despite everything.

The humor faded somewhat from his expression then, replaced by a tiredness she did not often notice because he usually concealed it beneath wit. Dinner dissolved not long afterward.

Mrs. Bennet retired in distress. Mary retired to her books with renewed conviction. Kitty remained upstairs consoling Lydia. Jane lingered beside Elizabeth near the drawing room windows as twilight deepened beyond the glass.

“You cannot truly regret speaking,” Jane said.

Elizabeth peered down at the unopened pianoforte. “Can I not?”

“Lizzy.” Jane’s tone both comforted and reprimanded.

“She is miserable.” Lydia would make them all feel the same.

“For now.”

Elizabeth folded her arms. “Perhaps I have done exactly what Mama accused me of. Perhaps I simply wished to prevent Lydia from enjoying herself.”

Jane smiled faintly. “You know better than that.”

Did she? Upstairs, muffled crying still drifted intermittently through the floorboards. Elizabeth closed her eyes. Jane glanced toward the ceiling with a weary expression.

They said nothing.

Lydia threw herself face-first across the bed the moment Kitty shut the chamber door behind them.

“This is your fault,” she declared into the bedclothes, though whether she addressed Kitty, Elizabeth, or the universe itself remained uncertain.

Kitty stopped with one hand still on the latch. “Mine?”

“No, not yours.” Lydia rolled over violently enough to disturb the coverlet and send one of the smaller pillows sliding to the floor. “Lizzy’s. Everything is Lizzy’s fault.”

Her eyes still burned from crying, which increased her temper. She despised crying. It made her nose red, ruined the prettiest expression in the world, and gave everyone else an excuse to speak softly to her like she was a child in the nursery. Lydia Bennet had not been in the nursery for years. She was nearly sixteen. Nearly sixteen was practically grown, whatever Lizzy might pretend.

Kitty hovered uncertainly near the dressing table. “Perhaps Papa will change his mind.”

“He will not. Lizzy has poisoned him.”

“Papa does not often do what Lizzy says.” Kitty sounded hesitant.

“He did today,” Lydia said, sitting upright with a jerk. “And on the very worst subject possible.”

Kitty crept toward the bed and perched on the edge of it, her whole expression arranged in deepest sympathy. “Perhaps Derbyshire will not be so dreadful.”

Lydia stared at her in disbelief.

“Not dreadful?” she repeated. “Kitty, there will be hills.”

Kitty coughed nervously. “Well… yes.”