“Then I shall tell you! When we visited Mrs. Forster this morning, she invited me—me!—to go to Brighton with her asher particular companion. I am going to Brighton! I can hardly contain my excitement!”
As Lydia capered around the room, crying her pleasure and extolling her good fortune, giving the lie to any notion of a restrained response, Elizabeth watched her, disquiet growing in her breast. The disadvantages to such a heedless girl in Brighton with camps full of officers with no one other than the equally silly Mrs. Forster checking her were many and not at all difficult to imagine. Little though she wished to contend with her reckless unkindness—Kitty was now openly weeping from Lydia’s teasing—she essayed to bring the girl under control.
“Lydia, that is enough!”
The girl turned to make some hateful comment, but it died in her throat when she saw Elizabeth’s expression. Elizabeth spoke again quickly to settle her further, intending to pull the story of the invitation from her.
“Now, Lydia,” said Elizabeth, pointing at a nearby sofa and commanding her to sit, “how did this all come about?” Elizabeth glared at her sister. “I seem to recall you suggesting you might ask Mrs. Forster for an invitation to Brighton. You did not do such an improper thing, did you?”
“Lizzy!” exclaimed Lydia, as she dropped gracelessly onto the furniture. “How can you say such a thing? I know how to behave!”
“This display of yours brings the lie to such a claim,” replied Elizabeth.
“Lizzy is correct,” said Mrs. Bennet, looking at them both with some astonishment. “It is highly improper to request an invitation, Lydia. Did you importune Mrs. Forster?”
Surprised though she was that Mrs. Bennet saw the impropriety herself, Elizabeth ignored her mother in favor of Lydia. The girl gave the impression of squirming under their combined displeasure, but soon she huffed and looked away.
“Of course, I did not! I know what I may and may not do.”
“Kitty?” asked Elizabeth of her second youngest sister, who regarded them all with astonishment, her tears having ceased.
“I... do not know, Lizzy,” said Kitty haltingly, while Lydia huffed and glared at them all. “I was speaking with Sanderson when Mrs. Forster offered the invitation.”
Elizabeth nodded at Kitty, then turned to Lydia, her eyebrow raised, demanding an answer. It did not please Lydia to be challenged in such a way.
“I did not ask for an invitation,” said she more forcefully.
The girl was lying—Elizabeth was almost certain of it. There was no way to prove it, however, short of asking Mrs. Forster for an account of the visit. As she suspected the woman—little more than a girl herself—would support Lydia’s version of events, there was no reason to pursue the matter any further. But Elizabeth would not allow Lydia’s continued poor behavior.
“Very well. Do not crow over your sister, Lydia, and remember Papa has not given you leave to go.”
“Papa will not stop me going,” said Lydia, her tone all immature superiority. “Papa always speaks of his desire for peace, and if I leave, he shall have it.”
Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Jane and almost burst into laughter. That the girl was aware of her propensity to create a ruckus and seemed to consider it a badge of honor was highly entertaining. Or it would have been had it not been so very disquieting.
“That is fortunate, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Bennet. “How much fun you shall have with the officers. Mrs. Forster has favored you exceedingly!”
Despite some of the surprising ways in which Mrs. Bennet had seen impropriety these past days, she saw nothing amiss with the notion of Lydia going off to do who knew what with little attention to restraint. Elizabeth wondered if she should speak upagain and try to induce her mother to understand, but she knew at once it was a hopeless business. The two were chattering so animatedly that any attempt to halt their plotting would bring condemnation.
As Jane was engaged in consoling Kitty in her gentle manner, that left Elizabeth free to consider her course. There was only one, in fact, within the family who could prevent this disaster from occurring. Unfortunately, Elizabeth knew her father as well as anyone alive; the lure of dispensing with his youngest, silliest, and loudest daughter would be an irresistible temptation for her father, such that Elizabeth suspected he would not even consider the matter much before giving his consent—in that, Lydia was entirely correct.
There was nothing to be done but approach him and attempt to induce him to see sense. It would be best to marshal her arguments at once, however, for any ability to sway him must be rational. The drawbacks were myriad, and Elizabeth did not think there was much point in going over them in her mind, for her father would understand them too. Perhaps she should mention something of Wickham and what Elizabeth suspected of his behavior?
That he had left the militia and would not be a potential downfall for her sister was a matter of much relief to Elizabeth. Ifonesuch man existed, however, it was not a stretch to assume there weremanysuch men, especially in a camp containing multiple regiments. Any man of Mr. Wickham’s ilk would take advantage of such an empty-headed girl without a second thought, and revel in their superiority. Whether her father would accept that argument Elizabeth could not say, but she knew there was no choice but to attempt to persuade him that Lydia should not go to Brighton. It would be best to approach him before he gave his consent.
With that in mind, Elizabeth rose and excused herself. Mrs.Bennet and Lydia did not even notice, and while she thought Jane looked at her with a hint of understanding, her sister said nothing. Soon, Elizabeth knocked on the door to her father’s room, and when he called permission to enter, she squared her shoulders and stepped forward to do battle.
“Lizzy,” greeted her father, looking up from his book. “Have you exhausted your reading material yet again?” He chuckled and returned to his book, waving an invitation at the bookshelves. “Sometimes I think you are more of a devotee of the written word than even I can boast. Help yourself.”
“I did not come for a book, Papa,” replied Elizabeth. “A matter of some urgency has arisen of which I believe we must speak.”
Mr. Bennet caught the significance at once, though he was not yet aware of the specifics. “I suppose this business of which you speak concerns my youngest? I heard her enter the estate with enough noise to wake the dead.”
“It does,” replied Elizabeth. “Colonel Forster’s wife has invited Lydia to join her for the summer in Brighton.”
“Hasshe?” asked her father, his grin a confirmation of Elizabeth’s conjecture. “That is a fortunate happenstance for Lydia, I suppose. And for the rest of us too, for we need not endure her all summer.”
“Papa,” said Elizabeth in that slightly chiding voice she sometimes used with him. “Do you not think it a horrid notion for that immature child to go to a place wherein she can get up to such much mischief?”
