She hesitated in the hall for a moment, which was absurd, for it was her father’s library and she was hardly going to require an invitation, and then pushed open the door.
Mr Bennet looked up from his book. He did not appear surprised to see her, merely shifted his spectacles up his nose and gestured vaguely at the other chair.
“I was going to the kitchen,” Lydia said.
“I expect it will still be there in a few minutes,” said her father.
She went in and sat down.
It was quiet in the library, the only sound the fire settling. Lydia was not certain when she had last been in this room alone with her father. Possibly she never had, or if she had it had been years ago, and she did not think he had ever looked at her quite the way he was looking at her now, as though unsure what he was seeing, and unsure whether to say so.
“I saw you reading the Matlocks’ letter,” he said at last. “What did you think of it?”
“I thought the countess writes very well,” Lydia said. “And the earl’s endorsement was brief, but it seemed genuine.”
“Brief and genuine,” Mr Bennet repeated. “Yes, I thought the same.” He turned a page, though she suspected he had not read the previous one. “Fitzwilliam strikes me as his father’s son in that regard.”
Lydia looked at the fire. “Yes,” she said. “I think so too.”
Another silence, longer this time. Mr Bennet closed his book over his thumb.
“I did not listen to Elizabeth,” he said, which was so oblique a beginning that it took Lydia a moment to understand that it was as close to an apology as he was capable of. “About Brighton. She told me she was concerned, and I...” He paused. “Well. We are here and Brighton is there, and it has all come out rather differently than it might have done.”
“Rather differently,” Lydia agreed.
“I think he is a good man,” her father said. “Fitzwilliam. I think he will take care of you, and that you may trust him.”
It was more direct than she had expected from him, and she found it required a moment to absorb. “Yes,” she said, when she had done so. “I think so too.”
Mr Bennet looked at her for another moment, with the air of a man who wished he were better at this sort of conversation and was doing his best regardless. Then he opened his book again.
“The kitchen,” he reminded her.
“Yes.” Lydia rose, then paused at the door. “Goodnight, Papa.”
“Goodnight, Lyddie,” her father said, not looking up, and the use of the childhood name was so unexpected that she carried it all the way to the kitchen and up to bed with her, turning it over in the dark like something small and unexpectedly valuable.
