“Like the soup course, before the fish comes out?”
This was not language much understood, and Carver impatiently said, “’Tis the door, countess. If you let a man have a kiss, may’s well ?ave open’t the door.” She looked suggestively toward Lydia’s upper thighs. “To yer skirts.”
“Good lord. No wonder there is so much talk of kissing being sinful, and why Li—Ellen and Julie scolded me so.”
“Bit him for it, didn’t you,” Dora said with dark amusement.
“I did that,” Lydia chuckled. “I drew blood like a vampire.”
“A wat?”
Lydia was grateful to turn the conversation away from lurid descriptions of coupling, and she spent the evening regaling her friends with a bone-chilling story her father had read from a book of German lore. Scaring the livers out of her audience rendered Lydia a great favorite, but she became a high celebrity at the Methodist Workhouse when she began to tell stories that included descriptions of the meals served in the various estates and genteel houses.
Lydia recounted Sir William “Jones’” worn-out stories of going to Saint James’s Palace, and her audience became giddy as she described what he had likely been served. “Oh, I am sure there was a heavenly syllabub,” she said, “and maybe a floating island or a blancmange of fresh raspberries.”
Everyone begged to know: How did such a syllabub taste, and what was a floating island and ‘that blay-man’? Ne’er heard of it. Lydia took pleasure in describing her mother’s fit of nerves at the Sunday table when Charles “Bunting” had up and left “Norrington,” leaving poor Julie to be laughed at for disappointed hopes. This was a strangely benign memory, happy even. Such a trifling it all seemed compared to what could really happen to a person.
Dora’s husband had been killed, and she had been tossed out of her lodgings without even her shoes. Gentle Sally had been beaten nearly to death by a man for her meager purse, and Maggie had a four-year-old boy in the children’s ward that she could not see more than ten minutes a day. Carver had been “used” pretty unsparingly for a few years in a room above a tavern on the edge of Horsham, and Meg’s whole family died of cholera in the year six.
She looked around her at faces that had become a bit dear to her, and thinking to please them, she said, “If I recall, we had a goose that day. Mrs. ‘Hillbury’ could roast a bird to make your mouth water for days. And as it turned on the spit, the goose fat dripped into the pan with the potatoes and made them turn golden. Being winter, there was no salad of course, but we had pickled peas with French sauce, and of course, a soup of creamed parsnips—the little ones, not the old ones thick as your arm.” Anyway, in the end, with her mama “waving her handkerchief and moaning about being forced into the hedgerows by the entail, we had an apple compote.”
Chapter 15
Longbourn, Hertfordshire…
Elizabeth could not have known that Lydia was making a go of it in Horsham. She and Jane fell together into a sobbing, clutching heap when she arrived home. “Any news?” she asked in a mumble against Jane’s shawl.
“Nothing. Papa writes, in his few letters from London, that he goes out every day to no purpose. But our uncle is there now, Lizzy. He will find Lydia.”
Elizabeth thought the honor of finding Lydia face down in a ditch somewhere would more likely fall to poor Mr. Darcy, but she could not say so to Jane.
“Mr. Bingley,” Elizabeth said at last, turning to see the poor man fussing anxiously with his gloves, “you remember my sister Jane?”
“I could hardly forget her,” he said. “Miss Bennet. How anxious these days must have been for you.” He had a strong hold on her hands and did not seem aware of it. “But you will not want to be bothered with me just now. Might I stop in the morning and see how you all fare?”
Jane hesitated long enough to cause Mr. Bingley to blanch. “Of course, Mr. Bingley,” she said in a distant voice. “My aunt and sisters would be happy to receive you.” She turned away and took her Aunt Gardiner and Elizabeth inside. They greeted Mary and Kitty with subdued embraces, and over tea, as the sun went down, Elizabeth heard about the situation at Longbourn.
“I did not want our Aunt Philips here,” Jane said apologetically.
“I am sure you did not. She would have the whole county know that Lydia is as good as nameless now.”
Jane nodded. “I sent her, Mrs. Long, and Lady Lucas notes that Mama was down with an infectious fever and we should not see visitors or leave the house.”
Mary and Kitty sat in silence on the settee.
“That was clever,” said Elizabeth.
“But it did not satisfy. Aunt Philips demands to know why the apothecary has not come to us. I sent a note that it was not as bad as that, but more like a serious cold, and that soon enough she should visit us and bring her bone jelly. I do not know what to do, Lizzy. I can hardly keep her away another day. Yesterday, Lady Lucas came with a basket, intent on forcing her way in, and it was all Hill could do to turn her away.”
“And the servants?” Mrs. Gardiner asked gently. “They will not stay silent, my dears.”
Jane shook her head. “No, of course we cannot expect it. Only Mrs. Hill has some notion that whatever shame falls on our heads will fall on theirs too, and she has put the fear of God into Molly and Joe.”
“And Mama?”
Jane shook her head again. “Terrible, as you would guess.”
“Have you told her?”
