Lydia (24 page)

Monday, 17th August

T
he news of my marriage was announced in the paper on the same day as Alaric and Esther's engagement, on the very same page. I tried to imagine their faces reading it. Was he a little ashamed of himself? A little sorry or jealous? And Esther, who was so in love with Wickham, and yet so quick to do what was asked of her – what would
she
make of it? Did she envy me, or pity me, knowing what Wickham is – a gambler and a chancer?

I find that I don't really care. He is
my
gambler and chancer now – my handsome, impossible gambler, and I am pinning my chances on him. I had no difficulty in guessing Theo's reaction – she, too, would not care. It has surprised me how much angrier I have been with her than with her brother. Wickham is right – we are all caught in this game, Alaric as much as anyone. But Theo – for a short time, Theo with her workroom and dresses and grand designs for the future made me think that anything was possible. I suppose I cannot blame her for wanting the best match for her brother, or the security it has
brought her. She will live with Alaric and Esther, knowing she will always have her place at Mapperton. We are not so very different, she and I. We are both fighters, and neither of us is the sort who drowns.

It was not the wedding most girls dream of. I did not wear my white-and-gold gown from the Brighton ball, but my spotted white muslin and one of the bonnets Harriet sent on with the rest of my clothes from Brighton, and no one attended but my aunt and uncle and Mr. Darcy, who breathed an audible sigh when our vows were said, and no doubt is thinking of tearing back to propose to Lizzy as I write. There have been no messages from Longbourn, no congratulations except from Mamma, in a letter, dripping with relief at having at least
one
daughter married, all about clothes. My uncle's carriage is being readied now to take us to Epsom, where we shall take the coach. Soon enough we shall be at Longbourn, and I shall see my family. I know very well what they are all thinking of me. Father thinks me as silly as ever. Jane is anxious, Mary dismissive, Kitty a little in awe of my behaviour. Lizzy is thoroughly disapproving. Mr. Darcy has made me promise not to tell her what he has done for us. I can't think why. If I were him, I would want the whole world to know, and I still hope he will propose to her again. For all Darcy's help, I don't think Wickham and I will ever be rich enough to support all my sisters when Mr. Collins inherits Longbourn. I may have to disobey him, and hint to Lizzy at what he has done. Otherwise she'll never change her mind. Yes, that is what I shall do – I shall drop it idly into the conversation at Longbourn, and she will fall madly in love with him and marry him out of gratitude. And when I go, I shall greet all my sisters with my head held
high – for whatever they think of me, I
am
the first one married. And I know things – so many things! – that they do not. It seems quite extraordinary to me that I am still the youngest.

“Well, wife!” Wickham just came in, threaded his arm around my waist, and peered over my shoulder. “I hope you are writing about me.”

I slammed my diary shut, and told him that there are some things even husbands are not allowed to see.

He left, laughing loudly, and bowed to a red-faced Aunt Gardiner who was entering the room.

“Lydia! What are you doing, child? The carriage will be here soon!”

“By and by,” I said, and now I am smiling as I write, because I am thinking of Juliet on her balcony calling “by and by” to her nurse, and of Alaric reading Shakespeare out loud at the Rookery in Brighton, and of what Mary would make of
that
if ever she knew of it. Better, perhaps, not to tell her. Better to let her keep Shakespeare for herself. Mine was only a passing knowledge, already almost forgotten.

Goodness, I have filled this entire diary! It seems as if no time has passed since Mary first gave it to me, and yet it has been more than a year. One day, perhaps, when the sea is too rough for bathing and the rain falls too hard on the vast Northumberland landscape, when Wickham is out on exercises and I am too tired for an assembly, I will read it from the beginning, and how it will make me laugh! I may even read Shakespeare again, too. Or perhaps, which is more likely, I will pick up the latest edition of
La Belle Assemblée
. And there will be Theo's drawings in it, the long-awaited pelisse maybe,
English oak leaves lined with Indian leopard.

One day, Wickham and I may yet make that voyage to India. We will sail for months on waters so clear I can see shipwrecks and treasure at the bottom of the sea, and when I arrive there will be elephants and mangoes and mynah birds, and we will gallop up into the hills together to the tea plantations and watch the hills turn blue in the afternoon light, and I will think about what almost was. And I will have my daughter with me – a brilliant daughter, in a dress worthy of the Comtesse de Fombelle, as clever as she is beautiful, who will read books and ride horses and will not be afraid of anything – and I will tell her that the lot of women need not be so different from that of men, and hope that by then it will be true.

But I am not going to think about that now.

Afterword

When the idea for this book was first mooted by the team at Chicken House, I sought advice from an academic friend who specialises in the works of Jane Austen. Lydia, who in my mind was already a living, breathing person, was skipping about, twirling her bonnet and crying “At last! My side of the story!” but I was less certain.

“Don't even try and copy Jane Austen,” my friend said. “Just be yourself, be respectful and know that whatever you do, she is sitting up there in author-heaven laughing at you.”

I have done my very best to be respectful, not least in mapping the timeline of my story on
Pride and Prejudice
, but have had to make a few conscious decisions concerning dates. Jane Austen wrote her novel over ten years. While we are never told in which year
Pride and Prejudice
is set, the presence of military encampments in Brighton suggests it was in the mid-1790s (after which the military were housed in barracks). However, I wanted Alaric and Theo to have escaped the French Revolution, and for his memories of this event to be much vaguer than his sister's. For this reason, I chose to set my book towards the latter part of
Pride and Prejudice
's gestation period. 1811 was the first year of the Regency period which saw George, Prince of Wales rule as proxy for his father George III. The Prince of Wales was a great fan of Brighton, and one of the chief reasons the resort became so vastly fashionable. It seemed a fitting year in which to begin Lydia's story.

The timing of Lydia's flight with Wickham is ambiguous in Austen's novel. According to the dates of various letters, one
timeline has them missing for a couple of weeks, but another, worked out through references in the text, suggests a longer period. I have chosen to go with the first, as it fits my story better.

I have also tried to be faithful to accounts of contemporary Brighton topography, but fear I have taken some liberties in my re-imagining of it. This, I am afraid, is what authors do. If you would like entirely reliable facts about Brighton at that time, I refer you to Sue Berry's fascinating
Georgian Brighton
(Phillimore & Co.); The Keep (
www.thekeep.info
), the local museum which houses a fine collection of archive material; and to the Brighton Museum (
www.brightonmuseums.org.uk
).

I have loved every minute of working on Lydia's story. As she herself would say, the whole process has been monstrous fun. And wherever Jane Austen may be, I hope she is in fits of laughter over it.

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Nicola Morrison for her precious advice on fashion and dancing. To Sean Gaston for pointing me in the direction of a mountain of invaluable reading on Jane Austen and her era. To the archivists at The Keep for the wonderful work they do in preserving archives of historical Brighton. To all the team at Chicken House for their creativity and efficiency, and for giving me the opportunity to spend a happy year immersed in all things Austen. To my editor Rachel Leyshon for burning the midnight oil with me. To my agent Catherine Clarke for her usual incisiveness. To Elinor Bagenal, whose inspiring conversation lit the spark which ignited this whole project, and whose encouragement and enthusiasm have kept me going throughout. And to my family for cheerfully putting up with my disappearance into the early nineteenth century, and for welcoming me home.

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