3
But I am
getting ahead of myself. I have not yet mentioned Lydia. The memory of the
day she was born will I am sure stay with me until I die, only I cannot
recall much of what went on in the months and weeks leading up to her
birth.
Certainly
Aunt Philips visited very often and there was much whispering and shutting
of doors with Jane and Elizabeth bustling about carrying messages and
looking very serious and self-important. I was not particularly curious
about these activities. Safe in the knowledge that I was Eurydice's
favourite and that the Bushells had gone forever I did not trouble my head
about such matters. (Ten years later it would be very different; I would
spend hours listening outside closed doors and hiding myself in closets to
discover my sisters' secrets.)
But to
return to Lydia. She was born late in the afternoon of the twenty-third
day of April — Shakespeare's birthday and St George's Day: a confluence my
father joked about to the London accoucheur in the hours before her birth.
(This time, for a wonder, it was Papa who was confident of having a son.)
We children had been woken early by Eurydice in a rush to get us washed
and dressed — to which end she flannelled my face so roughly as to bring
tears to my eyes — but as we were being bundled downstairs to breakfast I
heard Mama moaning and calling out from the floor above.
I then
began to cry in earnest whereupon Eurydice became even more impatient: "Do
you want to go back to Dawes Cottage, Mary?" (Dawes Cottage was where the
Bushells had lived.) "If you cannot be quiet, that is where you will go."
I was utterly shocked — I am still shocked — that she could have made such
a threat. I knew instinctively it must mean she did not love me. And then
of course, just as before, I suddenly found it difficult to breathe.
Amazingly,
Elizabeth took my part: “For shame, Eurydice!” said she. And taking my
hand she made me walk beside her. “Do not mind her, Mary. Take no notice.”
And then turning back to face Eurydice who was still behind us on the
stairs (Jane having gone ahead with two-year-old Kitty): “I shall tell
Papa of this!”
I cannot
remember Eurydice’s response — she was wary of Elizabeth, they had never
been friends — but in any case I was now deaf to everything except the
words of the eighth psalm now ringing in my brain — words I had been
taught only a week ago by Eurydice: Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings hast thou ordained strength..
At the
breakfast table I kept on mouthing the words until I found — provided I
did not look at Eurydice — that my breathing was once more even. But I
could not eat. At some stage I became aware that Eurydice had left the
table and that Jane and Elizabeth were now sitting opposite me, each
having taken a chair on either side of Kitty. They were trying to coax her
to eat up her gruel. Kitty for her part was pointing her spoon at me and
laughing.
Looking
at my three sisters then, I had the odd sensation — later, alas, a
familiar one — that I was observing them from behind a pane of glass.
It was my
Uncle Philips who finally broke the news of Lydia’s birth. Jane, Elizabeth
and I were having our tea in the dining-parlour when he burst in to
announce the glad tidings. I remember him luridly backlit by the setting
sun (the windows of the Longbourn dining-parlour face full west), pulling
sugar-plums from his pockets and pretending to be cheerful.
Jane and
Elizabeth were not taken in — they knew how desperately the Bennets were
in want of a son — and my uncle did not try to sustain the charade. He
left, muttering something about having to wet the baby’s head. and shortly
afterwards I descried Papa outside the window walking rapidly across the
lawn towards the shrubbery.
As he
passed the window I had a clear view of his face — lines running deeply
from nose to mouth, set and despairing. The shock of seeing him made me
cry out and Elizabeth straight away ran to the window and seeing him,
cried “Oh! I must go to him!” And although Jane tried to dissuade her, she
unfastened the window and sped out onto the terrace.
I saw her
catch up with him and pull at his coat sleeve. I saw him turn his head and
for a moment I was terrified — I thought he might strike her — but then as
he looked down on her, his face softened and he took her hand and they
walked together into the shade of the overhanging trees.
4
About a
week after Lydia was born my Uncle Gardiner visited Longbourn. If he had
expected to find his sister weeping and hysterical as was the case after
my own birth, he must have been pleasantly surprised. Although Mama spoke
of disappointment, her face (especially whilst nursing Lydia) belied
her words. She was very angry with my father however.
“I vow I
have no patience with Mr Bennet, Brother. Does he think he is alone in his
disappointment? Does he think nobody suffers but himself? “
My uncle
now endeavoured, not for the first time, to explain to her the nature of
the entail.
“He
hasn’t been near the child these two days! Is she to be held
responsible for the entail, pray? Why does he not do something
about the entail? Why will he not stir himself?”
Again my
uncle attempted to explain but Mama cut him short: “And in the meantime
this innocent child is blamed. Only look at her! Is she not quite the most
beautiful child you ever beheld? Mrs Long says she had never seen such a
beautiful child — not even excepting Jane. But Mr Bennet will have it that
she is nothing very extraordinary.”
I have to
confess I disliked Lydia from the first. I associated her birth with
Eurydice’s betrayal and the two events became conflated in my childish
mind. I daresay if Lydia had shown me any affection or expressed a
preference for my company over Kitty’s I might have overcome my dislike,
but she never took the least notice of me. And then Mama made such a
ridiculous fuss of her. And the nurserymaid who replaced Eurydice, a
Cornish girl Gil Pender, also favoured her. And altogether she grew to be
such a greedy boisterous spoilt child that I wished to have as
little to do with her as possible.
About a
month after my sixth birthday, that wish was granted. I contracted measles
and was removed from the nursery I shared with Kitty and Lydia to an attic
room which — as soon as I was recovered enough to take cognisance of my
surroundings — suited me very well. It was a long low south-facing room
with a sloping ceiling and dear little diamond paned windows, and during a
protracted convalescence (my sisters having escaped infection) all my
belongings, my books and writing desk, my little nursing chair and potted
geraniums, were brought up and arranged to my great satisfaction.
And one
memorable day Mama said I might have the room for my very own: “To my way
of thinking it will be pleasanter for you to remain up here, Mary. No
little people running about disturbing your studies and breaking your
precious things. And Lydia and Kitty have quite grown used to having the
nursery to themselves now.” Mama also promised that a small pianoforte
would be placed in my new apartment: “Only you must not always be
practising and playing your scales up and down.”
Jane was
the only one to question the arrangement. “But will you not be lonely,
Mary?” (At that time Jane and Elizabeth shared a room.) “Will you not mind
being up here all by yourself?”
I told
her I preferred being alone so that I could read and work in peace. “And
besides, Mama has promised me a pianoforte to have for my very own. And
nobody will be allowed to touch it unless I say they may. Kitty and Lydia
will certainly not be allowed to touch it.”
Jane’s
worried expression returned. “But when you have put away your books and
music, you must come and play with Lizzy and me. You must not shut
yourself off from us, Mary dear.”
Elizabeth
walked in on us at that point — she could never bear to let Jane out of
her sight for long — but when I told her of the pianoforte she merely
raised her dark little eyebrows in the mocking way I so disliked and
reminded Jane that they had yet to write a letter to Uncle Gardiner.
Jane
patted my hand. “You are old enough to keep a secret, Mary, are you not?”
I saw
Elizabeth looking doubtful and I said (very indignantly) that indeed I
was.
“Uncle is
to announce his engagement tomorrow, dear Mary. Mama received his letter
only this morning so it is still a great secret. He is to marry a Miss Ann
Bellamy who comes from a very respectable family in the north of England.”
“Miss
Bellamy lives in the village of Lambton“ said Elizabeth, with insufferable
self-importance. “In Derbyshire.”
“It is to
be a London wedding however and I expect we will all be invited.”
But we
were not all invited. Kitty, Lydia and I were not invited. And in the
months before the marriage little else was talked of at Longbourn other
than what they were going to wear to the wedding and more particularly
what Miss Bellamy would wear and whether Miss Bellamy would choose to live
in Uncle Gardiner’s house in Cheapside or in a more fashionable part of
London as she was so very fashionable herself — but at the same time
immensely clever and charming and how she had made Uncle Gardiner the
happiest of men.
My first
feelings of envy and disappointment were acute (let no-one make light of
the disappointments of childhood!) But Mr John Knowles preached
resignation — apart from Music and Needlework Mr Knowles was now my tutor
in every subject — and I committed to memory a verse of Alexander Pope’s
The Quiet Life This verse I intoned every night after my
prayers and wonderfully soothing I found it:
Unhappily,
Kitty and Lydia had no such resources. Of the two, Lydia was the more to
be pitied since Mama’s attention was no longer concentrated on the antics
of one fat little rude noisy person, but diffused over a wide range of
dress materials. Where to obtain the best brideclothes and which were the
best warehouses were the questions now exercising Mama’s mind, and her
leisure, once devoted to Lydia’s amusement, was taken up with the tacking
on of patterns.
But the
unkindest cut of all, so far as Lydia was concerned, was that the wedding
would take place on the twenty-third of April, the date of her third
birthday. And not only would Mama, Papa, Jane and Elizabeth be absent from
Longbourn on the all-important day, they were set to remain in London
until the following afternoon.
On
hearing this, Lydia had been inconsolable. And when the time actually came
for them all to say good-bye, I had expected her to kick up an almighty
fuss. But not a bit of it: she kissed and embraced everyone and suffered
herself to be kissed in return, and when Jane promised to bring her back
an especially large slice of wedding cake, she thanked her very prettily.
And all the while her face was wreathed in the most angelic of smiles.
After
they left she went off with the nurserymaid Gil Pender in an amazingly
docile fashion, with Kitty trailing after, sniffing and wiping her face on
her sleeve. And here I must confess to shedding a few tears myself, for at
the moment of leavetaking Elizabeth had turned to me and said in a gruff
little voice: “I must say Mary, I think you should have been invited.”
But of
course all along Lydia had been biding her time. And her revenge when it
came was spectacular: Longbourn, on the evening of my parents’ return from
London, was a scene of utter chaos.
[ This novella will be continued in
the next issue. ]
