Read Online The Phantom of Pemberley by Regina Jeffers - Free Book Online Page A

since we had a five-chit chat.” It was what they had once called that time at the end of the day at Longbourn when the five Bennet girls gathered to share gossip and hopes and dreams. Beside the long talks with her father and her uncommon need for Jane as her confidante, it was what Elizabeth missed most about her Hertfordshire home.
    “Sure, Lizzy.” Lydia grunted, obviously struggling into her clothes.
    Elizabeth indulgently came around the screen.“Let me lace that for you.” She took up the strings of her sister’s corsets. “I will ask Mrs. Reynolds to find someone to serve as your maid while you are at Pemberley.Would you like that, Lyddie?”
    “Just listen to you.” Lydia turned to really see her sister. “Are you not the be-all, now that you have married Mr. Darcy. Back at Longbourn none of us had our own maid. We all shared the Hills and Harriet.”
    Elizabeth spun Lydia to where she could tie off the last of the strings. “Well, I did marry Mr. Darcy, and if that makes me uppity, then so be it.” Elizabeth walked back toward the room’s seating area. “So do you wish the help of a maid or not?”
    Lydia followed her as they took a place before the hearth.“Why should I not live in luxury while I may,” she replied.
    Elizabeth pulled her feet up under her to sit comfortably.“Jane’s last letter said that you and Mr.Wickham had moved recently. I will need your new directions.”
    “It is not much.” Lydia straightened her dress’s seams, trying not to make eye contact with her sister. “Obviously, nothing like what you or Jane has.” She glanced about her.“Just four rooms.You know—military quarters are not much by Pemberley’s standards.”
    Elizabeth knew that her sister had changed quarters three times since her marriage. Elizabeth and Jane had agreed to aid their younger sister, knowing Lydia’s tendency to spend foolishly. Elizabeth
sent such relief as it was in her power to afford by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expenses. She refused to ask Darcy to provide the Wickhams with any more financial support. It had always been evident to everyone that the couple would know no economy, and that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons in their wants and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support. “But you and Mr.Wickham—I mean—you are happy, are you not, Lydia?”
    “It is easy to be happy when you live like this.” Lydia gestured to the room’s finery. “It is a bit harder when…well…it just is, Lizzy.”
    Elizabeth sat forward. “I want you to be happy, Lydia; you must know that.” She, too, gestured to the room’s decorations. “ This is not from where my happiness comes. For me, it comes from Fitzwilliam. I would be happy to be one of Pemberley’s cottagers if he was there.”
    “Then you are lucky.” Lydia stood. “I affect Mr. Wickham—I really do, Lizzy. He is so handsome in his blue coat and all.” She walked to the fireplace and stood there with her back to the roaring fire.
    Elizabeth had realized from the beginning that Wickham’s affection for Lydia was not equal to Lydia’s for him.Their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his. She often wondered why, without violently caring for Lydia, he had chosen to elope with her at all. Now she understood that his flight had been rendered necessary by distress of circumstances, and Wickham was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia had been exceedingly fond of him from the beginning. He had been her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did everything best in the world. It was an idealized love.
    “I know that you have always found the best in Mr.Wickham.” Elizabeth felt very sorry for her sister’s situation—for her own beloved Lydia’s foolishness.
    Lydia turned to stare into the fire. “I wish my husband did me