On the way home, our company was added to. Mr. Dixon had offered to escort us home, and I was perfectly comfortable with this arrangement. He walked alongside me, inquiring about how long I had been playing cricket and what were my fondest memories of it. Happy to have something to talk about with such ease, I let myself fall away from short responses and gave him long stories, of memories long past.
Every now and again, I caught Maria glimpsing us out of the side of her eyes. Poor Maria! How could she have been so wrong?
After we finished all conversation about cricket, I wanted to talk about Finlay’s behavior toward me, but I didn’t know if Mr. Dixon would care to talk about him. Fortunately for my peace of mind, Mr. Dixon brought the subject up himself.
“And as for Lieutenant Finlay’s behavior,” he informed me, “I would influence you not to allow him to vex you. He is a stern man, who’s sense of chivalry has led to him executing it in the hard manner.”
“Thank you,” I answered, “I know that he said that he only cared for my welfare, but I do not believe that is so. Rather, I wonder if he was using chivalry to mask the fact that he merely did not want me to play.”
“That is precisely what I believe. Would that Miss Kitty could be shielded from such men who limit her and do not see her for the gem that she is.”
I laughed.
“Sorry,” I said, “I’m not used to getting praise like this.”
“You are not?”
“Of course not. Jane and Lizzy are everyone’s favorites. Lydia is more popular than me, and Mary is studious.” I looked ahead and thought on what life was like at home. “Sometimes, next to them, I am invisible.”
“That cannot be true.”
“It is at Longbourn. Sometimes, at home, I wonder if I spoke, would anyone be attentive to it? Mama and Father don’t love me as much as my sisters.”
“A shame for them not doing so. I cannot believe it.”
“Oh, believe it. Mama loves Jane and Lydia the most. Father favors Elizabeth, which makes sense. She is, after all, the female version of him, in some ways. That leaves Mary and I to find our compliments where we may. I’m like everyone else; I need praise sometimes. It may sound like vanity, but so it is. It helps me on.”
“It helps everyone on,” he continued, “praising someone is a form of giving them attention. And everyone deserves people to pay attention to them every now and again.”
“Precisely. We all deserve attention. People don’t seem to notice this. And I am no different than anyone else. I need attention every now and again. I need someone to say, ‘Kitty, you are doing quite well today’. Or ‘Kitty, you look sad. Come sit and I will listen to you and ease your fears’. But there is no place for that when it comes to my life at home.”
“I never knew that you felt like you had no place at home. But if it helps, many of us have been in the same place as yourself.”
“You think so?”
“Oh yes. But it is not fair, still. Therefore, may my warm words soothe you. You are as special as your sisters, and if I would have it be so, I would be your white knight forever.”
“I thank you, but being our postman is perfectly enough!” I replied, merrily.
We walked on, perfectly happy, until we reached Longbourn. We departed from our company and entered home full of spirits.
“Ah, there are my girls,” Mama cried, “you’ve been gone for most of the day.”
“Cricket, Mama,” Lydia said, kissing her cheek. “We told you. Did we tell her, Kitty?”
I stood there, still elated.
“Oh, I thought we did. But now that I think about it,” I said, laying down in a chair, happy to have some rest, “yes, we very much did.”
“It was a delightful cricket match,” Lydia said. “Where the officers and the farmers played against one another. Oh, and what fun! Kitty joined in.”
My mood shifted immediately, and I worried what Mama’s reaction would be to this. I had planned on never telling her, but now my judgment was placed before me.
Mama looked at me, her nerves clearly beginning to erupt.
“Kitty, you what?” she shrieked.
“Well, there was no harm in it,” I piped up. “I hit the ball and people cheered for me.”
“Playing cricket is not the actions of a lady. Mark my words, you’ve done it now. No man will ever marry a woman who acts that way.”
This statement didn’t vex me really because I still was not of the mindset to marry. Besides, Jane was to marry Mr. Bingley, so what did I have to worry about? Nothing.
“Oh, first Lizzy is walking three miles, and you are playing cricket!” Mama continued. “What is to become of us when I have two very perverse daughters? Everything feels like a vexation.”
“There is nothing to worry about,” Lydia chimed in, coming to my defense. “It was merely good fun! Mr. Atkins and Mr. Dixon encouraged her, and because of her, her team won the game. We defeated the officers.”
“Oh, no!” Mama cried. “If one of the officers would prove to one day inherit a fortune, Miss Kitty will be quite out of the option. No man wants to marry a woman who can defeat him at a game. He feels as if you are indelicate and a threat to his pride.”
“Because I won a game over him?” I remarked. “I cannot believe men are like that.”
“I married one, dear, so I would know better. Men don’t like it when women are superior to them in a field that they have the dominance in. Mark my words, you got your praise today, but you have marked yourself down forever.”
“Do not be angry with Kitty,” Lydia urged, “for she is very popular today, and I overheard Denny and Captain Carter saying that he wished Kitty had joined their team. What is there to worry about?”
Mama thought on this, and she began to give way.
“Oh, well, I suppose maybe that is to be so, if you put it like that. Kitty, Lydia is perhaps correct. I am happy if you have made people proud. But in the future, do not give way to such scandalous acts and go in wild manners. I’ve got enough trouble with Elizabeth; I cannot do with another disobedient daughter.”
I smiled at Lydia, grateful, but I made no reply to Mama. You see, I got my dander up now; I didn’t know if I could ever go back.
* * *
When Lydia and I were in her bedroom, that night, I was brushing her hair.
“Thank you again,” I said to her, for I was truly grateful, “because if it weren’t for you, Mama would have been chastising me for hours.”
“Well,” she replied confidently, “I could not see you drown, could I? After all, what sister would I be? Besides, I have the good fortune to be Mama’s favorite. So, if I am to have that advantage, then I ought to use it.”
“Oh, shut it!” I laughed, pinching her arm gently.
“It’s not my fault that Mama loves me best,” she exclaimed, merrily. “It’s just the way it is. And so, you really must not be jealous of me over it.”
“I will not be jealous. I hate being jealous of people, so I try to avoid it. But still, I suppose I am only upset with Mama, because you are right. You are her favorite, and that will always be to your benefit over mine. I wish that parents had the ability to love all their children the same, but it is not so. Even though it makes sense.”
“Well, then you must always be kind to me,” she declared, “because if I remain in Mama’s good favor, then I am the only way that she won’t always be quick to criticize you.”
“Oh spite,” I groaned playfully, “oh hell!”
I skipped out of the room.
“You keep using that phrase,” Lydia called after me. “I do not think it means what you think it means!”
* * *
Sitting by candlelight, I wrote in my diary the entry for the day.
At first, I wrote about Lydia’s natural ability to sway Mama, and I wondered at why she was so much more important to Mama than I was.
‘For the longest time, I always assumed my mother’s preference for Lydia was because Lydia was the youngest of us, and parents have been known to favor the ‘baby’. But over time, I have begun to note that it is more than that.
Lydia is a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humored countenance. Because she is a favorite with mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age, it has led to Lydia having a pronounced personality. She has high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attention of the officers, to whom our uncle’s good dinners, and her own easy manners recommend her, always builds her self-confidence. Lydia makes everyone, who is not prudish, comfortable around her in a way that I do not naturally possess. I am only at my best around Mr. Atkins, Mr. Dixon, some of the officers’ wives, and servants. But to the general public, I do not know how to put myself forward in the manner in which she does.
Either way, I am not jealous of her for being mama’s favorite in the same way that I am not jealous at Lizzy for being papa’s favorite. The only two people that are the culprits in this wrongdoing are mama and papa. By favoring one child each, and sometimes Jane, us other two Bennet sisters have been quite neglected and reminded that we always will be. That is unforgivable. So no, I cannot ever forgive them. This is not jealousy; it is anger.
Once my eyes began to flutter, on the verge of falling asleep, I closed my diary, snuffed out the candle and laid down in bed.
I thought on the cricket game and recalled every reaction. By the time the game ended, there was not one critical eye cast upon me, excepting Finlay’s. Perhaps he was a pale imitation of the world outside of Hertfordshire, of a world that would ridicule a woman like me, for playing cricket.
However, this was not the rest of the world. This was Hertfordshire, and here, there was friendliness, an ease, and one did not always have to stand on ceremony. For here, it felt like the vexations and prejudices of the rest of the world were not wanted. Here, we were free of all that and so, there would always be a fantasy here. Here, I was safe.