Misery festooned the tight alleyways, the gutter-like courtyards, and the ramshackle buildings of the section of London to which we traveled. No poetic metaphor could dwell in these cloudy windows, no existentialist secret in the movements of bent and broken men whose notions of strength last as long as a bottle of Old Tom. This world demands to be taken literally. The air billows a peculiar fragrance of smoky defecation. The carriage rocks one’s insides like the torturous churn of a heavy soup.

At last, Mr. Gardiner, leaning forward in the carriage, tapped the roof with his cane and announced with appropriate morbidity that we had arrived. He was, I think, getting tired of Lydia’s antics. Charity is a game of convenience, after all; if our purses do not feel significantly lighter and our meals continue to fill our stomachs to brimming, then we are glad to appear benevolent in the eyes of God. But we refuse to suffer even the faintest pinprick at its hands. If it gives us pain, then it is no longer Charity that begs at our door but Exploitation, and, in her numerous plights, Lydia was fast becoming less pitiable than contemptible.

A dirty maid with yellow skin and yellow eyes led us up the wide-gapped stairs to Lydia’s rooms. “Mind where you step,” she said sharply. “The floorboards are none too stable,” she added, explaining also that there’d been a recent influx of new vermin.

“How do you know they’re new?” I asked, clenching my skirts.

She stopped to consider me. “Well! If Miss will ask, I’ll gladly tell Miss a’ I know. The coats of the old ones are dusty-like, and the coats of the new ones are still shiny, aren’t they? And when you live with them all your life, you knows each one of them by sight, don’t you, after a while?”

“I suppose so,” I replied, more muddled than ever.

When we reached the top of the stairs, the maid kindly battered the door for us.

A fragment of a moving eye appeared in a crack in the door before it opened. But it wasn’t Lydia who greeted us, as the maid was quick to point out.

“ ’Ere! Wot are you doin’ ’ere! You’re supposed ter be tidyin’ the rooms downstairs.”

“Lady was sick, wasn’t she? And vomitin’ for ’alf the day. I had to empty the pots, didn’t I? Else you know what she’s like: she’ll be fussin’ until suppertime about how there’s none to take care of ’er since ’er ’usband’s left.”

“Can’t blame ’im that ’e did, though I’m sorry for it,” the first maid replied superiorly.

“Come, come! Will you keep us on the landing all day?” Mr. Gardiner complained, pushing his way through the two women with the aid of his cane. “I’d like to see my niece now, if you please.”

“Ooh-ee!” the first maid cried, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that wot she is to ya? Well! If you’ll be so good as ter tell ’er ladyship there ain’t no free service to be ’ad ’ere, right? I’m not the bleedin’ ’ousemaid at Blenheim, am I? And neither is me friend ’ere, who’s supposed ter be tidyin’ the rooms downstairs. And she can empty ’er own pots next time she’s feeling poorly, thank ya very much indeed, for wot little rent she pays.” With that, the maid dragged her gray-faced friend back downstairs with her, and we entered Lydia’s rooms.

“Do I have visitors, Sally?” a thin voice called out from the direction of the bedroom.

“You’d better stay here until we call you in,” my uncle said to me, squeezing my gloved hand. “It can’t be a pleasant sight…and if you feel faint, we shall only have more trouble on our hands.”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t faint, Uncle,” I said. “And I have the money from Lizzy to give her as well.”

“You’ll have time enough to give her Lizzy’s charity,” my uncle declared firmly. “Just stay put until we call you in, eh? Good girl.”

Mrs. Gardiner covered her mouth with her handkerchief. My uncle followed suit, and together, they went in. Not five minutes had passed, however, before they came out again. Lydia had been vomiting blood, and a doctor was to be fetched immediately. Mr. Gardiner left to find one of the maids to help him. And when he’d been some time without returning, Mrs. Gardiner grew worried and went after her husband. In their absence, I entered Lydia’s room.

“Mary!” I faced my youngest sister.

Lydia had never been beautiful, not like Jane or even Lizzy. What good looks she may have once enjoyed derived their power from the force of her spirit, youthful and carefree. When she was younger, the coarseness of her personality might have been mistaken by our acquaintances for good humor, but that time had since ended. She possessed no curiosity concerning the workings of the universe. She would never wonder why some apples tasted sweet while others tasted sour or how the tortoise and snail managed to grow their outer shells. Her own reflection and mobility fascinated her more than the rigors of learning a hobby, and when, at the ripe age of sixteen, she finally took ownership of an exceptionally handsome and initially desirable husband, this proved the early fulfillment of every aspiration, every hope, and every dream she’d ever entertained. Take these away—her pilfered bonnets, her pretty skirts, her husband addicted to cards, horses, and women—and what is left when the butterfly’s wings are dissected from the butterfly? An ugly, squirming black line in agony. Lydia slumped forward to expel more watery blood into a half-filled chamber pot. When she finished, she fell back against her pillows and smiled at me, haggard and missing, I realized, a front tooth. I remembered that she was only seventeen, and I began to cry.

“Oh, Mary,” she pleaded. “Don’t bawl so, or I’m sure I shall start, too.”

Apologizing, I pulled out my reticule and handed her the thirty pounds, which, I explained, was all Lizzy could spare from her allowance.

“She didn’t come herself?” Lydia asked, taking the money quickly.

“No, she couldn’t. I’m afraid she didn’t feel well enough.” I settled into the only chair in the room, which creaked and slanted sideways under my weight. “She lost the baby a few weeks ago.”

Lydia’s eyes widened. I noticed the flesh under one of them was yellow and speckled with purple, the last remnants of a large bruise. “That is too awful for words,” she said. “What was it? Do you know?”

“A boy,” I replied.

“What a shame,” Lydia murmured. “What a beautiful baby it would have made.”

“Yes,” I said, not knowing what else to add.

“I also miscarried in the last year.”

Seeing how stunned I looked, Lydia shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it, is there?” she said, biting her lip with her one front tooth. “When it happens, it’s just gone. And you can’t rescue something that hasn’t been born yet, can you? I’ll be honest with you, Mary. Sometimes I look around me, and I think, ‘Lord! Thank goodness I didn’t bring a babe into the world, or it should be as poor and miserable as its mother—with no father to be seen or had, either!’ ”

“Oh, Lydia…” I removed my gloves and touched Lydia’s wrist. “Poor Lydia.”

“Don’t be so easily depressed, Mary. I want to hear what you’ve been doing and eating during your visit. It must be a dream to stay at Pemberley.”

Perhaps it was the intimacy which a small, confined room necessarily inspires in its inhabitants or the smells of regurgitated life wafting upwards from the copper pot. Or it might even have been her missing tooth, the story of which I never got the chance to learn. Whatever the impetus, I told her everything. “I’m actually engaged,” I announced shyly and begged that she would keep it a secret. The man was about thirty, tall, and roguishly handsome, which made us both giggle. He was also Darcy’s paternal first cousin and the son of an earl, though not the eldest.

“An earl!” Lydia shrieked. “Look at us Bennet girls, eh? First Jane and Bingley, then Lizzy and Darcy. Now you, joining the ranks of the aristocracy with the son of an earl, even if he isn’t the eldest.” I noticed she had left out any mention of herself, but I said nothing. “Can’t you just imagine Charlotte’s and Maria’s faces when they hear our Mary has found herself a colonel? I’m sure Maria will bite her tongue clean through with envy.” Laughing, she began to gag, and we were forced to stop for a few minutes while she retched more bile and blood. “Tell me more about him,” she begged, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Tell me what you two talk about and how you met and when you knew yourself to be hopelessly in love.”

So I told her the whole story, beginning with that sleepless night when he’d mistaken me for a surly and disobedient maid.

“Horrible man!” Lydia interjected in the way that some people are called “awful” or “hateful” when they are actually quite delightful and lovely. “I hope you didn’t let him get away with it.” I assured her that I hadn’t. And then I told her about Marmalade, how she was the most beautiful and wonderful sort of horse there could be and how the colonel had taught me to ride her. I couldn’t explain it, nevertheless trying to explain. We could talk about nothing for hours and not realize we’d been talking about nothing until the dwindling light summoned us home, and the next day, we could do it all over again without feeling in the least bored with each other.

“And have you…” Lydia coaxed. I blushed and nodded.

“Oh, Mary!” she squealed. “I’m sure I’m so ashamed of you I don’t know what to say!” When she’d recovered from her snickering, she asked me if I’d enjoyed it.

“Not in the beginning,” I replied, shrugging, to which Lydia stuck out her lower lip and wrinkled her nose. “In fact, I didn’t ever want to do it again after the first try. The pain was horrible.”

“So not that good, eh?” she commiserated.

“Oh no, but it got better,” I insisted, clearing my throat. “And is now perfectly clean and fine.”

Lydia rolled her eyes at me. “ ‘Perfectly clean and fine’? It’s not elegant penmanship, Mary. It’s not supposed to be clean and fine, unless you’re Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins.”

“Can’t we talk about something else, Lydia?”

“Why? We’re both grown women. Why can’t we talk about it? I want to talk about it. I can’t think, as a matter of fact, of anything I want to talk about more right now than it. I haven’t had it in over two weeks, and I’m awfully frustrated by the lack of it, as a result.”

“Well…”

“Yes?” Lydia pressed my hands in encouragement.

“All right, fine, I actually really, really enjoy it, more than I thought I would. Goodness, I can’t believe I’ve just said that aloud. There! Does that satisfy you?” And I wondered if I should tell her the story about the ghosts in the abandoned wing.

Lydia nudged me playfully, and snuggling back under her filthy covers, she sighed. “Poor Kitty,” she said with satisfaction. “Wouldn’t it be something if, after everything that’s happened, Kitty turned out to be the old maid of the family? If she does attend your wedding, Mary, I’m sure she’ll do nothing but bellyache the whole time, and I should like to be there, too, if only to see her sour little face and how she’ll never have it in her life, except perhaps with someone really dull, like one of Uncle Philips’s clerks.”

“Of course you must be there, Lydia,” I said gently, “even if Wickham cannot.”

But before she could answer, we heard footsteps and harried voices outside in the hall. Then the maid, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and a middle-aged, whiskered man tumbled collectively into the tiny bedroom, and my aunt separated me from Lydia, who resumed her vomiting, as though on cue.

In the hours before dinnertime, we felt encouraged by Lydia’s progress; she was not only able to get out of bed and dress but even managed a few spoonfuls of soup. It was the night, however, that proved her undoing—the fever, which refused to break, climbed and climbed to such heights that it finally rendered her unconscious. She never woke from it, and the next morning, the whiskered doctor, who had stayed to watch over her, announced in practiced low tones that Lydia was dead and there was nothing he could have done to save her.

Because we were women, Aunt Gardiner and I could not attend Lydia’s funeral. And as Wickham failed to return, my uncle was the only one to go and stand over her grave. I stayed with the Gardiners a fortnight in London, and there, at their house in Gracechurch Street, I received replies to the letters I had sent to Mama, Jane, and Lizzy informing them of the unhappy news. Mama’s letter was full of rage—she called Wickham a scoundrel and said she’d claw his eyes out, if ever she saw him again. Mentioning nothing of Papa’s feelings, she swore to confine herself to her bed, grieved as she was by the loss of her favorite child.

Jane proved equal to our mother in sorrow, if not in anger. “What a tragedy to have occurred only two months before Baby is due,” she’d written in a shaky hand, every few words blotted from tears. “Do you suppose,” she added in a postscript, “we should name our first child ‘Lydia,’ if it should turn out to be a girl? But I would not wish the same fate as befell our sister for any daughter of mine,” she noted, underlining the word “fate.”

Lizzy’s reply arrived last. She’d written:

Dearest Mary,

Since I received your letter, I have alternated for hours between shock and heartache. What a wretched end for our sister. How disgraceful, too, that only Uncle Gardiner should be there to attend her funeral—and not even her own husband! It is a sordid business, and as such, I shall not apprise Darcy or any of the guests here of the details of what happened, except to say quite generally that our youngest sister has passed away from fever.

I feel very sorry for Lydia. What cruelties she must have suffered at Wickham’s hand in the last year, and still she always called him her “beloved” in her letters. Now that she is gone, all the tender memories return to me—her constant teasing, the way her body seemed always to be moving, flitting from place to place like a bird. I remember when she was seven or eight years old, she made a garland of flowers for my birthday. I wore it for two whole days before it fell apart, and she cried when she no longer saw it on my head. Well, I shall console myself that our sister is in a better place. Wickham’s ties to our family are at last severed.

This must be an awful trial for you, poor Mary. And though you are sure to be comfortable residing at our uncle’s house in London, can’t I convince you to return at your earliest convenience to Pemberley? I regret how we last parted.

Yours ever,

Lizzy

P.S. Also, there is to be a party here. Something momentous has happened.