AN: In beginning this story, I realized it would be impossible to write like Jane Austen so I sort of developed my own style of writing for this story. To clear a few things up, this takes place about twenty five years after Pride and Prejudice. Lydia Bennet Wickham has six children consisting of five daughters and the youngest a son. In order of age, they are Annamaria, Felicity, Dorothy, Cornelia, Priscilla and George. No copyright intended!
Dear Lizzy,
It has been long since our last correspondence and I feel its absence keenly. I hope life runs smooth for you; I am positive it does for surely you must want for nothing. Is not that so, Mistress of Pemberley? Oh, how droll it is even after so long to imagine you, Elizabeth, in the possession of such a title!
However, my purpose for writing is my tentative request for a favor. Not a monetary supplement, for you have oft displayed your distaste for such entreaties. Fortunately for my dear family, both lovely Jane and Mama see fit to send me the occasional package to help us along. Rather, I ask familial support.
I suppose you remember the time when my Annamaria was eighteen and I sent her to Jane for a season. The intention behind this was Amy choosing a husband able to support her grandly. As love often goes though (for I am of particular personal experience and may speak wisely on such matters) she left her heart irreversibly to First Lieutenant Miller back home. Thus, the fruition of Amy's venture to Jane bore little but better conduction in society (though she was marvelous already) and a quantity of stylish dresses.
Perhaps you see where I lead to in the ramblings above. As Jane surely had the pleasure of informing you—for I pointedly requested she would—my second daughter, Felicity, is newly engaged. Behind her in age is Dorothy. And, oh Lizzy, do I fear for the marital future of my third daughter! For Dorothy is a simple soul, lacking in the fancies and embellishments of her sisters. I fear she becomes a Mary. She is plain in face and has the personality of a spinster, her temper compliant and her interests as simple as porridge. My dearest, darlingest sister Elizabeth…would you take Dorothy for a season? For if she does not find a husband (she is already three and twenty, if you would believe!) I am sure my nerves shall fail me.
Of my other two daughters, you need not worry on their wifely futures. For Cornelia is pretty as Kitty was and has enough charm in her youth to attract a suitable man. As for my perfect youngest, beautiful Priscilla, she will surely make the greatest match of her sisters. No, I need not help with Nellie or Cilla but specifically with Dorothy. I could not bear the shame of having a spinster daughter. Would you help me, Lizzy?
Lovingly yours forever,
Mrs. Lydia Wickham
Bright, dark eyes blinked once, twice, upon finishing the letter. Then they widened in frustration and aggravation. In a moment, their bearer was up, striding with brusque, angry steps to the large bay window.
Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy furrowed long, sloping brows together and her fingernails bit into the flesh of her hand. How dare her insolent younger sister, after at least two years of no correspondence and two decades of begging for money, now request this one impossible favor of her with such incivility?
Mrs. Darcy remembered all too well the outcome of Annamaria Wickham's stay with Mrs. Jane Bingley eight years ago. The girl had been a mess of impropriety and scandalous in nature. After Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Bingley's difficulties in introducing her to society and making humiliating apologies to all those she carelessly offended, she admitted to a secret engagement with an officer in Wickham's regiment. That had been the final straw for even the Bingley family's kind hospitality and, her welcome overstayed, Annamaria was sent back to the Wickham with the worst to report on her mother's sisters. The last Mrs. Darcy had heard, she had married the man—this Lieutenant Miller—and they had a young son. And after this whole tragedy—which, at the time, Lydia had blown off with a flighty laugh and a letter detailing similarities in her daughter's character to her own—Lydia had the insolence to beg her sisters to introduce another of her daughters to society?
In the light of the shining sun, Mrs. Darcy took a deep breath and glanced at the letter, lying in its seemingly innocent disguise upon the glossy wood. She had heard from Mrs. Bennet similar sentiments on the third Wickham daughter, named Dorothy. Apparently, she had little taste for society, men, fashions and especially dance. This set her apart from her four sisters, whom Mrs. Darcy knew to be painfully and ridiculously narrow-minded and nasty.
The thought occurred to Mrs. Darcy that this Dorothy might suffer acutely in her home. She seemed doomed to spend the rest of her unhappy years in it, ridiculed by her silly sisters, no more than annoyance to her mother. As she dreamed up this terrible fantasy, Mrs. Darcy felt the misery of this poor girl and her compassion was stirred toward her niece's fate. Perhaps all the young woman needed was a gesture of help and a step on the right path. This Mrs. Darcy could do… Her thoughts tumbling ahead in such a direction, Mrs. Darcy went to search out her husband.
The house was dilapidated and impossibly small. It stood on a cracked and grimy street bordered by several like buildings, weary with age and abuse. The scratched front door groaned terribly as Mr. Wickham pulled it open. From inside the unlit, dark interior, a draft of stale and frigid air wafted out.
"Our new home, ladies, son," were his only words before disappearing into the house. Mrs. Wickham swept a piece of fluffy hair from her forehead and let loose a great sigh of complaint, accentuated with mutters of her distracted nerves.
"Nellie, run inside and open the windows. It seems the house needs some airing out. Flissy, Dorothy, unload the furniture you can carry from the wagon. Georgie, I know you are fatigued but I am sure your sisters would appreciate any help you could extend. Cilla, my dear, let us go and start supper. Bessie does not arrive until tomorrow."
At the lady's direction, Cornelia ambled to the house, arm in arm with Priscilla, who complained loudly of Bessie—the maid's—regrettable absence. Felicity betrayed a sour expression and slunk to the wagon. Young George gave a defiant shake of his head and raced into the house after his father.
Dorothy slowly walked to the wagon, stacked high with the family's possessions. She knew from Felicity's mulish face and past experience that her elder sister would carry her first bundle into the house and remain within, leaving Dorothy to unload the rest. Ordinarily, Annamaria's husband, Mr. Miller, would assist her in the unpacking but he, Annamaria and their little boy were to join the Wickham family the following week.
Minutes later, Felicity had entered the house with her bundle. Three hours following, when Dorothy at last finished the unloading, the sky had begun to darken and no one had come out to aid her in her endeavors. It was very predictable, as it had been so for eight of the thirteen moves Dorothy had gone through in her three and twenty years of life.
Miss Dorothy entered the house only to be brusquely informed supper was to be served in the next two minutes. She washed the dust from her hands and shook her weary shoulders. There would be little to expect from the evening.
Mr. Wickham was no doubt already discovering the most renowned pubs of this new town and might very well fail to present himself at dinner, no cause for agitation as this happenstance was familiar to his wife and children.
Mrs. Wickham, Cornelia and Felicity would no doubt occupy themselves in needlework and gossip while the youngest and most spoilt, Priscilla, would entertain herself with thoughts of the fresh young men for her to entice. And Dorothy would sit by the fireplace, as was her wont, and try to enjoy the sound of inane and incessant chatter until it was time to administer Mama her facial potions and put a squealing, squirming George to bed. Then she herself would retire and would take no pleasure from this.
For, as she now discovered with no great degree of surprise, the larger bedroom of the two set aside for the daughters had been claimed by Cornelia and Priscilla. The smaller—hardly larger than a common linen closet—had room only for two poorly-made beds and one stood directly beneath a leaky spot in the room. Dorothy saw at once Felicity had left this resting place for her use. Annoying, she supposed, but all too predictable.
Indeed, this was how the evening went until—just as Dorothy was about to carry an adamantly negative George to his own tiny room—Mrs. Wickham read a letter she had received that day.
As this was hardly an interesting occurrence, Dorothy paid it no mind. Indeed, she continued to ignore such a distinctly not momentous event even when Mrs. Wickham promptly fainted away. This, too, was not unusual in the Wickham household.
Just a whiff of the bitter salts was enough to revive the lady, for she was well-practiced in the art of fainting. When she did so, she clutched a fluttering hand to her ample bosom and gave a great, dramatic sigh.
"Oh, praise the Lord, my dear daughters! We have been saved! Thank my dearest sister! Oh, lovely Elizabeth!" Most surprising in such a theatrical speech was the sister in question. Her whole life, Dorothy had heard nothing but ill of Elizabeth Darcy and her proud, fabulously wealthy husband.
They who owned a townhouse in London bigger than Grandmama and Grandpapa's Longbourn manor. They who were proud master and mistress of the palace of Pemberley. They who had relinquished but little of their sums of money to assist their struggling youngest sister. Oh yes, Dorothy could not name one positive attribute of her mysterious aunt and thus, was exceedingly surprised to hear her name mentioned in such exclamations of relief and joy.
"Pray, do explain, Mama," cried Cornelia. With the antics of an opera soprano's debut, Mrs. Wickham relayed the following; "I wrote my second eldest sister, Elizabeth Darcy, one fortnight ago, begging to her a familial favor. My request was she take one of my daughter's in for a season and introduce her to the high society she is privy to in hopes of making an affable match, one that would spiral the rest of her sisters in the way of the richest of men. Contrary to your father's predictions and true to mine, she has accepted.
Now, you must understand that when I made the choice of whom to request sending, I realized she was of practical and exceedingly traditional mind. She would not shelter and prepare a niece of hers for an excellent marriage with the knowledge that the niece in question had an elder sister yet single. Thus, it was my only choice to require she take in Dorothy.
I am greatly saddened to be unable to send you, Nellie, and especially you, Cilla, for you both would have thrived far better than I suppose Dorothy to. However, it was not a decision I was at liberty to determine."
Dorothy had stood as her mother spoke and now sunk slowly back into her chair, legs weak and mind dizzy with shock. Cilla wept profusely into Nellie's shoulder. Felicity glared in pure envy at Dorothy for though Felicity was the elder of the four sisters in the room (and Annamaria the eldest of them all) she was newly engaged to a Mr. Nicholas Daily. Had she not accepted his proposal a fortnight before, it would be her on the way to Pemberley and the Darcy family.
Dorothy could only stare in astonishment, her emotions a confusion of conflicts, as Mrs. Wickham furthered Cilla's antics with dramatic tears of her own and laid down contrastingly enthusiastic plans. One thing was certain, Dorothy thought as she heard herself referred to as Dottie, a childhood nickname she had long since shed; her life had changed…for better or worse was yet to be determined.
