AN:
Yep, Mrs Bennet is here. But so is Georgiana! :)
Loki is one of the best characters in MCU.
Thank you for all the greetings, and Merry Christmas/Good Yule/Happy New Year/nice winter holidays, whatever you celebrate!
Next chapter may take A WHILE, but I hope I'll have it done before the New Year Eve.
"Hello, grandma," Rose almost fainted out of sheer relief, hearing her sister joining the fray.
"But..." Mrs Bennet looked first at one then at the other. "What are you doing...?"
"Let Rose go, grandma. We are on a school trip, under supervision and with friends. If you don't leave Rose alone, I will start screaming and any policeman that comes will be very very unhappy with you."
Rose's arm was free in zero-point-three-seconds.
"You would try to threaten your own family with police?"
There was more annoyance than actual fear in that sentence, but Rose quickly moved to stand by her twin and shrugged her backpack on again.
"I absolutely would. If it gets me the results," Mina said with just a hint of irritation. "Why shouldn't I?"
"What are the two of you... I mean, why are... Oh, your mother did this just to vex me! She simply wanted to be special in some way! That's why there are two of you, I'm sure of it!"
"I'm sure Mom went through a difficult pregnancy and several hours of labour just to annoy you" Mina snarled and Rose looked at her twin in surprise. "I thought nobody could cause themselves to have twins just by willing it so, but hey, maybe we didn't get to that part in biology yet. I suppose we have a lot to learn still."
"Some children should learn how to keep their thoughts to themselves...!"
"And some grownups should learn to keep their mouths shut."
Oh. Aunt Georgiana on a white horse.
In a distance, Mr Evans was keeping his group - sans Teddy - and their three classmates occupied with something while Georgiana Darcy, all her six feet and one inch, went against Frances Bennet, five feet five when in high heels and a hat.
"And who would you be? A teacher in their village school?"
Aunt Georgie smiled slightly.
"No, but I don't see the relevance of who I am to the topic at hand. They are here under my care, so they are leaving with me, right now. And you, whoever you are, madame, will not follow us or importune us in any other manner."
"How dare you! Do you know who I am?"
"She just said she doesn't, grandma," Rose regained her courage and stepped forward. "And she is our guardian on this trip and you should listen to her. Please leave us alone."
Mina made an unhappy sound that made Rose look away from her grandmother.
Ah. Teddy.
"Let's go join the rest, OK?" aunt Georgiana grabbed their hands and steered them towards Mr Evans, nodding sharply at Teddy to go ahead and ignoring angry sounds coming from the older woman. "We have to get going to be back at the hostel on time for dinner."
They followed without a word, relieved to be done, but Rose saw Mina's eyes drop to the ground as they caught up with the others. After a few minutes of quiet march, she freed her hand from aunt Georgiana's hold and fell back a step, pulling Teddy to walk next to her.
"What was that?" he asked softly.
"That was a proof that every family has their own little bit of crazy," she answered with a heavy sigh. "Just... just don't bring it up with Mina, OK? I mean... I hope you won't dump her now because of..."
He snorted.
"Lord, no. But... not that I should be pointing fingers, because aunt Gisela is my mother's sister, but how can your mother be so nice with that," he gestured over his shoulder "as an example?"
Rose shrugged and smiled with relief.
"We have no idea, but we are quite happy to accept it as it is. Teddy..." she bit her lip in hesitation. "I mean, I don't want to do anything like, I dunno, manage you and Mina or whatever, or scare you or... But she is my sister. It's hard..." she closed her eyes for a moment and huffed a breath. "OK, I promised myself, no meddling, I'm not some bloody Emma or whatever. But just... Let her know it's fine? OK? Because she knows our family is a bit mad and now she will be afraid you... You know."
Teddy patted her arm.
"Yeah, I know. And you will hurt me if I hurt her, I know. Come on, let's catch up before someone thinks I can't work out which one of you is which and we end up with some silly gossip about us."
Rose nodded in absolute agreement and soon they re-joined the group. In complete silence, Teddy caught Mina's free hand in his and pulled her closer, walking with her like that until they arrived at the Tube station. The short ride back to their accommodation was spent in quiet contemplation, Mina and Rose sitting between Teddy and aunt Georgiana and trying not to pay too much attention to their other companions.
Rose could only hope that the last evening of the trip wouldn't bring any more excitement. She wanted to go to their room, pack their things and fall into her bed. She was definitely looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend at aunt Kitty's.
####
Saturday morning was taken by packing and checking and rechecking the rooms, quick breakfast and everyone being loaded into their buses. Teddy and Mina took the chance to just stand together for a moment, quietly, as the girls waited for aunt Kitty to show up and pick them up.
Rose went through the memories from the trip with some level of satisfaction. Good amount sightseeing, some shopping, Mina got to show off as the local guide, Davison got told off by more than just Steven (as he tried picking up a fight with Teddy at dinner the previous night), aunt Georgiana and Miss Yang would be going back on the same bus. All in all, a well-spent week. And the reports coming from their parents in the form of sporadic text messages told them how the construction of the new house was progressing (slowly, but steadily, despite changing weather), how Mom had spent her Friday (finally putting together her birthday present and only hitting her fingers with a hammer once), how Dad was avoiding calls from the office (not that successfully) and what Mom's workroom looked like now with all the things in place (impressively).
Spending a day and a half with aunt Kitty and uncle Ted was promising to be reasonably interesting, giving Rose a chance to finally learn something about Agatha and Natalie. She wanted to actually get to know them, as the other pair of twins in the family and all the family meetings before were either much too crowded or complete madhouse, or both.
I'm curious if this is a genetic thing or just a coincidence.
Finally the buses were full, aunt Kitty has arrived and formally took them over from aunt Georgiana, Mina had kissed Teddy for something like the fifteenth time since breakfast and they were getting into aunt Kitty's sedan, their varied luggage piled in the backseat between them.
"So, ladies," their aunt smiled back. "How was the trip? And may I get some low-down on that cute boy that seemed unable to let Mina go? It is the same one that had crawled under the chairs, looking for the ring, right?"
Rose smiled widely as her sister blushed fiery red.
It was good to see them say goodbye like that. It meant Teddy managed to convince her sister he wasn't going to run away at the first sign of craziness in their family. Or a second one.
#
Agatha and Natalie were delighted - properly delighted! - to have the older twins just to themselves for a promised weekend together. Rose and Mina were bodily dragged to the younger girls' room and sat on the cushions and introduced to every object, from the cute identical beds to the row of dolls on Agatha's side and a large plush... motorbike...? on Natalie's bed.
Finally, the younger two sat in front of them and fell silent.
Rose looked at her sister and then at their cousins.
Natalie looked at Agatha. Agatha shrugged. Natalie nodded.
Rose felt a pang of jealousy at that casual display of perfect twin communication.
"Do the people at your school think you are freaky?" Natalie asked without preamble, making Rose's thought process screech to a halt.
"What?" she asked inelegantly.
"People in our class think twins are weird."
"And we are the only twins in our school."
"Small school," Rose heard her sister mutter.
"Well... They do think we are a bit weird," she admitted. "But that is not only because we are twins."
"Because your mom and dad didn't speak to each other for like ages and ages, we know," Agatha nodded sagely. "And because you never knew about each other."
"Well, and there is one more thing," Rose pointed out. "My birthday is a day before hers."
The smaller girls made the same perfect "Ouuu" sound of bewilderment.
"But... How..."
"Complicated," Mina cut off that line on enquiry. "The doctors wrote it like this, so my official birthday is a day after Rose, even though she is only fifteen minutes older."
"I am half an hour older then her," Natalie poked Agatha in the shoulder. "But they didn't put us in different days. That would be weird."
"Yeah, we know," Rose laughed softly as Natalie blushed. "Not many people have birthday like we do, but that way we get to bake the biscuits twice and our classmates are happy because they get twice the amount of sweets."
Natalie frowned and seemed to be calculating something.
"You two are not to try to change your birthday," aunt Kitty stood in the doorway, smiling. "Now, wash your hands in a moment, there is a small lunch getting ready in the oven and then we will be taking a walk to the Imperial, to show you the place where your mother - that is aunt Lizzy, yes - will be having her conference. Interested?"
Rose nodded immediately and they scrambled to their feet.
Somewhere downstairs a bell rang.
"Hm," aunt Kitty pulled out her mobile. "No calls, no texts... wonder who..."
A shrill "Do you know what happened yesterday!?" filled the hall as soon as the door was opened.
Aunt Kitty said something that was most definitely not supposed to be heard by anyone under twenty-one.
####
"Mommy..."
Elizabeth sat up straight. Mina never sounded like that unless she was ill.
"Kitten, what is wrong?"
The sigh that followed was positively wretched.
"I know we were not supposed to call you or stuff, but Mom, would you please come and get us? It is a mess and..." there was a sound in the background "...and aunt Kitty is not feeling very well and then..."
"Kitten, I'm putting you on the loudspeaker, so your Dad can listen in and we can start getting ready. Talk to me, what happened?"
"It was..." Mina sighed. "Grandma, well, she saw us yesterday, when we were leaving Camden Town and she mistook Rose for me and started telling her off and then I told grandma she should let Rose go and then aunt Georgiana also scolded grandma and we got back to the hostel and it was fine and... And today we got to aunt Kitty's and we were just going to have some lunch and go for a walk and grandma just came by without warning and started complaining about you and about us and about all of us being against her and... and I don't really know, and then uncle Ted kind of spilt that we were there, all totally by accident, and grandma started shouting and Agatha and Natalie started crying. And then aunt Kitty told grandma she is not welcome in their house and that she would not allow grandma to see us or Aggie and Nat if grandma kept screaming like that and grandma said something about aunt Kitty always wanting to be like you with a crazy husband and weird hobbies and having twins. And aunt Kitty went all squeaky and shouted that if grandma was going to be like that she can kiss seeing her newest grandchild goodbye. And then everything went very quiet and uncle Ted walked grandma out of the door and took aunt Kitty to their room and they were talking and she was crying and then he came out, took the lasagna out of the oven, told us to eat and said he was sorry but we would have to take care of ourselves and he trusted us to be reasonable girls and has been sitting with her ever since. And Nat and Aggie are getting nervous but like, Mom, I think that aunt Kitty is like, pregnant, and..."
Elizabeth looked up at William, who was standing next to her with an overnight bag.
"Kitten, give me ten minutes to gather my things and we're leaving. And yes, I think Kitty is pregnant, good guess, darling. Can you just sit there with Nat and Aggie and keep them occupied? We will be there in... well, navigation says three hours. Will you be fine until then?"
Mina took an audible breath.
"Yeah. We will be fine. I suppose."
"Very well. We're leaving. You can see our location on your maps app, remember."
"Yes, I know. Thank you, Mom."
"No worries, kitten. Just sit tight and take care of Nat and Aggie. You can show them some cartoons on your tablet, hm?"
"Sure. OK, we will. See you, Mom, Dad."
"See you soon, ducky," William closed the connection and added the phone to her handbag. "Ready? I am assuming we are staying overnight - I definitely would rather not have to drive back home today anyway."
Elizabeth pushed an emergency change of clothes into her own small bag and smiled wanly. "Ready. I just hope nobody from my family has another idiotic idea this weekend. And yes, I think we should stay until tomorrow..."
William gathered her closer and pressed a kiss to her hair.
"Don't worry. We will be there in no time. In the meanwhile, you can find us a hotel close to Kitty's. I'd rather not use anyone from the family as an emergency place to crash."
"Neither would I... But first, I will send a text to Georgiana and tell her nobody is going to be home. She may want to make use of this rare occasion."
"Elizabeth!"
"She is a grownup, after all," she rolled his eyes as he scowled.
"I don't even want to hear that," he groaned. "Take my phone and pick something through the booking app, just make sure it's in reasonable distance from Kitty's house."
They locked up the house - which felt a bit weird - and went around to inform Brian they would be leaving. William pulled both their bags on his shoulder and twirled a fat key fob in his fingers.
"Come on, Lizzy, let's get this monster running."
"What are you...? William!"
Her husband smirked from where he was leaning on the side of a sleek, dangerously-looking car.
"I asked for it to be driven to the house yesterday evening. Wanted to take you for a spin later tonight, but now we will make a better use of it. Hop in, Mrs Darcy, let's go fetch our kids in style."
#
In two hours and change the car was murmuring quietly through the suburbs of London and Elizabeth was very carefully trying not to think about the number of speed limits they had broken on their way there. The Jag was indeed sleek, silent and sexy and so terrifyingly powerful she could barely sit in it as a passenger. She was definitely not going to be driving that one.
A Skoda is good enough for me, thank you very much.
They pulled up in front of Kitty's house and sat for a moment in silence. There was no trace of Elizabeth's mother, but still she had to take a few deeper breaths just to get out of the car.
Ted had apparently been waiting for them, as the door opened immediately and they were let inside quickly (all locks secured behind them). He seemed a bit shaken, but in seconds four pairs of stomping feet hammered at the floor and girls appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Mom, Dad," Rose squeezed around Ted and hugged them at the same time, closely followed by Mina. "It was..."
"Ugly," Mina finished. "I don't want to see grandma ever again."
"Never ever," Rose confirmed. "She doesn't deserve to see..."
"...any of us."
Elizabeth glanced at William with an uncertain face.
"Come on in, sit down. I will make you a cuppa," Ted offered tiredly. "Kit, darling, your sister is here."
"Which one? Did mom send the stupidest one to torment me...? Oh, good, it's Lizzy..."
"I hope you are happy it's me and not Lydia," Elizabeth quipped weakly and untangled herself from her daughters' embrace. "Come here, Kit. Oh, I'm so sorry..." she knelt by where Kitty was reclining on several cushions.
"Not your fault, Lizzy. If only I wasn't such a useless little idiot and didn't give her the opening...!"
"I've let her in," admitted Ted. "But I wasn't expecting that. I mean, she does drop by from time to time, so it's nothing unexpected in general, but that was like an explosion. And then she started shouting at Kitty and..."
"And then I exploded," Kitty provided ruefully from her place on the sofa. "I told her if she keeps behaving like that, I will not let her see her youngest grandchild and Ted..."
"I just finally threw her out," their brother-in-law summarised. "Even I have my limits."
"OK, so, you two, make sure you get plenty of sleep. I'm taking my little princesses off your hands and we will..." she glanced at William. "We will probably have to visit our parents tomorrow. Although there are many much more interesting things to do on a Sunday than that."
Kitty patted her shoulder awkwardly from her spot.
"Go on then, Liz. Let me know what size of a crater you leave once you are done with them. Where are you staying?"
Elizabeth just rolled her eyes.
"William had me book a hotel for us, so we'll be just a few streets over. Seemed like the safest solution. This way we are free to come and go and we're not dropping in on anyone without warning."
"But, you could stay with us...!" Kitty protested weakly.
"No way," Elizabeth said firmly, standing up. "You two need some quiet time - as quiet as your kids will let you. You don't need any guests hanging around here. Girls, pick up your things, say goodbye to your cousins and let's get in the car. We can drop our things at the hotel and then go for a little walk, just the four of us, hmmm?"
#
The hotel was very nice - Elizabeth carefully didn't pay attention to the price and the girls seemed a bit too shaken to pay attention to anything, so they missed the level of discreetly covered luxury until they got to their suite and Mina collapsed on the bed in "their" room.
"Thith ith thoft" she remarked with her face in the duvet. "I wanna thtay like thith."
"Come on, lazybones. I'm giving you fifteen minutes and then we are going," Elizabeth poked her in the ankle. "We have to show Rose and Dad something of the city, hm? I don't think we will have another chance to do that this year. I think we would all prefer to spend the rest of November and December quietly at home, right?"
Mina heaved a sigh.
"OK, fine. But we go to Southbank Market."
"I was thinking about Leicester Square, actually, it is a bit closer."
Her younger daughter glared at her from under her fringe.
"Southbank. I want roasted chestnuts."
"Leicester. Someone posted that there is a fudge stall. I want fudge."
A moan.
"OK, Leicester. But we will buy chestnuts anyway and roast them at home!"
"Fine," she pushed up from the bed. "Then we can come back here for supper and decide what we do about tomorrow."
A sigh.
"Do we really have to go to grandma's? I mean... I don't wanna."
"I have to talk to them and we should go all together, I think. I hope that with you two being there - and with William - they will finally take us seriously and start treating us like actual independent human beings. I don't think they actually noticed you two had turned fourteen this year."
"But Adele is going to have a huge birthday party in February, right?" Mina mumbled. "Because Adele can do no evil, Adele is perfect granddaughter, Adele always agrees with grandma..."
"Adele knows where the candy is coming from," Rose remarked wryly from the bathroom door. "She knows aunt Lydia isn't working and she knows grandma is the one that gives them money for everything. Come on, Mina, don't be jealous of Adele of all people."
"I'm not, like, jealous of her. It's... I mean..." Elizabeth watched as Mina tried to put her feelings into thoughts. "It's just so bloody unfair! Aunt Lydia doesn't do anything, she just sits around the house, paints her nails and mooches off grandma and grandpa and she made Adele stop playing with me all that time ago. And Adele is never given any chores, she never even carries plates to the kitchen!"
"She broke a few," Elizabeth pointed out. "Grandma was not happy with her."
"Yeah, and she now doesn't have to do any cleaning because she broke them," Mina counterpointed. "She can sit in the corner and watch cartoons..."
"Let's not be purposefully dumb like Adele, please," Rose moaned. "That would be depressing."
"Now, we leave that topic for later," Elizabeth strolled to the door. "You have ten minutes and we are leaving. Bundle up."
####
The Christmas market was actually quite fun, Rose decided. This particular one wasn't bigger than what would soon be set up in Lambton but there were several of them, all over London. Including a much bigger one in Hyde Park, apparently.
Stuffed with fudge, roasted almonds and with their pockets full of jelly bears, Dad's shoulder bag somewhat heavy with random objects he found on various stalls and books, and Mom finally relaxed, they headed over to the hotel, where Mina promptly fell asleep just as she was, discarding only her shoes and her coat.
Rose ate her supper staring at her plate blearily and let herself be directed to the bathroom, supervised when she brushed her teeth and then pushed towards the bed. Dad managed to get Mina into a vertical (ish) position and convinced her to brush her teeth in turn and then Mom got her undressed and managed to get her under the covers before Mina again fell asleep on top of her bedspread.
Rose tried to read, at least for few minutes, but she fell asleep with her nose in her book.
####
"We will not be eating anything, we will not be taking tea, we go in, we say our thing, we leave," Elizabeth breathed deeply and looked at the others. "Clear?"
Her daughters nodded silently.
"Let me talk, unless I lose my patience and start throwing things at my dear parents. Then you can pick me up and carry me out, Will. Not earlier."
"Fine. Now, do we go in? I'd rather get this over with."
"I'd rather go to Hyde Park and see the market there," Mina mumbled.
"We can go later. For the time being, we are going to talk to your grandparents. This is going to be fun."
William opened the door and stepped out of the car.
"Fun," she heard him murmur. "We have totally different definitions of fun, love, I'm afraid. Ah, Liz?"
She inhaled deeply and smiled at him, feeling herself fraying at the edges. He leaned back to peer inside the car.
"Do you want us to go all in, or are we keeping this a secret?" he waggled his fingers.
She shuddered.
"Well, if we go in openly, we risk getting additionally scolded for not telling them before. I'd rather not add that to the whole argument."
William grimaced.
"When you put it that way..." he quickly twisted off his band and handed it to her. "Put them away safely and let's go face the dragons."
She slipped both rings into her sewing kit and placed them securely in her handbag.
"I feel weird without it," she confessed as she reached for the door handle.
"Well, the quicker we get this over with, the sooner you can put it back on. Let's just do it."
"Come on, girls. Let's talk to your grandparents and then we can go do some shopping and be back home for dinner."
Mina only grimaced as she got out of the Jag, but Rose was pale and silent. They trailed behind William without word as Lizzy led the way.
#
Father was sitting in the corner of the living room, brooding over a cup of coffee and mother was flying around, making distressed noises.
"Good morning," she smiled sunnily at everyone, including Adele. "Mom, Dad, we need to talk to you for a moment. Would it be possible to have some of your attention today?"
"This is..." her mother scowled at William and then at the girls hiding behind him. "Of course it's about them. I knew it. The moment that ungrateful, disgusting man threw me out of their house..."
"Is she talking about uncle Ted?" one of her daughters whispered theatrically.
"I suppose so, unless someone else threw her out of their house yesterday, too."
"Obviously, when you first accost one of them on the street and then do that to Kitty in her own home, what do you expect? Do you want me to congratulate you? Wish you continued career in the field of tormenting your pregnant daughters?"
"Elizabeth?" her father finally raised his eyes at them.
"Kitty, Dad. You remember her? Slightly taller than me, dark blonde? Your fourth child?"
Thomas Bennet shrugged imperceptibly and she heard William inhale as if to start speaking.
A strategically trod-on toe silenced even big men like William.
"Now, I think we have some serious things to discuss, if you two are quite focused...?"
"Adele, take your cousins and go," her mother replied quickly. "I will call you when the lunch is ready."
"Actually, Rose and Mina should stay right here," Elizabeth smiled thinly. "This is mostly about them, mother. I don't wish to discuss them without their presence."
"They stay, I stay," Adele crossed her arms and planted her feet firmly. "I wanna hear."
"There is nothing for you to hear here, Adele," Elizabeth's mother was obviously trying to limit the number of 'little ears' present at the discussion.
"I have as much right to be here as they do! It is my house, not theirs!"
"Actually, this is grandma's house," Rose remarked sweetly.
Elizabeth didn't point out that this rhetoric left Rose vulnerable to an order from her grandmother, but fortunately said granbmother didn't notice that point either. Adele flounced out of the room, slamming the door shut. They all looked at each other.
"Will you sit then?" father made an abortive gesture to the chairs at the table. "What is this all about?"
Elizabeth found herself being sat on a chair pulled out by William, who took the place next to her. Mina and Rose settled for the couch just next to them.
"Mother had met Rose in Camden Town on Friday and started shouting at her, thinking it was Mina. Then she shouted some more at Mina herself, including some statements about me that I feel we need to discuss. Also, over the last weeks, she made various remarks to me, regarding myself, that should be clarified, too. So, now, the clarification," she leaned forward, meeting her parents' gazes across the table. "Let me be rightly understood. I do not want to ever again hear any of you spewing your crazy talk at my daughters, is it clear? Whatever in the world possessed you, mother, to tell my daughters that I have had them in order to spite you? Ignoring the purely biological side of the equation, because that makes no bloody sense, how could you even say things like this? Why would anyone have a kid just to annoy someone else?"
Her mother squirmed.
Honest to God squirmed.
And her father looked away.
"Oh..." Elizabeth suddenly found herself without air. "You... you two did it. You two actually did that. You had... OK, I suppose Jane was born just for herself - and don't think I can't count to nine and subtract dates - but... How many of us...?"
She couldn't think. She couldn't form her sentences properly.
An arm sneaked from behind her and pulled her closer to a safe, warm body.
"Assuming that everyone else sees the world in the same way you do is a sign of a very limited understanding," William's voice broke the dead silence that fell when she paused. "But let me inform you, nobody will be speaking in this manner to my children if I have anything to say about it. And I will be grateful, for the future, if you refrain from speaking in this manner to Elizabeth, too."
"It was because of your grandmother," father said calmly, pouring himself more tea. "Your mother wanted to prove that she can, in fact, have a son. That didn't work as expected, obviously."
Elizabeth felt a tiny bit faint, but William's warm hand at her waist steadied her.
"You... You mean, I was... No. Back to the topic. Whatever your crazy experiences are, they are not mine. I don't even know what to say to you anymore, but whatever else happens, you two have to reconsider your approach. Either you do that - and I mean, seriously - or I won't allow you any contact with Rose and Mina. You have until Christmas to decide which way it's going to be. It's a month - and change - so you have a lot of time to think. Either you want to treat me like a grownup and my daughters as people with their own rights, autonomy and feelings, or you are not welcome to contact us. In any way. If you wish to continue the relationship, come to Pemberley on the 23rd, evening, and we will talk. If you decide you can't keep to the rules I set... Then don't come. We won't bother you in any way from that day onwards."
"But, Elizabeth!"
"You have a month, mother. Don't call me in that time. Don't bother my sisters. Don't... just don't."
"But how else am I supposed to know what you are doing?! Everyone is asking about you and I have to know what to tell them!"
Elizabeth stood up slowly and straightened the hem of her jacket.
"That is purely your business, mom, not mine. You are the one that started this little competition between mothers of the neighbourhood, you have to live with it. I will not be guilted into supporting your bragging obsession."
She looked at her father long and hard.
"I will be visiting London occasionally," she informed the air in front of her. "There is a conference which I wish to attend and then I will most probably be in town more or less on weekly basis."
Her father's eyebrows went up and he looked at her inquisitively, but she ignored him and turned to her daughters.
"Come on, ladies. Jackets on, we are going to Hyde Park to see the market there."
"Can we then walk to the Imperial and have a look at it?" Mina asked innocently.
"Oh?" sudden her father's focus was almost painful in its intensity. "And why would you want to go there?"
"Mina is considering applying to the Imperial," William provided seriously. "She wanted to see what it looked like, as long as we already are in London."
"B-but isn't she a little too young?"
Oh-ho, the doting grandma mode.
"I think it is very good that she has plans," William remarked. "Rose has picked her dream school a year ago."
"Doing what, an MBA?"
And the sarcastic grandfather. Lord help me.
"No, landscape architecture," her older daughter answered haughtily. "In Amsterdam."
#
After Rose's little bomb the conversation died quickly and they left before Lydia could appear. They did see her on the street as they waited on the red light and Elizabeth sighed at the sight of her youngest sister. But there was nothing to be said there, not now and maybe not ever.
"Mom? Is aunt Lydia invited for Christmas, too?"
Mina sounded unsure.
Elizabeth sighed.
"She would be, if I believed her to be able to behave properly. Your grandparents can be hoped to see the error of their ways, but I'm afraid I can't expect the same from Lydia."
"B-but does this mean she and Adele will be alone for Christmas?" Rose asked suddenly. "Because if you invited grandma and grandpa... and not her..."
She exchanged a quick glance with William, who sighed, nodded and turned the car around, catching up with Lydia in half a minute.
For a few breaths, Elizabeth watched Lydia, who was now standing in front of their parents' gate and smoking. Lizzy got out of the car and sent a short prayer for patience to whichever helpful powers would be listening.
"Are you going to tell me off for smoking, sis?" Lydia took a long pull of her cigarette. "I'm not doing it inside."
"No, Lyddie," Elizabeth looked at the house, trying to guess how many people were watching them right now. "I wanted to invite you for Christmas. To Pemberley."
"We will be spending Christmas with our parents, thank you very much. Like we always do. Jane and her brats, Mary and her..." she shrugged. "And Kitty with her little clones."
"Actually, they are all invited to us," Elizabeth corrected mildly. "Including our parents. And so are you. If you wish."
Lydia smoked in silence for a moment.
"Why would you want us there?" she asked finally. "You never wanted me anywhere around your precious Miss Perfect, after all."
Elizabeth felt a weave of faintness washing over her, but she leaned discreetly on the fencepost and smiled wanly.
"Lyddie, you were the one who told Adele not to play with Mina. I never did anything to stop Mina from having contact with either of you."
"Well, I think you did. Every time you were visiting, whenever I tried to play with both of them, you were the one carrying Mina away. You taught her to be afraid of me!"
Lizzy calmly counted to ten.
"Lyddie, you are loud."
Her sister frowned at that simple statement.
"Mina has been brought up in a very, very quiet home. Pemberley was quiet. Even the family wing of the student housing where I lived with Mary was relatively quiet. Mary and me are not very loud either. And then she only lived with me... Lyddie, in comparison to what she heard normally at home, you were always shouting at her. She wasn't afraid because I told her anything about you, but because you were making too much noise for her."
Lydia threw the cigarette on the ground and stomped on it.
"What about this summer? She came back from that supposedly beneficial camp Jane wanted her to go to - she never suggested Adele could go to one, wonder why - and she started behaving as if we were the weirdest thing she had ever seen!"
"Because you were, actually," Elizabeth rubbed her nose. "Because it was not Mina, but Rose. You know, my other daughter."
Lydia opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
"Did our parents tell you why I moved to Derbyshire so suddenly?"
"N-no. I kind of guessed you got back together with your..." she nodded towards the car.
"Did they even tell you that Mina was sick? Did they tell you I told Mom to let you rent the flat I was using? That Rose and Mina switched places during vacation?"
"What? Mother never mentioned that."
Elizabeth sighed.
"Well, they did. And, long story short, we've moved up North because of it. And now we live in a house where we can invite everyone. So, Lyddie, on the 23rd - that is Saturday - get in the car, pack enough clothes for the two of you for a week and come. If you decide you don't like it, well, it's not a prison, nobody will stop you from leaving the next day. But Adele may actually benefit from spending her holidays in a new place. Not that many new people - mainly Rose - but the grounds are much more fun than the backyard here. So..." she pushed herself off the fence. "Up to you, Lyds. Five weeks to consider your options. Make use of them."
#
"What did Lydia say?" William's breath warmed her ear.
"She just shrugged and mumbled 'whatever'. That is like a ringing endorsement from her, I suppose," she sank into her seat and looked up at him ruefully. "Will you be very angry if they all decide they want to come?"
"Well, I don't expect that Christmas to be very relaxing then, but we will make do. We can hope she will behave, for Adele's sake."
Only later, when the girls were running free through Hyde Park towards the Winter Wonderland, she felt chagrin at the way they had been speaking.
"We shouldn't be discussing family in front of them in that manner," she sighed. "They will hear way too much..."
"Why not?" William's hand flexed around hers. "I mean, they already have their own opinions about a lot of stuff that pertains to our families - aunt Catherine, Anne, your parents... I suppose Mina may have a lot to say about Adele and Lydia, too, that she keeps quiet."
"But they shouldn't inherit out prejudice about people..." she fretted. "They should be able to form their own opinions."
"What about when giving them a chance to form these opinions would be dangerous to them? Like with Anne? Or with Lydia, actually, I suppose. Not to cast aspersions on your sister, but she isn't the most, well, upright member of society."
"No offence taken here," she leaned on his shoulder. "Well... yes. That makes sense. Because if we want to treat them as grownups, we can't just tell them to cease contact with this or that person - it would be on par with Lydia telling Adele to stop playing with Mina all that time ago."
"But I suppose we should mind our language."
"Yeah, I suppose so, too."
"Mom! Look!" Rose careened into her side, pointing to a stand just on the edge. "Fudge!"
Both she and Mina giggled like madwomen at Elizabeth's pained groan.
"Oooh, torrone!" Mina veered to the left. "Mom, may we have some? Just a little bit?"
William was laughing by the time they paid for two not-that-little slabs of almond and pistachio nougat, but the girls were off to see the gingerbread stall next and they followed in more restrained fashion.
"Ah, wooden toys," William peered over the heads of everyone at that counter. "Come on, girls, that's not your kind of crowd... I think?"
"Well, I wouldn't say no to that one," Mina picked up a square frame with a geometry puzzle. "And ooh, they have a marble run...!"
"Isn't a marble run a bit childish even for you, Bennet?"
There were things Elizabeth had seen in cartoons, but never before in real life. The way Mina's face lost all its colour was an example.
She and Rose turned in the direction of whoever it was - a girl slightly taller than them with what seemed to be a permanent smirk etched on her face.
Smirk turned out not to be that permanent when she blinked, squeezed her eyes shut, rubbed them and then squinted at Elizabeth's daughters.
"Effing hell, Bennet, why are there two of you? One is not enough to make our life suck?"
Rose rolled her eyes and Mina scowled.
"Go away, Christine," she said simply. "I don't want to talk to you."
Elizabeth tried pushing through a group of smaller children, but they seemed not to understand her need to move forward and created a nearly solid wall around her, letting her only witness what went down by the counter.
"Oh, well. As far as I can see, we are in a public place and I can talk to whoever I want, you little freak. No idea where you got the other one from, but I'm guessing she is another weirdo... Bennet has only a mother, so I suppose you only have a father?" she threw in Rose's direction. "Wonder where you found her, in a shelter for misunderstood geeks? She is a nerd if I've ever seen one. No girl has any business being that good at the computer stuff... and saying your mother works with computers only proves you are weird."
"Piss off," Rose said calmly and while Elizabeth couldn't condone the usage of that slightly vulgar term, she heartily supported the message. "Leave Mina alone, you bully."
"Oooh, it talks! I though it may have been a mannequin, made to look like you, Bennet. The only way you could get a friend is to have your mother program one for you, after all," Christine-whatever-her-name was laughing now, showing off her pearly white teeth.
"Yeah, it talks," Rose's voice went through a sudden transformation, her accent deepening and broadening. "And it will give your ass a solid whipping if you come any closer to Mina. Hear me? You little town twit? I've been hauling hay bales from the loft for ages and riding horses long enough to give me some nice muscles. Although I do not, by preference, hit people, leaving that particular exercise to Mina, I will happily kick your butt if you don't turn around and leave is alone this very minute."
That short tirade seemed to be something of a surprise to the taller girl, who looked around as if searching for witnesses to that unexpected exchange.
"Are you having me on?" she asked incredulously. "Bennet would get suspended at school the moment I told them that I met her here and that she threatened to beat me up - because you do look remarkably similar, so I could tell them it was her."
William had less scruples and parted the sea of under-tens with his sheer mass, standing behind Rose and Mina, hands on their shoulders, gathering them in protectively.
"I think you should leave them alone, young lady," he suggested affably. "And you can report to your school whatever you want, Mina isn't a student there anymore."
"Sure she is. They check for her presence every day," Christine responded cheekily. "And you don't scare me, mister. You can't lay a finger on me."
"But I definitely can tell the security you've been following us. Mina, Rose? Do you want anything from this stall?"
They both shook their heads mutely, but Elizabeth noted a glance they both sent in the direction of the complex, very nicely done marble labyrinth.
"But I will tell at school," Christine apparently didn't know when to shut up. "And they will send it to the department of education and Mina will get suspended and..." she stepped back when Rose raised her hand to rub her eyes. "MOMMA! She wanted to hit me!"
A shrewed-eyed blonde turned at the next stall and broke into a jogging run, crossing the three metres between them with more huffing than was necessary.
"What was that, my angel? Someone was threatening my Christine?"
Rose snorted.
"Christine," William's voice was deep and kind of growly. "Was pestering my daughters and threatening them with going to school authorities for some imagined transgressions. Please, madame, do control your child and make sure she isn't troubling other kids."
"What are you saying about my sweet Christine?" the woman gasped. "She has never attacked anyone! Why would you lie like this!?"
"I think half of the people around here had heard her insulting Mina and making fun of Rose just minutes ago. I understand that the jewellery stand had attracted your attention and you stopped checking what your daughter was doing, and I don't expect you to admit she had done anything wrong. I only expect you to remove her and keep her far enough from my family for us to be able to finalise our shopping."
"You... how dare you!?"
William dared. With a few more clipped sentences, he had quietly threatened Christine's mother with a lawyer, should she continue to importune them and got rid of both her and her daughter, all the while with Mina and Rose glued to his sides.
"Now..." he turned to the stand, glancing over their daughters' heads and making eye contact with her. "I personally don't think there is such a thing as an age limit on a good marble run. Which one were you two looking at?"
#
Stuffed with a good if heavy lunch, two large boxes of marble run blocks between them, girls were drowsing in the backseat as the Jag sped north, towards home. Elizabeth leaned back in her seat and watched the road. The tension in her shoulders was fading slowly, diminishing with every mile of distance between her and London.