An Unequalled Affection

Part 21

"Lydia, sit still! Stop fidgeting or you shall spoil my sketch - oh!"

Kitty's complaints gave way to a wail as Lydia turned promptly to stick her tongue out at her, spoiling a whole morning's effort.

"I have sat still for an hour! If you do not have my likeness pinned to the page yet, I suppose you never shall!" Lydia leaned forward, but Kitty was too quick for her, snatching up her sketch and hugging it to her chest. "No fair! I think you might let me see it at least."

"Not until it is finished!" Kitty retorted. "And now that you refuse to stay in one position it never shall be." She tore the paper in two, dropping both halves into the fire and turning to survey the rest of her family who sat companionably in the parlour, all lost to their own occupations.

Jane stitched, or tried to, ignoring her sisters quite effectively and mastering a new embroidery stitch she held up to the light, admiring the effect.

"Jane!" Kitty squealed, bouncing onto the settee next to her. "Do not move! You look quite lovely silhouetted by the sunlight like that. I must draw you!"

"Kitty," Jane admonished patiently, I cannot sit for hours with my arms stretched out like this." Her younger sister's sudden mania for drawing might be a little more welcome were she any good at it but Jane had more patience for indulging her than Lydia. "May I sew while you draw?"

"If you must." Kitty sighed, squinting at her and putting pencil to paper.

"You shall be next, Lizzy!" Lydia exclaimed, a little put-out, despite her complaining, that she had been so easily thrown over in favour of another subject for Kitty's drawing practice. "Take care, or Kitty will immortalize you forever, scowling over your book."

"I am not scowling!" Lizzy replied but Jane suppressed a laugh at the hand that hurried to smooth out any non-existent wrinkles in her sister's forehead.

"Girls, be quiet!" Mrs Bennet moaned from her chair by the fire. "You give me a headache with your squabbling."

"You can hardly hear us over Mary's playing," Lydia retorted, turning her attention to Mary. "Must you drill your scales all afternoon? Up and down, up and down! It is so murderously dull. Play us something cheerful, won't you?"

"Very well." Mary was nothing if not accommodating and without complaint, she shifted from scales to a pretty waltz that soothed both Lydia's fractious mood and Mama's looming headache, so that peace was soon fully restored to the Longbourn parlour. Restored, at least, until Kitty spotted a movement through the very window whose light she was relying on to properly capture her elder sister's elegance.

"Oh!" she squeaked, pointing towards what she saw and then hurriedly trying to keep from pointing, all of which excitement succeeded in alerting Jane to the very thing Kitty had tried, too late, to keep from her.

Three figures approached the house at a strange distance, for it seemed as if only one of the three truly wished to come. Jane's heart sank as she identified Miss Georgiana Darcy out in front of the party, followed at some delay by Miss Caroline Bingley and, reluctantly bringing up the rear, Mr Bingley himself.

"What is it?" Mrs Bennet asked, squinting towards the light. A knock came at the door and she jumped, gesturing to her daughters in rapidly rising panic. "Oh! Callers! Whoever might it be?" She flew into action, pinching colour into her cheeks at the same moment she straightened the lace at her neck and hastily re-pinned a stray curl of her greying her. "Girls, girls! Do not lounge about so! Lizzy, you might at least put your book away if we are to have guests."

"Mama -" Lizzy began, but her gaze met Jane's and she seemed to tell, from whatever change Jane could not keep from displaying itself in her features, that these particular guests would require her full and undivided attention.