Last week, George Wickham and Lydia Bennet indulged in a little stargazing exchanged a scandalous, stolen kiss in Brighton, but what happened next?
All can now be revealed in this cache of rather illuminating letters between the clandestine couple, who were certainly not above taking one or two risks. A heady time indeed, it would seem!
~Catherine Curzon and Nicole Clarkston
My dear Mr W,
What do you think, I cannot sleep for the music we danced to tonight plays over and over again in my head. I wonder, do lieutenants return to their quarters and hum to themselves as ladies do? Or do cards occupy your time? I am quite good at chance games, I’ve quite the knack of them. When next we meet at Mrs F’s dinner party, I hope to challenge you to a match, for I have heard that you are fond of losing to ladies.
Yours,
LB
My dearest Miss Bennet,
I find myself likewise wakeful, though I cannot pretend that my own hum might be as tuneful as yours. You ask what occupies my time – would you think me artful if I tell you it is a certain young lady and the memory of her smile beneath a star-studded night?
Above all things, I look forward to losing to you, Miss Bennet. No one betters deserves the victory, and there is certainly none who will bear it so prettily.
Yours,
GW
My dear GW
I am most heartily grieved for having taken you for such a sum this evening. It is well that the officers shall all be paid on the morrow, for I am already struggling some little with my conscience. What does a lieutenant eat if he has not half a crown in his pocket?
My dear Mrs F tells me that the regiment are to remain in Brighton for at least another four months. I shall not be permitted to remain so long, but I quite depend on you for as many dances as can be managed. There are at least two more balls before I am to return to Longbourn. I wonder, shall I wear roses or violets in my shoes?
Yours,
LB
PS I know you will forgive me if I find myself so indebted to you for a delightful evening that I return these sixpence.
My dearest Miss B
What does a lieutenant eat, cries the lady who has left me destitute! Miss Lydia, even Turpin himself could not have claimed such a bounty at the point of a gun – your skill at the table might be deadly were you not such a benevolent creature. Happily a fellow does have his comrades and though I must eke out a sorry piece of cheese until my pay is in my hand, I would not have changed last night for all the money in the Mint.
Think not of the future, for we shall dance four months worth of dances in as long as we have. After all, when your shoes wear through, you might use your winnings to replace them – a noble endeavour indeed.
I cannot in all conscience take your kind offer of a sixpence for myself. Perhaps I might see if something suitable to a young lady of your prospects can be secured for a sixpence. Brighton seems like the sort of place in which sixpence might go a long way!
Yours,
GW
My dear GW
I shall see you tonight at the ball, but I simply could not resist dropping this into your hand. I have saved you the supper set, though you have not yet asked, and I intend to keep my last dance of the evening free. I have found it refreshing to take the air at the end of the evening, provided I can find a companion who is agreeable and clever and willing to guard me against ruffians in the shrubbery.
LB
My dear GW
I couldn’t possibly meet you behind the garden wall at nine precisely on the morrow. No, sir, you go too far, for a lady never yields to the temptation to hear her name sung by songbirds or to be compared to Venus and Helen and the like.
No, sir, I am firmly against meeting you near the rose hedge, just where the lilac drops down over that lovely stone bench I’ve taken to calling “lovers’ seat”. I couldn’t possibly wait for you in my purest white muslin, with a few curls of my hair loosened and no one about in the house.
LB
My dearest, sweetest Miss B I look forward to not meeting you there with every fibre of my being.
GW
My dear GW
I cannot stop laughing, and it is all your fault. My dear Mrs F is quite undone, for she fears I may be touched in the head. It is not my head, but my heart which sings for joy. To hear the sentiments I had so jealously guarded from the world expressed aloud and in answer to mine was my fondest wish, but I thought never to have the pleasure.
I hope to put this into your hands today whilst I am out with Mrs F looking at lace. Nothing brightens my day so much as seeing your beloved face.
I hope you will forgive the pretense I must keep of not favouring you above all others. I would not wish for our interludes, which have become the light of my life, to be suspected. And so, when I smile and laugh with Captain D or C, know that I think only of you, and that I walk proudly for being the beloved of my own GW.
Yours
LB
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Reading these letters it looks like Lydia is the instigator of all things clandestine! What a bold, foolish young girl she is.
And a most marvellous young lady to boot!
Bold I always have been, and what lady would not rather be a fool in love?
I must agree with Glynis!
Yes,Lydia does seem to be the orchestrator of her own elopement and potential fall from grace in society’s eyes.
So caught up in the sheer ‘romance’ of it all,she fails to consider the consequences of her rash behaviour and the high price her family members will have to pay for such.
Yes,immature,impulsive Lydia casts a net to catch a red coat largely ignorant and heedless of her inability to deal with the implications of such a fishing expedition!
Foolishly and selfishly arrogant,Lydia,in her cheeky flattery,flies in the face of all she should hold dear, courting potential public scorn and ridicule as a result.
Loved this post! Thanks to all concerned for such!
My dear, fragrant Mrs Wickham has always known her own mind, it is true!
My dear lady, perhaps I was swept away by my dear George’s sincere affections, but what care have I for public scorn? It is one man’s opinion which matters, and I am assured of his very deepest affections.
First, I would like to thank you Mrs. Wickham for offering to provide strategies in finding a husband in your prior comments. I happen to have ‘found’ one all on my own with the greatest of results! I will let you know more when we meet for tea! Please don’t pin me down on the date…this will take time.
As for your clandestine meetings and games of chance, I must say you certainly risked all…did you ever happen to think of what the consequences would be for your parents/sisters? Public scorn is one thing, but your dear family?
One must risk all when the stakes are high, my dear friend. As for my beloved sisters, I knew that one gentleman was already heart over heels in love with my eldest sister, and if he was not good enough to love her still, despite whatever jealous things were said about myself, then he was not nearly worthy of her. Of what value is a man’s love if it is not tested?
And was ever a stake more delightful?
Ah, to have been a butterfly observing the assignation which must never have happened, since neither of you planned to attend it! But how, pray tell, can any elopement be respectable? There is a cost for defying society’s rules, even for the grand prize of love.
An accidental assignation, as decreed by the fates!