Chapter Three

Kitty Bennet slid out of her bed, careful not to wake her younger sister Lydia, with whom she shared a room. Not that much care was required, for Lydia snored contentedly, burrowed in blankets despite the summer heat. Experience made dressing in the near dark easy, and soon Kitty eased her little journal and a pencil from under a loose floorboard beneath her bed. Sticking both into the pocket of her skirt, she slipped from the room.

As she did most mornings, Kitty went first to the front parlor, seeking one of Longbourn’s maids, Tilly, who looked up from shoveling last night’s ashes with a smile.

“Good morning, Tilly,” Kitty greeted, crossing to join her. “Mind if I help?”

“Course not, miss.” Tilly stood gratefully, having long ago given up worrying why Kitty helped her with her chores. “Not much to do this morning, miss. No great call for fires in this heat.”

“No,” Kitty agreed as she took up the little bin and brush. “Only small ones for light, and even those resented for the heat they add.” She made quick work of brushing the ashes into a pile. “How fares your family today? Did you not say that your little brother has a cough?”

“Oh, he’s doing much better, miss.” Tilly dropped into a chair with an exaggerated sigh, as if she’d been digging trenches, rather than pushing dust around.

“That is good to hear. How is your cousin? Does she still enjoy her place at the Robinsons?”

“Oh, she likes it there well enough, but that old Mr. Robinson is always pinching her behind, miss. Any chance he gets.” Tilly leaned forward. “Do you know, my cousin, she’s learned some of their maids have been dismissed with quite the sums settled on them, let me tell you, because pinchin’s not all that one will do, given the chance. No one can say how many little Robinsons be runnin’ about the countryside.”

“Truly?” Kitty wrinkled her nose, filing that information away to be entered into her journey. “But he is so old.”

“Not that old, apparently,” Tilly said with a tip of her chin.

Kitty helped her clean two more fireplaces, and lay out fresh wood, then made her way into the garden to gossip with Longbourn’s two lady’s maids as they took in wash, a task that would soon need to be seen to with greater alacrity. Once the days cooled with autumn, wash left out in the night would get coated in dew, but Kitty saw no reason to bring that up now. Instead, she helped take down and fold linens, chatting all the while, but only learned that Sally, ladies maid to Kitty and her four sisters, had an aunt who suffered from gout. Not truly journal-worthy information, but Kitty made the entry after leaving them, regardless, and entered what she’d learned from Tilly as well.

Next, she snatched some dried apples from the kitchen, happy that there would be fresh ones soon enough, and went to the stable. There, she leaned against the fence, watching one of the grooms walk her father’s team. Shortly, she heard the creak of the wheelbarrow that meant the approach of Stamy Smith, the youngest of the stablehands. Stamy, so called because he stammered, always got the job of mucking out the stalls.

He left the stable wheelbarrow first, halting when he saw her by the fence. “M-morning, Miss C-c-catherine.”

“Good morning, Stamy.” Kitty held out her hand. “I brought apples for the horses.”

Stamy set the wheelbarrow down to snatch them up. “T-thank you, m-miss. They’ll b-be enjoyin’ these.”

“I am certain they will,” she said, struggling not to smile. Kitty had no delusion that any of the treats she brought for the horses ever got farther than Stamy’s mouth. Which mattered not at all, for her true purpose was more gossip. An endless stream was required were she to have enough ideas to supply good material to the papers. “And how are Papa’s horses today?”

“H-hale and h-hearty, m-miss. Hale and hearty.”

Kitty nodded. “And how is your gram?”

Stamy’s grandmother was who everyone thereabouts went to with their ailments, large and small. That was, everyone who couldn’t afford Mr. Jones, the local apothecary, which was most of the populations of Longbourn, Meryton, and the nearby holdings of Lucas Lodge and Netherfield Park. From Stamy, Kitty regularly learned a great many secrets.

As he prattled on, spilling confidence like rain, Kitty filed them away for entry into her journal. Not that she would use anything she learned specifically. She simply required gossip for inspiration. Not only would it be wrong to share their community’s private doings with all of London, the papers to which she sold weren’t read by many who would care if Mr. Goulding’s knee was acting up, or if Missy King hated her freckles so much that she’d sought a tonic to be rid of them, and had to apply sour smelling oil to her face twice daily.

After she’d gleaned all she could from Stamy for the morning, Kitty wandered off to one of her favorite places, a half ivy covered stone bench. One that happened to sit right below the window of Mrs. Hill’s little workroom off the kitchen. Mrs. Hill, Longbourn’s housekeeper and well-regarded by the community in general, often had the very best gossip brought right to her.

Today, however, all Kitty could hear inside Mrs. Hill’s room was the scratch of a pen as she went over accounts. Disappointed by the lack of chatter spilling out, Kitty set to entering everything Stamy had told her into her journal. Beneath her entry about Mary King, she sketched a young miss with very smooth skin, but with gentlemen behind her holding their noses, their eyes watering from the smell.

But what caption to put? And for how long would Kitty need to wait before sending such a sketch to make certain Miss King had no notion the caricaturist alluded to her? Kitty had no desire to humiliate Miss King, or to have her work traced back to her.

Footfalls approaching the door to Mrs. Hill’s room drew Kitty from her thoughts, and she stilled as one of the kitchen maids said, “Mrs. Hock to see you, ma’am.”

“Mrs. Hock? So early?” Mrs. Hill asked.

“She says to settle this week’s accounts.”

“That husband of hers must be gambling again.” Mrs. Hill huffed a sigh, likely in sympathy with Beth Hock, the butcher’s wife. “Show her in.”

In short order, Mrs. Hock’s heavier tread could be heard, and the door to Mrs. Hill’s room, generally kept open when she was at her desk, clicked closed.

“Beth, would you care for tea?”

“No time, Hill, no time. Must make the rounds.”

“Mr. Hock at it again?”

“I tell you, the man’s not worth the effort it takes to feed him.”

“Well, let me get my ledger. Mrs. Bennet has not been entertaining much in this heat, but I am certain we owe something, and I can always pay for next week’s order now.”

“That would be mighty generous of you, Mrs. Hill.”

“Think nothing of it.”

Kitty pressed her back to the rough stone of Longbourn as Mrs. Hill rose within, praying the housekeeper didn’t pause to take in her view. After what seemed an excessive amount of shuffling about, while Kitty held her breath, Mrs. Hill’s chair creaked as she sat.

“Let us see what we have here,” Hill said.

Low muttering followed as Mrs. Hill did her calculations. Finally, there came the sound of a key clicking in a lock, then a drawer sliding open, then another key.

“Here you go, Mrs. Hock. This week’s and next’s.”

“Are you certain? Perhaps Mrs. Bennet wants something finer for next week’s meals?”

“You know Longbourn supplies most of its own meat.” Mrs. Hill’s voice held apology. “And try not to worry overly. Rumor has a gentleman touring Netherfield Park later this week. He could take up residence this autumn, they say. Surely, not only Mrs. Bennet but many of the local families will require your services to entertain anyone wealthy enough to lease the place.”

A gentleman might lease Netherfield Park? That wasn’t caricature worthy, but was certainly interesting.

“I’ve heard the same, but I can’t be counting my chickens, Hill.” A long sigh sounded. “I almost wish I had a heart for bribery, I do.”

“Bribery?” Mrs. Hill sounded offended.

“Not you, Hill. Not you. The whole village knows you aren’t the sort to be bought.” Silence hung in the room at Kitty’s back, pregnant with question. “It’s Miss Long, the younger,” Mrs. Hock finally whispered.

“What of her?” Mrs. Hill asked, her tone equally quiet.

Kitty strained her ears.

“Rumor is, she’s to take a trip to Wales soon, to visit an aunt.”

“No,” Mrs. Hill exclaimed. “The younger, you say? Is she not recently turned fifteen?”

“I was married at fifteen, for all the good that’s done me.”

“And she will go to visit an aunt, not Granny Smith?”

“The girl won’t have that. Says it would be a sin.”

Another silence, while Kitty worked the puzzle of what wasn’t being said. She’d known several young ladies to go to visit aunts in Wales, and those visits were always long. A year, even. How would a visit to Granny Smith curtail such a trip, though?”

“Well, at least she was raised somewhat right.” Mrs. Hill’s voice held a hard edge. “Who is the father? I will ensure he does not come around here.”

Father? Kitty frowned.

“She won’t say, to be certain, but everyone knows it’s Willy Steeple, the vicar’s son.”

“I never did like that boy.”

“’Tis what comes from having a father so dedicated to our lord and to his flock that he has no time for his own children,” Mrs. Hock said in the tone of a well-rehearsed phrase.

“It certainly is.” After a moment’s pause, Mrs. Hill added, “I can only be grateful it is not our Lydia on her way to Wales. She is a forward one, that girl, and speaking of neglectful fathers…” Mrs. Hill trailed off.

Kitty’s eyes went wide as their full meaning came to her. Willy Steeple had got Penelope Long with child, and she would not be rid of the baby, but would instead spend a year in Wales. Kitty’s mind leaped to the smattering of women she knew who had ‘visited Wales.’ Did everyone know what that meant? Was that why, when those women returned, her mama was always less friendly with them? Come to think on it, the few Kitty knew of who’d taken such trips had married poorly in other villages and moved away.

Now that was caricature worthy, and would definitely delight the London crowd. Kitty grinned. Inside the room, chairs scraped as the two women stood.

“Kitty, what are you doing there?”

Her head snapped up. Elizabeth strode free of the mouth of a path that led both to Lucas Lodge and to Oakham Mount. She’d obviously been on one of her morning walks.

Pretending to drop her journal as she stood, Kitty used the excuse to crouch low as she moved away from Mrs. Hill’s window. She didn’t dare straighten until she was farther out into the yard. Hopefully Elizabeth wouldn’t note how awkwardly Kitty fled Mrs. Hill’s window.

Reaching her sister, Kitty opened to a rather horrendous drawing of the large oak that even now shaded her and Elizabeth. “I wanted to try the oak from a different angle. Is it not splendid?” She thrust the drawing at her sister.

Ever since Kitty had seen a call for caricaturists in one of Papa’s papers, applied, and been accepted, she’d decided that any work she showed her relations must be as dreadful as possible. That was the best way to hide her secret…that she was the caricaturist K. B. Hert, an increasingly popular and sought for crafter of mockery of country life who Londoners had come to adore.

“Ah, it is, um, better than your last effort,” Elizabeth said kindly.

Kitty beamed at her. “Do you think so? I could give it to you when I am done, for your and Jane’s room?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you. But do not rush your work on my account.”

Kitty continued to smile, for the drawing truly was dismal. “That is, unless Mama wants it to hang in the drawing room.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, you offered it to me first. Jane and I will have that lovely tree for our room.”

Tipping her head to the side, Kitty pretended to think that over, though she wouldn’t be so cruel. Elizabeth would not be required to feel the embarrassment of visitors seeing Kitty’s work, or the torment of having the tree in her room. Kitty would, being known as one of the frivolous Bennet sisters, forget all about giving Elizabeth the terrible tree. It was the least Kitty could do to repay her sister’s kindness. “You are correct. Mama will simply have to wait for me to finish another work before she may have one for the drawing room.”

Elizabeth’s shoulders relaxed, her smile returning. “Should we go in for breakfast?”

Kitty nodded.

They fell in step, going into the breakfast parlor, where they found that Mama and Lydia had yet to put in an appearance. Mr. Bennet was there, however, with his paper before him, as were the other two of Kitty’s older sisters, Jane and Mary. Along with Elizabeth, the others soon fell into a conversation about something war-related Papa read aloud, freeing Kitty to plan her next caricature.

Sheep would be good. Everyone associated Wales with sheep. And a baby, of course, and if she made the baby a bit longer than a baby ought to be, well, that would be a private joke only for her. Surely, no one would take note, and poor Penelope Long wouldn’t ever realize the caricature pertained to her.

But one drawing would not be enough, for she had promised two different London papers new submissions. Perhaps a cartoon of a gambling pig…but what caption would make that amusing to Londoners? She shook her head. No, she needed to hear more. She would suggest a walk to the nearby village, Meryton, to Lydia. Kitty could argue with her younger sister about how Lydia bought too many ribbons, and took far too long to pick them out. That would give Kitty a reason to storm out of the shop, and see her younger sister take a frightfully long time to make her choices. All the while, Kitty could skulk about the village, listening at windows. She knew all the best places to overhear gossip.

Smiling at that solution, she set to composing her sheep in her mind.

“What is so amusing, Kitty?” Mary asked.

Startled, Kitty turned to her. “I beg your pardon?”

“You were grinning.”

“Was I?”

“You were.”

Kitty shrugged. “I wonder what I was thinking about?”

“You do not know?” Elizabeth asked with a laugh.

“I imagine I did know.” Kitty kept her eyes wide as she spoke, trying to appear slightly confused. “But now I have forgotten.”

Mr. Bennet snorted, raising his paper.

“It seems as if we will have another lovely day,” Jane said brightly.

Kitty nodded. Jane always sought to keep the peace, a quality Kitty greatly appreciated in her eldest sister. Jane didn’t mock like Elizabeth could, or pester and poke as Mary did. Kitty’s eldest sister was also stunningly perfect in appearance, with glowing skin, cornflower blue eyes, and the sort of lovely blonde locks depicted on princesses in fairytales. It baffled the mind to find that, at two and twenty, Jane was yet unwed.

Mrs. Hill’s words returned to Kitty and she turned her gaze to her father. Rather, to the paper he held like a shield between him and his daughters. Was Mr. Bennet neglectful? Were they fortunate that Willy Steeple hadn’t set his sights on Lydia?

Sadly, Kitty felt Mrs. Hill might have the right of it.

Well, she would watch over Lydia. If Willy Steeple, or any other gentleman, tried their wiles on Lydia, Kitty would stop them. That was what older sisters were for. That decided, she returned to composing her sheep, and to wondering when Mama and Lydia would join them, so Kitty could make her excuses and return to her room. While Lydia ate breakfast would be the perfect time for drawing sheep.