Papa sighed as well, with considerably more frustration and considerably less delighted longing than his youngest daughter. “I am hardly persuaded that you shall be ready to come out evenwhenyou are sixteen.”
“But Kitty and Mary both came out when they were sixteen! Unfair! Unfair! I won’t have you treat me unfairly! I want officers, and balls, and parties — andparties, and balls, andofficers.”
“While I appreciate the palindrome,” Papa replied. “The answer is yet no.”
“Why did you have to keep me at thatboringschool for so long. ‘Sit up straight, Lydia. Go not bother your nose with your finger, Lydia. Memorize all these boring kings, Lydia’, now that I am done I wantfun!”
“It truly astonishes the mind,” Papa said to the other persons in the room, Elizabeth, Mama and Mary — Kitty fortunately missed this outburst as she was visiting her particular friend Miss King, “that I could send five girls to the same school, each of them taught by the same Mrs. Castle, each managed upon the same model, with the same plan of lessons and quality of companions, and yet at the end of the time at school, their personalities are so wholly different.”
Lydia groaned, and then she whimpered and looked up at Papa with eyes that were clearly intended to imitate those of a whimpering dog, “Please, please, please. Papa, please.”
Papa sighed and pressed his finger against his forehead, rolling the one spot around and around. “Lydia, you will have some chance for society, and even to meet officers. But only under the close supervision of your family and in small private parties. Here, at Bingley and Jane’s house, and at your Aunt Phillips.Maybewe will allow you to come to parties at Lucas Lodge, as they are particular friends of long duration. But no public balls, not for another six months.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh! I am wholly miserable.”
“And I am wholly unmoved.”
“Mama, make Papa let me go toballs!”
“It is quite right,” the woman replied, “that you wait a little. There is no hurry. You will have ample chances for society soon enough.”
“I’d rather die than only be able to go to dinnershere! It is so boring! And the house is so small. Papa, can we not build a big ballroom? — I would love having a big ballroom above anything.”
“No.”
“But we have so much money!”
“And I would prefer for some of that money to remain with us.”
“Papa! Please.”
He sighed. “Lydia, another word upon this, and you’ll not be able to go to parties anywhere I cannot see you. Perhaps you ought not as it is.”
She was then silent but she sat and pouted at her father with a gaze like that of a well fed dog desperately begging for food.
Papa sighed and looked at Elizabeth, “And so, Lizzy, you are planning to leave us? Chased off by Lydia’s pouts?”
“I wish to believe that I could hold the field against such — and in any case, they have been principally aimed towards you.”
“PerhapsIcould visit Mrs. Collins and my cousin in your place.”
“Papa!” Lydia moaned. “Why does Lizzy get to travel, and have seasons, and get everything when I can’t even go to aball.”
“Because you are fifteen, and not particularly sensible for that age, while she is twenty and particularly sensible for her age.”
“Oh, you just hate me!” Lydia exclaimed and then ran from the room and up the stairs.
Mama sighed. “Poor girl. I do understand how she feels — I was quite mad for officers at her age. But I did not have enough fortune to make me a prey for the unscrupulous.”
“The importance of reputation cannot be overstated,” Mary said. “Once it is lost, it can never be regained.”
“Eh, I do not think that speech matches the occasion — Lizzy, I am glad,” Papa said, “that despite her well-earned reputation, you are once more friends with Caroline.”
“I am as well,” Elizabeth agreed.
“Though it is a bit of a surprise that so soon after she settled in the neighborhood, you are off to visit your other friend, the once Miss Lucas.”
“And our cousin, my near suitor.”
