She knew the answer the moment she formulated the question in her mind – Mama was afraid. Terrified, really, of Mr. Bennet dying before any marriages had taken place, before her security was assured. She would have done anything – anything! – to have a daughter married before she lost her home. Jane was her best hope, but she thought Lydia to be her next best hope.
‘It was not her fault,’ Lydia thought. Lydia now knew what it was to be frightened; if Mama felt like this all the time, no wonder she had pushed her daughters out into the world as soon as she possibly could, hoping and hoping and hoping that one of them would marry.
Lydia thought back over her entire life. Her sisters were wiser than she, and she had simply tossed her curls when they tried to correct her. Lydia had been misled, certainly, but had she been a wiser girl, she would have understood her mother’s motivations and corrected her own behaviour. She understood herself at last; all it had taken for her to accomplish this was to be near death, alone on a London street.
The afternoon had advanced as Lydia had considered her past. and darkness now fell. Hungrier and thirstier than she had ever imagined being, Lydia found another doorway to huddle in for the night. It began to rain, and Lydia shivered with the cold; she rummaged through her satchel and found a shawl to wrap around herself. Then she leaned out of the doorway, cupped her hands and thirstily drank the water that came from the sky.
Chapter Twelve
Three times a week?” Jane asked.
“Yes; that is what we agreed upon. But, Jane, if you do not wish to see him, then I shall send a message telling him not to come. I will support any choice you make.” Mr. Bennet was – at last – determined to protect his daughter.
“May I think about it, Papa?”
“Of course, child.”
She turned to leave, but turned back when her father cleared his throat. “Yes, Papa?”
“Jane, I dislike having to ask this, but – well, I suppose it is right for you to take on the responsibility – unless it is too much.”
“What responsibility is that, Papa?”
He sighed. “Your mother’s things are still in her room. I know not what to do with them. In point of fact, I cannot bear to go into her room at all. I thought of having Hill take everything to the parish poor-box, but then I realised that you girls might want some of her things. Certainly she would wish you to have her jewelry.”
“Oh, of course, Papa. My sisters and I will take care of this.”
“Thank you, Jane. You have always been such a wonderful daughter; I suspect I have not told you so often enough.”
Jane, shocked speechless, managed to nod her thanks before leaving.
***
“Lizzy, will you walk with me for a minute?”
“Of course, Jane.”
Once the two girls were in the back garden and away from the house, Jane told her sister about the conversation she had just had with their father.
Elizabeth said, thoughtfully, “It is good to see Papa taking a hand in things, is it not? And three times a week is as generous as anyone might expect, given – well, given Mr. Bingley’s history with you.”
“But do Iwantto see him? That is what is worrying at me, Lizzy. He treated me terribly; Mary was quite right, he has been gone a very long time and he has hurt me badly. Why would I give him a chance to do so again?”
“Because you still love him, Jane.”
“Is it that simple, though?”
“How can it not be? Jane, every word Mr. Bingley said rang with truth, did it not? Oh, you were not there when he answered Mary’s objections, saying that he had been convinced of your indifference, but if you could have heard him, Jane! He was speaking from his heart, I could not doubt it.”
“So you think I should permit the visits?”
“I do, yes.”
“But how can I trust a man who is so easily persuaded by his friend and his sisters? Why did he not ask me himself how I felt about him?”
Elizabeth hesitated, wondering how much to tell her sister, but finally decided that Mary was right; they would have all beenbetter off if everyone had simply told what they knew. “Jane, you are rather shy,” she began, hesitantly.
“Everyone knows that about me, Lizzy.”
