Page 17 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)
“La! But Papa, I am nearly sixteen. Please, please, please, please ! Just one assembly — while the officers are still here.” Lydia sighed. “The officers are all so handsome.”
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 even when you 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 — and parties , and balls, and officers .”
“While I appreciate the palindrome,” Papa replied. “The answer is yet no.”
“Why did you have to keep me at that boring school 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 want fun !”
“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. Maybe we 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 to balls !”
“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 dinners here ! 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.”
“Perhaps I could 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 a ball .”
“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.”
Mr. Bennet laughed. “Be honest with me, do you ever regret him?”
“Mr. Collins? Not once — I only am surprised that Charlotte could make such a choice. But I cannot judge her harshly. Quite likely if I had a dowry of only a bare two thousand pounds, I would have leapt upon his offer as the only eligible one likely to come my way.”
“No. I am confident that you never would have.”
“You think,” Elizabeth asked Papa, “that the possession of money has such a small influence upon my character?”
“It has not had a large influence on mine . I merely reason from myself. There is still nothing I love so much as reading, thinking about mechanics, and my daughters.”
Elizabeth smiled and embraced Papa.
“I will miss you very much, while you are in Kent.”
“And I you, Papa.”