Page 18 of Reckless, Headstrong Girl (Pride and Prejudice Variations #5)

SECOND WARD, METHODIST HOUSE, HORSHAM

L ydia had mastered survival for the present.

She had shelter, food, a protector, friends, and well-wishers.

She was more popular in the workhouse than she ever was in Meryton, and she liked the feeling quite well.

She liked being knowledgeable and in possession of superior habits.

She liked singing after dinner for the inmates, as she cheekily referred to them, and reading from the Bible at breakfast even if it was about who begat whom.

She understood what she was reading, which was more than could be said of the other girl who had been given the job.

She had convinced her ward mates to rotate the horrible business with the bucket, to clean it out more than once a day, and to air their blankets when the weather was fine.

She had even gone to Mrs Hart and suggested that, on Sunday afternoons, the mothers with children in the wards could have the whole of their leisure time with their little ones.

When the woman looked up at her sceptically, she promised her dinner, her Sunday alms, and anything else Mrs Hart wanted in return for this boon.

“The thing is, ma’am, I cannot stand to see poor Maggie so heartbroken that she cannot see little Wyn.

Is there nothing that can be done, Mrs Hart? ”

Lydia did not know that a girl who cared about everyone around her was twice as pretty as one who cared only about her own comfort.

Her face was shining, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears; her uniform was crisp, her speech refined and precise, and her tone was respectful—gentle even—for once.

She had made a comely sort of grey cap of linen for her short hair, and her fingernails were pink, clean, and carefully pared.

In short, she made a lovely, modest picture as well as a compelling argument, and she won the point.

“I suppose you are right, Lydia Bennet. I shall speak with Mr Perkins. He is not an unkind man, and I expect he will agree. You are not to say anything before Sunday. If he agrees, he will announce the new rule after church.”

“God bless you Mrs Hart,” Lydia said with feeling. “You have made some of us so very happy by your kindness.”

She was entering into her third week at the workhouse, and she had made a place for herself.

Naturally, she could not keep memories of her family at bay forever, particularly after she had solved her more pressing physical problems. At night, she regaled her friends with quaint stories of the neighbourhood of ‘Merrydale’, but once they settled for the night, she would think of her family, and tears would fall silently down her cheeks.

Why did they not come for her?

Her recollections of herself at home were difficult to bear.

She remembered ripping a pretty scarf from Kitty’s shoulders before leaving for Brighton, saying, “I shall need this, Kitty. It suits me twice as well as it does you anyway. Oh, stop your bleating! Mama will make you give it to me and you know it.”

Was that the last thing she had said to her sister? Surely not! No, she remembered now. “You had better write to me, Kitty, but I shall be having too much fun in Brighton to write to you.” That was the last thing she said to Kitty, and Lydia shrank in her straw bed.

Remorse came, a hollow and haunting companion in the night.

She saw herself parading through Meryton as if she owned the place, saying outrageous things and making herself look the fool in a farce.

The stares she had gotten from her neighbours she had mistaken for flattering attention.

She knew better now through the experience of being sincerely liked and even a little respected.

Her neighbours looked at her as she exhibited her horrible manners because they were appalled.

The young militia officers crowded around her because she was fast and reckless, and she blushed in the dark to realise they were frequently laughing at her.

George Wickham, she realised too late, despised her from the start.

She recalled the flirtatious, teasing manner in which he taunted her to increasingly unbecoming behaviour, and a hot flush of shame rolled over and crushed her.

A well-fed cat toying with a field mouse would have had more respect for its victim than Wickham had for Lydia.

He took her with him in the coach to take her little bit of money, she now knew, and to ruin her as a mark of his disgust.

What must Mary think of her now? She probably thought nothing Mr Perkins did not think.

Mary would lament the state of Lydia’s soul and deplore her life condemned as a fallen woman.

And why should Lydia expect a charitable thought from her middle sister?

When had Lydia ever said or done one kind thing to Mary?

She had made sport of her, had called her plain, and jeered at her efforts to improve herself.

Jane, too, had tried to shush Lydia when she was at her worst, but Jane was such a lady she would never roll up her sleeves and issue a proper scold.

Her oldest sister’s natural delicacy could hardly stand up to Lydia’s loud, obnoxious rebellion, and she would retreat as if she hoped the worst of it would pass in time.

In the middle of the night, Lydia’s mind wound itself around and around, and she began to wonder, vaguely, whether she had disgusted Mr Bingley too and scared him away from Jane.

She likely had done just that when she ran giggling and hooting about with Denny’s ceremonial sabre.

The looks she earned from Mr Bingley’s sisters were badges of proof that she was wildly misbehaving, and Lydia had somehow, in those now distant days, mistaken wildness for charm.

Only Lizzy saw her as she was: a spoiled tyrant who trampled over everything she should have loved!

Lizzy must be grim with satisfaction. She had begged Papa not to let Lydia go to Brighton, and had warned her mother to stop letting her youngest make a vulgar show of herself.

How many days in the week had Lizzy tried to check Lydia’s worst impulses?

Lizzy was the smartest of them all. She knew to a penny how much her youngest sister’s wildness would cost them in the end, and now she was right.

Lydia Bennet had ruined the family name, and who would marry any of them now?

Her family had not come for her because they did not want her back, and why would they?

Lydia cried herself to sleep most nights, having come to this shattering conclusion again and again.

And in the morning, when she woke feeling small and awful, Dora would ask her for help tying a pretty bow on her apron sash, Sally would comb through her cropped head for nits, Maggie would ask her whether King George was really mad or just simple, and Carver would say, “Whatcha’ singing for us today, Bennie? I liked that foreign one.”

“The Italian song?”

“What’s it mean?”

“To be honest, Carver, I do not really know. I think it is about love because it has the word amore in every other line. Maybe I never learnt it correctly and I am just singing gibberish.”

“Pretty gibberish though, Bennie. Your turn with the bucket, Queenie. Here, let me put on yer crown, eh?” Carver would tie up Lydia’s linen cap so it looked more like an elegant calash than a pauper’s head scarf, and with a gleam her eye as she took in the elegance of her protégé, send her down to the muck pit.

And Lydia’s aching heart would ease a bit because here, at least, she was someone worth finding.