Page 9 of Reckless, Headstrong Girl (Pride and Prejudice Variations #5)

HORSHAM, WEST SUSSEX

A fter two nights on the Worthing Road, Bill heroically pulled his cart containing Lydia all the way to Horsham.

Parch had stopped twice as they neared the bustle of the town to step down and ask directions.

Lydia was too dazed to do anything but limply hold the reins of their donkey.

She was starving, having subsisted for days on rations of a single potato a day, pump water, and one tiny leg of a half-grown rabbit that Parch had clubbed as it scrambled out of its hole in a fallow field.

Parch had eaten the rest of the rabbit and said she was lucky to get what he gave her since she was too stupid to be useful.

He had shaken his head in disgust when he finally realised she did not know how to skin the poor thing, and he grumbled, in his nearly incoherent way, something to the effect that he did not deserve the punishment of tending to her.

Still, he had tended to her, protected her, and had been in the act of delivering her to safety, so Lydia sat benumbed by exhaustion as they wove through the busy streets and came to a stop before a plain brick building with a black door.

She followed Parch to the door, and they, in turn, followed a porter to a small, sparsely furnished room.

Expecting to be greeted by a kind and interested representative of the magistrate responsible for Horsham and its environs, it took Lydia a quarter of an hour to finally understand that she was being signed in as a tenant in a workhouse.

“When is the magistrate coming, Mr Parch?” she asked in a fading voice.

“Ain’t comin’. This be a ’ouse.”

“Well, it might be a house, but I have never seen one like it. If the magistrate is not coming to see me, who is to come to me?”

“’Spose the keeper’ll be ’ere in a bit.”

“The keeper? What do you mean: a keeper?”

“Warden. The gov’nor.”

“The governor? The governor of what Mr Parch? Really, I do not have any idea where you have brought me!” she concluded irritably.

He sighed and said, “A ‘ouse. A work’ouse, you daft girl.”

“A—a workhouse Mr Parch?” she asked in a most pitiful voice. “You did not say a workhouse. You could not have said so. ”

When he shrugged, her heart began to pound. “A workhouse?! But, how could you?”

He shrugged again and looked at the ground. “Can’t keep ’at fed, girl. This be the Methody ’ouse. Thems not so bad as the parish, so’s I here.”

Momentarily overcome by terror, Lydia felt her knees crumple, and she stumbled towards a wooden chair.

A man in a black coat and a woman in a black dress appeared and looked down at her.

She did not have the strength to rise and only vaguely heard Parch speaking to them in a mumble before he left her for good.

“I am Mr Perkins,” said the darkly clothed man. “I am in charge of this house. This is Mrs Hart. She is the matron of the women’s wing. Now,” he said, seating himself at the table and pulling forwards a sheaf of paper and an ink stand, “what is your name?”

“Lydia Bennet,” she whispered, shrinking into her chair.

“You must speak up, girl, and say ‘sir’ when you talk to the parson,” Mrs Hart said crisply. “Otherwise, the door is there, and you may fend for yourself.”

Lydia looked around for some means of escape, but of course, none presented itself.

For half a moment, she thought she might start to scream and be hauled away to a mad house, but her stomach growled for the hundredth time that day to remind her of the simple expedient of survival.

And so, with a degree of humility she had never shown in all her life, Lydia Bennet began to answer the warden’s questions .

“I am Lydia Bennet, sir.”

“Where were you born then?”

“Longbourn in Hertfordshire, sir.”

“And who were your parents?”

“Mr Thomas Bennet and Mrs Frances Bennet of Longbourn, sir.”

“And how old do you think you might be?”

“I am fifteen years old, sir. I will be sixteen come September fifth.”

He paused. “How came you to be so well spoken? Have you been sent to school?”

“I never went to school, but my father is a gentleman, and I was taught at home. At Longbourn, sir, an estate near Meryton in Hertfordshire.”

Mr Perkins solemnly put down his pen and looked at Mrs Hart with a crooked eyebrow before saying, “You had better tell us how you came to be here, Lydia Bennet.”

Lydia, who had repeatedly relived in her mind just about every moment of her shocking journey, was suddenly at a loss for words.

She had not thought to rehearse any kind of altered version of her story, thinking—stupidly, she admitted to herself—that the unvarnished truth would be wholly believed by anybody.

Yet so far, no one believed even a word of it, and she had tried with everyone she encountered, even shouting at a decently dressed man sitting on a horse, “I am a gentleman’s daughter!

I need your assistance!” from the back of Parch’s wagon .

After a pause of half a minute, Mrs Hart felt moved to encourage her. “The plain truth, if you please, and no delay about it.”

And so, in a faltering, disjointed manner, laced with the tones of a grossly misused girl who, by rights, was owed a degree of respect, she explained her arrival at the Methodist House.

“You are a fallen woman, then,” Mr Perkins concluded. He sat forwards and began to write on his paper.

This was too much for Lydia. “I am not fallen! I was deceived and betrayed by a man who promised marriage! He tried, but he did not—he did not touch me!”

“You were alone in his company in the night after leaving the protection of a respectable house. That is your tale, Lydia Bennet,” Mrs Hart said grimly. “You turned your back on respectability and are now enjoying the wages of sin.”

“Amen, Mrs Hart,” Reverend Perkins said gravely.

“We do not always taken women of your kind, but as you claim to read and write, we shall make an exception. You may do the Bible reading before the meal, and after your table work is done, you shall teach the girls their letters. Put her in the ward with the women, Mrs Hart, when you have made her presentable.”

“But will you not write a letter to my papa, sir? Please?” she begged.

“Surely, you do not expect a gentleman who raised you to recognise you now,” he sniffed. “But you may write to him, I suppose.”

“I may? Oh, sir! I thank you. Might I use your ink and paper?”

“You are given five pennies a day for piecework, Lydia Bennet,” he said primly.

“Four pennies a day go towards the cost of your ration of meat. You are given a penny alms on Sunday, you will keep a penny every week as your wage, and if you are thrifty, you shall buy the paper you need and eventually amass enough to send your letter by the post.”

“But how cruel!” she cried, bursting into tears. “I cannot wait weeks to write to my family!”

Mrs Hart looked on the verge of a hard scold, but Mr Perkins raised his hand placatingly.

“I am not a cruel man, Lydia Bennet. You will soon know this to be true. I shall give you a piece of paper in exchange for a single penny when you have been here for one week entire, provided you comport yourself like a Christian. You may write your letter then, here at this very table, and if you continue well for the following week, I shall see your letter put in the penny post myself.”

“That is very generous of you, sir,” exclaimed Mrs Hart.

Lydia did not agree. She was weak and lost and vulnerable, and she saw her tormentors through a thick veil of tears.

“You are not required to wear a yellow dress at this house,” he added, as if this were a tremendous boon .

“A—a yellow dress, sir?” she asked with a sniffle.

“You will explain it to her, Mrs Hart,” he said with a sigh. He rose from his chair and directed Lydia to follow the matron up a dim stairwell.