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A s the sky brightened, Lydia peered out from her hiding place. She did not know where she was, and she was very, very hungry. She could not think what to do, but hiding here was surely doing her no good. Perhaps there was still hope; perhaps she might still find Gracechurch Street.

She got up, clutching the satchel, and began to walk again. She tried to ask for directions, but it seemed that the state of her clothing and her person made her invisible to passers-by. No one would so much as look at her, let alone condescend to give her any help.

By mid-afternoon, hunger, exhaustion and despair had combined to make her feel quite faint.

She sank down onto her heels, put her hands over her face and wept.

What a fool she had been! It seemed very likely that she would die, right here on this London street, and no one would ever know…

“Move aside, girl,” she heard. Then a foot kicked her.

She moved away and leaned against the nearest building.

As the human traffic flowed by, she began to wonder what could have possibly led her to such a pass.

Lydia Bennet, lovely and lively, who could do no wrong in her mother’s eyes, was now crouched on the pavement, hoping to not be kicked again! How could this have happened?

She recalled Lizzy and Jane frowning at her when she flirted with the soldiers…

it was wrong to flirt so, and she likely was the silliest girl in England, just as her Papa had always said.

She thought of Mary, prim Mary, who sat at her piano and quoted Bible passages.

Mary was dull, there could be no doubt of that, but she would never have gotten herself into such a situation as this!

Nor Jane, nor Lizzy…though Kitty might have if Lydia had led the way!

But it was Mama who Lydia had listened to, Mama who always praised her, not Jane or Lizzy or Papa!

Why had Mama not chastised her for flirting?

What Mama called Lydia’s liveliness, was that not just animal spirits?

Perhaps other young ladies had that sort of energy as well, but directed it in a more appropriate manner.

Lydia knew she could never be like Jane, who sat about sewing all day long, nor like Mary who played at the pianoforte for hours on end.

But she thought then of Lizzy, who spent a good deal of time walking and became quite irritable if she did not get her exercise.

Perhaps Lizzy, too, had animal spirits, but had learnt to walk them away.

But Lydia had not walked; instead, she had interrupted other people, flounced about, and paraded herself in front of others.

Why had Mama let Lydia behave so?

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.