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22th December 1812, Sunday

“ Lydia !”

One moment Lydia Bennet was suspended in the air, about to go crashing down thirty steps of stairs, the next, there was an arm around her waist, another around her shoulders, and she was being pulled back with such force that she crashed into her saviour, and together, the both of them fell down on their butts at the top of the staircase.

Lydia kept her eyes closed tightly and sought comfort in that familiar lavender and camomile scent that she had never quite noticed before was so pleasing.

Tears pricked beneath her eyelids and her throat hurt in an effort to stop a sob but she was determined not to cry.

This was not a very serious matter after all.

It was nothing to fret over.

All she had to do was fall down the stairs and it would all get better.

“Lyddie, look at me.” A warm hand on her face, soft except for the callouses on the tips of her fingers from playing too much piano, turned her face and Lydia opened her eyes to an identical pair staring into them, only this pair was set behind a pair clear spectacles, looking at her in a mixture of confusion, and anger, and worry, but most of all, fear, “What in the world were you thinking, Lydia?!”

Mary Bennet, as long as Lydia can remember, has always been a pedantic and pontificating woman.

She judged and rebuked and lectured and was the very antithesis of everything that Lydia was.

If she was not her sister by birth, Lydia was sure she would’ve never looked at Mary twice .

But she was her sister, and despite their differing characters and personalities, the Bennet sisters had a very innate, very fundamental sense of loyalty and love for eachother.

The kind that comes from growing up in a household with a mother too silly to mother the right way and a father too disinterested to father any better.

One look at her older sister’s petrified face had Lydia losing all her composure, her face crumbling like a waded handkerchief as she broke down into noisy sobs and fat, hot tears, lamenting the unfairness of life and the loss of her once-bright future.

“ Oh Lyddie. ” Mary murmured, gathering the younger girl in her arms and muffling her bawling against her shoulder.

In time, the two of them stood up and Mary, half carrying Lydia, walked them over to her bedroom.

Mary Bennet had very simple tastes, and her room reflected that very well.

A made up four poster-bed sat in the centre of the room with cream-coloured draperies and canopy, a dressing table was stationed in one corner next to the fireplace with a boudoir chair and a writing desk where Mary spent most of her time copying scriptures and sermons was placed in front of the window.

A sturdy armoire and a dressing screen sectioned off the rest of the room from a more private corner where a chamberpot and a washstand were stationed for her nightly ablutions.

The three oldest Bennet sisters had their own rooms, though oftentimes Lizzy and Jane spend the night in one for they had a habit of sharing confidences before sleeping each night.

Mary preferred her privacy, though, being a middle child between four sisters who had quite neatly paired up with each other, said privacy was not always voluntary and not always welcome.

It did have it’s advantages, however, like now when she was quite forgotten by the rest of the ladies of the household as they’d gone off to call on Mrs Phillips, a relation who, though Mary loved, she could never understand or accept because of her unseemly behaviour towards younger, pleasant-looking men and tendency to gossip.

She laid Lydia down on her bed, then joined her sister when it became clear the girl did not have any intention to let go.

Together, the two sisters cuddled until Lydia calmed down, Mary whispered comforting, nonsensical gibberish in her ear and stroked her hair like she was a baby.

When Lydia had finally stopped trembling, Mary pulled away just enough to look at her and ask,

“Truly Lydia, what was going on in your head? You could’ve hurt yourself. Maybe even died.”

Lydia pouted, though it was a very different sort of pout from the usual obnoxiously fussy one she wore when she could not steal her sisters’ bonnet,

“I wish I would have.” She hiccuped, “And when you find out why, you would wish it too, Mary, I know you would!”

“Wish you would have died !” Mary looked at Lydia aghast, trying to make sense of what her sister was saying, “I could never wish for such a horrible thing! I could never even think of it!”

When Lydia just shook her head, Mary once again pulled her in a hug, “Pray, tell me what is wrong, Lyddie. You are scaring me.”

Lydia stilled.

“You cannot tell anyone.” She begged, “Not mama or papa or any of our other sisters.”

It was a promise Mary did not make lightly, for she would never break her word if she gave it.

But these were extenuating circumstances, and Mary was determined to fix whatever it was, even if she had to do it alone.

“I will not tell our parents or our sisters.”

“Or anyone in Meryton! Or the Gardiners!” Lydia added quickly .

Mary huffed, almost smiled before she remembered the scene she had come to out on the bannister.

It sobered her very quickly.

“I promise.”

Lydia took a deep breath.

Pulling away from her sister, she looked Mary right in the eyes and said in an unusually quiet, unsure tone, “Mary, what do I do? I think I might be with child.”

Mary’s heart dropped.

Lydia burst into tears anew but Mary did not hear her.

There was blood rushing in her ears, and her arms around her sister felt numb and cold.

The words repeated over and over in her head, I might be with child, I might be with child, I might be with child.

A dozen verses from a dozen sermons and scriptures screamed at her.

For years, she had made a study of them.

A virtuous woman doesn’t outwardly covet the attention of the opposite sex.

She dresses with simplicity and speaks without design and she most certainly does not engage in…

in.

.

in activities that lead to this sort of a predicament!

A woman who engages in fornication is ruined both in the eyes of society and the eyes of God.

Her reputation is in tatters and her name and her family’s is blackened and no one will ever look upon that woman with anything other than disgust.

And yet-

“You do wish me dead now, do you not, Mary?” Lydia sobbed, too afraid to look anymore at her sister’s horrified countenance, she hid her face in her pale, trembling hands, “You should’ve let me fall! ”

And yet, this was her sister.

Her baby sister.

Her little Lyddie, who, before she had learned to walk and talk and become silly, had often toddled over to Mary with her arms outstretched and her lips turned up in a wide smile.

This was not a woman condemned but an ignorant, innocent soul and for all the years she had spent shaming Lydia’s overly-flirtatious actions and irregulated manners, Mary did not doubt for a moment that her little sister was a victim.

Someone who had been taken advantage of.

Someone who now needed comfort and love and above all, protection.

She gently pulled Lydia’s hands away from her face.

Lydia looked up at Mary with scared eyes and blinked when she found nothing in them but a very grim determination to set everything to rights,

“You must tell me everything, Lyddie.” Mary said seriously, “From the very beginning.”

And so Lydia did.

From the beginning of her acquaintance with Mr Wickham, she shared her every interaction with that man with her sister.

Their flirtations, his charming manners, his singular attention towards her and then later, his promises, and his declarations of love, most of which were made in the heat of passion, but Lydia had believed him anyway, like an idiot!

“Have you told him about your condition?” Mary asked her tightly, trying to calm herself so as to not shake Lydia by her shoulders for her stupidity.

How she could give her virtue to a man she had only met a few of months ago, who was a veritable stranger to them then and who they now knew was a blackguard through Lizzy and Mr Darcy’s accounts, was beyond her understanding, “Will he marry you?”

Lydia shook her head, “I did tell him. He said he would not.” She wailed, “He said I am too loud and poor and only passably pretty! ”

Mary sighed, but dutifully pulled Lydia back in her arms.

She was not quite sure, despite the drastic action her little sister had been about to take, that Lydia understood her mistakes, or if she even repented.

Lydia was not yet sixteen, and in more ways than less, was very much still a child.

Perhaps with time and proper attention, Lydia would have grown into a sensible woman, but now with a babe on the way and no husband whose name she could take, Mary feared for her sister, for her very silliness and uncaring attitude that she thought made her so attractive could very well become her noose.

Another, much larger part of her was furious- not at Lydia but at Mr Wickham.

With what selfishness and daring had he ruined the life of a gentlewoman!

With what nerve and negligence had he then refused to take responsibility for his actions!

What kind of an evil man lived in their midst even now, brandishing himself in clothes of men who had sworn to protect them!

Mary had promised her sister to not say a word to her father, but she now realised that even if she hadn’t made such a promise, Mr Bennet was not the right man to go to for help.

He would get angry on his daughter's behalf, maybe even call Mr Wickham out, but he did not have the kind of leverage needed to make men like Wickham do things against their will, and in the event a duel was proposed, her father would be much older and weaker than his opponent and the match would only lead to his demise.

No, Mary could not go with this to her father. She needed another man’s protection.

She needed a brother.

“Lyddie, listen to me.” She gently nudged Lydia away from her just enough so as to meet the other girl’s eyes, “We need Mr Darcy.”

Lydia’s eyes widened like saucers, “Mary, no! ”

“We have no other choice!” Mary insisted, “Father, Uncle Gardiner, Uncle Phillips, none of them can help us with this. You know what Lizzy told us. Wickham is a gambler and a rake. Even if he could be persuaded to marry you, he will demand a lot of money. No one in our family can afford it except him.”

Lydia shook her head, though her eyes were hesitant, “What if he says no?”

“He will not.” Mary did not know how she knew, but she did. Mr Darcy was an honourable man, “Mr Darcy loves Lizzy, and he is very good to me. He might be a little solemn and severe looking, but I have no doubt that he will help us.”

“But, you can’t tell Lizzy! You promised you would not!”

“I won’t.” Mary agreed, and did not bother telling Lydia that even if she did not say a word, once Mr Darcy knew, their papa and Lizzy will be the first ones to know, “I will write to him myself.”

A silent moment passed between the two sisters as they just looked at eachother,

“Do you really think he will help?” Lydia asked in a quiet voice,

“If he wants to marry Lizzy, he will.” Mary replied, “If you are ruined, then by extension, so are we all. And a ruined woman can never marry into a respectable family. Mr Darcy will not let that happen. He will save us.”

Lydia chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, her eyes wide and innocent and now shining with hope. Mary was reminded painfully of her sister as a little child, gazing into Meryton’s milliner’s shop through the display glass into all the pretty bonnets and ribbons she was always so impatient to wear. Really, Lydia was just so very young.

“Very well, then.” She nodded, “Please write to Mr Darcy. ”