Chapter 2 #2
Once downstairs, Lydia was met with the sound of Mary practicing the pianoforte in the back sitting room while Jane very painstakingly worked her way through basic scales in the music room.
She stepped into the morning room where she found Elizabeth bent over a sketchbook, looking back and forth at a bowl on the table while a thin young man looked on.
Searching for her sister Kitty, Lydia wandered back into the main hall where she was quickly met by Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, who immediately greeted her.
“Miss Lydia, your father has said it’s your time for your French lesson. The tutor’s waiting for you in the parlor.” She quickly ushered Lydia into the room and left, leaving her alone with a portly man about forty years old with a curling gray mustache.
In quick order, Lydia was sitting and repeating words the man told her to say and wondering why she was being forced to undergo such torture when she would so much rather be having fun.
She made it through the first lesson unscathed, but when she got to the music lesson, she refused to sing or play the scales the master instructed her in and stubbornly sat on the edge of the bench, her arms crossed and her lower lip jutting out.
Altogether she looked like an angry little duck.
Her father was quickly summoned and he sent her to her room, informing her she would miss another dinner and more besides, but she paid him no heed.
Lydia continued to be trouble. By the end of the third day, she had taken every meal in her room, all porridge, and while this did create some small improvement for the times she was downstairs, it was short-lived.
Mr. Bennet was forced to admit what he had ignored for so long: his youngest child was a spoiled little beast. Sighing, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and told himself to go ahead and do what needed to be done—putting it off would get him nowhere and might even sabotage the work he’d already put in.
Mr. Bennet was not in the habit of putting large amounts of effort into anything, and he had no desire to see what he had already established fall away.
Summoning all his reserves of energy and a good bit of stubbornness, he called Hill and informed him of the changes he wanted implemented.
He sent Lydia on a walk around the grounds with her sisters—she really had grown quite plump—and set to work.
Lydia’s things were removed from her room and taken to the nursery the next floor up.
It was accessed by a staircase at the end of the hall and the remainder of the floor was used for the servants’ quarters.
When each of the girls turned sixteen, she had moved out of the nursery and into her own chamber.
When it was time for Kitty to come down last year, Lydia had wailed about being left all alone upstairs and had convinced her mother to allow her to move into the second guest chamber across the hall from her sister’s.
In the end, Mr. Bennet had allowed it, not wanting to argue with his wife or his very vocal fourteen-year-old daughter.
Now he saw that he had done her no favors and that he was reaping the sour fruit of his nonexistent efforts.
So it was that by the time Lydia came back from her walk, hungry, tired, and complaining of poor treatment, she found her room locked up and all her things being put away in the old nursery, which had been closed and under sheets just that morning.
A great wail was heard through Longbourn the likes of which had never been heard before.
Lydia railed on about the injustice of it all, and Mr. Bennet did find himself sorely tempted to hide away in his bookroom, but when his youngest daughter looked at him red-faced and angry and, in the heat of the moment, cried out that he was an unfair and mean old man, his resolve instantly hardened.
How had he let her get so far out of hand?
True, she did look shocked at her own outburst and backed away slightly, but there was no excuse for such disrespect.
With great swiftness, Lydia was informed that she would no longer be allowed to visit anyone unchaperoned, not even her friend Maria Lucas, and no matter how well she behaved or how hard she studied, she would not attend family parties nor receive any kind of allowance.
She would no longer wear her hair up like a lady, but would go back to the braids and bows of a little girl.
All of her gowns would be remade for her sisters as she would now be dressing her age, and until she learned to behave like a lady, she would be treated like the child that she was.
If she could not behave, she would not even be permitted to eat with the family, ever.
Lydia was shocked into silence and when she finally regained her senses, she ran up the stairs to the nursery as quickly as she could and slammed the door behind her.
She flung herself across the narrow bed and sobbed noisily, hoping her mother would rescue her soon.
She couldn’t stand this long. She simply couldn’t.
Mrs. Bennet stood in the hall twisting her hands and looking worriedly between her husband and the stairs her daughter had just stomped up.
Normally, she would console her child or make whichever girl Lydia was fighting with give her what she wanted to shut her up, but in this case, Lydia was fighting with her father, not her sisters, and he had promised to take them to the seaside…
He had even brought Mrs. Bennet into the bookroom just that morning to ask her opinion on a house he’d received word of and inquired how near to the beach she would like to stay.
That settled it. She would side with her husband. Lydia’s wails were not so loud from the nursery and she did so want to spend the summer at the seaside.
And so the days established themselves. Each morning, the girls rose and had breakfast with the family, except Lydia who ate in the nursery on her own, then went on to one hour each of music, French and drawing lessons, though not necessarily in that order, followed by an hour of music practice.
Once a week they would meet with their father to discuss what they were reading and give him a progress report on their other lessons.
Twice a week they sat down with their mother and reviewed menus, looked at ledgers for household purchases and servants’ pay, and wrote and answered letters and invitations.
Three times a week they met Cook in the kitchen and learned a thing or two about how to prepare food, something that Mrs. Bennet did not want them to learn but that she grudgingly admitted would be useful if one of them married a clergyman or an attorney.
Of course, she didn’t think that was likely, at least not for Jane or Lydia and possibly not Kitty either, but she did admit it was a possibility for Mary and Elizabeth.
At least it kept them all occupied and out of her way for an hour or two. And of course, nobody needed to know.
Kitty had taken the news of her reduced status in stride.
Of course, that was largely because she had seen the punishments enacted on Lydia, and she had no desire to return to the nursery or eat nothing but porridge noon and night.
And though it was uncharitable, Kitty felt a certain amount of glee in Lydia’s set down.
Her younger sister had been usurping her for as long as she could remember and Kitty was ready for her own moment in the sun.
She thought her chances were good that Jane and Elizabeth would both marry soon, and then it would just be she and Mary out; she could easily outshine her very serious sister.
Then it would be a full two years before Lydia was out, and with any luck, she would be married or engaged by then.
In the meantime, not being officially out relieved her of making tedious calls with her mother and entertaining bores in the drawing room.
No, Kitty Bennet did not mind the change much at all.