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.

~