The Problem that is Lydia Bennet
Lydia was always such a headstrong child. There was a streak of something wild in her, hidden behind all the sniping over ribbons and semi-vicious gossip. That wildness. It might have served her well had she been born in streets of mud, but here, it made a strange sort of bitterness rise at the back of ladies' throats.
The housekeeper had come into service at Longbourn when Lydia was only six. She had been a pretty girl, but never doll-like, as some children are—somehow, her bright impish eyes forbade that very thought. She was perceptive too, fastidiously choosing the most ornate dresses and ribbons so that she might draw a laugh from Mr. Bennet, who otherwise had eyes for only Elizabeth and Jane. And how Kitty had followed her, like one cat trailing another…
"Everything is in order, I trust?"
Startled, the housekeeper blinked rather stupidly. "Yes," she says at last.
"You are thinking of Miss Lydia, I daresay."
"There is no use denying it. Yes. She is gone. That is, she has eloped with Mr. Wickham."
She thinks of Mr. Wickham. He didn't have a cat's eyes, but rather a snake's. He spoke charmingly, but always, as he looked at you, his head would tip a little to the side, and his fingers would move as though he were waiting for you to put down your card, so that he could lay his trump over it.
"Miss Lydia is a silly girl," the butler says, examining the trays laid out with dinner, "no doubt she'll realise the folly of it."
"I think not."
As she steps through the kitchen to the garden, the wet earth sucks at her shoes, and she remembers the laughing Lydia chasing her elder sisters through the dirt, the hem of her dress dragging carelessly. She feels, suddenly, an unreasonable gasp of sorrow and pride.