Author's note: This story came to me as I was thinking of Lydia and if she was able different decisions for herself, after all if she can manipulate people to do what she wanted she couldn't truly be stupid and with a father who liked to read and improve his mind it doesn't seem like any of his daughters were idle, not even Lydia. Plus I like to hear stories of the girls being closer to each other.
I do not owe Pride and Prejudice.
Chapter 1
Lydia stared at the snowflakes falling all over her, her tears spent and the cold numbing her. It's been more than six years since that dreadful mistake as a young woman that spiraled out of control and killed more than half her family. At the thought she wanted to cry again but she was too numb too spent to do anything more than stare at the snowflakes that fell on her without restrained. She thought of her last ever conversation she had with her sister Lizzy
Two months before finding herself in an empty field with snow covering her person:
She finally made it to her parents house. Longbourne. How she wished she came for happy celebration but it was not meant to be. It was to the death of her oldest sister Jane. Lydia sigh and her tears almost fell again at the thought. They lost Kitty three years before to a trifling cold, how she wished she could have been there, her most beloved sister, her partner as children and young women, her confident. Then came her mother not even a year before, spent with the tryings of seeing her daughters, unhappy, in marriages and employments she tried so hard to not let happen. And now Jane, sweet Jane, who married a widower of three children who worked her to death and demanded children of their own. Sweet Jane who died as did her child in childbirth. It was all this that was caused by Lydia. Lydia who wanted to marry first, who lacked propriety, who thought all were as good and as willing to love her as her family. She learned very early on after her marriage to Wickham that those were fancies and her family sheltered her so much to not know the real evils of the world and the world of men. She shook herself dispelling the harshness of Wickham of his mistress of the men he kept company.
"Lydia. You have come." Her sister Elizabeth rushed out and hugged her tightly. It was then her tears came and cry she did, there was comfort to be found in her oldest sister's embrace. They broke apart and Lydia stared at her sister who became a governess not long after she married, her impertinence and the laughter in her eyes disappearing with every year. They were not supposed to be like this, they were supposed to marry … for love … for happiness.
"Come Lydia, let's go inside. I am glad you have come."
"What of Mary?"
"She's attending to the guests. We both have to leave to our duties in three days time."
Lydia nodded and let herself be dragged in the house, there were not many trips that happened in her marriage to Longbourne. Even if she was able to come, which she did not, she didn't think she would. Longbourne was happiness, was her youthful fancies and giggles with Kitty.
The day passed with the procession of Jane's funeral, eventually night fell and all the inhabitants want to bed. She found herself in the room she shared with Kitty, left unchanged by the years except for being dusted recently with her arrival. She opened the dresser and found an old bonnet. She could remember buying it with Kitty and fighting over yet. Her struggled to keep from screaming brought about a muffled cry. She started to sob. Not long she heard the door squeak and Lizzy came in immediately hugging her person.
"I'm so sorry, i'm so sorry. I was so foolish, I have doomed us all. I'm so sorry, please believe me, Lizzy. I am so sorry."
"Hush, Lydia whatever are you sorry for."
Lydia stifled another cry.
"For my foolish actions that made us arrived here Lizzy, for taking away your happiness, Jane's, for mother's death and … Kitty's."
"Lydia, dear, those were not your fault." Elizabeth said quietly and feverently.
"How can you say that, Lizzy? My decision to marry Wickham to run away with him doomed us."
"Lydia" Lizzy took her sister's face and held it "it was not your fault, we should have made more of an effort to show you the propriety, papa should have put his foot down more rather than find amusement in anything and everything especially when it came to his family. You were but ten and six, my dear, our mother pushed us to marry regardless of the person, though she did love us. It is not your fault. I love you, Lydia and I am not sorry for not keeping you away from the life you now endured with Wickham." Lizzy embraced her sister, she was skin and bones and hagarred, her joyful and rambunctious girl she knew was gone, replace by a women who looked older than her twenty years.
Lydia let her sister say what she wanted or needed to say, her heart was touched by the declaration that despite everything she was loved. They cried themselves to sleep and fell asleep in Lydia's old bed, neither wanted to be alone in the house so quiet, knowing that in the morning they would not hear their mother asking for her salts, that they would not see their father's amusement and their favorite sisters there to welcome them with their smiles and love.
Back to the field of snowflakes
"I wish I could go back, I wish I could make it write." She whispered to the snowflakes.
"Do you really?" A person was bending over her, unable to discern if it was a woman or man Lydia kept her eyes gazing at the snowflake.
"Do you truly wish to go back?" the figure asked making Lydia focus a little.
"I do." Lydia said most ardently
"I might be able to make that happen, seeing as your actions have ruined one of the greatest stories ever written."
Lydia wanted to rise but her body was too numb for such an action.
"Greatest story?"
"Of course, my dear. Your oldest sisters story would've ended a different way had you waited longer to run away with that scoundrel Wickham."
Lydia shuddered to think of her husband, scoundrel was the polite term for what her husband was.
"Would Jane have been happy in another story? Alive? What of Kitty?"
"Of course my dear, they would've been extremely happy all of them, except you my dear, your ending would've been the same, the wife of Wickham, though he would have treated you better seeing as his pockets would've been empty otherwise."
"I do not care about me, but I so dearly want to make right by my sisters. Please sir or madam, please let me go back and fix it. They should be happy, alive, all of them." Her tears started flowing again though she didn't think she had any more to spare.
"Alright, I will allow such, though your story might be altered as well, due to your knowledge of the events. Do better Lydia, after all even at a young age you have been smart to get your way."
Lydia closed her eyes, sure that the cold had claimed her, that the talk she had was figment of her imagination to relieve her guilt, to try to make it better for her sister. This was her death and she welcomed it as that would relieve her of her struggle of being the woman she became because of her young fancy.
"Lydia, Lydia, do you mean to stay in bed the whole day, sister. We promised mama we will go to town today. Lydia wake up."
Lydia smiled she could hear Kitty, her dear sister.
"Lydia come!" Kitty exclaimed frustrated now as her sister did not stir except for smiling, shaking her.
Lydia's eyes flew open startling Kitty.
"Kitty?" she asked unsure
"Yes, come on Lydia. I shall take your best bonnet if you do not hurry to dress."
Lydia stared at her sister unwavering making her sister huff and quitting the room.
Lydia stared after her and then about the room. She was back, she was back before her mistake, before Kitty … and mama … and Jane she couldn't say it out loud. Their maid came in and Lydia went through the motion of dressing without a comment which quite scared the maid into finishing early and quitting the room in haste. Lydia went down the stairs in a trance. She opened the drawing room only to hear her mother's words
"Oh, Lizzy how you try my nerves, girl. Please be mindful of your mother's weak constitution."
Lydia looked about the room and saw all her family gathered about, Jane smiling at Lizzy who rolled her eyes, Mary in a corned of the room reading, Kitty trimming the bonnet she claimed to wear to town.
Before she hit the floor she could hear her mother and sisters cry out her name in alarm.