"Come, Lydia, we'll have Sally help and you'll be out of this dress in no time. A cup of tea and I daresay..."

"Wickham said I was not pretty. He said Denny would be better off married to Mary."

"I'm sure he didn't mean it that way."

"To Mary, Jane!"

"We'll wait for the tea and then..."

"Who would prefer Mary to me?"

Any man of sense, was the first thing that crossed Jane's mind, although she had enough command of herself to not say it aloud.

"What did he mean about the children?"

"What children?" Jane asked bewildered.

"Wickham said..."

"Mr. Wickham, Lydia, You should not imply a closer connection to him than we have."

"Nobody cares, Jane! I don't care and neither does my mother."

"You don't mean that, surely!"

"Well, I don't! What did he mean about the children? And the horses? I couldn't make out why they were laughing."

Now Jane remembered. But how to explain such a thing to her youngest sister? Lydia was a little more than a child. For all Jane's goodness and honest desire to never rush to judgment, she knew full well that Lydia should not have been out in society.

Lydia was a child still, this thought circled again and again through her mind until she felt faint. How to even explain the meaning of a grown man's words to a child?

The more she thought, the more angry she felt. Angrier and angrier until she didn't know if she would ever come out on the other side. What was she to do?

What could anybody do?

"Do you believe Mr. Wickham spoke the truth, Mary? Am I prettier than Lydia? Though he was cruel to warn off Mr. Denny from offering for her."

"A woman's reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex."

"Yes, yes, but what does it mean?"

Mary sighed. She should use simpler words with Kitty. Here there was an opportunity to steer one of her sisters on the right path.

"It means that the officers took note of our sister's behaviour and they found Lydia wanting."

"Wanting? How can it be? They were flirting with her!"

"Because they are undeserving. We should be wary of them and work to maintain our reputations."

"How are we to find a husband then, if we do not flirt? Jane is everything proper and she is beautiful and Mr. Bingley left her."

"I - I do not know."

There was no time for more talking as both of them were required to assist with the guests. In any case, they both needed some time to think of what happened earlier.

It was hard for Mary to admit, but Kitty must be right: they already had proof that not flirting resulted in suitors turning away from them. Jane lost the very amiable Mr. Bingley and she lost Mr. Collins. He was not very clever, certainly not as clever as herself, still, she could not but be impressed by the solidity of his reflections.

For herself Kitty was in even greater turmoil. It was obvious now that some of the jokes the officers sometimes made were at her sister's expense. She did not want to think they were at her expense as well, although in her heart she knew that it was so. Men, it seemed, thought nothing of having their fun, but then they would laugh at the poor girls who were caught up in their schemes.

Flirting did not work and being proper and dull like her older sisters did not work either. What was she to do?

"Is she asleep, Jane?"

"Yes, Lizzy, she is finally asleep. I wish to retire myself."

"I thought we would talk a little. I don't know when I was more shocked in my entire life."

"Perhaps tomorrow? I am so tired."

Elizabeth looked again at her sister and felt ashamed. She wanted to vent her own feelings and her best friend and confidante has always been Jane. What a stroke it must be for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in a handful of officers.

"I am sorry, Jane. It is selfish of me to keep you. You must be... "

"I am angry, Lizzy."

"I understand, Jane, as I too have never thought to hear such words from those we call friends."

"They are not our friends and my anger is not directed at them."

"Pardon?"

"Oh, I know your partiality for Mr. Wickham, Lizzy. Even you must see that he has no delicacy in broaching such a subject in such a coarse manner. Making us all a laughing stock!"

Elizabeth could not dispute her sister on this, much as she did not like her words. She felt Mr. Wickham's betrayal most acutely. She had considered him a friend and she had been encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shown.

"'Tis true."

"My anger is not directed against him, Lizzy." Seeing her sister's look of disbelief, Jane even smiled a little. "Indeed it is not, you must believe it. I think I owe him for opening my eyes to that which I did not want to see. Do you know why Mr. Bingley never came back?"

"Mr. Bingley? What does he have to do with this?"

"Yes, Mr. Bingley. You once said that his sisters followed him to town in hope of keeping him there, and tried to persuade me that he does not care about me."

"I still think so, dear Jane! Nobody who saw you together could doubt his regard for you!"

"Perhaps, but I propose a better explanation for his absence: his sisters and perhaps his friend, saw he was about to tie himself to a poor woman who would bring nothing to the marriage, except her beauty, but who would saddle him with sisters that would threaten to ruin the reputation of the family. They advised him against such foolish notions. I do believe I have the right of it."

"Oh, Jane!"

"It is all because of our parents, Lizzy. Our mother cannot abstain herself from spending every penny she can on frills and dinners and our father is happy to indulge her because it gives him licence to do the same."

"You know our mother means well, Jane."

"You are defending her to me, Lizzy?" Jane smiled sadly. "She does not mean well. Our father might have married her for her beauty, but would he have done so were she poor? Would he have done so without a good enough dowry? She knows this full well - that he never would have married her had she come to him with nothing but a thousand pounds available to her after her parents died. Yet here she is, the mistress of the manor, spending what should have been our security! Our dowries were spent on dinner parties, Lizzy! She wastes it all on people who openly disdain us!"

"Jane, you don't mean that! Dearest, do calm yourself, it does you no good to dwell on this."

"And what did our father do these twenty years? He laughed at her and he laughed at us. This is why Mr. Bingley left, Lizzy. He did not want to be responsible for us in our parents' stead!"

Lydia Bennet pretended to fall asleep to be rid of her tiresome elder sister. She understood the officers were laughing at something or other, but she did not understand what that might be.

Were they laughing at Denny for having the courage to think she might bestow her hand on him? It would be such a good joke if she would be married first! Perhaps not to Denny. He was not the most handsome of the regiment or the tallest and she knew he was taking orders from other officers.

No, Denny was not whom she wanted. Perchance Mr. Wickham did her a favour here.

Or maybe he wanted to put off his friend to win her for himself? With this happy thought Lydia finally let the sleep take her.

- *** - End chapter 4 - *** -

There are some weird problems with the formatting, I'm not sure I understand how it all works. I'll get better at it in time, hopefully!

Thank you all who commented, you are wonderful!

I don't think it spoils anything if I say that this is the last chapter of what happened to the Bennets that night. The aftermath for both the Bennets and the officers, and, why not, for the greater Meryton area will start with the next chapter :)