Disclaimer:
The story-line is mine. The rest of things are not. Is that enough of a disclaimer? I hope so.
Lydia is tired of mourning. Of course, she misses Jane, but mourning is no fun and she is sure that Jane would have wanted her to have as much fun as possible. She always wanted the best for everyone, and for Lydia that is to have lots and lots of fun.
Therefore, with their mourning almost ended, she begins to instigate the rest of the household to go back to their previous routines. "After all," she says "there is a whole camp of militia men near Meryton, and that mean new friends and new marriage prospects. Perhaps that is what we all need to get out of the gloom."
Nobody looks very inclined to follow her idea, although her mother's ears have perked at the mention of marriage. However, his father does not prohibit it, and at the next card party in their aunt's house, they are allowed to assist wearing lavender.
Lydia meets there all the jolly that has been lost in her house the last five months. She meets handsome and charming officers who are happy to see a new and beautiful face. She talks and talks, and smiles and laughs, and sometime she is too loud, but is has been so long since she has been so happy.
The next day, she walks to Meryton with Kitty, and finds some of the officers and they are so gallant and with such happy manners. She meets again with some officers the next day. And the next. Not always the same, but always happy fellows. She has her favourites, of course. Who does not? But all comes awfully wrong when one day she decides to play tag with them while they are walking by the river. Kitty is promenading with Maria Lucas and some of the less sportive lieutenants. Lydia is running away from the one who is 'it' when her foot slips in the mud and she falls to the river.
"Lydia!" Kitty screams. She runs like a madwoman to where she last saw her sister, and pushes the militiamen until they let her see. She wishes she hadn't. Lydia has fallen to the river and hit her head with some rocks. As if this was not enough, her movement has made other rocks and mud move. Her body is in an unnatural position, and she is not moving.
Just as Kitty is going to slide down the slope to look for her sister, she is arrested by a pair of arms. She kicks and screams, but the soldier do not let her go. Powerless, she sees as the other men look for a less lethal way down, and they slowly approach her sister. When the first arrives, he checks her for pulse or breath, but his grim visage shows that he finds neither. Kitty begins to weep. Her legs tremble, but the soldier is extremely gentle when he lets her down, as if she is a delicate flower. Maria Lucas, who looks scared to death, hugs her fiercely.
One of the soldiers has run to Meryton as soon as Lydia fell, and he comes back with the apothecary, a cart and some men, not knowing what he was going to find. In Meryton, someone was dispatched to Longbourn, and the father shortly arrives on horseback, followed by a groom. His eyes are moving fast, scanning everything looking for it to be a fright and nothing more, but he is met with a weeping Kitty and grim faces. He feels a pressure on his chest, something akin to what he felt with Jane's demise. He dismounts goes to Kitty. He hugs her, but she is still close enough to the slope that he can see his younger daughter's body. The militia men are discussing how to move it. The appear to agree on something, because they start to move the rocks and part of the mud which covered the body. Then, one of the men picks Lydia and he carries her up the treacherous way up. Kitty cannot look, but her father cannot refrain from looking the corpse of his youngest daughter being bring and laid into a cart to be taken to Longbourn.
Before they know it, they are all in Longbourn. Kitty believes that she cannot cry one more tear until she sees her mother. Mrs Bennet, who has been praying for a miracle, holds her living daughter and is unable to look at the dead one. Another death in the family she thinks when we have barely got over the first one. She looks at her baby daughter, covered in mud and disturbingly still, and she feels faint. She holds onto Kitty for dear life. Her other daughters go to her, and she hugs them with all the strength she is able to. Mr Bennet, who has been dispatching visitors and servants alike, comes to see this and once more joins the familiar hug, but this time it seems incredibly small and lacking. Still, he takes heart and organizes, again, a funeral and mourning for a daughter.
Although the situation is similar, it is also widely different from the other one. If of Jane they missed her goodness, of Lydia they miss her laugher. There is no more noise in the house. Only Mary and her instrument. There are no cries, no screams. Not even Mrs Bennet. Some of their friends come during the following months to see how they are doing, but it seems as if they are static. Kitty is thoroughly scared. She has seen two sisters' lives evanesce in front of her eyes, and she is unsettled when she looks at Mary and Lizzy. She thinks that perhaps if she looks at them, she will also see them die, and she cannot stand the thought. So, she is glad when she hears Mary playing or Lizzy turning the pages of her book, because it means they are still alive. She does not want to look at them, but she is relieved to hear them.
Mrs Bennet has taken laudanum for a while, following the recommendation of the apothecary, to help her deal with the edge of the pain. Mr Bennet has done something similar with the port. The state this leaves them in does not allow for much productive conversation. When Mrs Bennet receives a letter from her sister Gardiner talking about the risk of overdosing with laudanum, she stops. She does not desire to hear again the word death. She talks to Mr Bennet and he sees the point in her arguments. So, he starts to drink watered down port. The first days without their drugs of choice are hard, but the conversation flows better and more logical, and slowly the pain subdues.