Chapter 14: Home Sweet Home
Kitty, Mary, and Thomas Bennet were sitting outside on the front porch when Elizabeth and Jane drove up. Kitty and Mary ran over to greet their sisters, and Mr Bennet brought up the rear at a slow amble.
Jane was hugging and kissing her sisters hello, while Elizabeth quietly hugged her father, they always had a special bond, their love for history and books giving them a lot of common ground. Elizabeth's only frustration was how her father withdrew from his parenting duties by immersing himself in work. This left her mother to deal with things, which never ended well. Jane and Elizabeth had long learned, that if it needed to be done, they would have to do it.
Mary stepped over and quietly hugged Elizabeth. "Thank you for being there for me." She whispered in her ear.
Thomas Bennet heard what she said but did not say anything if there was an issue Elizabeth and Jane would deal with it.
"Mother will not let us near Lydia" Kitty wailed as she hugged Elizabeth, stepping back she said "From the moment she saw Lydia on the doorstep with Uncle William, she dragged her to her room, will not let us in and only comes out to get food and drinks for Lydia."
"She did not talk to Uncle William; she did not even greet him!"
"What did Uncle William say?" Elizabeth asked, looking at her father.
"He said that they were on an operation and on one of their raids, they found Lydia and another girl being held captive." Mary answered, "he did not seem to know she was missing to begin with"
Elizabeth did not say anything, she would speak to Uncle William and get the details, obviously he did not want to tell her family that he knew Lydia was missing, or that she and Charlotte had approached him. She was getting irritated with her father and his lack of action.
"I need to see Lydia!" Jane announced, this was one of those times were it was best not to get in Janes way, she was determined.
They all followed Jane into the house, up the stairs. She knocked on Lydia bedroom door once and then walked in, not waiting for an answer. She was not prepared for what she saw.
It was like Lydia had shrunk, both in size and personality. She had lost quite a bit of weigh which was disturbing considering she had only been gone just over two weeks, but it was her eyes that disturbed her sisters the most. Gone was the happy sparkle they knew and loved, even when Lydia was angry, her eyes were light and expressive Now they were just dead, expressionless.
Even though she smiled as they walked in, it did not reach beyond her mouth, the rest of her face did not partake in the smile.
"Oh Lydia, we missed you." Jane literally pushed past her mother to hug her little sister. As her arms enveloped the small frame, Lydia started to cry, gut wrenching sobs that racked her whole body.
Elizabeth could see that her mother was about to pull Jane away and she reached over, "Lydia needs this, let her cry."
Franny Bennet was not happy that her second eldest daughter was ordering her around but she had to conceded, Lydia had not said a word to her since return, she had not smiled, she did not look happy to be home, she did not cry or get angry. She just sat there on the bed twisting the blanket between her fingers, startling at any noise. Even the sound of Janes car seemed to put her on edge. She did get up, twice, to check that the windows were closed and locked, even pulled on the burglar bars, then got back on the bed.
Franny knew she was not the best of mothers, her nervous condition did not allow her to be the kind of mother she wanted to be, and Thomas leaving her to deal with everything all of the time did not help. He should have gotten out there the moment Lydia went missing and hunted that wicked Charles Bingley down, and hurt him, hurt him badly – that is what Thomas should have done! Now instead she would have to look at the face of Marion Lucas knowing that her husband did what Thomas did not!
"Kitty, Mary! Make yourselves useful and make us all some coffee, and bring some biscuits, you know Lydia loves biscuits!"
Both Kitty and Mary looked at the plate of biscuits next to Lydia's bed, and back to their mother.
Kitty shrugged and pulled Mary with her, she was battling to look at her sister, her confidant; she was altered, and Kitty knew this was not a good thing. Her sister looked broken, and that frightened Kitty more than anything. Lydia bounced through life; nothing ever got her down, even when she was in big trouble like when they found John Willoughby in her bedroom last year, half naked; all she did was giggle and say it was just a lark, nothing happened. This was different, Lydia was different, and Kitty was afraid.
"Kitty, you are going to have to give her time, this is going to take her a long time to come back from." Mary said gently watching the conflict play over her sister's face. "She has been violated, perhaps not sexually, but even just restraining Lydia is a form of abuse, she is such a free spirit; we are going to have to love her more than ever now, and just be there for her. She needs to know that this was not her fault, George Wickham had not right to do what he did!"
"George Wickham?" Kitty's eyes widened.
Mary noticed that Kitty did not ask who George Wickham was, her surprise seemed to be because Mary knew who he was.
"Kitty, why are you not telling us? You were not surprised to hear his name; you were just surprised that I knew who he was!" Mary asked her sister, because besides the surprise, there was also a bit of fear.
"I cannot tell you, he told me that bad people would hurt Lizzy and Janie…and you." Kitty whispered in fear, her eyes filling with tears.
"Who would hurt us?" neither girl had seen Elizabeth standing behind them, she had come to see if she could help them with the coffees and get away from her mother.
"George Wickham!" Mary stated. "Kitty knows who he really is!"
"Does Lydia know?" Elizabeth asked, trying to wrap her head around what she had just found out.
"Yes, he told her when he came to get her," Kitty responded.
"WHAT" both Mary and Elizabeth could not contain their surprise.
Elizabeth quickly herded Mary and Kitty into the kitchen, switched on the kettle and started packing the cups out indicating that Mary and Kitty should start making the coffee.
Their father stuck his head in the door, "Everything okay girls?"
'Yes dad, just girl talk, would you like to join us?" Kitty said.
"Oh no, I value my life!" their father said laughing. He was at peace now, all of the girls were home, so he knew they were all safe. And with very little effort required from him. All that drama and to do about nothing. He decided he deserved an evening of reading, perhaps a nice glass of Merlot.
The girls waiting until they heard their fathers study door close.
"I think it is time you tell us everything, start at the beginning and do not leave anything out!" Elizabeth commanded Kitty. "He will not hurt you, or any of us."
"Okay…." Kitty started.
"Wait, perhaps we should go to Uncle William, there is more going on here than you are aware of, inf fact all of us are aware of. "Elizabeth was thinking out loud, "Lets get the coffee and biscuits to Lydia's room, make sure Jane and Lydia are okay to stay with mother, then we will say we want to thank Uncle William personally for returning Lydia to us." Elizabeth decided it was time that everyone got to hear, she could not shake the feeling that there was something bigger at play.
The girls took the coffees and biscuits up to Lydia's room, the biscuits got place next to the first plate of biscuits and ignored. But Lydia did take the coffee, smiling her thanks to her sisters, and again the smile never reached her eyes. Elizabeth felt her heart squeeze. She would give anything to heard one of Lydia's madcap ideas or even have her begging Elizabeth to give her money to buy some or another trinket she wanted.
Franny Bennet had spent all her motherly energy for the day, and now that her other daughters were there, she declared herself exhausted, and was going to lie down for a while, this meant they would only see her in the morning.
"Perfect!" Elizabeth exclaimed as soon as her mother's bedroom door close, she could have predicted this to the minute, after hearing Lydia was home. Her parents were not changed by what had happened to Lydia at all, life for them was as it always was. Their youngest daughter in who knows what emotional state and they only care for themselves. She supposed it could be worse they could be alcoholics or drug addicts but the neglect still smarted.
After explaining to Lydia and Jane that they were going to Uncle Williams to discuss everything that happened and find out what he knew, because he was obviously more involved that he originally told them; Kitty and Mary got in the car with Elizabeth; Jane had chosen to stay behind with Lydia, especially after she saw the terror in Lydia's eyes when she thought all her sisters were leaving her. Mary and Kitty assured her they would be back.
"I gave up my apartment Lydia, I live back at home now, so Kitty and I will be back later, and we can watch a romcom together." Mary hated romcom but she would endure it for Lydia's sake.
Kitty was very quiet as they drove over to Uncle William's house, Elizabeth was certain he was home, he would not have driven all the way to Hertfordshire to drop Lydia and then driven all the way back.
Mary and Elizabeth discussed way they could help Lydia, both realising there was a very long road to recover ahead for their sister.
Kitty sobbed softly in the back seat, she felt so guilty in her part of this whole mess, but she did not realised George was as bad as this.