Page 172 of The Long Road Back to Yesterday

Mr. Bennet rose slowly from behind his desk. “You left this house to meet a grown man alone?”

“He is not just a man. He is Mr. Wickham, and he is a gentleman.”

“A gentleman does not arrange secret meetings with fifteen-year-old girls.”

Lydia began crying harder. “Lizzy has ruined everything. He will never speak to me again.”

Mr. Bennet looked at her for a long time before turning to Elizabeth. “I confess I do not know what should be done with such a foolish girl, but we shall begin by returning her to the nursery.”

Lydia stopped crying long enough to stare at him.

“The nursery?”

“Yes. You are no longer out. You will wear your hair down as you did before your mother decided you were old enough to enter society, and you will not attend another assembly, dinner, card party, or gathering until I decide otherwise.”

“Papa!”

Mr. Bennet looked toward his wife. “You will find the gowns Lydia wore before she came out.”

“But, Mr. Bennet, she has outgrown them. Lydia has been out for nearly a year.”

“Then others will be made. They are to be suitable for a girl who is not yet out.”

Lydia's cries filled the study.

“You cannot do this to me! Everyone will laugh at me. Kitty is out, and I am taller than she is!”

“Your height has little bearing upon your judgment.”

Mrs. Bennet sank into a chair near the door. “Oh, Lydia. To meet an officer alone. What if someone had seen you?”

“That is precisely the difficulty,” Elizabeth said. “I saw her only because I happened to be sitting beside my window. Lydia has no compunction about running away when she wishes to do something forbidden. We cannot depend upon chance to prevent her doing it again.”

Mr. Bennet's expression changed.

Elizabeth stepped closer to his desk. “Papa, putting her in the nursery will accomplish nothing if she can simply leave it. Mr. Wickham is a grown man. He must be near thirty. What honorable purpose could he have in secretly meeting a child of fifteen?”

Mrs. Bennet covered her mouth with her hand and wept.

Mr. Bennet looked at Lydia, who had begun protesting again, and then at his wife.

“I have let you have your way with Lydia long enough, Mrs. Bennet. I should have acted when Elizabeth first came to me.”

Mrs. Bennet did not answer as Thomas Bennet rose to pull the bell.

When Hill appeared, he said, “Send John to me, and have someone take his place whenever he must leave his post. Lydia is to remain in the nursery. She may leave it only in the company of one of her elder sisters or a servant acting upon my instructions.”

Lydia stared at him in horror. “You are having a servant guard me?”

“I am preventing you from leaving this house to meet Mr. Wickham again.”

“You cannot keep me there forever!”

“I have no intention of doing so. You will remain under restraint until that man is removed from Meryton and is no longer a danger to you or to any other foolish girl who might believe a red coat and a handsome face sufficient evidence of honorable intentions.”

Lydia threw herself against Jane and began sobbing noisily. She lifted her head and looked at Elizabeth through her tears.

“I hate you. I hate you for doing this to me.”