“Would you consider it?”she asked hopefully.
He smiled at her warmly.“I shall do one better.I shall plan it.”
Lydia squealed with happiness.
“To the theater we shall go, though I don’t know what they will have appropriate for a girl your age.Perhaps you would enjoy Astley’s more?”
“I do not care where we go, so long as it is in London.”
A fortnight later, in early September, Mr.Bennet and Lydia were in the Gardiners’ house, preparing for a night at the theater.Mrs.Gardiner was helping Lydia prepare for the evening.Lydia had borrowed one of Elizabeth’s gowns, as they had the most similar height and coloring, and she was practically vibrating with excitement.
“Step in, dear,” Mrs.Gardiner held the dress out and Lydia gathered her petticoats to step gingerly into the gown.Mrs.Gardiner pulled it up over her hips, then stopped.“I did not know the rest of your soul mark had come in.It is lovely.”
“What?”Lydia lifted her arm and tried to look, but her mark was in such a location that she could only really see it in a mirror.
“The flowers.They are lovely.”
Lydia turned to face the mirror and looked at her side.She could not see beneath her stays, but where they ended, her thin chemise did little to conceal the bright red flower on her lower rib cage.She gasped.
“Aunt, help me remove this.”Soon she was standing in her chemise, looking at herself in the mirror, her mouth hanging open.
“Whatever is the matter, dear?Do you not like it?”
“I do not understand.”
“What do you mean?”Mrs.Gardiner looked at her niece in confusion.
“My mark was a plain green ivy, Aunt.For nearly two years now.I looked at it in May and there were no flowers.”
Mrs.Gardiner did not ask why her niece had not looked at her mark in four months.It was clearly not the time, but she did wonder.
“So you have never seen these before?”she asked.
Lydia shook her head, staring at her mark in amazement.Suddenly, her posture stiffened.“Aunt, would you look closely and tell me if you see a name?Perhaps hidden in one of the petals or along the vine?”
“Of course.”
It was a trifle awkward standing there with her chemise pulled up and an open dressing gown, but Lydia was past the point of caring for her modesty.She was wild to know if there was a name.
“I do not see a name exactly, but it does look as if letters are trying to form just here.”She traced her finger along one of the leaves on the vine.“This may be an F, or perhaps a T.”
Lydia gasped, so surprised and happy was she.“Oh aunt!It is a miracle!”
“What has caused the change, do you think?”
“I have no idea,” breathed Lydia.She turned to the side to look at her mark in the mirror.What had been a plain green ivy was now surrounded by bright flowers.One large red one at the bottom, the one her aunt had seen, and a scattering of smaller pink and yellow flowers along the vine.Her plain mark was quite pretty now.
Oh, happy day!
The change in Lydia’s mark was all anyone could talk about at the Gardiners’ house.No one had ever heard of such a thing occurring.Mr.Gardiner was so intrigued he asked his acquaintances about it, but they had never heard of it either.Mr.Bennet sent off a flurry of letters to his Oxford friends and eagerly awaited their replies.
Lydia did not particularly care why her mark had changed, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she knew what had done it.Since the last time she had checked the mark and the day the flowers were noticed, only one thing had changed.
She had begun spending time with her father.
Perhaps it was the result of being around a man more often.Or perhaps her father’s love for her had made the flowers blossom, just like she had blossomed under his constant attention.It was a little too poetic for her to believe, but strange things were afoot and nothing could be discounted.Personally, she had a more likely culprit: it was the change in her that had done it.
She had been moody and difficult, even surly at times.She had refused to work on her needlepoint because it bored her.She had refused Kitty’s help with riding because she could not stand being so much worse at something than her sister.She had resisted Jane’s offers to help with her drawing and Lizzy’s with her music.She had pouted and felt sorry for herself because she did not have a beautiful mark and because her soulmate had not been marked first.She had taken it as a personal affront and let it color her attitude in unflattering ways.
