Mrs Bennet was fixated on one thing and one thing only. That her youngest, Lydia's name would be the one reaped from the glass bowl:
'Oh my poor dear Lydia! Oh my own darling girl! What am I going to do?'
Oh how Mrs Bennet's voice shook and no matter what anyone said, the thought that Lydia would be the name out of the proverbial hat was impossible to shift.
'There there mama' soothed Jane. 'Consider, it is a very small chance! It will likely not be her!'
A cold wind was picking up, flipping Mr Bennet's pages of Tom Jones.
'It is odd my dear'- said Mr Bennet giving up and finally closing his copy of Fielding after carefully inserting his bookmark- 'that you do not appear to have any thought whatsoever for the other four girls, or indeed yourself, or, most staggeringly of all, your husband!'
Mrs Bennet, unmoved, continued to wax and wain about Lydia ruining her new wedding wardrobe in the Hunger Games. The fine muslin from Forbes. The wedding shoes... Mrs Bennet was quite alleviated of whatever tentative form of self control she once possessed and howled like a Labrador.
Caroline Bingley stood up on the makeshift stage set up between the ribbon shop and the assembly rooms that reminded one of a sort of gallows. The beak of the swan hit her nose quite hard this time and she batted it away several times.
It hit her again as she launched into her speech: the history of The Hunger Games, the reasoning behind it.
Some actors had been assigned to illustrate and illuminate her passionate words:
'Is that Denny and Sanders?' gasped Kitty.
'About one year ago' sang out Caroline Bingley's received pronunciation, 'the most honorable Lady Catherine De Bourgh of Rosings Park, was leafing, of a Sunday afternoon, through a heady tome in Rosings Park library.'
'Here, here' exclaimed Mr Bennet '
This was met with a cross look from a few of the militia who had gathered around the assembled gentry, and surely that wasn't somebody doing something with a rifle?
'The sad truth about all our pasts' continued Caroline, 'was revealed to this eminent lady that Sunday. That a war was fought - a long war with err... France' Caroline improvised feebly. 'The result of this..... war' said Caroline, her pink coat lifting slightly in the cold wind. 'was the........ the Hunger Games. As a mark to honor such heroics, every year we choose a boy and a girl from every district in England....'
Nobody was really listening.
Caroline coughed and batted the swan again.
'For the girls, the contestant will be':
She made a great show, her elegant hand swimming about in the bowl of folded paper names.
Mr Collins held his breath and hoped for Lizzie.
Caroline Bingley held her breath and hoped for Lizzie wishing she'd given into the temptation to rig the whole thing.
Lizzie Bennet and Mr Bennet had similar thoughts - that this entire thing was a despotic travesty. Mrs Bennet closed her eyes and hoped for anyone but Lydia.
Out it came, finally. The little piece of paper was in Caroline's hand...
Caroline coughed again and produced some half moon legless spectacles which she perched on her long nose.
'Miss Lydia Bennett'.
Lydia's hollow laughter broke the eerie silence and exchanged looks that greeted these words.
YOU ARE READING
Tales of Disturbance
Science FictionA young teenage girl, haunted by the memories of her father's execution, attempts to escape a cruel regime by night. A solitary woman, abandoned by her husband, inadvertently plays into the cruel hands of 'the state'. In another totalitarian regime...
