He then squeezed her around the shoulders and added slowly, “You are young. You have not experienced the madness which passion can drive a man to, especially when they have some other cause for unhappiness.”
“I have no cause for unhappiness.”
Mr. Bennet studied her. “I sometimes think that I have made mistakes of a most serious nature in your care.”
“No, no. Never.”
“Mrs. Bennet, she has never treated you as she ought. I did not wish to see anything special made of you. Anything notable. You were simply to be a poor relation.”
“I have always been filled with gratitude. To you, and to Mrs. Bennet.”
Mr. Bennet grimaced. “You need not dissemble. You spend so much time with me because you dislike being with Mrs. Bennet without my presence. And I have seen enough to know that she is more unkind, more dismissive and more...Shecertainly thinks that you are only a poor, unwanted relation.”
“I have never, never since my mother told me that you would were a kind man who would care for me felt unwanted.”
This struck Mr. Bennet. “My dear child. My dear, dear child—” He took off his glasses, and Elizabeth thought he might have wiped at tears. “At least I have not failed in that. You remember when Amelia said that? Do you remember much of that day?”
“I remember my mother dying. I remember her shouting nonsense, and I remember sobbing. I did not wish to believe that she was dead. There was a long carriage ride, but I do not know if that was when you took me to Longbourn, or carriage from before when you took me to Longbourn, or carriage from before.”
Mr. Bennet did not say anything for a while. He stayed next to her. He also had the past before his mind’s eye.
After a few minutes, Elizabeth said, “I have so much gratitude to you for taking me in.”
“Ah, dear child. Dear, dear child.” Mr. Bennet had a serious mien, and she could tell that his usually bright spirits were oppressed. “You do not see it now, but I dare say that one day you will understand, you will look upon the irregularities of your childhood, and the way that I allowed you to be shunted to the side, into obscurity—the ways I did not fight Mrs. Bennet for your sake so often as I ought to have. No, not that. The way I did not make Mrs. Bennet to treat you as she ought to have, as another daughter—you will then agree that I made many mistakes.”
“I am not Mrs. Bennet’s daughter, why would I expect her to treat me as such.”
The cause for surprise was that Mr. Bennetdidtreat her as his own daughter.
“It always is this way with the management of children—and in many other matters.” Mr. Bennet looked out at the sunny morning that was slowly drying the puddles from yesterday’s rain. “One acts prudently to avoid a clear danger and then hefinds himself plunged into the opposite error. In the rest of it, I can accept that we did as best we could, but I only wish that I had gone to the effort to make Mrs. Bennet to treat you as her own child.”
“I have been happy, I promise.”
“You have not a character suited for unhappiness. You will find a way to be happy, even in the worst of situations.” Mr. Bennet then muttered so quietly that Elizabeth was not wholly sure that she heard him. “Much as your mother.”
“Please, tell me something about my mother…and who was my father? My people? I know so little.”
Mr. Bennet blinked several times. He sat straighter. His usual manners returned. “You remember so much, but not who your father was?”
“Should I? I do not. I think I remember Mama saying that he was no one.”
The only man before Mr. Bennet that she remembered was the man one who had beaten her. That man had been familiar. She had been shocked to feel his fists on her. She had not known what she had done wrong. He had been present in other extremely early memories. Fragments of living somewherebefore.
That man always looked at her with a cold frown.
Hecould not have been her father. That made no sense.
“That is good,” Mr. Bennet said after some thought. “I do not want you to know yet. It is best—”
“I want to know!”
The shout shocked Elizabeth as much as Mr. Bennet. “I deserve to know.”
“Not yet. Oh, Lizzy, I wish I could answer you. In time.” Mr. Bennet sighed. “You know as much as you ought at present. I shall tell you all when you reach your majority—” He rubbed athis face. “I see your unhappy expression. I would not enjoy being ignorant either. But this is as it must be.”
“Why? Why? They belong to me. I belong to this knowledge. I already know the worst of it. Why not tell me everything?” Elizabeth felt strange anger towards Mr. Bennet, the man who she considered in her heart as her true father. “Whynot?”
“This is one of those unfortunate circumstances,” Mr. Bennet said, oddly pleased by her anger, “where to reveal the cause for which a secret is hidden is the same as revealing the secret.”
