The exception to the lack of education was Elizabeth. She spent hours in her father’s study reading and learning. By the age of ten she could read and understand Latin, was beginning to grasp the basics of Greek, and was as advanced in French, German, and Italian as those five years her senior. She was an avid reader and would read anything Bennet assigned her, and then they would debate the work. If that was not enough, Elizabeth had taken to chess like a duck to water. She already was able to beat her father on occasion. In short, Bennet was educating his favourite like he would a son.
By her birthday in March past, she could alreadyunderstand the estate ledgers and would often make the entries and balance them for her father. She was slowly taking over visits to the tenants, something Jane enjoyed doing with her. When she identified a problem, as long as the expense was not exorbitant, Bennet authorised it without having to stir himself from his study.
Irrespective of their mother’s lack of knowledge regarding what was needed to prepare one who was gently bred, the older two sisters had an advantage in the form of Aunt Maddie and Uncle Edward Gardiner.
Before her aunt and uncle had been blessed with Lilly, their only child at that point, Jane and Lizzy would spend three to four months a year at 23 Gracechurch Street, with the Gardiners. Due to Aunt Maddie being the daughter of the third son of a baronet, she was well versed on the manners and expectations of a gentlewoman. Her parents lived in Lambton in Derbyshire where her father was the rector of the All Saints church in the town.
Their aunt imparted the expectations of behaviour for the gentry and, as Lizzy absorbed those lessons and matured, much to her father’s chagrin, she partook less and less of her hoydenish activities.
Although Aunt Maddie was with child again, Mary was invited to Gracechurch Street in September upcoming. Aunt Maddie was very proficient on the pianoforte so she would be able to assist Mary in her musical endeavours, in addition, as they did for Jane and Lizzy, they would provide some masters, including one for music, for Mary.
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January 1805
“Please, Papa, do not allow Mama to push Janey out at fifteen,” Elizabeth begged her father. “She does not want to be out yet; she feels that she is too young. We know from Aunt Maddie that seventeen or eighteen is the acceptable ageto come out.” Elizabeth stood in front of her father’s desk, her arms akimbo. In two months she would be thirteen and she had become the voice of her much more submissive sister.
“Why is Jane not here herself?” Bennet asked with a sardonic smile.
“You know her Papa, she is shy and she does not want Mama to know she does not want to comply,” Elizabeth explained with a huff. “It is why I am here asking you to intercede. You have to know how much Janey, who never complains, hates the idea if she said anything to me.”
Bennet knew what Lizzy said was true, however, it would lead to an argument and disturb his peace. “Lizzy, when you come out is in the province of your mother. Just like she would not interfere with estate business, I would not do the same in this case.”
Bennet felt a tinge of shame. He was not being honest with Lizzy, and she more than likely was aware of that fact, she was that intelligent. He would never have peace if he corrected his wife in this. Also, it would take much time away from his study costing him much effort.
“Does that mean you will not support me when I am fifteen and feel the same as Janey does now?” Elizabeth demanded.
How was he to answer that? Bennet took the cowardly way out, and dismissed his second daughter without an answer.
To control her anger, something Aunt Maddie had worked on with her, Elizabeth dug her nails into her palm. Tears of frustration spilled from her eyes as she made her way up the stairs to impart the bad news to Janey.
When Lizzy entered the chamber she and Jane shared, the latter looked up hopefully, but as soon as Jane saw the look on her sister’s face, her serene mask was put back in place. “Papa will not speak to Mama about the age of our coming out,will he?” Jane enquired evenly.
“I am so very sorry Janey…” Elizabeth related what their father said.
Jane did not verbalise she knew it was an excuse to maintain the status quo in the house and for her father to not have to bestir himself from his study. She was aware that Lizzy and Papa were very close and she did not want to disillusion her younger sister.
“Then I suppose there is nothing to be done,” Jane stated stoically.
“If I thought she would listen to me, I would speak to Mama,” Elizabeth asserted, "but you know Mama will not allow me to try to speak on the subject. Janey, you are one of her favourites, surely if you told her your true feelings, she would grant you a reprieve?”
“You know how determined Mama is, especially now Netherfield Park has been let again, she thinks the new tenant, who Aunt Hattie told us is single, will see me and want to offer for me right away,” Jane averred. “It is well known how she tells me I cannot be so beautiful for nothing. So no, Lizzy. She will not grant me my request if I make it, but it will hurt her if I attempt to gainsay her.”
The two eldest Bennet sisters made their way down to the parlour following the sounds of the pianoforte. Mary—at almost eleven and whose playing had improved by leaps and bounds since she had begun to visit the Gardiners—was at the instrument learning a rather complicated piece composed by Hayden, which the Gardiners had sent from London.
Now that the Gardiners had three children—Eddy was born in December 1801, and Peter in April 1804—the three eldest Bennets visited for weeks at a time, not months, and most of the time only one at a time. Even for that short time, they worked with Aunt Maddie to further their accomplishments.
Kitty who would be ten in a few months refused to go to London and the Gardiners, because Lydia, who would soon be eight, thought it boring. The fact was the Gardiners would not indulge the youngest Bennet like her mother did so she did not want to go, which meant Kitty would not either.
‘At least,’ Jane thought, ‘I have a reprieve of a fortnight until the winter assembly.’
Chapter 1
September 1812
Two men departed from Mr Frank Phillips’s law office in Meryton, riding in a large, comfortable, and well sprung travelling coach with a family coat of arms emblazoned on the doors. A guard sat on the box next to the coachman, a postilion on the lead horse of the matched team of four, two large footmen were on the rear bench, and two outriders rode alongside, one either side. Inside were two friends who, although from very different backgrounds, had met at Cambridge University and become close.
One was Fitzwilliam Alexander Darcy, called William by family and some very close friends. His estate was Pemberley in the county of Derbyshire and he was the scion of nobility, the grandson of the late Earl of Matlock, and nephew to the current holder of that peerage. Recently he had celebrated his seven and twentieth birthday with his broken hearted and humiliated sister, Georgiana Darcy, called Gigi who was not yet sixteen.
