As he had promised when Jane was born, when she approached the age of five, Bennet would find a governess for his children. Based on his wife’s large state, it would be at least three by then. The only open question was whether the third Bennet child would be a son or daughter.
Regardless of the entail, Bennet made sure that his estate was profitable so that he would be able to provide a stable future for his children, regardless of sex. To that end, he had worked hard to increase the income to around three thousand five hundred pounds per annum. Of that, more than two thousand pounds was profit. He was sure that had he allowed his wife to be the mistress of his estate, she would have spent them into penury. That opinion was shared by Gardiner.
As had been expected, when his father passed away, Edward Gardiner refused the law practice, so it went to Phillips along with the house attached to the offices. After Oxford, Gardiner joined a man who ran an import and export company in London. The concern owned some warehouses in Cheapside where, among other items, fabrics, tea, coffee, and spices were kept when ships were unloaded before the goods were sold to local merchants and store owners.
Within a year, Gardiner was the owner’s right-hand man. Even though Mr Daltry, the owner, did not have a flair for investment, Gardiner did and his mentor allowed him to dabble. Almost all of Gardiner’s choices paid off very handsomely. The upshot was that Gardiner found himselfmanaging investments for the business, and as his prowess became known, for investors as well.
On a visit to Bennet, Gardiner related everything regarding his new tasks to Bennet. He was so impressed with his brother-in-law’s prowess that Bennet turned over ten thousand pounds to his friend. The amount was made up by the dowry his wife brought to the marriage plus the additional money he had saved from the estate’s profits.
At the end of this year and in subsequent years, Bennet planned to send the estate’s profit to Gardiner to begin building a substantial base to care for his current and future children.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On the eighteenth day of July, her assurances that she would deliver a son notwithstanding, Fanny Bennet delivered her third daughter.
Knowing that she had no chances left with her husband, Fanny said not a negative word about the daughter and fed her as required. Her husband, who seemed pleased to have another daughter named her Mary Eloise for one of his grandmothers.
No son meant that her husband commenced his distasteful visits to her again three months after she was churched. Fanny came to dread Monday and Wednesday nights, except when she had her courses.
Many a night, she begged God to give her a son. She was certain the next time it would be a male child.
Like her sisters before her, Mary was weaned close to one year in age. Even though she had fallen with child while she had been feeding Lizzy, this time, after ceasing to feed Mary in June of 1793, Fanny still had her monthly courses. By December of that year, she was becoming despondent that she would not bear another child. That would lead to hereviction from Longbourn when hermucholder husband died (she thought the less than nine years between them made him ancient) she would be forced from her home to live in the hedgerows.
In January 1794, Fanny rejoiced when she missed her courses. For the next two months, there were no courses, and in April, she felt the quickening. On one of her excursions into Meryton, Fanny told one and all how she was carrying the heir to Longbourn: this time she related that she was positive she was right.
When she delivered a fourth daughter on the final day of September of the same year, Fanny felt great anger at the girl for daring not to be born a son. However, for her own comfort, Fanny schooled her features and fed the daughter who her husband named Catherine Beth. Thinking she was amusing, Fanny called her newest daughter Kitty.
Bennet refused to have one of his daughters referred to the same way one would one of the barnyard cats. He instructed his wife never to use that name again and use Kate. If she dared to call his daughter Kitty, she would be in the distant cottage before she could think.
When Kate joined the family, Janey was five, Lizzy was three, and Mary was two and some months. Just before his firstborn reached the age of five, Bennet employed a governess for his daughters. He interviewed several ladies, but settled on Mrs Mathilda Dudley, a young widow who had the best qualifications of the group. She was gently born and had been forced into service when her husband had been killed when he was caught cheating at cards, leaving her all but penniless. The man had been a persistent, yet unskilled, gambler, which was why he had attempted to cheat.
When Mrs Dudley had begun to teach Janey, Lizzy, whose intelligence was evident, had demanded she be allowed to join her big sister in her lessons. Both Bennet and thegoverness had agreed thinking Lizzy would get bored and want to go out and play soon enough. She had not, and had begun to grasp her letters at the tender age of three.
What was amusing was that any time Mary was near the pianoforte, she would bang on the keys. She was never happier than sitting on one of the nurses’ laps, seated in front of the keyboard. Lizzy and Janey’s love of the written word had only increased as they got older, so Bennet reasoned Mary would be a pianist.
Although he was not sure how his despicable cousin was aware of another daughter being born, after each one a derisive letter arrived. Bennet had skimmed the first one, and all subsequent epistles had been consigned to the fire, sealed.
Even if he did not have a son, his daughters would be well taken care of thanks to the money with Gardiner. The entail documents were not ambiguous about money earned prior to the next heir inheriting the estate: only money earnedafterthe date of the previous master’s death belonged to the new master.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Fanny was overjoyed when she missed her courses in October 1795. Her pleasure increased when she felt the quickening for the fifth time in January 1796. This time, ithadto be a son. Her husband had told her he would cease visiting her at night with the birth of an heir, and he would not try for a spare. That is why there was no choice but for this to be a boy.
To that end, Fanny used her meagre three pounds per quarter allowance to buy any elixir which gave the promise she would birth a son.
By her sixth month of increasing, Fanny was larger than she had been with any of her prior times near the end of her increasing. This, she assured herself, was a sure sign that notonly had the remedies she had purchased worked and she was carrying a son, but based on her rapidly expanding size, she would be blessed with twin sons.
The midwife, Mrs Sherman, was so perturbed by Mrs Bennet’s size, she did something she almost never did. She invited Mr Jones to join her for the lying-in just in case his skills as a physician were called for.
On the second day of June 1796, Fanny Bennet’s labours began.
Chapter 4
The Collinses of Collins Farm
After William Bennet was disowned, with the little money he had, he found his way to the town of Faversham in Kent.
There he met Miss Imelda Collins, whom he discovered had a dowry of fifteen thousand pounds. She was the daughter of the owner of the Wild Oaks estate some seven miles from the market town. She was not at all pretty, in fact, William would have described her as rather homely, but she had a large dowry, and he needed money.
