Bennet was living the saying ‘decide in haste, repent at leisure.’ He had been caught by a pretty face and was married before he had discovered that they were not at all compatible. There was no industry in crying over spilt milk.
“Mr Bennet, Mr Bennet!” Frances Bennet, called Fanny by all, exclaimed after she had thrown the door to the study open without knocking. “Hattie tells me that Frank is showing Netherfield Park to one who may purchase it. How wonderful that will be for Jane!”
Frank and Hattie were Mr and Mrs Phillips. He was the town’s solicitor, and she was Fanny’s older sister.
“As Jane is not out, how will this be good for her? For that matter, even if she were out, it would be meaningless for her,” Bennet stated evenly.
“Surely you will allow me to put her out now that someone is looking at purchasing Netherfield Park,” Fanny insisted. “They will have a son who will marry Jane! Mistress of Netherfield Park, how well that sounds.”
“Mrs Bennet! Cease babbling this instant,” Bennet commanded. “Firstly, I will not be moved. None of our daughters will come out until they are, at the very least, seventeen. Jane will be fifteen in January, so beyond that date, she has two years before she will come out.” Seeing his wife was about to launch a tirade, Bennet stood and leaned on his desk. “Mrs Bennet! Not another word. Jane will not be out now, as none of our girls, especially not your favourite Lydia, will come out before the age I have decreed. This discussion is over.”
Fanny knew enough not to try to gainsay her husband when he spoke with finality. She had to have her daughters married, and preferably to rich men, to save them from the hedgerows since He had not deigned to allow them a son. She would try again when Mr Bennet was in a better mood.
As she had not been born a gentlewoman when she married Thomas, Fanny did not know how to act as one nor what the duties of an estate’s mistress were. The problem was that beyond being a hostess; she refused to learn anything else. When she was told that the mistress visited tenants, worked in the still room and oversaw the many aspects of the home farm, including the dairy and chicken coop, she announced that she was not a peasant and would not lower herself to do any of that.
It was one of his failings, which Bennet openly admitted. Instead of being in a snit when he discovered that Fanny was not who he hoped she would be, things he should have known before proposing to her, he should have insisted she learn herduties and taught her the ways of a woman gently born. Instead, Bennet ignored the problems.
His apathy changed as soon as Jane was born in January 1788. He realised he needed to provide for his girls, even if he never had a son. He took Fanny’s dowry of five thousand pounds and added it to seven thousand pounds he had remaining from his legacy—his father had left him ten thousand pounds, which he initially spent some on books and port—and turned the twelve thousand pounds over to his brother-in-law, Gardiner. In addition, he reversed the trend of shrinking income from the estate and put his wife on a strict budget. The income was approaching three thousand five hundred pounds, and Bennet was sending close to two thousand pounds to Gardiner each year to add to his growing investment account. As part of his resolve to plan for the future, Bennet had built a dower house.
When Lizzy, then Mary, Catherine—he refused to call her Kitty as it sounded like a name one would give a barnyard cat—and finally Lydia had been born and there was no male child among them, his decision to begin saving for the future had been proved a very wise one. The one area where he deferred to his wife was the girls’ education—especially the youngest two. Rather than employ a governess, he allowed each girl to learn as much or as little as she wanted. Jane, Lizzy, and Mary, who was going to be eleven, wanted to learn as much as they could, and all three spent time with the Gardiners, where they learnt how to behave like ladies from Aunt Maddie.
The youngest two, Catherine, nine, and Lydia, seven, were taught by their mother and did not show interest in expanding their education like their older sisters. Unfortunately, where Lydia led, Catherine followed.
His wife knew nothing of the large amount he had growing with her brother, and he intended to keep it that way. The last thing he wanted was for Fanny to think there was more money to waste. He had convinced her that due to falling income, what he allowed her for the household budget was all she would receive. It had taken her exceeding the budget twice, and his refusing to make up the difference for the message to sink in.
As intelligent as he was, Bennet had never understood that had he told his wife that her and their daughters’ futures were secure even if the girls never married, he would have settled her nerves associated with the entail and banished her fear of ending up in the hedgerows when he went to his final reward.
He also had not mentioned to his wife that he was fully aware that there was interest in purchasing Netherfield Park for two reasons. Firstly, when his very good friend, Phineas Morris, inherited a much larger estate in Devonshire, he had agreed to sell the land that originally belonged to Longbourn back to Bennet, and in exchange, Bennet had undertaken to keep an eye on Netherfield Park for his friend.
As such, his brother-in-law Phillips had informed Bennet that a Mr Hurst was interested in purchasing the estate, and his son and daughter-in-law were the ones coming to inspect it. Bennet was sure it was the same couple who he had met at Gardiner’s office—the people who had thought they wouldschoolLizzy at chess.
He supposed that his penchant for having sport at his wife’s expense had stopped him from telling her of his prior knowledge and that he knew that there were no single Hurst men available. He was to be there to meet them with Phillips,hence, as Lizzy seemed to enjoy Mr and Mrs Hurst’s company and Jane had also met one of them, he intended to take his two eldest with him. It helped that the two, often with Mary’s assistance, made visits to Netherfield Park’s tenants, so they would be able to answer possible questions from the Hursts arriving on the morrow.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The next day, while the family broke their fasts, Bennet informed his wife that the carriage was not available for her to make calls on her friends. To stem the rising hysteria his wife was displaying at being denied, Bennet told her why he needed the conveyance and that Jane and Lizzy would accompany him.
“You are such a good father; you are putting Jane out so she can meet the man she is to marry, but why must you take Lizzy to distract him with her talk of books and such? Fanny demanded.
“Mrs Bennet, the man who is thinking of purchasing the estate has one married son,” Bennet related. “Nothing has changed, seventeen is the local coming out age.”
All of the wind went out of Fanny’s sails. “Then why do Jane and Lizzy need to accompany you if it is not to meet an eligible man?” She asked confusedly. She could not fathom a reason Mr Bennet would want her daughters to accompany him.
“That is simple, Mrs Bennet,” Bennet replied. “Unlike you, who has refused to learn the duties of an estate’s mistress, Jane and Lizzy have been trained in those duties, and Mary is beginning her lessons. The couple we are meeting with will have questions about the tenantry at Netherfield Park. Seeing that Jane and Lizzy call on them, they will be able to answer enquiries about past interactions with the tenants.”
“Especially Lizzy,” Lydia chirped. “She never forgets anything.”
“Be that as it may, we will depart after the meal and make for Netherfield Park.” Bennet turned to his eldest. “Janey, have you gone over the ledgers from that estate to make sure there are no errors?”
“Yes, Papa, I have. I only found one small mistake, which I corrected,” Jane replied.
“Jane, I explained to you that it will do you no good for others, especially men, to know that you have been cursed with the ability to be better at maths than boys and men,” Fanny insisted.
“And Mrs Bennet, have I not told you that the abilities Jane has is a blessing, not a curse? Once she comes out, if a man is intimidated by her abilities, he does not deserve her.” Bennet looked at his wife pointedly. “Most men do not appreciate a woman hiding her true self from them during courting.”
Fanny had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Janey and Lizzy, once you have eaten and before we leave, come see me in the study.” Bennet stood, folded his newspaper, and left the dining parlour.
