Prologue
Fifteen Plus Years Ago…
Mrs. Fanny Bennet was doing something that she had not done for many years, if ever. She was being introspective.
Her mind wandered back to seven years ago, when she met Thomas Bennet and fell deeply in love. Thomas had just come out of mourning for his father and his older brother, Oliver, both of whom had been killed in a carriage accident, making him the master of Longbourn.
They were close in those heady days of new love—inseparable.
Thomas had cared not a whit that Fanny had not been born a gentlewoman.
That her father was Meryton’s solicitor had not been an issue for him.
Fanny fell in love with him for his wit and kindness, not because he was a gentleman landowner.
No other man had ever touched her heart.
What had gone wrong? How had their marriage devolved into a shadow of its former self?
She hated to admit it, even to herself, but the greater fault was hers.
Although Thomas had withdrawn into his study with his books and his port, she was the one who had driven him there.
He had told her of Longbourn’s entailment before they married and explained once they had a son who survived past his tenth year the entail could be broken.
Thomas’s great-grandfather created the entail to protect Longbourn’s lands from his son, who had given himself over to gambling and dissipation.
None of Longbourn’s lands could be sold due to the entail; it could be broken only in their own son’s generation.
If she did not bear a son, Thomas’s ignorant cousin, Clem Collins—or his son, William Collins—would inherit when Thomas passed to his final reward.
Fanny fell with child three months after they married.
Her first confinement resulted in a beautiful daughter, Jane Bennet.
Jane grew into the very image of her mother at the same age.
Fanny remained close to Thomas after Jane’s birth.
They both loved their daughter and were sure their next child would be a son.
Two years after their first child was born, Fanny entered her second lying in, certain she would present Thomas with his heir. She had not.
The second child was also a daughter, who had been named Elizabeth. She favoured her father in colouring. Fanny remembered how disheartened she had been after another daughter’s birth.
After the disappointment of failing to provide an heir, her now-famous nerves made their first appearance. Initially, she blamed little Lizzy for being a girl instead of a boy. Eventually, she realised the babe’s sex was God’s choice and not Lizzy’s fault.
She survived two more confinements before her current pregnancy, both producing girls—Mary and Katherine.
After each additional daughter was born, she made life even more unpleasant for her husband by constantly complaining of her nerves and by her oft-repeated calls of “Hill! My salts!” She treated Thomas to daily laments about being tossed into the hedgerows before he was cold in his grave.
That Clem Collins already had a son added to her worries. William Collins would be the end of the entail when he or his father inherited Longbourn. The fact the Collinses had an heir, while so far, she had been unable to produce one drove and increased her anxiety and her attacks of nerves.
The result had been to drive Thomas into his study to become a recluse from the world, including avoiding his friend from university, Reggie Fitzwilliam.
Thomas had changed into an indolent landowner, resulting in the reduction in Longbourn’s income from four thousand a year to less than two thousand.
The happy times they once shared were no more. Although—deep down—they still loved each other, anyone observing them now would not believe it. Fanny despised what her nerves and complaints had caused.
Thomas could have reacted differently; it was his own choice to withdraw into his study with his books and his port—but Fanny admitted her behaviour had driven him to it.
She realised she continued to push her beloved Thomas away, although he did leave his study to spend time with their daughters, especially Lizzy, who displayed the intelligence and wit of a much older child.
She acknowledged thoughts of the infernal entail consumed her every waking hour.
She did not like the sword of Damocles hanging over her and her daughters’ futures.
Her worries about being turned out into the hedgerows by the Collinses had made her into a woman she did not like, someone she never thought she could become when she married her love, her Thomas, seven years ago.
Although most in the neighbourhood believed Fanny was mean of understanding, that was not true. Fanny merely did not know how to control the anxiety and fear that gripped her; they had taken over her every waking moment.
After another moment of rumination, Fanny became resolved. She had to give Thomas a son this time! She would do what she felt she had to. She would prostrate herself before Him in the hope He would forgive her whatever transgressions had caused Him to deny her a son.
Fanny knew her labour had begun, and she soon would enter her fifth lying in. Her pains had commenced that morning and she felt a dull ache in her back, but she had not mentioned a word about it to her husband or any of their servants.
She could not bear to see the disappointment on his face if she bore him another daughter. She loved her four daughters dearly, even though she often could not understand the intelligence and wit of her second daughter.
She wavered for a moment as she thought: Should I speak to Him here, or should I go to His House? I am having pains, the walk there—although not a long one—will not be easy, but will He not hear me better in His House?’
She would walk to Longbourn’s church; she would endure what she must—no matter how much pain or mortification it cost her and no matter how difficult it might be.
Fanny was determined to ask for help from the only one who could grant her wish—God himself.
She knew there was nothing she could do to control whether she was about to birth a son or a daughter, but God Almighty could.
Cracking open her chamber door and peeking out, Fanny saw no one in the hallway. She made her way stealthily to the stairs, as best she could in her gravid state. She held onto the banister for dear life as she slowly descended, since she was far larger than her previous confinements.
Fanny took her pelisse and gloves from where they hung near the front door and donned them.
With a conviction stronger than any she had ever felt, she set out on her mission to reach Longbourn’s church which abutted the estate’s park just past the drive.
Fanny waddled rather than walked, due to her prodigious size.
She thought: Oh, how undignified I look! I am not walking like the Mistress of Longbourn but like a duck. How mortified I would be if someone spied me crossing the park!
Due to the size of this baby, she knew she was facing her most perilous lying-in yet.
The baby kicked far more than any of her previous children had, even Lizzy—and that was saying something!
The Lord above knew Lizzy had been in a constant state of motion from quickening until birth—or at least, it had felt that way to Fanny.
The comparison between her pregnancy with Jane and her pregnancy with Lizzy had convinced her Lizzy would be a boy. Her disappointment when she birthed yet another daughter had tested her faith; she wondered if that was why God continued to punish her.
She had almost rejected the baby and sent it to be cared for by a tenant for the sin of being born female, but as she held her tiny daughter for the first time and looked into her expressive eyes Fanny fell in love with her, deciding not to take her maternal frustrations out on an innocent babe who, after all, had no say in the matter.
All of these thoughts were irrelevant to her purpose now. She was sure she was about to birth a fifth daughter. She had decided as soon as she knew she had fallen with child again that before her lying-in she would beg help from the only one who could do something about her babe’s gender.
Fanny Bennet was a woman on a mission. This felt like the longest walk—waddle—she had ever undertaken, even though the church was but a five minute stroll from the manor house. On this day Fanny’s walk took fifteen minutes before she reached her destination.
She threw open the inner vestibule doors with the last of her strength, causing a booming noise when they slammed against the wall and reverberated throughout the church. Fanny knew the pastor was visiting parishioners, so at least she would not be mortified by having to explain herself to him.
Fanny shuffled her way down the aisle and gingerly climbed to the altar, where she prostrated herself in supplication to the Lord God as well as she could in her condition. She began to offer her fervent prayer aloud in her bid to beg for divine intervention.
“Please God, grant me a son. Please protect me and this babe as it struggles to be born.
If I do not provide a boy, my girls and I will be turned out by the Collinses, and thrown into the hedgerows to starve as soon as You call my husband home to You.
They will do it before my poor Thomas is cold in his grave.
“Please Lord, grant me Thy grace and grant my wish, not for myself alone, but for my husband and daughters. I swear if you grant my prayer, I will never again complain of my nerves. I will become the best wife and mother possible. Please, Lord our God, in Jesus your only son’s name, I pray for your forgiveness of all my transgressions. ”