Prologue #5
His friends and neighbours were most surprised he began to accompany his wife and his family to social events, including assemblies.
To the amazement of all, he danced with his wife multiple times, something he had not done in the years before the birth of his sons.
Unlike most other husbands at these gatherings, he seemed to enjoy his time with his wife; he did not avoid her as he had done in the past.
At the same time Bennet was doing everything he could to increase Longbourn’s income, Fanny economised as much as she could while still maintaining their lifestyle as gently bred folk.
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For many years, Reggie and Elaine Fitzwilliam had invited the Bennets to visit their estate, Snowhaven near Matlock, or their townhouse on Grosvenor Square in London, Matlock House.
The invitations were, without fail, declined by Bennet; his friends were always disappointed to receive his latest excuse.
In the past, Bennet would not make the effort to travel with his family, even to London, and certainly not all the way to Snowhaven in Derbyshire.
To maintain the connection, on rare occasions, the Fitzwilliams would stop at Longbourn when going to or returning from Town. No matter how much he liked Reggie Fitzwilliam, his oldest friend, Bennet always politely refused the invitations to visit his homes.
This changed after the birth of the Bennets’ sons.
Reggie and Elaine Fitzwilliam were asked to accept the role of godparents to young Tom Bennet, and were happy to agree.
When the babes were old enough to travel, the Bennets accepted an invitation from the Fitzwilliams and travelled to Snowhaven to visit them.
No invitations were ever refused again without good reason and many reciprocal invitations were issued by the Bennets and accepted by the Fitzwilliams. Their families grew close over the years—their connection and relationships grew to the point they felt as close as family, although they were not connected by ties of blood.
They felt closer ties than many families who were indeed related.
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Once he decided to change, to his brother-in-law’s relief, Bennet sent the express he had said he would the day after the boys were delivered.
In it, and as he had vowed to himself and to God, he finally did something Edward Gardiner had begged him to do since his marriage to Fanny—he started to invest all that he could afford with his brother.
Thomas knew Edward had one of the best business minds in the country and often berated himself that he had not invested with Gardiner and Associates sooner.
He should have done so beginning the day he married Fanny, as Gardiner had suggested after he congratulated him and welcomed him to the family.
His best friend Reggie, and others in the Ton, invested with Gardiner and did very well with those investments. He remembered Reggie had dubbed Gardiner ‘King Midas’ and had often advised Bennet to invest as well.
On Reggie’s recommendation, his brother-in-law, George Darcy, who was married to Lady Anne, Reggie Fitzwilliam’s younger sister, had also invested heavily.
Until Bennet had had his epiphany, he lacked the will and motivation to trouble himself to invest; he was not interested in anything that involved effort, concentration, and time away from his port and his books. That was in the past now.
Planning for and providing comfort and a future for his family was everything to him. Bennet had vows to keep, ones he had made to God above, to himself, and to his Fanny. He intended to do his best to keep them faithfully until his final breath left his body.
Thanks to the investments Edward Gardiner made on his behalf, to cutting unnecessary costs, and to the increase in Longbourn’s income—which now exceeded the level before he had let things go—Bennet acquired enough capital to expand the estate.
In the end, he more than doubled the estate’s farmland by purchasing the neighbouring Bennington Fields estate, which he renamed Bennet Fields.
The previous owners, the Benningtons, sold their estate after deciding to seek their fortune in the New World; they had no intention of returning to the area.
With this purchase, he also secured a safe future for James Bennet, who would not have to seek a profession as did most second sons.
Bennet, with the help of Frank Phillips, the solicitor who married Fanny’s sister, Hattie, made James the heir to the newly acquired and renamed estate, Bennet Fields.
Tom Bennet, his firstborn son, would inherit Longbourn, of course.
As the family’s wealth grew, Bennet started to acquire all of the Longbourn lands an ancestor had once been forced to sell off to satisfy the debts of honour incurred by his dissolute son and heir.
In addition to these lands, Bennet quietly purchased as much land close to Longbourn as he could.
As parcels became available, Bennet worked with Gardiner and Phillips to secure them.
Utilizing the shrewd negotiating skills of his brother Phillips as his agent, he was able to acquire tracts of land before they were offered for sale to the public.
With two estates and added acreage, Longbourn was about four times the size it had been before the twins were born. Due to the expansion, the estate now had more than triple the number of tenants.
Bennet rebuilt and substantially increased the size of Longbourn’s stables.
After a number of visits to Tattersalls with Reggie and his sons, Andrew and Richard, Bennet had acquired brood mares from some of the best bloodlines available, which he would use in a breeding programme he had been planning.
Through the connections he had with the Fitzwilliams, he purchased stallions to further strengthen his programme.
An agent was able to acquire bloodstock from Spain for crossbreeding.
Longbourn’s income had more than quadrupled from the two thousand pound income before Bennet’s epiphany. Bennet had started to build wealth, still primarily from the investments his brother Edward was making on his behalf.
His horse breeding programme became renowned for the quality of the horses it produced.
It was not long before Longbourn’s programme became known for the quality of the horseflesh it produced, especially those produced by crossbreeding with Andalusians and Arabians.
These horses were in demand by some of the leading members of the peerage and the ton in general.
The line of horses bred with Arabians was often acquired by the army, as their stamina made them perfect cavalry mounts.
The breeding programme added a substantial amount to the family’s ever-expanding income, and as their horses travelled with their new owners, so did the news of them.
There was a long waiting list to acquire horses from Longbourn’s stables.
Concurrently with the land purchases and investment of profits, the Bennets’ wealth continued to grow.
With his vows to God and his wife well on their way, Bennet turned his focus to his beloved daughters.
He began to set aside as much as he could to build good dowries for each of them in funds controlled by his brother Gardiner.
As with the rest of his investments, the income generated by the girls’ dowries was reinvested and compounded with the wise investments made on the Bennets’ behalf by Edward Gardiner.
As all of his investments and income continued to grow substantially, Bennet was able to increase the dowries whenever he earned funds for which he had no marked plans.
After three years, the amounts of each dowry had reached over ten thousand pounds, and the funds were expected to double every five years or so. This made his precious daughters heiresses in their own right, although they were unaware of it.
His hope was each of his daughters would find men they could love and respect and who would make them happy.
However, so there would be no pressure on them to marry if they did not have the inclination, he had requested Phillips to draft documents stating each daughter would be granted their dowry if they did not marry before they turned five and twenty.
He also had Phillips add language to ensure they could not be forced to marry if they were compromised.
Bennet wanted to make sure his daughters would never be forced into loveless marriages, or marriages of convenience.
Gardiner, Phillips, and Matlock were named guardians of his daughters if he passed before they reached their majority.
Additionally, Bennet stipulated that a portion of interest earned on their dowries was to be provided to each daughter quarterly, with which she could do as she pleased.
He already knew, because he knew them, that Jane would give a portion, if not all, to families experiencing hardship.
Elizabeth’s interest in seeing servants and tenants educated would be funded from her money.
Mary would give most, if not all, to the parish to assist those in need.
The orphans of the county would be Kitty’s crusade.
Bennet would only spend time in his study with a glass of port long after his duties for the day were done and all other concerns had been managed. Only then did he allow himself the pleasure of reading one of his beloved tomes.
His aim had been to provide security for his family, but thanks to his brother Gardiner, his wealth was not merely growing apace; it was increasing exponentially. Gardiner’s investments kept earning dividends, so the returns for all of his partners were substantial.