Chapter 26
Bennet had been expecting Darcy to come see him at some point, though perhaps not so soon after arriving in Kent. He gave his blessing without trying to make sport of the younger man.
With Lizzy on a path to become Mrs Darcy, Bennet looked forward to the first time he would visit them at Pemberley.
How could he forget Holder’s words about the size of his probable son-in-law’s library?
Even with the enticement of the library, Bennet would not have given his blessing had he not thought Darcy was worthy of his second daughter.
For many years, he had complained about being surrounded by six females, their talk of lace, and other fripperies.
However, now that two of them would be leaving his house, he looked on those past days with great affection.
He was not blind and had noticed that since he and his family arrived at Rosings Park, Mary had spent a significant amount of time with Hilldale.
His Fanny would become distracted if two of her daughters became future countesses.
Bennet stopped the thoughts. Seeing that whatever it was between Mary and Hilldale was completely new, there was time before he would need to entertain the possibility of losing a third daughter.
As he sat in the study, he revisited his ungenerous musings regarding Fanny’s reaction if something developed between Mary and Hilldale. Given how much calmer his wife was, Bennet had to admit that he had ascribed the reaction she would have had in the past rather than thinking of how she was now.
As proof of his wife’s change, he had witnessed her calm reaction when Jane announced her courtship, and the same again when she became engaged to Hadlock as examples of how his wife had tempered her former exuberance and grown.
Fanny had behaved with decorum both times.
As chagrined as he felt at himself for reaching into the past when thinking of his wife, he supposed that being used to the way things were for more than twenty years had coloured his thoughts.
That did not make his misjudging her any better.
He would have to fight hard to leave the past in the past.
Bennet was aware of how happy Fanny was when Gardiner had accompanied his clerks who came to inventory everything she wanted out of the house.
She was pleased enough to see her brother, but when he opined the items would sell for as much as, and in some cases more than, what they had originally cost, she was overjoyed.
When all those who were resident at Rosings Park decamped for Meryton in two days, Gardiner would have his men load all the items which needed to be auctioned off into carts and convey them to his warehouse in London.
It would be strange making for the former—Phillips had notified him the court had sent a new deed for the single, large estate—Netherfield Park’s mansion and not Longbourn’s original manor house.
However, quite soon after their arrival, Bennet would head to the site where the new house was being built to meet with Mr Hill and receive a report on the progress of the work being done.
He could not but smile when he thought of how his wife and daughters would react when they were informed of the scope of the project and that he was having modern plumbing and flushing water closets installed.
Servants had better things to do with their time than carry buckets of water and empty chamber pots.
The construction would take approximately a full year, but as they had several choices in houses, Bennet was not bothered by the time it would take to complete the new manor house.
At least the Hunsford preferment had been accomplished.
Bennet had asked Matlock, Hilldale, Hadlock, and Darcy to join him in interviewing possible candidates.
The Bishop of Kent had sent three men in addition to St Kentigern’s curate, Mr Hoult.
In addition to speaking to the aforementioned men, each candidate met with groups of parishioners.
The opinions of those men and women were considered along with what Bennet and the other men had noted. Mr Hoult was the clear choice of all concerned.
When the curate was offered the living, he fell to his knees to thank God.
Hoult was not motivated by the parsonage or the greatly improved income.
It was rather something that the increased earnings would allow him to do.
He had been in love for more than two years, but he had not been willing to propose until he felt secure in his ability to support a wife and, hopefully, in the near future, children.
Hoult could not be further from the late William Collins in character, something which supremely pleased those living in the Hunsford parish.
When Bennet thought of his late cousin, he conjectured that if Mr Collins had lived, discovering who his new patron was after losing Longbourn, the unwelcome knowledge would have more than likely caused a rather large apoplexy, leading to the same result.
He pushed the thoughts aside and returned to his work.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Another one of Elizabeth’s long-held assumptions was proved wrong at Rosings Park.
Whenever anyone asked her if she rode a horse, Elizabeth’s rejoinder had always been that as long as she had two good feet, she did not need to sit atop a great big beast. She knew the truth, but did not want to admit, that she had a fear of horses ever since, at the age of seven, she had fallen off a horse and broken her arm during her first lesson.
As it did not fit her maxim about her courage always rising at any attempt to intimidate her, she kept to her claim of preferring to walk.
It did not take Elizabeth more than two lessons to learn to ride at Rosings Park; the stablemaster opined she had a natural aptitude for riding.
William, who was her principal teacher, and the now-former colonel, both agreed with the assessment.
She had taken to driving the phaeton as easily as she had learnt to ride, and greatly enjoyed her time in the small carriage.
In the days since she had accepted a courtship, a group had ridden out several times.
On one occasion, the five Bennet sisters, Anna, Hilldale, Hadlock, Darcy, and Fitzwilliam, had ridden to the glade where some of the footmen had been waiting with picnic food to break their fasts.
They had been serenaded by the croaking of the toads and frogs; bird song provided by the robins, wrens, and larks in the tree branches, as well as the susurration the very slight breeze caused in the leaves of the trees above them.
Sitting on a blanket next to William, Kitty, Anna, and Lydia, Elizabeth remembered how she used to seek solitude in this oasis of nature.
Now, she could not imagine it other than sharing it with those around her.
Jane and Jamey were seated on one of the benches deep in conversation, as was their wont, while Mary and Andrew—Lord Hilldale had given them leave to address him informally—were on another bench also engaged in an intense discussion.
Elizabeth had always thought that Mamma’s exclamations about God being good to them were hyperbole, but as she sat here and looked around the glade, part of an estate which belonged to her family, she could not imagine life getting better.
‘Well, perhaps when William proposes to me, it will be better,’ Elizabeth thought. She froze as she did not know where that thought had come from. Could it be that she was already falling in love with William?
He was not at all the rude, proud, insufferable man he had been.
In fact, with all the amendments he had made to his character, there was none of that man left in him.
But then again, he was not the only one who had changed.
Elizabeth was not the same judgemental and prejudiced creature she had been then.
She shook her head. No matter how many times she chastised herself for thinking of the past, occasionally she still did so.
Shaking the unproductive thoughts from her head, Elizabeth joined the conversation with which those sitting on the blanket with her were engaged.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Bennets and those who had been hosted at Rosings Park with them arrived at what used to be Netherfield Park in the afternoon of the first Monday of June.
The Carringtons, who were still in London—they had waited to make their way directly to Hertfordshire rather than Holder Heights first—were to arrive the following day.
Due to the expected numbers of guests at the wedding, Bennet leased Purvis Lodge for the month of June, to make sure that any guests who needed to be hosted overnight would have somewhere to rest their heads that was not the Red Lion Inn in Meryton.
The Purvises had departed the area in April to seek their fortunes in Upper Canada.
As the small estate abutted Longbourn, Bennet was considering purchasing it to add more land and tenants to his primary estate.
The Purvis’ solicitor was in contact with Phillips to see if a mutually agreeable price could be reached.
On Tuesday morning between a coach and horses, those residing at what would one day be the estate’s dower house, travelled the three miles to where the combined estate’s manor house was being built. The five Bennet sisters were shocked at what they saw, or more accurately, what they did not see.
“Mamma, Papa! Where is the house?” Jane managed, as her sisters nodded, also wanting to hear the reply.
“In the end there was so much to do that your mother and I decided to completely rebuild rather than adding onto the old house. We did not want a house which looked like a puzzle someone had put together incorrectly,” Bennet explained.
“The new structure will be quite a bit larger than the house we are residing in currently, and will have a nice large ballroom as well as all of the modern conveniences.”