Chapter 19
“Yes, Gardiner, I know, I should have kept a tighter rein on Lydia, so that she did not try to escape her chamber to come to the ball,” Bennet drawled. He was not in the mood to have his solitary time with his books and port disturbed.
“You know, Bennet, for a supposedly intelligent man, you are almost as stupid as that buffoon of a cousin you allow to importune Lizzy for your entertainment,” Gardiner shot back. “You are very fortunate that I do not believe in violence as a method to settle things otherwise, I would thrash you.”
Bennet had never before heard Gardiner speak like that to him, or anyone else for that matter.
He felt somewhat intimidated. Gardiner was at least ten-years his junior, and as he never eschewed physical activity like Bennet did himself, he knew his brother-in-law had muscles where his own body was soft from all the sitting and reading at his desk.
“Why would you say that to me?” Bennet asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the reply.
“Let me ask you something, Brother, as a husband and father, what is your primary responsibility? Is it to sit, shut away in this room with your books and port, and hardly ever take an interest in the welfare of your family?”
“I look after my family,” Bennet replied churlishly.
“I am not at all surprised that you did not answer my question because you know you have failed.”
“I have not allowed the girls out before they are seventeen, and now after her little escapade yesternight, Lydia will not enter society before her majority,” Bennet stated as if proud of his accomplishment.
“And you only exerted yourself that much because Maddie and I extracted your word of honour after having an exhaustive conversation with you to convince you to act in your daughter’s interests.
As you will not address my question, you as the head of the household should be the one to guide and protect those who are dependent on you.
“You speak of not allowing the girls out at fifteen like Fanny wanted, but what have you done beyond that? Have you saved for your wife’s and daughters’ futures?
Rather than make sport of Fanny, have you done anything to correct and educate her?
What about your daughters’ education? Did you lift a finger there? I can go on.”
“According to you my faults are many.”
“Yes, Bennet, they are! And before you attempt to cast responsibility to others, it is yours, and yours alone. Who else should feel the results of your failures but you? Who forced you to sequester yourself in this study and only join your family for meals or to laugh at your wife and daughters?”
Knowing he had no good answer for Gardiner’s charges, Bennet looked away.
“Do you remember not long ago, Maddie and I suggested you send Lydia to school? You refused because of the difficulty to you and Fanny’s probable reaction.
Like you always do, you took what you perceived was the path of least resistance.
Your refusal to have her educated and learn how to behave like a proper gentle lady led directly to the shenanigans and almost ruin of yesternight. ”
“You exaggerate! Almost ruined indeed. Lydia attempted to come to the ball, was caught, and is now locked in the nursery,” Bennet refuted.
“She attempted what she did because rather than have her taught the right way, you simply punished her without ever correcting her behaviour. I still thank goodness that Kitty was diverted from the path Lydia is on, but I will return to that later. If you think she was attempting to come to the ball you are a bigger fool than the man you have allowed to attempt to woo Lizzy. If our men had not been watching Lydia and the officer she was meeting for an assignation, she would now be ruined and without her virtue!”
“Of what do you speak? Hill never told me any of this!” Bennet thundered.
“That is because after our men contained the situation, they did not impart more than what was told to you. Let me explain. Lizzy, has I am sure mentioned a Lieutenant, one George Wickham to you, has she not?”
Bennet allowed that was so.
“Almost nothing he told Lizzy was true. He is the worst kind of man, one who should not be allowed in any society, polite or otherwise. I will tell you more of what we know about the man, but suffice to say, as soon as we saw his name mentioned we instructed some of our footmen at Netherfield Park…” Gardiner did not miss the way Bennet’s eyebrows shot up.
“I forgot you were not aware. You remember when Sir Humphry sold the estate, do you not?”
A shocked Bennet nodded his head.
“Maddie and I purchased it as an investment. That is neither here nor there. Some of the men were watching your home and others the bastard in Meryton. Before we came here today, we saw our men and heard all from them. This Wickham was heard saying that he had set a meeting with some brainless chit as he called her, and she would surrender her virtue to him while his comrades were at the ball. You realise that means it was not the first time Lydia had escaped the house, do you not?”
Again Bennet nodded. He was too shaken to trust himself to speak.
“While the officer was watched by two men, as soon as my men following your daughter were certain Lydia was on her way to the old barn in Meryton to meet this man, they took her and by necessity gagged her. She was returned to your house. At the same time, one of the men made it look to Mr Wickham like he was the victim of a robbery. He will not report the crime because the money taken from him was all purloined from his brother officers. Maddie and I, and a special guest who is even now meeting with Colonel Forster will remove that blight from the body of society.”
Bennet did not feel like he had been struck, but rather like he was being continually pummelled.
Gardiner was not done. “Bennet, you have always counted Lizzy as a favourite, as much as Maddie and I decry you and Fanny elevating some of your daughters above others.”
Still unable to articulate anything, Bennet nodded.
“Then explain to me how it is that when Lizzy came into this very room and begged that you use your authority as her father to stop Mr Collins making her life miserable, you refused? Yes, you made it so Fanny could no longer order Lizzy into the hapless parson’s company, but you would not make him cease his attentions to her when you were present because it amused you too much.
If that is how you treat your favourite, it is little wonder that you are so callous to the rest of your family. ”
By now, the usually confident Bennet was sitting forward in his chair, his elbows on the desk, his head resting on his hands in shame. He could not bear to look at Gardiner and see the looks of disdain.
“You were, I assume, aware that Jane was being unofficially courted were you not?” Gardiner watched as Bennet nodded.
“You saw Mr Bingley dance the three significant sets with Jane. Have you ever bothered to ask his intentions? Did you insist he make a declaration before he danced all of those sets with her?”
“I did not, I am sure he will be calling…” Bennet began.
“No he will not. His sisters, who are the ones he defers to, were heard plotting how they would leave and not return, which they have done, to-whit, the letter to Jane. Do you care about Jane’s reputation?
“I am fully aware that all of this is hard for you to hear, but the fact is, Bennet, you have made many poor decisions.
The first one was marrying a woman of whose character you knew nothing.
You were captured by a pretty face, and I believe the head you followed was not the one between your shoulders.
Then, rather than educate and help her, you took out your frustration at your own error on her, and next your daughters.
“Yes, having to hand this estate over to the buffoon we saw in your dining parlour is not ideal, but that was never an excuse for you not to bestir yourself and save for your daughters’ futures.
Is my sister over-excitable? Yes, she is.
But it never helped that you played on her fears of being evicted and ending up in the hedgerows.
“No, she never would not have a home, but her fears were real and justified even without you stoking them. By the by, before I continue, I am not saying you are the only one at fault, Maddie is speaking to Fanny as I speak to you. That being said, if you had exercised it, you had the power to change much. If we look at why Fanny is scared, her dowry earns two hundred pounds per annum in the four percents. If we and the Phillipses were not able to assist her, and she was on her own, she would be able to live reasonably on that income. That amount would make it hard to live with one unmarried daughter, never mind more than one. And what did you do when I asked, begged you, to let me take the dowry and make it grow? You refused to trouble yourself. Why would you care, you will be dead, so it is not your concern.”
Bennet felt like he wanted to cry. He had failed in so many ways. “What am I to do?” He managed with a cracked voice.
“Fortunately it is not too late, but it will take effort, a lot of work on your, Fanny’s, in fact all of your parts.
I do not want to say anything yet, but Maddie and I will see if there is a way to free your estate from Collins’ future ownership.
I am certain, based on the letters from your daughters and seeing the man today, that he is the last man who should ever manage an estate. ”
That his brother-in-law did not think all was lost gave Bennet some hope for the future.
“You have much on which to cogitate. We will talk again about the future soon,” Gardiner suggested. “For now, I suggest you have Lydia brought to the study so we may discover how many times she had contact with that seducer before the previous night.”