Prologue
Bennet and his five daughters were in mourning for his wife, Fanny. His oldest was Jane, twenty, followed by Elizabeth, eighteen, Mary, seventeen, Catherine, called Kitty, fifteen, and the baby of the family, Lydia, thirteen.
After Lydia, Mrs. Bennet did not fall with child again.
For years, Bennet had made sport of his wife’s worry over being thrown into the hedgerows as soon as he died because she failed to deliver a son.
With each successive daughter, rather than make accommodations for the future, Bennet withdrew into his bookroom and became more and more indolent.
Longbourn suffered from an entail to heirs male. Ned Collins, his illiterate and mean distant cousin, had left the mortal world, but his son was the current heir presumptive. If the son was anything at all like the father, Bennet had no desire to meet him.
That morning, when Fanny had not joined the family at breakfast, waving her lace square and bemoaning her fate, Bennet had sent Mrs. Hill up to her chambers. He was not overly concerned as sometimes his wife slept later than most.
Mrs. Hill returned, white-faced, and requested the master follow her. Fanny was cold, and her face was contorted. Mr. Hill, who served as his valet, manservant, and butler, was sent to request Mr. Jones attend him at Longbourn with all speed.
The Bennet girls knew something had happened, but Bennet was not ready to talk to them until Mr. Jones completed an examination of his wife’s corpse. “I believe your wife was struck by a massive apoplexy, Mr. Bennet; it was likely over in an instant,” Mr. Jones opined.
In Bennet’s mind, the worry finally became too much for her, engendering feelings of guilt for making sport of her when he should have soothed her.
He and Fanny were not compatible—something he only discovered after he had married Miss Francine Gardiner.
Her vivaciousness and beauty had blinded him to her lack of intelligence and mean understanding.
In Bennet’s mind, the fact they did not have a loving marriage did not excuse the way he used to behave toward his wife, or for that matter his daughters.
Jane, always demure and serene, and Elizabeth, his favourite, were very different from his three younger daughters, who he termed the silliest girls in England.
That said, he did nothing to help them correct their faults.
Elizabeth had inherited her father’s love of the written word and had an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Jane was everything that a proper lady should be, and was a beauty without equal, or so her mother had often told her.
Jane disliked conflict intensely, so she always tried to see only the good in any person or situation and ignored the bad.
She and Elizabeth, Lizzy to the family, were the closest of sisters and friends.
Mary, the middle child, had taken to quoting scripture, most especially the drivel from Fordyce’s sermons to garner attention, as she was lost in the middle of five Bennet daughters.
Bennet decided it was time to start working with her, to see if he could redirect her reading preferences and put an end to her moralistic quotes.
Even though Kitty was two years older, she followed her brash sister Lydia around, and would do anything the younger decided they were to do.
Lydia had been thoroughly spoiled by her mother and her behaviour reflected her belief she could get away with anything, for all she had had to do in the past was run to her mama and his wife would decide things for her no matter how wrong Lydia was.
Bennet tried to put off the delivery of the earth-shattering news longer; he had to tell his daughters, but he decided before he informed his daughters, he would summon his late wife’s sister, Hattie Phillips, and her husband Frank, the town’s solicitor.
He also sent an express to her brother, Edward Gardiner, who lived on Gracechurch Street near Cheapside.
Once the note and the express were completed, there were no more excuses for procrastination.
Bennet had Mrs. Hill summon his daughters to the drawing room.
“Papa, what has happened? I saw Mr. Jones leaving, looking grim.” Elizabeth asked. Bennet should have known with her perspicacity Lizzy would miss nothing. “Why have we not seen Mama today?” Elizabeth voiced the question all her sisters had.
“Please sit, girls,” Bennet requested. Once they had complied, Bennet took the time to look at each of his daughters and then performed his sad duty. “I am sorry to tell you your Mama has been called home to God,” Bennet stated evenly, as much as he could be calm on such a day.
The older girls hugged one another and began to sob, even Elizabeth, who had been derided and ill-treated l by his wife; nevertheless, she had been her mother. The younger two looked around, not understanding what their father had said.
“What do you mean, Papa? La, can you not talk plainly and tell me why my sisters are crying?” Lydia asked, demonstrating her lack of caring for any but herself, and that she had inherited her mother’s mean understanding.
“Lyddie, Mama is dead!” Elizabeth told her between her tears.
As soon as Lydia began to wail, Kitty joined in, for she had waited to see Lydia’s reaction before she showed her own. She had suspected what it was their father was telling her, but she did not want to say anything to upset or show Lydia up.
Bennet then hid in his study, with his head in his hands, his port left untouched as he heard his girls crying.
As he sat in his study with the sounds of his five daughters lamenting their mother’s death, he felt crushing guilt for his inaction and his decision not to alleviate Fanny’s fears.
He berated himself for his cowardice in not being able to face his daughters’ anguish, for with each new wail his feelings of guilt increased.
It was in this aspect his brother Phillips found him some minutes later.
“You have my condolences, Bennet,” Phillips stated. “Hattie is with your daughters.”
Bennet was not sure how much comfort his wife’s sister would be. It was likely they would need more comforting than she was able to give. Hattie Phillips was like her late younger sister in many ways—mean of understanding with an insatiable love of gossip.
The Phillipses had not been blessed with children, so Hattie doted on her nieces and nephews, including the Gardiners two daughters and two sons.
Bennet had always enjoyed his brother Phillips’ company.
They were both intelligent men who preferred more serious pursuits, although Phillips did not share Bennet’s penchant for making sport of one and all.
“Have you sent a notice to our brother Gardiner?” Phillips asked.
“I posted an express to the Gardiners just before the note I wrote to you. What do I do now? I have five daughters and no wife to help look after them!” Bennet wondered with not a little self-pity.
“This is no time to wallow in your grief. You must take charge of your family; there is no choice. I do not want to speak ill of your wife, but you and I both know that she never checked your youngest. Lydia is a brash, flirtatious, uncouth girl who will ruin herself and her sisters if you do not exert yourself, Bennet. Where Lydia goes, so goes Kitty.” Phillips did not sugar-coat his speech.
Although he did not say it, Bennet knew Phillips meant he was as much, if not more, to blame than his late wife.
As much as Bennet wanted to refute what his brother said, he could not. But knowing what needed to be done and the doing of it were, unfortunately, two vastly different things.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Lucas family were the closest friends the Bennets had near Meryton.
Lady Sarah Lucas had grown up with the former Miss Fanny Gardiner and they had always been friends, while at the same time rivals.
The then Miss Sarah Warrington had also set her cap for the son of one of the principal landowners in the area, only to watch her friend capture Thomas Bennet and walk up the aisle with him at St. Alfred’s Church in Meryton.
The two, along with Hattie Phillips, were the principal gossips in the area. Sarah Warrington had settled for William Lucas, the owner of the general store in Meryton. She had hated how Fanny had lorded over her because she married to a landed gentleman while Sarah married a tradesman.
About twenty years ago, when their oldest son, Franklin, was seven, Charlotte five, and John two, Sarah was with child, resulting in the birth of Nick some six months later.
Her husband then held the largely ceremonial title of Mayor of Meryton.
King George III and Queen Charlotte had stopped in the town.
Mayor Lucas had addressed the monarchs, and, for some inexplicable reason, the King knighted William Lucas.
Suddenly, they were Sir William and Lady Lucas, something her friend and rival had never lived down. Sir William was enamoured with his new title, especially after his investiture at St. James Palace, which is a tale he recounted as many times as he could to any who would listen.
Because of his new rank, Sir William decided he should not be a tradesman any longer.
He sold his business and house in Meryton and purchased a small estate adjacent to Longbourn, which he renamed Lucas Lodge.
Although he was worse off financially, he cared not, for he was a landed gentleman and a knight!
The last Lucas to arrive was Mariah, who was not yet fourteen, right between Kitty and Lydia Bennet in age and a close friend to both. Charlotte, who was five and twenty, was the intimate friend of the oldest two Bennet daughters but was somewhat closer to Elizabeth.
The Lucas family had just broken their fast when a groom from Longbourn delivered a black-edged notice from the Bennets. All thoughts of rivalry were forgot in an instant when Lady Sarah Lucas read about the passing of her friend Fanny Bennet.