Week Four The Phillips Comparison
“I received a letter from Agnes yesterday. She claims that Mr. Phillips’s health is improving. Apparently, he suffered from a cold.”
“Oh? How fares our sister?” Edward asked.
Franny hesitated but then handed her brother the letter. He glanced at the contents before passing it on to his wife. Madeline read the three pages of neighborhood gossip, detailed accounts of who had worn what to which gathering, and breathless speculation about various courtships and engagements.
“She sounds exactly as I did a month ago,” Mrs. Bennet said.
“Yes,” her sister agreed with gentle honesty. “She does.”
“Will she think I am putting on airs when I return?”
“Perhaps initially,” Edward answered. “But you should not live your life to please Agnes any more than you should live it to annoy Thomas. It is best to conduct yourself in a manner that allows you to respect yourself.”
She nodded slowly. “I begin to understand why my husband sought solitude so often. The constant chatter about nothing of consequence…it must have been maddening for a man of his intelligence.”
“And yet he loved you―he married you and has remained faithful for this quarter century,” her brother pointed out.
“It could be that there is more hope for your marriage than you realize. Show him the woman of sense that we see with us now and do your best to avoid focusing on your anxieties as a mother.”
That evening, Mrs. Bennet sat at a writing desk and wrote the most difficult letter of her life.
My dearest Mary, Catherine, and Lydia,
I hope you are well and that you are attending to all you are being taught at school.
This time in London has been educational for me as well. My eyes have been opened to truths I should have recognized long ago. Your aunt and uncle Gardiner have helped me realize that I must beg your forgiveness for my past behavior, which I now see has been foolish and harmful to your prospects.
I always believed that being forward was necessary to secure your futures. I was wrong. In fact, it only served to mark me as a woman of poor judgment and worse breeding. Important gentlemen do not respect such conduct, nor should they.
I encouraged you to pursue officers, thinking they would make fine husbands.
The simple truth is that, should you succeed, you would suffer a lifetime of poverty.
There would be no money for new gowns, there would be no gay parties or balls, and you would always stand on the outside looking longingly inside.
I pray that Miss Peabody’s instruction will lead you to the appropriate deportment and manners that I failed to model for you. When you return home, you will find your mother much changed―one who understands that true gentility lies in grace rather than in grasping ambition.
I love you with my whole heart.
Your mother,
Mrs. Francine Bennet
As she folded the letter, Mrs. Bennet again realized how poor her behavior had been. For twenty-five years, she had wondered why Thomas never took her observations seriously, even ridiculing them. Now she understood it with painful clarity: she had been ridiculous.
But no more! When Thomas returned from his lengthy journey, he would find her changed—a woman who had learned, at last, what it meant to be mistress of Longbourn.
After a full month of change, Franny prepared to return to Hertfordshire feeling like a girl about to make her debut in Society. The woman who boarded her brother’s coach to Meryton bore little resemblance to the one who had arrived in London four weeks earlier.
The prospect of facing Thomas upon his return, however, terrified and exhilarated her in equal measure. What would he think of the changes in her comportment? Would he welcome it, or would he find her new restraint as tiresome as he had found her old exuberance?
Despite her apprehension, for the first time in decades, Franny was genuinely hopeful about the future. Not only for her daughters’ prospects―which had been her sole concern in the past―but for her own.
She could not wait for her husband to return home.