Prologue #2
“Is she indeed, my dear?” murmured Mr Bennet, barely stirring from his armchair and doing an excellent job of hiding any excitement he might feel himself.
“Well, I suppose that is what must happen when a young lady marries an earl. I daresay that one of these other letters must be from our future son-in-law, mustn’t it? Well, well, well…”
Without any great urgency, he shuffled the other unopened envelopes in his hand.
“You must open it at once, Mr Bennet!” declared his wife, rising from the sofa and hurrying to his side. “You must answer quickly. Do not delay, Mr Bennet! Oh, my poor nerves!”
“There, there, my dear. Another minute or two should not hurt. Hmmm, it must be this one, I think. You see the rather grand crest in the wax seal? It comes from London too. Yes, I dare say this is from Lord Grantchester.”
In a leisurely manner that had his anxious wife biting her nails and Elizabeth shaking her head ruefully at his teasing, Mr Bennet finally broke the seal on the letter and opened it up.
“There we are,” he pronounced with satisfaction.
“As we surmised. John Tellington, Earl of Grantchester begs pardon for writing without introduction etc… etc… He has reached an understanding with our esteemed daughter, Miss Jane Bennet, to whom he was introduced in London etc… He humbly asks permission to take Miss Bennet’s hand in marriage and hopes that I will write back directly with my approval and instructions, etc… ”
“How very correctly Lord Grantchester writes of the matter,” said Mrs Bennet admiringly. “A very upright young man, I am sure.”
“True, true. He does cover all the formalities, doesn’t he? Unnecessarily, however, since Jane is past one-and-twenty and may marry as she pleases. As you like to remind us, it is not as though I might withhold any great fortune to exercise influence, Mrs Bennet.”
“I do not say that!” Mrs Bennet exclaimed hotly. “What can you possibly mean, Mr Bennet? You must write back and tell him we approve completely and they might marry as soon as is convenient for him. I can’t imagine where Jane’s talk of waiting a whole year came from.”
“Well, perhaps his family does not approve,” Mr Bennet suggested lightly. “Jane has neither title nor fortune, after all. They might have hoped at least for one of the two. I know I would in their place.”
“Why must you vex me so, Mr Bennet?” Mrs Bennet protested. “No one could help but approve of Jane once they have met her. Write back straight away and give Lord Grantchester every assurance and encouragement you can. Otherwise, he may meet someone else, and it will be all off.”
“Will we get new dresses for the wedding, Mother?” Lydia demanded excitedly as a new idea presented itself. “Shoes too, and bonnets. We must surely, if we are to be bridesmaids. A countess must have many bridesmaids, do not you think?”
“It will be a very grand wedding, I am sure,” Mrs Bennet replied, returning to the letter but with more than half an eye on the glorious occasion ahead.
“Jane will look magnificent and the church shall be full of nobility – how wonderful! I should like to have the wedding here where Lady Lucas might see too, but perhaps Lord Grantchester prefers London, or his own estate.”
“Dresses and nobility and grand estates are all very well, but I should more like to know what manner of man this John Tellington might be,” Mr Bennet put in thoughtfully.
His earlier jesting and teasing were quite gone, replaced with an air of seriousness amounting almost to gravity.
“You have met him, Lizzy. What impression did you have?”
“What manner of man?” laughed Mrs Bennet. “He is the Earl of Grantchester, Mr Bennet. What peculiar questions you ask!”
Elizabeth paused for thought and then answered her father as best she could. “Lord Grantchester is around seven-and-twenty and seems to be of good health, strong body, and sound character,” she began.
“There, you see!” interjected Mrs Bennet, to the mild consternation of both Elizabeth and her father. “How could it be otherwise with an earl?”
“He has many friends and is well-liked by everyone around the ton,” Elizabeth continued, ignoring her mother’s mild twittering.
“I don’t mean that Lord Grantchester is a frivolous and superficial man.
Indeed, he has some very good friends to whom he shows great loyalty.
Still, I gather that society hostesses are fond of him since he can always be relied upon for good manners, dancing, and amiability. ”
Mr Bennet nodded, reflecting on this intelligence calmly, while his wife began to look impatient. Lydia and Kitty were much cheered by the sound of a brother-in-law who could be counted on at a ball and began to swing one another about the room, all the while humming a country dance tune.
“What of his fortune, Lizzy? What of his estate? Has he siblings?” Mrs Bennet inquired.
“I believe he is very rich, Mother,” Elizabeth told her.
“Grantchester Abbey is a very great estate. I overheard one lady telling her daughter that he was the richest man in Leicestershire, although I cannot claim to know anything of that county. He has two sisters, both married and very fond of their brother, from the little I saw of them.”
“How well that all sounds!” Mrs Bennet responded with a deep sound of satisfaction. “Titled, rich and amiable. It is all that Jane’s beauty deserves.”
“Anything else of note, Lizzy?” enquired her father. “I fear that titles and riches often prevent young men from developing sensible minds, especially when their womenfolk think too much of them.”
Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. Thankfully, the intelligence she had to give was nothing that could cause her father any alarm.
“Lord Grantchester is not a fool, I think. Nor is he uneducated. For example, he and his friend Lord Keeble can both recite poetry in a most animated and engaging fashion, both ancient and modern, English, French, Latin, and Greek. He certainly put my knowledge of the Aeneid to shame one evening, but he made me laugh over it at the same time.”
“Most excellent,” her father said with a satisfied nod. “I should not like a silly son-in-law, regardless of his other undoubtedly excellent qualifications. Thank you, Lizzy. You have put my mind at rest. Lord Grantchester sounds far less stupid than the average peer.”
Mr Bennet sat back in his chair and polished his glasses while his wife looked up from the letter to tut at his attitude and language once again.
“Well, it seems we should all have the chance to meet Lord Grantchester himself before long. Jane will be home next week, and Lord Grantchester will be taking a house in the district… ‘for occasional use,’ she says. Occasional use?!”
“No doubt he wishes to remain in London, where his friends and family are,” Mr Bennet responded with a shrug. “I see nothing strange in it, aside from the expense, which is naturally of less consequence for a rich man.”
“He ought to be at Jane’s side,” Mrs Bennet remarked, slightly indignantly, before shaking her head and laughing to herself. “No doubt he shall change his mind when the time to part from her comes. We’ll see what ‘occasional use’ looks like then, or I am much mistaken.”
“Lord Grantchester ought to take Netherfield Park,” Mary commented. “It has been empty for a long while and is most convenient both for Longbourn and the London road.”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs Bennet brightly. “That would be most suitable, wouldn’t it?”
“If a little large for a single man,” put in Mr Bennet.
Mrs Bennet waved away her husband’s caution with a dismissive hand. “Pooh! Perhaps he will bring his two married sisters and their husbands with him, and then he will need a large house. Imagine Meryton society then, elevated by such people of rank, and all thanks to Jane.”
“We ought not to get carried away in making plans for Lord Grantchester or this marriage,” Elizabeth added in support of her father’s more reasoned thinking.
“Our hopes are bound to be disappointed, and it is not in our hands, in any case. Let us wait and see what Jane has to say about everything when she arrives.”
To this, Mrs Bennet gave only a scornful harrumph. “Not get carried away? You are quite as perverse as your father sometimes, Lizzy. Of course, we are bound to get carried away. Imagine Lady Lucas’s face when I tell her! It is a most favourable match.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly and without real conviction.
Though unwilling to disagree aloud, she found herself wishing that she had indeed stayed longer in London.
Then she might be more certain of Jane’s prospects for happiness in such a sudden and unexpected marriage.
She could not remember Lord Grantchester having a single conversation with Jane that he might not equally have had with Elizabeth, his sisters, or most other ladies in the room.
“I hope so,” she answered her mother.