Prologue Part 2
Thomas was the son of Henry and Elizabeth, called Beth, and he was the heir to the second-largest estate in the area of Meryton, a small market town in Hertfordshire. Thomas was the only living child of his parents.
Fanny was the daughter of Elias and Jane Gardiner.
Mr Gardiner was the local solicitor, and although his grandmother was gently born, he was not considered a gentleman.
Fanny was the youngest of three. Her next older sibling was Harriet, called Hattie, who was engaged to her father’s law clerk.
Hattie was five years Fanny’s senior. The eldest Gardiner offspring was Edward, who was two years older than Hattie.
As Edward had gone into trade in London after graduating from Oxford, Elias Gardiner had made Hattie’s betrothed, Frank Phillips, his successor in his law practice.
When Henry and Beth Bennet questioned their son’s choice of bride, they did not do so because she was not gently born but rather because of the gulf in intelligence they saw between Thomas and Fanny.
Fanny was by far the most beautiful young lady in the area, but she loved to gossip, did not read anything unless it was a fashion magazine, and was not very intelligent.
She also thought that beauty was a virtue, something her mother had taught her.
On the other hand, Thomas was a very erudite man who loved reading books, some in their original Greek and Latin, and was highly intelligent with a rather sardonic sense of humour.
The Bennet parents’ only worry was that their son would suffer in an intellectually unequal marriage.
They were assured by Thomas that he was fully aware of Fanny’s capabilities, or lack thereof.
He told them how he had discussed this difference with Fanny before he offered for her, and she had pledged that she would learn the ways of the gentry and an estate’s mistress.
To that end, Thomas applied to his mother to take on the role of teacher and mentor once he married Fanny and she came to live at Longbourn.
He undertook to assist in her education as well.
His mother, who had a very hard time denying her only son anything, agreed.
Not only that, but Thomas had explained that there was an entail to heirs male on Longbourn which would end with the generation after his.
He told Fanny that if they were not blessed with a son before he went to his final reward, then a distant cousin, a rather nasty, illiterate man named Clem Collins, would become the master of the estate, and he would be allowed to evict any Bennets still living at Longbourn.
Thanks to the fact her mother had delivered a son before any daughters, Fanny was not concerned by the entail.
She was certain, that like her mamma, her first child would also be a son.
She was fully aware that it was God above who determined the sex of a babe.
That notwithstanding, she was confident she would deliver one or more sons.
Henry and Beth had withdrawn any objections to their son marrying Fanny after they saw that his eyes were wide open, and he knew exactly who and what Fanny was.
In addition, they were pleased Thomas had informed Fanny of the entail.
That way she could never claim ignorance and try to say that Thomas married her under false pretences.
Hence, on the first day of November, Thomas had proposed to Fanny, and she accepted him without delay. To make sure no one would think the marriage was a hurried, patched-up affair, the date they selected to marry was a full six weeks after the engagement.
For her part, as much as she was happy that she was marrying a landed gentleman, Fanny genuinely liked Thomas Bennet; in fact, she fancied herself in love with him.
It seemed that her mother’s oft-repeated refrain that Fanny could not be so beautiful for no reason was true.
She had caught a gentleman while Hattie, who their mother called plain, was to marry a solicitor.
Until her mother had termed Hattie ‘plain’, Fanny had believed her to be rather pretty.
When Fanny had said that, her mother had explained that one could not be considered beautiful unless she was tall, willowy, blonde, and with blue eyes like herself and Fanny.
Jane Gardiner often told her older daughter that she was nothing to Fanny in looks. It was said enough that both daughters believed that it was true.
Even though Hattie was engaged, she and Phillips would only marry on the second Friday in January 1788, thereby, making Fanny very pleased that as the youngest, she would be the first of her siblings to marry.
Over the time he had courted Fanny and the following period of engagement, Thomas had become very close with Edward Gardiner.
On an intellectual level, he and Edward were very similar.
Due to the friendship between them, Thomas asked Edward to stand up with him, and the latter accepted without delay.
Fanny requested that Hattie be her maid of honour.
Hattie, who was pretty but no match for Fanny’s beauty, agreed to the honour with alacrity.
As the rector of St Alfred’s Church in Meryton performed the marriage rites, the couple was attended by the bride’s older siblings.
Fanny was pleased that her friend Sarah Lucas was present with her husband, William.
Their children, Franklin, who was aged six, and Charlotte, who was three, were being cared for by their nursemaid at their house in Meryton.
She and Sarah had been friends for more than seven years even though Sarah was eight years her senior.
Mr Lucas owned the general mercantile in Meryton along with the millinery and haberdashery shops.
Seeing Sarah in the congregation allowed Fanny to dream of the day, not in the too far distant future she prayed, when she would also have a son.
Sarah was with child again, and Fanny was aware her friend would deliver in March or April of 1788.
After Mamma’s talk the previous night, Fanny understood what was entailed in creating a babe.
Mamma had prepared her for the unpleasantness; so, tonight she would do what her mother instructed her to do: lie back, close her eyes, and pray the unpleasantness would be over soon.
As much as she wanted a son, Fanny dreaded what she would have to endure to make one.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
January 1789
As she neared her first lying-in, Fanny was very pleased for the son she would soon have, but her joy at the impending birth was offset with the sadness that this child, and any others she birthed, would never know any of their grandparents.
Since she and Thomas married, their parents had become good friends.
In the summer of 1788, the two couples had taken a holiday to Essex to enjoy the coast in the town of Westcliff-on-Sea.
From what Fanny and Thomas had been told, there had been a virulent outbreak of smallpox in the area.
The two sets of parents had been there a sennight when the first cases were reported.
The area was quarantined; no one was allowed in or out.
From the report that had been sent to the families of the Gardiners and Bennets, seeing that they were older and no cure had yet been discovered for the disease, all four had eventually succumbed to the illness.
Given the danger of smallpox, they had been buried at the church in Westcliff-on-Sea.
In the Gardiner plot in St Alfred’s cemetery, as had been done in the Bennet plot at St Hugh’s Church in the Longbourn Village, empty caskets had been interred so there would be gravestones next to those of their ancestors’.
Fanny’s labours began an hour before midnight on the eighth day of January.
In addition to thinking about when their parents were called home to God, Fanny missed her mother and mother-in-law greatly.
Beth Bennet had taught her the duties of the estate’s mistress, and Fanny had grown to love her.
She was not sure she could do the job properly without Beth to steer her right when she erred.
She did not know why she had been thinking of both sets of parents at a time like this, so Fanny shook the maudlin thoughts from her head.
Now was the time to think of the blessing of her son soon to be born.
She was fully aware that a son was not guaranteed, but Fanny believed it would be a male child, and it did not hurt to think positive thoughts, did it?
Also, she had lifted many hours of prayers to Him and surely He would hear her pleas?
Hattie, who so far had not been blessed with children, and Sarah Lucas, who had delivered another son in March 1788—named Johnny—were with Fanny in addition to the midwife and Mrs Hill, the new housekeeper.
After ten hours of labouring, at just after nine the morning of the ninth day of January, Fanny heard the command she was ready for.
“Push, Mrs Bennet, push with all your might,” Mrs Brown, the midwife, said.
She bore down with all that she had. Fanny screamed as she pushed as hard as she was able to. How she wished this was all over already.
“The head is out, and I see the shoulders. With the next pain, push for all you are worth. Yes, that is it, Mrs Bennet, one more big push and he or she will be with you,” Mrs Brown exhorted.
“I cannot any longer; I am too tired,” Fanny said weakly.
Sarah took one hand and Hattie the other. “Yes, you can! You must!” they chorused.
Fanny drew on hidden reserves of strength and gave a mighty push as she screamed at the same time. Halfway through her exertion she felt the release of pressure.
“You did well, Mrs Bennet; she is out,” Mrs Brown waxed over the mewling of a newborn babe.
“Did you say ‘she’?” Fanny verified.
“Indeed, I did, Mrs Bennet. The little mite looks as healthy as any other I have ever delivered, and I deliver almost all the babes in this area,” Mrs Brown assured Mrs Bennet.