Page 6

Reading Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth had startled Thomas Bennet into some action.

After speaking with Mrs. Bennet he had rescinded permission for Lydia to accompany Colonel Forster’s wife to Brighton, provoking no small outburst. Fighting his natural inclination, he kept to his plan and attended his family through dinner and then sat with them for two hours complete, allowing himself to retreat to his study only when all five girls had retired for the night.

Once safely barricaded behind the solid oak door, Thomas poured himself a generous snifter of brandy, slumped bonelessly into his most comfortable chair, and took a long sip.

He could still hear his family moving about upstairs preparing for bed but at least he was separated by the thick walls of the Bennet ancestral home.

He fancied that his ears still rang from Lydia’s tantrum over her lost trip to Brighton.

Now that he had realized his baby girl’s true age (fifteen!), he was stunned by her childish behavior.

Lydia had been a beautiful baby—quite as pretty as Jane—but with a liveliness that reminded Thomas of his wife.

It was easy to see how she had grown up as the spoiled baby of their family, effortlessly wrapping her mother around her little finger.

When on Earth had he agreed that she was old enough to be out in society?

He suspected that he had not— ‘coming out’ was not such an event in small town Hertfordshire as it was in London.

Children were often brought to gatherings and would gradually make the transition from the youngsters’ play-dancing in the corner to joining the adults in their more formal sets.

Thomas could still remember his perturbation when one of the lads from the village had invited Jane to dance in the adult circle for the first time.

When had he ceased to care? Mary had shown little talent for dancing; he suspected that this was why she pretended to dislike the activity so much and regularly disappeared into a corner with a book at such events.

Although he knew it was selfish, he could admit to himself that, as a father of beautiful daughters, Mary’s attitude had been a relief.

His two youngest were another matter entirely.

After an evening spent attending to them, Mr. Bennet was beginning to think that Catherine might not be quite as silly as he had labeled her.

Rather, it seemed that she had lost herself between Lydia’s bold bullying and her own craving for some crumb of attention.

Kitty’s stunned response when he had attempted to speak with her had spoken volumes to him.

When she had finally responded there had been more than a hint of hurt sarcasm in her voice; ‘Why don’t you ask Lizzy, as you always do?

’ Mr. Bennet was man enough to recognize an arrow well-aimed, but determined that he would try again after contemplating how to reach his second youngest.

Lydia’s wildness was the most disturbing.

Her clothes were nothing like the modest garments that he expected to see on the fifteen-year-old daughter of a country squire.

Mrs. Bennet had always dressed her daughters well (often exceeding her allowance) and it had once amused him to see how she outfitted their beautiful little girls like porcelain dolls.

Lizzy’s habit of muddying her clothes during her energetic forays outdoors had left her mother with little choice but to amend their second daughter’s wardrobe with more practical costumes.

Jane’s serene countenance concealed a firm grip on the elegant styles she preferred; Mr. Bennet had often heard Mrs. Bennet fretting that she remembered a dress being ordered with more lace or trimmings than it finally appeared on Jane, only to catch a hidden smile between his two eldest daughters.

He would not be at all surprised if much of the lace that Mrs. Bennet remembered demanding from the seamstress ended up in the scrap bag that Lydia and Kitty used to re-trim bonnets.

Mr. Bennet picked up his glass to take another sip and found that it had left a ring marring his great-grandfather’s oak desk.

He grunted to himself. How had it come to this?

Was he really sitting alone in his book room, worrying about the lace and bonnets of his womenfolk?

Was he so desperate to avoid the true issue at hand?

How was he to correct his family’s behavior after years of leniency?

Thomas released a great sigh. After inheriting Longbourn, he had begun his adult life with the best of intentions; determined to be a fair and liberal master, a good neighbor, and above all, a kind and attentive husband and father.

When had all his good intentions gone so awry?

He had five wonderful daughters and a wife who, though not the most intelligent or educated of her sex, was a warm and generous hostess and mother.

In the minutes immediately after reading Mr. Darcy’s letter, Bennet had focused on Elizabeth’s turbulent emotions and the dangers posed by Lieutenant Wickham and his ilk.

Now freed of that crisis, Thomas’ mind circulated back to the gentleman’s other points.

He had long dismissed the poor behavior of his wife and youngest daughters as silliness to be laughed at.

To have it summarized in such stark terms by a relative stranger and to have himself included in the list of improper conduct was startling.

After Mr. Bennet quelled his first impulse to laugh it all off and forced himself to consider Mr. Darcy’s depiction more seriously, his indignation swelled rapidly into anger.

How dare the young whippersnapper speak of him so!

And to his favorite daughter, of all people!

Certainly his behavior was nothing like that of his wife and younger daughters…

Thomas sighed again and drained his glass, the fury leaching out of him.

That was the material point, was it not?

He was the head of the Bennet family and therefore any improprieties committed by them were his responsibility…

his fault. He was struck by the rightness of Elizabeth’s words when she had come to his office earlier in the day and begged him not to allow Lydia to go to Brighton, arguing that the behavior of the youngest reflected poorly upon her sisters and could materially affect all of their prospects in life.

In the end, he was the head of the family and any deficiencies of behavior or education were his to correct.

Suddenly wishing desperately that he might hide away in his book room for the remainder of his natural life, Thomas allowed himself the extravagance of a second glass of brandy before firmly turning his mind to more practical considerations.

The day’s revelations had made it clear to him that his eldest daughters (and perhaps all his daughters) would be marrying in the next few years.

None of them had dowries to speak of, nor had he laid by any significant sum to supplement their provisions after his death.

His own father, a devout misogynist by the end of his life, had written an iron-clad clause into the title of Longbourn.

First, the Bennet estate could never be split up among multiple heirs.

Second, only males could inherit— if the master died without male issue then his sister’s son would inherit, provided that that man adopt the Bennet surname as his own.

Because of this, Thomas Bennet’s five daughters would inherit nothing but what their mother had brought to the marriage and the little that their father had set aside or invested in business ventures with Mr. Gardiner.

Thomas ground his teeth. Because of his father’s determination to keep the estate whole and in the family, Longbourn was set to pass to the halfwit offspring of the despicable Wilberforce Collins.

As Thomas Bennet sipped his brandy, his eyes came to rest on the Bennet family bible and he idly flipped it open to the record of births, deaths, and marriages inscribed on its opening pages.

As he read the names of his dead ancestors, his mind filled in their stories and he let his current troubles fade from his consciousness for a moment, in favor of memories.

In 1759, the heir of Longbourn, Mr. Horatio Bennet, had married Miss Elizabeth Smythe to the great joy of his elderly parents.

The couple had lived quietly in the country and had one daughter, Jane, and one son, Thomas.

Mrs. Bennet died when her son was barely six but Horatio never remarried, being a solitary man by nature and well satisfied with the care of his housekeeper and cook.

The son was sent off to school but, having little understanding of females, Mr. Bennet paid scant attention to his daughter other than to ascertain that she was properly clothed and fed and, when the vicar mentioned that the girl had a pleasant singing voice, to arrange that she might join a neighbor’s daughters at their lessons on the pianoforte.

Thus, Miss Jane Bennet had grown up in an odd sort of genteel neglect.

Since her mother had passed on when the girl was but twelve, she had been expected to act as hostess on the rare occasion that her father had visitors.

She learned to sit quietly and see to the guests’ needs.

As the conversation was generally beyond her limited experiences and education, she became adept at asking such questions as would lead others into conversing.

However, as her father rarely attended social occasions in the neighborhood, she herself spent little time with other young people her own age.