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Tuesday morning found Elizabeth unexpectedly encountering her mother in the drawing room long before breakfast. She looked to the matron suspiciously but not in alarm.

The conversation with her mother about her suitor was overdue, aside the fact that he had only been her suitor for a couple of days.

“Good morning, Mama.”

“Good morning, Lizzy… and you may put away that suspicious look. I just want to talk.”

“I admit to some trepidation, but I do not like to be at odds with you. Was Papa too harsh last evening?”

Mrs Bennet laughed, which surprised Elizabeth since she had not really heard her mother laugh in some time. “The day your father can intimidate me is far in the future, my girl. Sometimes it is best to just let him have his say… though I will comply in this case.”

Elizabeth thought for some time. “Well, he does not have his say all that often when you get right down to it. He mostly just laughs at us.”

The matriarch shrugged. “He has been laughing at me since I was eighteen years old. I am well accustomed to it by now.”

“Does it bother you?” Elizabeth asked, surprised that she had never really thought about it before.

“Not especially. He has his area of our family life, and I have mine… though, to be honest, his has been getting smaller for the last decade.”

“Do you resent that?”

“To what purpose, Lizzy… to what purpose? I can accept or resent it, and I will still have five daughters to marry off. I know you find my efforts silly, and perhaps they are, but it still must be done.”

“Perhaps you will have some help with that soon,” Elizabeth said, but quickly regretted it.

“Can it be?” Mrs Bennet said with a hint of nervous wonder.

“It is possible. Things look promising now, but we should not count our chickens just yet.”

“That is why I dragged myself out of bed to meet you this morning.”

Elizabeth raised an eye questioningly and nodded for her mother to continue.

“Your father seems to take great exception to my promotion of our daughters… apparently thinking suitors grow on trees by the dozen.”

“Was that a question?”

Mrs Bennet looked carefully. “It was not, but if you choose to answer, I will not gainsay you.”

Elizabeth mightily wished she did not need to continue, but hoping was unlikely to produce the desired result.

“For the most part, we just wish you went about it differently. You always push Jane and Lydia, while denigrating the rest of us. Both are…” she said, then paused significantly, striving for the right word. “…self-defeating.”

Mrs Bennet frowned, and Elizabeth thought she might have gone too far.

“I suppose I should promote you evenly?”

“I cannot say… perhaps… less… vigorously. Nobody can deny that Jane is about five times prettier than the rest of us, and she is of better character as well. I can hardly fault you for holding out so much hope for her when I have been doing the same thing for some time.”

“Did you see Mr Bingley when he approached us? He barely noticed the rest of you, and he is not the first to react so.”

“Do you think beauty is what will attract a husband?” Elizabeth asked, feeling curious about her mother in a way she never had before.

Mrs Bennet stared wistfully for a few moments. “It did for me. I was the Jane of my day. I was naught but the daughter of a solicitor and caught the biggest fish in the pond.”

“How did it go down?”

Mrs Bennet chuckled. “In the end, it was lumpy, chewy and full of gristle, if I am honest… but your father gave me my girls, so I have no room to complain.”

“And yet you do,” Elizabeth said, once again regretting it.

“I suppose that is my way. I cannot rightly say.”

“How did it all come to pass, Mama?”

“Do you really want my old wives’ tales?”

Elizabeth wondered, not for the first time, if she really did. There was something to be said for not knowing, but eventually she nodded.

“Let me start with why I promote Lydia… and before you say it, I know I am doing neither her nor the family any favours, but I have a hard time knowing that in the moment.”

“What is it about Jane and Lydia? Is it that they look more like you in your youth and we look more like the Bennets?”

“Perhaps, but that is not quite it.”

Elizabeth waited patiently while her mother relived older days for a time, then finally let out a long sigh.

“People say having babies is what we are made for, and we should enjoy it; but I can assure you that each of my five children cost me months of misery. I could barely eat or keep what I did eat down for the first three months. Then I had a month or two of not-too-terrible. The rest was just an endless slog to birth. I do not say that to frighten you. Most women have it better than I did, but it happens.”

“I know that much,” Elizabeth said, but since maidens were supposed to be as ignorant as children, she said no more.

“Lydia was the last, and she nearly killed both of us. The midwife assured me in the strongest possible terms that I was unlikely to survive another attempt.”

Elizabeth did not know that, and reached out both hands to grasp her mother’s, wondering why in the world all of this was new to her. Who was at fault? Her? Her mother? Her father? Society’s rules?

“I did not know, Mama. It must have been difficult.”

“It was, and I believe that was the start of your father pulling away. Oh, he liked you well enough, and taught all of you reading and such, which was good of him. But once there was no further possibility of a son, I believe we both avoided talking about things until there was nothing left to say to each other.”

“That sounds awful.”

Mrs Bennet wiped a tear from her eye. “I probably deserve your censure, Lizzy. I know I have acted inappropriately, and while I would like to blame it on desperation, sometimes it was just because I did not know better, and sometimes because I knew better but did not want to act differently.”

Elizabeth was not the least bit certain she liked the tone of the conversation but thought it would be something to think about.

“Imagine it, my girl. I was twenty-five years old—younger than your Mr Darcy—and an abject failure. Society said I had only one goal—to produce a son—and I failed. It did not matter that I gave it my best and nearly died trying. I was to be pitied rather than respected.”

Elizabeth had never really thought about her mother as a young, pretty, and vivacious woman. To be candid, it was difficult for her to do so. She did not know if that was a universal condition for children or if she was especially thick.

She did some quick calculations. “If you were twenty-five when Lydia was born…”

“I was eighteen when Jane was born—Mary’s age now. I was as pretty as Jane and silly as Kitty, but I was a mother and the mistress of a large and prosperous estate. I was on top of the world.”

Elizabeth still had her hands, so she gave them a good squeeze. “The fall must have been terrible.”

“It was,” Mrs Bennet said, then shook herself as if to move away from such disagreeable conversation. “Is it true Mr Darcy is courting you? Seriously courting and not just for sport?”

“He is.”

“How is it coming?” she asked, almost afraid.

“Very well, I believe… but you must understand that I loathed him Sunday morning. Things changed very quickly.”

“What happened at Netherfield, Lizzy? I tried to get it out of Jane, but I would have had better luck with Nellie.”

Elizabeth laughed, having almost forgotten that she once found her mother a hilarious and engaging woman.

She wondered when and why she had lost her early and mostly positive impressions.

Had her mother changed? Had she? Had she simply quit paying attention?

Worst of all, she was twenty years old. What would have happened if she spent the previous five years helping her mother rather than just enduring her?

Would she have succeeded? Perhaps not, but she had not even tried.

That was followed by a truly disconcerting thought: had she acquired her father’s sarcastic attitude about their mother in his bookroom along with Plato and Homer?

She shook her head with the contradictions. There was no doubt that her mother had once been a vibrant and clever-enough young girl. Many now found her a silly and vulgar woman. Where had her mother gone wrong, and was it too late to correct? She hoped not.

Elizabeth had to shake her head to clear the disconcerting thoughts, but her mother seemed perfectly aware of what was happening, so sat patiently.

Elizabeth finally laughed a little and answered the hanging question. “Jane lost her temper at Netherfield.”

“ Jane Bennet?” her mother asked in shock.

“The one and only,” Elizabeth said, then waited in breathless anticipation to see what direction her mother would go.

So far, she thought the last decade’s good conversations with her mother had all occurred within that hour, and she was suspicious about when the matriarch would revert to form.

It seemed inevitable, but she hoped to hold it off for a time.

“Good for her!” Mrs Bennet said, much to Elizabeth’s surprise.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because Jane needs a bit of backbone. I always worried about her good nature but had no idea what to do about it.”

Once again, Elizabeth was surprised.

“What was she angry about? I suppose one of those lunkheads did something to you. Jane would never get angry about something done to herself.”

Elizabeth laughed. “You seem to know us better than I would have guessed, Mama.”

“I have had some time to learn. What did they do?”

“The Bingley sisters were in a panic about Mr Bingley’s attentions. They spent a quarter-hour disparaging our family, our uncles, our situation, and…”

“…and you!”

“Especially me.”

“So—Jane had a fit and the two of you left on Nellie, which must have been the most humiliating moment of that boy’s life.”

“Why humiliating?” Elizabeth asked, mostly curious about how her mother thought about it.

“Jane spurned his fancy carriage to ride a nag that is months from being knackered, and I imagine you walked. I suspect every servant within ten miles knows about it.”

In the heat of the moment Elizabeth and Jane had not really thought about it (or cared). After the moment it was in the past, so she had not really thought very much about how the neighbourhood would see their exit. “I believe you were right, but…”

“Do not tell me you gave them a setdown first?”

Elizabeth stared at the floor, still holding her mother’s hands but disconcerted, and simply nodded.

Much to her surprise, Mrs Bennet laughed gaily. “Good for you! I always wanted to deliver a good setdown to some clodpole. Well done, my girl!”

Elizabeth laughed nervously, and more fully when her mother squeezed her hands.

“You know that setdown probably brought your Mr Darcy to whatever point he is at. I suspect he likes to be challenged, and I doubt he has been taken to task since he was breeched.”

“I suppose so,” Elizabeth said, feeling that any discussion of Mr Darcy was likely to end poorly.

“Do not look so nervous. I thought the man completely out of reach, but you are reeling him in. I will leave you to your sport.”

Elizabeth laughed. “Mama, you are quite funny when you are in the mood. Why do you hide your light under a bushel?”

The matriarch sighed. “It is the way of the world, Lizzy. Perhaps I might learn to do better, but my mannerisms and habits are what life has given me. I know you find them embarrassing, but I fit right into our society.”

“Perhaps life might give you a chance at something better?”

“Perhaps… but that is a discussion for another day.”

She squeezed her mother’s hands again and thought about escaping. “Just so you know—Mr Darcy and I are coming along nicely. I despised him Sunday morning and was courting him Sunday evening. We will advance or abandon the effort when the time is right.”

“Do not wait too long.”

“I will not,” Elizabeth said. She was starting to feel events pushing her into a corner (which she did not care for), but since her mother was not pushing her too hard, she thought to let it go.

“Is there any hope for Mr Bingley? I know that if you marry Mr Darcy, you will throw your sisters in the path of other rich men, but I thought he was a good match for Jane.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I believe she is waiting to see if he is a boy or a man.”

Mrs Bennet laughed. “Sensible enough.”

They heard the rest of the family in the corridor approaching for breakfast.

Mrs Bennet gave her one last squeeze of the hands before the onslaught, and one last piece of advice.

“Perhaps you need to decide if you are a girl or a woman.” [1]