Page 17 of Great Uncle Henry (Pride & Prejudice Vagary)
I n the five years since Lizzy had turned ten, Henry’s choice of her as his primary heir had been confirmed many times over.
Her strength of character and her desire to protect her sisters and those she loved developed until Henry likened her to a female tiger defending her cubs.
She did not treat people differently because they were either above or below her in society.
She dealt with everyone with whom she came in contact with, respectfully and kindly.
As long as one did not cross her, Lizzy was the most pleasant of ladies.
If one made the error of getting on her bad side, they would discover one of her faults.
She was slow to forgive, especially if someone hurt one she loved.
At the same time, Lizzy was a caring, compassionate, and generous young lady.
Lizzy, Mary, and Kitty fulfilled the duties to those dependent on Longbourn even though their parents, who should have cared for Longbourn’s tenants, did not.
The latter always made sure to spend time with Cleopatra, and insured her beloved cat had a little cream each day.
Jane would not join her sisters in visiting the tenants, as her mother had forbidden her to do so, and Lydia could not care about anyone but herself.
His nephew still hated to bestir himself from his study, and Fanny considered calling on tenants below her.
To her, the only thing a mistress of an estate was required to do was to be a good hostess.
At least when Lizzy or her next two youngest sisters reported issues with the tenants that needed to be solved by the master of the estate, Thomas would do so.
If he had been a diligent master, the problems would have been corrected proactively and not when they reached the stage, where there was no choice but to fix them.
Over the years, the friendship between Jane and Lizzy had deepened.
Henry was sure that had Thomas not forbidden Fanny to discourage Jane from having a good relationship with Lizzy, the two eldest Bennet daughters would not have become as close as they were.
He was aware that Elizabeth did not feel the same closeness to Jane as she did to Mary or even Kitty.
One day when Lizzy had spoken to him, she had shared that Jane’s inability to see their mother’s pronouncements as nonsensical would always be an impediment between them.
In the same way his opinion that Lizzy was the best choice of heir, Henry’s feelings that Jane did not have enough independence to take on the role that Lizzy would have to one day had been proved correct many times.
In January 1803, as soon as Jane reached the age of fifteen, Fanny Bennet pushed her out into society.
The logic? In Fanny’s mind Jane, with her unparalleled beauty, would catch a wealthy man, thereby protecting Fanny from the entail.
Henry had spoken to his nephew of his wife’s impropriety and that fifteen was too young to be out in society, but Thomas had brushed his concerns away.
He received too much enjoyment from watching his wife make a fool of herself over and over again.
A wealthy tradesman had taken a six-month lease on Netherfield Park from April to September of 1803.
The man was close to forty, and Fanny had done everything to push Jane at him, short of engineering a compromise between the man and Jane.
As she always did, Jane played the dutiful daughter and ignored her mother’s impropriety and put herself in Mr Canfield’s company.
Thankfully, Jane would not wear low-cut gowns or act coquettishly, as that went too far against her serene persona .
What Fanny did not realise was that although the man appreciated Jane’s prettiness, he had no interest in a child who was so very young and whose main disadvantage was her mother, who was a shrew, and pushed them together at every turn.
Before Mr Canfield departed Netherfield Park in September 1803, he wrote some very bad verses of poetry for Jane in which he hid the reasons why he would never offer for her.
Being mean of understanding, Fanny thought the poetry meant an offer was imminent.
When the man and his party left with no intention of returning, Fanny had been sure that someone had turned Mr Canfield against Jane.
She could not conceive that Jane, who followed her mother’s advice to never allow a man to see she was intelligent or educated, had not garnered a proposal.
Had she known that many men were looking for the opposite of what she was advocating, Fanny would not have been able to grasp the facts, as it would have been too foreign to her.
Once Henry saw that Thomas did nothing to stop Jane being pushed out at fifteen, he met with his nephew and told him that he would consider Lizzy being pushed out early as a contravention of their agreement.
Bennet agreed that Lizzy would not come out locally until she was seventeen and then only if it was her decision.
If not, it would be at eighteen. As his uncle had pushed, and it was better to agree than argue, Bennet additionally agreed that he would not allow Mary or Kitty to be put out at the age Jane had come out.
When Uncle Henry shared that their father had agreed they would not come out at fifteen, Lizzy, Mary, and Kitty had been joyful.
They had worried greatly, as they could see that Jane had not been comfortable being forced to enter society at such a young age.
They understood that their eldest sister would not tell Mama how she truly felt, as she did not want to hurt their mother’s feelings.
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The three middle Bennet sisters were not close to Lydia.
Even though she was not allowed to pilfer their things any longer, she was still Mama’s favourite, and in everything else, their mother never said no to her.
By the time Jane came out, Lydia was not seven yet.
At six, she had been included in Mrs Bellamy’s classes, but she had been so disruptive, disrespectful, and disobedient that her father had removed her from the lessons being taught by the governess.
Lydia would be taught to read and write only.
When Henry heard about Bennet’s decision, he had been disgusted that his nephew had capitulated so easily.
His perspective had moderated when he had received a letter from the governess in which she stated she had been relieved by the decision because Lydia had been making it impossible for Mary and Kitty to concentrate on their lessons.
With Henry’s permission, some of the neighbouring children had been included in the classes.
Even though she was six years older than Lizzy, Miss Charlotte Lucas had wanted to study with Mrs Bellamy because she knew her education was sorely lacking.
She was a very pragmatic and clever young lady so along with her younger sister, Maria, who was Kitty’s age, Henry agreed that the Lucas sisters could join the classes in 1802.
A warm friendship had sprung up between Charlotte Lucas and Lizzy, who her friend addressed as Eliza, and with the latter’s intelligence and broad education, the age difference between them was never a problem.
Henry was impressed with Miss Lucas. She did not seek anything in her bond with Lizzy except for friendship.
Miss Lucas was also a friend to Jane, but the connection was not the same as it was with Lizzy.
Knowing that Miss Lucas and Miss Maria only had five hundred pounds each for a dowry, Henry had contacted Gardiner and told him to create dowry funds for the two Lucas sisters in the amount of ten thousand pounds each.
He had not told their parents what he had done; it would come to light when one of their daughters began to accept attentions from a man.
Seeing that Miss Lucas was of a very practical bent, if she was about to settle for a marriage of convenience, Henry would find a way to have Lizzy tell Miss Lucas that her future was secured.
He was sure that Lizzy had an inkling that he was far wealthier than people, especially her parents, thought.
She had, however, never questioned him about his fortune.
If she had, Henry would have told her all, but he appreciated the fact that Lizzy was not at all mercenary and cared about the character of a person, not the balance of their bank account.
With Lizzy turning sixteen in 1807 and Henry approaching his eight and sixtieth birthday, he decided the time to use the dower house was close. He resolved to let his nephew know that he would take up residence there in May 1807, after his birthday.
He would also fulfil a promise to Kitty; Cleopatra would move to the dower house when Henry began to live there. He would have a mouse free house.
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During the months Henry was not in Hertfordshire or London, he was at Sherwood Dale.
In 1804, the neighbouring estate to the southwest, a significantly smaller one than Henry’s, came up for sale.
The master had come into an unexpected inheritance of a much larger estate in Cornwall and had no desire to manage the estates which were separated by more than three hundred and twenty miles, meaning a carriage trip of five to six days.
Given the shared boundary, Henry had purchased the estate and annexed it to Sherwood Dale. The smaller manor house would be kept as a dower house for the larger estate, which would have a combined income of fourteen thousand pounds per annum.
Just after the spring planting of 1805, a few days after Henry had returned from celebrating Lizzy’s fourteenth birthday, his steward asked to meet with him.
Lucas Wickham, who was approaching his fiftieth year, had stated that he was not able to do as much as he used to do. He requested that his master consider employing an under-steward or two.