Page 8 of Great Uncle Henry (Pride & Prejudice Vagary)
His residence three miles from Longbourn led to more visits to the estate he grew up on.
Even though Fanny wanted to keep a distance from the man she was convinced would soon evict her from the estate of which she was mistress, she did not gainsay her husband when he invited his uncle for the occasional meal.
Henry was not surprised that Jane seemed to be very wary of him.
There was no doubt it was because of her mother’s nonsensical pronouncements.
Only time would tell if Jane would be able to see through her mother’s imagined future injuries at his hand.
For the first almost year of her life, until Lizzy began to walk and then to talk, Henry could not tell what kind of character she would have.
It soon became evident that she was nothing like her older sister.
When she had reached about four months of age, her eyes had turned a fascinating shade of emerald-green.
From what he could remember of his late sister-in-law, he thought Lizzy had inherited her eye colour from her late grandmother.
Unlike Jane, who hated to get any dirt on her person or clothing, once Lizzy began to walk and then to run, she seemed to revel in getting dirty.
She was adventurous, and it became evident as she approached her second birthday that she was highly intelligent.
Her speaking ability surpassed her older sister’s, who was three years her senior.
Lizzy had been weaned off Mrs Bellamy’s milk when she was just shy of a year and one half in age.
Rather than dismiss her, Henry had employed Mrs Bellamy as the future governess of his great-niece, and as such, in addition to a very generous wage, she was given a cottage at Netherfield Park where she would live with her son, Luke.
Henry had gone to see Phillips and requested he contact Gardiner to see if the owner of the estate would extend the lease for a further three years. Unsurprisingly, the anonymous landlord had been willing to add another three years to the lease.
Living in the neighbourhood of Meryton again brought Henry into contact with many of the four and twenty landed families in the area.
Thankfully, without a hostess, he did not need to entertain, but that did not stop the flow of invitations he received.
The most prolific hosts, other than his niece, were the Lucases.
Some months before he had moved into Netherfield Park, the former Mr William Lucas, owner of three stores in the market town, one of which was the mercantile, had become the mayor of Meryton.
Three months after Henry moved into his new home, their Majesties, the King and Queen, had made an unscheduled stop on their way back from Bedfordshire to London.
They had been guests of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford at the Duke’s primary estate, Woburn Abbey.
The mayor had made an impromptu and extremely flattering speech, and the King had conferred a knighthood on Mr Lucas.
Being in trade had become disgusting to the new knight after his investiture at St James Palace.
Soon after, he had sold his profitable concerns and purchased a small estate which sat between Meryton and Longbourn.
He promptly renamed it Lucas Lodge. What the estate earned, a little more than eight hundred pounds per annum, was a significant drop in income, but Sir William did not seem to care.
The Lucases had three children by the time Lizzy turned two: the eldest Lucas was Franklin, who was ten, next came Charlotte, who was eight, and finally came Johnny, who was four.
Like Lizzy’s first birthday celebration, the second one was not attended by her parents.
When Henry considered why his niece missed Lizzy’s second birthday in March 1793, he supposed there was a legitimate reason.
Fanny was heavy with child again and would enter her lying-in within weeks, or possibly days.
Since she had learnt she was in the family way again, Fanny had been crowing to anyone willing to listen, and those unwilling as well, that she carried the heir to Longbourn, something of which she had no doubt.
The more he saw of Lizzy, the more Henry believed he had found his heir, but like he had told himself, he needed to reserve judgement with regards to Jane until she was at least ten years older; he also needed to wait to be sure his judgement about Lizzy was true.
Because of her irrational thoughts about Henry, Fanny did not allow Jane to visit Netherfield Park.
The few times he travelled to Longbourn with Lizzy and one of her nursemaids, Jane had been standoffish, being warned away by her mother for the same nonsensical reasons Fanny gave her about Uncle Henry.
It was sad that the sisters would not know one another.
It was something else he hoped would change as Jane got older.
Lizzy was a fascinating imp, and watching her grow up made Henry sorry he had never found a woman with whom to have his own children.
As much as he would have enjoyed having his own offspring, Henry refused to be one of those older men who married some young thing for her to be his broodmare.
His determination never to marry without love and respect had not lessened.
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On the eleventh day of April 1793, Fanny Bennet birthed another daughter.
She was handed the babe to feed. “Well, I suppose I must. It seems there is no choice. No one cares for my nerves after I laboured for five hours.” She took the babe to her breast. As she had owned that she knew the babe had no choice about the sex with which it was born, Fanny could not squawk about this daughter being wilful by not being born a son like she had with her second daughter.
The new daughter was named Mary Penelope.
The little hair she had was not dark like her next older sisters; it was a light brown.
In Fanny’s mind, it was not ideal that Mary was not blonde like herself and Jane.
When Fanny enquired whether Uncle Henry would pay for Mrs Bellamy to be her wet nurse, her husband had disabused her of that notion, explaining that it had been at least six months since the lady had been able to provide milk to a babe.
At first, Fanny had been rather indignant, demanding a wet nurse.
Faced with the threat of a penalty of one year’s allowance, Fanny desisted and began to feed her daughter without further complaint.
All she could hope was that she would be able to wean Mary soon, or her husband would find a local wet nurse.
Within a few weeks, the caterwauling for a wet nurse had commenced once again.
To keep peace in his home, Bennet had agreed to seek a wet nurse to assist Fanny.
He preferred to pay the wages and restore some peace to his house, even if it meant he was not able to purchase as many books.
He knew he could not ask Uncle Henry to take on the expense of another servant.
Thanks to the money he was saving on Lizzy’s upkeep, Bennet decided that he was not too much worse off paying for a wet nurse, when he found one.
Bennet had learnt that his uncle did not appreciate his nephew trying to get him to pay for things he had not decided to do on his own. In his mind, Bennet decided that his uncle’s funds were limited, so he needed to be conservative.
A month after Mary was born and shortly after her christening, a tenant gave birth and was willing to feed Mary as well as the remuneration would be very welcome.
Mary was taken out to the cottage where the tenant resided.
It being his third daughter, Bennet did not object when his wife told him Mary was to be sent to a tenant’s cottage.
Without a crying babe in the house, it would be that much more peaceful.
Henry was not impressed at what his niece and nephew had done, but he did not interfere.
Unlike with Lizzy, there had been no concern that Fanny would abuse her.
Also, he was well aware that his indolent nephew would prefer that Henry pay for the care of his third daughter.
He had no problem doing so, as long as his nephew was unaware.
To that end, Henry employed the younger sister of one of Lizzy’s nursemaids to assist the tenant family with Mary’s care, thereby making life easier for his great-niece. He also added to what the tenants were paid, on condition they said nothing.
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With each passing day, week, and month, Henry’s opinion that Lizzy would be his heir was solidified.
He still stuck to his determination to wait at least ten years to make the final determination.
By the age of three, Lizzy, thanks to Mrs Bellamy’s teaching, was beginning to acquire rudimentary skills in recognising her letters.
In May 1794, Fanny announced that she was carrying the heir of Longbourn. On the twentieth day of February 1795, she was proved wrong once again when a fourth Bennet daughter was born.
She was named Catherine Felicity, and thanks to Mary having not been quite weaned yet, Catherine was sent to be fed by the same tenant where Mary was.