THE MILKING SHED WAS just up ahead. Normally Mrs Bennet would not pay any attention to that, as the milk maids would frequently join together. Their conversations were rarely wholesome. Something drew Mrs Bennet towards the shed this morning, maybe watching the maids would calm her already fraught nerves. She paused at the door that had been left ajar, watching as eight maids sat on their stools gently milking the cows. This milk would then be delivered to the whole village. It was amazing to Mrs Bennet that a few cows could supply the whole village with milk. The maids were chattering about inconsequential things, and Mrs Bennet found their endless chatter gently soothed away her own worries for the moment.
It was a fleeting movement at the back of the shed that caught Mrs Bennet’s eye and broke the sleepy mood that she had been lulled into by watching the gentle routine of the maids. It was evident that this was no stranger to the maids as they never missed a beat in their milking. The shadow moved stealthily and slowly, until he reached the maid he was looking for. In the middle of her companions the maid tried to ignore the interloper. She shrugged off his advances, and Mrs Bennet realised that she had stayed too long. The sun was fully risen, and the day had long since begun. Light streamed through the windows, and the interloper’s face was exposed. Mrs Bennet was shocked, what could Wickham be doing in the Longbourn milking shed. He was overly familiar with the maids that milked the cows. How long had this going on? Mrs Bennet had little time to wonder about that as she needed to go back to the house and begin the day.
Mrs Bennet arrived back at the kitchen door at the same time that Jane appeared in the doorway. It was obvious that she had been attempting to sneak out somewhere. “No, you do not go anywhere Jane Bennet.”
Jane looked startled and upset. “Mother, I am of age. I can do what I like.”
“I am still your mother and while you reside under your father’s roof, you will obey me. I want to talk with you, and I expect you to accompany me to my dressing room so that I can dress for the day.” Mrs Bennet ordered. She needed to know what it was that Jane had been thinking. Now she was determined to get to the bottom of her eldest daughters thinking.
“Yes, Mother.” Jane followed her mother up the stairs.
Mrs Bennet turned on her daughter as soon as the door to her dressing room closed. “Now, Jane, I must know what you are doing, what have you been talking to Mr Rushworth about?”
“Mother, we did not talk about very much. I was just listening to his sad tales from his marriage.” Jane looked down at her hands. Mrs Bennet recognised the signs, Jane was lying. She had not lied to her mother since she was a little girl covering up for her Elizabeth’s misadventures. What had she and this man done?
“I will have the truth from you, Jane. It may be a long time, but I recognise the signs and know that you are lying to me.”
“It is nothing really, Mother, and I am telling the truth. We did talk about his misfortunes. We talked about Bingley too.”
“Has he made love to you?”
“No, Mother. He just wanted somebody to listen to him. We were all so caught up in the weddings that nobody was talking to him. I listened because he needed to talk. I never dreamed that he would show me how weak and insubstantial my feelings were for Mr Bingley. It is strange but already my feelings for Bingley are fading. I have not missed him at all” Jane smiled a strange twisted smile. “As I spoke to Mr Rushworth, I realised that Mr Bingley was kind and loving, but I could not give him what the same level of love. At first everything was good, but the longer things went on I felt less and less. I felt that I had to go through with it because I had promised to marry him. Yet I realised that if I went through with my marriage to Mr Bingley, I would be likely to bring a much worse disgrace to our family than I would if I did not marry Mr Bingley.”
“Is that really that likely, Jane?”
Jane flushed, “Mama, I have been attracted to other men since I promised to marry Mr Bingley. I do not think that I could be faithful to him.”
“Jane, being faithful is a choice. One makes it every single day to stay faithful to the vows that you make. No matter how much you love your husband, there will always be others that will hold some attraction to you, we choose to sacrifice that attraction in order to remain faithful to the one that you make the vows to.” Mrs Bennet advised.
“Mother, I am not made that way; I was not made to sacrifice that which I want.” Jane cried, “I am too selfish. You and Papa have indulged my every whim, so when I want something, I set out to get it.”
Jane’s confession smote Mrs Bennet to the heart. She and Mr Bennet had indulged Jane to try and make up for her difficulties. Little did she know that by doing so she had created such a selfish person. Was it possible that she was responsible for the disappointment that Mr Bingley had suffered? After the picnic yesterday, Mrs Bennet had talked to Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley. The concern Mrs Bennet had felt on Tuesday when Jane had walked away from her own wedding, had only heightened when she chatted with Mr Bingley. Mrs Bennet became lost in her memories of the conversation as she remembered how the man admitted that he had not seen any sign of Jane’s waning interest. Jane had been clever in the way that she had hidden her feelings, either that or else everyone around her had seen just what they wanted to see rather than the truth. Either way Mr Bingley’s heartbreak sat squarely with Mrs Bennet and her husband. Why had she not seen how spoilt and selfish Jane had become? There was something in this that confused Mrs Bennet. It was as if Jane was under some kind of spell. This was not her dear sweet Jane; this was a stranger who only looked like Jane Bennet. This selfish wretch was a woman that Mrs Bennet did not recognise. The only thing she could do right now was stare at her ungrateful daughter. “Do you not care about the heartache you have inflicted on Mr Bingley?” She eventually asked Jane.
Jane laughed. “Care about his heartbreak? Why should I? Why should I care about a man that I have given up, and who seems to be happy enough to spend time in my youngest sister’s company?”
“Jane, you have hurt him very badly, I do not believe that this is the true you. I cannot.”
“Believe it, Mother. I am being very true to who I am. You just all mistook my quiet serenity for selflessness. You all saw exactly what you wanted to see. You wanted the perfect daughter and I gave you that. However, with Lizzy, Mary and Kitty married you have three daughters who have the kind of matches you always sought for me.” Once more Jane smiled a twisted smile. “Now Mother, I am going to go and see Papa. I wish to set up my own establishment in London. I have already planned it out. I will see Aunt and Uncle Gardiner regularly and I will find some kind of employment.”
“Employment? Have you lost your mind?! I will not allow you to do this. I cannot. Jane you know that there are few jobs that women of our position in society can take, and you do not have the qualifications to become a governess or companion. You are not thinking clearly!”
“No, Mother, I am thinking clearer than I have ever thought before.” With that Jane flounced out of her mother’s dressing room, leaving a very confused Mrs Bennet in her wake. What had gotten into her daughter? Mrs Bennet sat staring out of her dressing room window for a full ten minutes after her daughter walked out of her rooms. Jane had delivered something that was beyond anything that Mrs Bennet could have imagined. Yes, she was a nervous woman, but that was only because she worried too much about other people. She had sacrificed her own happiness time and again for her daughters, overindulging both Jane and Lydia. Now when all five of her daughters should have been married and Mrs Bennet should be left alone with just her husband, she was faced with a new problem. She now had to support one daughter with a broken heart and another who had become a stranger to her. Mrs Bennet wondered if Elizabeth had seen any sign of the woman that sat in Mrs Bennet’s dressing room this morning. She wished to know what Elizabeth knew, but there was no way that Mrs Bennet would disturb her newly married daughters today. They deserved their privacy. Elizabeth had done well yesterday, but this was a time
for the newlyweds to find their way together in their new status and relationships as married couples. Eventually, Mrs Bennet stirred herself and having changed her clothes, went downstairs to meet with Hill and to catch up on her day. Without three of her girls, the house was very quiet, and everything seemed to be strange. She was struggling to settle into a new routine but having her guests in the house made a new routine difficult to establish. It would be once the guests left that Mrs Bennet would truly have to face the loss of three of her daughters.
Breakfast was a sullen affair. Their guests had excused themselves to visit Stevenage for the day, which left Mrs Bennet with only her husband and daughters at the table. She had yet to speak with her husband and find out whether Jane had spoken to him yet. However, by Jane’s behaviour Mrs Bennet guessed that her father and not given the answer that she desired. After the conference in her dressing room, Mrs Bennet was in no mood for allowing Jane to have her own way any further, yet she knew that she would eventually give in and give Jane whatever it was that she desired.
It was Lydia who broke the silence. “Mama, I am sorry for everything. I did not know that Mr Wickham was married.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, Lydia. The man was a believable trickster.” Mrs Bennet said. There was an undignified snort from Jane. “Do you have anything to say, Jane?”
“Only that the man in question was not as discrete as you seem to think. It was clear that he was not what he was pretending to be.”
“And you never thought to mention it? Why?” Lydia asked.
Jane shrugged, “Why should I? You would not have listened if I had. You were in love and Mr Darcy was the villain. You did not stop to think that there were two sides to every tale. Darcy did not know that Wickham was married to his sister, but he did try to warn you that Wickham was no good.”
“Is that true, Jane? Did Mr Darcy try to warn Lydia?” Mrs Bennet asked.
“He did. ‘Miss ‘I am in love’, would not listen to him though.”
“I am not the one who walked out of my own wedding. I did not cause someone else to feel this kind of devastating pain. I was true to him, even if he was not true to me.” Lydia burst out as the tears began to stream down her face once more.
“True, but I do not think it is in my nature to be true to one man” Jane answered.
“JANE BENNET! That kind of talk is disgusting.” Mrs Bennet was horrified.
“What it is, is true, Mother. Mr Rushworth is not the only man that I have had pleasure in his company since I agreed to marry Mr Bingley. I like male companionship too much to stay true to just one man.”
A horrible suspicion began to creep into Mrs Bennet’s mind. She hoped that she was wrong about her eldest daughter. “Jane, have you given your virtue away?”
“That is my cue to leave” Mr Bennet said escaping the breakfast parlour quickly. “Mrs Bennet, you will deal with this and we shall discuss the repercussions later on.”
Jane tossed her head defiantly “What if I have, Mother? I do not see that it matters much”
“Does not matter much? What are you saying?”
“I am saying, Mother, that times are changing and that nobody values purity anymore. Everyone is doing it.” Jane said quietly.
“I beg your pardon?” the disbelief in Mrs Bennet’s voice was only matched by that of Lydia.
“You are wrong, Jane! Not everyone is, it is true that some are, but not as many as you think.” Lydia answered.
Lydia’s comment had sown a seed of doubt about Mrs Wickham’s assertions. “Jane Bennet, you will answer the question, have you given up your virtue?”
“Mother, I do not wish to discuss it.”
“Then I have to conclude that you have.” Mrs Bennet said with disappointment.
“I told you, Mother, that I am selfish and that I will not deny myself what I want.” Mrs Bennet sighed and turned away from her daughter who had become so obstinate and had lost her morality.
Breakfast was finished in silence and afterwards Mrs Bennet hurried out to her husband’s study, entering quickly at his call. “Oh, Mr Bennet!”
“Fanny, start at the beginning.” He ordered, “Jane was not making much sense earlier when she came to see me.” Mrs Bennet knew that behind his sarcastic humour Mr Bennet was as worried about Jane as she was. He had always been a good father, though he often pretended to be the reverse. She did not always understand his humour, but she loved him for the care he took of her and their family. They had had their problems, and they had struggled to make a life together, but neither of them would consider being without the other. Mr Bennet moved over to the sofa where his wife was sitting and placed his arm around her as she launched into the sad tale of how selfish and unrecognisable their eldest daughter had become. When she had finished her sad tale, a silence hung in the study the likes of which had not been there for many a year.
Eventually Mr Bennet broke the silence, “Do you think, Fanny, that it is we who have been at fault? We treated Jane and Lydia differently because of their struggles, and now they are the ones who are suffering.”
“I do not know, Thomas. We have done our best, but honestly both girls have turned out so differently I cannot quite make out whether it is we who are at fault through our upbringing of our daughters, or whether it is simply that we missed that selfish streak in Jane and even indulged it to a degree. Whatever it is, we need to plan how to deal with this, and I do not think letting Jane go to London to set up her own establishment is the right thing to do.”
“It sounds to me as if she’s been influenced by some rather disreputable people.” Mr Bennet mused, “yet I do not know quite what we can do. Her going to London right now is out of the question, for the estate funds won’t cover such a scheme. The cost of the weddings was very high and took most of what we had set aside.”
“We need to try and reach our daughter somehow, not send her away. If we allow her to go at this time, I fear she will just get worse and worse.”
“You are right, but at the same time she is, as she says, of age and therefore can decide her own way to go. We can but advise my dear. There is nothing more for it.”
“I know, I just worry for her and all our girls.”
“That is precisely why you make such a wonderful mother to our girls.” With that Mr Bennet kissed her and dismissed her from his study.
Chapter 9 – 2nd January 1812
Nine Ladies Dancing
Elizabeth Darcy had arrived early with her other sisters Mary and Catherine. Excitement was bubbling throughout the whole house. Tonight, would be the last ball of the season and the last time that the girls would prepare for a ball in the same house, together. It would also be the first that the girls would appear in public as married women. Life for the Bennet household had changed, societal positioning had changed. New rivalries had come into play, while old childish squabbles were now things of the past.
ELIZABETH HAD CHOSEN not to get ready with Jane today because she had seen the results of Jane’s decisions. It had almost been as if Darcy and Bingley had exchanged their personalities. Darcy had changed under Elizabeth’s gentle love. He was laughing and smiling, but Bingley had withdrawn from those around him. He no longer wished to go out dancing or to be around anyone. He had withdrawn into his pain and grief, and Elizabeth thought that he appeared to be slightly depressed. Elizabeth could understand it. After her wedding, she and Darcy had spent the last few nights listening to Bingley and encouraging him, and she had left Darcy at Netherfield trying to encourage Bingley to attend the ball tonight. It was doubtful in Elizabeth’s mind whether the poor man would attend, and she blamed her sister for the fact that he was in such a state. Elizabeth had chosen to get ready with her other two married sisters instead. When the girls had first arrived, Mrs Bennet joined them in Mary’s old room and the four married women had great fun discussing the girls plans for being mistresses of their own homes. They listened to many stories from their mother about her early years as mistress
of Longbourn. Each girl had her own maid to do her hair and aid with their dresses now, but today they had chosen to help each other in the same way that they had done before their marriages.
“Mama,” Elizabeth said as her mother was about to leave and get ready herself, “I am worried about Jane. The Jane I knew growing up would never have hurt someone as deeply as Jane hurt Mr Bingley.”
“I am sorry, Lizzy, I do not believe that Jane is as good and loving as she had led us to believe. Maybe you can get through to her. For she is saying the strangest things.” Mrs Bennet hurried off before Elizabeth could ask her any more questions. She saw Elizabeth slip into Jane’s room. She did not however, go straight to her own rooms. Having spent a good deal of time with her married daughters and having fun reliving some of her worst failures when she first became mistress of Longbourn, Mrs Bennet slipped into her youngest daughters’ room. “Lydia, my dear, how are you?”
“I miss Kitty, but I am fine.”
Mrs Bennet laughed at her daughter’s response, Catherine had chosen to get ready with Elizabeth and Mary, not because a slight to Lydia, but simply because the concerns of married women were different to that of the unmarried. She and her sisters were talking about their husbands and their new lives. Catherine had not wished to hurt Lydia with her discussions. “Kitty did not wish to hurt you with her endless chatter about her new life. She was not trying to slight you.”
“I know. I understand. It is not her fault that Mr Wickham turned out to be so unworthy. You know, I feel sorry for Mr Darcy’s sister. I know that she had a hand in this, but I cannot help thinking and feeling that she is too good for him.”
“I know, but she had plenty of time to come forward and tell the world that she was married to Mr Wickham and that he could not marry you. She was as complicit in hurting you and her brother as Mr Wickham was.”
“Why did I not see though, Mother?”
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