To Make Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  My father almost spoiled things the following morning by remarking, casually, upon what a convenience it might be to have an attorney in the family, and that Miss Gardiner would have five thousand pounds upon her marriage.

  Over the course of the next few months, I, perforce, saw much more of Miss Gardiner. I knew quite well what she was about, but my mind was not yet made up, and I took care to be circumspect. I danced with her no more than twice in one evening. I spoke about her as little as might be, and to her no more than to any other young lady. I made sure never to be alone with her.

  But such is the power of suggestion, and of that universal law alluded to above, that I soon began to notice the strange smirks upon the faces of any who chanced to see the two of us arm in arm, the nods and winks between the old matrons surrounding the dance floor, the strangely proprietorial air increasingly adopted by Mr. Gardiner, and I began to be uneasy.

  At length there came the day when, at whist one evening the talk turned to Miss Cole, who had become engaged to be married to a naval officer, at present bound for the West Indies, and unlikely to return for two years or more.

  “I should not like such a long engagement,” said Miss Gardiner, “it would make me quite uneasy to think that anything could happen in such a long time. Why, my affianced might die, or be crippled, or go bankrupt. Indeed, I might die myself, and then all would have been for nothing. Should you like such an arrangement, Mr. Bennet?”

  “I am entirely of your sentiments, Miss Gardiner.” I replied. “ In such a situation, no engagement can be too short. Let the young people marry while they may, for who knows what the future may bring.”

  The talk passed on, as it does, to engagements long and engagements short, of those that had turned out well, and the other sort. There was no shortage of examples on both sides among the company’s acquaintance, and I thought no more of it.

  Over luncheon the following day, however, my father announced that Mr. Gardiner had been to see him that morning, to convey his approval of and delight at the proposed match.

  “I gather you don’t want a long engagement,” he said. “Quite right, too. Get the formalities over with and get down to producing the next heir. That’s the way. I shall have to find a new attorney, though, for the nonce. We can’t have Gardiner drawing up the settlement for his own daughter. That would never do. Now get round there and keep the lady sweet while I see to the arrangements.”

  And he was gone while I still sat there dumbfounded.

  I resolved, however, that I would ‘get round there’ immediately, not to keep the lady sweet, but to have things out with her father. This business must be scotched before the rumour spread.

  It was obvious to the meanest intellect that there was no hurry and I might take my time. In the half an hour it took me to reach the attorney’s doorstep I was stopped by barely more than a score or so of people wishing me joy.

  On being shown into the drawing room, however, I found that the only person present was Miss Gardiner herself.

  “Oh, Mr. Bennet,” she positively crooned, the smile on her features practically cracking her face in half, “how delightful to see you. But, then, we shall be seeing much more of each other very soon, shall we not?”

  “Pardon me, Miss Gardiner,” I replied, “but it was your father with whom I wished to speak.”

  “Of course. You will wish to ask for his blessing. How very proper. But you need have no uneasiness on that account, you know. My father thoroughly approves. In fact he is almost as pleased and proud as I am, although no-one in the whole world could be quite so pleased and proud as I at this moment. Just think. Married at eighteen, and to the heir of Longbourn! How happy we shall be!”

  “But did your father not tell you, Mr. Bennet? He was closeted with my father all this morning, discussing settlements, I believe.”

  “I am sorry they should have had such trouble, Miss Gardiner….”

  “It was no trouble, I do assure you, Mr. Bennet, and if it were, nothing could be too much trouble in such a cause.”

  “I do not wish to put anyone to any trouble at all, Miss Gardiner, least of all yourself, any more than I wish to be troubled on my own part by what can only…”

  “You need fear no trouble on your part, my love, all that has been arranged. The church is booked for four weeks this coming Monday, for the banns must be called, you know, and I am sure we all agree that there is no point in waiting.”

  “I must protest, Miss Gardiner at this precipitate action…”

  “You are too kind, my dear, wanting to take everything upon yourself, of course. I am sensible of your value, my dear, and of my own unworthiness, and you must allow me to make amends by taking the burden of all the arrangements from your shoulders. You need have no concern on that head, I assure you. I know just the silks and muslins I will need, and the seamstresses have their commission already, and as for my trousseau, that has long been packed, you know. And my father’s house may not be Longbourn, but I am sure that our humble resources will stretch to the wedding breakfast.”

  “There can be no wedding breakfast if there is no wedding!” I cried, unable to restrain myself further, and began to explain myself, but I was interrupted again.

  “But you said yourself that you did not want a long engagement! Just last night you said it, and all our friends heard you. What can be the point of prolonging our waiting?”

  “I do not want a long engagement! I do not know that I want any engagement. I was not aware that any engagement existed. I am not aware that any engagement exists.”

  “Oh, Mr. Bennet, how could you, when it is so widely known, and approved and eagerly anticipated by all Meryton? But I see it all. You are very clever, Mr. Bennet, all the world knows that, but you do not fool me so easily. This is one of your famous pleasantries. We all know that you delight from time to time in saying the opposite of what you really mean, by way of a joke. You have such a droll sense of humour. So excessively diverting. I shall tell everyone I meet, ‘what do you think Mr. Bennet said to me this morning?’ I shall say, ‘He pretended to have forgotten about our engagement. Is that not excessively diverting?’ and we shall all have such a laugh about it.”

  I tried everything I could think of short of positive incivility to impress the truth upon her, but it was all laughed off. And, somehow, I could not bring myself to be more abrupt with her. She was so obviously and sincerely pleased and happy, that I had not the heart to spoil her innocent pleasure. It would have been like kicking a baby.

  So I took myself off home and tried to think of a way out, and, instead, found myself thinking of the advantages of the match. There was no great shortage of those, to be sure. Miss Gardiner bade fair to be prime breeding stock, and would likely answer the family need adequately enough. My father had so much as said so. Her fortune was nothing in the way of a prize, but it was not trifling, and in any case I should scorn to marry for money. She was, as far as I could make out, quite as witty as any woman I had met, and rather better informed than most. And she was quite amazingly beautiful.

  We knew very little of each other, to be sure, but when has that ever been seen as an obstacle to marriage?

  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that Miss Gardiner would be a capital choice, and the less inclined I found myself to be to make a fuss about what all my friends and family found so appropriate. I should oblige them, and oblige the Gardiners, and save myself a lot of trouble and grievance of spirit by letting things take their course.

  So I did.

  I fear I have always been inclined to take the path of least resistance, provided it is not entirely against my principles, and in this instance, that path led down the aisle at St. Swithin’s with Miss Gardiner, now Mrs. Bennet upon my arm.

  The effusions of delight which this journey occasioned upon all sides I should have expected to embarrass the most self-centred, but I found, to my surprise, that they were eagerly seized upon by my new wife.

  While
she gloried in the envy and adulation of her friends, I was left to contemplate my own state of disbelief at all the fuss, and to content myself with the thought that I had done my duty by Longbourn, and could look forward in due course to the birth of a son and heir.

  Chapter Three : The Joys of Matrimony

  Behold me, then, newly-returned from honeymoon at Brighton, an old, married man of six weeks standing. What, pray, have I learned from those six weeks?

  For a beginning, I have learnt that the water there is very cold, and that the modern mania for bathing in it has very little to recommend it. It had to be essayed, of course, as had every fad and fashion prevalent in that infamous resort of what is commonly called pleasure. We bathed in the sea, once. We walked the promenade, daily. We sat through several manglings of Shakespeare at the theatre, about which I fear that the most positive comment I can make is that the performances were such as, for the most part, conformed very well with the taste and discernment of the audiences. We ‘went shopping’ more times than I care to remember. We attended every assembly held during our stay. In short, we took full advantage of almost everything that the town has to offer in the way of attractions and enjoyments.

  I fear I found most of them neither very attractive nor particularly enjoyable, but Mrs. Bennet did, of that I have no doubt, especially the shopping.

  I certainly learnt that the prices in at least one of our seaside resorts are perfectly unreasonable, and that the quality of the goods on offer may not always be relied upon. Mrs. Bennet, having been brought up in London, has different standards, I fear, and has obviously been pining for more choice than is available in Meryton in the way of millinery and haberdashery.

  I remember to have read while at Cambridge a book by a Mr. Smith, of Glasgow University, in which, if I remember correctly, he sets out his theory that where there are many merchants offering the same goods, they will each try to make their wares more attractive to the same customers, and that thus prices will be brought down. The theory seems eminently reasonable, but I have to say from experience, that it is not borne out by the practice in Brighton, at least, nor in London.

  This deterred Mrs. Bennet not a whit, however, and I confess that the evident delight she showed in the activity brought a benevolent smile to my face, on the first occasion, at any rate. On the second, my smile was perhaps not quite so indulgent, and by the third it had fallen off altogether. Thereafter, I lost count, and began to understand why so many married men will go nowhere near the shops on any pretext.

  It was not merely Mrs. Bennet’s wardrobe, however, which was greatly enlarged by the visit to Brighton, but my own. Every day seemed to see the delivery of new items which I had somehow managed to make shift to do without all of my life, but which could no longer be neglected. I confess I was quite at a loss to comprehend how I had managed to survive nearly five and twenty years without a silver-inlaid, tortoiseshell card case, but I had rather flattered myself that it might be some years yet before I should feel the desirability of a double-knit Cashmeer comforter.

  The reader may perhaps infer from all this that our bags returned from Brighton somewhat heavier than when they set out, but he would be mistaken in doing so. In fact, they remained much the same in weight, but almost doubled in number. The quality of the leather, and of the workmanship to be found in Brighton were so greatly superior, so my good lady assured me, to anything to be met with in Meryton, or even St. Alban’s, that really it would be an economy to buy in Brighton while we could, rather than put up with inferior goods on some future occasion.

  I had my doubts about this, personally, and about the extra cart that had to be hired for our baggage on the way home, but comforted myself with the thought that all bills incurred during the honeymoon were to be met by my father as his wedding gift to us.

  Fortunately, we encountered no shortage of servants to do the manhandling of all these extra objects. How inconvenient it must be to have to perform such tasks for oneself! M. Rousseau may expound upon the simple life, but I do not remember to have read anywhere that he undertakes manual labour on his own part.

  But even a honeymoon must come to an end, and duty called us back to Longbourn. After an interlude of so much vice and dissipation as must corrupt a saint, now I found myself involved, perforce, in duties which had never occurred to me as desirable, let alone necessary, as a bachelor. Everyone within a hard day’s riding, whether known to us or not, must, it seemed, call upon us with their congratulations if they were to maintain any pretense at all of gentility. We were to hold ourselves constantly at the disposal of these visitors, ready to receive their calls with due formality and an adequate simulation of gratitude. At the same time we must on no account whatsoever fail to return the same calls the following day, or risk giving offence and incurring eternal enmity if not positive family feud.

  These two obligations were, of course, mutually exclusive. We could neither receive calls when we were paying them, nor pay them while receiving others.

  I pointed this out to Mrs. Bennet with impeccable logic and admirable restraint, but could by no means prevail upon her to see my point.

  “How can you be so unreasonable, Mr. Bennet, as to refuse to receive our friends’ calls, nor to repay them? Do you wish us to be shunned by all our neighbours? Do you wish to live as a recluse? Had I known that such were your inclinations I should not have been so eager to fall in with your proposals of marriage, however ardent, I assure you.”

  I was, in those days, still young in the ways of matrimony, and was unwise enough to point out to my wife that what I had actually said was in fact perfectly reasonable and in no way implied any kind of refusal, or even disinclination to take part in society. Coaxing her out of her bedroom afterwards and stifling her tears cost me far more effort than I had ever thought likely.

  Thus does one learn from experience, a fact which I should have thought another truth quite as worthy of universal acknowledgement.

  Virgil’s “Varium et mutabile semper femina” does not entirely fit the case, although Mr. Dryden does call it “the sharpest satire, in the fewest words, that ever was made on womankind.” The Germans have a proverb, “der Dummer im Leben ist immer der Mann” which comes closer, but in truth, I think we can do no better than to own, in plain English, that, in marriage, a man’s place is in the wrong.

  The law may make a wife subservient to her husband, his inferior in every way, almost his chattel, but how many households do we see in which the cockerel truly rules the roost?

  The lady may make use of every wile, every stratagem. The world thinks no worse of her, indeed, it is expected.

  This course is seldom open to a man, who, unless he be a villain or a cretin, or both, cannot be easy without considering his amour propre. He scorns the devices and subterfuges that come so naturally to women. Not for him the stifled sob, the long-suffering sigh, the plaintive gaze, the dolorous countenance maintained day in, day out. The gentleman, moreover, if he be a gentleman, cannot be happy unless his lady is happy too.

  In our father’s days, when manners were ruder, the case may have been different, but today, any man who values his peace must attend to his wife.

  Accordingly, I found my days devoted to attempting to find new and polite variations on “How delightful to see you, Mr. Suchandsuch, Mrs. Suchandsuch, just exactly who are you by the way?” and “Thank you so much for your lovely gift. I have always wanted a porcelain fluff scraper.”

  My evenings, naturally, were spent (both politeness and modesty forbids me to say wasted) sitting in draughty rooms, on uncomfortable chairs, eating strange food and making empty conversation, followed by an even draughtier and more uncomfortable carriage journey home.

  I very quickly became acquainted with all the delights that my bachelor life had formerly denied me, and did not forget to acknowledge my debt to my charming bride.

  I had often wondered why the phrase “married man” is so often preceded by the adjective “old” in common converse, bu
t it did not take many of these evenings before I thought that I had discovered the reason.

  Now that I may truly claim my right to that adjective, I look back on those days with wonder. I wonder very much what happened to the young prodigy, now become an old fogey, and I can only conclude that he was never such a prodigy after all.

  Mr. Priestley may have been of no college when he made his great discoveries, but he had his Lunar Society meetings, and his intercourse with such as Mr. Watt and Dr. Darwin to inspire and encourage him.

  True genius may blossom in the desert waste and shine out through the surrounding darkness to enlighten the world. I do the best I can by subscribing to the appropriate journals, and by correspondence. There is a young man now at Cambridge, a Mr. Casaubon, who has been of great assistance to me and who seems to understand my project. But my talent, I fear, requires frequent encouragement, and the intercourse of equals. Whether this has been my lot in the past forty years I leave the reader to determine.

  Forty years! Where can they have gone? And in all those forty, all four hundred and eighty months, over two thousand weeks, more than sixteen thousand days, there has not been one day when my time has not been taken up with interruptions and my mind burdened with female matters.

  Who was it translated Tacitus’ ‘Capax imperii, nisi imperasset’ as ‘A man with a brilliant future behind him’?

  I do not repine. This is the lot I chose when I walked down the aisle, and at least two of my daughters have been a consolation to me. It is only in my hours of weariness – all too frequent, alas, these days – and my moments of leisure –just the opposite, I fear- that I sometimes think of what might have been, and console myself by putting down my thoughts in this book.

  The very act of writing them down serves to dispel their morbidity and enable me to face the next morning.

  Chapter Four : Mutual Society, Help, and Comfort