Page 13 of Till Death Us Do Part
For example, my mother—your wife—is a mean-spirited woman of little understanding and improper manners, who makes everyone in the house miserable every time she is discontented. She cannot pass up any opportunity to disparage other women such as Charlotte Lucas (or me) to promote her own favourites or simply to hear herself speak.
She has passed the worst of those traits onto her youngest daughters. The two of them are ignorant and ill mannered. You cannot pretend otherwise. You are the head of the family, and had years to address this, yet you chose the path of laughing at the defects of your family, as if you had no responsibility at all.
I, on the other hand, once told Mr Darcy in Netherfield, ‘your defect is to hate everybody,’ while in fact, I believe it is more likely mine. After being forced to examine my own behaviour, I have become ashamed of it. I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where any interactions with our neighbours were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.
For example, poor Mr Collins is indeed not an intelligent man, nor is he well-mannered or even hygienic—but he means well. He is to inherit the estate, and while you may think him mercenary coming to pick a comely daughter to seal the bargain, nothing required him to do so. He could have found a wife anywhere. He is a man with a good living and better future inheritance. Many a woman would jump at the chance. I suspect that within the fortnight he will have proposed to Charlotte Lucas or Janet Golding, and they will happily accept. Yet, from the moment he arrived, you and I spent all our time looking for whatever bad we could find in him, while ignoring any possibility of good. For certain, he is not the cleverest of men, yet is he unteachable? He is as clever as my mother, and has shown no tendency towards viciousness, so why did we feel it is our right to needle and tease him.
The reason is quite simple, my dear father. We did it because we are both lazy, indolent, mean-spirited people. We laugh and cajole our way through life, with nary a thought for the future. Mary, I will admit. took a decided dislike to the man and I conspired to keep him away from her, but should she not have been taught to stick up for herself? Might she be suffering from the same defect you and I own, made worse by entirely too much Fordyce? Was ignoring the man, needling him, and teasing him really the best way to ensure your family’s future security should you meet one too many rabbit holes? Nay! You and I between us made not the slightest effort to make an ally of the man.
I am told you intended to stick me with him, which I would have found every bit as disagreeable as being forced on Mr Darcy; but even then, I see no evidence you were trying to make my situation better, or even manageable. Perhaps you thought that I was a grown woman and should well have learned to fend for myself. Well, I had not—but I have now.
Let us now discuss the matter of finance. Uncle Gardiner once showed me how a man of £600-1,000 per annum could readily lay aside a reasonable dowry for five daughters with only a modicum of discipline. I imagine he did not pick that example arbitrarily. He could also have easily afforded tutors, masters, and the like to ensure that they were marriageable. Yet with double that income, you have done nothing—absolutely nothing!
Your indolence has rubbed off on all your daughters. I have a vast knowledge of literature, but my accomplishments at playing, singing, and the other silly sorts of things that attract suitors is no better than it was at sixteen.
Jane has depended entirely on her beauty and a façade of agreeability. She does not play at all, nor draw, nor know how to keep accounts, and her needlepoint is bad enough to scare small children and animals.
Mary does nothing but read Fordyce all day, and her skills on the pianoforte compete with Jane for awfulness.
Your two youngest need not be mentioned, being so obvious.
In the end, I believe all your daughters, including myself, carry an amalgam of your worst characteristics and our mother’s.
I do not bring all of this up out of malice, bitterness, or spite, much as it may sound like endless carping. I have a purpose. You are four and forty years old. Uncle Gardiner once showed me a study that says if you reach your fortieth year, you are likely to reach your sixtieth. There is still time for you to take your parental responsibilities seriously.
For a certain, my disappearance will hurt the family’s reputation, such as it is. We all like to think that is a calamity that will have no end, with fifty-year-old Lydia still nattering away about bonnets, but that is not how it really works.
I can clearly remember at least two families in the last five years who suffered similar fates. Some of them even resulted in unexpected early additions, but they are still part of our community. Over time, the nattering gossipers found someone more interesting to pick on, and eventually, they managed to re-enter society. I am certain it was blisteringly uncomfortable, and I admit that I did them as much damage as anyone else, but they recovered.
You can do the same. You will have a period of ostracization, but you can recover, and if not, you can always send the girls somewhere else to get husbands. London alone has over a million inhabitants, so finding four silly men should be a surmountable problem if you put some effort into it.
Let me make a few suggestions. Kitty and Lydia should not be out. They should be in school, and you could easily do that. If they are to be ostracised anyway, send them to a school where their secret can be kept while they learn to act like ladies. I assure you that such things exist, and they cost less than those two spend in a year, so it would save you both vexation and expense. Mother will scream her head off, but you can exert yourself to guide her instead of ridiculing her.
Mary is too old for school, so send her to stay with the Gardiners. Being away from her sisters and mother would be good for her, and I do not doubt that they could find her a good enough match without excessive effort. She will certainly not marry a gentleman, but there was never much chance of that anyway. She would be well suited to a clergyman or tradesman, and dare I say it, she would be happy.
Jane is another matter. I broached the idea of substituting her for me with Mr Darcy. I doubt the gentleman could tell us apart, and Jane seemed enamoured with the idea of a sacrificial lamb—though to be honest, she had more enthusiasm for me in that role than herself. Nevertheless, as crazy as itsounds, that would probably work. If not, then she should just go to London husband hunting. She would have as good a chance as Mary, though sticking the Gardiners with all your failures seems unfair. Maybe the whole family should relocate to town for a season.
As for me, I believe we make too much of our status. I once met a man in London obsessed with numbers. He told me that 98 people out of 100 are not gentry, yet they mostly lead lives no more nor less happy and fulfilling than ours. They must work, and we do not, but it does not seem to kill them. In fact, there is a bit of nobility in honest work, and frankly, if I must embroider one more cushion I may scream. I am under no illusion that this new life will be easy. It will be terribly difficult, and there is a reasonable chance it will turn out very badly—but I shall not be dissuaded. I will choose my course. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
In a way, I feel bad for Mr Darcy, since he is being jilted at the altar, but he will recover his reputation much faster than I would if he had not offered, and since we both found his proposal more insulting than gentlemanly, I assert that he will live and experience no more than his usual level of misery. Men of his standing can get away with anything, and I am frankly surprised he returned at all.
I do understand that I am leaving you and my sisters in an awkward situation, and for that I am sorry; but I am not willing to spend the rest of my life saving you a few months of self-imposed embarrassment because you cannot control your family.
Elizabeth Bennet
8.Better Luck Next Time
With the last of Elizabeth’s childish things put away, Mr Bartlet walked her back to the coaching inn to have some dinner, while waiting for the night stage that would take her away from Pemberley forever. By the time her father received her letter a week or two hence, she would be well beyond his reach. Writing to him was a calculated risk, but she just could not bring herself to saynothing, tempting as the idea was.
Since the search radius from Lambton was so vast, and she was certain nobody would think of Manchester, she was not exposing herself to much risk. She only had to stay out of sight for a few months until her twenty-first birthday, at which time she would acquire the right, by English law, to starve to death all she wanted to.
Mr Bartlet and Elizabeth said their goodbyes at the door. The lady thanked him profusely for giving her the best day she had enjoyed in quite some time and walked in out of the rain. Thinking about the price of meals, and her declining store of coins, Elizabeth wondered if she could afford meat, or only vegetables, or even just bread and cheese.
The common room was populated with what she assumed was a typical crowd, but since she had never been allowed in one before, that was pure speculation. There were two or three tables full of men who obviously worked the fields, drinking wine and ale. They were not overly boisterous, but she had no idea if they might become so given a few more rounds of drink.
Another table had a matron, who could easily pass for Mrs Hill’s long-lost sister. They were of similar size (large), similar temperament (not to be sassed), and similar countenance (quietly happy). Elizabeth hoped she was going North towards Manchester, as she could easily be the ideal travelling companion.
The next table over had a tall and admittedly handsome man who was giving her an odd look. Elizabeth had seen how men look at attractive women often enough. She did not think of herself as overly pretty, but men gave Jane a hungry look on a regular basis, so she thought she could recognise it easily enough. This was not that look. She knew how bad-tempered men looked to find fault for their later amusement among their compatriots (her supposed-intended could easily pass as the archetype). This was not that look, (even though the man looked much like Mr Darcy). She knew how men looked when they genuinely saw someone they wanted to know better. Her Aunt Gardiner attracted those like a loadstone. This was not that kind of look. She thought she knew how greedy men sized up a potential victim, and while she was certain she would meet such men eventually, this was not that look. All in all, the look was pensive, and disturbing, particularly when the man looked at her a couple of times, then glanced at a piece of paper on the table and returned his eyes to her.
