Page 1 of Saving Jane
Chapter 1.Mrs Bennet’s Distress
As the young ladies and gentlemen of Meryton danced to a pleasant tune, the matrons watched the festivities from chairs along the wall, some distance from the dancing. Uncharacteristically quiet as the evening progressed, Mrs Francis Bennet was flanked by Lady Lucas and Mrs Goulding. Her friends noted the lady’s unusual behaviour during the evening’s entertainment and after the wonder of Mrs Bennet’s silence was considered, they determined to speak of it.
“Do you not think the assembly is a success, Mrs Bennet?” asked Lady Lucas.
“It certainly is well attended,” replied Mrs Goulding. “All of four and twenty families from the neighbourhood are here as well as the tradesmen from the villages.”
“Yes, Lady Lucas the assembly is well done,” Mrs Bennet finally replied. “I see every young man and woman in this quarter of Hertfordshire on the dance floor–with all the extra girls standing along the far wall.”
The three ladies glanced over the floor and noticed that three of Mrs Bennet’s daughters stood with Lady Lucas’s two daughters without dance partners. Only Kitty and Lydia were dancing this set, and they were both with young men who worked in the shops of Meryton.
“Perhaps it would have been better to keep the younger girls at home until we married off the elder ones,” Lady Lucas mentioned to her friend. “Then our daughters would not be wall flowers.”
“I fear it does not signify,” Mrs Bennet sighed as she shivered hearing the terrible term. “What suitable young men are available? Your John is only twenty years–too young to take a wife and fill your home with grandchildren while you still have children at home.”
“And my Henry is well-married,” Mrs Goulding inserted into the conversation.
“I have five daughters and must find husbands for them. Longbourn is lost to them by the entailment.” Mrs Bennet frowned before she added, “But I am determined my daughters will have good matches.”
Lady Lucas and Mrs Goulding exchanged glances behind Mrs Bennet’s back–Mrs Goulding had a spinster sister who lived with them, and Lady Lucas despaired of her eldest daughter, Charlotte, ever finding a husband.
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“Mamma, whatever is the matter?” asked Elizabeth during the ride home to Longbourn. “You are too quiet. Do you feel yourself?”
Mrs Bennet sighed, “My mind is confused this evening. How can there be an assembly where all the eligible men attend and there is no one suitable for my girls.”
“But Mamma, Kitty and I had a frightfully good time!” Lydia said before she yawned. “I danced every set with some handsome young man.”
“And we laughed and sang,” Kitty added.
Elizabeth noted that something bothered Jane, but her eldest sister remained quiet. The third of the five sisters, Mary, who danced with no one at the assembly, turned her head and looked out the window. She had spoken to John Lucas at length about his father’s tenants and plans for a hunting party, but he had not asked her to dance.
Jane squeezed Mary’s hand and whispered, “I believe if you allow Lizzy and me to style your hair and change your dress, Mr Lucas will notice you and ask you to dance.”
“Mamma, why do we need to worry about eligible young men?” Kitty asked. “Papa says we are too young to marry.”
“You must all marry and marry well,” Mrs Bennet told her daughters. “Do you want to be wives of shopkeepers or farmers? We must find gentlemen who have fortunes for each of you!”
“Mamma, I don’t want to marry for money,” Elizabeth said.
Mrs Bennet was flanked by Lydia and Kitty with her three eldest daughters sitting across from her. She caught their eyes and held them, “I hope you can have love in your marriage–each of you–but you can love a husband who offers security and money easier than you can love a poor man who makes you work in his shop or in his fields.”
“Mamma!” Jane exclaimed. “No one has to marry today! Papa is well and Longbourn is secure.”
“If I had been able to bear a son, Longbourn would be secure. But I failed and Longbourn is only a temporary refuge for you.”
Shaken by their mother’s words, the three oldest Bennet sisters did not speak again until they were home. When Mr Hill opened the portal, Mr Bennet met them at the door, and he was surprised at the sombre crowd. His usually exuberant wife was reticent, the two youngest daughters were sleepy, and the three eldest girls were sad.
“Here, here now,” he said as his ladies returned to their home. “What is this quiet crowd? Did you all dance so long that you are exhausted?”
“Kitty and Lydia danced every set Papa,” Elizabeth told her father.
“But Jane only danced once and Lizzy and Mary were not asked to dance at all,” Mrs Bennet told her husband.
“Were the young men in attendance insufficient?”
“There were no suitable young men in attendance, Mr Bennet,” his wife replied.
