Young Bennets by Diana Birchall

It had been a quiet three weeks at Longbourn, to Mr. Bennet’s satisfaction. His wife and daughters were having all the enjoyment of a visit to her brother Gardiner’s house in London, and since their leaving the countryside in a wild and noisy burst of excitement, Mr. Bennet had not been sorry to be left in peace and quiet. He had his library to himself; the cook prepared his simple meals with little fanfare and fuss; and as his womenfolk were traveling post with the family carriage, the horses were left to work on the farm, which meant that the harvest was proceeding more peaceably than usual.

Mr. Bennet reflected that he could could grow used to this state of things all too easily; his wife’s nerves, her headaches, and her ceaseless complaints about them were little missed, nor were the loud antics of the youngest children. His two oldest daughters, however, were the ones he thought of most often; in recent years the sweet-tempered Jane, fast growing into a beautiful young lady, and the quick, bright Lizzy, had become most acceptable companions, and he admitted to himself that to see them again would be some recompense for the loss of his quietude.

The three weeks passed as quickly as might be expected, and Mr. Bennet heard the female cries of excited anticipation, before the carriage even finished rounding the sweep.

“Mama! ‘Tis home! It does not look at all changed, does it,” shrilled the youngest, Lydia, in her loudest seven-year-old scream, hanging halfway out the rolled-down carriage window, whilst her sisters tried to pull her back inside.

“Lydia, my love, why would it look any different,” her mother replied. “Though I did rather expect your father to come out to meet us.”

“You forget, Mama, it is not four o’clock,” pointed out Mary, an awkward eleven-year-old who prided herself on her accuracy for facts.

“But he knew we were coming, I sent a note by express,” fretted Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage came to a stop and the coachman came round to help the ladies out.

“A little delay will give us time to refresh, and we are sure to see Papa at tea,” Jane  gently consoled her mother.

Once out of the carriage, the family females scattered in different directions. Mrs. Bennet was helped upstairs with her boxes by the housemaid and coachman, exhorting them to be careful and not drop any of her new purchases. Jane accompanied her mother in the interests of soothing her before the meeting with her father. Mary carried her own box of books to the room she shared with her younger sisters, while these two, Kitty and Lydia, scuttled outside to go see the chickens.

Only Elizabeth, left alone and unobserved, quietly made her way to her father’s library.

Mr. Bennet looked up from his folio volume as she entered, and could not conceal a wide and welcoming smile. “So, Lizzy, you have come back,” he said.

“As you see, Papa,” and she came round to give him a kiss.

He held her off to look at her. “You are looking well, my Lizzy. Was your visit endurable?”

“Oh, quite, Papa. You know I love my uncle and aunt, and it is always a pleasure to see them. They gave us a very fine welcome and were patience itself hosting our large family. Both charged us to send their love to you.”

“And they are well, I collect?”

“Yes, indeed. I believe my mother has written to you of my aunt’s safe delivery.”

“With all the details,” he nodded, “delicate and indelicate.”

“Never mind, Papa, it is a fine boy, and my aunt is full well after it. Little John is a bit put out at being replaced by a baby brother, but his parents are all that is judicious, and will know how to handle two children.”

“Judicious, the Gardiners, exactly,” he said, rubbing his forehead ruefully. “We could use a bit of that quality here, in our own family dealings. But it is a quality your mother has not.”

Lizzy could have said something about his duties as a father, but at thirteen years old, and as his favourite, she would not dream of it. After a moment’s reflection, she mentioned that the little girls had been on the whole quite well behaved at their uncle’s house.

“Were they, indeed? Even with Mrs. Gardiner’s lying-in, they did not make nuisances of themselves?”

“Not very much, Papa. But that is owing to the great gifts of Jane. She has a positive genius for dealing with little ones. She was of utmost help in nursing our aunt, and she enlisted the girls as her aides.”

“Jane is growing up to be quite a woman, though I must say I do not see where she gets it from.”

“Perhaps from Aunt Gardiner?” suggested Lizzy with a smile.

“It must be so. Well, I daresay I am expected down for tea, so let us face the inevitable together, Lizzy.”

The inevitable was a noisy tea-table, with rolls and jams, cold meats and cheeses, spread out as abundantly as the maids could do it, and with Jane patiently attempting to keep the two youngest girls from grabbing at the food with bare hands, still dirty from their journey. Mr. Bennet looked on with disgust and did not attempt any remonstrance.

“Mr. Bennet! Mr. Bennet! You have so much to hear,” cried his lady, prefacing her outburst with no other greeting.

“Well, what is it, my dear,” he knew he must say, though he did it but gruffly.

“Why, to be sure, what do you think? Jane has very nearly had her first proposal! And there is no saying that it may not still come!” she burst out rather incoherently.

“Oh, Mama, not that story,” Jane was heard to softly protest.

“There is no story really,” Lizzy reminded her. “And no proposal, Papa. Jane is still a single lady. As you can see.”

“As far as I am concerned, she is scarcely a lady at all as yet. Why, you are only fifteen, Jane. How can you be receiving proposals, and under your uncle Gardiner’s roof? There is something in this that is hard to understand, much less to approve.”

“Oh it was all very respectable, I assure you, Mr. Bennet,” his lady insisted. “Why, don’t you know, did I not write to you, about this very fine young gentleman who is a frequent visitor at Gracechurch-street?  Mr. Coverley, as handsome as the daylight, five and twenty years old, in a business concern with my brother – “

“Five and twenty?” Mr. Bennet half rose from his seat. “And paying court to a girl of fifteen, at his employer’s house? This is information not of a pleasant sort. Am I to be surprised at your brother?”

Jane ventured to lay a calming hand on his. “Oh, do not think such things, Papa,” she begged. “Mr. Coverley is perfectly polite and proper-behaved. He came to dinner one night, and to the babe’s Christening.”

“And then he came to take leave at breakfast that last morning, as he was going up north on business,” Lizzy reminded her.

“Yes. And we talked about books, and poetry. That was all.”

“Indeed it was not all!” her mother cried, banging on the table with a silver spoon, to demand attention.

“There is more?” asked Mr. Bennet, discomposed.

“Yes! He fell so madly in love with our Jane at first sight, that he wrote her verses!”

“That is singularly in love, to be sure. How do you know he fell in love, in these three meetings?”

“Why, sure you do not think your own wife so simple as that, Mr. Bennet. He gazed and gawped at nobody else, and you know there is never any one else as good looking as Jane in a room that has her in it, after all.”

“Jane is very pretty, indeed, but this kind of talk is not calculated to make her modest about it.”

“Oh my dear, what has she got to do with modesty? If this business with Mr. Coverley comes to nothing, and she only fifteen, I will wager you ten to one she will have twenty suitors the year she is sixteen, and if she is not married by seventeen, why, I will give up all claim to be a good guesser!”

“Is that what you wish, an unseemly early marriage for your oldest daughter?” he asked with thin-lipped disapproval.

“How you talk, Mr. Bennet! You know as well as I do, that thanks to that plaguey entail, our girls will never inherit Longbourn and will be turned out in the street when once you are dead. It is devoutly to be hoped that they are all wed before that!”

Jane and Elizabeth tried to protest at her ideas, but their mother was past listening.

“And I never saw a likelier suitor than Mr. Coverley, let me tell you. He has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, as well as a business of his own, and he is an educated man too: kept terms at Oxford, and what pretty poetry he does write! Oh my!” She put down the spoon and sighed lavishly.

“Poetry, does he,” Mr. Bennet sniffed, curling his lip scornfully.

“Lizzy can tell you all about it, she reads such reams of the stuff herself.”

“But it was written to Jane, I collect?”

“Oh, Lizzy read it. We all did. We read it aloud to one another after he had left the house!”

“An edifying way of passing an evening, I am sure.”

“Well, go on, Lizzy, recite the poem to your father!”

“Oh, Lizzy,” murmured Jane.

“Do not worry, Jane, I remember very little of it. I am not so clever, nor is my memory so retentive as all that.”

Jane closed her eyes with relief, while her mother continued to urge Lizzy. At length, Lizzy gave in.

“Oh very well. I was really very taken with it, and after he left studied it enough to learn the first few lines. Here they are.” And Lizzy recited:

“Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.”

“That does sound awfully learned, for a Cheapside tradesman, does it not, Papa? But Mr. Coverley is an Oxford man, as Mama said.”

Mr. Bennet’s face reflected his shock and disgust. “Lizzy, I am surprised at you,” he began. “You ought to know better.”

“I, Papa? I was only reciting. It is a bit questionable I suppose, and there is something familiar about the sentiment…”

“Familiar! I should say so. It is nothing but To His Coy Mistress, written by Andrew Marvell in the seventeenth century, and I should have thought the many hours you have spent in my library would have taught you more. I am disappointed. You are the only one of my daughters whom I expected to have a fundamental knowledge of poetry.”

“I like poetry, Papa,” put in Mary. “I have been reading Robert Burns. O my love is like a red, red rose.”

He looked at her. “That will do, Mary. In fact that will do, all of you. I hope you burnt the poem, and sent that young man packing.”

“The poem has not been burnt, but it shall be,” Mrs. Bennet replied sulkily, “and the young man took himself packing. I think brother Gardiner gave him a hint. He thought his niece too young.”

“I gave him no encouragement,” said Jane earnestly.

“No, my dear, I never suspected you of such a thing,” her father said with unwonted gentleness.

“A little encouragement might have secured him,” Mrs. Bennet could not help chiding her.

Mr. Bennet rose. “That will do, Mrs. Bennet,” he said, “I am going to my study and wish not to be disturbed. You will do me the favour to never allude to this unfortunate episode again.” He left the room without a backward glance, and Jane and Lizzy looked at each other in distress.

“Your father is always in such a bad mood,” opined Mrs. Bennet. “As always. You see what I have to put up with. Oh, if only we could go away for another three weeks…I know we could find a husband for Jane.”