Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say (8 page)

“If it were mine, like the mare I just mentioned, I'd try to gentle her, try to get her to understand I meant her no harm. Could take a bit of time.”

I raised my eyes. “You're a good man, Tom.”

“If you say so, sir.”

I felt a gentle wind cool across my brow. I felt the warmth of the sun. I noted the wren, the lark, a hawk.
Across the field, just on the other side of the wood, the stream ran fast. It was spring, the beginning of new life. I started for home, my groin healed and full of purpose. “See to your chores, Tom,” I said.

“Indeed I will, sir,” said Tom. Sophie would be pleased. Goose for dinner and it not even Christmas.

April at Longbourn

Dear Sister,

I take this moment to pen my thoughts. Mr. Bennet is gone once more into the countryside as is his wont of late. In his absence, I secure myself in his library and take up once more Volume I, in which Pamela is nearly violated! It was with much fear that I approached those pages in which it would be determined whether or not Pamela's Master, with the help of the odious Mrs. Jewkes, would take her without her consent, destroying her virginity and defiling her purity. Depravity of this nature I have not seen, not in any barnyard, not in any book.

I have not time to describe the entirety of the trickery and deceit from which my heroine suffered because I am
due for a fitting at Mrs. Salther's. I have decided that I will wear beneath my ball gown a corset which hooks in the front. With that, I can dress myself, at least my undergarmented self, without the disapproval of my maid, who would most surely blush when she saw the rise and thrust of her mistress's bosom. Seduction, though, is far from my thoughts; admiration is what I seek, not of the guests at the ball, but of Colonel Millar, the possessor of my heart and of Northfield, the grandest estate in the county. To that end, something will have to be done with my unruly curls as I am determined not to wear a cap. Dear sister, can you advise me?

And now I must turn back to the library for a visit with Pamela. O la! Seduction of a not very gentlemanly kind seems to await our heroine. I will confess that I read on with avidity.

Imagine this! That to gain Pamela's trust and entry into her bed her lord and master dressed himself as a woman! I cannot imagine Mr. Bennet cooking up any such charade, although my purity has not been at issue for quite some time, thank you very much. Another difference is that her admirer seems dotty from love for her. He is driven almost mad, which I suppose excuses the lengths he goes to conquer her. And she, against her will, finds him handsome and compelling, making her virtue even more at risk. I do not need to remind you of Mr. Bennet's unkempt whiskers or that he is almost thirty or of his recent scratching himself in a most unseemly manner, I suspect the result of
an infection by way of one of those mangy cats that scamper about the dairy. Still, I find the trials and tribulations of Pamela instructive. For instance, at the end of the scene, when Pamela's lord is a-quiver and she sees the Light, she faints.

Which is what I shall do when next my husband seeks to exercise his rights. I do not believe there can be such a thing as rights when all the rights belong to one person and none to the other. This teetering to one side is the cause of what we women are accused of: underhandedness. Sneakery is one way of living in the shadow of one's tyrant, and it is my way whenever I can think of something quickly enough because at every turn Mr. Bennet assures me that my rights extend only to the household staff and the children; the rest are his. “Do I not have rights pertaining to my own person?” I enquire. “You can wash when it suits you,” he replies, “and you can choose your raiment.” Pfah!

Shame and envy descend upon me when I think of Pamela, who has never ever pretended or prevaricated, who has been forthright in her protection of her virtue, of her very self. She wants only to be left alone, to be free from threat. On the other hand, Pamela does not have to devise a way to get her Master to a ball. I do. Because Mr. Bennet will surely not agree to attend, and if he does not, then neither can I. And I shall attend, no matter what I have to do to get there.

Now I must fly, for Mrs. Salther insists on punctuality
and of all people it is she I most fear to offend. Today I must ask her if she can make the bodice just a little looser, not loose, just not quite so binding. Pray for me, dear sister, and think me not the vain creature I fear I am.

First, though, I will just skip down to see what Cook has on the fire. I hope it is rice pudding, for if it is I shall spoon some into a bowl and plop a bit of marmalade on top. Pishtosh if Cook should carry on. I have my rights, after all.

Yr lvng sister

O Jane! I hasten to add to this letter before it is posted to you. Just as I was enjoying Cook's delicious pudding, who should come roaring into the house but Mr. Bennet, singing at the top of his lungs some tune I did not recognize with words I could not make out. He commanded me to come up from my eating and present myself upstairs. I could not do otherwise and so protested in my sweetest voice, my pudding-sweet voice.

Upstairs the door to my bedchamber had been flung open and Mr. Bennet stood within, grinning, his breeches down around his ankles. Such a sight no longer shocked me; indeed, it was almost laughable, but I managed to present myself as the demure young wife. And I pretended not to be appalled when he belted out, “Here comes the sun!” and danced about clicking his heels in the most ridiculous
fashion. He held out his hand. Which I refused, prettily of course.

Having no idea what he was singing about or why, I argued that Mrs. Salther would be most put out with me if I were late to my fitting and begged his indulgence, fluttering my lashes, twirling deliciously so as to allow my curls to escape the cap, all in a most alluring fashion, or so I thought. “It will surely be a most beautiful gown,” I said. “You will be proud to see me in it at the ball, which is but a few weeks away so ordering a coach and four at this time would not be too early, just as I have already ordered new gloves for you to go with the most elaborate new waistcoat, why, the embroidery itself will place you among the most distinguished of guests—”

He advanced on me, all a-glower now, tugging up his breeches so as to run after me should I try to escape. Oh my, I may have misfigured. “But, Mr. Bennet,” I protested. “The servants—”

“Hang the servants,” he bellowed. “Stop your prating, woman!” And he pressed me into the bed, where fortunately time did not stand still and he had his way with me. Briefly, I envied Pamela, who had escaped such violation, though as always thought of any kind was obliterated until he was finished with me. Afterward, we lay together, he spent, I cringing, in the muss of bedclothes when of a sudden a strange and unusual occurrence befell us. As I lay quietly weeping, he reached for me and pulled me to him. I have seen him do the very same with one of those wretched
cats; he will scoop it up, clasp it to him, and smooth its coat until it is calm. And so he did with me.

I have never thought myself a wild cat or a wild woman, but I must admit to something in me that his stroking quieted. I felt an unfamiliar pleasure and then surprise for it was a sensation I thought never to have with this man who was my sworn enemy. As he held me he sang into my ear the words to the tune he had been shouting only minutes before, something about the sun. Nestled into that hollow where his shoulder seemed to promise warmth and comfort, I could make only a certain sense of his whispering, but I divined enough to return me to my senses, and I sat bolt upright. Here comes the son, indeed. We shall see about that.

I will be late to the fitting. Pray she will not turn me out.

Yrs in haste,

In Which the Cursed Ball Refuses to Die

Quippe ubi fas versum atque nefas.

“Where wrong is right, and right wrong.”

—VIRGIL

It was the coldest spring I can remember. I shivered as I tramped on the still-frozen paths that edged my fields. It was almost as cold outside as it was in. Mrs. Bennet was once more tight-lipped save for occasional rants directed at the servants. More than one of them have come to me and pleaded with me to intercede, or at least to try to make some sense of her raves. “I'll do what I can,” I have promised, “but keep in mind that the work of running this house is the provenance of Mrs. Bennet, not mine, and her word is your command.” I am sympathetic to my servants'
complaints. Still, best not to contravene tradition and besides, I knew I could do nothing to stop her.

It is my opinion that she has no one to blame but herself for the chaos that thrives in my household. Mrs. Bennet has let the servants run willy-nilly, has never had a firm hand with them. She has let them ride roughshod over her orders and now she is reaping the “rewards.” Take Mrs. Rummidge: She has been in my employ since the beginning of my marriage and in my view has lied up a storm, offering Mrs. Bennet advice that was always wrong and possibly harmful. To ingratiate herself with Mrs. Bennet and secure the position of—what exactly, I do not know—she had presented herself as a married woman with children when I knew from village talk that she was a spinster who had been dismissed from her job spinning, who had never been near a woman in labour let alone assist in childbirth, who claimed expertise in the prevention of pregnancy as well as the enhancement of it, whose experience with children was nil. She was an all-around liar and, I have no doubt, a thief. Yet it is this same Mrs. Rummidge who can quiet Elizabeth. It is Mrs. Rummidge my wife called for in the midst of her lying-in periods. It is a great mystery to me who all my life has relied on the truthfulness of fact.

Which was why, one day as I was idly toying with the little bottles and jars on Mrs. Bennet's dressing table, I came upon a bottle filled with something that looked and smelled like vinegar.

“What is this?” I asked my wife, holding up the bottle.
She looked away. This was one of her silent periods. “What, pray tell?” Silence. “Must I use force?” I persisted.

Speech was once more hers. “You would use force, wouldn't you. You would strike me. You are as brutish as any man I have ever known. And furthermore, I will scream even if you don't strike me and the servants will come running and then they will run through the village crying how you bully and beat your poor wife, the mother of your children and so recently, too.” She made ready to scream.

“Cease your nonsense,” I said. “You are a silly goose. You know I would never do you bodily harm, you know that. But you drive me to extremes, you do. And if I may address another of your threats, the servants.” Mrs. Bennet put her hands over her ears. “You know very well that, should you scream, the servants would stay right where they are. You know they are too lazy to run anywhere, least of all into the village. And if they did run into the village, no one there would believe them. They are the dregs of the serving class; no one in the village would hire them and so they are here, where they show every evidence of remaining. To our eternal regret.”

“Vinegar,” said Mrs. Bennet. “It's vinegar in the bottle.” She sat on the edge of her bed, her toes not quite touching the floor, kicking the air.

“Vinegar! How on earth did vinegar come to sit on your dressing table?”

“That's all I will say. You asked what the bottle held and I answered. It's vinegar. Now if you will leave me, sir. My head is splitting. I would lie down . . . if it please my lord.”

“You needn't mock,” I answered. “It ill becomes you.”

“Tell Cook we will dine at four.” She lay back onto the bed, eyes closed against me and all the unpleasantness she thought me to represent. Misbegotten charges, all of them.

“Until four, then.” On the way down to the kitchen I realized that the mystery had only deepened. Vinegar but for what? Was she ill? Was this vinegar a medicine of some kind? I began to worry and was surprised that I was.

I have never liked surprises, and mysteries are full of them. My wife was full of both. It had never occurred to me when I saw her gay little face and pretty little figure two years ago that I might do well to investigate her manner and enquire into her thoughts. Instead, I had assumed, thereby making an ass of myself, that this girl would be a younger version of my mother, now dead these seven years. My mother had been like me, calm and composed, steady and reliable. She had kept a fine table and she had kept the servants within the bounds of their duties. I had never known her to give herself over to moodiness, nor had I ever heard her complain or throw herself onto the bed in a pout. Order had prevailed. She was, in my beloved Milton's words, a “bright-harnest Angel who sits in order serviceable.” And now this. Had my mother lived, none of
this current disorderliness would last the day. But she was not alive and this girl I had married was, and the mess she had created promised to continue unabated.

I trudged out to Tom's field to see how Tom and his new drill were getting on with the planting of the turnips. It would calm me to watch someone go about his duties so methodically and so unquestioningly. Besides, I will admit to the need to confide in someone—clearly that someone was not my wife—for I had received a letter on that very day. It announced the visit of my cousin and heir to Longbourn, that is if Mrs. Bennet fails to live up to her responsibility to bear a son. Francis Collins was coming to call. Mrs. Bennet would have comport herself in a manner so far barely in evidence.

“Weather's no good for planting, sir,” said Tom. “No telling if the drill will do the trick, the ground's still frozen.” And just as I was about to confide, or at least explain my anxiety over Collins's visit, Tom said, “We'd best hope for some sun to warm the earth. Good day to you, sir.” And he left me to stand in the cold of an April spring hoping for some sun to warm my world.

In the house I found Mrs. Bennet newly risen from her bed of pain and seated now in the parlour close to the fire, where she busied herself with her eternal embroidery. I have yet to see a finished piece or where it went when finished, perhaps on undergarments I was restricted from beholding. “We must have a conversation,” I said. “Terribly
cold this spring.” Outside the rain slashed at the windows. At least, I thought, it isn't hail; things could be worse.

“About what?” She looked at me balefully. “Not the weather surely.”

“About this ball you would have me attend.”

Mrs. Bennet brightened. “I will happily converse with you about the ball. Let us begin by your agreeing that you will accompany me without protest.”

“I will,” I said.

“You will?” She secured her needle in the cloth and set the hoop aside. She looked at me and smiled.

Months had passed since I had seen a smile from her, or from anyone in this melancholy household. I was encouraged. “Yes,” I answered.

“And how are we to get there?” Her suspicions were renewed. “Shall we go by dogcart? Will we walk? Shall we ask someone in the village to haul us in their wheelbarrow?”

There seemed to be no end to her creativity. I answered quickly, “Of course not. We will arrive at this ball in a proper carriage drawn by a proper horse.”

The corners of her mouth turned down. “One? One horse?”

“All right, two.”

“Oh, my dear husband!” She leapt from her chair and made toward me as if to throw her arms about my neck but pulled up just short. Suspicion had not yet left the room.
“By what intervention have you come to your senses? Why such a change? What are you up to?” She sat back down and pulled her chair nearer the fire.

Reeling from the possibility of a wifely embrace—it would have been her first, mine, too—I blurted, “My cousin is coming to visit.” The storm outside, which had abated during the conversation, started afresh. This time it looked as if the rain would turn to hail. The branches slashed at the windows, and I moved closer to the fire. Mrs. Bennet did also and there we sat almost touching, certainly within reach of each other. We stared into the fire.

“Your cousin Collins?” she asked. “The cousin who might someday inherit Longbourn? The cousin who could very well put me and my children out into the storm?”

“That one,” I said. It seemed to have gotten colder. I tossed another bundle onto the fire. “He will arrive Friday next.”

“Why?” She threw down her embroidery and began to stride up and down the room, her skirts switching noisily against the floor.

“His letter claims he will be passing through and longs to see his only living cousin.”

Mrs. Bennet paused in her tramping and said, “Bosh! He is coming to put his hands on what is mine, ours, yours.”

“I believe you are right, my dear. What do you suggest we do?”

“Short of garroting, drawing and quartering,
poisoning, lambasting him with your walking stick, and drowning him in a butt of malmsey, I don't think there is much we can do.” She stood stock-still, amazed at herself. I stared at her in wonderment. Wherever did she find those words? Had she been reading? I could think of only one writer who might supply such variety—Shakespeare. Had she been at my library? Would her surprises never end?

“I could write and tell him you are ill,” I said, “that we are all ill—”

“—That the plague has come to our house, that the pox has infected us all, that our streams and fields are rife with disease. . . . No,” she said, “he would never believe our lie.” She was quiet. She returned to the chair near the fire and, looking directly into my eyes, said, “I think our only choice is to behave with all the dignity within us and impress him with the certitude that all is well and that he will have to live to be a hundred in order to inherit something that is not rightfully his.”

I smiled.

“We'll leave the last part out,” she said and smiled, too.

“Indeed,” I said. “We shall simply keep calm and carry on.”

“So then,” said Mrs. Bennet, “a carriage and two?”