Prudence and Passion

Author's note.

In this world, women wear trousers and men wear dresses - they are not transvestites. Well-to-do men don't work - their career is getting married. To explain names: - Elijah Bennet was "Master Bennet" until he married Miss Darcy. He would then become "Mr. Darcy" and she would become "Mrs. Darcy". Same rules as our society except the other way round (and boys aren't called Master Whatever nowadays).

Chapter One - A Momentous Decision

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single gentleman not in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife with a good fortune of her own. Another truth, also universally acknowledged is that the last son left unwed, will be expected to be the support and mainstay of his parents.

Master Mair Bennet was very aware of these two truths. Standing in his bedroom, he made a momentous decision.

'I am determined to marry,' Mair declared to his reflection in the bedroom mirror. His reflection looked doubtful. He then added defiantly, 'and I will marry well.'

Mair took off his spectacles and looked more closely into the mirror to study his face. His cheeks were glowing but that was due not so much to his good health and youth but to the cologne that Mason, their valet, had splashed on him after not so carefully shaving him. There were a few stray whiskers on his chin, Mair noted with disappointment. He always strived to at least look neat and respectable. Mair had been last in the order of gentlemen to be shaved that evening and Mason had been in a hurry to complete the task before the time set for their departure for the party.

Mair carefully catalogued his faults in appearance. They had been pointed out to him often enough by his father. Mair was shorter and not as slim as Elijah or Kit. His hair was fine and was mousy brown in colour rather than luxuriant and golden as was John's. His complexion was a little muddy. He needed to wear spectacles due to the long hours of reading that he used to undertake. The catalogue of his faults made his decision to marry well, seem ridiculous. Then he remembered Charles Lucas. Charles was no prettier, indeed even plainer than Mair yet he had married Miss Collins and become Mr. Collins. Mair both admired and resented Charles. He knew that his father had hoped that Miss Collins might consider Mair after Elijah rejected her but Charles had seized his opportunity and won the lady.

Mair sighed. His father, his family and their neighbours had never described him as a pretty boy. He was accustomed to being compared to his other brothers and found wanting in the comparison. He had found solace in books, in improving his accomplishments such as the pianoforte and singing. However, since the marriage of his two older brothers, John and Elijah to wealthy, respectable ladies, and the marriage of the youngest, Lydior, to a wastrel of a woman, he had been required by his father to accompany him in lieu of the other brothers. Mair had always hated going on these visits before, because at some point he would always hear himself compared to John and Elijah most unfavourably.

His father would shake his head and say, 'At least, four out of five of my boys are pretty.'

Mair knew that his father and his cronies did not regard as being well read, or well behaved as any sort of compensation for lacking the all-essential physical beauty. His father had been a beauty in his youth.

He knew that his father had pinned all his hopes on John and Elijah making good marriages to save them from the poverty that would ensue when Miss now Mrs. Collins inherited their home and property. Those hopes had been miraculously realised and there was far less pressure on Mair and his younger brother, Kit to make good marriages. Their father was still determined to marry them off however, as he regarded being a spinner, an old lad, an elderly unmarried gentleman, as the greatest crime in the world although he doubted his ability to do so for Mair.

Mair reflected that much had improved for him since the marriages of John and Elijah. Their father's famous nerves far less afflicted him although there seemed to be no diminution of his silliness. That too, was a reason to consider marriage, the prospect of a lifetime spent with his father did not appeal.

Mair now had a much larger bedroom as he had been allowed to swap to the one that had belonged to John and Elijah prior to their departure from the house. Their father had told him that if either John or Elijah came to stay with their husbands, he would have to give up his bedroom for the duration of the stay but it had been eighteen months since the marriages and Mair felt that this inconvenience was unlikely to happen soon.

He could hear his father calling, 'Mair! Mair! Where are you? Hurry up, we must be away to my brother Philips or we will miss the start of Loo.

'What a disaster that would be,' Mair muttered before calling, 'Coming, father.'

He took one last look in the mirror, sighed again and left the bedroom.

Mr. Bennet and Kit were in the process of going outside to the carriage. Mair followed them out and was handed up into the carriage by the groom. He thanked her politely. His mother was as usual, nowhere to be seen, ensconced in the library.

As the carriage jolted along, Mair looked at Kit seated opposite to him. He would never get married, he decided until Kit was married off. Kit was slim and pretty with long brown hair and sparkling, dark eyes. He resembled Elijah whereas Lydior was a shorter, fatter, more vivacious version of John. Kit's sea green gown set him off to perfection. It occurred to Mair that perhaps he should take more of an interest in his dress and in the colours that he habitually dressed in. He looked down at his mud brown gown, very practical but perhaps not very attractive. Ladies did seem to appreciate a gentleman who dressed becomingly. He made a mental note to compile a list of factors to consider when trying to obtain a wife. It also occurred to him that Kit and his father could be his allies in his campaign to wed a lady. They would definitely be interested in the subject of suitable and attractive attire.