Yeah, this is quite short. But it's a prologue, what did you expect? Sorry about it being a bit depressing; I promise that it's not all going to be like this.
Prologue
November 19, 1796
A girl of seven, with her hair done in ribbons and curls, and wearing a simple white muslin dress crept into her mother's bedchamber. She carefully balanced the tea things between her arms as the door swung closed behind her. The girl immediately noticed how very dark it was in the room, with the curtains pulled shut, so that only the thinnest ray of light shined upon the mossy green rug of the bedchamber. She had not seen her mother in a week, for she had become violently ill from the birth of her fifth daughter; and it was through the kind graces of the servants that she was allowed to take her mother's tea to her. She remembered the housekeeper telling her to not stay long, for her mother was very ill, and would not want to be kept awake.
The girl sidled up to her mother's bedside, hearing the heavy wheezing of her breaths. She set down the tray upon a little table, and lifted herself onto the bed to see her mother. When she laid eyes upon her, she absolutely started: her mother was pale and thin, with her hair askew, and in a cold sweat. Something within Jane knew, at that moment, that her mother was dying: and she began to sob bitterly, her tears streaming down her cheeks and falling, unhindered, onto the skirt of her dress. After wailing for some minutes, her mother stirred: and when the latter opened her eyes, her maternal instinct had her reach out and gather her pretty little daughter in her arms. Jane buried her head into her mother's breast, mourning as if she were already dead.
"My dearest Jane," whispered Mrs. Bennet in a calm, raspy voice that was so unlike her own, "you shall go on without me: you all shall. I will always be watching you, always loving you, even if you may not be able to touch or speak to me."
"Don't speak that way, Mamma!" cried Jane passionately, "Don't speak as if I will never see you again! How will I ever be happy again? Oh! Live, live!"
Mrs. Bennet ran her fingers through her daughter's hair, hushing her and holding her as tightly to her as she was able to do in her frail condition. Jane had long forgotten the tea, as she continued to wail in her paroxysm of emotion. Then, suddenly, Mrs. Bennet gently grabbed her child by the shoulders, looking seriously into her eye, and said with more assertion, between labored breaths,
"Tell your Papa—"
But Jane never learnt what her mother wished her to tell her father, for Mrs. Bennet exhaled her last breath, and her eyes closed as she sunk into her pillow, only an empty shell of the woman she once was. Jane's tears, which had subsided with her mother's serious tone, returned, as she cried more loudly than ever, and was completely lost to all her surroundings. Time had no meaning; nothing had meaning except her sorrow, which wholly enveloped her, and she wept so violently, and thrashed about, that it did not fail to capture the attention of a five-year-old girl who had been wandering the hall. The girl's sisterly instinct told her to enter, for she had certainly never heard dear Jane cry so. Jane never made a fuss about anything; she was the comforter; she was the one who quieted Kitty when the frustrating toddler howled for no apparent reason at all. Yes, her little mind deduced that it must have been something very serious indeed.
When Elizabeth opened the door, not in a dissimilar way from that which her sister had done but a little earlier, she was shocked by the fit that she witnessed her sister having.
"Jane! Jane!" she screeched, alarmed with the notion that her eldest sister had gone mad. Elizabeth rushed to her sister, giving her a very clumsy embrace, as she knew not what else to do. "Jane-y! What's the matter? Why are you doing that? Please stop!"
"Mamma's dead!" gasped Jane between loud sobs, her face drenched with tears.
"You're lying!" cried Elizabeth, as was her first impulse, "Telling lies isn't very nice! That's what you told Mary the other day! Don't you remember? Jane, stop that!"
But Jane didn't stop. She merely gestured to the bed, indicating that Elizabeth could behold the truth for herself; and so Elizabeth did. And the moment that Elizabeth laid eyes upon her mother, she knew that she was dead; and she knew that it would be an image that would stain her all her life. How could she go about doing those habitual things that people do, knowing that her mother had suffered so acutely that last week of her life, and was no more? What was a mother to her that was only dust in the ground, a cold stone in a cemetery? It wasn't how it was meant to be! Children who can't write their name shouldn't have to bury their mothers!
"Jane!" cried Elizabeth, though it was more of an inaudible moan than a name; and so the two young sisters embraced, sobbing on each other's shoulders, futilely attempting to drown their sorrows in the dampness of each other's dresses.
