Mrs. Bennet's POV

Chapter 11: Can I Trust Him?

The first days and weeks after Jane was born, Mr. Bennet mostly avoided me. However, it soon became apparent that he was spending time with Jane while I was not present. I often encountered him in the nursery, holding Jane while sitting in a rocking chair, watching her sleep in her cradle, walking with her against his shoulder as he recited poetry to her. However, if I entered, within a moment or two he would hand her to me or to the nurse and leave without another word.

I soon learned that he liked to visit after he had awoken and dressed for the day, sometime in the middle of the day, and just before he retired for the night. I then tried my best not to come during those times, though as I had sent home the wet nurse he hired I needed to feed her often.

I remember that one day when Jane was about five weeks old, Mr. Bennet came into the nursery when Jane was attached to my breast. I had no need for modesty in front of the nurse and nursery maid and was simply exposed on one side as I sat in the wooden rocking chair, my dressing gown open, though her mouth and head covered me as she drank. She was laying across a pillow on my lap, as I held her to my left breast.

Her mouth was milking me with a rhythmic motion which was gradually lessening as she both became sated and sleepy. The nursery was mostly silent but for the slight squeak of the chair and the sound of her swallowing. I watched her rosebud mouth moving, her eyes closed, one tiny hand possessively resting on my breast. I felt relaxed with the pleasure of the milk spurting, softening what had been a breast hard with milk. As she had already drained the other breast, I was feeling languorous and drowsy, ready to drift off with her.

I was not sure how long he stood there watching us. Somehow I had not heard the door open and though he was within my line of sight I had not noticed him as all my attention was focused on her, watching as she sucked. He must have moved slightly, and then my eyes found him. He was leaning against the door frame, his eyes trained on us. While my rocking stilled a bit upon first noticing him, after a slight pause I resumed the slight movement. I still felt relaxed from the feeding and not the usual tension I felt when he was near.

"She is almost finished," I told him. "If you wait a few minutes she will be done and fast asleep."

He nodded, said nothing and remained where he was. I remember thinking that it could not be comfortable to remain standing that way, but also felt no need to say anything to either get him to venture further into the room or leave it.

A change had come over me since the birth of Jane. While my mother and the midwife had warned me that I might feel sad after the baby was born, the opposite occurred. I felt accomplished and strong. I had grown and birthed this baby, no one had done it for me. Now I was her source of nourishment, I had everything she needed and already since her birth her cheeks had filled out and her limbs had become more rounded, and it was all because of me.

I loved her more than anything, whether or not it was rational, regardless of all reason, even though I should have resented her based on how she came about. I still hated Mr. Bragg and what he had done, but the horror of that night was somehow tempered when I held my daughter. While I had questioned mightily how God could have let him harm me in that way, had not deigned to somehow intervene to prevent it or to make me think the wiser of going to the library, and had let me become with child necessitating my father entrapping another man to marry me, somehow Jane was still worth the high cost I had paid, was still paying.

Jane's sucks became softer as she fell deeply into her slumber, and suddenly her mouth released my breast with a soft, wet sound and her body rolled a little away from me and from partially on her side to half on her back. My breast was now more exposed. I had a vague thought that I should cover myself but I made no move to do so. I was sleepy myself, sated in a different way than my child as my breasts had done their duty and fed her. She was warm and the small whuffs of her breathing were slow and my respiration was slow as well.

The nurse and nursery maid had seen me nurse Jane many times, had seen her draw back with a cry when the milk spurted too fast and too hard and shot out from three or four spots from my nipples, and arched spider-web thin lines of white a few feet away. Given such occurrences, I no longer felt the need for modesty around them.

My husband, too, had seen my dairy before when he visited my bed to perform his marital duties. Though this was always at night, often there were candles lit. Why should I care that he was seeing them now, being used in the manner for which they were created, to suckle my infant?

He slowly walked up to me, his footsteps soft and even on the plush nursery rug. And then he was just in front of me, watching Jane sleep.

I thought he wanted to hold her, but I was not sure if she would stir or was even now deeply asleep, so I raised one of her limbs and dropped it, as my mother had taught me this would show whether she was asleep enough to move. She made no reaction after her arm fell, so I told him, "You may take her now if you wish."

He gently scooped her up, one hand splayed across the juncture between her head and back, another just below her bottom. Her white gown, which was still much too long, cascading past her feet. He cradled her to his chest, and I saw him sniff her slightly. She a distinctive baby smell, which was partially her own scent and partially the smell of my milk; I, too, enjoyed how she smelled. Rather than continuing to hold her, he walked to her cradle, set her down slowly and then gradually drew his hands from beneath her.

When he turned back toward me, without her buffeting warmth I was suddenly more alert and self-conscious about how exposed my breast was. Therefore I drew my dressing gown around me, stood and retied it. I began to leave and I found that he was following me. I walked back to my chambers as I usually did after a feed which ended with her sleeping (often to take a nap) and he followed me inside.

I wondered momentarily if somehow the sight of my naked breast had inflamed his desire and he wished to take his pleasure of me. We had not resumed our marital relations, though earlier in the week the midwife had pronounced me fit to do so and likely had told him as well. I was resigned that sooner or later he would visit my bed, both to seek his heir and gratify his desire.

Having had Jane, I was less adverse to the idea of our intimate relations. While they were not pleasurable to me, I knew that these were the means through which I could have more children. Although Jane was as of yet only a few weeks old, I knew that I would like more children.

However, other than closing the door behind him, he made no move towards my bed or me.

"Mrs. Bennet, I should like to talk to you."

This was the moment when I should have responded to him as I always did, saying something like, "My dear Mr. Bennet, when shall we visit London for the season? I long to have a lovely dress made up in accordance with the latest fashion plates. I wonder, do children in London wear the same style of gowns as those we have for baby Jane? She will be lovely, I am sure. Oh how I suffered in bearing her; you cannot know what I suffered, though it is a delightful thing to be sure to have a daughter. You have no compassion in coming upon me in the nursery when I was unaware; oh my poor nerves, if Jane had not been nursing I might have dropped her from the shock."

Yet, I felt tired of all the subterfuge. It was so hard to keep up with all the chatter when I was tired from waking up two or three times a night to feed Jane. So instead I said, "All right," and waited for him to state his purpose.

"It cannot have escaped your notice, or if it did I imagine your mother informed you, that I know that Jane is not truly mine. You are fortunate indeed that she was not a male, for I cannot imagine abiding having a love begotten child as the heir to Longbourn. And yet, though she is not truly mine, she bears my name and my affection as if she were. Indeed, I will endeavor to remember no more that she is another man's."

I said nothing. I did indeed know what he thought I did. I had hoped, however, that he would never raise the issue with me and yet now he was doing so.

My silence must have been encouragement enough for him to continue as he added, "It was not right that you and your family tricked me into marrying you, while another man's seed bloomed in you. It was not right that I was fooled into believing I was marrying a maiden to preserve her honor after it was sullied by coming to my aid. It was no highway man's trap, instead your family trapped me for you. I understand your father was trying to help you after a man imposed on you. But in discussing the matter your father said something most interesting, something that I have considered for many a day. He told me that you only pretend to be pudding-headed. Tell me Mrs. Bennet, have I given you any cause to think you must hide your true nature from me?"

"I do not know you at all," I told him.

"If you do not know me, it is because you have avoided knowing me, have raised a wall between us with the endless drivel you spout. I should hope there is more to you than that. The self-absorbed women of little understanding and uncertain temper you appear to be would have happily accepted the wet nurse I obtained, would have been eager to give the responsibility of tending your child to another, and yet you did not. You are so natural with Jane, the very picture of motherhood, all vanity swept away."

I knew then that I had a choice. I could trust him or push him away. But as I contemplated my choice he spoke again.

"I would have us seek a better understanding. We are married, nothing will change that."

"I am scared," I told him without thinking, then covered my mouth in my distress. Why had I told him that?

"What are you scared of?"

I shook my head "no," unwilling to say more.

"Will you not trust me?"

I shook my head again and lowered my head, unwilling to look at him then.

He sighed and l heard him stand up, and then the door slam shut, after he left.