A/N: FF introduced me to fanfiction, and I am thrilled to finally post my own first attempt at fiction here in the P&P fandom. This story has been posted in its entirety at AHA and can be found on Kindle and other eBook outlets. A criticism from a few reviewers has been that it seems too long. Here I would like to try a shortened version and see how you like it. There are also chapter notes on historical things which I will also leave out to make the story flow better. If you want the unabridged version, you can go over to AHA or spend what amounts to the price of a cup of coffee and have your very own formatted and thoroughly spellchecked copy of the eBook. So here it goes. All constructive reviews are welcome. Even though the whole story has been written, the shortened version is a WIP. I will try to post weekly if I do not get bogged down by formatting issues. There are 54 chapters plus an epilogue.
I try to use British spelling throughout but may have missed some. The German-related tidbits are based on my 6-month stay in Germany and learning the German language many years ago and may not be authentic or accurate especially as it relates to the Regency period.
Disclaimer: All characters and some excerpts from Pride and Prejudice belong to Jane Austen. All verifiable historical characters, buildings and events appearing in this story are borrowed purely as vehicles in a work of fiction, and any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. The description of Regency-period customs benefits greatly from many internet sites that focus on these topics.
Rating: T, Teen – 13+
Description: Some historical events of the period far outside the 24 families around Meryton were inserted into this story making the circumstances of the Bennet family of Longbourn different . Elizabeth Bennet had a superior mind and the self-assurance of a modern young woman; Mr. Darcy was properly humbled by Mrs. Bennet during their first meeting. How would the courtship between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy go under these different scenarios?
But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation. – Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Chapter 11.
© 2020 Eselle Teays. © 2021 Eselle Teays. No part of this publication not already in the public domain may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or translated into other languages without the prior written permission of the author.
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Mr. Thomas Bennet, heir to the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, had just received a prestigious fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford after obtaining a Master of Arts degree in classical languages and literature, and would be teaching young gentlemen Greek and Latin while continuing his current studies in Old and Middle English. Mr. Bennet was a bit of a Renaissance man. His interest covered topics from the classics, modern languages, world history, science, mathematics to even medicine. Being at Oxford among scholars was all he ever wanted. However, he knew that his tenure at his current position had to end in the not-too-distant future. Some day he would be expected back at Longbourn to take over the reins of the estate, which had been in the family since after the great plague in the latter part of the fourteenth century.
Longbourn was a comfortable estate that yielded sufficiently to send all the male descendants to Oxford, and supplied modest dowries for all the females, who fortunately, from the dowry standpoint, were quite scarce through the generations. No one in his branch of the Bennets, unlike the branches that produced two earls and a Lord Mayor of London, was particularly keen on building wealth through advantageous marriages or spectacular heroics on the battlefield. At the same time, there had been no particularly grievous wastrels to gamble the estate away, thanks partly to the strict use of the fee entail through the centuries.
Mr. Bennet's grandfather came the closest to be a fiduciary reprobate not through unsavory behavior, but through religious fervor. Mr. Matthew Bennet and his youngest brother John were adherents of the "Holy Club" started by John and Charles Wesley while they were students at Oxford. Mr. Matthew Bennet, when he inherited, immediately sold off about one third of the estate's farmland to help fund John Wesley's Methodist movement. He was able to split the estate because he was at the end of the three-generation entail. This "recklessness", as seen by his younger brother, Nathaniel, was enough to create a rift in the family. Nathaniel was a vicar in Hampshire. He openly accused his brother of robbing the estate to support a heretical cult and was seriously displeased. He was childless when his wife of thirty years died. After six months of mourning, he married an eighteen-year old woman from his village and she promptly produced a son after seven months of marriage. Mr. Nathaniel Bennet passed on when the child was just two years old, and his widow married a Mr. Collins who was a yeoman farmer nearby just two months after his death, and the Bennet boy took on his stepfather's name when he inherited the farm. Meanwhile the Bennets back in Hertfordshire were not certain what to make of these events.
Mr. Matthew Bennet had gone with the Wesleys to the Continent on a mission trip and brought back a bride from the city of Leipzig, the only child of a professor at the university. Mrs. Bennet was fluent in Greek and Latin, which was not uncommon in the Wesley circle. They had only one son, Mr. James Bennet, who surmised that Uncle Nathaniel was set on producing a male progeny to have a chance to inherit Longbourn in case he, as the only heir, did not survive. The circumstances of the boy's birth, however, made the father and son wary that the boy Bartholomew Bennet, now Collins, might not have any Bennet blood at all. Meanwhile, James Bennet accompanied his mother to the Continent to help his maternal grandfather to oversee an inheritance, which included a house filled with art and rare books in Geneva. This inheritance would eventually come to him when his grandfather passed on. During this trip, he also brought back a bride from the Continent who spoke German, French and Italian. The first born, Thomas Bennet, was a bright handsome boy who delighted his parents and grandparents with his ability to grasp the native languages of his mother's and grandmother's effortlessly. He was followed two years later by a younger brother, Peter Bennet, whose twin, Sarah, did not survive. The grandmother Bennet especially was grieved that there was not a girl to whom she could teach all her Greek and Latin for studying the Holy Scriptures without translation. The whole family was extraordinarily studious, and their reputation as a learned though eccentric family was tolerated because of the long standing of the family in the otherwise rather backwater environs. With one heir and two spares, Matthew Bennet felt safe to put the entail back in place.
Thomas Bennet felt that should he prefer the life of an Oxford don and let his younger brother live the life of a squire in the country, his parents might allow it. After all, both his grandfather and father were indifferent masters of the estate business and could not wait to let the youngest heir take over so that they themselves could pursue their own interests without encumbrance. The worst that he had to do to achieve this goal was to never marry. It was still early in his career as a university man, and he would just wait and see.
This afternoon, Mr. Bennet was sitting in his study waiting for his younger brother Mr. Peter Bennet who was the curate to the vicar of Meryton, the market town about a mile from Longbourn. Mr. Peter was to come to introduce to him his young protégé who would be attending Oxford in the coming term. Mr. Edward Gardner was but fifteen years of age, and yet exhibited such promising intellectual superiority that the Bennet family of Longbourn took on the young man with the goal of obtaining a Foundation scholarship for him to go to Oxford so that his exceptional gifts would be allowed to flourish. Master Edward Gardiner was the son of the solicitor in Meryton who died rather suddenly five years before. His widowed mother and two younger sisters were living in nearby Luton with his widowed grandmother, and the boy matriculated at Luton Academy at age eleven. His academic accomplishments after three years were such that his school master recommended that he should be sent to university, and made the connection for him with his friend Mr. James Bennet, the heir of Longbourn who had the advantage of having his own heir being a renowned scholar at Oxford. All the Bennet gentlemen at Longbourn were duly impressed by the quickness and depth with which the boy grasped advanced concepts in languages and mathematics. After personally tutoring the boy for a year, and entrusting his elder brother the task to obtain the necessary scholarship, Mr. Peter Bennet and Mr. Gardiner removed to oxford.
Mr. Gardiner was tall for his age and had a countenance that exuded intelligence. His overall air was one of confidence and good sense in addition to being handsome. Mr. Thomas Bennet was relieved that he would not be required to constantly look out for this young man for fear of his being bullied because of his age and humble origin. Upon conversation with Mr. Gardiner, he was further impressed that the boy was good mannered, had opinions quite his own that were based on well-reasoned concepts from reading widely. He congratulated his brother for such a thorough and sound preparation of the young man for university, and the young man for using his time and pursuits wisely.
After settling Mr. Gardiner in his quarters, Mr. Peter sat down with his brother in his study to enjoy a glass of port. He then disclosed to his brother his desire to go to America on a mission trip for a duration of two years, but his intention was to settle there permanently. To say Mr. Thomas Bennet was surprised was an understatement. He had thought that the religious fervency of his grandfather's generation had subsided in his father's generation, and he himself was rather ambivalent about the Church even though he was most adamantly a believer of God. On further being questioned about the timing of this voyage across the Atlantic and whether the parents' blessings had been obtained, Mr. Peter admitted that it would be at least another two years before he would leave, and he would use this time to prepare the parents for the eventuality of this mission. Despite the family's connections in the Continent, he felt that the Old World was not where he belonged. Mr. Thomas Bennet promised not to tell his parents about this plan of his brother's, but he had to rethink his own plan of staying at the University permanently.