Madam and Missy — A Pride and Prejudice Variation

This is dedicated to all the writers both here and on KU who've released their stories for free! As I enjoy reading them so much, I thought that I'd have a go, and here it is.

[Note that I'm a Brit, so have written with British spelling, punctuation and terminology 😏]

In which Mr. Bennet raises gentlewomen who can think, and does some thinking himself

Longbourn

Mr. Bennet

Mr. Bennet's efforts to raise his daughters as gentlewomen rather than fishwives started to bear fruit. Though it had been relatively straightforward to help them to learn to play the piano and to draw — masters were hired for these — he had found it harder to encourage his youngest daughters in decorum; Lydia in particular. She is but six years of age; there is time.

Each evening, he read to his family and encouraged them to discuss what he had read. He had been heartened to discover that, underneath their silliness, and under Mary's reserve, the younger could reason and make sensible comments.

Acknowledging that it was one of his most important responsibilities as a father of daughters, he also introduced them to the ideas of worthiness and unworthiness — particularly in the less fair sex. He gradually educated them in how to recognise a man's worth: neither in his looks or in his charm, but in his behaviour to others, above and below him, and in his means to support a wife and any children.

He discussed with Mrs. Hill, their housekeeper, and the governess, Mrs. Annesley, how best to allow the girls to practise being the lady of the house. They decided that, as each daughter reached the age of thirteen years, she would spend time with Mrs. Hill learning about the household accounts and how to plan meals. She would also take turns acting as her father's hostess, sitting in the mistress' place at the dining table.

He arranged for some of the neighbours' daughters to come to Longbourn to learn to dance. If the laughter he overheard from his book-room was to be believed, the young women in his household enjoyed these lessons very much. He was pleased that his reserved young Jane was adopting a little of Lydia's liveliness while learning to dance. Nothing will make her as outgoing, but she ought to have some fun and enjoy herself.

But how could he induce the others to observe and think as Elizabeth did? He suspected that Mary and Lydia would almost match her if he could but think of how to capture their interest. He wondered if solving easy puzzles might pique their curiosity.

Mmm.

One day, he joined his family in the school room and told them that he had a special task for them. Giving each child a square of paper, he said, "I should like you to draw or paint a picture on this paper."

He refused to answer their questions about what the drawings were for, but said, teasingly, as he left the room, "Please have them ready by the time we have tea."

As they gathered in the parlour for tea, each of them presented him with a drawing or painting. He was not surprised at most of their subjects: Jane had drawn their house, Elizabeth an oak tree, Kitty a horse and Lydia some colourful splodges which he correctly guessed to be flowers. Mary had not drawn the piano, as he had anticipated, but had painted the view from Oakham Mount.

He thanked them, but refused to explain his purpose.

A few days later, when they met in the parlour for tea, he unveiled that purpose. He opened the box that he held on his lap to reveal nine small wooden cubes. The cubes lay in a square, together showing his own face, drawn by his wife many years earlier. He noticed Elizabeth — and Mary! —smile in understanding, and tipped the cubes out onto the rug in front of him.

At first, the parlour was silent. Then, quickly, a small wave of resentment that he had cut up their drawings spread around the watching faces. Lydia spoke first. "That is part of my flowers."

"Look, there is the chimney from my drawing," pointed out Jane.

"But that is the tail of my horse," cried Kitty, beginning to cry.

"Can you find any more of your horse?" Mr. Bennet asked Kitty, putting his hand on her shoulder. Sorrowfully, she picked up the cubes one by one, rotating them to reveal a face showing part of her painting.

In a rarely seen moment of empathy, Lydia asked Kitty, "Can you rearrange the blocks to show all of your horse?" It took some minutes for Kitty to do so, meanwhile Mr. Bennet reached to lift Lydia's chin and smile his approval to her.

"There," cried Kitty, all sorrow forgotten, "There is my horse! Look, Pappa, it is my horse!"

"Well done, Kitty! Who will have the next turn to find her drawing?" he asked them all.

Again, he was pleased with Lydia as she suggested that Kitty should choose who would be next. He caught Lydia's eye once more to show how pleased he was with her behaviour.

Kitty looked at a loss trying to decide which sister should be next. Mr. Bennet waited to hear what the others might suggest. Elizabeth had been waiting too, but clearly having seen tears threaten to overtake her younger sister, she said, "Why not roll one of the blocks, Kitty? And whose picture is uppermost— "

" —will take her turn," finished Mary.

"Exactly," agreed Elizabeth.

Kitty picked up the block showing the head of her horse and rolled it. Six pairs of eyes watched it expectantly to see whose picture would be revealed.

"'Tis the front door from Jane's drawing," said Kitty. "So, it is your turn, Jane." Kitty pushed the blocks nearer to Jane. She smiled a little uncertainly when Mr. Bennet kissed her forehead.

"Well done, Kitty," he said.

"Did you see that I made my horse, Pappa?"

"I did, child. You did very well!" He kissed her forehead again, and her smile changed to one of delight.

Jane reassembled her drawing of their house with pleasure and looked up to see the smiling faces surrounding her. "Well done, Jane," said Elizabeth. "Now that we have all admired your house, are you ready to roll one of the blocks to see whose turn is next?"

"I am," said Jane, taking up the block showing the parlour window. She rolled it to reveal one of Lydia's brightly coloured flowers. "Ooh, Lydia, it is your turn." She pushed the blocks to the youngest sister.

Mr. Bennet was very pleased that Lydia laughed at her own frustration that her brightly-coloured splodges proved to be harder to reassemble into a picture than she had expected. How much she had changed from the girl who had had a tantrum whenever things had not gone as she had wished. "I shall paint something more simple next time," she said to him.

"Where would the fun be in that?" he responded with a fond smile.

As she finished, they all admired her beautiful flowers. Grinning, she picked up one of the blocks and looked around at the expectant faces of her sisters. "Whose turn will it be next?" The block showed the blue of the sky. "Mary, it is you."

Mr. Bennet declared the puzzle a success and realised, ruefully, that he would have to invent more!

Elizabeth

During the three years that 'M' was up at Cambridge, Elizabeth had been delighted to receive, with some of his letters, several shapes of silver for her bracelet. She did not expect a shape with every letter — they were lovely — but she would rather have heard from him, especially about his studies. She had asked her father about many of the subjects of which 'M' wrote. Many things she did not have the knowledge to understand fully, but she made the effort to find out what she could.

She had shared his distress about the thefts from his rooms, particularly of the galloping horse stamp. He had commissioned a new design, this one of two overlapping letters. Is it an M and a W or two Ms?

As there was no silversmith in Meryton, she kept all of the new shapes safe until it was her turn to stay with the Gardiners. There, her Uncle Gardiner took her to a shop where the smith did neat work at a fair price. On each of her visits, the silversmith appeared keen to see the newest shapes and wondered, with his customers, what would happen when there was no more room on the chain. They found out when, three years after the arrival of the first chain, a second chain arrived.

Pemberley

William

Following his graduation, William returned to Pemberley. Though it was expected that he should embark on a grand tour of Europe, he had decided that he would prefer to delay until Missy could join him. I think that she would enjoy that very much.

Instructed by his father, he gradually took over running the estate. His younger sister, Georgiana, was delighted that he was at home and the siblings spent a lot of time together. As she approached her eleventh birthday, he was struck that this was the age that Missy had been when they had become betrothed. She is fourteen, now.

Longbourn

Mr. Bennet

Late in 1801, while reading the reports and deciphering the codes sent to him, Mr. Bennet was gradually uncovering a conspiracy. Though he had found the codes simple enough to decipher, he was finding it harder to identify the names as they were using pseudonyms. He read his list:

'Eagle, Dog, Godson, Falcon, Mouse, Wolf, Boar, Oak, Lynx, Bull'

In 1802, he found the owners of some of the aliases: Falcon, Oak and Wolf. They were peers who would have supported the abolition of slavery and had died — been killed? — before the vote in the House of Lords. He was annoyed with himself for not having spotted it sooner. It was when reading of an attempt on the Earl of Matlock's life that he had puzzled it out. Why is he 'Mouse'?

He dispatched a report to his employers, including the suggestion that the other abolitionists be warned.

Nasty business, slavery.

Now, who are the others? And who is Godson? Is he the ringleader or a pawn?

Please don't copy, but please do let me have comments/corrections 😏