Mrs. Croft took some half an hour to tell her new charges about her life and qualifications. It was the expected thing to do, after all, when starting a new employment. She had been the daughter of a parson. She had a small dowry of five thousand - Kitty gasped when she heard and then started to cry.
Mrs. Croft watched the sisters with interest. Both of the other two had moved to comfort the sobbing girl, although it was quite obvious the severely dressed one did not know what to say or do.
"Might I go on, or would you like to postpone our introduction for now?"
Miss Mary and Miss Kitty looked at Miss Elizabeth and she was the one to reply that they should proceed with getting to know each other. However, Mrs. Croft noted that Miss Elizabeth did not really look at her sisters before deciding for them all. She was about to ask each of them in turn when Miss Mary spoke up: "We need to start our work, Mrs. Croft. Our sister Lydia's letters have been enlightening us as to the subject matters we need to pursue. We are quite determined." Miss Kitty only nodded her assent.
The rest of the hour went by fast. Mrs. Croft had been married to a parson and her settlement was of three thousand pounds. Yes, she said, not all of her dowry was settled on her. Some of it went into improvements of the parsonage that were seen as unnecessary by the owner.
Unfortunately her husband died only a few years later, leaving her without a dowry proper as her settlement was in the funds and she would draw some one hundred pounds per annum from the interest, but men wanted liquid funds.
Her father could not gather another dowry for her so she thought about becoming a governess or a companion. Before she could she met her next husband. He was rather old, in trade, and had two daughters of marriageable age. The doctors had just told him they could not cure his illness and after he had given much thought he felt it would be better to not hire a companion for them, but to marry. He thought it best that his daughters have someone trusted to live with them, should they not find husbands right away. He settled another two thousand on her.
He was lucky in that he lived to see both of them married to good men, for which she took full credit, since an ailing father had attracted the worst sort of wastrels buzzing around the girls in hopes of an easy catch.
She did not need to work anymore, but since she did not have much in the way of family and no children at all, she continued to do so.
It was then the girls' turn to present themselves.
Miss Elizabeth had a sparkling personality, which only needed a little polish, and she would be all set to go as far as she wanted to. She was well read on a variety of subjects and could play "tolerably," by her own admission, which made Miss Catherine laugh.
Miss Mary was well versed in the Scriptures, read nothing but morality tracts, and played the piano well.
"Oh, yes, much better than me! Mary practises every day!" Miss Elizabeth added and Miss Mary looked well pleased with the praise.
Miss Catherine knew nothing of note and did nothing all day. She usually spent her mornings accompanying her mother on visits or sitting with her when they received their friends at home. She could sew and embroider, but nothing out of the common way, did not play piano or sing, did not draw or paint, had no knowledge of sciences or foreign languages, and could not name anything that interested her.
"Kitty is helping us all with our bonnets," Miss Elizabeth interrupted Miss Kitty's litany of things she did not know about. "She has a good eye for colour!"
Two days later Mrs. Croft knew had a better understanding of her new charges: Miss Elizabeth behaved like it was somehow her fault their portion was nonexistent and so she tried, rather clumsily, to support and encourage her sisters; Miss Mary was extremely proud of her knowledge and skills and would not accept any criticism; and Miss Catherine did not have a good eye for colour, in addition to everything else she was lacking in the way of accomplishments. She was diffident and unaccustomed to even think about what she wanted, as opposed to what the others expected her to.
-`o´-
"What do you seek to accomplish? One cannot work in vain. One has a purpose, devises a method to accomplish it and then works towards it."
Mary nodded in agreement: Mrs. Croft spoke sense. "Our sister Jane is everything proper."
"I have met your sister but briefly, Miss Mary, and indeed she is a young lady most proper," Mrs. Croft said and then waited for the girls to continue.
"She is the most beautiful of us all," Miss Catherine added, "together with Lydia."
"Miss Bennet is a very beautiful woman, but not a lot more so than yourself, Miss Catherine. In any case, while being a great beauty helps, it can also hinder a woman's prospects."
"Too many expectations and hopes for a good future rest on our sister's shoulders," Elizabeth agreed.
"We will see about managing expectations, young ladies! What would you like to learn from me?"
"How much should we flirt to catch a husband?"
"Pardon?" Mrs. Croft frowned and could barely keep the censure from showing.
"Our sister Jane was very attached to Mr. Bingley," Miss Catherine continued by way of explanation, "but she never flirted with him. We think he liked her too, but then he left."
"Our sister Lydia flirted with all the officers," Mary continued, "and all but one had a very poor opinion of her, even though she seemed very popular with them all."
"We do not know what to do to have a man consider us. How should we behave?"
Miss Mary and Miss Catherine were earnest in their request and Miss Elizabeth looked horrified.
-`o´-
It was but a few days later that Mrs. Gardiner received a letter from Mrs. Croft. She opened it, most impatient to know her friend had settled in well and was not adverse to shepherding her nieces into womanhood.
Her wish was granted: her friend felt she was needed by the girls and would do all in her power to help them overcome the awkwardness of their age. In this respect she must be content. It was the second half of the letter and a few lines that could only be meant as a veiled admonishment that quite disturbed her.
"Mrs. Croft has written to me," Madeline Gardinert said to her husband when they had retired for the night.
"Did she? I hope it went well, as I quite like your friend."
"Yes, yes, it all went as well as we could have hoped."
"But something bothers you?"
"Will you allow me to read you a few lines from her letter? I would not wish to twist her meaning."
Mr. Gardiner nodded, a little surprised by her discomposure.
"My dear Madeline, I would be but a poor friend should I not speak to you of my misgivings.
Whatever happened to have given the girls an impetus to change and take a more active interest in their futures must not be used as an excuse to mold them all into the kind of woman that would be most successful at catching a husband and later most miserable for the rest of her married life.
I understand their position and yours too, but you must see that hurrying them into marriage will lead to nothing but suffering of the acutest kind when they will finally come to understand that they made themselves into something they are not for the sole reason to attract a man. They will not be able to keep up the charade for too long and by then it will be too late for everybody."
-`o´-
For the past hours, why, almost a day now, Bingley felt like he was walking on a cloud. Providence saw to it that he got another chance to win his fair maiden and win her he would. In his thoughts he thanked Miss Lydia again and again for neatly clearing all their misunderstandings at what he believed must have been a great cost to her sensibilities. That she did so to help her sister spoke of the great love and affection his Jane inspired in everybody; except perhaps his own sisters.
It was no matter, he would deal with them, although he was not sure how.
Or maybe he would not deal with them at all. They proved false in their professions of friendship towards Jane and he would do well to keep them as far as possible from his future family. Caroline and Louisa loved the town, so in town they could stay. He will find an estate to buy, marry Jane and live happily with her there. She had more than enough sisters and by the looks of it hers were not, how did Miss Lydia put it? "Spiteful shrews," yes, that was right. They could meet his sisters in town two or three times a year and that was that.
Miss Lydia did him a good turn there and he thought for a moment he should do something for her too. Lt. Denny must not have too much money, the militia officers never did, so when he married Jane he might settle a small sum on her sister. She was going to be his sister tool, after all. Although first he must talk to the man, it would not do to give rise to more misunderstandings. He verily shuddered at the thought.
What Bingley would have liked most would have been to spend another morning and maybe the afternoon too with his Jane. There were many things, great and small, to talk about and he did not get very far during his first visit at the Gardiner residence. At least he managed to apologize.
Miss Lydia was telling them about a wonderful book of maps she was studying and then she had to show it to him. Off she went to ask her uncle if she could bring it in the parlour. Much could be said in the almost a quarter of an hour it took Miss Lydia to come back and he did not speak as much he should have, but at least he apologized.
And Jane smiled at him.
-`o´-
Author note:
Thank you all for the wonderful reviews, I love them!
Guest who hopes Bingley will take action:
Oh, yes, he will. We'll see how it goes though :)
Guest who left a long and thoughtful message:
About Bingley and Jane Bennet: we'll talk after a few more chapters, because explaining my reasons would spoil the story.
About Charlotte: the beginning of chapter 20 is very interesting. Let's compare the Charlotte described there with Mary Bennet who thought cousin Collins was perhaps not as bright as her, but was still struck by the solidity of some of his reflections.
Collins could have married a woman who really, truly did appreciate him - Mary Bennet, but Charlotte was faster. I don't blame her at all, but that's the nicest thing I can say about her.
"Elizabeth has never done anything to Caroline" That's absolutely not true! Why, Mr. Darcy admired Elizabeth's fine eyes. Caroline being Caroline has only one setting: attack ;)
There were no hard and fast rules about educating children. Georgiana Darcy was sent to school, even though the Darcys probably had loads of high ranked female relatives who could have supplied knowledge about this and that.
About Darcy's effect on Bingley's social acceptance. Yes to a large extent, but this was a time of great societal upheaval in England, which you'd never know only from JA's novels. I always wondered why she never cared about people who were not gentry, but that's for another time.
Anyway, Bingley's money would have gone a very, very long way to being accepted and his gregarious, easy nature certainly helped.
I wanna see Darcy introducing his poor friend to that society, somebody who was the son of a poor merchant and now worked somewhere in the Civil service (war ministry, chancellery, customs…) for 300 pounds per year :)
Guest who said I should tell the story in the story and not in author notes:
You are very right and thank you for pointing it out, but please detail what you believe should have made its way into the story, as opposed to just answering comments and exchanging ideas.
There is only one thing to remember from all the author notes, namely that nobody will get married until they are over 18 years of age. At least that's the only info pertaining to the story that's put in an author note.
So I'll need examples and try to rework the chapters that were not clear enough.
Guest who said there's more to Jane than being kind and beautiful:
But of course!
I always get a kick of that scene when Mr. Bennet tells Jane that all the servants will cheat them, because in my mind I'm 100% sure Mr. Bennet speaks from his own personal experience.
Every time you cannot stand Elizabeth, think about this: her first and main reason to tear into Darcy the way she did was because he hurt Jane. By the time Darcy proposed Wickham was as good as married to Mary King and an afterthought in her life and in her mind. She had Jane letter with her when Darcy entered the room - and the rest is history :)
Guest who liked that Lizzy is human:
I'm glad you noticed this and like the idea :)