"Well Fanny, what shall we give to a son-in-law who has everything? John Bennet drawled to his wife with a touch of amusement as he sat in his comfortable Chesterfield armchair.
Frances or Fanny rolled her eyes at her husband of more than three decades. She was busily packing up for the Netherfield birthday weekend. It was just before Friday lunchtime and they needed to leave their house, Longbourn, before the Sydney traffic sprawl started. A two hour leisurely drive could easily turn into five hours if they timed their departure wrong. She wanted to have tea and scones at Bowral because she did not know if the caterers Jane and Caroline had hired for that weekend would suit her palate. Toasted avocado canapés were so...bland.
"John, if they plan to have children soon then maybe something that will encourage or help them at that activity", she offered.
"I was thinking a bottle of 1990 Grange from the cellar."
Fanny shook her head. Her husband was nice, but boring.
"Hardly a surprise but that will do dearest." Fanny kissed the top of his head. Yes, her dear and safe husband never surprised her. There were advantages and disadvantages to both. Her daughters rebelled against the benevolent conservatism of their father, but he was there for them when things got rough. At this, she thought of Lizzy.
"Have you contacted Lizzy yet? What time is she leaving for Netherfield? They'll arrive at 9pm if she's not careful and dinner's at 7pm. Latest." Fanny asked John concernedly.
Lizzy had been their supernova and highly accomplished daughter. She grew up the most active and intelligent out of all five, and her future seemed to shine so brightly...until the accident.
XXX
As the memories flooded back, Fanny gave a deep sigh. So much has changed. Her daughter's joie de vivre had now been suppressed. In her place was an old head on young shoulders. She devoted all her dreams now on James. She had grown up far too quickly and her heart was locked. She had loved greatly and lost immensely. She fell hard and she fell fast. Years after George's death, there was no man sans pareil that could convince Lizzy to unlock her heart again. She never reclaimed the unadulterated joy that was once hers.
Fanny had regretted her criticisms of George especially when she fell pregnant. Unmarried. At 21. Having graduated with a BA in Music. Dreams of the Conservatoire, another gap year (she had already taken one after high school), a postgrad course in the northern hemisphere... all gone. Lizzy became a single mum while her mates were clubbing, travelling and enjoying life in full.
Fanny was shocked by the change in her circumstance, countenance and the deep melancholy that permeated Lizzy's being, especially in the 12 months after the accident and the birth of James. James was her only joy. To this day Lizzy refused to talk about the accident. Her trauma was deeply seated that she refused to confront it. It was her coping mechanism of the tragedy that befell her. Few of Lizzy's peers could understand what she went through, what she was going through.
A week after James was born, Fanny saw Lizzy in her old rocking chair overlooking a window that faced one of the deep blue bays of Sydney Harbour. She was in a flood of tears, but was quietly weeping. James had fallen asleep in her arms. She turned to look at Fanny when she heard her footsteps. Mother and daughter were both in tears. Fanny had never seen distraught and distress on her daughter's face like this, and she would never see it again.
"Oh mum... what am I going to do?", Lizzy looked at her mum. She looked like the vulnerable three year old toddler that she once was, who had wailed relentlessly after her finger had been bitten by an over-hungry sheep. But this time, Fanny couldn't make her feel better. It was up to Lizzy to want to climb back up from her pit of despair.
At that moment of vulnerability, Fanny made a promise to herself. That while she could not release Lizzy from her melancholy, she'd make sure that Lizzy and her first grandchild James would be loved and taken care of.
She hugged her daughter and whispered, "I will always be here for you and for James. Pursue your dreams Lizzy and I'll try to make sure you will be able to fulfil them."
Lizzy was a pragmatic and independent person. She was also stubborn. She found hope amidst the darkness.
A month after James was born, Lizzy wrote a to do list and a plan of her life without George. At the thought of George, a deep pain seared through her soul.
"Breathe Lizzy, breathe", she said to herself.
Without even asking, her parents had transformed her old bedroom into a nursery. They assumed she was going to live with them in the foreseeable future. However, Lizzy had other plans. She was now a mother, and she was going to act motherly and ensure that it was her, and not her parents who would ultimately provide for her son. James wasn't going to be treated as the long-awaited Bennet son. James belonged to Elizabeth, and he was George's living legacy.
She decided to say goodbye to her impractical dreams of being a musician in Australia. Her parents may be respectable but it was really only the well-to-do who could afford the indulgence of an arts career in the country. She was tethered to Sydney, and her dreams of London, Paris or New York had faded away soon after the accident.
Her parents and sisters helped her throughout pregnancy. Her pregnancy provided a cautionary tale to her younger sisters, especially Lydia who had recently discovered sex with boys and was on her way to becoming the neighbourhood bike. After hearing her deliver James, Lydia took a self-imposed abstinence for a year and she eventually graduated from high school and undertook a gap year to travel around South America.
Lizzy decided that she needed to enrol in an MBA so she could find a respectable and stable job as a single mother. She asked for financial help from her parents for the first four years of James's life and promised them that she would independently look after him after that. This promise the Bennet parents did not accept as she was still their daughter, but for Lizzy it was a promise she held and fulfilled. For Lizzy, this was her promise to herself. She wanted to show herself and the world that she could deal with the cards that life had given her. If she could survive the first four years of James's life developing a career, she could achieve the financial stability she sought independent of her parents.
The wills of George and his parents had also resulted in a roof over their heads. Fanny was aghast that Lizzy would live in the western suburbs, in a two-bedder flat when she had "a perfectly good bedroom in a Harbourside home."
Lizzy adored her mother and appreciated the unwavering support Fanny had given her since the accident. But Lizzy was determined. She wanted to create a home for her and James, and instil in him the values she wanted him to have which did not necessarily conform with the staid bourgeois life of her parents. And anyway, the flat was George's home. James would inherit it eventually. She wanted to expose their son to the rich tapestry and cross-section of Sydneysiders - the rich, the poor, the beauty, the ugly, the boring and the lively.
Her happiest moments with George occurred whilst walking down humble western Sydney streets that were supposed to be crime-ridden but were hidden oases of international cuisine. She didn't need to travel around the world. The world had travelled to Sydney. She didn't need a passport, just a train ticket.
The prevailing view of her parents and their peers was Sydney ended at little Italy, at Leichhardt. Nobody in their circle went west of Parramatta Road at Norton Street. It wasn't done. Lizzy knew there was life beyond these self-imposed constraints.
One indulgence that Lizzy did after she found a job was to buy herself a 1960s asbestos-ridden beach shack, north of Newcastle. It was her getaway for her and James. It still had a mortgage but Lizzy was paying it off with discipline. It took several approaches to many banks before a credit union agreed to give a mortgage to a single mother in her mid-20s.
Her government job saved her bacon. She knew there were unconscious biases and gender discrimination but even her north shore pedigree did not ease the red flags her mortgage application raised. She was eternally grateful to the Australian public service for being more open-minded than the private sector when it came to real diversity policies.
Fanny didn't know about the shack until James kept babbling about spending weekends at the beach. She thought him confused with Balmoral but soon realised it was a beach located three hours away. She was simultaneously proud and angry with Lizzy when she found out.
John could have paid for the shack - and he kept offering to pay it off at every Christmas since - but she refused. It was hers and hers alone. It was her getaway when the melancholy and the black dog would visit her, especially during the anniversary of the accident.
"You must stop mourning and moping around like Queen Victoria", Fanny told her one year.
Lizzy glared and stiffly said, "I do not mope."
Lizzy gave the impression of being certain and emitting strength, but she was also a bundle of insecurities and uncertainties inside. She gambled with love, and she had lost. Why were the fates so cruel to her?
Nevertheless, when moments of self-pity would appear Lizzy needed only look at the unbidden and innocent smiles of James and life again was full of light. After great tragedy followed hope and enormous amounts of resilience for Lizzy.
Her success bewildered her parents but also provoked admiration amongst those who knew her. She was the modern day 21st century woman, ready to slay her dragons be they mythical or real. And for this Fanny was quietly proud of her relentlessly rebellious and stubborn Lizzy.
XXX
"You know your daughter Fanny, she will arrive at Netherfield when they are ready," John responded, "it is after all Netherfield and there is no check-in time for family...or in-laws."
Fanny had heard from John, Lizzy's confrontation with Darcy. With Lizzy, it was always one step forward and two steps backwards. This was a major step backward and Fanny knew that Lizzy would not easily forgive a judgemental man like Darcy. Lizzy had grown up amongst the privileged and entitled. But Lizzy yearned for authenticity and would pointedly reject what she saw was the artifice that permeated that world.
From what John had told Fanny, Darcy exemplified the snobbery that Lizzy had tried to avoid all her life.
XXX
Fanny was initially thrilled that Lizzy - yes, Lizzy - was thinking of sending James to John's old school. Yes, John's old school with two centuries of history, and not some comprehensive co-ed school monstrosity out west.
The caveat was that she would only send James to the school if he could obtain a scholarship. Naturally, Lizzy refused offers from her father to pay the school fees. This was a source of rare discontent between father and daughter:
"Lizzy, I am an old boy. James will get a shoo-in with my history and connections. He does not need a scholarship!" he said exasperatedly.
"Thanks Dad, but it is on my terms. I want James to go to your old school on his merit. I will not have him grow up to be a self-indulged, private school boy whose thrill comes from bullying others and sticking a broomstick up a junior student's bum!"
"It never happened during my time!" He argued
Lizzy rolled her eyes and explained, "James needs to know the value of hard work like his father. What lessons will I be teaching him if he knows he can use his well-connected grandparents any time to finance his every whim?"
"A lesson that this is how Sydney society works! Old school ties count!"
"Well, those school ties need to be cut. All these misogynistic old private school boys ruling our governments and boardrooms, reminiscing about their shared experience of shoving an ethnic kid's face in the toilet bowl," Lizzy responded derisively and with disgust on her face continued, "no wonder why the talented leave this country when they can. I faced these private school boys when I applied at every private sector job after my MBA. Once they found out my postcode --"
"You could have used the postcode you grew up in and where you son spends most of his weekends at!" John interrupted.
Lizzy ignored this and continued, "they refused to discuss my qualifications for the job except to mention how long the commute would be. Can you imagine their reaction if I even mentioned my single motherhood status?"
"Lizzy, you are projecting your fears and biases on your son. You must allow him to choose his own path in life too."
Lizzy said nothing. John sometimes thought that Lizzy was her own worst enemy but she stuck to her principles and for that her moral compass was unwavering and he gave her his grudging respect.
XXX
"I just hope that Lizzy does not see much of Darcy during this weekend. I'd rather not have any family drama ruin Charles's birthday," Fanny said pensively.
At this John raised his left eyebrow, "You mean to say that you have no plans to unite the very well-connected and devastatingly wealthy William Darcy to our Lizzy?"
In a past life, Fanny would have thought an independent wealthy man the ideal for any of her daughters - but no longer. Her Lizzy had loved and lost. Fanny didn't believe a revisit of this was fair for Lizzy. Especially from someone who wilfully misjudged her daughter and her grandson.
Fanny looked at her husband and said truthfully, "I do not wish to see my Lizzy go through that pain again."