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A Developing Fate

A few weeks later, Mrs Taylor approached Elizabeth in the library regarding one of her pupils. 'Elizabeth, I would like a word with you if you have the time,' Margaret Taylor asked, forgoing formality since she and Elizabeth had developed a friendship and they had decided to use their given names when in private.

Elizabeth allowed that she was at her leisure and offered a seat to her friend.

'Did you know that Catherine has an excellent eye for colour and design?' Margaret refused to call the girl Kitty.

'I do remember that she used to love drawing until Lydia made fun of her for what she called Kitty's scribbling.'

'I set the girls an exercise asking them to draw one of the rooms in this house but redecorated to their taste. While Lydia was adequate at the task, I would happily live in the room Catherine designed,' explained Mrs Taylor and handed over a sketch. 'See for yourself.'

Elizabeth took the sketch and exclaimed, 'That is the back parlour which we never use because it is too dark. Even in summer when it would be pleasantly cool, no one wants to spend any time in it.'

'Would you be willing to let Catherine oversee the redecoration of that room?'

Elizabeth broke into a wide smile. 'I would be delighted to do so. Summer is almost upon us, and it would give us a pleasant room to take tea in the afternoon to escape the heat.'

~F~

Kitty was thrilled to be put in charge of the redecoration even though she had to work with Lydia who was in charge of the finances to give her a practical application for her own lessons.

Five days before midsummer's day, Kitty, Lydia and Mrs Taylor invited the other sisters to examine the completed project.

The parlour was now decorated in light blues and whites with dashes of yellow, giving it a light and airy look, perfect for a cool retreat on a hot summer's day.

'This is truly wonderful,' exclaimed Elizabeth, a sentiment which was echoed by her sisters. 'Although I hope that you have not bankrupted us to create this delightful haven,' she teased.

Lydia grinned and took Elizabeth's hand turning it palm upwards to place six shillings in her hand. 'This is left over from the budget Mrs Taylor set us,' she said proudly.

'Lydia was most exacting that I should not overspend, so we had to be creative,' Kitty explained with a deprecating smile which did nothing to hide the excitement she felt at the wholehearted praise by all her family. 'Fortunately, since we wish to use this room in summer, we were able to save on the curtain material. Rather than a good, heavy brocade we used a light and cheap cotton but by adding embroidery at the edges it still looks elegant.'

'The budget was quite modest,' added Mrs Taylor who seemed very proud of her students, justifiably so.

Elizabeth looked at the money in her hand and made a quick decision. 'Since you must have worked very hard to achieve this, you deserve a treat,' she said and handed three shillings to each of the girls, who beamed at her.

Lizzy had the feeling that the exuberant smiles were caused more by the praise than the financial reward.

~F~

To celebrate the occasion the sisters and Mrs Taylor took their tea in the newly refurbished room.

Once the girls had calmed down from explaining the details of their project, Elizabeth reminded them, 'You girls must have been excessively focused on your task since you appear to have lost track of time.' Receiving puzzled looks, she added, 'It has been three months since father died. You may change your dresses to half mourning if you wish.'

'Does that also mean that we may leave the house again to go visiting?' Lydia wanted to know.

'If you are finished with your lessons for the day, and you have permission as well as being accompanied by a chaperone, then you may indeed go and visit your friends. Or perhaps you would like to invite Maria Lucas for tea tomorrow and show off your achievement.' Elizabeth smiled and gestured at the room.

She was stunned and proud when Lydia looked to Mrs Taylor and politely asked, 'Might we invite Maria to come at three? We should be finished with our lessons by then.'

Margaret Taylor smiled. 'If you both focus during lessons, we can finish half an hour earlier to give to time to get ready.' When the girls excitedly chattered to one another, she turned to Elizabeth and winked.

~F~

The following day appeared much brighter at Longbourn as four of the sisters wore gown in various shades of lavender or mauve.

Margaret Taylor continued to wear her light grey dresses, but she now added subtle blue ribbons to brighten the look.

Elizabeth also opted for grey. It was not that she was feeling particularly mournful, she simply abhorred lavender as a colour. Since she also disliked violet and mauve, grey was the only acceptable colour left to her.

At breakfast, Mary questioned her sister, 'Is it not customary to mourn a husband for a year?'

'I am sorry if my choice of apparel shocks you, but I am not enough of a hypocrite to pretend mourning that man. I have been wearing mourning colours out of respect for our father, not my husband.'

Mary sighed and nodded in acknowledgement. I beg your pardon; I had not considered the circumstances.'

'There is another factor for changing my garb. At least, in this heat, grey is much cooler than black,' Elizabeth commented with great relief.

~F~

By Michaelmas the difference in the Longbourn household was immeasurable. By the time the sisters finished their period of half-mourning they were almost unrecognisable.

Jane had blossomed being given responsibility for the household. Gone was the languid young woman who had not been allowed to do anything since she was too beautiful to bother herself with such mundane things as housework.

She had spent much time in the kitchen, a room from which she had been banned by Mrs Bennet, to learn the intricacies of preparing a meal. While she had no intention ever to cook, except as a last resort, now she knew what was required in that domain.

As a consequence, menus at Longbourn became a delight for the diners. While the meals became less elaborate, they were exceedingly tasty as Jane always chose dishes for which the produce was in season. This had a further benefit as the cost of food dropped significantly. A fact which delighted Elizabeth.

Mary, who unbeknownst to her family had always had an interest in botany, introduced Jane to the stillroom, where they created perfumes to delight their sisters, as well as salves and other preparations which they distributed to the tenants who could not afford to purchase these basic treatments.

In return, Mary had come out of hiding and allowed her sisters to teach her how to present herself to best advantage. When she discarded her tight bun in favour of a softer hairstyle, she was no longer the plain daughter which Mrs Bennet had claimed. Admittedly, few women could hold a candle to Jane when it came to physical beauty, but that still allowed for plenty of scope to be exceedingly attractive rather than merely tolerable.

She still practiced the pianoforte and admitted that while she had hidden her talent in the past, there were still things which Mrs Taylor could teach her since that lady had an exceptional talent when it came to music.

With some encouragement, she even considered opinions other than Reverend Fordyce. But that was an ongoing project.

The younger girls were flourishing under the care of Mrs Taylor. Once the lady took on their education and Kitty felt appreciated, she had not been much of a problem. While in the early days of the lady's tenure Elizabeth had been grateful that it was predominantly the governess who had to deal with Lydia's whining, the youngest girl had started to accept the new rules. To top it off, in recent times there had even been a week when Lydia had received all of her allowance.

~F~

Over the summer, Elizabeth started to grow into her role as master of Longbourn.

She read every book and pamphlet on estate management on which she could get her hands. She spent hours each day on studying tomes on farming techniques and animal husbandry.

She spoke to her neighbours and to their stewards. While some of the men advised that she should engage a steward and not worry her pretty little head about such things as managing Longbourn herself, many of them were helpful giving advice on any topic related to her concerns.

Slowly but surely she garnered the respect of her neighbours and her tenants as a competent master. That is not to say that everything went perfectly. She made some mistakes when she thought that she had understood and applied what she had found in books, only to discover that the information she had gathered applied to a different county. But as she was prepared to acknowledge her blunders and then go ahead to fix them, no one held those things against her.

She pushed herself hard, even when her sisters advised that she should take time for herself occasionally. But she had a reason for working as hard as she could so that she fell into bed exhausted most nights.

That exhaustion allowed her to go to sleep.

While she presented a calm and competent front to her family, servants and all her friends and acquaintances, she was troubled by nightmares. In her dreams she relived the worst parts of her life when she was trapped in her marriage, or she found herself running until she dropped with exhaustion but never escaping and coming to a safe haven.

Focusing on estate matters to the exclusion of all else before going to sleep, sometimes allowed her to escape the dreams.

Yet gradually, as the months passed the nightmares became less frequent.

~F~

During those months, Mr Phillips called at Longbourn once a month to see if he could be of assistance to his nieces.

When he saw the improvements of not only the sisters but also the house and the estate, he was most impressed and said so during a conversation with Elizabeth just after they had finished the harvest.

'Please, uncle, do not be too fulsome in your praise. We had had our share of… ah… issues, but somehow, we muddled through.'

Phillips laughed at Elizabeth's chagrined expression. 'My dear niece, do you not know that the purpose of mistakes is to learn from them?'

Elizabeth joined in his laughter. 'Well, what can I say, we had many opportunities to learn.'

Becoming serious once more, Elizabeth said, 'I am glad that you have come today. There is something I wish to do, but I would like your advice before I go ahead.'

Seeing his niece fidget, Phillips became concerned and curious. 'I will help all that I can.'

'You know the Russells who used to have the lease on the farm which adjoins Longbourn?'

'Yes, that farm is part of Netherfield. What of it?'

'Well, Mr Russell wants to move, and I want to buy the farm. I thought that Mr Morris might not want to bother trying to find another tenant…'

'You are doing well enough to buy more land?' Phillips was all astonishment causing Elizabeth to blush.

'The harvest was good, and our expenses are significantly reduced these days. And Mrs Potter's brother would like to move closer to his sister, since she is the only family which he has left, apart from his own of course. He is in Gloucestershire, where he stayed to help his parents. But they passed away a few months ago…'

Phillips grinned. 'So, you have a potential tenant which Morris does not know about. Since you are likely correct when you think he probably does not want the bother of finding a new tenant, he should be amenable to making his profit from selling the farm at a good price.'

'Will you make the enquiries and negotiate for me.'

'I will do so without letting on who the potential buyer is. He might think you to be silly enough to pay an inflated price.'

'I am prepared to consider a fair price.'

Phillips smiled, pleased that he could be of service to his niece.

Six months later, Elizabeth was ecstatic to add a sixth tenant to her roster.

~F~

As Elizabeth's competence grew, there was only one notable hold-out in her acceptance as master of Longbourn.

Word was passed on to her that one evening at the Red Bull tavern, several of the tenant farmers were spending an evening enjoying a pint or three.

The men were discussing the relative merits of the various landowners when Elizabeth's name was mentioned in a most favourable light by several of her tenants, as well as the tenants of Netherfield.

Chambers exclaimed, 'You call yourself men? Taking orders from a slip of a girl who knows nothing about farming. All those newfangled ideas she has. Mark my words, come harvest time you'll see that I was right to stick to what my father and grandfather did.

The other farmers figured that Chambers was worried about his farm as it was not producing what it once did, but since he was not prepared to listen and change his ways, there was no point in arguing with him… Especially since Chambers was known to be an obstreperous drunk.

~F~

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Fates (working title) by Sydney Salier, Copyright © 2023