Chapter 1 - The Entail
"I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family." — Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Chapter 29, Book 2, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
~~ HoL ~~
1797
Jane skipped through the wide-open french doors into the sitting room. The large, well-furnished, airy, west-facing drawing room was familiar to her as her mother's favourite room. She stopped, knowing she should not skip inside as it was not ladylike. She walked carefully in her best ladylike fashion to where her dolly, Missy, had been dropped earlier that morning behind the sofa and plopped down to play. From where she sat, she could look out through sheer curtains, blowing gently in the breeze, onto a well tended garden with a large section of lawn leading away. She saw her sisters playing on the grass, under the eye of the nursemaid, but she had come in for her dolly. Sunlight streamed in on the lovely bright August day. Behind her, she heard voices approaching. Jane smiled, her beloved mama and papa were coming. It did not occur to her that they could not be aware she was present, sitting on the floor behind the sofa.
"But, my dear, I want to give you a son!", Jane heard her mother say. "A man is best to manage an estate and what will become of us when you pass with no son?". Jane nodded to Missy to agree, a brother would be a great blessing and would look after her, her mother and all her sisters!
"I know Mrs Bennet, I know", her father replied, "but it is not a concern, the entail says the trusteeship of the estate will pass to our eldest daughter in lieu of a son, and all will be well. If a son does not come, we will raise our Jane to be an excellent keeper of the estate and eventually she will marry and have a husband to help her". At this Jane lifted her chin in surprise. She would run the estate? But she did not know how! Then she relaxed, certain her wonderful father would teach her all she needed to know. But surely she would have a little brother soon.
"But how will she manage?", Mrs Bennet hesitated then continued "If we do not have a son, Jane must marry early to have a husband to do this for her! What if something happened to you – do you not remember last year when the children had the mumps and you caught it from them? How you did not have it as a child I do not know, but you were so sick! What would I do if I lost you?"
"There, there my dear, I did not die! I do not believe I was even as sick as you think! But we shall not rush our Jane to marry. We will raise competent young women and if there is no brother then any unmarried sisters would work together to look after our estate." Jane sat up straight and flushed with pride at the idea of her and her sisters working together for their estate. "We will not rush her to marry – we must find her the right man to marry, right for her and right for Longbourn! But this is all dream talk! I am still sure a son will come to us! We still have plenty of time for more children."
Mr and Mrs Bennet continued out of the drawing room and into the garden towards the other children, and their conversation could no longer be heard - Jane did not even realise she had been eavesdropping.
"Well," she spoke aloud to the doll, "if I do not ever have a little brother then it will be I who becomes the keeper of our estate!" There was amazement and pride in her voice. "I will care for our mother and any sisters who do not marry and if I do not find the right man to be my husband then I do not need to marry at all! All will be well at Longbourn!" she said, quoting her father.
~~ HoL ~~
Some weeks later, the family were at dinner together. Jane and her next sister Elizabeth were at the table - their younger sisters Mary, Kitty and Lydia still took their meals with the nurse maid as they were too young to eat *en famille*.
"Well, my girls" said their mother, "tell me of your day!"
"I did some more of my embroidery sampler this morning and I played in the garden with my sisters this afternoon" replied Jane.
"That's lovely, my dear. I have seen your sampler and it is coming along nicely. I assume you wore your bonnet in the garden?" asked her mother.
"Yes, mama", Jane's light tone was dutiful.
"I spent time this morning with papa learning my numbers" said Elizabeth, proudly, "I know all of my times tables! And this afternoon I climbed the highest tree in the garden!"
"Elizabeth," sighed her mother, "neither of those are very ladylike. Please don't climb trees. And Thomas. Mathematics? Really? How will that help our daughter catch a husband?"
"I am sure all our children need to know their numbers. How will they know if they are exceeding their income if they cannot add and multiply?" replied her husband.
"Mr Bennet!" cried his wife "We have 2000 pounds income! How could we possibly exceed it?"
"Very easily, my dear, very easily. In fact, I wanted to speak to you about that. The harvest is in, and we have not had a good year. We are going to have to reduce your pin money and our living expenses in general. I am sorry."
Jane looked at her father, eyes very big.
"What?" cried his wife. She angrily stood up and leant on the table to wag her finger at him. "This is your fault! You must maintain this estate!" Her lip trembled. "How could it come to this?"
"Well, the tenants all did well and were easily able to pay their rent, so that is not a problem, but our home farm has not done so well. Some of the fields are just not producing as well as they used to."
"How much are we down, papa?" asked Elizabeth.
"The home farm is down about three tenths. It's not a huge loss but it's not good".
"If that's one of the gom… geometric series you told me about this morning, then in another 5 years we will be down to only one tenth of what we had last year," said Elizabeth.
"Did you work that out in your head, Lizzy?" asked her father. Elizabeth nodded proudly.
"WHAT?!" interrupted her mother, "one tenth?!"
"It won't come to that" her father replied, dismissively.
"Papa", said Jane softly, looking at him with big eyes, "will there be nothing left for me to inherit? How will I care for my mother and sisters when you are gone if the estate can't care for us?"
Her father went very still.
"Well," he hesitated, "I won't let it come to that. I am sure there are things I can do to improve how the home farm runs."
"You had just better make sure you do, Mr Bennet!" cried his wife.
~~ HoL ~~
Thomas Bennet sat down in his library after that confronting dinner. He had a lot of work to do – he had to figure out how to turn Longbourn around. When Elizabeth had predicted the failure of the estate and he had seen the look in his little Jane's eyes... it was almost too much for him. How could he bear to do anything but leave her a prosperous estate? And how could he teach her to run it properly when he was only relying on luck himself? Or teach the elusive son that might yet arrive. Although despite how he reassured his wife, he was dubious this would happen. It did seem that a son was not in their future.
But first things first, he thought, a little tipple of port! He had picked up the bottle before he realised he was avoiding the issue. He put down the bottle.
"Why is the home farm failing?" he asked himself "Because", thought Mr Bennet, and even his internal voice was small, "I make no effort in it."
"How do I fix that? Think, Tommy, think! You can fix this!" he muttered to himself
"Tomorrow I will talk to my tenants and … sound them out for what they do? Their fields seem to be doing well, it is only mine that aren't impressive. I could 'do the rounds' as my father used to call it." He perked up at this idea, then frowned. "No - I will talk to my neighbours…" A frustrated look crossed his face. "Maybe I should do both?"
Bennet looked at his beloved books, "Don't I have some books about estate management?" While most of the books were his purchases, some number were from his father's days, and there he found some treatises on estate management and farming. He remembered his father mentioning to them. He even remembered his father recommending he should study them in anticipation of the day when the estate would be in his control. He didn't think he had ever opened one of them, more interested in his own topics. Tomorrow would always come later, he had found.
He took down the books and opened the first one. They were just as dry and dusty as he had expected, and literally too, as he had never worried much about those shelves of the book room. He lost himself in reading. After over an hour of this, he closed the book and sighed. They were very dry. And he wondered how out of date they were. He flipped to the front and looked at the imprint. 1702 - these books must have belonged to his grandfather. He wondered if these techniques were current. Probably. After all, how much could something like farming change? But, still, he did need to make sure he was gaining any recent improvements in farming know how. Where would I find out about that, he wondered.
The evening was quite late by now, and this scattergun approach hadn't really given him any progress. Bennet yawned and took himself to his bed.
A/N We are going to see a somewhat different Jane to canon - I've always thought canon Jane was quite sheltered, thus her "everyone is good" thought. Here, her early knowledge of her role in the entail changes the influences on her as she grows up, indeed there are changes for all the sisters - I am several chapters ahead of here and I can see that with Jane a little more take charge, Lizzy may be slightly less, or perhaps just has slightly less time with her father, though she is still as impertinent as ever!
And yes, I expect a HEA for ODC, quit worrying! ;)