A Most Attentive Father Chapter 2, a pride and prejudice fanfic

I appreciate all your comments. This chapter will answer some of your questions…

Dear Guest – your summary is perfect.

~O~

Mrs Fanny Bennet

A very disgruntled Mr and Mrs Bennet returned from their wedding trip to Margate.

As far as Thomas was concerned, the wedding night had been a disaster as his new bride received his attentions with obvious reluctance despite his care to make the experience enjoyable for her. Succeeding nights had not improved the situation.

As for daytime activities, whenever he suggested visiting the sights in the area, she had no interest unless it involved shopping. While Thomas had no objections of indulging his bride, he had to put down his foot as Fanny seemed determined to overload their carriage with all her purchases.

On a couple of days when it was raining, Fanny whined and moaned about being bored, but was not interested in reading a book. In an unguarded moment, Fanny let it slip that she had married him because he was the master of Longbourn, and she expected a life of luxury without responsibilities.

By the time the couple returned to Longbourn, Thomas regretted his choice of wife. His last hope was that his mother could help Fanny to find an interest in the house and the estate.

~O~

'I was such a fool,' confessed Bennet to his mother at breakfast the first morning after his return.

'Because you married her for the wrong reasons?'

He shook his head and sighed. 'No, because she married me for the wrong reason,' he said and went on to explain what had happened over the last month.

'It is too late for regrets. Now that you are married, you need to make the best of it.'

'Yes, but I have been thinking about this and I believe that because she married the master of Longbourn, she will live as the mistress of Longbourn.'

Mrs Bennet cocked her head. 'You will confine her to the income of Longbourn.' It was a statement, not a question.

Bennet nodded. 'She has not the slightest idea about a budget and would squander the income of both estates.'

'She is full young.'

'I know she is. For that reason, I will allow her time to learn. If she learns to be more sensible, I will reconsider, but for the moment she is acting like a child and therefore I shall treat her as such. In the meanwhile, might I ask a favour…'

'You wish me to teach her?'

'Indeed. But more than that, until she becomes a competent mistress for the estate, I wish for you to retain that title.'

'She will be unhappy.'

'Perhaps that will be an incentive for her to learn.'

Mrs Bennet chuckled. 'Very well, son. You take care of the estates and leave everything within the household to me.'

~O~

Three hours later, Mrs Bennet was not so sanguine.

Fanny had ordered a tray to enjoy breakfast in her rooms. This was a luxury she had never before enjoyed.

She was wandering around her suite thinking about the changes she wanted to make. She had a sitting room, a bedroom and a dressing room. In addition, there was another smaller bedroom which could be used by a maid or a companion. These rooms were adjoined by another smaller dressing room which led to a tiled room such as she had only seen in pictures. It contained a washbasin, a bathtub and against the outside wall there was the strangest contraption, which Fanny had learnt was a flushing water closet.

All the rooms were large and airy but ever so plain. She remembered saying that she would not change anything, but that was before her marriage, since her mother had instructed her to be agreeable until she had secured her position. Now that she was the mistress of Longbourn, no one could gainsay her. It was a heady feeling.

Into this daydream walked Mrs Bennet.

After the barest of greetings, Fanny gushed, 'Mother Bennet, I have been thinking about my rooms and I have decided that they need to be updated after all.'

'That is your prerogative. After all we want you to be comfortable here in your new home.'

Fanny beamed at her, clapping her hands. 'Wonderful. I will need to go to London for some new wallpaper and fabrics and to find some proper furniture.'

'Before you do, I suggest you decide exactly what you want and then find out how much this change will cost.'

'Why should it matter how much it costs? My husband is ever so rich. Mama told me that Longbourn brings in two thousand a year, maybe more. I can buy anything with two thousand pounds.'

'It is true that Longbourn has an income of approximately two thousand pound per year on average, but that money must pay for more than just any fripperies you wish to buy,' Mrs Bennet said repressively.

At Fanny's blank look, thee lady explained further. 'About a quarter of that money pays for the upkeep of the estate and taxes. Another seven hundred pounds are needed to pay for the servants, our food, and other supplies like candles and coal to heat your rooms. Then there is the pin money for you and me. My son of course takes his own share of spending money, and you surely would not expect him to settle for less than the fifty pounds per quarter which he agreed to give you.'

'I was supposed to get two hundred pounds,' exclaimed Fanny, hearing only the amount without paying attention to the rest of the statement.

Mrs Bennet suppressed a sigh and did not roll her eyes despite the great temptation. 'You are to receive fifty pounds per quarter. That means you will receive that amount four times a year, which works out to two hundred per year.'

'Oh. That is fine then.' Relief swept through Fanny. Fifty pounds every three months was much better than the pound she received each month as her pin money before she wed. 'So, how much can I spend on redecorating?'

'You may have fifty pounds, since we have to keep a reserve in case of an emergency.'

While Fanny was uneducated and not overly bright, she had an excellent memory. She remembered the prices of things she had seen in Margate. 'But that won't buy me much of anything.'

'That is why I said you should carefully plan what you want to do with your rooms.'

'But I thought I was going to be rich,' the girl wailed.

'By the standards of most people we are. Do you not realise that your father supported a family of five on probably a similar amount of money as your pin money?'

Fanny stared at Mrs Bennet with lips forming a perfect 'O'.

~O~

There was much disappointment in the family on all sides.

Thomas Bennet was disappointed as his wife found no enjoyment in their marital relations and he found no enjoyment in her conversation. While Fanny Bennet was quite capable of chattering without pause for hours at a time, the subjects of her speech centred around fashion and gossip, most of which was of no interest to the other family members.

He tried his best to involve Fanny in his life, but his patient attempts to expand her horizons were rebuffed again and again. As he did not have the patience of a saint, he gradually withdrew from his wife.

Mrs Bennet was unhappy because all attempts at teaching Fanny about her new duties were an abject failure. As the young woman had no interest in such things, she seemed to be completely unable to remember the healing properties of the various plants and the correct way to extract each of them. It was therefore safer to keep her away from the stillroom.

After wasting the time of the staff to rearrange the furniture multiple times, Mrs Bennet prohibited Fanny from giving orders to anyone other than her personal maid.

As for duties outside the house, Fanny utterly refused to become involved in visiting the tenants. 'I will not demean myself by associating with that rabble.'

She was also squeamish about dealing with sickness or injury, hiding in her room whenever such things occurred.

The only thing Fanny excelled at was to create well balanced menus – after learning to consider seasonal produce. Her initial impulse had always been to select dishes with the most expensive ingredients until she learnt that those same ingredients were much better and cheaper when in season, especially vegetables which were grown on the estate.

Fanny Bennet was unhappy as well. One of her biggest complaints was that her husband did not defer to her wishes and retained his mother as the mistress of the estate.

Instead, Mrs Bennet, on authority from Thomas Bennet, kept pushing Fanny to exert herself for the estate, even though none of those activities were to her liking.

While she had a dressing room full of pretty outfits and her suite now reflected her personality, the rest of the house and her life were not to her liking. She had expected a life of luxury and constant parties.

Since their return from their wedding trip, they had gone to only two assemblies, and while her husband danced one set with her, her neighbours would not put themselves to the trouble of partnering a married woman.

Even when she was allowed to host a dinner party, she felt humiliated as she was seated at her husband's right while Mrs Bennet sat at the foot of the table, which she thought should be her position by rights.

On top of that, when she raised the subject of redecorating the house in a more ornate style befitting her new status, Mrs Bennet explained that she and her son had redecorated the whole house only the year before and therefore refused to waste money on making further changes.

At least her husband made the carriage available to her whenever she wanted to visit her friends. But soon even that pleasure was curtailed as only a few months into her marriage, the motion of the carriage made her violently ill.

There was one silver lining to this situation. Once Fanny realised that she was expecting, she locked her door to her husband. Little did she realise that Thomas Bennet was equally as relieved that he would not have to visit his wife again for the foreseeable future.

~O~

Nine months after the wedding, the family was delighted to welcome Jane Bennet into the world. She was named after Mrs Jane Gardiner, who had passed away only a few weeks earlier.

All the adults in the house immediately lost their hearts to what Fanny called her little angel and Thomas and Mrs Bennet could not disagree. Her head was covered in golden fluff, and she had the bluest eyes. Even though Mrs Bennet warned the colour might change as she grew older, Jane retained those eyes of deep sapphire blue. She also developed an enchanting smile to go with a quiet nature. She never seemed to fuss except when she was teething.

Fanny was so pleased with her beautiful daughter that she installed her and the wetnurse in the spare room of her suite and proceeded to dote on her.

~O~

The following summer several important events took place.

Edward Gardiner returned briefly from Oxford to visit his family before heading to London to take up a career in business.

He was present long enough to attend the wedding of his older sister Martha, who was marrying her father's head clerk, Mr Harold Phillips.

The third, less pleasant, event was that Fanny Bennet discovered that Longbourn was entailed to the male line. She was horror stricken when she was told that unless she produced a son, upon the death of her husband, Longbourn would be inherited by a distant cousin… one Horace Collins, who already had a young son.

Not wishing to be displaced from her home, Fanny reluctantly invited her husband to visit her chambers.

Some people might argue that Thomas Bennet as well as his mother were cruel to let Fanny believe that she would lose her home if she did not provide a son for the Bennets, but they correctly judged that was the only way she would be prepared to try again to produce an heir.

While Longbourn was only a small part of Thomas' estate, it had been the original seat of his family, and he had no wish to let some illiterate oaf ruin centuries of care and effort.

Therefore, in the spirit of sacrifice to the family heritage, Thomas visited his wife and thought of Longbourn.

~O~

As the months passed, Fanny was even sicker than during her first pregnancy. She was therefore convinced that she was carrying the heir, as only a male could make her feel so utterly wretched.

When the time came, she laboured valiantly for almost a day, only to be horrified when she was told that she had given birth to another girl.

'Take her away,' Fanny demanded. 'Take that usurper away. She was supposed to have been a boy. I will not waste my time on a useless girl.' She turned away from Mrs Bennet, who was gently holding the wrapped bundle in her arms.

'You are a fool,' Mrs Bennet muttered too quietly to be heard by the person she addressed. With a sigh and a shake of the head, she quit the room and walked across the landing where her son paced in his private sitting room.

'You have another wonderful daughter,' Mrs Bennet announced as she handed her precious burden to her son.

Bennet beamed as he gently cuddled his daughter, who had inherited her colouring from his side of the family. He was delighted as he carefully stroked the baby's face with one finger, she managed to get hold of the digit. He glanced briefly at Mrs Bennet before returning his besotted gaze to his daughter. 'I think Elizabeth will be a perfect name for you,' he said quietly around a lump in his throat.

'Thank you for the compliment, son, but I think I had better take Elizabeth to her wetnurse.'

Thomas reluctantly handed Elizabeth to her namesake and asked, 'Were you right then in your assumption that Fanny would have no interest in another daughter?'

'I am afraid so. She even refused to look at Elizabeth once she discovered her sex. At least, we already have Mrs Brown installed in the house. I think for the moment I will move her and Elizabeth into the spare bedroom of my suite.'

'Thank you. I appreciate your care.'

Mrs Bennet gave him a mischievous smile. 'Did you not know that I always wanted a daughter? Now I have been granted my dearest wish.'

Over the next three years, this scenario was repeated twice more. Once for Mary and then for Catherine.

During those years Fanny Bennet proceeded to indulge Jane, treating her almost like a live doll. She also became hysterical every time Bennet or Mrs Bennet tried to spend any time with the girl, making Jane fearful of her father and grandmother.

~O~