A Most Attentive Father Chapter 1, a pride and prejudice fanfic

What might have happened if the family dynamics amongst the Bennets were somewhat different.

I hope you enjoy.

~O~

Prologue

Five generations ago, in the middle of the seventeenth century, Longbourn was the largest estate in the neighbourhood of the market town of Meryton and the Bennets were the preeminent family.

That was until William Bennet, the younger son of Henry Bennet fell in with a fast crowd and amassed such enormous debts that his father was forced to sell nearly three quarters of his estate to pay his son's debts of honour.

This action had two significant consequences.

The first was that William Bennet was expelled from the family and changed his name to Collins.

The second effect was that Henry Bennet created an entail to ensure that no succeeding generation could destroy the rest of his heritage. Being a man of his time, he stipulated that the heir had to be male.

For several generations the family was usually blessed with several daughters but only one son, who, on reaching his majority, confirmed the entail.

~O~

As it happened, a young man by the name of Percival Purcell was thinking of buying an estate, as he had recently inherited a large fortune from an eccentric old aunt.

He was looking for a property not too far from London and through a friend heard about the troubles at Longbourn. Unlike other men, he did not consider it a problem that the property would not come with an established manor as he hoped to have a modern house built to his own specifications.

Unlike many men, Percival Purcell liked understatement. He did not wish to build a magnificent mansion to show off his wealth. Instead, he found the perfect location on the property where he could build a house which looked unassuming from the front and hedges prevented visitors to see how far the house extended at the back.

As a homage to the original property, he named his estate Longford.

Once the house was finished, Percival found a likeminded woman to become his wife. They and the remaining Bennets became excellent friends and neighbours.

~O~

Percival's son Geoffrey had two daughters and a son.

His younger daughter Sarah was the first to marry as she fell in love during her first London season. The young man reciprocated her feelings, and it was not long before she became Lady Wentworth. She was pleased to present her husband with two sons and a daughter. The girl married the oldest son of the Fitzwilliam clan and upon the death of her father by marriage, she became the Countess of Matlock.

Two years later, Catherine Purcell, the older of the sisters married her childhood sweetheart, Henry Bennet.

To Geoffrey's sorrow, his son passed away before he had a chance to marry. As a consequence, Geoffrey Purcell spent much time doting on Catherine's children.

Over the years, Geoffrey had his solicitor update his will several times. Because Sarah and her children were well provided by the Fitzwilliams, he first thought to leave his estate to his grandson Anthony Bennet.

When Anthony was blessed with two sons, Geoffrey and Thomas, Purcell settled Longford on the younger boy. As Geoffrey Bennet was to inherit Longbourn, Purcell felt it was fair that Thomas should also inherit an estate.

Having heard the stories of how his family had come to purchase Longford, he too created an entail. Unlike the Bennet ancestor, Purcell knew that fate could be cruel to sons, he therefore stipulated that the estate must go to heirs of the body.

~O~

Geoffrey and Thomas Bennet had an idyllic childhood. Their father enjoyed teaching both his sons to care for the land.

Geoffrey was enthusiastic about Longbourn and told his brother that while Longford might be the larger estate, he would make Longbourn the best estate.

While Thomas learnt all about Longford, which his father, with the help of a steward administered until his son was old enough to take over, he also had a love of learning about history and literature.

Thomas was grateful that his father indulged him by allowing him to attend university. When it came time to choose which university he wanted to attend, Oxford and Cambridge being a similar distance from his home, he chose Oxford because of the Bodleian library. He managed to stretch his stay at the university to four years, and thoroughly enjoyed his time.

He returned to Longbourn in the summer of 1786 when he threw himself into caring for his estate.

Unwilling to set up a bachelor household at Longford, he was pleased to accept an invitation by his family to stay at Longbourn. But he was already starting to add to the existing library in what was to be his new home with the books he had acquired while at Oxford.

In return for living with the family, he helped out with the Longbourn account books and contract negotiations for his father's estate.

~O~

The harvest was finished just before Michaelmas, and Thomas went to see Meryton's only solicitor, Mr Robert Gardiner, to finalise the contracts for the harvest. He brought the account books with him to have all the figures he needed to hand.

Since his return the previous year, Thomas had developed a great respect for Mr Gardiner and had even sponsored the solicitor's son to study at Oxford, since Edward was an extremely bright young man.

They had just completed their tasks, when a commotion outside alerted them. On gaining the street, they saw a plume of black smoke to the north of the town. Thomas did not need anyone to tell him that according to the direction and the distance, the fire had to be at Longbourn.

Pushing the books into Gardiner's hands, he rushed to the stable where he had left his horse and within minutes he was racing towards his home.

He arrived just in time to witness the horror of the thatched roof collapsing into the house, fuelling the flames even further.

It was apparent to all that neither the house nor any of its contents could be saved.

~O~

It was getting dark by the time the Longbourn manor was reduced to smouldering embers and Thomas had time at last to take stock of the situation.

The house was obviously gone. But so were his father and brother, who had perished trying to save Mr Martin, their old butler, who had been ill in his room at the top of the house.

The other servants and Thomas' mother had managed to escape the inferno, each carrying an item or two.

Fortunately, the stables and the barns were far enough away from the house to have escaped virtually unscathed. A few embers blown from the house had been quickly extinguished.

Mrs Bennet stared with empty eyes at the shell which had claimed the lives of her husband and older son. 'What do we do now?' she asked of no one in particular.

Thomas Bennet enfolded his mother in his arms and said with a sigh, 'We are going to open Longford.'

~O~

The next few days were hectic. The residents of Longbourn easily fit into Longford. As the house had been maintained by a skeleton staff, all the Longbourn servants were offered, and gratefully accepted, positions in the new house.

The only exception was Mrs Martin, who wished to go and live with her daughter to mourn the death of her husband.

The housekeeper who had looked after Longford for the last twenty years also did not feel able to cope with the expanded duties and requested to retire. On Mrs Bennet's recommendation, Bennet promoted Longbourn's head maid, who had recently married the senior footman, as well as her husband to be the housekeeper and butler of Longford. Mr and Mrs Hill were glad to accept.

Before they could even conduct the funeral, the local seamstress and the tailor were kept busy, as all their clothes had been lost in the fire.

The only rather gruesome silver lining to the situation was that they did not have to be concerned about rushing the funeral. Due to the fire the bodies were too charred to rot. But that caused another issue.

The undertaker explained his conundrum. 'I am afraid that the few charred fragments of the bodies cannot be identified as belonging to any of them in particular. I do not know how to separate them.'

'It seems appropriate to me that they should all be buried together as Mr Bennet and Geoffrey died trying to save the life of Mr Martin,' commented Mrs Bennet, trying to maintain her composure.

The funeral was well attended by their neighbours.

Afterwards, Mr Gardiner conducted the reading of the will. Due to the entail, there were no real surprises. Mrs Bennet was comfortably set up and as Thomas was only too pleased to offer her a home, she was well situated.

As Thomas Bennet was the only surviving male Bennet, he inherited Longbourn.

Consulting his mother about her wishes, he explained, 'Because the profits from Longford have been accumulating for the last twenty years, I can easily afford to rebuild the Longbourn house, should you wish to be in familiar surroundings.'

Mrs Bennet declined, 'I would rather not be reminded of all that I have lost. And a new house would not be my home. I would rather remain here, if you are agreeable.'

When Bennet offered her the mistress' suite, again she declined. 'I expect that you will marry… hopefully in the not too distant future. Therefore, I would rather be settled into my permanent rooms.'

She chose a conveniently located suite in the family wing on the first floor.

While Longbourn was the smaller of his estates, it had a greater history for the Bennet family. Therefore, Thomas Bennet was pleased to be known as the master of Longbourn. But to avoid confusion because they did not actually live at Longbourn, he renamed the house they occupied to Bennet Hall.

In the early months, Mrs Bennet was quite overwhelmed by the sheer size of the building. She had rarely visited here when her husband's mother had been alive and even then, she had never gone beyond the public rooms.

Now she discovered that the house was built as a very wide capital H with a long middle section joining the short ends. One short side constituted the front of the house which was the only part of the building visible from the driveway.

The front section of the house accommodated the formal rooms on the ground floor where the entry hall was double height with a mezzanine on the first floor. That mezzanine gave access to the master and the mistress suites on opposite sides of the grand staircase, which then led up to the second floor where the main guest suites were located.

On each floor, beyond the grand staircase was a door giving access to a generous sized corridor, off which were a number of rooms. This section was the middle of the H.

Along the corridor on the groundfloor were various smallish sitting and dining rooms and studies mainly for family use. The first floor held the family suites and on the second floor some rooms were reserved for houseguests, while the rest was for the nursery and senior staff.

The final room was right at the back of the house, mirroring the front part of the overall building and held nothing but a double height ballroom. Mrs Bennet estimated that every member of the four and twenty families would be able to dance at the same time.

~O~

Thomas Bennet and his mother slowly settled into their new home.

Mrs Bennet was grateful that much of the time she was too busy redecorating the house which had not been updated in more than two decades, to brood about her losses.

Her son too was kept occupied with the now large estate as well as clearing up the devastation of the conflagration which had cost the lives of his family members.

In this manner, winter passed slowly and when spring arrived, Thomas Bennet came out of mourning while Mrs Bennet would remain in half-mourning for another six months.

~O~

While Mr Gardiner was an intelligent man and utterly trustworthy, he was a man of his time, which meant that he thought women to be unable to understand anything of consequence. Since Gardiner dealt with men almost exclusively, he had never had cause to change his opinion about women. Because of that he had been perfectly willing to marry a woman of great beauty but limited intelligence.

Gardiner was pleased that his son had inherited his own intelligence as it was obvious, but not surprising, that their two daughters had the mental acuity of their mother. The older daughter, Martha, was a pleasant looking young woman but was generally overlooked by her mother because the younger sister, who had recently turned seventeen, had inherited her mother's great beauty.

Because of Fanny's looks and ample assets, Mrs Gardiner had great hopes that the girl would attract a husband from the gentry. Both ladies were ecstatic when they learnt that the younger Bennet brother had inherited Longbourn, which was the most prestigious estate in the neighbourhood.

To top it off, Thomas Bennet was not only handsome, but he was also young enough that he could be vulnerable to beauty.

~O~

The first time Fanny Gardiner attended an assembly in Meryton coincided with Thomas Bennet's return to society after mourning his father and brother.

Like all the other young men in the area, he was immediately struck by her beauty and demure manner. Bennet felt thrilled when the young lady only had eyes for him. While she danced with the other young men, he often caught her looking at him.

Such focused interest could only be flattering to a young man who had been sheltered from the machinations of marriageable women.

While Mrs Bennet was not completely sanguine about the young woman when her son introduced them, she did not speak against her as she did not want her son to feel the need to defend his choice. And, since the girl seemed sweet and besotted with Thomas, Mrs Bennet held her peace. She also thought that Fanny was young enough to learn all that was required of her.

It was the end of June when he proposed to Fanny Gardiner who joyfully accepted.

Thomas Bennet was somewhat disconcerted when Edward Gardiner returned from Oxford for the summer, and upon hearing about the engagement accosted his sponsor, 'Have you completely lost your wits to propose marriage to a woman without any?'

'That is your sister whom you are denigrating!'

'Exactly. As her brother I know her better than most. I know that the only thing between her ears is porridge.'

'Has anyone ever tried to educate her?' Bennet asked, remembering Fanny's mournful expression as she confessed that her mother had not thought it necessary for her to learn anything other than embroidery, dancing and flirting.

Edward had to admit that his sisters had not had the opportunity for much of an education. He therefore held his reluctant peace.

~O~

During the three months of their engagement, Mrs Gardiner and her daughters called on Mrs Bennet, so that Fanny could see her future home and decide whether she wanted to make any changes to the mistress' suite.

The young woman was astonished at the size of her rooms and declared herself enchanted with the appointments.

Summer passed quickly as Mrs Gardiner threw herself into the wedding preparations and procuring Fanny's trousseau.

At last, Mrs Bennet finished her year of mourning, and Thomas and Fanny married soon after.

~O~