And now, we start at 1!
“My bonnet?” I cried, looking around my room. “Where is my bonnet?”
What a strange thing indeed.
In our home, there was not room enough to lose anything. On the contrary, we all did our best to get lost sometimes, and it was quite impossible to do so. How could I lose my bonnet?
Searching around my room, frantically, I gave up and rushed out into the hallway. I didn’t get more than three steps before I ran into Mary, who dropped her book on the floor in the process.
“Kitty, watch yourself!” Mary snapped.
“It was an accident, and you know it, and I didn’t mean it at all. By any chance, have you seen my bonnet? I was working on adding some dried flowers to it.”
“I know precisely where it is,” Mary said, picking up the book and going down the stairs.
“Care to tell me?” I called down to her.
“I’d give you four guesses, but you’ll only need one. And if that is not sufficient enough explanation, I’ll help you. Which of the four has a style similar to yours?”
I rolled my eyes and threw up my arms.
“Lydia!” I cried, rushing down the stairs after Mary. Since she had been going slowly, I rushed past her, only for Elizabeth to be in my way.
“What are you rushing off to?” Elizabeth asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“Where do you think?”
“Very well,” Elizabeth said, pointing to the road that led to our home. “Lydia went that way.”
“Of course, she has.” I groaned, moving to the door.
“I am not averse to you screaming at her,” Elizabeth called after me, “but have the tact to do it in the house.”
“I make no promises!” I cried over my shoulder as I ran out the door.
Only to be impeded again.
This time, I ran into my oldest sister, Jane.
Looking down on me, she squinted out of concern.
“Kitty,” she said, serenely anxious. Only Jane could achieve such a contradictory set of emotions; be anxious, but also be calm in the process. I still did not understand how she could achieve it. “The morning is cold. You should not leave the house without a shawl or pelisse and bonnet.”
“Lydia has my bonnet and I’m going to be a minute. Have you seen her?”
“Yes,” Jane said, removing her pelisse from herself and placing it on me. “She is down the lane, to meet the post.”
I sighed. “She didn’t tell me; that’s not fair. She should have told me so that I could have gone with her.”
“Wait here and she’ll be back soon enough,” she said, but it was fruitless. I was already running down the lane, in pursuit of the only sister who was younger than myself. Soon after I reached the end of the lane, I looked to the left and I saw Lydia sitting on the seat next to the postman, who was riding his wagon along. Her eyes were alight with merriment, and she was making him laugh. The postman’s name was Mr. Dixon, and he was a kind-spirited man. I waved to him, excited.
Seeing me, he removed his hat and waved it in the air.
“Miss Bennet, you look lovely!” he called.
“Do I.” I laughed, twirling around. “Pretty compliment, Mr. Dixon.”
“But I look prettier,” Lydia said smugly.
“No, only your bonnet does,” I retorted, sticking my tongue out at her. “And soon, you’re going to lose it.”
Lydia laughed. “You must admit it looks better on me.”
“Nothing looks better on you.”
Mr. Dixon rode up to me, helped Lydia down and she contained our letters in her hand.
“Miss Lydia,” he said, tipping his hat to her, “once more, you have helped me do my service. Good day, Miss Bennet, and Miss Lydia.”
“Good day, Dixon,” I said.
“Till the next time,” Lydia called, laughing as she moved aside. Mr. Dixon stirred his horses and rode along, to the next house.
“I bet you that he is in love with me,” Lydia declared.
“No,” I challenged, “he is in love with Jane.”
“Nonsense, he is in love with me.”
“Not a chance,” I continued, quickly untying her bonnet, and ripping it off her head. “And I’m taking that back.”
I ran forward and she chased me.
“Come, Kitty, and let me have it!” Lydia cried after me.
“Never!” I laughed.
“You’re no fun.”
“You’re no fun more.”
“Liar.”
“Bonnet-less.”
We raced back into the house, our cheeks red from the energy that was exerted, and were laughing, because our spirits were high.
But as we rushed to the door, it felt like my day would be interrupted by perpetual barriers in my way. We had come face to face with our father, who had been walking by.
* * *
Lydia and I stopped in our place. I folded my hands in front of me, straightening my posture, and trying to suppress my excitement. When under my father’s gaze, I sometimes felt a little humbled and he made me insecure. Naturally, this made me despise him a lot. What? I couldn’t help it. Other times, I loved him terribly. What? I couldn’t help that either.
Lydia, on the other hand, never crumbled under his gaze, and was still merry. I envied her unwavering confidence.
When seeing us, my father’s eyebrow raised, and he looked down at us.
“I congratulate you both,” he said, “for reminding me, before supper, that you are truly your mother’s daughters.”
“Oh!” our mother wailed from the sitting room. “Why must life have turned out this way?”
When hearing her voice, my father blatantly cringed.
“So croaks the gorgon,” he inferred, walking away from us, and retreating in his study.
“Mama will be happy to see me,” Lydia said, sashaying into the room.
“Why?” I asked, putting Jane’s pelisse into the closet, still holding my bonnet in my hand. Lydia gave me a teasing look, and I knew that she was doing her best to put me in suspense. “Lydia, tell me first.”
“I don’t think I will. Mr. Dixon has confirmed the rumors and I want to see the shock on all your faces when I get to be the one to tell everyone. How I shall laugh when I see your faces!”
I grabbed her hand, excited.
“No,” I insisted, “I want to know first. Lydia, I cannot wait.”
“You won’t have to for very long,” she said, pulling me into the sitting room. “If I don’t tell you all soon, I shall burst like a crushed orange. I’m all a fidget as it is.”
Following the sound of our mother’s voice, Lydia pulled me into the room, where Mama was sitting in her favorite chair—at least, I assumed it was her favorite chair—Jane was sitting on the sofa, doing some needlework. In the corner, Mary was practicing her music at the pianoforte, and Elizabeth was sitting in the windowsill, facing away from us.
When seeing Lydia and I enter, mama got more fidgety, clearly about to bombard us with questions.
“And where have you two girls been?” she inquired. “Kitty, why do you have your bonnet in your hands?”
“Guess who took it without permission again?” I responded.
“Mama,” Lydia argued, “tell Kitty that I can have her bonnet.”
“What?” I scoffed. “Mama?”
“Lydia,” Jane voiced, “you know that it is not proper to demand for Kitty’s clothes. All you have to do is ask, and Kitty would be willing to let you borrow it.”
“But I want to keep it.”
“Surely you have something else more pressing on your mind,” Elizabeth said, from the windowsill. I bit my lip, annoyed with her. She was about to show everyone how much more clever she was than the rest of us. “After all, I saw you rushing away from Mr. Dixon’s post. You both only do that when he is there to help confirm some bit of gossip that you cannot wait to share.”
“I got to hear it, but Kitty didn’t,” Lydia boasted.
“You stole my bonnet because you can’t dress one up like I can,” I answered triumphantly. “There, I win.”
“It does not matter, because my hearings are better than anything else that you could imagine.”
“Then do tell us, my dear,” Mama professed, her eyes lighting up with joy. “I long for news. Any new bit of folly or foolishness will set me up for the rest of the day. I need any solace that I can find because this day already is bringing me grief.”
“I have just found out, for certain, who is moving to Netherfield Park. His name is Mr. Bingley!”
* * *
When hearing that, it didn’t have the desired effect that Lydia expected. On the contrary, Mama leaned back in her seat, clearly becoming frustrated.
“And let me see if I’ve got this correct,” Elizabeth said from her seat. “His name is Mr. Charles Bingley. He came down in a chaise and four to see the place.”
“And he will be in possession of the estate by Michaelmas,” Jane added.
Mary stopped playing and turned to us.
“He is a man of a large fortune, from the North,” Mary added.
“And his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week,” Elizabeth finished, triumphant.
“You all know already?” Lydia was miffed and dropped the mail on the table before and sitting down with a big huff. “Not fair!”
“Mama told us while you were out going to meet the post,” Jane explained.
“If you had remained in here,” Elizabeth furthered, “you would have received the news without having to exert yourself.”
“Oh, you like to run sometimes,” Lydia said, “so you shouldn’t be the only one to do it.”
“But it’s not fair that you get to know everything,” I said to Elizabeth, going to the cabinet and pulling out my basket of trinkets to put on my bonnet. “How come you get to know everything?”
“I learned to sit still when it was right to sit still and run when the hour presented the right time to do it,” Elizabeth replied, with a knowing smile. “I always found running to be done at the quarter of an hour. It always seems best.”
“You are ridiculous,” I retorted.
“One moment I am clever and then you render me ridiculous in the next. How do I manage that?”
“Oh, will you all stop talking!” Mama exclaimed. We all were silenced, but not alarmed.
Our mother was a woman of easily roused spirits, who felt everything so keenly, that it often made her want to burst. I admit that there were much lesser kind ways of sketching her character, and I secretly felt all those words toward her, but I never voiced it. After all, she was our mother, and I did love her. I just wondered if she actually ever loved me.
Jane put her needlework down, walked over to Mama and sat down beside her.
“What is ailing you, mother?” she asked.
“You know what ails me, Jane! I’m sick of speaking about it. I will never speak about it again.”
“Very well,” Jane coaxed, kissing her forehead. “I will not ask again.”
Jane stood up, walked back over to her spot, and just as she sat down, Mama’s voice was alive again.
“Here is what happened, my dears. Your father has quite broken my heart. He has torn my anxiety to pieces. How could he? How could he?” She dabbed dramatically at her eyes with her handkerchief.
“You haven’t mentioned what Father has done,” Elizabeth pointed out.
“Stop interrupting me, Lizzy. I am about to tell you everything. Oh, but I shouldn’t. But I should. No, I shouldn’t. But I should.”
“If it is a secret between you and Father,” Mary pointed out, “then it ought to be kept.”
“Mary, you know nothing about secrets,” Lydia argued. “The more that we hear about the secret, the more that we will want to know. Kitty and I want to know, don’t we, Kitty?”
“Yes,” I replied eagerly, “I want to know too.”
Lydia and I stared at Mama, imploringly, but it was needless. Mama was dying to tell us, and we knew that she would tell us everything quicker than a hare diving into a hole in the garden.
“Well,” she began, “I had just heard everything about Netherfield Park being let but only an hour ago, from Mrs. Long.”
“Oh.” Lydia rolled her eyes. “Mama, her visits are always way too long.”
“I agree,” I echoed. “She stays even when she has nothing to say.”
“I agree, my dears. Honestly, some people never know when they are talking too much. People like that vex me greatly. It is as if they don’t know that they are being a nuisance to everyone. And Mrs. Long can be the worst, and sometimes I wish that she would not come.”
“Mama, didn’t you write to Mrs. Long, asking her to come and visit today?” Mary asked, her expression screwed up from confusion.
“Mary, you know very well that I do not like being contradicted. In either case, yes, I did. But I only did it out of a desire to be the best mother in the world.”
“Then Mrs. Long deserves the credit for helping you fill that service,” Elizabeth interjected, but I knew that she was teasing. I didn’t mind it, of course, for Mama was taking so dreadfully long to get to the point.
“Mama,” I urged, “please, tell us all at once.”
“Well, she told me everything. This was one time where she did her service good. Netherfield Park is indeed let at last, by a Mr. Bingley of large fortune.”
“Well, I can do you one better!” Lydia took my hand and twirled me around. “Mr. Dixon has it upon good authority that Mr. Bingley’s fortune is five thousand pounds a year!”
“Five thousand a year,” I repeated, exhilarated. “A man with so much money?”
“So much money?” Mary asked, with a raised eyebrow, “I wonder if perhaps that is too much money. With such earthly comforts, that gives him the fortune to have a lack of humility and humbleness.”
“Mary, good fortune has fallen in our laps,” Mama countered. “Even if your words are clever, your logic does not save Longbourn. And that is what I care about.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, and I could relate. I understood our mother’s worries about losing our home when our father died, but she mentioned it too often for us to feel any of her woes anymore. Eventually, it rendered her complaints tedious, despite how rational her fears were.
“Either way,” Mama continued, “Mrs. Long not only mentioned his chaise and four, but all the horses matched the same color and were of a beautiful brown. There is nothing more handsome than a beautiful pair of horses when you have a carriage.”
“I can think of something better,” Lydia declared. “The man must be handsome himself. I don’t care a fig about horses.”
“Nor do I,” I agreed. “What is a man without a comely disposition?”
“Looks do not always signify happiness,” Jane inferred. “The character of the man underneath is more.”
“Handsome or ugly,” Elizabeth added, “I’ve met too many a person that didn’t have enough substance within to the point where I wonder if anyone has a five thousand pounds’ disposition.”
“Lizzy,” Mama argued, “if twenty men are rich and wants one of my girls, I shall not say no to him, because that makes him worth a ten-thousand-pound disposition.”
“Well, Mama, if twenty such men come into the neighborhood, depend upon it, I would visit them all,” she responded, with her eyes twinkling.
“Oh, Lizzy, how too like your father you are. And since he is not to oblige me, you all are never to know this Mr. Bingley after all.”
Lydia stopped twirling me around and we both stared at her, flummoxed.
“What do you mean, Mama?” I asked, shocked.
“I mean that your father is a stubborn bit of iron, who cannot be moved.”
Suddenly, we heard movement from the hallway and Father entered.
* * *
When he stood in the doorway, he looked around at us all.
“Is the bit of iron allowed to enter the room?” he asked casually. “Since this is my sitting room, I wish to believe that I should be granted the right of entering with impunity.”
“Mr. Bennet speaks!” Mama proclaimed, vexed. “Go on then, Mr. Bennet, tell them yourself.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked, sitting down. “When I know that you are only going to repeat everything that I say at least four times. For some reason, four times has always been your repetitive gait.”
“I’ll tell you all what your father has declared,” Mama said to us as Lydia and I sat down. “Because they have the right to know, Mr. Bennet. Girls, as is proper and right, I urged your father to call on Mr. Bingley as soon as he returns to Netherfield. After all, with five thousand a year, Mr. Bingley is quite perfect for any of you.”
“Do you believe that Mr. Bingley came to Hertfordshire to marry one of us?” Elizabeth asked, amused. This led to Father letting out a laugh and smiling at Lizzy.
“Lizzy, stop being like your father this instance. One of you is enough. I could not bear to have two. Especially since my scheme is perfect. If your father calls on Mr. Bingley, then we shall be acquainted with him. And you girls are as good as any in England, so it is very likely that Mr. Bingley may fall in love with one of you, and therefore your father must visit him as soon as he comes. But does your father oblige me? Mr. Bennet, do you?”
Father looked at Mama casually, amused, but he would not give her the satisfaction of replying. She, being forced to repeat the words that doomed her hopes, had to repeat his reply.
“Your father sees no occasion for it. He will not visit Mr. Bingley. And since he shall not, you all cannot be introduced to him.”
“Father, is this true?” I asked, leaning forward.
“As true as a bachelor at Oxford, who uses his excuse of being an academic for why he doesn’t know how to ask any woman to marry him,” Father responded.
“You really will not visit Mr. Bingley?” Lydia repeated, horrified.
“No, he won’t, and he will not be prevailed upon,” Mama added. “This is how your father shows his love for you… by doing nothing! Mr. Bennet, one last time, I must appeal to you. This opportunity is the finest thing for your girls. Everyone else in the neighborhood with a single daughter will be visiting, in hopes of marrying her off. Where they have one, you sir, have five.”
“Then I suppose that makes me five times a better father,” he responded, “because that is five times that I am giving them my company, rather than forcing a stranger upon them, who’s chief quality may be five thousand pounds.”
“Mr. Bingley could be very pleasant.”
“And he can have a wart on his face. Would you really want me to hand our daughters over to a villain from a book? Let us not fall prey to such a bit of misfortune.”
“You will not be talked out of your declaration?”
“Mrs. Bennet, I will not.”
“Oh, you do not love us!”
“You spoke the words, my dear, not I.” He took his newspaper and left the room. Mama was left very upset.
* * *
“I forgot that I must go for my walk at this time,” Elizabeth said, standing up.
“Where shall you walk?” Mama asked.
“My usual route. I apologize that I shall not encounter Mr. Bingley along the way. Especially since he is in the way of adhering to a commonly approved maxim: it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
“Yes, he must indeed,” Mama said, “if only your father understood that.”
“I promise that, if there are any eligible gentlemen that I encounter along the way, I’ll make sure that an acquaintance of ours will introduce him, so that I can bring him home for Kitty or Lydia.”
“Only if he is handsome and charming,” I said.
“And a hero,” Lydia said. “I like heroes! If they can dance well.”
“And understands muslin,” I added.
“And believes in giving out many presents,” Lydia compiled.
“And does everything best in the world,” I finished.
“Very well,” Elizabeth responded, “I shall just have to mold him out of clay and get nature to breathe life into him.”
She walked out of the room to put on her bonnet.
“Why is everyone talking nonsense today?” Mama declared.
Mary responded by sitting down and practicing her music again.