Jump to new as of January 29, 2000
Posted on Wednesday, 26 January 2000
Mr. Bennet was lying in his bed, deathly pale. His family, five daughters and a wife were standing around his bed, two of them staying a bit behind. Those two, Jane and Elizabeth, were his children from his first marriage, and were because of this, slighted by the present Mrs. Bennet. So great was her dislike, that she wouldn't even let them to say good-bye to their dying father who himself was too weak to say anything against this arrangement.
"What will become of us all!" mourned Mrs. Bennet, "I cannot stand this! Your tedious cousin will be evicting us before you have even been properly buried, I'm sure!" She sat down sobbing.
"I...have...arranged...everything....You...can...stay..here...in Longbourn..." said Mr. Bennet, every word coming out with greater pain. "I...ask..you..to take ...care..of..Jane and...Lizzy..as well...as..our...other..children....please.."
His last words were hardly heard by overwhelmed Mrs. Bennet who now was jumping up and down around the room singing with high voice "We can stay! we can stay! we can stay!.."
So excited was she that she didn't, at first, notice Mr. Bennet's passing away at all. It was a few minutes later when she finally realized that something had happened. She glanced at her daughters and step-daughters and, after looking at Mr. Bennet's pale face, she finally got it: Mr. Bennet was dead.
Chapter 2
A short silence followed during which each person in the room took the news of Mr. Bennet's death in their own way.
Jane and Lizzy, - who were the only ones in the family that really had loved their father and, in fact, were the only ones who really had been loved by him - felt the pain of his death more keenly than anyone else.
Mr. Bennet's other daughters; Mary, Kitty and Lydia and his wife Mrs. Bennet didn't feel much sorrow for his death, not now that they new they could stay in Longbourn. Before his death they had always feared it and wished it not to happen, because they had no place to go. But now it was all well and they found that his death had hardly any effect on them.
And so, after five minutes silence Mrs. Bennet sighed and said, "Oh well, now his dead. I suppose it was the best thing to happen after such a long illness."
After a while she continued in a more cheerful tone, "It actually was a very good thing to happen, his death I mean. Now we have Longbourn for ourselves only, and we can do whatever we like."
And the more Mrs. Bennet thought of it, the more excited she became.
"Oh Lydia, now we can have as many tea parties and dinners and balls here as we like! And we can buy all the beautiful gowns we always have wanted but Mr. Bennet has been there to stop us before we have been able to buy them." She said cheerfully.
And Mrs. Bennet was not the only one to see all the advantages of this new situation: at the moment she mentioned 'a ball', looked Lydia and Kitty at each other, their eyes brightening.
"A ball!" cried Lydia, "We must have one as soon as possible. I long for a ball."
"Oh yes, my dear," replied Mrs. Bennet, "We shall have a ball, and you will all have new gowns."
She glanced at Lizzy and Jane and continued, "You all three shall have new gowns, my dear daughters."
When this was said, started Kitty and Lydia to dance around Mr. Bennet's bed, and Mrs. Bennet happily began making all the plans for the ball.
Lizzy and Jane at each other in disbelief. "How dare they!" whispered Lizzy furiously, tears in her eyes "Father died but ten minutes ago and they are already planning a ball."
Jane placed her comforting hand on Lizzy's shoulder, "Shhh, it will all turn out to be well," she whispered back
But Lizzy could no longer take this lack of respect towards her father and she said aloud to Mrs. Bennet "How can you be so happy, when your husband just died? Don't you have any feelings?"
She took breath and continued, "And don't forget what father said: he said that we can stay in Longbourn -STAY-, he mentioned nothing that could have given you the impression that we would now be the owners, nor did he mention anything about our economical situation. It is by no means certain that we have a lot of money, in fact, I find it highly unlikely."
"Who asked you anything?" cried Mrs. Bennet in response, "You know nothing. You are just jealous because you won't have a new dress. But I tell you this, young lady, that you will have no special treatment as you used to have when your father lived."
Here she paused to look if her words had had the effect she had intended, but when she saw nothing on Lizzy's face, she continued: "And about Longbourn, -I will hear no more of that nonsense, that I wouldn't be the owner now. Of course I am. I know Mr. Bennet has arranged everything in the best possible way and we shall never hear of that tedious Mr. Dollins -or whatever his name was- again."
She looked at Lizzy triumphantly as if she had beaten her completely with these words. And then said, "If you feel like mourning, you and Jane may go to your rooms. I assure you that you won't be missed, even if you stayed there the rest of your lives."
Jane took Lizzy by hand and drew her away from the room before she could say anything that would completely upset Mrs. Bennet.
"This is insupportable!" cried Lizzy at the moment they had reached their room and shut the door behind them.
"There she is planning a ball, not caring the least of the fact that our father died 15 minutes ago. I always new her to be selfish and stupid etc, but never could I have imagined such lack of propriety! We should all be mourning and wearing black, but now she says that we are going to have a ball and she will buy new gowns for her daughters, which, I'm sure have nothing to do with black."
Jane took a seat beside Lizzy and tried to comfort her, "Dear Lizzy, try to calm down, I am as shocked as you are but we must understand that there is nothing to be done. We are now completely dependent on Mrs. Bennet's good will, you must understand she can throw us out when ever she wants to."
"I know that Jane, but behaviour like that is so hard to bear," replied Lizzy, "Sometimes I wish she would just throw us out so that we should never see her again, but my common sense always reminds me that we have no place to go." Lizzy sighed, and with half voice continued "if only our mother was still alive..."
"Yes..If only..." sighed Jane
And they both fell in silence for a while, reflecting all the happiness and laughter that Longbourn had been filled with while their mother still lived.
The mood was broken by Lizzy: "But those times will never come back. Now we must survive on our own," continued she in a sad tone. "There is no-one who really cares for us now. Father did, but he is now gone...forever," she started to sob.
"We do have each other, Lizzy," said Jane fighting back her own tears, "We will be fine, everything will turn out well."
"Oh, I wish I could believe that, Jane," said Lizzy gaining back her composure, "But I can't. I fear Mrs. Bennet will throw us out..."
There was a knock on the door.
"Now I suppose someone has come to tell us that our things has been packed and we can go," Lizzy said sarcastically
"Yes, come in!"
A servant girl stepped in and announced "Miss Jane, Miss Elizabeth - Mrs. Bennet want's to see you."
Lizzy and Jane exchanged worried looks and Lizzy whispered "This is it now." And they followed the servant to Mrs. Bennet's room to hear what she had to say.