Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say Read Online Free PDF Page A

her. “Here, here,” she croons as she rocks Elizabeth against her bony chest. “Abide with me, sleep close, sweet dreams.” And for a time Elizabeth becomes an infant like any other, though only for as long as it takes to gather the energy to recommence her violentobjection to her father should I poke my head into the room.
    I have taken steps to save my sanity. “I am going to London,” I announced on a day when Elizabeth was particularly noisy. “I will no longer tolerate the tyranny of an infant who by rights should be spanked and put to bed in a room whose walls are thick enough to shut up the racket within.”
    â€œMr. Bennet,” answered Mrs. Bennet from her bed, “Elizabeth is but ten days old. It makes no sense to apply punishment suitable for a child much older, if then. You will simply have to put up with Elizabeth’s temper until she can accommodate herself to our world. Sooner or later she will have to take nourishment from me and not from the bottle administered by Mrs. Rummidge. Sooner or later she will find comfort next to me and her sister, Jane, instead of the bony arms of Mrs. Rummidge, who I am beginning to suspect of being a fraud and a liar and no fit company for our children. Are you listening, Mr. Bennet?” There are times when deafness seems preferable to hearing such remonstrance, especially on those rare occasions when Mrs. Bennet approaches common sense. I remained silent. I planned my escape.
    And now, dear reader, at the risk of seeming to complain in a most unmanly way, I must declare to this journal—and to myself—that the life of quiet contemplation, the life I had planned, has never come to fruition.Bear with me. My aim, as I write, is to draw you to a closer understanding of this man whose world—through no fault of his own—is at present intolerable and shows no sign of easing . (Note the underscore.) With the achieving of my majority came the undeniable truth that my home and my garden and my woods and streams and the animals I imagined frolicking within were not mine. They would never be mine, not until the property is legally settled upon my son. Entailment is a curse, especially so with the heir apparent, my cousin, the insipid Collins, and his sycophantic ways. To think that this idiot might one day take his place at Longbourn kept me awake many a night, and so, early on, I took steps to lift that curse. The first was marriage.
    Winnowing Mrs. Bennet out from all the girls keen to become my wife had not been an easy task, but at least until recently the result of my efforts, that being marriage, had not been particularly painful or inconvenient. Indeed, asserting my conjugal rights in the bedroom had proved not only convenient but pleasurable, reducing the necessity for trips into the village or to London to quiet the storms within me. Mrs. Bennet was comely; she was young and strong and not averse to my bedding of her. After the birth of Jane, she seemed agreeable to a certain amount of activity, even took occasional but undeniable enjoyment from my frequent forays into her bed. I quite enjoyed the flush in her cheek, her perfect little bosom, and the way her nipples retracted whenever I came near, though now as Ithink on it and on my somewhat limited experience, those nipples ought to have puckered out, not in. No matter. She could no more hide the pleasing curve of her waist than she could the suppleness of her limbs. Granted, she seemed to go to some trouble to cover herself; I had never seen so many bedclothes on one bed. But she could not help the dark curls that sprang from beneath her cap nor the shine in her dark blue eyes, sometimes tears, yes, but sometimes a ready spirit.
    No matter, all that is behind me; for this wife of mine and her baby Elizabeth have ruined not only my present but my future. Such perfidy is beyond forgiveness. I will journey to London and pick up a book or two, and who knows what further