What Jane Austen Didn't Tell Us!. Austen Alliance
But then—disaster!
On a deserted stretch of road, Orion stepped into a fox’s hole and broke his fetlock. The horse crashed to the ground, screaming in pain. Mr. Bennet was barely able to leap free of the falling animal. He managed to protect his child, clutching her tightly against his chest, but broke his own leg when he landed.
Elizabeth saw blood gushing from Orion as he thrashed on the ground; her father was white-faced and unable to stand. This is my fault, she thought.
“Papa, I am sorry,” she wailed.
He clenched his teeth, saying as evenly as he could, “Lizzy, calm yourself. I want you to walk back around the bend.”
“No! I shall not leave you,” she insisted.
Realizing she was paralyzed with fear, he softened his voice. “You are a brave girl, and you must fetch some help.”
The horse screamed again in pain, causing Elizabeth to throw her arms around her father. “Please,” he said grimly, “walk around the bend and run up to the first person you see. Tell them to come at once.”
Tears fell from her darkened eyes as Elizabeth grasped his meaning. Trembling, she jumped up and ran as fast as her pudgy legs would carry her to bring aid.
Afterwards, Mr. Bennet praised her to everyone. “Lizzy is my brave girl,” he would repeat often.
While Mr. Bennet recovered from his leg fracture, he often invited Elizabeth into his library. She sat on the floor, her arm gently wrapped around his injured leg, as he read his favorite Robinson Crusoe to her.
The accident forged a special bond between father and daughter. It also left Elizabeth, usually so courageous, with an enduring dread of the saddle. She never rode if she could avoid it, even when her mother and sisters made sport of her. Instead, she became a great walker on her travels about the estate.
Normally mothers read aloud to their children before they learned to read for themselves. Mrs. Bennet mistrusted female education but did enjoy the fashion periodicals. So, before learning to read their letters and primers, her daughters discovered the larger world in the form of sleeve lengths, bonnet-styles, and coiffures.
When Elizabeth and Jane were five and seven, their father encouraged word and song play to sharpen their ears for the rhyme and meter of poetry. One spring day, the girls were with him in the garden when Mrs. Bennet and Nurse came out to fetch the children for their dinner. Mrs. Bennet heard Jane rhyming “star” and “far” and remarked, “I never bothered my head with such things at their age.”
“Yes,” her husband responded, “you prefer to keep it unfurnished.” Puzzled, Elizabeth asked what “unfurnished” meant.
“It means empty,” her father replied.
Gleefully, Elizabeth chanted: “Empty head, empty head, Mama has an empty head.”
“Miss Elizabeth!” Nurse scolded. “You should not say such a thing!”
Surprised, Elizabeth looked at her father. “But, Papa...”
Mr. Bennet, not meeting her eyes and with a strange expression on his face, said, “That will do, child. Go in to dinner at once.”
Over her shoulder, Elizabeth saw her mother glaring at her father, but his eyes remained on his book.
In due course, another daughter, Lydia, joined the family, so that along with studious Mary, there were now five Bennet girls to occupy Mrs. Bennet and alternately plague and amuse their father.
Some years later, Nurse placed young Lydia on a rug spread on the grass. The older girls were nearby, playing “Princess and Pirate,” a game Elizabeth had invented. Elizabeth, the fearless pirate, heard Lydia cry out and turned to see a large red fox menacing her, ready to wrest a sweet from her tiny fist.
“Avast, ye beast!” Elizabeth leapt from her crow’s nest in the beech tree and dealt the “enemy’s” snout a hard blow with her wooden sword. The vixen slunk away.
Jane rushed the young ones to the safety of the house and told their parents of her sister’s bravery! Mr. Bennet smiled fondly at his intrepid child, but her mother seized Elizabeth by the shoulders, saying, “You are too boyish, Miss, and will surely come to no good stabbing wild animals. I am at my wit’s end! What must I do to teach you to behave like a young lady? Your sister Jane does not charge about with toy swords. There shall be no dinner for you, Lizzy, and I forbid you to go anywhere near another tree!” Mrs. Bennet collapsed, exhausted.
Blinking away tears, Elizabeth retreated. When Jane reached for her hand in sympathy, her sister snatched it away. She refused even to taste the treacle tart her older sister smuggled to her from the dinner table.
By morning, Jane approached Elizabeth gingerly: “Mama is afraid you will not marry if you do not change your ways.” She paused. “But I want to help you.”
“Why do I have to marry?” Elizabeth demanded.
“It is the way of things—what girls must do,” Jane replied. “Do you not wish for a lovely home, a good husband, and sweet children?”
Elizabeth stayed silent. She was unsure what she wanted but knew it would be different from everyone else’s dreams.
More serious worries invaded Longbourn in the days that followed. Lydia started crying whenever she swallowed her food, and in quick succession all of the Bennet girls developed cases of the putrid sore throat. Even Mr. Bennet succumbed to the disease. Though light-headed and ill, Elizabeth could see a different side of her mother, nursing the family even though she was worried and exhausted. Luckily, all the victims regained their health and thrived.
As Elizabeth grew older, she took to the habit of long walks in the countryside, especially when life at Longbourn became too stifling. To escape her sisters and her mother’s endless litany of corrections, Elizabeth especially enjoyed visiting neighboring Lucas Lodge.
Despite the cacophony and confusion created by so many children, it was a harmonious home. Elizabeth grew very close to Charlotte, the oldest daughter of Sir William and Lady Lucas. She was a full seven years older than Elizabeth, yet each was attracted by the other’s intelligence and humor.
Like Jane, Charlotte possessed a balanced temper. But to Elizabeth’s eyes, her friend seemed remarkably clear-headed, trying to conduct her life with no romantic illusions.
When Elizabeth complained about her mother’s preference for Jane, Charlotte said, “Does any girl find it easy to have a beautiful sister?”
“Everyone loves her best!” Elizabeth said.
“And why do you love her, Lizzy?” asked Charlotte.
Elizabeth paused. She knew it was not only Jane’s beauty that attracted everyone, but also her sweet temperament. Jane saw the good in everyone, which Elizabeth, with her more critical mind, found impossible to do.
Mrs. Bennet approved of their friendship: “I daresay Charlotte is a very nice girl. She is a fine choice of companion, Lizzy, for as she is so very plain, your looks will always show to great advantage,” she added with great relish.
Her mother was already preparing her strategy for next month’s Assembly in nearby Upper Garvie, which first involved persuading her husband to attend. “It will be the first time our Lizzy dances,” Mrs. Bennet said in her sweetest voice. “Do come and support our daughters, Mr. Bennet.”
Looking up from his breakfast, he replied, “A ball is something every woman is eager for—and every man over forty contemplates with dread.”
Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth kept her voice—and her disappointment—to herself. This is to be my “coming-out,” she thought. Cannot Papa see how I look forward to it?
But Elizabeth’s melancholy thoughts were soon lost in the excitement of preparations, for her mother knew to a certainty how to dress with style. Always, Mrs. Bennet’s daughters would