Rebellion

Rebellion

4 August 1812 Lambton, Derbyshire

Mr Thomas Bennet, Esq Longbourn, Hertfordshire

Mr Bennet,

I pray you will forgive the formal style of this letter and the unusual method of delivery. I am well aware of your indolence with respect to correspondence, as well as with other matters so I have asked my Uncle Philips to deliver the missive by hand and wait for you to read it.

I wish to make you aware sir of a serious breach of all manners, civility, and even human decency that has gone unchecked in your household for many months and has finally reached a breaking point which cannot be undone. I also wish to apprise you of the consequences thereof.

I received a two-page letter, crossed, from your wife, Mrs Francine Bennet, apparently in response to a short note I sent as an olive branch. Below, I have copied a few notable phrases directly for your perusal, and suggest the rest is of a like nature. Also, please note some choice phrases I copied from another letter from my aunt, Mrs Louisa Philips.

Pray, take the time to read all three letters.

~~~~~

If you have read them, you will have ascertained that the letter from your wife, Mrs Bennet, is the vilest, most hate- filled, ignorant, uncharitable, ignorant (I repeat deliberately for emphasis) piece of slander that it has ever been my poor fortune to witness, let alone have addressed to me. I do not know of a single other person who is capable of such vile language. Some of the words were so bad I had to ask my uncle to translate them into the King’s English, and he steadfastly refused to do so on around half.

Mrs Philips’ missive includes the same slanderous gossip, with a clear indication that the gossip has been circling in Meryton society like vultures for months; with the primary source being your own wife, Mrs Francine Bennet, who cannot even keep her incivilities inside her own home.

I also have reliable accounts that the same unrepentantly nasty language has been heaped upon your four remaining daughters indiscriminately for most of a year, and my heart goes out to them for they cannot escape as I did. My only correspondents have been your daughters, Jane and Mary. I believe Jane has minimised it to spare my feelings; but Mary seems more inclined towards the unvarnished truth, but also seems to have reached her utter limit of tolerance.

From these clear truths, I must conclude, sir, that either your wife, Mrs Francine Bennet has deliberately decided to break the vows she swore at your side when you joined in holy matrimony (in particular, the honour and obey clauses), or you have not bestirred yourself from your library to instruct her properly in the most rudimentary civilities which should have been ingrained either at her mother’s knee, or by her husband’s instruction. I would assume the latter case, but you are entitled to your own opinion.

I am reliably informed that your wife, Mrs Francine Bennet has repeatedly said that she will never speak my name again, but I must assume she means that in a figurative sense as she repeats the assertions many times over the course of every waking hour.

I, on the other hand, would not use such language frivolously. It is therefore my unpleasant duty to inform you that I will never speak her name again literally . From this day, I am no longer known to your wife, Mrs Francine Bennet in any way. I will never step foot in Longbourn again. If she happens to encounter me in a lane or unexpectedly in another house, I will cut her direct. I will no longer tolerate a single word of her abuse.

You may check her or not, as head of the household. However, if you wish any of your remaining daughters to marry well or even retain their sanity, I suggest a more active course than you have previously followed. You may choose to give me control of my pin money through Uncle Gardiner; or cut it off entirely and either spread it across your other dowerless daughters or waste it on yet more books.

If you wish some advice, I recommend you save it for dowries, as I have only recently learned you sent your silliest, worst behaving, most untrustworthy daughter to Brighton with a camp full of soldiers, under the chaperonage of another young ‘lady’ with even less sense, difficult as that is to imagine. Severe damage to the remaining three Bennet daughters’ reputations seems the most likely outcome. I have long abandoned any pretence or hope of marrying well, but I will be sorry to see the rest of my worthier sisters’ reputations ruined, as seems imminent.

Uncle and Aunt Gardiner have seen these letters, as has Uncle Philips. Uncle and Aunt Gardiner have agreed to assist me in setting up an establishment in town, and I have already secured employment which will satisfy my meagre requirements for a good life. I am of age now, so am neither duty nor honour bound to notify you of anything, but so long as you allow correspondence with my sisters, I will promise to give you word of any significant events in my life through them.

I will also beg that you allow each of your other daughters except Lydia to have a few months in town to attempt to find husbands without the constant screeching of your wife, who is very much more of a hindrance than a help in matrimonial matters.

I have saved enough to retain Uncle Philips services for a few hours, and he will present you with a legal, signed and witnessed document attesting to the above stipulations.

I also feel I may no longer bear the same name as that hateful woman, so I have taken steps, with Uncle’s permission to remove myself from it. Perhaps one day I will marry a worthy tradesman and change it again, but I am disinclined to wait.

I remain, Miss Elizabeth Gardiner