Longbourn by Jo Baker

to take a proper pride in their work, rather than just getting through it, wishing they were elsewhere.
    “I must have something new,” Mrs. Bennet was saying. “Really, I must. And so must all the girls. Surely that is not too much to ask, after all these years? You shall have that hideous old thing. I don’t want it any more.”
    Mrs. Hill laid the gown carefully over her arm; there was a time it would have quickened her heart to think of possessing something of such loveliness. But really, now, what use were yellow silk and flounces, to her? It would need taking up and taking in and all the silliness cut away or she would catch fire while she was cooking. So it was really not so much a gift as another job of work, and that was something that she did not need at all.
    “It is terrible indeed, Hill. You have no notion of what it is, to be a mother, and to know your children suffer, for want of fatherly attention.”
    And now Mrs. B. made a great evacuation of her lungs, and heaved her softened body up from her reclining posture, waving Mrs. Hill’s proffered hand impatiently away. She crossed the little room, stays creaking, to glower out of the window, though her thoughts clearly were not occupied by the view of the pretty park below.
    “And not just for the coming ball; we shall need new gowns formorning calls, and for family dinners, and for supper parties, and for drinking tea in, and all that kind of thing.”
    Then she leaned on the windowsill, and wiped her eyes.
    “But I suppose he will forbid it. He does not understand this kind of thing at all. Indeed, I do not think he cares.”
    Mrs. Hill gazed at her mistress’s broad back. If she did not get down to the kitchen and sort out the bread, they would have bricks that week instead of loaves. She had to send one of the girls to collect eggs, and the other to beat the hall carpet, and whichever girl she asked to do whichever job, they would scowl and bicker over it. And James was away off up in the High Field, repairing fences, and she had a jug of beer set aside on a shelf in the larder, to carry up to him, and if she didn’t take it soon, she wouldn’t have the time to take it up at all before his work was finished there. Before you knew it, dinner would have to be got under way, and Mr. Hill would be wanting his cup of tea, and it was not good to leave him wanting his tea for very long.
    And yet Mrs. B. was sad, and needed her; she came close, and touched her shoulder.
    “I am sorry, madam.”
    Mrs. B. shook her ringlets. “There is always something more pressing, as far as he’s concerned. Some tenant not paying the rent. Or they want seed on the farm, or there are repairs to be done; there’s always something more important than me, and the needs of my poor girls.”
    Mrs. B. turned to face the housekeeper, her look grave and earnest. Mrs. Hill found her hard hands caught up in her mistress’s soft ones.
    “Would you speak to him for me, Hill?”
    “I can, if you wish, madam, but I don’t think that it would have much consequence.”
    “Oh, you know you have influence with him, Hill. If you tell him it is necessary he will understand that it is. If I say something he thinks it is not worth attending to. But he will listen to you. He does not listen to me. Not any more.”
    Mrs. Hill turned her face away. A powder-pot sat on the dresser nearby, the puff lying loose, the mahogany surface floured thick with good lavender-scented powder. There had been no more babies, and there would never be more babies now: this was what lay at the heart of this rats’ nest of unhappiness. She had not provided the necessary heir,and this was a desperate disappointment. And yet, Mrs. Hill thought, having been worn threadbare by all those pregnancies and torn by all those confinements, with all those lost teeth and all that shed blood and a loose belly now to lug around with her like a sack; there must be some relief for Mrs. Bennet, mustn’t there, to know that