Tales of Disturbance

Mr Bennet at the Reaping

Oh, the inconvenience of the hour! Mr Bennet sank heavily into his Library armchair. It had been carted into Meryton behind Nelly and placed on the side of the road on the edge of a grass ditch. Reading in top hat and great coat, at the side of the road was so far the greatest inconvenience The Hunger Games had brought Mr Bennet. He tried to ignore his chair legs sinking into the grass. 

The Reaping was rumored to be taking place within the hour. Mr Bennet flicked to his favourite page of Henry Fielding. He was doing his best to ignore his family (whom he suspected were clucking around in the ribbon shop). He pulled up his collar of his green coat, feeling the punishing March wind and with longing, thought of his warm library in Longbourne, its roaring fire. It was the only room in the world that could provide him with the level of solace he required to get away from six women.

Yes. His longing to hear two words of sense spoken together was at times, violent, and for a moment he gave way to a brief fantasy that the name of Mr Bennet would be reaped from the round glass bowl on the small square of parchment clutched between the long, aristocratic fingers of Caroline Bingley. This event would, after all, allow him to escape the perpetual, wild screeches of Lydia. Despite being married to the worthless Mr Wickham, Lydia's presence at the supper table at Longbourn House was fairly frequent. Rumor had it that they had run out of money for food.

Of course, Mr Bennet would never actively desire to go into the Hunger Games. He knew it was a fight to the death and he had read enough ancient literature to know that war was no light hearted affair. Additionally the only fight Mr Bennet had ever had to engage with was a battle of wits with his witless wife.

There was of course - though he hated to remember it - that time when circumstances dictated that he must go to London to rescue his silly daughter Lydia from the charms of the worthless Wickham. There was certainly terror then. Dodgy lodgings. Dogs running amok on dirty streets. There was the shock of a fat rat that had run over Mr Bennet's right foot. But though he'd rather be anywhere else, Mr Bennet had to be seen to be doing something to stop her from ruining herself. Not to mention the reducing of Jane and Elizabeth's marriage prospects, small as they were already with the estate being entailed on the male line. Mr Bennet had not enjoyed his stay in London. It had also been all for nothing: Lydia had ruined herself anyway, being as Lady Catherine might put it, an obstinate headstrong girl. He shuddered.

To speak the truth, the early nineteenth century Hunger Games hadn't really taken off at all. Last year's tributes from Meryton, had been an under-gardener and a second maid. Nobody could remember which maid from which house. Nobody could remember if either of them lived still. Or had died of other means perhaps or just disappeared? The death of another manservant was hardly headline news and this news had certainly not reached the principal inhabitants of Meryton - the Bennets, the Lucases, and their acquaintance of three or four and twenty families.

It had been many months since the shock had been first received by Mr Bennet at the breakfast table. Looking up from his newspaper, his eyes were two small troubled wells. He looked at Kitty and Lydia, silly, and blissfully ignorant, preoccupied with the news that the Bingleys were holding a Christmas Ball. Red ribbon was in season. He looked at Mary with her shut face and thoughtful tea-drinking as if every sip had significance.

The ever observant Lizzie had noticed Mr Bennet's countenance:

'Something the matter, Papa?'

'No my dear'

Lizzie had a little more quickness than her sisters, but still Mr Bennet decided not to entrust the dreadful information to her that he had just read in the Daily Bugle. Not just yet. Instead his eyes found the middle distance, and locked eyes with a horse in an equestrian portrait; a horse that just seemed to be standing waiting for its terrible life to continue. The gentry in the Hunger Games? He had no money to bribe the appropriate people. This problem was a real problem and Mr Bennet did not need another problem to add to his horrible great dustbin heap of problems that he had to work hard to pretend were not happening through his continual occupation in his well stocked library.

But by George. He could not think how, by the order of King George, the names of the gentry were to be included in the Reaping!

Lydia, his youngest child, who had disgraced the family name of Bennet was asking him for something, her voice the squawk of a faraway seagull.

Jane the eldest and most beautiful, hurriedly shuushed her. 

Papa was reading the paper. Not to be disturbed.