“Mary is your next older sister, correct?” asked Mrs. Parker.
Kitty nodded. “Yes, there are five of us, Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, me, and Lydia.”
Mrs. Parker said, “You seem to not like messes very much.”
Kitty scrunched up her face. “I don’t like being dirty, and I don’t like it when something that should be pretty is messed up by dirt or stains.”
For some reason this made Mrs. Parker smile again. “I imagine that means you don’t play outside very often.”
Shaking her head vigorously, Kitty said, “Not really. I walk in the garden, and I don’t mind playing on the swing, but I don’t run around and climb trees like Lizzy and Lydia. For some reason, they don’t mind getting dirty even when Mama and Nurse Hastings scold them.”
“I find that often-times, the most beautiful things are created only after you’ve made a mess first,” said Mrs. Parker.
“What do you mean?” asked Kitty. It didn’t make any sense to her that messes and beauty were in any way related.
“I am certain you’ve seen your mother sew a dress before, or perhaps you’ve seen one of your sisters trim a bonnet. Maybe you’ve even trimmed one yourself.”
Excitedly, Kitty said, “Oh, yes. Lizzy showed me how to trim a bonnet for the first time just a few weeks ago. It was so much fun.”
“I imagine that while you were making the bonnet, you were probably surrounded by piles of trimmings, feathers, ribbons, thread, all sorts of things,” said Mrs. Parker.
Kitty’s mind went back to that glorious day she had spent picking out and sewing the various trims for a little straw bonnet. “I see what you mean,” she said, remembering the disorganized pile of ribbons and feathers that was on the table while she dithered over which to use. “I guess I didn’t notice how messy it was, because I was so focused on making the bonnet as pretty as possible.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Parker, “that is exactly my point. To make something quite lovely, sometimes there is a mess while you make it, but it is easy enough to clean up afterwards, and you are left with the beautiful thing that you made with your own hands.”
Kitty felt her eyes widen with understanding. “How did you learn that?” she asked.
Mrs. Parker laughed and said, “Believe it or not, I was once a girl like you, living in a big house with a nurse to take care of me and servants to clean up after me.”
“Then why do you live in such a small house now?” Kitty asked. She had always assumed that the people who lived in the cottages did so because they didn’t know how to live any differently.
“That is a very complicated question to answer,” said Mrs. Parker, “and there is not time to explain it all today, but if you will visit me occasionally, I will tell the whole tale in time.”
“Will you have biscuits and milk?” asked Kitty.
Mrs. Parker smiled. “Always,” she said.
~~~~~
It took a while for Kitty to get permission to visit Mrs. Parker again, but she returned to the old lady’s home a week later and the week after that. Eventually, it simply became a well-known habit for Kitty to visit Mrs. Parker at least once a week, often more.
Kitty gradually learned that Mrs. Parker had been the daughter of a gentleman in another county. She and her older sister had the same kind of life that Kitty and her sisters had, and just like the Bennets, Mrs. Parker had been expected to marry well.
Mrs. Parker, however, had other ideas. With a rather romantic turn of mind, she fell in love with the blacksmith’s son. With his strong arms, handsome face, and beautiful smiles, he was simply irresistible. The lady’s father, however, would not permit the marriage, so she took what money she could lay her hands on and eloped with her beloved to Gretna Green.
When Kitty heard this part, she did not understand what it meant at first, but once she did understand it, she thought it was the most romantic thing in the world. Mrs. Parker, however, quickly disabused Kitty of that notion.
Since she had eloped, there was no marriage contract and no settlements. All her money, her entire five-thousand-pound dowry belonged to Mr. Parker, and he was not required to do anything for her other than keep her alive. Additionally, her father, mother, and sister all cut her off from them. She wrote to them a few times once she was settled, but they never wrote back.
At first, the happy couple lived simply though fairly comfortably. Mrs. Parker learned to cook and keep the house clean, because they could only afford one servant girl. After a fairly short time, however, Mr. Parker became discontented,saying that he wasn’t any better off than he would have been inheriting his father’s business.
He began spending more time in pubs, and there were some nights when he didn’t come home at all. She didn’t know it at the time, but he began spending far more than he should. When Mr. Parker died, less than three years after their romantic wedding, Mrs. Parker’s fortune had been decreased from five thousand pounds to merely two thousand.
Mrs. Parker left the town where she was living and purchased a cottage in the country elsewhere. No longer able to afford a servant, she learned to do everything for herself, including laundry and gardening. Though she had always wanted to be a mother, she mostly thanked her lucky stars that she had never fallen pregnant, for caring for a child under such circumstances would have been nearly impossible.
She made friends with people she never would have imagined even speaking to when she was younger, and she was happy, though perpetually tired from the backbreaking work of merely surviving.
Even living as frugally as she had, her savings gradually diminished, for there were unexpected expenses, such as a few hard winters and a few doctor bills, and she could not always survive on only the interest of her dowry.
Eventually, she decided to sell her little cottage and move to an even smaller place that she could lease, which is how she ended up in the tiny cottage in Longbourn, where she had been for at least ten years. Secretly, she told Kitty that, though everyone considered her very poor, she still had more than a thousand pounds of her fortune left.
Kitty learned Mrs. Parker’s history gradually over several visits, but she did not understand the nuances of it formany years afterward. Fortunately, since Kitty and Mrs. Parker had become such good friends, the young girl was constantly exposed to the older lady’s wisdom, which had been learned from very difficult experiences.
When Kitty was eleven, her oldest sister, Jane, was allowed to begin attending the local social events. Kitty frequently heard Mama’s advice to Jane on how to catch a husband, and she thought most of it was good advice, but she couldn’t help reminding herself of Mrs. Parker’s story and always added in her own mind that it was important to catch agoodhusband.
