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Chapter 3

Chapter 3

T

he Gardiner’s wagon pulled up in front of Mrs. Bennet’s childhood home. Hopping off the back, Elizabeth stepped around to see her new residence. She stopped dead in her tracks, looking back and forth between the white clapboard house in front of her and the row of Bennet women—all of them speechless and standing in a line, staring at the house. In another lifetime, it would have been comical. Elizabeth heard her mother sniff.

Aunt Madeline put an arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulder. “It shouldn’t take more than a few days to clean it up real nice, Fanny.” She turned around and looked helplessly at her husband. “You can stay with us until then. We have one guest room, and the girls can make pallets on the floor in the parlor.”

Mrs. Bennet seemed to come back to herself then. She pursed her lips and let out a “hmm” that was neither high-pitched nor loud. “Well, girls, let’s get your things up to Ed’s. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep. First thing tomorrow, we start.”

The next morning,

Elizabeth picked her way across the floorboards of the Bennets’ new parlor. Several of them had loose nails; some had come off the floor joists altogether. The plaster on the walls was cracked, and the paint was peeling.

Jane called from the other room. “Lizzy, come look.”

Elizabeth followed the wide floorboards into the kitchen. Metal cabinets lined the far wall. A long wooden table with one chair at the end and two long benches sat to her right.

“Over here,” Jane said. “It’s a hand water pump.”

In the place where the kitchen faucet should be, a large water pump was installed. Jane pushed the pump up and down a few times, and a stream of water flowed into the basin.

“At least we don’t have to fetch water,” Elizabeth said, trying to sound reasonable.

“Yes, thank goodness for small mercies.”

In the far back corner, a door opened into a mud room that spanned the length of the house. A bench ran the length of one wall, and the opposite wall contained a row of a dozen or so wooden pegs.

Elizabeth wandered back to the parlor and circled the pot belly stove, ducking under the large pipe that disappeared into the ceiling to carry smoke out of the house. She went through the door at one end and found herself in the master bedroom, if it could be called such a thing. It was half the size of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet’s old room, and there was no closet. There was one window in the corner.

Back in the parlor, she spied another door. It led upstairs, where there were two bedrooms with sloped ceilings. One was slightly larger than the other, and each had a window.

And good thing, too. It’s sweltering up here.

She started downstairs, only to be almost flattened in the stairwell by Lydia and Kitty on a mission to scout out the bigger bedroom. In the kitchen, her mother and Jane stood in front of an open icebox.

“Mama?” Elizabeth asked. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Oh, Lizzy, dear, there’s no bathroom in this house.”

Elizabeth stared at her mother. “No bathroom?”

“No.”

“Then how—”

“The outhouse, of course.” Mrs. Bennet rolled her eyes and pointed out the back door.

“And where do we bathe? In the pond?”

“Don’t be silly! We heat water on the stove and bathe in the mud room or here in the kitchen if it’s too cold out there.”

“What? In front of everyone?”

“There are hooks. We’ll hang a curtain.”

Mrs. Bennet looked from one shocked daughter to the other. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” She turned and stuck her head outside, calling toward the truck. “Thomas, there are two beds already here, an old sofa and a chair, an icebox, and a kitchen table. You need to make sure the kitchen stove and the heating stove both work. Madeline says she has another bed and a cot that we can use for the rest of the girls.”

A resigned, “Yes, dear,” emanated from the front yard.

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other in shock. There was neither a whine nor a wail in their mother’s tone. They had never heard her sound so rational before.

Mrs. Bennet poked her head back in the kitchen doorway. “Don’t just stand there, Lizzy! Go change your clothes and get a piece of paper and a pencil so I can make a list of things to do and things we’ll need. Jane, grab that bucket in the mud room, draw some water from the sink, and start wiping down the kitchen appliances with the cleaning rags Aunt Maddie brought. Mary’s going to see what tools are in the shed. I’m going to send Kitty and Lydia up to your uncle’s to bring us some more cleaning supplies.”

Then she was gone. Elizabeth shrugged at Jane and went to retrieve her paper and pencil. It seemed as if more things than just their location and the temperature had changed.

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