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I didn’t want to die. After I did though, I certainly didn’t expect to wake up again. It took me a few days to come to grips with my new situation and still being feverish most definitely did not help matters.
By now I have however arrived at a few conclusions: Lizzy Bennet, age six and three months, died from a severe fever and I have taken her place. Yes, THE Elizabeth Bennet from the Jane Austen novel “Pride and Prejudice “.
Inheriting little Lizzy’s memories of her life has helped making sense of my situation, but even so I spent quite some time wrestling with denial. But how, may one ask, do I know she died, and I was not her all along with the fever simply shaking loose the memories of my former life?
Well, for one her character and behaviour that I have been able to discern from her recollections are a reasonably close match for what is described in the book. For another the same character and behaviour are not what I remember from myself as a child or as a grown woman. I’ve always been more of a people pleaser than Miss Lizzy, nor do I share her particular aversion to horses or her indifference towards sewing.
To put it plainly, five days ago little Lizzy passed and the recently deceased soul of a young woman from a different plane of existence was, mayhap mistakenly, stuffed into her body instead.
Feeling much better I was soon pronounced quite recovered by the Apothecary. After a great deal of fussing from my newly minted and very worried parents and sisters I was then left alone to contemplate my situation.
If I had to be isekaied at all, I supposed, the regency era in general and this Jane Austen novel in particular were not such a bad outcome. Most definitely preferable to almost all prominent shonen manga or anime, as well as the fantasy or science fiction genre. Stories like Star Wars, Game of Thrones or Naruto were best enjoyed from behind the safety of a screen.
The only true problem I foresaw in early 18th century England was the severely lacking medical care, as Lizzy’s death so direly indicates. The war against Napoleon might have been a problem, but luckily, I am once again a woman, or rather a girl at the moment, und thus not expected to do any fighting.
My thoughts then turned to my new family, first and foremost Mr Bennet who had ever been indulgent towards his second daughter. As I am much more inclined to see other peoples‘ positive traits and much less to make fun of their flaws for the sake of my own amusement the future of my relationship with Lizzy’s father did worry me.
So, I simply hoped that being a precocious child and an intelligent conversationalist would be sufficient cause for a similar fondness.
As I discovered over the next few days being of a somewhat sweeter and more agreeable disposition than Lizzy had been did much to endear me to Mrs Bennet. She was of the opinion, that my apparent near brush with death had installed a new sense of responsibility and maturity in me, as she exclaimed over tea to her sister Mrs. Phillips.
Another important thing to note regarding my new family would be that the Elizabeth of the novel is an inevitably biased narrator and a sheltered and naive twenty-year-old lady to boot.
Her opinions might be better informed than those of many of her peers, but they were still rather flawed and often don’t agree with the viewpoint of the 21st century.
Especially in regard to all three of her teenaged sisters in the novel, whom Elizabeth regards as an embarrassment at best and makes fun of together with her father at worst.
Whilst it was not her responsibility to educate them on their behaviour and she acknowledges both her mother’s and her father’s failure in doing so, judging her sisters for the mistakes of their parents and their own teenaged folly didn’t sit right with me.
Who makes good, well-reasoned decisions at fifteen? Lydia is being condemned for being selfish and not understanding why her actions might be wrong. This statement might just about describe the majority of people under the age of twenty.
Had someone maybe seen fit to educate her on such a situation beforehand then she would have been prevented from those actions at least out of self-interest. She could have been made to understand, that her behaviour would not lead to a romantic marriage and a fashionable establishment, but instead to danger and destitution. For no matter what Mr Bennet keeps saying about his younger daughters, Lydia has never really struck me as unintelligent, merely as uninterested.
I always had the thought, that Lydia and Elizabeth got along so badly because they were similarly stubborn and convinced of the rightness of their own point of view. Each of their particular friends among their sisters are after all also similar, since Jane and Kitty are both prone to bending to other peoples ‘wishes, only with Jane being more mature due to her age.
Poor Mary is left suffering acutely from middle child syndrome, as she like Elizabeth seems to have caught onto the fact that her parents are not necessarily reliable for giving sound advice. So, she seeks out the teachings of great preachers and philosophers instead and tries to model herself after those. She tries so hard, and all on her own and garners other people’s ridicule for it.
However, these are all idle musings. Right now, Mary is still a serious and, in my opinion, adorable four-and-a-half-year-old who has just started to learn her letters. Kitty is yet still following Mary when she doesn’t try to emulate Jane and myself and Lydia has just barely mastered walking.
The future will keep, I still have a lot of time.
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About six weeks later spring has finally arrived at Longbourn and the weather is milder. On account of having been very sick I had been kept inside as long as it was still cold and wet. Now I got to explore the immediate surroundings of the house the same way I had until then acquainted myself with the inside of Longbourn and its inhabitants.
The Longbourn estate was neither impressively large, nor at all cramped. It had a grey and unassuming exterior and was solidly built. The garden on its front and sides was generous but not a park.
The room I had woken up in was mine and Jane’s. Apparently, we had been moved into it about a year and a half ago to make space in the nursery for the then newly born Lydia.
Due to all of the new but old impressions it had taken me a while to notice that I wasn’t mourning my former life and loved ones as cripplingly as I had imagined one would in such a situation.
I think this might have something to do with brain chemistry. After all, I’ve inherited Elizabeths child brain and according to all it knows, it is in its usual surroundings and all its loved ones are present and accounted for. So, while I do miss my old life and the people in it it’s more of a theoretical thing than an acutely felt pain.
My new knowledge and memories were always there, but unless I was actively thinking about something, I wasn’t necessarily aware of them. When Mrs Bennet came back from a visit to her friend Lady Lucas and talked about it at Mr Bennet where I could hear her, I was quite surprised. I suddenly discovered that Charlotte Lucas was not yet Elizabeth’s particular friend and confidant. Upon further thinking this rather makes sense, seeing as Charlotte is almost fourteen whilst I am a seven-year-old child.
Apparently at this point in time Lizzy had much rather played with George, Charlotte’s younger brother who was of an age with her. Many an expedition through the garden and discoveries of bugs and frogs had been had, much to Mrs Bennet’s dismay.
Lizzy’s and now my best friend however was of course Jane. Though she, like our younger sisters had been kept away from my sickroom and been moved back into the nursery for the few weeks Lizzy had been ill and my recovery after, she was probably the person who had been the most worried.
Ever since I had been declared healthy, she had been firmly attached to my side. Mrs Bennet had indeed not exaggerated Janes beauty in the books. She is an absolutely angelic looking child, with golden hair and a cherubic face. She also has a bit of baby fat everywhere, which makes her all the more adorable.
Lizzy on the other hand had quite pointy elbows and rather knobby knees and was (as I was going to discover in the following months) prone to getting tanned. All of these attributes in conjunction to precocious and adventurous behaviour have Mrs Bennet most convinced that I will never be a beauty.
Jane herself is both incredibly sweet and rather shy. Not so much towards her younger sisters but definitely in the face of our mother’s often overwhelming and loudly proclaimed feelings and in the encounters with most of our peers.
When I think about it now, it should have seemed odd in the book, that somebody with Jane’s agreeable nature appeared to have no friends besides her sisters and her sisters’ friends the Lucas girls. But it makes more sense if she was too shy to make friends with people who she didn’t meet as often, and I now have my suspicions as to why she wanted to be friends with Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst so badly even when they didn’t treat her well. But this is only speculation, and I am getting ahead of myself.
Jane also seems to have noticed that something isn’t quite right, but being a young child, she can’t really think of a reason as to why, other than me still not feeling as good. As a result, she is quietly fussing and trying to convince me to eat more at mealtimes.
I like her very much already but thinking about the fact that her dearest younger sister, the object of her worry, is dead, turns my stomach with guilt. Not because it is my fault that Lizzy is dead (because it isn’t, children die of colds and fever often in this period), but because I can’t tell Jane that Lizzy is gone and I am a lying stranger that is in her place.
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Apparently, Lizzy had been about to start her proper horse-riding lessons this spring. I am both exited and feeling rather a lot of trepidation, the former because I’ve always liked the animals and had wanted to try riding them, the latter because I had not, in fact, gotten around to trying to ride them before and they were really very tall and massive, especially in contrast to a six-year-old.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I discover that riding is a lot of fun, but only at slow speeds. I am most certainly not going to be a cowboy in this life. Considering however, that ‘slowly and carefully’ is the most ladylike way to ride, I don’t think that is going to present any problems in the future. Mrs. Bennet certainly seems happy about my caution, though she would prefer if I stopped trying to spend so much time with the horse after my lessons.
Even more happy makes her my seemingly newly found patience at needlework. I have discovered that Mrs Bennet is very competent at all the garment related responsibilities that women in practically every household have in this era. My own experience might not go much beyond darning socks, but I have a great deal of patience (as long as what I am doing is productive) and am good at doing fiddly things. And the stitches that are being used for everything that is meant to last are indeed very small, even, and fiddly.
Also, church. I don’t mind going to church in principle, as I have been a practising Christian in my last life. However, sitting still for over an hour, sometimes two hours as a small child leaves much to be desired. At least we aren’t catholic, so the mass is held in English instead of Latin.
One of the things I miss most about the 21st century is the easy access to an endless variety of music. As a result, I now spend a great deal of time practising the piano. At least as much as my many other activities and the attention span of my six-year-old brain allow me. As far as I remember from the books, Lizzy was a rather talented musician, but still average due to not practising at all constantly, by her own admission. If indeed practise was all that was missing, I am likely to turn into a more than just middling pianist.
Lastly, I’ve finally braved Mr. Bennet’s library and study in the pursuit of some books. After some mostly gentle teasing on his part, I have victoriously departed with Shakespear’s ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ and the instructions to relay my opinions of the characters and their actions to Mr. Bennet afterwards.
It seems likely that a child’s vocabulary with a few facts due to adult perception should hopefully both amuse and intrigue him. I don’t have a lot of time for reading though, I am very busy learning from Mother, attending my other lessons, playing house and dolls with Jane and Hide and Seek with Jane, Mary, and Kitty.
And climbing trees of course. It’s been an age since I’ve properly climbed a good tree, and my short stature, skirts instead of jeans and the need to hide the activity from Mrs. Bennet prove to be somewhat difficult, but I am persistent and having a lot of fun. There is one tree specifically that is somewhat hidden from the house by another tree and some very tall hazelnut bushes that has thick, sturdy branches that are evenly spaced and easy to reach.
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By our next visit at Lucas Lodge, I learn that Lizzy’s little friend George Lucas (so named after the king since he was born after Sir William was knighted) has just turned eight years of age and shall shortly be off to boarding school. St Paul’s to be specific. He is very excited and appears to be suddenly conscious of the fact that I am a girl and thus will not be visiting this sort of school. He is mostly torn between bragging, feeling superior and trying to console me.
I tell him that I would not want to go to boarding school even if I could (which is true, I have heard horrible things about boarding schools in this day and age), which was not received well. George is now sulking and not talking to me. We have still not mended our fences when he departs three weeks later. Frankly I do not care enough about this friendship to try very hard, especially considering that I do not want to go frog hunting and George is liable to enter his girls have cooties phase soon anyways.
So instead during our visits to Lady Lucas I now try to seek out Charlotte, big age difference or not. Charlotte is patient and friendly with me, but it is unlikely that she sees me as a friend. On one of these occasions, I find her in the kitchen, assembling the batter of a sponge cake for the next day.
Contrary to our mother’s insistence that we don’t directly involve ourselves with all the cooking, baking and other meal preparation taking place in the kitchen, Lady Lucas teaches those things to her daughters. Mother wishes for us to be as gently bred and brought up as possible, but Lady Lucas was formerly the daughter of a well to do, but still hardworking craftsman in Meryton.
There she met her neighbour Mr. William Lucas, and even after her husband’s elevation and the move to Lucas Lodge she doesn’t pretend to be above some of her most useful skills.
After some pestering, Charlotte reluctantly agrees to impart some of that knowledge and teach me how to cook and bake some things, all without telling mother about it. Lady Lucas discovers our lessons rather quickly due to her servants, but neither comments upon, nor tells Mother about them. I think she is proud of her abilities and feels vindicated in teaching them to her daughters by my interest.
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Time flies by quickly with all of the new things I am learning and discovering. One of those discoveries include where, exactly, I am located in history. I am cautious about making assumptions, but to the best of my knowledge, Jane Austen’s world resembled the history of my first life, with the exception of her characters’ existence.
There is only one problem: the events of the ‘Pride and Prejudice’ novel take place in the years 1811 and 1812, during which Lydia is fifteen. However, the current year is 1781 and Lydia is OVER ONE YEAR OLD! In late 1811 she would be twenty-two ALREADY!
Something is not lining up, but I have no idea what this could mean about the order of events, or if the events of the story will unfold at all. In any case, there seems to be little use in keeping everything the same way so that I know what will happen. That might mean that I won’t marry Mr. Darcy and thus also won’t be rich, but that is something I’m not sure I will try to do either way. After all, I don’t actually know the man, and Lizzy is very much a biased narrator.
Any other thinking about my future and future knowledge will have to happen at a later point in time, when I am not six years old, and my brain is better developed.