Building Pemberley - the preamble

Building Pemberley

Setting the scene.......

“My dear Mr Bennet, if you think I’m going to live through major building work with five small children you’re going to have to think again. It’s all right for you, you’ll be off to work and I’ll have to cope with builders, babies, lots of mess and no space," Mrs Bennet, with her cheeks burning, paused for breath.
“Do you want a wife at the end of it? Because the only way I’m going to live through the building of Pemberley is by moving out!”
And that was that. Mrs Bennet wasn’t going to budge. She had sat cross-legged on the lounge sofa and glared at her husband, daring him to argue back. Mr Bennet, unaccustomed to such an outburst from the mother of his children, was stunned and realised he had said the wrong thing.
Mrs Bennet hadn’t intended to come out with such a torrent of words, but she had been so fed up with living in limbo, and trying to sell the house for 15 months on a non-selling market, the vision of babies eating dust, had caused her emotional kettle to boil. This outburst had taken place in April, a week after plans to change and convert their three bedroom home into a bite-size Pemberley (probably the size of Mr Darcy’s shed), had been approved.
The wife’s stubbornness (or was it sense?) had put plan A into place. The Bennets would move out and rent for six months. Co-incidentally a couple, who lived on the school doorstep, were off exploring the world for half the year, and needed tenants. But at the final hour, as the builders’ quotes came in, the Bennets were debating in the lounge, facing up to the reality that the credit crunch meant building materials and costs were far higher than originally hoped. Although Mrs Bennet was sitting cross-legged in the same spot as her April word shower, she realised with Plan B now in place, her sanity wasn’t going to be saved after all and she silently relented. How she would live through it, she didn’t know, but if she could carry twins against the odds, she decided she could and would survive this next obstacle.
“Look, if it comes to a choice of doing the work or not doing the work, then I’m prepared to stay,” Mrs Bennet whispered reluctantly, her heart sinking as she did so.
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to put up with it,” Mr Bennet replied. “I didn’t want you to have to go through that, but it looks as if we don’t have much choice,” he replied, looking intently at his wad of paperwork.
In her mind’s eye, Mrs Bennet pictured two dust-covered headed one-year-olds toddling precariously gazing longingly at a feast of builder’s tools. She was thinking the worse. Despite this, her fighting spirit kicked in and if she had to cope with five children and a building site, then she would.
“This is not life-threatening. This is life-challenging,” she told herself. It would prove to be an interesting one, but she vowed to make it an adventure.
What she would gain would be her own Pemberley. In the meantime seven of them would be living in a lounge and two bedrooms, minus its conservatory, kitchen, garage, garden and third bedroom.
She made a vow – to get out as much as possible and to live in a café for six months with an escape novel and Mr Latte.