Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back.
"This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own.
– Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 7. Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with marrying off her daughters and has little regard for their happiness or welfare. Here she schemes for Jane to travel by horseback rather than carriage to Charles Bingley’s Netherfield home, so that she will have to stay overnight. Mrs. Bennet knows that rain is expected, and when Jane is caught our in it she falls quite ill. Parents are meant to look out for the welfare of their children, but Mrs. Bennet’s harmful parenting leaves a lot to be desired.