“Precious little—I’d told her she must call someone to care for the child. I am glad to see that she did.”
“What is her complaint?”
“Inflammation of the ribs and lungs. She said she traveled for a great distance without having the broken ribs bound. Foolish. One must lie in bed after such an injury—but I suppose that was impossible for her.”
Amelia stirred awake. She smiled to see her daughter sleeping on Mr. Bennet’s shoulder. “She already trusts you.”
“She was very tired,” Mr. Bennet replied.
“Do not poke me again,” Amelia said to the doctor. “It will do no good. I’ll take the laudanum now. I no longer have any need to think.”
The town notary arrived, and Amelia made a statement swearing to her own identity and that of Elizabeth.
Once this was done, the doctor bled her, though in a manner that showed he expected this to do no good. Then Amelia drank a heavy dose of the laudanum, and within minutes fell into a fitful sleep.
Mr. Bennet had the physician also make and sign a statement describing all of Amelia’s injuries, and her state.
Amelia’s ribs expanded widely with each breath, as she struggled to take in enough air. Mr. Bennet was glad that the child was asleep. He half expected, and rather hoped, that Amelia would not wake again.
He sat in the armchair by the bed listening. He kept bouncing the child up and down.
When Amelia returned to consciousness, she was no longer lucid. She muttered again and again, “I hate him. I hate him. I do not repent. I’ll never repent! He deserved it.”
“Amelia, Amelia,” Mr. Bennet said helplessly. He took her hand. The only time he’d ever felt a hand so fevered was as his mother died. “You go to the Almighty, be at peace in your soul.”
She looked at him with a suddenly clear eye.
That startling and intent look, as though she saw through all the wordy haze which he projected in front of himself, and down to the essence of his character. It was that look which had made him fall in love with her when he was a young student, and she the beautyof the county.
“Are you not still an atheist, Mr. Bennet?”
“Perhaps. Maybe there is a creator who takes no interest in our doings, but I still have no belief in the creeds.”
“I ask you to still raise her to respect the church. I still believe. I believe in goodness, I believe that we all will be transformed, that Christ and his angels are bending down to touch me. They do not despise me—oh, I feel so strange. All is floating, and my thoughts are hard to corral.”
“I too believe in goodness,” Mr. Bennet said urgently. “I believe that there is justice, and love, and light—but only that we must create it. It comes from the actions of those men who act upon their better natures, and not those who seek to dominate, to be cruel, or even just to protect and care for themselves and their families at the cost of all that is good in their souls.”
“I see a glow, a light! I cannot hate him. Not even him anymore. All becomes clear.”
Mr. Bennet felt a catch in his throat. His motions, or perhaps the conversation, had woken Elizabeth. She wailed and crawled out of his arms and onto Amelia’s bed. She clutched at her mother.
Amelia lapsed into silence again and closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she pushed herself up in the bed with a sudden force, and she began to shout and speak loudly and incoherently, screaming and wailing as her daughter shouted, “Mama, mama!”
Then after five such minutes, she fell onto the bed, and convulsed.
When she stilled there was no breath.
Amelia Hartwood,née Lamont, Lady Rochester, had died.
Chapter One
Elizabeth Bennet was stuffed tightly into the corner of the carriage. She carefully did not move, so that Mrs. Bennet would not have any cause to complain about her crumpling the dresses of the daughters of the house.
When Kitty complained that Lydia sat on the edge of her dress, Mrs. Bennet directed Kitty to sit directly on Elizabeth’s leg, saying, “It cannot signify ifherdress is more rumpled than it already is.”
Miss Elizabeth Bennet had reached the age of twenty—only a fortnight past!—with having very little to vex her... except for her “benefactress” Mrs. Bennet and her four daughters, particularly the two youngest.
