“As I love you, Janey. You know I would do anything in my power to protect you, do you not?”
“That is well known to me, Lizzy. All I can do is beg your pardon that I allowed my desire to see things as I hoped they were, to cause me not to stand up for you before tonight. I am the older sister and it is my duty to protect my younger sisters.” Jane held up her hand and smiled as she saw Lizzy about to interject. “Yes, I know you are a strong girl and can defend yourself, but I cannot stand back and allow Mama to keep treating you as less than the rest of us.”
“If only Papa had agreed to allow me to go live with Uncle Edward and Aunt Maddie in London,” Elizabeth stated wistfully.
Elizabeth had been four, not long after her beloved Grandmama Beth had been called home to God and the Gardiners—Uncle Edward was newly married to Aunt Maddie—had been visiting.
She had been pretending to read a book—Elizabeth had always felt an affinity to them even before she could read—and her mother, not knowing her brother and sister-in-law were observing her, had pulled the book out of Lizzy’s hands. As any child of four would, she began to cry. Her mother had rewarded her with a pinch on her arm for having the temerity to disturb her peace, which only caused the little girl to cry even louder.
The Gardiners had been outraged at what they witnessed. Even more incensing was the fact Bennet had done nothing about it. It was then Gardiner had asked his brother to allow Lizzy to come live with them in London.
Not wanting her disobliging daughter to have the enjoyment of living in London with her brother, Fanny had refused and let Bennet know how strenuous her ongoing complaints would be if he agreed. Bennet had capitulated and refused his permission. They had reached a compromise of sorts. Jane and Lizzy would visit the Gardiners together for a few months a year.
It had taken four years before the first Gardiner child—Lillian called Lilly—was born. Edward, called Eddy, had arrived in February 1801. It was not until the third child May had been born in August 1804, that the Gardiners had begun to shorten the amount of time their two nieces came to visit them.
Both Jane and Elizabeth were well aware their comportment, manners, and most of their accomplishments hadbeen learned from the examples they had seen and been taught when visiting Gracechurch Street in Town.
“As much as I understand your life would have been better living with the Gardiners, I would have missed you every day,” Jane admitted. “At least we were the lucky ones who spent much time with them.”
“I suppose what you say is true. I cannot imagine my life without you in it every day. At least Mary has been open to the lessons we have passed on. I am afraid Lyddie will grow up to be wild and ungovernable with the way Mama spoils her. Where Lydia leads, Kitty follows.”
“As much as I am loathe to criticise our sisters, I have to agree with you,” Jane owned. “I have known for a time Mama does Lyddie no favours by indulging her, but as you know, she will hear no one speak against the way she parents Lyddie, not even from Papa.”
On the tip of Elizabeth’s tongue was the retort their father would do nothing which required effort, but she did not want to push Jane too much. This was the first—and Elizabeth hoped not the last—time Jane would stand up for what was right. Not necessarily just for her advantage, but in general.
The sisters—as they did each night—assisted one another to prepare for bed. They climbed under the covers and Jane extinguished the final candle.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Robert Darcy was working on his ledgers and the projections for the coming harvest based on the spring planting which had been completed not many weeks past. His steward was sitting with him as the two men poured over the columns of numbers.
“Enough Wickham, it is time for us to end the work day,” Darcy decided as he closed the ledgers. “Will you join me in a glass of port?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Darcy, that would be welcome,” the steward averred.
The study at Pemberley was of a larger proportion than the average one. It was almost as wide as it was long. At the end opposite the door was the master’s oversized, highly polished mahogany desk. Darcy’s well-padded high-backed chair, the one the man had just vacated, was behind the desk. In front of the desk were two comfortable armchairs. One of which Wickham had just been sitting in.
Behind that was a bank of bookshelves which started on the sidewall next to the side of the desk, ran along the back wall, and ended on the other side just before one of the two floor to ceiling windows.
Very few, not even the steward, knew one of the units of shelves behind where the master sat, opened to reveal the thick steel door to a secure vault. It was not only the bulk of the Darcy jewels stored within—inside rows of velvet lined drawers stacked six high—but a few thousand pounds in cash and important documents.
Certified copies of all documents were also held in London in the offices of the solicitor who served the Darcy family’s interests.
There was a second floor to ceiling window—the view from the windows was across Lady Anne’s pride and joy, her rose garden, to the park beyond, and the lake which began where the grass ended. Between the windows was a comfortable settee with low tables on either side of it.
Opposite were three wingback chairs arranged in an oval facing the settee. On the wall behind them, close to the end of the bookcase on that side of the room, was a sideboard on which sat various decanters and glasses on the silver tray.
While the steward sat in one of the wingback chairs, Darcy stepped to the sideboard, unstopped the decanter containing the port, and poured a measure for himself and the member of his senior staff.
“Thank you, Sir,” Wickham said appreciatively when Darcy handed him one of the glasses with the dark red wine within.
“To another productive year,” Darcy toasted. The two men saluted one another with their glasses and then each took a pull of his port. “Any word regarding George?”
The steward’s wayward son had been employed as a clerk in Clovelly in Devonshire, a town not far from where his sister and her husband resided. Less than two and one half years past, Wickham was notified his son had absconded with all of his employer’s funds which had been meant to pay the next three months’ wages for the employees.
Since then, neither hide nor hair of his son’s location had been discovered. Wickham hoped more than believed his son—who had a rather resentful nature and easily decided he had been ill-used when no ill-usage existed—had left England’s shores with his ill-gotten gains.
Refusing to allow his steward to repay him, Darcy had sent the employer the full amount George had stolen from him. That receipt and some other debt markers were among the documents kept in the vault. Not only had he made the employer whole, but it had caused the search for George to cease as rather than a theft, it was now a matter of a debt owed to Robert Darcy.
