For the second time that day Catherine de Bourgh was robbed of the faculty of speech. “A-Anne, is that truly you?” the gobsmacked women managed.
“Yes,Mrs. de Bourgh. It is amazing how quickly my health improved as soon as Aunt Elaine and Uncle Reggie started treating me as I should be treated—a normal andhealthyyoung lady. Did you think that if you kept me sickly with the poison your quack was giving me that somehow Uncle Reggie would have allowed you access to my inheritance?” Anne asked pointedly. Jane and Elizabeth stood either side of their friend for support, each taking one of Anne’s hands.
“Y-you were too sick to learn to play!” the stupefied woman exclaimed.
“No, other than when I had amildcase of scarlet fever, I wasneversick. It was the tinctures your so-called doctor prescribed for me which made me seem sick. Either you were complicit, or you are clueless. I am not sure which is worse,” Anne excoriated her mother. “And yes, imagine that, as soon as I started receiving lessons, I learnt all sorts of things—things you claimed to know about, but about which you had boundlessly mistaken and noknowledge—and I have never looked back.
“I have good friends who like me for who I am, like Jane and Lizzy here. Your schemes for me failed, and I will never repine the day Uncle Reggie removed me from your influence,” Anne drove the dagger home.
With a nod from Anne, the three girls exited the music room without a look back for the wilting woman still rooted to the same spot. When the footmen escorted Lady Catherine back to the parlour where her brother and sister-in-law were waiting for her, she uttered not a word of protest.
While his sister was in the music room, Lord Matlock dispatched an express to Rosings Park via one of the Darcy couriers with instructions to have all of the former mistress’s belongings packed up and all jewellery to be locked in the safe. It was her property, but a clause in his late brother’s will granted the Earl complete authority over his sister Catherine. She would be on a very strict budget, and her brother did not intend to let her sell the jewellery to escape her punishment.
The Earl and Countess told the soon-to-be Mrs. de Bourgh to sit as they explained what her future was to hold. Both had expected vociferous argument from her, but she sat and listened without response. Anne’s speech had affected her deeply and taken all of the fight out of her. When she was told she would not be allowed onto Rosings Park’s lands or in the town house in London, all she did was nod slightly.
The de Bourgh carriage she used to travel to Pemberley would convey her to her new home in Hunsford, and it would be the last time she would be allowed to use it. Until her brother decided otherwise, she would have no access to her daughter’s vehicles.
Rather than allowing her to remain at Pemberley, she began the return journey that afternoon. She would sleep at the Big Bull Inn for the night and be on her way at first light. None of the residents of Pemberley asked after her, most particularly not Anne de Bourgh.
Chapter 15
By sixteen, Charles Bingley had completed his third year of Harrow. He would turn seventeen before beginning at Cambridge near the end of August. Charles had enjoyed his education, but not the bullying he had received because his father was actively in trade.
Bingley hid the truth of his experience from his father, who had been pleased he was able to provide his son with the gentleman’s education he himself had not had the option to attain. Whenever his father expressed pleasure at his son’s academic achievements, Charles presented a picture of affability to the outside world while inside he hid his misery occasioned by the cruelty of others.
Not all of his experiences were bad. He had made a true friend in Stuart Jamison. Stuart’s parents, Will and Yvette, owned a small estate in Bedfordshire called Ashford Dale. Stuart had only one sibling, Karen, who was thirteen.
Charles was grateful his friend would attend Cambridge with him rather than Oxford, and they planned to share a space in the first year’s accommodations. Jamison was not picked on at Harrow like Charles Bingley had been, but he was not accepted by the haughty members of theTondue to his lack of wealth, connections, and the size of the family’s estate.
When Charles Bingley became friendly with Jamison, he thought his social climbing mother and younger sister would have been happy, for the Jamisons had been on their land for some generations, but they had reacted just the opposite. They saw Mr. Jamison as an insignificant country squire with a small estate and no useful connections. Luckily, his father and Louisa, then eighteen, encouraged the friendship because they knew it was true and wanted the best for him.
It was deeply frustrating to Martha Bingley and her youngest, Caroline, then fourteen, that they were the only two in the family who cared about raising the Bingleys from their roots in trade.
Louisa had completed her two years at the local school and did not have a second’s regret for her choice rather than bend to her mother’s will and attend the seminary in London.
One day, while Louisa had been working with her father and uncle in their office at the carriage works, a Mr. Hurst and his son Harold had an appointment to look at options for a new carriage. The family had a medium to small estate, Winsdale, a little southeast of Scarborough near the market town of Scampston.
There seemed to be an immediate connection between Miss Bingley and young Mr. Hurst. He was five and twenty and, from what Louisa could tell from her brief encounter, he seemed to be a good man. In the coming weeks, the younger Mr. Hurst contrived many reasons to visit the carriage works. A month after meeting her, he asked if he could call on her. Not many weeks later they were in a formal courtship.
One evening, Martha Bingley complained to her husband about the Hursts only being members of the lower second circles, not high enough to help them in society. Arthur let his wife know in no uncertain terms that she would not interfere in their daughter’s courtship unless she wished to risk of permanent loss of her allowance. With bad grace, Martha Bingley kept her opinions to herself, and was almost pleasant to the Hursts when the families met and dined together after Louisa accepted a proposal from her suitor.
The wedding was set for August of 1803.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The day after Anne died, Robert Darcy presented his late wife’s best friends and sisters with their letters. There were three letters he held in reserve. His wife had written one to each of her children to be presented to them on the day they wed. She had written two to be held in case her children had not married before they turned thirty. The other was for her sister Catherine if, as expected, she arrived at Pemberley spouting some of her well-worn lies.
The three ladies who received letters from Anne Darcy decided they would only open them after the funeral. The day after the former Lady Catherine had been removed from Pemberley was the day Fanny Bennet opened her letter. Her friends Elaine and Edith opened theirs at the same time.
June 20, 1803
To my dear friend and sister, Fanny,
What am I able to say to one to whom I have become so close over the last eight years? I love you as a sister, just as our Priscilla did. I will, however, not ask you to keep any life-defining secrets for me, my friend.
All I ask is that you, Thomas, and your children be there for Robert, William, and Gigi. You know my wishes for Gigi to spend some time with you and your family after her three months of mourning is completed.
If she is dead set against it and does not want to leave Pemberley, that is her prerogative. I want my darling daughter to be able to choose and have her choices respected, but I am confident she will want to be with Kitty and Lydia, not to mention the rest of your wonderful children. When you and Robert give her the option, you will know if I am correct or not.
