“What about the young men you assisted at Cambridge?” Darcy remembered his son telling him something close to the beginning of the current academic year at Cambridge. “Did you become friends?”
“You mean Bingley and Jamison,” William reminded his father. “Some lordlings were attacking them for no other reason but that the former’s father was in trade while the latter’s father is considered an insignificant country squire with a small estate. We are acquaintances, nothing more, and this at Bingley’s insistence,” William shared.
“Why would this Bingley eschew a connection to you?” Darcy asked his son in confusion.
“As he tells it, his mother and younger sister are incorrigible social climbers, and he did not want to subject me—us—to their machinations,” William shared. “Based on his description of the two, I think he did us a great service.”
A few hours later, father and son had departed south to visit the Bennets and Gigi.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Louisa and Harold Hurst had been happy since their wedding in August of 1803. The only darkness in their otherwise felicitous life was when Mrs. Martha Bingley and Caroline, now seventeen, were in company with them.
The Hursts had a smallish town home on Curzon street in London, to which, when they were in residence, they felt obligated to invite Caroline. Caroline was attending Mrs. Hawthorn-Jones’s Seminary for Young Ladies and when they were at the house, residing with the Hursts on weekends and holidays.
It had not taken Caroline long to feel the disdain of both titled and untitled daughters of theTon, who considered her to be what she in fact was, the pretentious daughter of a tradesman. Rather than realise the way she was treated was wrong, Miss Bingley believed if she was to climb to the levels of society she craved, she would need to emulate the behaviour of the girls who belittled, bullied, and denigrated her.
She could not blame them for disdaining her father’s roots in trade, as she felt the same. She had initially believed her dowry of ten thousand pounds would buy access to the upper echelons of girls at the school, only to discover that ten thousand was insignificant compared to the twenty thousand, or more, most others had.
She enlisted her mother to join her in working on her father to increase her dowry to twenty thousand, or higher if it were possible. No matter how much they cajoled, tried to manipulate, or simply begged, Mr. Bingley senior remained unmoved.
As her dissatisfaction built, Caroline Bingley was considered more and more of a chore to be around by all in her family other than her mother, who continued to indulge her spoilt shrewish daughter’s whims.
Unbeknownst to his family, Arthur Bingley was saving for an estate to raise his family to the minor gentry. His desire to own an estate had nothing to do with the pretentions of his wife or youngest daughter; he was merely looking forward to retirement and had decided he would one day like to relax and enjoy the fruits of his labours.
All his plans changed in early September of 1806, when, in a twist of cruel irony for a carriage maker, a wheel broke as the conveyance he and his wife were travelling in was negotiating a sharp bend at speed. The vehicle turned over, breaking free of the horses, and then slid down a steep embankment and smashed to pieces on the rocks below. The coachman, a footman, and Mr. and Mrs. Bingley were killed instantly.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Fanny was expecting her two best friends to return from London after Jane’s curtsy before the queen. In the end, to cater to Bennet’saversionto Town, Jane had gone with Ladies Edith and Elaine, with the former sponsoring her presentation as her godmother.
It was no secret among the families that Andrew Fitzwilliam, Viscount Hilldale, was in love with Jane and she returned his love in full measure. Both understood he could not declare himself until after she came out, but now Andrew was able to ask for, and be granted, the second, supper, and final sets with her at the ball to be held at Holder Heights.
While the two had always been friendly, in the last six months things had changed and both had developed tender feelings, one for the other. At six and twenty, Andrew felt he was ready to take the next step in his life, and he could imagine no one other than Jane Bennet making life’s journey at his side.
Fanny would never forget the conversation she and her husband had with Jane when she insisted she wanted all of the family with her when she was presented. With Lizzy being sixteen, Mary fourteen, Kitty thirteen, Lydia twelve, soon to be thirteen, and Tommy almost ten, Jane could not understand why her father could not bring all of her sisters to London to witness her curtsy. She also asked why her, Anne, and Cassie’s ball would be held at Holder Heights rather than in London.
“Jane, sit,” Fanny had instructed after Jane joined her parents. “We must have your promise you will not repeat a word of what we are about to tell you to anyone, not until after Lizzy’s eighteenth birthday or we feel she is ready to know what we are about to disclose to you,” Bennet insisted.
Jane had looked at her parents questioningly. “What has this to do with Lizzy?”
“Will you promise us, Jane, to solemnly swear you will not repeat a word of what we are about to tell you to another soul until it becomes more widely known?” Fanny asked.
“I give you my vow; I will not repeat anything,” Jane agreed.
“How much do you remember of Aunt Priscilla, Janie?” Fanny asked.
“Nothing beyond what you, Uncle Freddy, and others have told me, Mama” Jane admitted.
“Here is a painting of Aunt Priscilla. You will soon understand why I do not allow it to be hung with the other portraits in the gallery.” Fanny handed the small portrait of Priscilla, which was painted soon after her marriage to Frederick, to Jane. There was no missing the gasp from Jane as soon as she saw the likeness.
“Mama, Papa, I am confused. Are you saying this painting of Lizzy is Aunt Priscilla?” Jane asked non-plussed.
“Jane, dearest, although Lizzy is our daughter and your sister in every way that counts, she is not related to us by blood,” Bennet explained.
“But Aunt Priscilla’s son… was it my brother who is buried with her?” Both her parents nodded. “So Lizzy was brought up as one of us, but she is a Royal Princess. Is Uncle Freddy her father?” Jane asked carefully as the reality of what her parents were telling her sunk in.
Fanny and Bennet explained all to Jane. “Do you understand why the Prince left her with us and did not consign her to be raised the same way he had to endure?” Fanny asked.
