The funeral service was held the following day, the day Elizabeth was supposed to have tea with her other grandmother, but the Prince had sent a note requesting it be rescheduled for the following week after they returned to London, and before the Bennets and the rest of their party were to return home to Netherfield Park for Christmastide.
The Prince felt badly about his uncharitable feelings toward his former mother-in-law, but he consoled himself with the knowledge he had no way of knowing. He did know his Cilla was smiling in heaven to know her mother never wanted to abandon her.
It was a small group of men who attended the service and interment. On Monday morning everyone began the journey back to London—including Lady Sarah.
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It did not take long for word to be disseminated that Lady Sarah was accepted as a full member of society once again and that she had reconciled with her children and granddaughter. Any who had residual doubts were convinced when, two days after returning to London, word was spread abroad that Lady Sarah would have been one of the parties who attended the tea with the Queen at Buckingham House if not for being in deep mourning.
The tea was reported to have been a resounding success. It was soon known far and wide how impressed her Majesty had been with the musical talents of her granddaughter, her adoptive sisters, Lady Cassandra Carrington, Miss Anne de Bourgh, and Miss Georgiana Darcy. She was impressed with both their playing, and their singing, especially when they combined for a song and harmonised perfectly.
Lady Sarah was invited to reclaim her position of one of the patronesses of Almack’s to begin after her year of mourning, but she demurred, claiming she would spend her time getting to know her granddaughter and her extended family.
By the time the convoy of carriages departed London that Thursday, the denizens of Meryton and the surrounding area were on tenterhooks waiting to call on their elevated friends and the Princess who had been hidden in their midst for so many years.
Sir William and Lady Lucas finally accepted that the honour Sir William had received from the King was the lowest on the rung of those available. They decided they should hope to be accepted for who they were rather than for a title they held. None at Lucas Lodge missed Charlotte’s knowing smile as she waited to meet her friend again now the truth was known.
At Netherfield Park, the four Gardiner children could not wait to see their cousin, the Princess, again. Their parents pointed out that the same Lizzy they had known the whole of their lives would be arriving. That did not dim the excitement of the four young Gardiners, who were excited to seePrincessLizzy.
Chapter 29
February 1808
Rather than slip back into his former ways, George Wickham had gone from strength to strength working for Gardiner and Associates. During the year and a half George worked for Gardiner, he had been promoted three times; he was now an assistant manager of the warehouse.
When Mr. Lucas Wickham read the report from his employer, Mr. Darcy, in December of ’06, he had been cautiously optimistic that his son had finally chosen to walk an honourable path. Darcy provided his steward with Gardiner’s direction, and Wickham senior wrote to his son’s employer, thanking him profusely for giving his son a chance after hearing the truth of George’s past.
When the Darcys returned to Pemberley in May of ’07, Mr. Wickham requested and had been granted a holiday. After he arrived at the Gardiners’ house, Gardiner had accompanied Lucas Wickham to the warehouse, where the father watched his son diligently performing his duties for some time—George now supervised five clerks.
To say the reunion of father and son was a happy one would be an understatement. When he had parted from his son in York, Mr. Wickham believed it might be the final time he would see George. The gratitude and gratification he felt at having his son back was hard for the man to articulate.
As George’s wages had increased, rather than spend more, he saved more. Before his first year of employment was completed, he had saved the fifty pounds and change he owed Mr. Darcy. It gave him untold pleasure to burn the vowels Mr. Darcy had sent to him on receipt of the payment. What George did not know is Mr. Darcy turned the money received to pay the debt over to his steward to add to the amount he was saving for his son’s legacy.
Given George’s innate intelligence, Gardiner suggested he start taking classes at a local school. It was not Oxford or Cambridge, but if he graduated in a few years, he would be eligible to read the law, which had become George’s dream.
Once George had been with Mr. Gardiner for a year, and the reports of George’s work ethic and honesty remained as good—or better—as any others’, Robert Darcy presented his steward with bank draft for two thousand five hundred pounds to be added to George’s future legacy.
The irony was that although he was unaware of it, some of the projects he was in charge of for Mr. Gardiner were increasing his own legacy, as his father had invested his savings with Gardiner and Associates.
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Miss Caroline Bingley had learnt to control the supercilious side of her character in order to save herself from going without any allowance. Based on her behaviour over the last year—which had been acceptable—her Uncle Paul agreed to allow Caroline to accompany Charles to Hertfordshire to act as mistress of his leased estate.
Caroline read the royal decree in December of ’06 but did not pay attention to the details, nor to the names of the newly minted Baron and Baroness. Even though she had tamped her desire down for some time—in front of her family that is—Miss Bingley still believed she was destined to rise to the heights of society and was on the lookout for a man who would be able to help her achieve her aims.
After they arrived in the neighbourhood, Charles Bingley’s level of frustration had risen significantly. His sister complained about everyone. The locals were savages, no class, no fashion, and on and on she went. When Bingley tried to explain to his younger sister that not only were all the landed gentry above her in rank, but that there were titled families and even royalty in the neighbourhood, Miss Bingley dismissed his words as nonsense.
She met Sir William when he called on Bingley soon after he took up the lease at Longbourn. Before the man left, Caroline denigrated him, proclaiming to all who could hear her that a knighthood was nothing. She was not present in the drawing room when Bingley’s baron Longbourn, visited. Hearing her brother talk about the man after his visit she assumed it was another bumbling knight with delusions of grandeur, as he used the title of ‘Lord’.
Louisa and Hurst joined Bingley at Longbourn a few weeks after he took up residence, and they agreed with Charles that it was pointless trying to tell their sister the truth as she heard naught that did not fit her preconceived notions. She would have to learn the hard way.
After Twelfth Night, the Darcys resided at Netherfield Park for a month before returning to London, and William made the mistake of calling on his acquaintance from Cambridge—at Longbourn.
Even though the Darcy heir paid her no attention and refused to answer any of her vulgar questions about Pemberley and his family’s wealth, Caroline Bingley decided she had met her future husband. When her brother pointed out that from what he knew, Darcy was unofficially courting a lady—who was a royal and would be out in two months—his sister dismissed the information as meaningless, sure that once the Darcy heir became aware of her advantages, he would turn to her. She did have ten thousand pounds, after all.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Mrs. Charlotte Collins was a happy woman. William Collins asked for a courtship a few months after he became the curate at Longbourn’s church; two months later he requested and had been granted Charlotte’s hand.
