Suddenly a realisation hit Bennet. “You know from where Lizzy came!”
The three opposite nodded. Now it was Fanny’s turn to faint. Thankfully, Bennet supported her, and with the aid of Mr Fitzwilliam, they got her to the chairs.
Elizabeth began to stir. When her eyes opened and her vision cleared, she saw the men who had been staring at her. Papa was there, and Mama was next to her on a chair, seemingly senseless to the world. Suddenly she remembered what had caused her to lose consciousness, something she had never experienced before.
“Why did you call me Ellie?” Elizabeth asked.
At that moment, Bennet knew. The notes he had in the safe mentioned Ellie many times. She used to call out, “Ellie will not be bad again,” many times at night after she first came to them. “Lady Catherine, gentlemen, as soon as my wife recovers, we should make for Longbourn; it is only a mile from here. I think we have much to discuss.”
After looking at her nephews, who nodded, Lady Catherine turned to Mr Bennet. “We will accompany you,” she confirmed.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“We need to leave this backwater as soon as may be!” Miss Bingley screeched the instant the coach departed.
“But Caroline, if I abandon the estate, then the money I paid will be forfeit,” Bingley reasoned. “I am supposed to be learning to manage an estate. How can I do that if we are not at an estate?”
“I care not. We need to go back to London. There Messrs Fitzwilliam and Darcy were not distracted by a chit who is a foundling, and where that awful Lady Catherine did not berate and insult me at every turn. I want to go back to Town, and there is nothing which will keep me here!” Miss Bingley insisted. “One of the men was about to offer for me before you forced us into this benighted place.”
“If you think one of them would ever offer for you, youare more delusional than I thought,” Hurst stated. “Go ahead, Bingley, tell this harpy what they have both told you about never offering for her.”
She was about to aim her vitriol at her lush of a brother-in-law when Miss Bingley decided to turn on her brother first. “Is what Hurst said true?” she demanded.
Bingley could not look at his younger sister, so he simply nodded his head.
Rather than unleashing a tantrum, Miss Bingley considered her options. She had boasted to all of her friends about returning to London engaged, so engaged she would be. She knew how to act. “I have decided we should remain a few more days,” she announced and made it appear she was looking out of the window as she planned how to go about gaining that which she deserved.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
By the time everyone calmed, it was time to eat dinner. Rather than allow Cook’s effort to go to waste, they went into the dining parlour, although no one was particularly hungry.
Seeing that Cilla was still in a daze, Lady Matlock took over as hostess. When most of the food was sent back, she told the butler to let Cook know it was not a comment on the quality of her cooking, but rather, everyone had received a great and unanticipated shock which had rendered them without much of an appetite. She further told the butler to allow the servants to enjoy the food rather than letting it go to waste.
Instead of a separation of the sexes, everyone sat around the table in the same position they had for the meal. The men had glasses of port or brandy in front of them and the ladies sherry or wine.
Wendell knew he must tread lightly. He was fairly certain it was not the Bennets who had taken Ellie, but he needed to be sure. “I will begin. Cilla and I, and Elaine andMatlock both had two sons, and we never thought there would be another until Elizabeth Elaine Wendell was born to my wife on the fifth day of March 1791,” Wendell told. He did not miss the way the Gardiners and Miss Bennet looked at one another when he mentioned Ellie’s full name. “What is it about her name?”
“I was only six at the time, but she told us her name was Lizbet,” Jane revealed. “One night I heard her say ‘Ellie’ in a dream, and I asked her who Ellie was. She told me it was her old name, and she could not be called that because the family who used that name had not wanted her anymore.”
Cilla began to cry all over again. “S-she thought w-we d-did not w-want her?” She wailed.
“Mrs Wendell, do not forget she was less than three, and from what Bennet has told me, she was drugged, bound, gagged, and placed below the seat of the carriage he and his family were riding in as they travelled south,” Gardiner related.
There was a chorus of indignant ‘bound,’ ‘drugged,’ and ‘gagged’ from the three Wendells and the two Fitzwilliams.
“Allow me to continue,” Wendell suggested when everyone calmed again. At least he was fairly certain the Bennets had not had a hand in taking Ellie. “She was always…” He told them about his daughter’s first almost three years, her love for faeries and pixies, how she used to get herself filthy, and the fun she had hiding.
“That is why Lizzy, or Ellie, refused to partake in any games where there is hiding involved,” Jane noted.
Wendell then spoke of the day that they found Ellie was missing.
Jane related that her father had been a clergyman and had served at the St John the Baptist’s church in Dronfield. She told of the letter telling them that Grandpapa James and Uncle Henry had died and the decision to travel south. “Theday before you found her missing was the day we departed the parsonage. As we left in the middle of the day, we stopped at an inn just outside of Matlock…” Jane related all she had been told of their travels until the evening Lizzy, or Ellie, had been discovered by the coachman at the Bleating Sheep Inn in Huntingdonshire. She repeated what she had been told about why they could not delay.
She explained how Mama, Papa, and Grandmama Beth had notices made with information about the girl they found, but left out certain facts that only those who truly knew her would know. She related how they had been informed by Sir Guy Gisborne that the coachman had died in a horrendous accident somewhere between Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire.
“What facts?” Cilla demanded.
“Her nightgown…” Jane prompted.
