“Mary dear, ask Mrs Hill to bring the nightgown Lizzy was wearing when she came to us. She knows where it is,” Fanny requested.
It was not too many minutes later that Mary returned with a folded garment carried gently in her arms. “Here it is, Mama,” she stated as she handed the precious nightgown to her mother.
Fanny unfolded it very carefully and laid the garment across Elaine’s legs.
“Look, Cilla, it is just as I made it all those years ago,” Lady Matlock stated softly as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Seeing the nightgown Ellie had been dressed in that fateful night when she had kissed her darling girl goodnight brought all of Cilla’s fraught emotions to the surface. It did not help that Elaine was crying as well. Cilla began to sob as she held the nightgown to her chest as if she were hugging the almost three-year-old Ellie and not the item she had been wearing.
“I think we should take a break for tea; there is no hurry,” Beth suggested. “We will have all the time you need to tell you about Lizzy’s life here.”
Everyone agreed. The three youngest Bennets and Giana would leave the drawing room after tea and cake. The twins had some lessons to complete, so they would head to the schoolroom. Meanwhile, Giana and Mary, who discovered kindred spirits in one another with regards to their love of playing the pianoforte, would join Miss Weasley and Mrs Annesley in the music room.
The ladies in the drawing room resolved to take a break before attempting to tackle any more emotional subjects. They agreed with Beth Bennet that there was no reason to hurry.
Chapter 16
Fanny’s opinion that her husband would offer those who had arrived and any others who joined them, to be hosted at Netherfield Park had been correct.
Matlock accepted the generous offer on behalf of his family.
“In the years Ellie has been here, am I to understand that she never remembered who took her from the house?” Wendell pressed once the subject of where they would reside in the neighbourhood had been settled.
“No, in her dreams his face was always blurry, so she could not make out the features,” Bennet replied. “When Lizzy, Ellie, first came to us, my wife instructed the then governess to write down anything the mite uttered in her dreams. All of these years, I have kept the pages.” Bennet reached into a drawer in his desk. “You may take them because I am sure the names and utterances recorded will mean something to you, as you would be familiar with them and we were not.” He handed the bound pages to Wendell.
With the other men crowded around his chair, Wendell began to read the script on the paper.
“Illem,” Darcy read. “It is what she used to call me. She could not say ‘William’ yet.”
“Ichy,” Richard noticed, “and ‘Andwu.’ That is what she used to call Andrew and me. At least, Ellie did not call any of us ‘Icky’; that was reserved for one and one alone.”
“Wickham!” Those who knew the libertine chorused.
“None of you seem too happy to repeat that man’s name,” Gardiner noted. “What did he do?”
“He was the godson of my late brother-in-law, Robert Darcy…” Matlock told Bennet, Gardiner, and Phillips a short synopsis about George Wickham and how Robert Darcy had finally had his eyes opened to the truth of his former protégé.
“We had not seen him nor heard anything about him for some years, until a few months ago when the bastard intruded on our notice again,” Richard reported. “His aim was Giana and her fortune. He was convinced that hisfoolproof planhad no chance of failure…” With aid from William, Richard told Bennet and the others what Wickham had attempted to do.
“Could he not be a candidate for the theft and kidnapping at your house?” Phillips enquired.
“It was something about which we,” David indicated his cousins, “speculated. However, there was no indication it was him. He did not slink away from Willowmere and even participated in the search for Ellie. Wicky was not close to her like the rest of us, but to his credit he never did anything to hurt her, and occasionally he would even entertain her a little. Richard and William can correct me, but I have never seen Wicky—as we used to call him—as one who would dirty his own hands.”
“I agree with David,” Richard stated. “His effort with Miss Younge all depended on her. He watched but kept himself away from the action. I have always thought him a bit of a coward.”
“There are no clues contained within which would point us towards the criminal who took Ellie from us,” Wendell noted, frustration evident in his voice.
“It is not surprising she does not remember what happened before she was three,” Andrew opined. “For myself I know I remember nothing before I was five or six.”
The others in the study nodded their agreement.
“As we cannot change the past, I suggest we speak of a way forward,” Bennet suggested. “Jane told you how Lizzy reacts to change, or has in the past, did she not?” He saw nods from those who had met Jane the previous evening. “My suggestion is that whatever we do, we do with her best interests at heart.”
“I am certain Cilla is, or has been, telling your wife that we would never attempt to sunder the connection between Ellie and your family, Bennet. We all want to heal and not cause more suffering,” Wendell stated to assure his host he and his family would still be part of Ellie’s life, and she theirs. He did not miss the way Bennet and his brothers-in-law relaxed at that statement.
Wendell, like the other men who had arrived with him, could see that the Bennets were well off, so he would not insult them by offering to recompense them for the years they had cared for Ellie. It would have been a double insult because of one thing he was certain, what they had done, they had done out of love and not obligation. It seemed from the conversations with Jane Bennet and what he had seen so far that Ellie could not have been discovered by better people. Instead, he decided to address what he had been told about a dowry.
“Bennet, Jane mentioned that you have dowered Ellie with the same amount as your other three daughters. Is that accurate?” Wendell enquired.
