“Barney, this is my best friend, Miss Charlotte Lucas of Lucas Lodge. Charlotte, Mr Barnabas Wendell, my next younger Wendell brother, of Glenmeade in Staffordshire. Barney arrived the day after you and your parents called, and Uncle Stephen Granger,” Elizabeth pointed out the gentleman speaking to Sir William, “arrived yester-afternoon. He is the current master of Glenmeade and Mother and Aunt Elaine’s younger brother.”
“Do you assist your uncle at his estate, Mr Wendell?”Charlotte enquired.
“In a little more than three years, when Barney is thirty, the estate will be his. Uncle Stephen has no children of his own,” Elizabeth explained.
“As you are Ellie’s best friend, please address me as Barney. Besides anything else, with my father and older brother here, calling me Mr Wendell could become rather confusing,” Barney responded. “Yes, Ellie has explained things correctly. Since I returned from my grand tour after I graduated from Cambridge, I have been working with Uncle Stephen to learn all I need to know about Glenmeade. By the time it becomes mine, with his excellent teaching, I will be a competent manager of the estate.” Barney looked at his uncle. “I believe the reason for his wanting me to take the estate at thirty is no longer valid, but when I raised it with him, he refused to change things.”
Charlotte knew there was a story there, but she did not know Mr Wendell…Barney well enough to ask him about it. Mayhap Eliza would inform her as to what her brother had referred.
Elizabeth drifted off to her mothers, and some of her aunts, leaving Charlotte and Barney together. “My brothers may disown me if they see me speaking to you,” Charlotte said with a deadpan expression.
“Am I so objectionable?” Barney asked with mock affront.
“You are not, but they are Oxford men, and you admitted attending thatother, as they call it, university,” Charlotte revealed.
Barney released a full-throated guffaw which caused not a few people standing outside of the church to swivel their heads towards him. “I never had time for that old Cambridge versus Oxford rivalry,” he said. “I have been accused of far worse faults than having the deficiency of character of being aCambridge man.”
It was not hard to see that Barney was jesting, and like his younger sister, who he called Ellie, he seemed to dearly like to laugh. It was a trait Charlotte, who never took herself too seriously, enjoyed.
“Tell me, Barney, has Eliza, that is what I call Elizabeth, expressed a preference between being addressed as Ellie or Lizzy?” Charlotte enquired.
“She told me she answers to both, so she does not prefer one over the other. I suppose it is an easy way to tell the origins of the family member by the way they address her,” Barney revealed. He cogitated for a moment. “Why Eliza?”
“I always liked that form of the diminutive for Elizabeth. When we became friends, Eliza was seven and I was thirteen. I requested her permission to address her thusly, and she agreed. I am the only one who uses that name, and I have done so ever since she allowed it,” Charlotte explained.
“It is comforting to know how Ellie was accepted and befriended during the years she was away from us,” Barney stated as his eyes followed his younger sister. “Do you know that I, like most in the family accepted that Ellie had been murdered? I, we, should have never done that; we should have kept on…” He stopped speaking when Miss Lucas, Charlotte, placed her right hand on his arm.
“Barney, you need to learn part of your sister’s philosophy. Eliza likes to say that she only remembers the past as that remembrance gives her pleasure,” Charlotte shared. “It is, I believe, given what she used to think, part of the reason that she would not allow herself to keep the memories of her past alive from before she came to the Bennets. As far as the guilt you feel, it is understandable but misplaced.”
Charlotte’s words soothed him, but Barney looked at her questioningly regarding her final statement.
She did not miss the quizzical look, so Charlotteexplained why she had said what she had. “It was well past six months before your father and others in your family began to accept that your sister had been murdered, was it not?”
With a nod, Barney allowed it was so.
“If what I have heard is correct, exhaustive searches were undertaken in the shires surrounding Derbyshire.” Charlotte saw another nod. “Not a single trace of Eliza had been found; all the reward did was bring a stream of charlatans to your door, each one increasing the pain your family was already suffering.” She saw that her statement was accepted as nothing but the truth. “Then in order to have some semblance of normalcy return to your family, what choice was there? And before you say it, a mother is different. I understand that even though Mrs Wendell refused to accept her daughter was dead, she had accepted she would never see her again; is that not true?”
“It is,” Barney agreed. “Are you saying that I should not feel guilt for that over which I had no control?”
“Exactly!” Charlotte exclaimed. “And more than that, if you had this same conversation with Eliza, she would tell you the same thing I did.” She paused as she thought about something. “You would not like to cause your sister any pain would you?”
“Of course not! Anything but,” Barney replied vehemently.
“If she thinks that you and others are feeling guilt over something which is not your fault, she would not be happy. It is time to heed your sister’s words and look to the future, not to the past,” Charlotte advised.
“You are a very wise lady,” Barney said as he inclined his head to her.
“With age comes wisdom,” Charlotte responded self-deprecatingly. She was about to make a comment about her being plain—as some matrons in the area called her—and old,but she decided that would have been too much.
“I believe we are of an age, so if you think yourself old, then I must be as well,” Barney replied with a grin. “You are a handsome woman in the bloom of your youth.” He saw the deep blush. “Please pardon me if I overstepped in saying that to you.”
“Please do not make yourself uneasy; I have no objection to such being said about myself, even if there are others in the area who would disagree with you.”
“Then, in my humble opinion, they are blind, or if they denigrate your looks, age, or both, they have ulterior motives. More than likely such comments, if they are made, are borne out of jealousy.”
Charlotte felt herself blush again. She felt an attraction to Eliza Wendell’s brother. She told herself they had just met, and a compliment or two were not indicators of any particular regard on his part. She was, however, determined to see if anything beyond being common and indifferent acquaintances would develop between them. Only time would tell.
“What agriculture is there at Glenmeade?” Charlotte enquired to change the subject to a more neutral topic.
