It was less than a half hour later that Hattie andFrank Phillips arrived at Longbourn. The former handed her outerwear to Mr Hill—who was at his station near the front door now—and made her way up to the birthing chamber on the first floor while Phillips joined the two men already in the study.
After examining Mrs Bennet thoroughly Mrs Sherman was concerned. Things did not look normal. She was sure she was worrying for no reason. After all, with nary a problem, Mrs Bennet had delivered four babes before this one.
By a little after three in the morning on the fourth of June, after labouring for almost two days, the frequency and intensity of the pains were as the midwife would expect right before it was time to push, hence, the midwife directed Mrs Bennet to the birthing chair. Mrs Bennet was screaming like she had with each of her previous labours. There was some bloody discharge, even though it was more than Mrs Sherman expected, she assumed that was due to Mrs Bennet’s size, and in the case of twins, it was not unusual.
A quarter of an hour later she could see the head crowning and it was time to have Mrs Bennet bear down. “Push, Mrs Bennet, on the next pain, push for all you are worth,” Mrs Sherman instructed.
Even though Fanny had no more energy after such a long labour, she pushed.
The babe was larger than any other the midwife had delivered and the size caused the mother to bleed. It was far more than anything Mrs Sherman had seen.
She cut the cord and handed the babe—another girl—to Mrs Phillips.
Seeing that the bleeding was not slowing she sent the maid to summon Mr Jones. It was not long before the doctor entered. “The bleeding will not stop,” Mrs Sherman stated the obvious.
“Mrs Phillips, please take the babe out of this room and everyone but Mrs Sherman must exit as well,” Jones ordered in a businesslike fashion. As soon as the two were alone with Mrs Bennet, Jones examined her. “Her blood is like water!” he exclaimed. “I must know what she has been taking, but I fear nothing will help her now. At this rate, in mere minutes, she will not have enough blood left. There is nothing I can do for her.”
Mrs Sherman had Sarah, the maid who would assist Mrs Bennet at times, go to her chamber to search for anything which looked like medication or an elixir.
The maid returned with a little box full of various bottles. “That is why her blood is like water,” Jones said as he held up an empty bottle. “This is pure meadowsweet which makes the blood much thinner than normal. If she has imbibed as much as I believe she has, there is nothing anyone could do. Some of these others could explain why she was so big.”
Not long after Jones spoke the last, Fanny Bennet breathed her final breath.
Chapter 6
If Bennet were to say that he was anything but relieved when Jones informed him of his wife’s death, he would have been prevaricating.
He did not wish his wife dead, he wished that on no human being, but that being said, it was four years too late. The lady Bennet knew he would love forever had married a man before July 1792.
Now was not the time to think of such things as there was much to do. Because of what he needed to achieve, Bennet had not gone upstairs to see his wife’s body yet as Phillips had. The child, another daughter, not twin sons as his late wife crowed about there would be, needed sustenance. Bennet knew of two tenant farmers’ wives who had given birth recently. To that end, he dispatched a groom to see if one of them would be willing to feed his new and yet unnamed daughter until a wet nurse could be employed. He intended to pay for the interim service, but to alleviate the inconvenience on the new mother, the babe and a nursemaid to care for her would stay at the tenant’s home until a more permanent solution was in place.
As luck would have it, the groom returned informing his master that Mrs Greenly, who had birthed her first child some six weeks past, was willing to come to the manor house and feed the new Bennet daughter. It was on condition that her son come with her. Her husband agreed that he could spare his wife for a time until the wet nurse began her duties at Longbourn.
“Jim, tell the Greenlys that I accept most gratefully. Take the trap to collect her and her son. Inform her that the nursemaids at the manor house will help with her babe as well as with my new daughter,” Bennet instructed.
“Aye, Master,” the groom responded, he put his cap back on and made his way to the kitchens to exit via the servants’ door.
Only once he knew that his newest daughter would soon be fed did Bennet allow himself to make his way up the stairs to the birthing chamber. As he approached the door, he found Phillips comforting his wife who was crying into her husband’s shoulder.
“I am sorry for your loss, Hattie,” Bennet said sincerely. Just because he was not disappointed by his wife’s passing did not mean that no one would mourn her loss.
“You are not sorry…” Hattie began angrily before she caught herself. She wiped her eyes. “The truth is, I will understand if you are not. What Fanny and my Mama did by entrapping you, so you would not be able to pursue the then Miss Morris was not right. As Mama loved Fanny best, I suppose she is happy her favourite is with her once again, wherever that may be.”
“I do understand your reaction. Regardless of how she acted when she was alive, my late wife was your sister, and even if you did not always like what she did, you did love her,” Bennet soothed.
“Thank you for pardoning my outburst, Thomas,” Hattie responded. “We must notify Edward.”
About a year past, Gardiner had become the owner of his former mentor’s concern. Mr Daltry had considered him almost like the son he never had, and the only family he had was a very distant relative who was the steward of a greatestate in Derbyshire. He had never met the family, and as far as he knew, they were not aware of his existence, but he had them investigated to determine if he should leave them anything. The report told that Lucas Wickham’s wife was a spendthrift, and the son was not an honourable boy. As the Wickhams had never taken the time to discover if they had any other family, Gardiner had been made his primary beneficiary. Other than some bequests to servants and staff, everything else, which included the business, a house on Gracechurch Street, and his funds in the bank, became Edward Gardiner’s property. He renamed the business, Gardiner and Associates.
Over the years, the amount Bennet had initially invested with his brother-in-law had begun to grow. To his balance, he added the two-thousand-pound profit from the estate each year. Bennet was confident that even with a fifth daughter, he would be able to provide each of them with better than respectable dowries.
“Of course, he must be told,” Bennet agreed. “After I see her body and speak to Mrs Sherman and Mr Jones, I will scribe a note. It will be taken by a groom when it is ready to go. Given the time of the year, dawn will break before he rides.”
Bennet entered the almost still birthing chamber. The heat from the roaring fire which had been built up to keep his late wife warm during the birthing process was still hanging in the air even though the fire had been extinguished. Other than the hissing from the wood as it cooled, the only other noise was the hum of a softly spoken conversation between the midwife and Jones. As soon as his presence was noted, the two ceased speaking.
“I know that it is far too common that women die in childbirth, but is there anything I need to know with regards to my late wife’s passing?” Bennet had not looked at the body yet.
“The late Mrs Bennet did not come to either Mrs Sherman nor me, but she acquired all sorts of tinctures andtonics which promised to make sure she birthed a son,” Jones revealed. “Other than God’s word, there is nothing which can decide the sex of a babe, and I am sure the charlatans who took Mrs Bennet’s money cared not a whit. In my opinion, her great size can be attributed to some of the poison she imbibed. However, the contents of this bottle,” Jones held up the almost empty glass container, “and the many empty bottles we discovered hidden under her dresser, was the culprit for her bleeding the way she did. This ended up being the main factor, in my opinion, which led to her end.”
