“Caroline, you may caterwaul for as long as you would like to, but it will not change my decision. You will not be attending that seminary in London. The local school was good enough for your sister. It will be so for you as well,” Mr Bingley stated firmly. “The only thing your continued wailing will purchase you is another period without allowance.”
The prospect of losing more money made Mavis and Caroline close their mouths with clacks. Neither understood what had caused the Bingley patriarch to begin to oppose all of their plans. They had pushed Cambridge and their attempt to travel to Pemberley under false pretences from their minds. That meant to the two of them, Arthur Bingley was being wholly unreasonable. He was not amenable to their haranguing, so they would have to find an effective way to work on him.
“That is better,” Bingley stated with a sense of satisfaction. He knew that much of the blame fell to him for not stepping in and killing his wife’s and daughter’s delusions some years previously. Just because he had not acted in the past did not mean he should not now.
“May we retire?” Mavis sniffed.
“You may,” Bingley allowed. He was certain they would be on their way to plot their next move, and they would think that they would somehow be able to influence him when nothing had succeeded so far.
Bingley was a realist and knew that if God decided to call him home, Charles would not be able to stand up to the demands of his mother and younger sister. As his final wishes stood now, if the worst happened, once Charles reached his majority,he would have no restrictions upon what he may do with the fortune left to him, and only slight restrictions beforehand. To that end, he had an appointment with his solicitor that afternoon. He had had a new last will and testament drawn up, one which would place safeguards and restrictions on Charles. Another major change he made was to name his son-in-law and his younger brother executors with broad powers to curb his wife, if she survived him, Charles, and Caroline. In addition, Caroline would be under the guardianship of Hildebrand and John Bingley, if he was called home before her majority.
Bingley was skilled at reading people, something he found invaluable in business, and he was as sure as he could be that whatever young Hurst was, it was not an indolent drunk. Therefore, he was confident that when and if it were required of him, his son-in-law would be able to take charge effectively.
When he arrived at the solicitor’s offices, all the copies of the new will were ready for his signature. As was his wont, as a good man of business, Bingley read the document from start to finish.
He had already collected all copies of his old will that he knew about and consigned them to the fire. The last one was the one held here in the solicitor’s offices. Even if there was an errant copy of the old will somewhere in the world, the opening sentence read: ‘This will replaces and supersedes any and all Last Wills and Testaments of Arthur Charles Bingley dated before the date of execution…’This was needed because he suspected his wife had a copy of his old will. The statement at the commencement of the new document would make it so much worthless paper, if indeed she had such a copy.
His new will was witnessed by three of the clerks in the office. The instant the final one was signed, it became fully legaland the only document which could be used to settle his estate. A copy was to be held by the solicitor, another would be in the safe of the Scarborough carriage works, one was to be posted to Louisa and Hurst, and the final copy would be with his younger brother John and his wife Hildebrand.
Now that he knew he had protected Charles against himself, Bingley felt far more at peace.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Thank you for spending time with my niece, Mrs Hurst. It is very kind of you, especially as you have no familial connection to us,” Lady Matlock stated gratefully. “It is very good for her to be able to confide in one closer to her own age.”
“There is no cost to me to be kind, and besides, I have gained as much, if not more, in coming to know Anne,” Louisa replied. It had not taken long before her new friend had requested that they use familiar names, something Louisa had agreed to without delay. “Will she be well?”
“According to her mother, due to the damage to her heart and lungs when she suffered a bad bout of scarlet fever when Anne was but five, she will never be fully healthy again,” Lady Matlock replied. “However, I believe now that she is being seen by proper physicians—not the quacks her mother foisted on her—they will discover that Anne will be able to have as normal a life as anyone. Away from the so-called medical men who only parrot my sister-in-law, Anne cannot but do better. In time, it is my prayer, that she will be healthy enough to do anything she chuses, including being a wife and mother.”
Louisa smiled to herself that Harold had sent Lady Catherine away with a flea in her ear. That the woman was soavaricious that she cared not for the health of her own daughter was beyond disgusting.
“Catherine likes to believe that if Anne is called home to God before she is five and twenty, the estate and everything else will go to her. It will not. In that event the estate, and all of the de Bourgh holdings, will devolve to Richard,” Lady Matlock revealed. “Had he not accepted the posting that keeps him at the Navy Board and not in battle, my husband and I were prepared to tell him that Rosings Park would potentially be his one day. He is aware what my sister-in-law put abroad about Anne’s health, so he would not have placed himself in harm’s way. As it is now, my husband is so disgusted with his sister’s treatment of Anne, he will soon remove Catherine from Rosings Park.”
“Then it is fortunate your second son chose the path he did,” Louisa responded with a straight face. The Fitzwilliams knew not to whom they were indebted, and Harold wanted it to remain that way.
“When will you and Mr Hurst depart Pemberley? We intend to remain for as long as William and Gigi need us,” Lady Matlock related.
“Captain Fitzwilliam says he would like to begin travelling back to London Monday upcoming, and we received a note from Mr Hurst’s father asking us to view an estate he is thinking of purchasing as an investment. It is in Hertfordshire, so we would make for it once we convey your son to Town,” Louisa declared.
“Your husband has been a very good friend to both of my sons. If only Andrew would find a woman who interests him.” Lady Matlock sighed. “I do so long for grandbabies.”
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Louisa quoted from Ecclesiastes 3:1.
“I agree; however, it does not stop me wishing,” Lady Matlock returned.
It was a fight for Louisa not to protectively place her hands over her belly. She had missed her courses in the last few days, something which had not occurred since she had first gotten them. When they had some privacy, she would share her suspicion with Harold, as they did not keep secrets between them. She prayed that this was her season to become with child. As it was in His hands, if she was proved wrong, she would accept it as His Will.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
A Bennet had lived at Longbourn since the family was granted the land in 1265, about fifty years after the Magna Carta was signed. It saddened Thomas Bennet that unless God performed a miracle, he would be the final Bennet to be master of the estate.
When his wife had delivered their fifth daughter, Lydia, in June 1796, the midwife had told Fanny that she could never carry another child. All relations between her and her husband had ceased, hence, she had never fallen in the family way again. Thanks to a profligate ancestor, there was an entail to heirs male on the estate which would end with the generation after this Bennet. As he had no son, it would not end with a Bennet as master. The only relative he had who was eligible to inherit the estate was a distant cousin by the name of Clem Collins. He was, in a turn of irony, a direct descendant of the Bennet son whose profligate actions had made his father write the entail to protect the estate from losing more Land. Thanks to the son’s gambling, almost half of the land had had to be sold to cover his debts of honour.
The owner of Netherfield Park, the current owner’s ancestor, had purchased the land and his estate had become the largest in the area, an honour which used to belong to Longbourn.
It had been more than a decade since Bennet had had contact with his distant cousin, with whom he had broken off all contact. The man was a brutish, miserly, illiterate fool. If he never saw the man before Bennet was called home to his maker, it would be too soon for him.
As he heard his wife returning from her morning calls, her shrill voice could be heard through his closed oak study door; Bennet pinched the bridge of his nose to ward off the coming frustration. He was certain she would burst into his sanctuary to regale him with the latest gossip—information in which he had no interest—like it was the most important news in the world.
