That was it! She would tell them they were going to get their surprise this evening when they woke. There were a few biscuits and half of the bottle of milk remaining. She would take both with them to give the impression they would be having a picnic. ‘Mary!’ Fanny thought. ‘The only option is to feed and change her just before we leave.’ To deflect questions in the morning when the maid found the room empty, Fanny intended to leave a note saying that she and her daughters had departed the inn to travel south early that morning.
At least she thought to take a blanket off the bed to add to the impression that they were to have a picnic. Fanny waited until later when the sun was sinking in the west. She had decided she did not want to be seen when she left the girls in the park, as she was not ready to answer any questions. As planned, Fanny fed and changed Mary and woke Jane and Lizzy up.
“Are you ready for your big, exciting surprise?” Fanny asked once the two older girls were fully awake.
“Yeth, Mamma,” Jane responded.
“Good. Follow me, Jane and Lizzy. Jane, be a good big sister and hold Lizzy’s hand.” Fanny had the blanket, milk, and remaining biscuits in the valise where she had placed Mary’s napkins. She held the sated and sleeping babe in one arm and picked up her valise as well as the other one with her other arm. She indicated that the girls should be quiet and opened the door. The hallway was empty.
Luckily, she saw very few people on the way down the stairs, and no one looked at her as she and her daughters exited the inn. She walked away from the inn to the next street, where she hailed a hackney cab.
It was not easy, but with help from the man driving the cab, they made it into the small carriage. Fanny told him the destination was near Hyde Park, and off they went. Fanny felt the anticipation building that she would soon be free of the impediments to her receiving an allowance once again. The fact that Clem Collins never mentioned how much her pin money would be was not remembered as Fanny thought about how she would spend the funds on herself each quarter.
As Fanny had requested, the coachman stopped near Hyde Park. She gave him an added shilling as the man assisted her and the girls to alight from his hackney. She waited until he had ridden off, and then, she walked towards the park. Happily, Fanny noted that there were hardly any people in the park. She walked past what looked like a winding lake or pond to her, which she did not know was the Serpentine.
She made a turn onto a wide gravel path. She was unaware that she had turned onto Rotten Row. About a hundred yards down, she spied a bench near some shrubs. Fanny looked about and saw no one close to her. She spread the blanket in a gap between some shrubs behind the bench. She laid a still-sleeping Mary down on the blanket and placed the remainder of the milk in the bottle along with the biscuits near Mary.“Jane and Lizzy, Mamma forgot something we needed in thecarriage. It is the biggest part of the surprise. She will go collect it and be back. You need to be good for Mamma while she is away and remain right here and be quiet.”
A pair of trusting deep blue eyes and another of emerald-green stared back at their mother as they nodded.“We be good,” Jane promised.
Without looking back, Fanny walked back the way she had come. As soon as she turned the corner andhisdaughters were out of sight, she turned and walked across some grass to another path leading to a different exit from the park. She hailed a hackney and asked to be taken to a coaching inn, one that the post stopped at, on the way out of London towards Bedfordshire.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As the dusk gave way to the dark of night and Mamma had not returned, Jane began to worry. Lizzy was also upset, but only because Janey was and she could not understand what was wrong. When they got hungry and thirsty, the two girls shared the biscuits and milk. Mamma had told them to be still, but surely she did not mean for them to be hungry.
Thankfully, April had been unseasonably warm so far. The night was cooler, but not cold. Not knowing what to do, Jane had Lizzy lie next to Mary, and she pulled the blanket on that side over them. She lay down on the other side of her youngest sister, moved as close to Lizzy as she could, and then pulled the blanket on her side over herself.
It was dark and cool when Mary woke up crying. Her sisters did not know what was wrong, as they had no way of knowing their sister needed to have her napkin changed and she needed to be fed. Neither had ever seen Mamma feed Mary, and they certainly did not remember how they gained sustenance in their first months of life. Jane felt guilty that she and Lizzy had consumed the biscuits and milk, so there was no more for them or for Mary.
By the time the sky began to lighten in the east, all three girls were crying.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Holder House was in Park Lane. It was the house closest to the Grosvenor gate, which led into the park. It was the London residence of Paul and Edith Carrington, the Earl and Countess of Holder. They had only one child, a son, Jamey, who was eight, and would turn nine on the final day of April. His title was Viscount Hadlock. Their primary estate, Holder Heights, was in Staffordshire, and the estate, which was attached to Jamey’s title, Hadlock, was in Derbyshire.
As much as they loved their son, no matter how much they had tried, Lady Edith had never fallen with child again after bearing Jamey. They poured all of their parental love into him but did not over-indulge him.
In this the countess was similar to her two best friends, Lady Elaine Fitzwilliam, the Countess of Matlock, and Lady Anne Darcy. Anne was the younger sister of Elaine’s husband. The former had two sons, Andrew, Viscount Hilldale, who was eleven, and Richard, nine. The latter had William, who was eight. Try as Elaine had, like Edith, she never increased again after Richard. Anne had done so twice. One was a miscarriage and the other a stillbirth. It always made Edith consider how it was that all three families had all the material wealth in the world, but while others were so very fecund, between them they had four sons and no more children. Edith supposed it was true that God giveth and God taketh away. Her lack of additional children had not shaken her faith, and neither had it made her question God.
The Carringtons belonged to theTon, however, they were not slaves to the mores of the society they inhabited. For instance, they rejected the practice of promenading in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour to see and be seen. Rather, the three Carringtons would either walk or ride in Hyde Park at dawn, before practically any other was in the park.
Sometimes they walked or rode with the Fitzwilliams, Darcys, or both of them. However, this morning their friends were not in London. The Fitzwilliams were in fact in Kent at Rosings Park, the estate of Sir Lewis and Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The latter was sister to Lord Matlock, younger by three years, and five years Anne’s senior. The Darcys had needed to be at Pemberley before Easter, so theywould arrive at Rosings Park after the Fitzwilliams.
Lady Catherine was somewhat of a termagant who thought she knew everything about everything when the opposite was true, she was uneducated and knew almost nothing about anything. Even with that, the families spent the time around Easter at the de Bourgh Estate in spite of Lady Catherine and her nonsensical pronouncements. The de Bourghs were the only ones with a daughter, Anne, who recently turned five. Lady Catherine had tried to browbeat her younger sister into agreeing to betroth William and Anne. Her younger sister had roundly refused, and the termagant had only ceased when both Anne Darcy’s husband and her own had told her in no uncertain terms to desist.
The Carringtons had decided to remain in London for Easter. They planned to depart for Staffordshire the Monday after the holy day.
Friday morning, the sixth day of April, seemed like any other day; the family went to exercise in the park. This day they chose to walk, not ride. As the sky was lightening, they left their house with one footman walking at a distance behind them.
As was their wont, Holder and his beloved walked together, her forearm wrapped around his, while Jamey skipped and ran ahead and would come back to them, only to repeat what he had done before. They walked across the grass to Rotten Row and then turned toward the Serpentine.
At first as Jamey went ahead of his parents towards one of the many stone benches lining the row, he thought he imagined the sounds of crying children. He stopped and cocked his head. No, that was crying.
He slowly walked forward until he was almost at the bench when the sight which met him stopped him in his tracks.“Papa, Mamma,” Jamey called out.
Holder and Lady Edith were concerned something ailed their son, so they ran forward, the footman close on their heels. Like Jamey had when he saw what lay beyond the bench, the Carrington parents froze, almost causing the footman to run into his master’s back.
Sitting on a blanket between some shrubs were two very young girls, both sobbing piteously. The larger girl with golden-blonde hair was holding a young babe with short, light-blonde hair so there was no knowing the sex.
