The Hills felt very guilty. Knowing what kind of woman Mrs Bennet was, why had they not had men watching the nursery?
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
By Tuesday, a few unscrupulous people tried to deliver false information to claim the reward Holder had offered. Each one was revealed as a charlatan with ease. He had purposefully not listed the number of children, any sort of identifying features, their sex, or the ages in the paper. A hackney coachman was different.
He told how on Thursday in the late afternoon, he had collected some passengers on Milk Street in Cheapside. It was a lady and three young ones; two were girls, and he described their hair and eye colour perfectly, and the third was a babe with short, light-blonde hair. He did not claim to know the sex of that one. He told of how he assisted them to board, and then he had conveyed them to Uxbridge Street, not far from the entrance to Hyde Park close to the narrow end of the Serpentine. There he had assisted the lady and the children to alight.
When Holder asked for a description of the lady, the coachman had guessed she was around five feet tall. He saw deep blue eyes and golden-blonde hair protruding from her bonnet. Other than that, there was nothing else of note.
For his trouble, the man was sent away with twenty pounds.
It was the last day Holder would keep footmen in the park. It had been a waste of time, as he and Edith had suspected it would be. Not a soul had come looking forlostchildren.
Men had been dispatched to Herefordshire, but it would be weeks before he heard from any of them. The notice would be in the papers for a final day on the morrow, but Holder was as close to sure as he could be that there would not be any more responses, except for those attempting to defraud them with false information.
On Monday coming, they would depart for Holder Heights.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Ladies Elaine Fitzwilliam and Anne Darcy were hiding in the former’s sitting room in her suite at Rosings Park. They had had more than enough of their common sister—sister-in-law to Lady Matlock and by blood to Lady Anne—and were counting the hours until they would depart on the morrow when the butler brought a letter addressed to the two of them from their good friend Edith Carrington.
“Edith knows we are to depart on the morrow. I wonder what she felt could not wait until we arrived back in London,” Lady Anne questioned.“Wait, were they not to leave Town the day after Easter? Why are they still there?”
“Little sister, I think the answers lie within this sealed epistle,” Lady Elaine teased.
They moved closer together on the settee where they were seated, and Lady Elaine broke the Holder seal, opened and unfolded the pages. The two ladies began to read.
9 April 1792
Holder House
Anne and Elaine, my dearest friends,
You will not believe why we are tarrying in London.
On Friday morning Paul, Jamey, and I went for a walk in the park, as we are wont to do at first light…
The letter told in detail about how, where, and when the three girls were discovered. Edith laid out all they had discovered to date, including the fraudsters who had answered the notice in the papers.
… even had we found this despicable woman, I would not want to give Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary over to her care.
We found a wet nurse for Mary by Saturday past. Mrs Indigo’s husband is no longer living, so she and her son will join us. She is very grateful for such good employment. Since joining us and feeding Mary, I can already see the babe growing a little. She was so weak when we found them; that is no longer the case.
The plan is to depart for Holder Heights on Monday, the 16th day of April. The sisterswillaccompany us! If, as I suspect it will be, we do not discover any family of the girls then they will remain with us, and we will adopt them.
These darling girls will never see the inside of an orphanage or workhouse.
You are always welcome at Holder House, but I hope that if you have time on your way to Snowhaven and Pemberley, you stop and meet these beautiful girls. If not, I expect to see you at Holder Heights.
We always wanted daughters. If they remain with us, you are welcome to be surrogate mothers to them.
With my warmest regards,
Edith
“Our friend already sees herself as mother to those girls,” Lady Elaine observed.
“I agree,” Lady Anne responded.“I pray her heart is not broken in this. If they remain with her, she will be the best mother to them, and we will be their aunts. I will speak to Robert; we will return via London.”
