After Fanny read it, her husband pulled it from her hands roughly and saw the same thing.
“In the codicil, it states that if anything untoward happens to his daughters and Mrs Bennet, as you were at the time, is evensuspectedof being culpable, then the dowry she brought to the marriage is forfeit to be disbursed as the will states. As such, Mr Collins, your wife has no dowry,” Phillips concluded.
“By the by,” Gardiner twisted the knife before he departed. “You will need to find and employ new staff and servants. They have all resigned as they refuse to work for a master and mistress like the two of you.”
“They will get no characters!” Fanny screamed shrilly.
“They do not need them. Each and every one of them is already employed at another estate. You will have to look further afield than Meryton for servants as none around here will consent to be employed by you,” Phillips stated, and he too left.
The Collinses were left alone, with Collins seething.
“Clem, I swear to you, I did not know about the codicil…” Fanny began.
It was a few days before she felt like she could get out of bed again and more time before the marks faded.
Chapter 11
April 1793
For the year since her daughters had come to live with them, Edith had remained at Holder Heights with them and Jamey, even when Paul had no choice and was needed in London to attend the Lords.
It was the first Friday of April, a day before the one-year anniversary since they had found the girls abandoned in the park. As Edith watched her four children playing on the grass, she could not feel more content than she did at that moment. Jamey was chasing his sisters, and they were running—in Mary’s case, toddling—away from him, squealing with delight. Any trace of the initial reserve Jane showed at times, and which Lizzy followed, was gone and had been for many months now.
Edith remembered the day, more than that, the moment it had all changed. It had been Sunday, the tenth day of June of the previous year, a little more than two months since her daughters had come to live with them. As was their wont, weather permitting, they had walked to St Mildred’s Church in the town of Holder. It was the church in Holder Height’s advowson. The two oldest girls were with them as Mary was yet too young to take to church. Jane had sat like a little lady while Lizzy had fidgeted, earning lots of indulgent smiles from the congregants. Afterward, as they always did, they greeted Mr Clayburn, the parson, on the way out of the church and invited him and his wife to join them for the after-church meal. It was on the way home that the event which had delighted Edith to her core had occurred.
Jane had left Jamey’s side and put her hand in Edith’s. That in and of itself was not exceptional; however, when Jane said, “I wuv you, Mamma.” Edith’s heart had swelled up like a balloon. Then, the little darling had looked at Paul with her big blue eyes and innocently said, “I wuv Papa too.”
Lizzy had added, “Me wuv Mamma and Papa.”
She had never tried to force the two older girls to call her and Paul Mamma and Papa. When it happened on that miraculous day, Edith had known that her girls would never leave her. The event had been a fortnight after the last of the men who had been sent to search for the girls’ family returned without success.
On the one hand, Edith was sorry that the men Paul sent to Herefordshire had not discovered anything in or around the towns to which they had been dispatched. No one was missing one girl, never mind three of them. However, another part of her was gleeful.
From that point on, neither Jane nor Lizzy mentioned anything to do with their past before they came to the Carringtons. Edith was very pleased that children were so resilient, and it seemed that she had been correct in her assumption that at the age the girls had been when they had been found by Jamey, the memory of being abandoned in Hyde Park would not linger with them for too long. Little was known about that among doctors, but there were things that mothers felt, and this was one of them.
The day the girls had joined their family, everything had changed. The size of the family had doubled, and females were no longer the minority but rather a majority now. Neither Paul nor Jamey was complaining about the many changes, that one included.
Now, here they were, one day away from one year and the day the girls would be officially adopted. Their family names would be Carrington until the day they married and cleaved unto their husbands. Edith waved that thought away. They were still fifteen years from Jane’s come out. Her hope was that her girls would take a few years to find their matches after they entered society.
Remembering the date that Jane and then Lizzy had first called them Mamma and Papa made Edith think of the way they decided what the three girls’ birthdays would be. They knew from what Jane had told them that Mary was born in January, Lizzy in February or March, and August was the month Jane had been born. They had had no way to know what dates each girl had come into the world, so they chose the tenth of August, March, and January for Jane, Lizzy, and Mary, respectively. That number represented the day that the Carrington family was reborn in its new incarnation, so it fit perfectly.
Paul had done everything he needed to officially adopt the girls. On the morrow, they would all be at St Mildred’s to watch the christening of Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary Carrington. There was no way to know if the girls had had second names, so none would be used on the morrow. The Darcys and Fitzwilliams were to arrive later Friday so they would be witnesses at the church. In addition, Reggie and Elaine and Robert and Anne were to stand as godparents to the three girls.
Even though the birth mother who had abandoned them had been despicable, Edith would never repine her daughters’ joining her family.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
In the year since they had married, Fanny had learnt to keep out of her husband’s company as much as she was able to. Of course, there were times she could not avoid it, and she made sure to flatter him as much as possible.
The last year had not been easy. By the end of the first quarter with Clem as master, the rents had been paid, but then, one after another, all five tenants left. At that point, they still had very few servants working in the house. Unfortunately, Fanny’s brothers—no, they were no longer her brothers—Mr Gardiner and Mr Phillips had been correct. No one in the local area would accept employment at Longbourn.
They had heard that all of their servants were employed at Netherfield Park. Clem had made his way there on foot to demand they return, but he had been told to leave and never return on the pain of arrest for trespassing. He had been in a terribly foul mood that night.
Once Clem purchased an old horse to pull the carriage, which was barely in shape to transport them, they had gone first to Hatfield and then to St Albans. They had employed a cook and housekeeper in one person, two maids-of-all-work, and a manservant. Fanny knew it was woefully inadequate, but for her own safety, she would never gainsay her husband.
He demanded his marital rights every night, even when she had her courses. He would blame her for being dirty during those times, and knowing how he would react, Fanny never contradicted him. Much to her relief, she missed her indisposition in July of the previous year, then again in August. Clem had wanted to continue to come to her. Fanny had taken a chance and told her husband that continued congress would damage his son. Thankfully, thanks to their being shunned in local society, he had not had anyone with whom to verify the veracity of her claim and had ceased his coming to her.
If she thought her life was bad under Mr Bennet, she realised now how much better things had been. Mr Bennet never once lifted his hand to her, and she received pin money. Yes, it had been only three pounds per quarter, but that was far more than the nothing she saw now. A month after they had become master and mistress of the estate—or what was left of it—Fanny had made the mistake of asking for some allowance. He had dished out another physical lesson, telling her that he would not give her anything over paying for her food because she had lost him her dowry.
