“Of course you are both welcome. I know that Kitty and Lydia will be very happy that Anna will join us. They greatly enjoy time with her,” Elizabeth said.
“We will be here a quarter hour before sunrise on the morrow.” William knew Anna would be more than happy to join them, as so many of her friends and family members would be present.
Elizabeth excused herself and made her way over to where Jamey, Jane, and Mary were seated speaking to Richard and Charlotte. She dismissed the warmth she felt all over.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Lizzy does not need someone to educate her, but she does need a companion, as does Mary. We have been remiss in not finding one for them before now,” Edith stated. She and Paul were in their shared bed the night of Jane’s birthday celebration.
“We always thought that Mrs Kendrick would continue on with us after Jane’s presentation. We did not know she would chuse to retire to live with her daughter’s family,” Holder replied.
“Be that as it may, the way time flies by, it will be Lizzy’s, and then less than a year later, Mary’s, coming out. We must seek someone. I will ask my friends for recommendations,” Edith decided. “Perhaps Marie’s companion will be interested in working for us. Thanks to Andrew coming to the point and proposing and the date set for the third Friday in November, if Mrs Annesley does not retire, she will be available.”
“In the meantime, we will search for a companion. I will place an advert in the papers as long as we know that we will need to carefully verify any characters of ladies who apply from the notice. Word of mouth will be best, but this way we will cast a wider net,” Holder opined.
“You do that. Regardless of how they apply, we will thoroughly verify the characters of anyone who wants to work with our daughters,” Edith stated firmly.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As he had said they would, the morning after the birthday celebration, William and Anna were waiting atop their mounts when the group from Holder House left the stables. With them was Richard Fitzwilliam, who had decided he wanted to be part of the riding party.
Kitty was riding the cob Elizabeth used to ride while Lydia was on one of the ponies kept in the London house’s stables.
Biggs, Johns, two more of their men, and a groom rode as escorts. Two of the footmen-guards rode on either side of the riders while Biggs, Johns, and the groom rode just behind the group.
Perhaps it was because of Jane’s significant birthday, but the Carrington-Bennet sisters stopped, and the rest of the riding party with them, at the bench behind which they had been found by Jamey on that fateful sixth day of April 1792.
“This is where Mamma Fanny left you?” Kitty enquired softly, almost to herself. A few years past, she and Lydia had been told the truth.
“It is,” Jane confirmed. “Mamma tells us she left a blanket with us, and there was an empty milk bottle, so she must have provided us with some food, even though it did not help us feed Mary. We understand that the woman she used to be was very different from the mother you knew.” Jane paused and looked at Lizzy and Mary. “I think I am finally willing to forgive her for abandoning us.”
“And me as well,” Elizabeth agreed. “If she had not done it, we would not have met Mamma and Papa.” She paused. “Although it does not make what she did right, and things could have gone far worse for us.”
Mary added her forgiveness, and the riders set off along Rotten Row towards the Serpentine. The fastest they rode was a canter.
A pair of eyes watched their every move from behind a tree. Soon he would get his due. If only the brat were not with so many people. He would make no move with the hated Fitzwilliam and William Darcy among the party.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“Of course I will accompany you to the coming out ball at Holder House for one of those foundlings,” Miss Bingley screeched. “If they are so bold as to have a ball for one of the foundlings, who more than likely was born on the wrong side of the blanket, then I, with my impeccable breeding, class, and dowry of twenty thousand pounds, will not be turned away.”
As the Hursts would no longer have Caroline in their house, Bingley had rented a small house for himself. He was—unfortunately—after all her guardian.
“No, Caroline. You will not come with me! The invitation expressly states that it is for me, and me alone, no guest, no one to accompany me, and most definitely not you,” Bingley shot back. “If I were you, I would be very careful about saying anything negative about the Carrington-Bennet sisters. They are counted as daughters as surely as if Lady Holder birthed them of her body. Aside from that, it is well known their late parents were married and their late father was a landowner from a long line of landed gentry, which means they are very much legitimate. Thanks to that knowledge about their birth family, they are not foundlings. Hence, denigrate them at your own peril because that is a sure way to ruin yourself in the society you so crave. So for the final time: NO! You will not be with me on the morrow when I attend the ball, as I was the only one invited.”
Caroline Bingley could not understand why neither her brother nor her sister would bend to her will. With or without their assistance she would reach the heights of society. Being able to attend the ball at Holder House had been a large piece in her plan to place herself before Viscount Hadlock. She had planned to use her arts and allurements to ensnare him, but thanks to her brother’s intransigence she would have to find another way.
“You do not care about our late parents’ wishes for me?” Miss Bingley attempted one last time to manipulate her brother. That this stratagem had never worked before did not discourage her.
“That tired old lie again?” Bingley snorted derisively. “You forget I had conversations with both Mother and Father before each was called home to God. Like me, they never understood where these pretentions of yours came from, because as you well know, neither one of them ever encouraged this nonsense in you. In fact, they were more than happy with their station as a tradesman and his wife. Do not forget that much to your chagrin, Father made his wishes plain in his Last Will and Testament.
“You, and you alone, are the one who deludes herself that she will rise in society or that members of the first circles, not to mention those of noble birth, would be interested in you, the daughter of a man who was active in trade until the day he went to his eternal reward.”
“I have twenty thousand pounds. Also, I am of the utmost class and a highly desirable woman with all of the social graces,” Miss Bingley screeched.
“Surely they taught you at school that it is birth and not wealth which determines your place in society? No matter how much you try to ignore the fact or hold yourself out as a member of the gentry, your family has deep and abiding roots in trade. You, Caroline, are the daughter of a tradesman, and none of your pretensions will wipe that fact away. And you who read the society pages as if it is the bible, did not see that the Carrington-Bennets each have twice your dowry. I am sure you did, but you tend to ignore inconvenient facts.” Bingley could tell that his sister was furious; however, it was self-induced. “By the by, if you do not want to lose more of your precious twenty thousand pound dowry, which is just above eighteen thousand pounds now, I would not break a single item in one of your temper tantrums.”
“Eighteen thousand pounds! My dowry is twenty thousand pounds!” Miss Bingley exclaimed in her high-pitched, shrill, grating voice. She had indeed read the amount of the foundlings’ dowries and pushed it aside.
