“Jane, that is too much,” Bennet started to say.
“No Papa, it is not!” Jane returned firmly.“Based on what I see here,” she pointed to the draft settlement,“we are wealthy enough for many lifetimes, so I dare say that we will survive without my dowry, and it will do so much good for those who have so little. I have five-thousand-per-annum pin money, for goodness’sake. Were I to get a new wardrobe every season in the most expensive of fabrics, I will never be able to spend that, never mind more!”
Bennet knew when it was time to withdraw from the field of battle. Perry noted the changes for his solicitor to amend the final draft and Bennet wrote a note to Oscar Bingley requesting that he attend him at the Gardiners’house that evening. He was about to send it when Gardiner told him that his wife suggested they invite the Bingleys for dinner that night, so Bennet wrote a new note.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
At the same time, as members of the Ton were breaking their fasts, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth as what they had all seen at Miss Bennet’s coming-out ball but hoped what they were mistaken about was made official. The most eligible bachelor in the realm would not be theirs! Rumours abounded that, although the Bennets had eschewed Town, they had decent connections, but nothing exceptional. They were supposedly very wealthy, which had made the matchmaking mamas nervous, so the only thing they had left to decry about the match was that she was a‘Miss’and was not titled. In the coming days, they were to find out that the Bennets’connections were far more than decent.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The courier had departed Gardiner House for Meryton with the dawn. The Phillipses were enjoying their morning meal when their housekeeper brought them an express and said that the Gardiner courier was waiting for a response. Hattie instructed that the courier be fed and relaxed in the kitchen until the master had written a response, then she and Franny looked at her husband expectantly.
“Hattie, you are not going to believe this,” Frank stared at the missive with disbelief. He simply handed it to his wife, who let out a shriek of joy once she had read the most important part of the missive.
7 November 1806
Gardiner House
Portman Square
London
Brother and Sister,
I pray you are seated when you read this. We have been reunited with Lizzy!
This is not a joke; it is truly so! We suggest that you make haste and join us at Edward and Maddie’s home.
Wait until you hear of all the coincidences.
Please DO NOT share this news with anyone else yet, other than the Hills, if you will; make a quick stop at Longbourn on your way.
Your brother,
Thomas
“Mrs Hester!” Hattie called at the top of her voice.“Please have our trunks packed, we depart for London as soon as may be. Sooner than may be if you can!” The housekeep bobbed a curtsey and left to instruct the maids.“Frank, I will write, telling them that we will arrive latertoday.”
“I will pass it to the courier once you have finished, Hattie.” Frank Phillips valued his life too well to even think about trying to gainsay his wife. Franny sat in stunned silence. She had heard about a cousin who had been stolen away, but never imagined that she would meet said cousin in her lifetime.
“Oh, I cannot forget to write a letter to Graham at Oxford,” Hattie stated as she fluttered her handkerchief nervously on her way to the escritoire. The courier was on his way back to London but a half-hour later. The Phillipses were on the road within two hours with a quick stop at Longbourn, which produced tears of joy from the long-time housekeeper and, uncharacteristically, Mr Hill himself cried as he soothed his wife, the shadow of grief the elder Bennets and staff had suffered silently for so long finally gone.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Bingleys were enjoying breaking their fast at their townhouse on Gracechurch street when a footman in Darcy livery delivered a note inviting them to dinner at Darcy House two days hence. The Hursts received an identical invitation around the same time, and both were accepted with pleasure.
As they were folding their napkins, the butler brought a second message from Gardiner House with an invitation for dinner that evening, and it too was accepted. When Charles read the engagement announcement at breakfast, he found that he did not feel the regret he thought he would. He realised then that he had not truly been in love with Jane Bennet and wondered at her ability to understand him better than he had understood himself.
Chapter3
The Fitzwilliams and Darcys arrived at the Gardiner’s house just after eleven. As everyone took seats in the large drawing room, there was an uncomfortable silence as no one wanted to be the first to speak. It was understandable that after a night to consider the occurrences of the prior day that there would be some reticence, as no one from the newly extended families knew one another.
Perry and Lady Rose had left some minutes before as they felt that the families needed the time alone.
As she was the reason for the meeting, Elizabeth decided that she needed to break the ice.“Uncle Thomas and Aunt Tammy, what was I like before I was kidnapped from your home?” Elizabeth asked, assuming that it would be a subject that her birth father would be able to talk about easily.
“From the time you began to crawl, and you started early, it was like trying to catch the wind. You were a little whirlwind! Once you started walking, at about eight months of age, there was no stopping you. It was as if you went from crawling right to running, and once you started you did not stop,” Bennet reminisced.
