Fanny had been careful to hold her tongue around her husband or anyone connected with the estate as she was convinced that he had not made empty threats the morning thatthingescaped hell. The only one to whom she could vent her anger was her Sam. Once or twice a week Fanny would find an excuse to go into Meryton where she would meet her paramour and lie with him. With him she would vent her spleen, blaming all of the world’s ills onthat thing.” Hodges would listen enough to nod his head occasionally, but really, he was anticipating what he would do to the woman as soon as she was done expressing her vitriol.
Mrs Bennet had made sure to be away from the estate on the day of her devil spawn’s birthday. Her anger simmered just below the surface, waiting for the time that it would burst forth and be given free rein. During her daughter’s birthday she came up with a plan to rid her life of the baggage she had been forced to carry. She would get her hands on some laudanum, and once the two in the nursery were asleep, she would take it into the woods where Sam would meet her. She would command him to take it far away and kill it. Even though he was no killer, Sam agreed to help as he wanted her to keep visiting him. He enjoyed his assignations with her very much and it did not hurt that he was making a landed gentleman a cuckold.
She was angry with her siblings for they too were under Satan’s thrall and were at Longbourn celebrating this demon’s birthday. She would never forgive them for turning on her. She was convinced they were jealous of her being a gentlewoman, so they always took the side of her husband. In her irrational state of mind, all of her life’s trials and tribulations were the fault of the child her husband called Elizabeth. She had none of the jewels, fine clothing, or carriages she had imagined would be gifted to her on her wedding day. She would never be able to see that everything that had transpired since she had sprung her trap were the consequences of her own decisions. It was, of course, much easier to blame a defenceless child, as one often looks for others to blame unless they are of true moral fibre. Fanny had recently felt the quickening so she knew that she had another five months or so to endure before the son she was carrying would be expelled from her belly.
At Longbourn the cook was putting her finishing touches on the cake for Miss Lizzy. The tradition that started in Germany some thirty plus years ago had taken hold in the Kingdom, so the last thing cook did was place a single candle in the middle of the chocolate cake she had created. When Mrs Hill saw her master nod, she went to collect the cake. Cook lit the candle and watched proudly as her masterpiece was carried into the dining parlour.
“Papa,‘aney,‘ake,‘ake,‘ake!” Lizzy exclaimed. It was placed on the table while Bennet assisted Lizzy to blow out the candle and Mrs Hill began to slice it. In the time she had been weaned, it was discovered that the young miss had a profoundly serious sweet tooth. Miss Lizzy looked back at them with her face and teeth covered in cake as she had taken a large handful of the slice placed in front of her.
“I take it she likes cake?” her uncle Edward Gardiner noted.
“That she does,” Edward’s older sister Hattie stated as she stood with her husband and their almost four-year-old son.
“There is so much that I have missed while travelling,” Edward nodded. He knew that he needed to make sacrifices to build his business that at its core was an import export concern. He had named it‘Gardiner and Associates,’even if at that point there were no associates. Edward loved his family but would not sacrifice his dreams of building a thriving business to attend every family event, although he was happy that he was here on this special day. His newest niece was so demonstrative and loving. She was small, but he had been thrilled when she had wrapped her little arms around his neck and squeezed while she planted a very wet kiss on his cheek. And he had wanted to spend some time with them before his own life drastically changed.
After concluding his travels to the north, he had begun his return to London when his carriage broke a wheel in the market town of Lambton in Derbyshire. It was during that sojourn he had met the parson’s daughter, Miss MadelineEllison. Her father Hubert was the local pastor. Edward had been intrigued by the pastor’s eighteen-year-old daughter and had delayed his return to London four times until she was acquainted with him enough so that he could request a formal courtship. He had not shared this news with the rest of the family, but Maddie was soon to arrive in London to stay with her father’s brother and sister-in-law. Hubert was a fourth son, and his brother Swindon was a barrister with a prestigious London firm at the Inns of Court.As long as Maddie loved and accepted Edward, the fact that he was in trade would not bother them.
He returned from his reverie just in time to see his niece blow out the candle with the assistance of her older sister. None of the family questioned why Fanny was absent; they were fully aware of the antipathy their sister held for her innocent child. Both brother and sister had tried to reason with Fanny, but it had fallen on deaf ears, so they had not tried again. As those celebrating were wishing the child happy on her birthday, they heard the front door open and without greeting any of them, they heard Fanny stomp up the stairs and slam her door.
Once the children returned to the nursery, the four adults gathered in the drawing room.“Why have you not divorced my sister, Bennet?” Gardiner asked his brother-in-law.
“I just do not want to have a scandal. I have two daughters and one more child on the way,” Bennet said as he looked at nothing in particular“It would affect the innocents and I cannot do that to them.”
“To imagine that you have to protect that sweet, vivacious girl from her own mother,” Hattie Phillips said as she shook her head in disgust.“No real mother would ever want to hurt her own child!”
“That, my dear sister, is the material point,” Bennet said sadly.“I do not believe she is equipped with maternal instincts. The only reason that she likes and accepts Jane is that she is reminded of herself when she looks at our oldest daughter. I am sorry to say this, but your sister is one of the most selfish people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting!” He stated coolly and there was no disagreement from any in the room.
“Now that Lizzy is weaned, are you going to keep Mrs Manning in your employ, Bennet?” Frank Phillips enquired.
“I am,” Bennet agreed.“Given that we need someone with Lizzy four and twenty hours a day, I need two nursemaids as we have Jane as well. Jane is so serene and never gives any trouble, but I am careful to make sure that she gets her fair share of my attention though she also gets some from her.”
An hour later the family departed. Gardiner was being hosted by the Phillips’in his former home which they had taken over in Meryton along with the law practice. Above stairs Fanny was seething with jealously that her family dared to give Satan’s emissary notice and ignore her.‘I will be rid of the devil’s spawn soon enough,’she promised herself and smiled maniacally at the thought of ridding the world of the mistaken borne.
Chapter2
June 1792
“My darling, Sam,” Fanny Bennet cooed.“You know what to do, do you not?” she asked as she stroked his member, offering pleasure in payment for services requested. She was well over six months with child and with a swollen belly, but she needed to make sure that Sam Hodges played his part in her plan to rid herself of the demon child.
“Y-y-es Fanny,” he shuddered at the ministrations to his erect member,“everything is set. You will bring the brat to me, and I will take her far away and dispose of her.”
Fanny stopped what she was doing and looked at him closely,“You will bring me the spawn’s heart, will you not Sam?”
“Yes Fanny, I will,” he said as she straddled him and guided him into her core as reward for telling her what she wanted to hear.
Once he had given into his pleasure, Fanny asked Sam to help her dress then slipped out of his house in a manner that she considered stealthy. Unbeknownst to Fanny, her sister saw her sneaking out of Sam’s dingy lodgings. As Fanny walked the mile back to Longbourn, she reviewed the plan again with relish, sure that once she removed the demon’s influence from her home that everything would be as it should be, and her husband would give her the respect that she so richly deserved and all the jewels and pocket money she desired in restitution.
After dinner, Fanny passed the bottle with the thick brown liquid to the maid that took dinner up to the two nursemaids. The routine was that the two would put the three occupants of the nursery to bed and then they would eat their meal and drink their tea. Fanny had saved ten pounds of her pin money and gave the maid five pounds with a promise of five pounds more once she had placed the liquid in the teapot and Fanny verified that the two upstarts who protected the urchin were fast asleep.
An hour later, the maid nodded to Fanny to confirm delivery and that she had poured the liquid into the teapot. She was unaware, however, that the liquid was laudanum. Fanny had devised a plan long before and it had taken some time to save the money over the last two quarters as she was not miserly in her habits. For these last three or four months she had gone up to the nursery to say goodnight to her beautiful Jane. She would pointedly ignore the dark one, thus when she followed the same routine on this night Bennet thought nothing of it. He had spent time with his daughters and John in the afternoon and would always wish them a goodnight before their final meals and washing at the end of the day before they went to bed.
Fanny entered the nursery just as she had every evening of late so as to not arouse suspicion. Both nursemaids were fast asleep as the drug had done its work. On seeing them neutralised, Fanny beckoned to the maid that assisted her and handed her the second five pounds she had promised. Sam would drop her in town where he would give her another ten pounds, and she would leave town and disappear.
She saw the three small beds and woke Elizabeth up, cupping a hand over her mouth and pantomiming‘shh’to ensure that she did not cry out. She then offered the demon some milk laced with the drug to make sure that she would make no noise until she was far away from Longbourn. Being woken up from a deep sleep, Elizabeth did not pay attention to who was giving her the milk, so she drank her full and fell into a drug induced deep sleep.
Fanny picked it up and made sure that the hall was empty then slipped down the servant’s stairs to bypass the kitchen. Once she was in the yard, she walked as quietly as she could past the stables. Some of the horses nickered but did not draw any attention to her, and she was thankful there were no hounds to manage. Had there been she would never have been able to bring her plan to fruition.
She exited the stone gate at the rear of the kitchen garden and made her way through the clearing where she found Sam and the hired equipage. The maid was already seated and took the drugged child, who she assumed was fast asleep, from Fanny. Once she had handed the hell child over to the maid, Fanny tried to rub its essence off her arms and pulled Sam aside out of earshot of the maid.
