“Bring me its heart, Sam; do not disappoint me. I have to know that the evil has been excised,” Franny hissed.
“I will bring you what you ask for, Fanny,” he gave her a quick kiss then climbed up to the driver’s bench, and with a flick of the whip the horse strained as the curricle was put into motion. Sam had the roof in place so no one would see who was inside as he turned onto the lane in the direction of the Great North Road.
Fanny felt happier than she had in, well since she married the boring man she was tied to. She was free of the evil influence which had taken over her house for a year. She managed to slip back inside unnoticed and went to bed. She had told the maid that usually assisted her that she would go right to bed after she said goodnight to Jane and did not need help. It was something that she had done a number of times over the months, so it was not wholly unexpected. She fell into a deep, restful sleep, certain that everything would soon be set to rights.
Mrs Manning was the first to wake. She immediately detected the taste of laudanum as she had it some years before and hated the way it made her feel. She saw that Miss Browning was still sound asleep as she started to become cognizant and rubbed the effects of sleep out of her eyes. The clock on the wall told her that it was past four in the morning. She panicked and ran to John’s bed, her knees almost buckling with relief as she saw her son sleeping peacefully. Next to John she could see Jane’s blond hair on the pillow as the three-year-old slumbered. When she looked at Miss Lizzy’s bed she started to panic in earnest. It was empty! Sometimes the little miss would crawl under her bed, but she was not there, and she was nowhere else in the nursery.
The missing child, coupled with the fact that someone had drugged them ,made Tammy Manning realise in that horrible moment that there had been foul play. She ran downstairs to the lone footman on duty, calling for him to wake the master and send him to the nursery then to rouse all the able-bodied servants. Ten minutes later Mr Bennet was running up the stairs and burst into the nursery, the nervousness at being summoned at this hour plain to see on his face. He knew when he was told he was urgently needed in the nursery that something was very wrong.
He was about to berate the sleeping nursemaid when Mrs Manning stopped him and pointed to Lizzy’s bed. His feeling of dread multiplied by a million when he saw it was empty. It took the former wet nurse but a few sentences to explain to the master what had happened; that someone had drugged them and taken the little miss. The dinner dishes were still on the little table, which was not normal. The maid that delivered them should have cleared them away hours ago.
Bennet lifted the lid on the teapot, dipped his finger into the liquid and tasted it. There was no question that someone had dosed the tea with laudanum. It was then that a dishevelled Mr Hill entered the nursery.
“Hill,” he barked,“have your wife wake Mrs Bennet and bring her to me, then have someone go wake Mr William Lucas as he is not only the mayor but the presiding magistrate as well. Please inform him that Miss Lizzy has been taken and we need as many men as possible to search for her.” Mr Hill nodded and rushed to carry out his master’s orders.
Miss Browning started to stir and woke up with her head feeling like someone had used it as a drum. Bennet had all of the adults exit the nursery to give the two children within a chance to return to sleep. When Mrs Hill appeared and asked where her master wanted to see Mrs Bennet, he told her to have her wait in his study and that she was to be guarded until he got there. He went to his chambers to dress, and when he walked into his study his wife looked suspiciously calm for one so pregnant who had been woken in the middle of the night.
“Where is Lizzy?” Bennet demanded with no preamble.
“In the nursery sleeping,” she replied with a sniff.“I dare say that even demons need their sleep…” Before she could continue, Bennet did something that he had never done in his life before; he slapped his wife.
“As God is my witness, Fanny Bennet,” he closed in so there were scant inches as his face hovered over hers while she stared at him with a stupefied look at his having struck her,“if I find out that you had anything to do with this tonight, I will see you hang!” Fanny was not quick witted, but she knew that she had to stick to her story. There was no evidence against her; it all pointed at the silly maid, Jenny.
“You can hit me as many times as you want, you brute,” Fanny said defiantly,“but I have no idea where your daughter is. When I went to kiss my Jane, she was in her bed.” Just then Mrs Hill knocked on the study door.
“Master,” she whispered,“the maid Jenny Brown, the one who delivered the nursemaid’s dinner, is gone. All of her belongings are gone too, and I found this under her mattress.” Mrs Hill held up a bottle with sticky brown liquid that was half empty. Bennet took it, removed the stopper, and closed immediately as the putrid smell of the opium-lased drug wafted in the air.
Bennet sent his wife back to her chambers and placed a footman to guard her to make sure she did not go anywhere. An hour later the mayor and a large contingent of men from Meryton arrived, including his brother Phillips who was accompanied by his worried wife. Once the arriving group was apprised about the happenings of that night, one of the men who worked with Sam Hodges spoke up and informed them that Sam had hired a curricle to go visit some family in the south in either Dorset or Devon, if his memory served.
One of the men had a team of bloodhounds, so Lizzy’s blanket was given to them to hone on her scent, and they soon found one to follow at the rear of the house. The men followed the dogs past the stables, out of the stone gate, and into the trees beyond. The trail ended at the lane and with so many tracks from so many vehicles there was no way of telling what was fresh and what was not, so the dejected group returned to the house.
By the time that they returned, the group of men had grown as the estate owners in the area including Bennet’s tenants from Bennington Fields and Netherfield Park had arrived. The tenants from those estates had no idea that Thomas Bennet was their landlord but as is often the way in the country town, a lost child was everyone’s concern. Riders were organised into groups of five and set off in every direction.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
At the same time that the men were starting to search, Sam Hodges was travelling through Essex on his way to Suffolk. Jenny Brown had decided to alight inIpswich, as she felt it was a big enough town in which to find a good situation. She did not know what Mr Hodges and Mrs Bennet wanted with the toddler and did not care. She now had twenty pounds, which was more money that she had ever had in her life. Sam found an inn on the Essex-Suffolk border and at around ten that morning they had a meal and changed the horse. They left as soon as was possible and reached Ipswich before dark. Thanks to some more drugged milk the little girl had slept most of the way. She had soiled herself, but neither adult cared for anything but themselves. After Jenny Brown alighted, Sam told her that he was heading for the coast and a boat to France, then left and turned toward his ultimate destination, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
After three days of intensive searching, Bennet resigned himself to the fact that whoever took his beloved daughter was long gone. All he could do now was wait for the inevitable ransom demand. He considered that someone had somehow found out about his true wealth and was going to try and get money out of him. And the truth was that if Sam Hodges had any inkling about Bennet’s true worth, that is exactly what he would have done, which would have gotten him his daughter back likely unharmed.
His wife had been questioned multiple times by himself and his two brothers-in-law as Gardiner had arrived the next day to offer whatever assistance he was able. No matter how much she was questioned or by whom, Fanny never wavered from her story. Her trump was that all evidence pointed to Jenny Brown. Thankfully, she had Sam procure the laudanum in London on one of his visits so there was no one in Meryton that was able to provide a clue as to the source of the drugs that were used.
Both Miss Browning and Mrs Manning tendered their resignations and the master refused. As guilty as they felt, the master assured them that he held them blameless. They had unknowingly been drugged and were incapacitated, so there was naught that they could have done.
Just like when she had entrapped her husband, things were not going the way that Fanny Bennet had assumed they would. She found herself in a cottage where she had to fend for herself, for the most part. There would always be a footman on guard, and he would summon the midwife when it came time for Fanny’s confinement. She was allowed to walk into Meryton, but she had no pin money, and the footmen would make sure that she did not approach the manor house. Bennet had not informed her yet, but as soon as the babe was borne, male or female, he would start divorce proceedings.
There was no proof, but in his gut, he knew that his wife was behind his darling daughter’s disappearance. He had already informed his brother-in-law who had recommended that he write to Mr Randolph Norman, an up-and-coming barrister with a new firm, Norman and James. Each minute, hour, and day that passed without a ransom demand, Thomas Bennet sank further and further into despair. The only saving grace was Tammy Manning who cheered him up and kept his Jane occupied so she would not worry about her baby sister all the time.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On the fourth day after the child had been taken, Hodges entered Sherwood Forest. As much as a miscreant that he was, he would not murder a child. He pulled the conveyance off the path and tied the horse to a tree with enough length that the animal was able to graze, and he went hunting. He came upon an unsuspecting deer and shot it with his pistol then proceeded to cut out its heart. He returned to his curricle in time to hear the wailing of the hungry and dirty child. He reached in and was about to administer some more drug laced milk when he saw a fine carriage approaching. In a blind panic, he threw the toddler to the ground, untied the horse, and took off at all speed in the opposite direction.
“Andrew,” Richard said in his high-pitched, still unbroken voice,“what do you think that man threw in the bushes before he took off like he was being chased?”
“How would I know?” retorted the thirteen-year-old Lord Hilldale to his eleven-year-old brother. The two were on their way to one of their father’s satellite estates in Lincolnshire with their tutor and a group of their footmen-guards.“It was nothing…” Andrew stopped as he heard it. The weak crying of a child.“Mr Lipton,” the young Viscount commanded,“stop the carriage!”
“Right away, my Lord,” Lipton replied rapping on the ceiling.
