“He came home one holiday,” Mr. Bennet continued, “and spoke of a young lady he had met in Town. Cathy, he called her. He was quite undone over her—entirely so.”
A faint, humorless breath escaped him. “I told him he was being a fool.”
Lady Catherine did not move.
Elizabeth felt Darcy’s hand close more firmly around hers.
“He would not be persuaded,” Mr. Bennet went on. “Then came a letter—quite distraught—informing me that she was no ordinary young lady, but the daughter of an earl.”
Elizabeth’s gaze flicked, involuntarily, toward Lady Catherine.
“Another letter followed soon after, saying they were planning an elopement. But then—” His voice dropped. “—then he appeared at Longbourn. Quite wild. Desperate. He said they had married, by a Catholic priest—though heaven knows how he was able to do that, since we have always been in the Church of England—and that she was with child. That her father and brother had discovered it, and that she had been taken away.”
Lady Catherine’s chin lifted, but she did not interrupt.
“He begged for money,” Mr. Bennet continued. “Said he must find her. That he would not abandon her or the child.”
Elizabeth felt something tighten in her chest.So, I was not born of a man who forfeited his duties. At least, not at first.
“I told him it was dangerous. That he was meddling with people who would not hesitate to ruin him, or worse. But he would not listen.”
Mr. Bennet paused.
“I did not see him again,” he said quietly, “until the night your mother was brought to bed just a year after Jane’s birth. It was a boy, but he was born blue. He never… never took breath.”
Elizabeth felt as though her heart were being cleaved in two. Tears filled her eyes as she watched her broken father stare into the flames in the grate, seeing images from the past that no one else could.
“He arrived—late—carrying a child.” Mr. Bennet’s voice grew rougher. “You. And he himself had been… badly beaten.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly.
“He left you with me,” Mr. Bennet said. “Said he could not keep you safe—not while he remained in England. He meant to go to India. To make his fortune. To return for you one day.”
Silence fell.
“I heard from him a few times,” Mr. Bennet went on. “He sent money—for your care. But the letters became fewer. And then…” he swallowed “…the last spoke of fever. Malaria. He did not expect to survive.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened in her skirts. “And after that?” she whispered.
“Nothing,” Mr. Bennet said. “I never heard from him again.”
The room seemed very still.
“I feared,” he added, more quietly, “that the Fitzwilliams might one day come looking. That they might claim you, or worse. So, I said nothing. To anyone.”
Elizabeth drew in a shaky breath.
“So, Mama does not know?” she asked.
Mr. Bennet shook his head. “No. She was not conscious when Frederick came. When she awoke, she was told she had given birth to another girl.” He hesitated. “We allowed her to believe that her dead son had merely been a bad dream.”
Elizabeth stared at him, her mind struggling to process everything she had been told. The enormity of it—of all of it—seemed to press in at once.
The deception.
The secrecy.
The years of silence.
