“You both may have the right of it,” Martha finally opined,“but this goes against the normal order; a parent is not supposed to survive their child.” She broke down into great racking sobs. Oscar held her tightly while Louisa sat on her other side and Charles sat next to his father. Eventually it was decided that even though she had taken her own life which the church looked upon with censure, they would mourn Caroline for three months of half mourning.
The Bennets were expected that afternoon for a visit and before a note could be sent to cry off the tea, they arrived and were shown into the drawing room by Nichols. Tammy knew that something was awfully wrong by the anguish that she saw on the four Bingleys’faces.“Martha, what has happened? If it is a private family matter, we will return to Longbourn,” she said to her friend.
“No, Bennet, Mrs Bennet, please stay,” Oscar invited them to sit,“I would much rather that you hear what has transpired from us rather than as a rumour after it has been embellished many times.” Once the Bennet parents were seated, Oscar told them what had transpired and handed the letter to Bennet to read for himself. Bennet read the letter and no matter how she had behaved during her short life, he felt the Bingley’s pain.
“On behalf of Tammy and my family, you have my deepest sympathies and condolences, Bingley,” Bennet expressed.
“We suspected that she may be unstable, but to run off the edge of a cliff, it must have been much worse than we knew; mayhap we could have done something different,” the Bingley patriarch said sorrowfully.
“You and Martha did everything you could to try and put her on a good path; for a reason that none of us will ever understand, she refused to change,” Tammy stated as she held her friend’s hands having replaced Louisa on the settee.
“That is similar to what we told our mother and father,” Louisa revealed.“We have been mourning our sister for some years now; the only difference is that now the mourning period is finite. I loved my sister, but at some point, she became someone else. She used to be sweet and kind.” Louisa saw that her mother was about to blame herself again.“No, Mama, she started to change before you ever started to talk to us about social standing.”
Martha had to acknowledge that what Louisa said was true. The Bennets remained for another short while before returning home and giving the Bingleys privacy to mourn their daughter.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Sam Hodges brain was working harder than it had in years; he had ignored the ranting of his employer about the founding from Sherwood Forest as one of the many things that she espoused that had no basis in fact or reality. Earlier that day, he had a discussion with the boy, George Wickham, who said he was seventeen. As he recalled the details, he became more and more convinced that Lady Elizabeth Fitzwilliam was the toddler that he had discarded in the forest as he took flight.
“Wickham, what be this nonsense about a foundling that Mrs Fitzpatrick is always going on about; sounds like a fantasy to me,” Sam probed.
“It is no fantasy; she is the one that I meant to kill, still do if I ever get away from this place!” Wickham spat.
“What did she do to ya’that ya’wanted to kill her?” Sam asked.
“She has the life that should have been mine! She is a mongrel foundling, most probably the daughter of a servant and yet she gets it all and I have nothing!” Wickham was very bitter.
“Aint’ya’the son of a servant?” Sam asked amused that the young man would be so upset at the possible parentage of the girl when his own parentage was not pristine. Like he always did when faced with inconvenient facts, Wickham ignored the question.“Do ya’know when she been found?”
“Yes, they found the mongrel in June of’82,” Wickham informed Sam. That was the same month that he discarded the brat, and in the same forest; there was too much for this to be a coincidence now.
“Was she not wearing anything that identified her,” Sam hedged.
“A ruby encrusted cross with the name‘Elizabeth’on it,” was the answer.
Sam stood and left the young man wondering what he was about.
As he came out of his reverie he knew, it had to be her! She was the daughter of an Earl now. He had always regretted that he had not time to snatch the cross before he took off. That had always been his intention when he discarded the crying child, but the other carriage had been approaching too fast. If he had waited, he would have been apprehended and no cross was worth that! He had kicked himself as he drove the hired carriage away at all speed. He should have taken the cross off her while she was drugged, but in the end, it worked out well as it was the last piece of the puzzle that let him know that it was her.
How to use the information for profit? There was no one that he could share the information with at the overbearing lady’s house and even had he help, thanks to the boy’s attempt on her life, he was sure that she would be guarded better that the crown jewels. He would bide his time and when he thought that enough time had passed, he would contact Younge and see what they could do. There was potential for two ransoms here, one from the birth family and one from the adoptive family!
Once his employer started to send him and the other footman out to spy again, he would gain the information he needed to plan and then he would contact his former compatriots.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“You are so old,” Georgiana teased.
“As I am only three years older than you Gigi, less in fact, that would make you old too,” Elizabeth bantered back as she watched the footmen carefully carry the chocolate cake with eleven candles on it, with cook supervising, to make sure that they carried her creation carefully.
“Well at least I only have a single number in my age while you have two,” Georgiana shot back with a wide smile.
“I agree with Gigi,” Alex, who had recently turned four, interjected.“You areso veryold Lizzy.”
“If you two think Lizzy is old, what does that make the rest of us?” Lady Anne smiled proudly at her two younger children.
“Ancient,” Georgiana managed before William and Richard held her and started tickling.
“Boys!” Lady Elaine warned quietly. Before they took it too far, the two released Georgie. After cake and lemonade and other drinks, the seven cousins took a ride where, to no one’s surprise, Lizzy wanted to race her brothers and cousin Will. Georgiana was enormously proud; she had been presented with a cob in March on her birthday which she named Stars for the starlike shaped on her forehead. When pointed out that the name was close to her pony’s name, she stubbornly stuck to her decision. So, Stars she was.
