‘I will bide my time,’she told herself.‘This demon babe has destroyed my relationship with my husband; it is all her fault!’Fanny told herself, conveniently forgetting that other than for procreation, she had never had any sort of relationship with her husband.
Fanny Gardiner Bennet chose not to remember that which did not fit with the narrative that she told herself. She had been so proud of herself for entrapping a gentleman to raise her from the stink of trade, but she had never considered the cost. Both her sister and brother had been disgusted with her actions and had effectively broken with her. They both had a good relationship with her husband and her older daughter Jane, but when they saw her, there was no more than a perfunctory greeting.
Her father had passed before Fanny bore Jane, and Frank Phillips had taken over his late father-in-law’s practice in Meryton. Fanny was extremely jealous as her sister had birthed a son, Graham, six or seven months before her daughter was born, and her father had the pleasure of meeting his grandson before the onset of the apoplexy that had taken his life.
Fanny had been shocked that her husband never relented to allow her more than the fifteen pounds per quarter in pin money stipulated in his marriage settlement. Not only that, as she had discovered, to her chagrin, he had instructed all of the local merchants that she was not allowed to purchase on Longbourn’s accounts and that if they allowed her to do that, he would not honour the debts. Such purchases would then be paid out of her pin money.
In a rare moment of introspection, Fanny Bennet had considered that she may have made an error in her calculations when she decided to entrap the handsome landowner. She quickly dismissed the thoughts as she decided that she was the envy of all of her old friends, especially Sarah Lucas who had married the buffoon William Lucas that ran the general store in Meryton. Given her mean understanding of reality, Fanny Bennet could not understand why she received almost no invitations nor why so few of her former friends ever called on her at Longbourn.
Not long after marrying, Fanny had visited all of her friends, boasting about her‘wonderful’life as a gentlewoman and how she would condescend to still see them even though she was so much higher than them now. Fanny Gardiner had never been popular, merely tolerated, and now due to her insufferable behaviour she was reviled.
Sarah Lucas was another of whom Fanny was jealous as her first-born had been a son, Franklin, who was now ten. She consoled herself that Sarah’s daughter Charlotte, who was born four years after her brother, was plain looking and nothing to her Jane—an opinion that she had never been shy expressing in Sarah Lucas’s company. Now she had just birthed another girl! Of course, it was not her fault; the ugly, dark thing should have known that she was supposed to be a son!
While his wife sat stewing in her bed, Bennet welcomed Mrs TammyManning to Longbourn. He offered her five pounds a month, almost double the amount that would normally be paid for a wet nurse, told her that she would have a roomy bedchamber in the nursery, and also told her that her son, John, was welcome to reside there as well. The widow accepted the terms gratefully and was shown up to the nursery by Hill. The housekeeper placed the swaddled babe into Tammy’s arms so that she could have some much-needed sustenance. The beautiful little girl ate hungrily then, when satiated, and after being burped and changed, was placed in her cradle alongside the one in which John Manning had been installed. She was introduced to MissLoretta Browning, the nursemaid whose chamber was right next to hers. After the ladies were satisfied that the two babes and little Jane were all fast asleep, the wet nurse and nursemaid were told that they were required in the master’s study. It was not yet six in the morning, but Mrs Hill explained that the master wanted to talk to both without delay and that she would stay to monitor the nursery.
Mr Hill showed them into the master’s study then closed the door behind them.“Please sit,” Bennet requested. The two occupied the two chairs facing Bennet’s large oak desk.“What I am about to say could very well sound crazy to you, but I have good cause to do so.”
Miss Browning had a reasonable idea what the master was about to say as she had heard the mistress’ravings after Miss Lizzy had been born. She could not comprehend how any sane person could make such utterances, never mind the mother of the child.
“Undernocircumstances is Miss Elizabeth to be alone in the company of her mother,” he stated his expectation, the wealth of emotion in his expression proved his words true. Miss Browning accepted the command without question, but Mrs Manning was genuinely concerned. Bennet explained in detail why he had felt it necessary to explain so there would never be an incident due to omission; the nursemaid added her own insight after hearing the angry tirade emanating from the master’s wife.
“I understand, sir, but could it not be the stress of childbirth that made the mistress say things that she does not mean?” the wet nurse asked with some trepidation. Bennet explained about the entail and that his wife was obsessed with bearing a son to break it. It did not take much more for Mrs Manning to realise that the master was fully justified in the measures that he was taking to protect his precious, new-born daughter.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
In the years since she murdered her husband, nothing had gone as she commanded, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh was less happy than she normally was. Her brother had hired a governess for Anne, a Mrs Maud Jenkinson, who did not respect the title of mistress of Rosings or her exalted rank at all. Not only that, but the woman thwarted Lady Catherine’s attempts to try to influence her daughter at every turn. It seemed that the servant kept her brother informed of all goings on connected to her charge, and whenever she tried to exert her considerable influence, which was only such in her own mind, she would receive a letter from her brother or a visit where she would be told in no uncertain terms that she was expected to behave.
Each Christmas the family celebrated at Snowhaven or Pemberley on alternating years. Christmastide 1791 was celebrated at Pemberley. Since her arrival, Lady Catherine had repeatedly tried to convince her sister and brother-in-law to name her guardian over Fitzwilliam. Everyone called him William or Will, but she would not lower herself to use that appellation, and any future children the Darcys might then have if something untoward was to happen to them. Her attempts, however, were rebuffed ever more forcefully each and every time she requested it. She also tried to push her fantasy of a cradle betrothal between her daughter and the Darcy heir, no matter how many times she was told that it would never happen. Yet even when she tried to redirect persons to see things as she wanted them, and no matter what tack she chose, either haranguing, cajoling, or charm—her version of it—she was not able to move the Darcys to her way of thinking, which frustrated her no end.
What she did not know was that both George and Anne Darcy had put explicit and iron clad clauses in their wills denying their permission for William to marry his cousin Anne unless they both chose that union with no regard to the wishes of her mother, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The wills also stipulated that said lady would never be guardian to William or any other children they may have, and that she would have no access to the Darcy fortune underanycircumstances.
After she had birthed her son, Lady Anne had a number of miscarriages and one still birth that had left her weakened but no less determined to have another child one day. On the advice of their doctor, the couple had abstained for a long period of time, and luckily Lady Anne seemed to have regained her health again.
William was a happy lad and spent much time with his older cousins Andrew and Richard. He had become friendly with his father’s steward’s son, George Wickham, who was two years younger than himself. The boy was a bit of an imp and could be on the cruel side in his pranks from time to time, but he was treated as a friend by the three cousins, albeit a younger one.
Lady Catherine was disgusted that the Darcys allowed their son to consort with such a low born boy as the son of a steward. She looked on the boy with a gimlet eye as he looked vaguely familiar, but she could not put her finger on it. The truth that she was unaware of was that the boy was her late husband’s bastard. On one of their Christmas visits, a maid at Snowhaven had been willing seduced by Sir Louis, hoping for some pecuniary advantage from the assignation. There was not, but she was with child and so on the verge of further disgrace.
The truth of his birth was one few knew. Jim Wickham, then an under-steward at Pemberley, agreed to marry the maid Clara and raise the babe as his own. This led to the birth of George Wickham seven months after they married. What no one knew was that from an early age Clara Wickham had passed her avarice, grasping, and manipulative ways on to her son, always filling his head with tales of his supposed due, explaining how she manipulated others to get more and more without working for it. She poured poison into his ear at every chance that she got, told him that he was born of a great man, and lied to her son by inferring that Pemberley’s master was his father, hence the reason his name was George.
The more she was frustrated in her attempts to command her family, the deeper Lady Catherine’s anger took root. Over a glass of whiskey, she was sipping to swallow the anger at yet another instance of being denied her wishes, she decided to bide her time which would lull her enemies, which is how she characterized any that opposed her will, into a false sense of security. For the rest of her stay, she never mentioned the request for guardianship or a betrothal between Fitzwilliam and Anne again. Luckily, the family was very wary of the self-styled‘great lady’and were not fooled by her supposed reformation.
In January 1792, after the Twelfth Night ball at Pemberley and Lady Catherine had departed in her barouche for Rosings, the adults of the family met in George Darcy’s study. It was agreed that Lady Catherine could be dangerous, although they had seen no direct evidence of that yet. Both families decided to hire a number of ex-military men to act as guards and double as footmen, they would also get double the salary for both positions so they would be loyal. It was also decided that Anne de Bourgh was to stay with the Fitzwilliams until they came to Town for the season.
Neither Reggie nor his younger sister Anne could fathom why their sister had become the person that she was. They were all raised in the same home by the same parents, so the character that she had was unfathomable to her siblings. What neither knew was that before Reggie was born, Catherine had been a happy go lucky, pleasant girl. Something had changed not long after Reggie was born and none of those who knew her before the change could explain what it was. What their parents had not shared with their younger children was that one day not long after her brother’s birth, Catherine was playing in the park and had ran ahead of her nursemaid when she slipped and fell into a stream. Some minutes later she was discovered by her nursemaid who pulled her out of the stream as she screamed for help. By the grace of God, the servant had instinctively hit her charge on the back repeatedly, forcing water out of her lungs so she could breathe again. What none, including the doctors of the day knew, and would not understand for more than a century, was that her brain had been deprived of oxygen for too long causing some brain damage, which was the fundamental reason for her change in personality.
At the end of January, the Darcys and Fitzwilliams made for Town with twelve new footmen-guards between the two families.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
March 1792
Thomas Bennet could not have been more enamoured with his almost one year old daughter had he tried to be. At nine months old she had started to say words; her first two were papa and‘aney for her beloved, older sister who had celebrated her third birthday on the fifteenth of January. At ten months old the little prodigy, as her proud papa called her, took her first tentative steps. Now, just shy of one year she was completely mobile and often ran as fast as her little legs would carry her and could articulate a fair amount of her wishes or observations verbally. Her father had never heard of intelligence like his Lizzy displayed, and would read to her as much as he was able. He read not just children’s books, but poetry and even some Shakespeare. The more he read to her, the more she seemed to enjoy it.
Bennet was certain that Lizzy could not understand most of what he was reading, but she had an insatiable curiosity. Jane was always welcome and would stay to listen for some minutes before she would eventually wander off to play with her dolls. The two sisters seemed to love each other endlessly, as much as a three and almost one year old could. As stipulated, Lizzy was never left alone. When she was not under the watchful eye of her father, she was with either Miss Browning or Mrs Manning, sometimes both. The toddler was being weaned off the sustenance from the wet nurse and was starting to eat solid food and drink milk from a cow. Mrs Manning’s son John, who was a little more than two months older than Lizzy, had been weaned a week earlier. He was a pleasant little boy who now walked with confidence and had started to talk a month earlier.
As far as Lizzy was concerned, Tammy Manning was her mother and John her brother. Her birth mother was once again with child and was praying that this one would be a boy so she would never have to lie with her husband again. Before she had become with child, she had started to have an affair with Sam Hodges, a very good-looking man of five and twenty who worked in Mr Lucas’s store. Not very bright, but still crafty and manipulative, Fanny had made sure that her husband had planted his seed in her at the same time so if she were with child, he would not be suspicious.
As she saw how remarkable the demon child was, watching the love and attention that her husband showered on his devil’s spawn of a daughter, the more Fanny’s hatred for the child grew and the more determined she became to do something about her. Given that the child was never out of someone’s sight, it was a problem that she would need to solve to take care of the abomination that she had brought into the world.
