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Anne

I loved Lizzy’s impertinent nature. I also loved that she was strong as an ox and stubborn as a mule, which meant she fit in well with Mother. She had only been awake a couple of weeks before she was tramping up and down the stairs of Rosings, anxious to get outside. Well, perhaps not up and down the stairs so much as down the hall, or at least she could get to the door of her room unassisted. She was already showing herself to be naturally resilient, recovering nicely, and disinclined to accept my supposed sloth.

We were sitting around at a table in her room, with we being the group she affectionately called ‘the broken sisters’. It was hard to say which of us were more broken, but we were all at the very least tested. Lizzy’s tests were now known to all of us, though Mother and I suspected there was something she had not told us. None of us had the courage to broach the subject, though. Something Fitzwilliam had said before he left made me think he knew more than he let on, but we were not to know until we saw him at Easter—if he managed to keep his impatience in check, which seemed unlikely.

Mother’s status in the group was now generally known by the four of us, and we had no idea if the rest of the Bennet sisters knew. Nobody would think less of her for it, but it was not a topic of discussion. For myself, since I had been sick most of my life, and recovered just in time for a madman to try to kill me, my membership in the group seemed reasonable. I imagine learning my father was the cause of my mother’s membership should have distressed me immensely, but since I could not even remember him, I was curiously disinclined to worry about it. I was just happy to have my mother back.

The last member of our erstwhile group was naturally Charlotte, whose membership was fairly obvious.

Discussion started with me asking an entirely harmless question. “Mother, do you suppose Lizzy and I could go for a ride in my phaeton?”

My mother was far more amiable after her transformation, or really since the Bennet sisters joined our lives, but she was still master of the house. “Yes, of course, Anne. You can both ride in the phaeton all day if you like… as soon as you walk downstairs and climb onto it.”

She may as well have suggested we could ride as soon as we walked to town to hire a hack, but I was not to be so easily dissuaded. “How about just a half-hour? I will not drive. The groom can ride the pony or even just lead it around. Please, Mother.”

Mother and I were trying to work out how to live together in the same house. We had a long history of either ignoring each other or talking over each other, so these little steps seemed an important part of establishing our equanimity.

Mother looked at Lizzy, who would not press her, but looked like I was suggesting the best idea she had ever heard of, so finally she relented. “If you manage to get yourself aboard with only your sister’s assistance, then you may ride out for a half hour. You will bundle up, and I will have Smith leading the pony. No riding, just leading.”

We were both very agreeable to the plan. Lizzy looked like she was going to suggest the curricle so the other sisters could go, but Mother insisted. “Just the three of you. Your other sisters may have the pleasure of your company another day. You should go Saturday after luncheon.”

Charlotte did not look as interested in the excursion as we were, but agreed anyway.

With easy topics out of the way, Elizabeth brought up a painful one. I was surprised she would bring it up with the group and not with Charlotte alone, but she probably had her reasons… or perhaps she did not. She was clever and we all loved her, but she did ridiculous things as often as any of the rest of us.

“Charlotte, I wonder if you will allow our apparently adopted brother, Mr Fitzwilliam, a chance to come to know you.”

It was not until that moment that I realised Lizzy had met the lunkhead precisely once, and said half a dozen words at best. Naturally, they were a bit of an impertinent set-down at that. Mother had packed him off with Fitzwilliam before Lizzy awoke. We had all become so accustomed to each other that it was astounding to think of some of the intervals of acquaintance. Fitzwilliam and Lizzy seemed just about made for each other, but they had been in company for six weeks a year ago, then less than a week at the time of the attack. I was not at all certain she even liked him, but she was mightily impressed by what he had done in her absence. She met me and Mother for a grand total of about two hours before she woke up in my old room next to Mother and apparently adopted her immediately.

Charlotte had known my cousin for a couple of hours, but had an aversion to him bordering on outright disgust.

Charlotte never really minced words, much like someone else I know. “I cannot say. I know he is close to all of you, and I owe him at least more civility than I have so far, but it will be… difficult. Very difficult. I know it is monstrously unfair, but… but… but… he makes me very uncomfortable.”

Thus far, we all had our suppositions, but nobody was willing to ask Charlotte directly… well, almost nobody.

Elizabeth surprised me by saying, “He is not Wickham, Charlotte.”

Charlotte’s head snapped up to lock on Lizzy’s eyes, as if it had never occurred to her that someone might ascertain her secret.

She stared at Elizabeth for a moment in alarm, then her expression cleared, but not to one of comfort, but to an indifferent mask. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

Elizabeth was not one to be daunted, “If it was not him, who was it? You do know!”

Charlotte was not one for tears, but if she was, they would have begun.

She stared at Elizabeth for some time before she spoke almost in a whisper. “Colonel Blackwood whipped him within an inch of his life, and sent him to die in Spain. I watched it, Lizzy. Eight and twenty lashes to the back, and one on each cheek. I watched each lash of the whip and felt nothing. Nothing at all… or at least I convinced myself of that. It was the only way I could prevent myself from keening in despair or the desire to take my father’s rifle and kill him right on the pillory.”

Elizabeth was sitting next to her and just took her hands, but said nothing while Charlotte worked through it.

At length, Charlotte continued, “Do you know he escaped? He managed to leave the cart somewhere before the ship and disappeared into the slums of London. He is out there, Lizzy. He is doing the same thing to another woman… or perhaps to me again.”

As you would expect, we all gasped and cringed at the very idea that he was still loose in the world, and I saw Mother rethinking our security.

Once the dam broke on Charlotte’s words, they came rushing out in a torrent. “He wore a hood. He had just attacked Betsy, and I sent Maria for help when he came at me from behind. He would have got away with it easily, but I managed to nearly scratch his eyeballs out. That was how the colonel found him. So you see—”

She gave us all a hard stare. “He is alive somewhere in the world, and if he ever finds me, he will probably want revenge. A man like that will believe I ruined his life.”

Mother looked positively worried, and I knew steps would be taken before the day was out to safeguard our girls. You might argue Charlotte could have told us sooner, but nobody would chastise her. We now knew we had an enemy in the world, a man with no conscience whatsoever, who knew Rosings and its environs well. I had no doubt Darcy had a swarm of men looking for him, and they would be tripping over Mother’s men before the week was out.