Chapter 2: A Plot Is Enacted
Unbeknownst to her husband, Grace Phillips was on the look-out for a letter addressed to her late father from the Marquess of Weston. When it arrived, she quickly secreted it in her pocket and hurried to call her carriage to take her to her sister, Frances, affectionately called Fanny, Bennet's house. Using the excuse of enjoying the slight breeze to be found outside, the two sisters availed themselves of the most shaded bench in the farthest corner of the Bennet garden, a spot chosen for its distance from the house and the privacy granted by the surrounding summer foliage. Mrs. Bennet quickly open the letter, laughed, and squealed. "He's going to take them!"
"Shh, sister," cautioned Mrs. Phillips. "Someone might hear you."
Mrs. Bennet quieted herself with great effort before replying in a more carefully modulated voice, "He's going to send a carriage with a nursemaid on Friday. He requires directions to the coaching stop in Hatfield as he says it's on the way to Ware, where he is spending the summer." Mrs. Bennet grabbed her sister's hands and added gleefully, "In three days, they'll be gone!"
Mrs. Phillips frowned, "Fanny, are you absolutely sure you wish to do this? I mean, I can take the girls in if you'd rather."
"No! They've got to go," exclaimed Mrs. Bennet. "I'm sure if I can get rid of those three, it will calm my nerves enough to let me conceive an heir. If I let you take them, Mr. Bennet will have those girls back at Longbourn before you can say, 'entailment.' The marquess and his wife will take good care of them; I'm sure of it. But, Gracie, you can never tell a soul what we've done."
"All right, sister," agreed Mrs. Phillips reluctantly. "How are we going to get them to Hatfield?"
"I've already thought of that," replied Mrs. Bennet. "We'll put out that the girls are going to stay with our brother in London and that they're spending the night with you. Widow Canty's niece is going to London to order her wedding clothes. I'll give her £5*, and she'll take the girls to the Hatfield coaching station in your carriage and hand them over to whoever the marquess sends. You'll give the girls a bit of brandy in their milk before they leave your house, and they'll sleep the whole way to Ware. Your driver and footmen will see Miss Canty and the girls into the inn and bring back your carriage.
"Everyone will think the girls have gone on to London with Miss Canty. The girls won't be missed until Edward comes to visit at Christmas. By then, Miss Canty will be married and moved to Liverpool, and everyone in Meryton will believe the girls to be in London with our brother and his dear wife. We will be terribly upset and cause all kinds of noise until we have to give in and decide the girls are lost forever."
"And what of Mr. Bennet," asked Mrs. Phillips. "Won't he wonder about the girls when he comes home next week?"
"I have thought of that, too," said Mrs. Bennet smugly. "I need you to get a fresh leg of lamb from the butcher on the morning the girls are to leave. Wrap it up in a sheet and bring it to Longbourn as soon as you get a message that I am taken ill and need you. Make sure it doesn't leak on the way and that no one notices that you're carrying it. Smuggle it up to my bedroom. We're going to use the lamb's blood and the sheet to pretend I've miscarried. You, as my loving sister, will dispose of the 'mess.' You can burn the sheet, my night rail, and any towels and cloths we can make bloody. Be sure the servants see the bloodstains first, though. Later, you can throw the meat in the woods.
"You'll spread the word that I'm indisposed and unable to see visitors. I'll be so upset that only you can look after me for the next few days, which will keep Hill out of the way. Then, when Mr. Bennet gets home, you'll tell him the bad news. He desperately wants an heir and will be very upset about the loss. It will take him several days to miss the girls. When he asks, you'll tell him that you sent them to our brother because their noise was getting on my nerves. He'll never need to know that we sent them before there was any 'trouble.'"
"And, when our brother comes at Christmas and has no knowledge that he's supposed to be looking after Lizzy, Mary, and Kitty? What will you say then," demanded Mrs. Phillips who was secretly very impressed with her younger sister's planning.
"You'll send him a letter telling him I'm ill the same day the girls leave. In it, you'll say that, if you have to you'll send them to him along with a tenant's daughter who's on her way to Ramsgate to take up a position. That way, he'll be alerted that they may be coming but will not be alarmed when they do not arrive," explained Mrs. Bennet.
The scary part of this whole diabolical plan was that it worked. Just as Mrs. Bennet had predicted, having lost her two daughters in a boating accident, the Marchioness of Weston demanded to take in the three girls and raise them as her own. Her father went to his grave believing that the girls had the Hamilton family's green eyes and dark brown, unruly curls and were undoubtedly his late son's daughters. The marquess was less sure, but when Lizzy said her papa's name was Bindit and her mama's name was Fwannie, even he had to agree it was possible the children's father was Benedict Hamilton. The family told everyone who asked that the girls were the children of Benedict and Frances Hamilton.
Time Line
1792 (November) Lizzy's birth
1793 (July) Mary's birth
1794 (May) Kitty's birth
1797 (July) Girls disappear
*£5 in 1811 would be worth nearly £392 in 2018.
