Thwack
Jane Bennet felt a distinct, but not unbearable pain in her knee. She looked down quickly and saw two things of note. One was that the oily parson who kept moving closer and closer to her with every bump for the previous several hours, and who would listen to her chastisement and move back in the corner, only to start moving back almost immediately; apparently finally worked his nerve up to place his hand directly on her knee, accidentally of course, when the carriage went over a bump. The second interesting item of note was that he was screaming, holding up his hand which had at least one finger bent in in an unnatural direction. A quick flick of her eyes showed a leather sling moving quickly across the gap between the seats, holding a rock that looked apparently sufficient to do the job.
The parson started screaming like a little girl, cursing at the children, cursing at Jane, and crawling like a rat towards the corner as if he were cornered by a wild bear, rather than a woman and three young children. Jane looked over the parson to satisfy herself that he would stay put this time. The man reminded her of her cousin Collins, if one doubled all of Mr. Collins bad attributes and halved all of his good ones. She was mightily happy that she did not live anywhere near his parish, wherever that may be.
Satisfied that he was going to keep his place, even though she could barely hear herself think with his carrying on, (You would think his hand was broken), she looked over to Martin to give her thanks. Confusingly enough, Martin did not have the sling in his hand. Neither did Matthew. With a small smile, she looked over at her Amelia, who was giving the parson the most insincere look of apology imaginable.
"Oh My! Oh No! My apologies sir! My apologies! I am so sorry! I do not mean to hurt you. My brothers have been teaching me to use the sling and I lost control. I do you will accept my deepest, most sincere, and most humble apologies, Sir!"
Jane almost snorted with the insincerity of the speech, which was so blatantly false, that it should have been obvious even to the parson; even though he appeared to be the stupidest man in England. The parson had at least quit screaming, but was still babbling, so Jane thought that she should actually do her duty and chastise the young girl properly for her poor behavior.
She said in the sternest tone of voice she could manage, "Mary Beth Masterson! How many times have I told you not to practice with your sling in a carriage? Can you not be trusted for anything? If you must practice your weapons in the carriage, use your knife instead. At least you have a good chance of hitting the right target."
Amelia, warming to the subterfuge, said "But Mrs. Nicholson! I just sharpened my knife this morning. It is like my father's razor. If I start throwing it about, it will dull the point, then I will just have to sharpen it all over again, and you know I only carry the two."
Jane schooled her features to one of near indifference, looked directly at the parson, and said "Is that not what knives are for, dear?"
The parson took up his walking stick and started beating on the top of the carriage like a madman. A few minutes of beating and yelling out the window eventually caused the coachmen to stop the carriage, although he was clearly not in the least happy with this particular development. The parson crawled out of the carriage as quickly as he possibly could, and insisted on riding on the top. Lucy shrugged philosophically, climbed back down, got in with the rest of her party, and said "What did I miss?"
Jane explained what had happened, and then smiled at Amelia for her quick thinking, and her even quicker sling. Then she proceeded with more directions. "Amelia, I will need your help at the next stop. I would like everybody in the county to be well aware that the Masterson family is heading west towards Hatfield."
Amelia just smiled at the task, and Jane considered it practically done.
Jane was very worried about the fate of her charges and herself, but mostly vexed that she just did not know what to do. The warnings about creditors seemed both sincere and worrisome, but how much should she be concerned about them? Would they hunt her to the ends of the earth, or give up after a few days, or not even look in the first place? They certainly would not follow her to the Americas or Australia, so there were limits; but where would she be considered safe? The next village over was obviously not sufficient, but would the next, or the next? The worst part of the whole business was the uncertainty. Would she always be looking over her shoulder, for the rest of her life?
Worst of all was the news Lucy brought the first day.
Lucy said, "Miss Jane, I went through the Master's bedroom on the way looking to see if there was anything useful we could take."
Jane looked at her critically, mostly out of deeply ingrained habit; but then decided a little bit of thievery would not have been out of order. Now was the time to start thinking differently than she had. She was no longer Miss Jane Bennet the gentlewoman, nor Miss Gardiner the governess. She was now responsible for her charges, and in a difficult situation. If Lucy found anything useful the masters had left behind, Jane would think nothing of taking it.
Lucy continued, "I did not find anything of any value, but I did find these in the fireplace."
Jane gasped in surprise to see the remains of three letters, all mostly burned, and completely indecipherable. She could get almost nothing out of the letters, except that at least one and maybe two were from Kent, and what she could see was written in Lizzy's hand. There were a few disconnected words here and there, and oddly enough, references to both Charlotte and Mr. Darcy in the same paragraph. How odd! Other than that, she could not make heads or tails of it. Who could possibly be so cruel as to burn the governess's letters? It was in every way impossible to fathom, but eventually Jane just accepted that anyone who could abandon their children without a word must be without any redeeming characteristics whatsoever. This was just one more malicious act. She would be in contact with Lizzy soon enough, and it was still more than three months until the first of their sister's babes were to arrive. She had time.
The first day's travel had taken them a good 50 miles to the west, where she found out the difficulties of securing proper lodging. Even given more coin than she actually had, the only inn the village possessed only had a single room. With younger charges, it would have been easy enough. They would all just share the same room. With Martin at his age though, that did not seem to be something that she could allow, unless she became more desperate than she was so far. She could see that over the next few days, she would need to answer the obvious questions at least in her mind so she need not fret with every twist and turn. Martin and Mathew felt well enough to brave a night in the common room by the banked fire, and the innkeeper seemed an honest sort of man, so that was the way of it.
The next day, before boarding another coach taking them farther west, Jane had a discussion with the children.
"Children, I think it important for you to know what has happened. There is no easy way to say it! Your parents have abandoned you, and you are very unlikely to ever see them again. You are stuck with me for the duration."
Amelia looked carefully at her, and said so quietly she had to stretch to hear, "We like you better anyway, Miss Jane."
Jane thought she should probably at least chastise the child for her obvious disrespect of her parents, but considering what said parents had done, she thought they were not really due any respect whatsoever. If Amelia was ready to get on with the rest of her life; who was Jane to criticise.
Jane said, "You need not fear. I have taken care of you these five months, and I will take care of you until you are grown, but there are things you need to know… Important things"
Jane felt that Amelia was much too young to be engaged in this type of discussion, but she believed that with the child's fate in her hands, she really could not sugarcoat the truth. There may be difficulties ahead, and now was as good a time as any for Amelia to start getting used to the idea. The older boys were certainly old enough to understand what was happening and be useful; although Jane certainly did not discount Amelia.
"Your parents left debts behind… Serious debts. There will be those who may wish to find us and cause us harm, but I know not how hard they will look. We need to make ourselves difficult to find. If someone looks long enough, they will find us; but I want to at least make it difficult."
Matthew looked as if this were some big adventure he was just itching to write down, and Martin looked like a boy trying to be the man he felt like he needed to be. Martin asked, "Just how difficult do we need to make it?"
Jane thought that she would need all the help she could get, so there was little point in trying to hide any of the truth from the boys. "I don't know. This is all as new to me as it is to you, and a fortnight ago I found it difficult to think ill of just about anybody. Now we will need to be clever, and just do our best."
Matthew asked, "What are we to do?"
Janet had hours in the coach to think about it, and even though she did not really know all that she would have to do, some of it seemed rather obvious. She was not a woman that was well-suited to skulking about secretively, but be that as it may, that was what was required.
Jane looked at each of the children in turn, before saying, "When we get where we are going, you will become Bennet's. Your previous surname is never to be spoken aloud from today… Ever"
The children looked at her with surprise, but she could see all of them thinking it through, and even Amelia seeing the wisdom of that approach. All nodded their heads silently in agreement, although they were still perplexed.
Martin asked the obvious question, "Why not Gardiner, like you?"
Janet had momentarily forgotten her previous deception, but thought the children deserved an explanation. She replied, "My name is not really Gardiner. That is my mother's name I adopted when I sought employment, although the whole thing seems rather ridiculous now. Most of my life, I have been Jane Bennet, and when we arrive, I will return to being Jane Bennet. You are to be my adopted nieces and nephews."
Satisfied with that part of the agreement, Jane added, "Some may wish to follow us, and we need to think like animals being chased. We need to leave almost no trail in the direction we actually plan to go, and a very obvious trail in the wrong direction. We will not be going straight to our destination, but in many directions, until we believe we have scrambled our scent enough to be difficult to follow. I do not really know the best way to do this, so we will have to be prepared to think lightly on our feet."
Jane added, "Until we get at least 100 miles from here, I do not want to use the Bennet name. In fact, every morning we shall make up a new set of names, and use those to try to confuse our followers."
Amelia looked like she thought this would be the most fun game ever. The boys looked like they understood the seriousness of the situation a bit more, but they were understanding and ready to do their part.
The next fortnight give Jane Bennet a little bit of a lesson in how the world works, and it turned out that fortune favored her in her associations. Not knowing any better way to go about it, she simply tried to leave rumors, innuendo and breadcrumbs pointing west, while after a couple of days, the party went north, then east, then north a bit more, and almost in a circle before preparing to pivot to her ultimate direction. Like her sister before her, she found that once she dressed herself as someone of the working classes, she was accepted readily enough, and with kindness by most. There were to be the exception such as the oily parson, and she was no longer under any illusions that there could not be worse out there, but she had to keep moving, and everyone had to remain vigilant.
It turned out to be surprisingly easy to get rides on farm carts, grain wagons, and with any of the other men who made their trade moving goods from one place to another. She was never quite certain whether the men provided transportation because of the pennies or shillings she was willing to pay them, for the chance to have a beautiful woman ride with them for a few hours, or because she was still the nicest and most amiable woman in England, or just because almost nobody was really a match for the combined powers of Jane and Amelia Bennet. Sometimes they would stay in and inn, sometimes it was by the fire in a farmhouse, occasionally even a bed of straw in the barn.
Bit by bit, Jane finally began to be comfortable that she had left behind no trail that could readily be followed. In some of the first few stops, she worked with Amelia and Lucy to loudly spread rumors of her westward journey, even going so far as to tell one or two village gossips in great detail the name of the village they were going to in the west, and their assumed surname. They were perhaps even going to the Americas, but first they needed to go visit her aunt in Hatfield. She wasn't sure why she did that, but she was sure that nobody except her sisters would understand the reference to the village, or the surname of one of their childhood friends.
On the fifth day out, when they had gradually started turning back towards the east, she learned about the Royal Mail coaches, a few weeks before her sister Lizzy would learn the same lesson. They traveled at night, did not stop for comfort or food or rest, but covered 100 miles every night. The fare was reasonable, and considering she could move 100 miles for around the same cost is sleeping for the evening, her course was set. It was to be the mail coach at night, with Jane, Lucy, Martin and Matthew taking turns on the outside if necessary; and then either moving slowly the same direction during the day, or trying to find another coach. She still felt the need to change direction periodically and engage in any other subterfuge her and Amelia could think of, but gradually they started moving in the direction she wished to go. She was not in the least concerned that it took her a month to do a se'nnight's worth of travel, if it was difficult for anybody to follow her.
When she purchased the first ticket going east, Martin asked the obvious question, "Miss Jane, now that we are to make some speed, where exactly are we to live?"
Jane had given the matter considerable thought during the first se'nnight of the journey they had made so far. She had plenty of time, sitting in coaches, sitting on farm carts, or sitting around waiting for other transportation. She and Lucy were both dressed in plain clothing, and took turns on the top of stages when that was to be their mode of transportation. They agreed that they would each spend half the night outside on the mail coaches, and the burden was shared appropriately. Martin and Matthew were both eager to take their turn outside, and Jane reluctantly agreed. The boys thought it was a great thrill… for the first hour.
When she thought of all of the things that she could do with her three new charges, none were ideal. Her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner were the nicest people in the world, but they had four children of their own to raise. She dearly hoped that Lizzy had been successful with her employer in Kent working out a way for the two of them to live with the two children they planned to adopt from their sisters, but Lizzy certainly had not worked out how to handle five children.
In the end, the decision was simple, obvious, and seemingly as inevitable as the tides. Apparently, it was time for Jane Bennet to grow up and take her place in the world.
"We are going home children. We are going to Longbourn."