Chapter 1
February 1795
The first thing that Bennet did on his return to Meryton was to see his solicitor and friend Jacob Phillips. Like Gardiner had, Phillips advised his friend to not allow the woman to get away with her scheme.
"As much as I would like to walk away from the disgusting woman, my honour will not allow it. I want a settlement that will reflect my disdain for the woman. She has two thousand pounds which will be invested in the four percents that will give her eighty pounds per annum, by my calculation that is less than seven pounds per month. I will make it up to eight pounds but no more.
"There is the son's inheritance invested with Gardiner, It will be shifted to the four percents as well. After the behaviour of her children, Gardiner will do no more than the father's will charges him to do. Of the four hundred eighty pounds per annum the boy's money will earn, ninety pounds, thirty each a year, will be disbursed for the children's allowance. One hundred fifty pounds per annum will be paid to me for their board and lodging; I refuse to spend one penny on that woman's children. The other half will be saved to send young Bingley to school as his father requested." Bennet was firm that the woman and her children would receive as little as possible from Longbourn's coffers.
"I see that you want the entail mentioned but not defined. I like this," Phillips pointed to his friend's notes. "The woman and her offspring may stay in the house until your heir claims it if you pass before that time. It will be incentive for the conniving woman to make sure you stay hale and healthy. What about Tommy and your cousins?" Phillips asked.
"Never will that social climbing shrew or her devil's spawn know of Tommy or my cousins! She would try and engineer a compromise between one of her daughters and poor Jamie as soon as he was old enough. I would no sooner trust her and her offspring around my cousins than love her! When I travel to Holder Heights to inform my cousins and my daughters, I hope to convince them to stay with James and Amy. I will not force them. You know how stubborn my daughters are wont to be," Bennet said warmly as he thought of his children.
"I am to change your will to name Gardiner executor and the Holder Bennets guardians if you die before all three reach their majority?" Phillips read more of the notes.
"Yes, even if I am no longer alive that woman will not sink her claws into my children's future. Can you believe the temerity of the woman! She suggested I adopt her children and give them the Bennet name. That will never happen! Before I forget, I want all merchants informed that the woman or her children are not allowed to charge anything to my accounts without my in-person permission. If a merchant does so against my wishes, then the unauthorised bill will not be paid by me!" The men stood and shook hands after which Bennet mounted his steed Orion and rode the one mile to Longbourn. Once in his study, Bennet composed a letter to his cousin James informing him of what had occurred.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As promised, Bennet returned to three and twenty Gracechurch Street a sennight later. Unlike his wife-to-be, he had honour and kept his word. As he sat with Gardiner in that man's study, Bennet derived much pleasure from seeing the pinched look on his betrothed's face as she read the settlement.
"I am only to have eight pounds a month pin money! And my poor children will only have two pounds and a half-sovereign! You are a landed gentleman; how can it be that we will be no better off than we are now?" Mrs. Bingley screeched.
"You chose to compromise me madam! I will not reward your behaviour in any way. Longbourn is a small, entailed estate and I will not harm my budget to indulge you and your spoiled children. Before you ask, I will NEVER share your bed! There is only one woman that I will ever love, and I will not sully her memory with the likes of you—which is why you will not be occupying the mistress's chambers. If this is not to your liking, you are free to withdraw from the betrothal," Bennet offered hopefully.
Martha Bingley seriously considered taking the out she had been offered but decided that being the wife of a gentleman would be worth it—after all, she could work on him to change his mind after they were wed; no man would be able to resist her charms. "Mr. Gardiner may sign on my behalf. Why do we wed in only a month?" she asked.
"I have things to see to Mrs. Bingley—things that do not concern you. I will return in a month. You are free to find another man in that time if waiting is not agreeable to you," Bennet sneered at the despicable woman.
Martha Bingley would have done so had she access to the social circles where she would meet gentlemen or, better yet, a member of the first circles, which was her ultimate aim so that her son and daughters would gain access to that lofty social circle. As it was not an option for her, she would have to cool her heels for one more month in the small, rented home.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
"Thomas are you out of your senses giving in to this woman that you describe as the lowest of the low? A fortune hunting social climber!" Not for the first time, Lord James Bennet, the Earl of Holder berated his favourite cousin in an attempt to stop him from walking down a ruinous path.
"James, you know me; I felt I had not choice. Even if this woman has no honour, I do! It is too late now, we have a signed settlement, and I will not bring dishonour to our family or to my children under any circumstances," Bennet responded forcefully.
"I know that is the kind of man that you are, and I respect you for it. However, to be sentenced to be husband to the woman you have described! I feel for you cousin. Know that Amy and I will do anything we are able to help you," the Earl pledged.
"You are already raising James for me, there is no amount of thanks that will suffice for the service you are doing me. And if I am able to convince my stubborn daughters to remain at Holder Heights, I will do so. In that endeavour I am not hopeful. You know Jane and Lizzy; they will not want to leave me," Bennet stated with resignation. "My only hope is that I am able to convince them that staying with you will be a way of helping Tommy."
"Knowing my young cousins who I count as nieces, there is little chance of them not wanting to be with you, my friend," the Earl commiserated with his cousin.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
"No Papa, we will not live without you!" Jane, who would be eight in June insisted, while Elizabeth, who was about to turn five nodded her head in emphatic agreement. They had already planned to celebrate her birthday before returning to Longbourn,
"You have to teach me Papa, I want to be with you," Elizabeth insisted stamping her foot as an almost five year-old child is wont to do.
"As I offered you girls the right to make the decision for yourselves, you will come home with me." Bennet was not surprised, and he knew that he could have exerted his fatherly authority and ordered them to remain with their cousins, but he had given them a choice and he would honour that choice. "It shall be as you want, and I promise you that we will visit Tommy every summer for at least three months and we shall all be here for Christmastide each year as well," Bennet told his daughters.
Jane was blond, with deep blue eyes, on her way to being a tall girl like her grandmother Bennet had been. Elizabeth looked just like his Fanny. A slight olive complexion, chestnut curls, the greenest eyes, but shorter than most girls of her age. Bennet supposed the likeness that his beloved Fanny had seen in their Lizzy had endeared the young girl to her mother. Fanny had never shown favouritism, but it had not been hard for Bennet to see that she had a warm place in her heart specially for Lizzy.
"Now tell me what you have been doing since I was last here my darling girls," Bennet asked as he kissed each one on her forehead in turn.
"We met a mark-ess, Papa," Elizabeth said jubilantly. "And vi'count and his younger brother, Richard. Richard was ever so much fun!"
"A mark-ess?" Bennet repeated in question.
"Lizzy means a Marquess, Papa. Lord Fitzwilliam Darcy, but he prefers we call him Lord William. His father is the Duke of Derbyshire and Earl of Lambton. He is sad because his mama went to heaven like our mama did after his little sister, Gigi, who is one now, was born. Lord William is the same age as our cousin Jamie. The viscount is Andrew Fitzwilliam; he is the son of the Earl of Matlock, a good friend of Uncle James. He is almost sixteen while his younger brother Richard is fourteen, a year more of than Jamie and Lord William," Jane filled her father in.
"Gigi?" Bennet asked. "I have never heard such a name.
"Silly Papa, that is a nickname, her name is Lady Georgiana Darcy," Jane explained.
"She is too young to play with me!" Elizabeth pouted pushing her lower lip out as far as she was able to.
"If you see her again in a few years then she will want to play with you, my Lizzy. She will be old enough to play then," Bennet assured his second daughter.
"Fine Papa, Elizabeth recovered fully as would be expected of one so young.
"We will depart for Longbourn on the morrow girls, so have fun with your brother and cousins today. We will be back for the summer," Bennet reminded his girls.
"The new mother…" Elizabeth started to say.
"She will not be your mother but your stepmother. She has three of her own children. They will be your step-brother and step-sisters, but no more. They will never have the name Bennet as you do," Bennet corrected.
"Will they be our friends?" Jane asked innocently.
"I do not know Jane dearest. You will have to see when you meet them," Bennet averred. He believed strongly that there would be no friendship between his daughters and her children, but he would allow Jane and Elizabeth to come to their own conclusions without poisoning their minds beforehand.
The girls went to find their brother and cousins and Bennet remained in his chambers to think. He was not sanguine that he would find even the smallest measure of happiness with the soon-to-be new Mrs. Bennet. It killed him how that woman would have the same title his beloved Fanny held. He knew that the title was the only attribute his late wife would ever share with the woman.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
"How was your time at Holder Heights with your Fitzwilliam cousins and the Bennets?" Lord Robert Darcy, Duke of Derbyshire and Earl of Lambton asked his son after the Matlock carriage had dropped his son at Pemberley before returning to Snowhaven.
"It was enjoyable, Father," Lord William answered his father with his normal formality. He was but thirteen and on his way to Eton in September, but ever since Lord Robert's beloved Duchess passed away, his son had become much more serious and introverted. "The Earl's cousin's children from Hertfordshire were visiting. They too lost there mother in the last year."
"I miss my Anne everyday Son," the Duke said softly. Unlike most of his station, Lord Robert Darcy, then Marquess Pemberley, had made a love match. His late wife's older sister, had done everything to try and be the next Duchess of Derbyshire, including an unsuccessful compromise. It had left relations between the sisters strained and Lady Catherine had a tantrum of epic proportions when the betrothal between Lady Anne and Lord Robert had been announced.
The lady did not know when give up. If she could not be the Duchess, then she was determined that her sickly daughter with an extremely sour disposition and who had been spoilt while never attaining any accomplishments or education, would be the one to succeed where she failed.
While his Anne was alive, her sister attempted to browbeat his wife into agreeing to, as Lady Catherine put it, 'a cradle betrothal' that Lady Anne had steadfastly refused. As soon as his beloved wife had succumbed after gifting him with Gigi, the letters from his sister-in-law had begun demanding the formalization of the phantom promise that Lady Catherine claimed.
The Duke had written back one time only, telling the termagant she would be sued for slander if she mentioned one word of the made-up betrothal to anyone in society. He also informed her that he would never sanction a match between his heir and her insipid daughter. Although Lady Catherine was unaware, the Duke had a codicil written into his will refuting any claim that the lady may try to make after his passing and he sent a copy of the codicil to his brother, Lord Reginald Fitzwilliam, the Earl of Matlock, and brother to his late wife.
"Is that a letter from Rosings Father?" William asked as the butler placed the salver on the Duke's desk.
"It is William. In the fire please, Son." The Duke ordered with a flick of his wrist. With a slight grin the son complied. There was a knock on the study door. "No William, stay," the Duke commander as his son started to stand. "Enter!"
"You requested that I come see you and bring my son your Grace," Pemberley's steward Maxwell Wickham bowed. His son George, twelve, bowed and smirked at Lord William thinking his effort to cause the prig of a marquess trouble had succeeded.
"Mr. Wickham you remember you had requested that I stand as godfather for your son not long after your wife went to her eternal reward?" the Duke asked.
"I do your Grace," the steward answered deferentially. Young George was expectant that he was about to become the godson of a duke.
"Based on your son's behaviour, I cannot and will not fill that role," the Duke stated mater of factually.
"Y-your G-grace," George Wickham spluttered. "W-why do you s-say t-that." George had been most confident that he had hidden his behaviour from the Duke, surely the children he bullied had not told on him!
"Do not try and affect that innocent look with me young Wickham. I know about your bullying, the way you order my servants around as if you are a member of the household, and worst of all, I know you left the gate to the stables opened after my son left. What you thought you would achieve by painting my son in a bad light, I do not know. Whatever it was, you failed. You were seen in the stables and more than one witnessed your leaving the gate open. It was closed right away after you left." The Duke did not look amused. George Wickham squirmed under the withering glare that he received from the two men and the Marquess.
"I do not know why I did it, I think I was envious of Lord William as he has so much and I have nothing in comparison," George hung his head as he gave an honest answer.
"We all make mistakes young George. I will not be your godfather, but it does not mean that I will not assist you, but only if I see a significant and permanent change in your behaviour and attitude. Do you have any idea how much responsibility comes with my or William's positions? How many souls for whom we are responsible? To whom much is given, much is expected. Nothing will fall into your lap; you will have to work hard and then you will reap the rewards.
"The countryside is littered with estates that have been gambled away by idle landlords who looked for a fast way out of their financial problems. What we receive without putting forth an effort, we do not value. I cannot choose for you, but you need to choose the way forward for yourself. One way will be hard and satisfying, the other will lead to a life of dissipation and quite possibly debauchery." The Duke waited as the boy assimilated what he had been told.
"I will work to correct my behaviour your Grace. Lord William, please accept my apology for attempting to cause trouble for you with no reason," young Wickham stated sincerely.
After he was dismissed from the study, his father turned to his master. "I want to add my voice to that of my son's your Grace. You could have demanded I punish him, or even dismiss me, instead you helped point my George to the path of redemption. I promise you, your Grace, that I will make sure that my son remains on that path and will be worthy of your and Lord William's, trust in the future," the steward stated contritely. He bowed and left the Duke's study.
