AN TRIGGER WARNING!!! This chapter will reference sexual assault. I try to keep thing as vague as possible while still giving the idea of what happened just enough to explain its part of the story.
Fortunately for Elizabeth's mother, Georgiana did not run far, before collapsing on a bench in the garden and starting sobbing. Elizabeth moved to comfort the girl, but a hand on her elbow stalled her, and her mother passed her up, pulling the girl into a comforting embrace, and shushing her tears while speaking gently to her, telling her that everything was going to be ok. It had been years since Elizabeth herself had needed comforting like that, and she found she missed the motherly embrace. When had she stopped receiving and welcoming them?
"There now my love, dry your tears and why don't you tell me what has you in such a state." The phrase and tone had always worked on her and her sisters, and the young girl now on the receiving end was no different.
"It is just, I never realized when my actions would cost my brother." The girl sniffled, trying to fight back tears. "He is such a good brother, a good man, but because I am such a wretched creature he will lose friends, our family is even turning on him."
"Ah, but will he really think those friends are worth having if this is how they expect him to treat you?" Elizabeth came to sit next to the girl, taking her hand. She couldn't help but notice the tall form enter her view, before quickly retreating back behind a tree. "Besides, from the stories you and your brother have told me of your aunt, not to mention Mr Collins' request soliloquies of virtue, you may have done him a favor by driving her to cut ties with him." She heard a snort of laughter come from behind the tree, but luckily she appeared to be the only one. The watery smile her comment prompted from Georgiana was worth her harsh words towards the girl's aunt.
"While I am not going to lie and say you were not at fault for your behavior, I am going to say that what you did was make a very grave error in judgment." Elizabeth gently told the girl, "While we are all taught the strictures of society, we are almost never taught the whys behind them. Therefore it is fairly common for us females to rebel against them. Sadly, this rebellion usually brings about our own downfall."
"You almost sound as if you speak from experience." Georgiana spoke quietly, a sadly hopeful look on her face, hope that she would have another person who truly understood what she was going through.
She had almost forgotten her mother was there, until she heard the gasp, and felt a hand tighten on her arm. Aiming a gentle look at her mother she sighed, mindful of the man listening behind the tree. "Only a few people know what I am about to tell you, and of them only my aunt and uncle hold any connection to me.
"I was a little older than you, around Kitty's age actually, when this happened. My aunt and uncle had been invited to a dinner party at a friend of their's house, and as I was in town visiting them at the time, I naturally went along with them. Their friends had a son home from university, and I believe his parents as well as my aunt and uncle hoped we would make a match of it.
"I found out later that there had been rumors that the son had fallen in with a rough crowd, but my aunt and uncle were assured by his parents this was all false, and having watched the boy grow, my relatives believed them, for he had always been a sweet child, if a little easily led.
"Visiting him at the time of the party were a couple of friends, men who even till this day make my skin crawl just thinking about them. Anyways, at one point during the night, I had separated from the group to go freshen up, and as I was returning, I found myself pulled into an empty drawing room.
"l won't abuse your sensibilities, but will say, that I was fortunate my friend Charlotte's brother though she, Jane, and I needed to learn to better protect ourselves, so had taught us a few of the techniques we are all currently learning from Mr Smythers. Needless to say, I walked out of that room with nothing more than a few bruises and my shattered pride, as well as a new understanding of the importance of following society's rules. While he had to be carried out of there unconscious, after having a vase broken over his head.
"You and I are the same in that we did not follow society's rules as closely as we should have. However we both believed we could trust the people who were only out to hurt us. I trusted the son of my relatives friends because my aunt and uncle vouched for him and his parents. I extended that trust to his friends, because I believed like minded and mannered individuals attracted one another.
"You believed the scoundrel who took advantage of you could be trusted because your companion vouched for him. You trusted her because your brother hired her, and he has never given you cause not to trust him. So while you are responsible for your actions of agreeing to an elopement, which you know to be wrong. It is also easy to understand how you were able to be deceived into believing they only wanted what was best for you, and that it would all work out in the end for he acted as though he loved you, and your companion acted as though she truly cared for you."
Eventually Georgiana was calm enough to return to the house, and refused their offers to return with her, stating her desire to lay down for a bit. This left Elizabeth alone in the garden with her mother and the gentleman still hiding behind the tree, if he had not already found some route of escape yet.
"How did I never learn of this abuse you suffered in town?" Her mother asked, sounding broken.
Elizabeth gently took the woman's hand, "We, my aunt, uncle, and I, thought it best you and papa remain ignorant of the ordeal." She saw the surprise in her mother's eyes at the mention of her father's ignorance, but did not comment on that. "I was young back then, and had not learned of your views on women who had been tricked or used against their will by men.
"Back then all I saw was a mother who was driven to see her daughters married to rich men. My biggest fear was that you would find out about the incident and force me to marry that man. After all, it was only recently I leaned of your dislike of the ton." She kept her tone gentle, not wanting to upset her mother even more.
It would appear her efforts were all for naught when he mother nearly worked herself up into hysterics within the next few seconds. "Oh, this is all my fault...I never should have kept you girls in the dark...I could have protected you better had you known..." The words kept coming, and to her surprise Mr Darcy appeared from behind the tree, and approached them.
"None of this is your fault, for you could not have known that any of this would happen." He spoke gently, but firmly, kneeling down of one knee in front of them. "The only ones to blame are the men involved in hurting both you and your daughter."
"I should tell her, I know she would understand, but it is all so hard." Normally she would be annoyed with being spoken of as if she wasn't there, but she couldn't bring herself to have those feeling at that moment, feeling instead the heaviness exuding from her mother.
"If you like, I can tell her, like your husband told me instead of making you go through it." He offered kindly, and she saw her mother waiver before sitting up straight, and taking on a look of determination.
"No. It is time I stop running from this. If I had learned to face this sooner, Lizzy might have never have been hurt."
After taking a moment to collect herself, she began her tale. She had always known her father's older brother was Lord Bennett, and that her father had dropped the last "t" after he had a falling out with his family. However it was only Jane and her who knew of the connection as they were the only ones who currently went to London regularly. Her father had never divulge the reason for the split though, no matter how often they asked. Now hearing her mother's story, she could finally understand why.
Too hear her mother speak of a summer romance between herself and Elizabeth's uncle had been most shocking. Apparently the summer her parents met, her father and his father and brother were visiting Longbourn as it was one of the smaller estates owned by her grandfather, the then Baron. There had been some issues with the estate, and he had brought his two sons to teach them how to handle said issues. That is how her parents met, as her mother's father was the town attorney.
Her mother said from the beginning she could see she had attracted the attention of Randolph Bennett, Elizabeth's uncle, and so did all she could to hold his attention, in the hopes of marrying into a title. According to her mother, her uncle played on those hopes, courting her in secret, as his father would not approve of her because she was beneath him in station.
The surprising bit was that her father had tried to warn her mother that his brother was not to be trusted, but was so in love she ignored all the warning signs he had pointed out. Instead, she believed her beau when he asked her to meet him at an abandoned cabin, stating he would be there with a carriage so they could run off to Gretna Green together. She had arrived at the cabin the following morning, her bag in hand, her heart swelling with joy at thoughts of marrying the man she had fallen in love with. Especially upon seeing the fine carriage sitting next to the cabin, ready to make the journey...or so she believed.
Upon seeing her, Elizabeth's uncle retreated from the cottage to greet her, before saying he left his bag inside, and asked her mother to accompany him in to retrieve, as he had a surprise for her. Her joy turned to ash when she heard the door close behind them, and the lock slide into place as three more well dressed young men stood from where they had been sitting around the table.
Elizabeth couldn't stop the tears that fell as her mother recounted how the men took turns using her, starting with Elizabeth's own uncle, before leaving her in the cabin. It turns out that fine carriage had brought three of Randolph Bennett's friends from school, and would immediately return them to London once they had their "fun". She cried as she told of how they had mocked her for her dreams of marrying above her station, calling her stupid for believing she even had a chance.
Elizabeth's mother had walked home that morning, her father never noticing her absence as he focused on his practice and on her younger brother. Elizabeth's maternal grandfather had never had time for either of his daughters, setting all the money he could aside to assist his son in attaining his dreams, and making a name for the family.
So little notice was given to his young daughters that he had been extremely caught off guard when the younger Bennet bother approached him and asked for his youngest daughter's hand in marriage. Elizabeth's father later explained to her mother that his brother had boasted to him about what had been done to her, and Elizabeth's father refused to allow her to feel more pain that his brother had already inflicted. To keep her from pain he would marry her to preserve her reputation.
The two had then worked together to conceal the scandal, having banns read the following Sunday at mass, not being able to afford to marry by special license. Elizabeth's father hadn't told his father or brother about the engagement before the first banns were read, but rather than cause scandal by objecting, Thomas Bennet's faster called his son into the study after mass and instantly began berating him for his choice of bride.
That all changed when Thomas told his father what Randolph had done to his betrothed. Seeing that his son would not be moved, and had even gone so far as threatening to expose all of the dark secrets of the family if he did not show his support of the relationship, he had no choice but to accept. Fearing what his son knew, he also gifted Longbourn to the couple, but showed his contempt of the match by removing the property from the family holdings and establishing the entail. This made it so that if her father died without an heir the estate would pass on to the closest male relation not of the Baron's immediate family, Mr Collins.
The fear of the entail and making her new husband regret marrying her was what drove her mother to consummate the marriage on their wedding before she was ready to be intimate. She cried every time they were intimate in the efforts to conceive an heir.
Her mother spoke of her fears at feeling Jane quicken, only to cry tears of relief when Jane was born almost ten moths after their wedding, as it meant the men who had abused her had not fathered her precious daughter.
She described how her nerves grew worse every year and with every birth of every daughter. Finally, Elizabeth's father could no longer take seeing his wife suffer, and after Lydia refused to visit her room and bed again.
Elizabeth held her mother as she cried, explaining that she didn't regret most of her past as it gave her her girls. However she did express that her only regret was that she couldn't be the wife her husband, the man who saved her deserved.
Alone behind the tree that had earlier hid Mr Darcy, as his sister cried out her guilt and grief. Another lone figure stood, a great many thoughts running through their own head.