"20 March 1812"
"I, Anne Margaret de Bourgh, of Rosings Park in the County of Kent, being of sound mind, memory, and understanding, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament. I hereby declare that I am seized of and in the uncontested possession of Rosings Park, with all its appurtenances, situated in Hunsford, Kent, held by me in fee simple absolute without any condition or encumbrance."
Blackmore looked around to ensure his audience was paying attention and made a particularly hard stare at the earl and Lady Catherine, apparently to ensure their silence, before continuing.
"I do hereby nominate, constitute, and appoint Fitzwilliam Darcy, of Pemberley in Derbyshire, to be the Executor of this my Last Will and Testament. In the event that the said Fitzwilliam Darcy shall predecease me or shall decline, fail, or be unable to act as Executor hereof, then I nominate, constitute, and appoint Richard Fitzwilliam, of Matlock, to be the Executor hereof in his stead."
Elizabeth was not surprised, though Lord Matlock and Lady Catherine were not especially happy. However, since her husband was trusted by all, she doubted they would make too much of a fuss.
"I give, devise, and bequeath unto my dear friend, Mrs Elspeth Jenkinson, the sum of five thousand pounds sterling (£5,000) to be paid to her in a lump sum and without any conditions or limitations whatsoever. This legacy is to be hers absolutely and beneficially, to have and to hold, use, and dispose of as she sees fit, free from any debts, charges, or encumbrances whatsoever. She has been my lone voice of sanity for many years, and I give this gladly, along with my hearty thanks, wishes for a long and peaceful life, and my sincere advice to move as far from all Fitzwilliams and de Bourghs as possible."
Lady Catherine and Lord Matlock gasped alarmingly, but Blackmore was staring at them hard enough to curl iron, practically daring them to be thrown out.
Elizabeth wanted so much to laugh but refrained.
Her husband whispered in her ear, "That claim would supersede yours. If you want to try to take precedence, now is the time; though I doubt we would succeed."
"She put in her penance, let her have her peace. I wish to punish the de Bourghs, not the Jenkinsons."
He nodded, not having expected anything else and they turned back to Blackmore who had just finished his staring contest with Lady Catherine and Lord Matlock.
Blackmore asked, "Mr Darcy, any objections?"
"None, sir."
"Very well. Mrs Jenkinson, you are excused. My clerk has a bank draft for your bequest and will assist you in securing lodgings or transportation. Please consider him at your disposal for a fortnight or a month at the estate's expense."
"I thank you, Mr Blackmore," the lady said with an enormous smile of happiness, and probably relief.
Elizabeth was slightly ashamed she had not given the companion a single thought, but she should well have. There had never been any guarantee she would not be blamed for Anne's death and punished accordingly, and companions were in precarious positions to start with.
Darcy leaned down and whispered, "You cannot imagine I left her whistling in the wind," with a teasing chuckle she liked very much. Of course, he had seen to the lady's safety. He would not be Darcy otherwise.
Blackmore took up the will and started again.
"While it is not customary, this is the last chance I have to ensure certain people hear certain things, so I wish to take this opportunity to say things to people who never took the trouble to listen to me when I was alive—with the notable exceptions of my two cousins."
He looked up. "Any objections?"
"Proceed," Darcy said.
"I will explain my reasoning in a moment, but first I wish to say that, for reasons of my own, I decided two years ago to explore the world of investing. To that end, I secured a loan on my dowry, and invested £5,000 each with several men of business, all of whom are represented here today. Though it required some slight prevarication, I never lied to any of the men. I presented myself as an heiress without a father, husband, or brother; but with money to invest. All true! I asked them to invest the money in ventures that would pay better than the funds. The only thing I omitted was my name, and estate, which is common practice among those of my station. I then waited to see what happened."
Elizabeth looked over at the two groups of men on the side and saw what looked like quite a bit of squirming, while Blackmore briefly glance at them as well before continuing.
"Five men delivered returns that were just slightly above or below the consuls, but I saw the investments and had them independently verified. I conclude they are honest, but not particularly bright or skilled. I recommend my heir terminate these investments at their convenience. This applies to Misters Rutley, Yeatman, Hunter, Harding, and Fitzroy."
"Gentlemen, you are excused. You will be contacted by the heir, and I suggest you do as Miss de Bourgh asks."
With that, the five men in the farthest group got up and left somewhat confusedly. Elizabeth suspected some of them had been skimming the profits and may have gotten off light, but it was not her problem.
When the door closed, Blackmore picked up the will and continued.
"Four of the men took advantage of my naivete and cheated me outrageously, took most of the investment, and carefully explained that bigger returns require bigger risks, claiming everything from bad markets to lost ships. They will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law by my solicitor Mr Blackmore, who has already been paid in advance. Mr Blackmore has all the documentation of the agreements and will stop at nothing short of debtor's prison or bankruptcy."
He stared at the other group of four and delivered the coup de grace.
"This applies to Misters Johnson, Egerton, Vaughan, and Bingley."
Elizabeth saw Jane go white, and wondered if she would react otherwise. She doubted it, but wanted to be the first to know if she did.
Fitzwilliam and Darcy were staring at their former friend with hard as nails looks, but since the men were Blackmore's problem, they had nothing to say. The men all looked like they were about to cast up their accounts, while Miss Bingley, whose presence was almost certainly just to punish her for impertinence, actually had to get up and run from the room.
Blackmore said, "Gentlemen, I need not add my disapprobation for men who would cheat a helpless orphan at this juncture. You will feel it later. For the moment, you are excused, and I recommend you get out of my sight."
They all got up to go, with Bingley giving a look indicating he was probably planning to work his wiles on Darcy to get him to call off the dogs. However, since the dogs were paid in advance, she thought his chance of success slim, even if Darcy intervened, which she judged unlikely.
The men shuffled out sullenly, and Elizabeth wondered if any of them would even be in England by the end of the week. Mr Blackmore did not look like a man to be messed about. She squeezed her husband's hand in sympathy at the loss of another supposed friend, but otherwise put her attention back to Blackmore.
"Now we come to the heart of the matter. I have more explanations. Some of you will not like them in the least, but I suggest you remember your vow of silence," he said gratingly, then started reading again.
"I will now explain my reasoning, because most of those in this room will despise the outcome, and I want you to at least have the opportunity to understand it."
He paused slightly dramatically, and Elizabeth began to suspect he was a bit of a showman (in addition to a bruiser).
"The first essential fact is that I HATE my mother, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I hate her with every fibre of my being and have done so for years. She never wanted a child in the first place, never liked me when I arrived, and mostly ignored me for my toddling years. Just when I started becoming playful and inquisitive, as all five-year-olds are if you do not beat it out of them, she ran out of patience. She used a minor illness to convince herself that if she kept me sickly and weak for just a few more years, she could get me betrothed to my cousin, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, by relentlessly working her more malleable sister, who would in turn browbeat her husband. Once an idea was planted in Lady Catherine's head, she never let it go. Never-ever-ever. Not even once, in the whole course of my life."
Everyone felt the words like a hammer-blow, though the left side had expressions of sympathy and regret for the poor abused child, while the right side's were of rage. In the case of Lady Catherine, it was easily explainable, but Elizabeth wondered why the earl and his son seemed as put out. The thought hit her like a storm. Perhaps, they had some scheme in mind for the pairing that would advantage THEM!
Once Blackmore was certain Lady Catherine would keep her temper, or at least hold her tongue, he continued.
"For the next twenty years, I was never allowed outside to play, never allowed company of the other people that lived nearby unless they were of 'suitable rank', was never allowed to learn much of anything except for improvement of my mind by extensive reading. Even that was mostly wasted because my mother, uncle, and some of my cousins never listened or conversed. Darcy and Fitzwilliam tried, and over many years, they made Herculean efforts, but once it became clear my mother had a fanatical desire for a marriage between myself and my cousin Darcy, the real chance of a compromise hung over us like a harbinger of doom. He distanced himself, and I did not blame him. Every year like clockwork he told my mother he would never marry me, and every year she disregarded him, and started working on me again within weeks."
"Now see here…" the earl started to say, but Blackmore stood up abruptly with a thunderous look, while the giant clerk moved over behind him.
Blackmore stared hard briefly. "Last warning!"
The earl resumed his seat while Blackmore continued. "I am doing as my client instructed. If you dislike her final words, I can arrange for you to meet her to discuss."
Everyone, even Fitzwilliam gasped, but Blackmore ignored them, sat down and continued reading.
"I not only never learned any accomplishments, but I had to listen to twenty years of my mother claiming I would have been masterful if I had. I eventually worked out that Lady Catherine suffered from an extreme form of JEALOUSY! There, I said it! She will never admit it, but she did not want to have the slightest chance of her daughter surpassing her—though that was a standard so low as to be laughable. As far as I can tell, she is tone deaf and sings like a scalded cat. When I started pianoforte lessons, I am convinced she started poisoning me with the apothecary's tonics of dubious origin. I tried… oh, how I tried, but eventually, she just wore me down. I always wished I was stronger, but I was not even strong enough to ask for help from my cousins, who would probably have provided it. Every year, I was certain Darcy would never offer for me, and every year, I allowed that witch to convince me otherwise. By the time I passed my twentieth year, I honestly believed my cousins despised me, which made sense in a way. I despised myself."
Elizabeth thought she might well cry, and for the very first time, she had a slight, little, tiny bit of sympathy for her murderess. Not enough to justify the attempt, of course, but having been beat down by a mother's words over many years, she at least understood her. Naturally, that was contradicted by the inconvenient fact that Miss de Bourgh said herself that escape was well within her grasp. All she had to do was ask!
Her husband was obviously feeling something as well since he squeezed her hand in sympathy, promising they might discuss it in detail. A glance at Jane saw her similarly affected, while a look at Lady Catherine reminded her of a volcano.
Blackmore continued relentlessly.
"I could go on for many pages in that vein, but I believe my point is made so I must advance to the next. My father's will and marriage settlement with the old earl specifically excluded Lady Catherine from the dower house, or any accommodation at Rosings entirely. She will have to find her own place to live, at her own expense with the entirely adequate funds remaining in her jointure."
The assembled nobles gasped again, and Lady Catherine shook with rage, but Elizabeth could not find any real sympathy in her heart.
Blackmore gave her a cautious stare, but then continued.
"For the next topic, let me say that I DESPISE my family, and by that, I mean most of my family of any sort. The Fitzwilliams are an insufferable, arrogant, and untalented lot and there can be no two opinions on the subject. They suffer brutally from the fact that nearly all the family's good sense is concentrated in one second son. The same can be said of the de Bourghs, and let us be honest, any family that would accept Lady Catherine Fitzwilliam can not have any sense at all. Naturally, as one might expect, they had little choice since most of the family has operated at the knife-edge of insolvency for at least four generations."
"My Darcy relations are the best of a bad lot, but even they had the poor sense to align with the Fitzwilliams, though at least George Darcy married the pretty and pleasant younger sister."
Blackmore looked around to see if anyone was ready to swoon or storm out, but then continued as relentlessly as a grain mill.
"Aside from my general dislike of most of the three families, I believe they have been inbreeding far too closely, though I am certain nearly everyone in this room will disagree. I have had many years with a good library to study, and I am convinced close breeding is bad for bloodlines, and even worse for the tendency for a father's worst traits to be passed to the sons. They get by because of centuries of wealth and power that takes some time to dissipate, but the process of decay has been occurring for several generations, at least among the Fitzwilliams and de Bourghs."
Being first tarred with the brush and then excluded left Elizabeth feeling disoriented, and her husband pensive, but she could not know enough to argue for or against the thesis.
Blackmore seemed to want to just get the process over with and continued relentlessly.
"With that preamble, allow me to come to the point. I despise people with slightly decreasing vehemence as their distance increases, as is just and natural. I hate my mother the worst, then the de Bourghs and Fitzwilliams a great deal, the Darcys even less, and the entire English Gentry only slightly less, since none of the aforementioned families are in any way unusual. We keep passing poison down our bloodlines, both in the form of the family seed and the family's traditions and foibles."
Blackmore looked around once again, and Elizabeth thought he must be working his way op to something truly shocking.
"I have therefore decided to break the chain and stop the rot NOW! Allow me to explain. My cousins are to arrive in a few days, and I plan to have it out with Darcy once and for all. I have been assured by the vast majority of the men I discussed it with that the solution is simple. I do not want a husband in the traditional sense of the word, and I CERTAINLY do not wish to pass any tiny portion of my mother down to posterity. I believe if I tell my cousin that he may have Rosings in exchange for parking me at Pemberley to finish out my days in peace, he can have as many children as he likes with his mistress or mistresses. It is the way things are frequently done in our class, and I am perfectly sanguine with giving the miserable responsibility to the next generation. I even have his future mistress picked out, in the form of a lovely lady I recently became acquainted with, though I am indifferent if he procreates with her or someone else, so long as it is not me."
Jane and Elizabeth gasped in shock, and nothing but the fact that she was crippled kept Elizabeth in her chair, though she clenched her muscles hard enough to know she would need laudanum on the way home. Meanwhile, their husbands looked as thunderous as the earl had earlier, and Elizabeth had to scramble to keep William from standing up and striking a wall or something (or, more likely, someone).
Blackmore continued relentlessly.
"If you are hearing this, my plan has failed, and I am executing my fallback plan."
Blackmore looked up, and said, "Take a breath. We are nearly done, and intemperance now will do nobody any good," before looking down to continue.
"Since I generally despise the gentry in all its forms, I find my disapprobation also extends to all the so-called 'gentlemen's professions', since they are uniformly filled mostly with younger sons who are just poor versions of their elder siblings. —"
Elizabeth gasped alarmingly, and incongruously and involuntarily muttered, "Clever girl."
Blackmore looked up. "Something to add, Mrs Darcy?"
"My apologies, Mr Blackmore. I did not mean to interrupt. Shall I depart?"
"No, you are allowed to speak if given leave. I am curious. Are you asserting that your murderess was clever?" he asked in what Elizabeth thought was supposed to look like confusion, though she doubted the sentiment was genuine. If pressed, she would suspect amusement to be more his style.
"Let us just say her cleverness did not apply uniformly to all aspects of her thinking."
Blackmore could not help himself from chuckling while muttering something about cheek of the devil. He asked, "Do you care to enlighten the room as to Miss de Bourgh's intentions?"
"And ruin the reveal? Not on your life, sir. Pray continue."
Darcy looked at her questioningly, while everyone else in the room just stared in confusion. It seemed she was the only one to work out what to her was perfectly obvious.
Blackmore looked down with a bit of a smirk and continued, "Ah, where was I …"
"I obviously want Rosings to prosper, so that means I need a man who is clever enough to undo generations of neglect, sensible enough to burn most of my mother's furniture, forthright and brave enough to weather the storms of my family's disapproval, but NOT A GENTLEMAN!"
"AAAAAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" the singularly unpleasant scream erupted from Lady Catherine's mouth, which made Blackmore look up, but he seemed more inclined to enjoy it than throw her out.
As for Elizabeth, the scream did not match even the mildest example of the artform she produced into her poor cousin Fitzwilliam's ear that first day, so she was thoroughly unimpressed.
Lord Matlock and his son turned about half-green, which convinced Elizabeth of the rightness of her theory that they were working her husband for their own advantage, so they would have to discuss it to understand what they were about.
Glancing around, she saw that her gang of four had finally worked out the implications, while the other side was indulging their rage like frightened children, and like such children, they did not appear enlightened in the least.
"If I might continue," Blackmore said, and he was definitely smirking that time.
"Once you assert the need for a clever, connected, and strong man; while discarding the gentry, army, navy, law and clergy, the conclusion is obvious. You need a TRADESMAN! More specifically, you need a merchant, mill owner, banker, or that sort of man. I believe they will be the top dogs in our society in a few generations, so I will one day be considered a trailblazer. Therefore, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I make the following declaration."
"I give, devise, and bequeath all the rest, residue, and remainder of my real and personal estate and effects whatsoever and wheresoever, both present and future, and of which I may be possessed or entitled to at the time of my decease, unto Mr Edward Gardiner of Gracechurch Steet, Cheapside, London, to have and to hold the same absolutely and entirely."