Chapter 14 #2
“Cinder-Liza died from her injuries last night,” Louisa told them with a smile.
“What are we to do? We will be hung!” We should have regulated our righteous anger,” Martha worried.
“I am glad she is dead; I hope she is with her uppity sister in hell!” Caroline allowed her vitriol free rein.
“I am not unhappy she is dead, but how will we get away with this?” Martha asked.
“You remember you told me I was not so clever for no reason?” Louisa looked at Martha who nodded emphatically.
“I thought you said eating was all she was good at, Mama,” Caroline added nastily.
“Silence, Caroline!” Martha gave her youngest a rare rebuke. “Tell us, Louisa!”
“I wrote a letter, as I am able to imitate her handwriting, telling Mrs. Hill she left on one of her long trips, like she used to take each summer?” Martha nodded.
“In three or four months, I will receive another letter from her, and she will decide to live there for a long time and appoint me to run the estate in her stead,” Louisa spun her yarn.
“You are so clever, Louisa! In three months, we will get what is due us!” Martha exclaimed.
“Mayhap before then,” Louisa replied, ambiguously.
“In the meantime, we all need to act as if everything is as it has always been. We do not want to raise the solicitor’s or her uncle’s suspicion.
You cannot try to sell anything or do anything you would not, were Cinder-Liza here with us. Please tell me you understand.”
“I do not see why it should be so,” Caroline whined. Louisa was happy to note that, besides a split lip, Caroline was also missing two teeth from the front of her mouth.
“Your sister is right, Caroline. We need to be just a little more patient; if we are not, we will be in gaol or worse, swing, before we even enjoy the fruits of our labour,” Martha stated.
“If you put it that way, Mama, then I suppose it must be,” Caroline pouted, quite like the child she was.
Before I leave, I must pack a trunk full of her clothing and possessions and her book Utopia,” Louisa informed Mrs. Bennet.
“For what do you need that?” Caroline asked, already planning to rifle through her stepsister’s things.
“Because, Caroline, it must be like every other time she travelled. Her letter asks for her trunk to be forwarded to her. The coachman will take me and the trunk to some remote location and we will bury it.”
“You have thought of everything, my clever girl,” Martha praised. Louisa’s skin crawled, but she managed not showing her true feelings.
With that, Louisa stood and went up to her sister’s chamber, making sure she folded all her clothing just so.
Her prized book was placed on top. Two footmen carried the trunk to the waiting carriage.
Once Miss Bingley was seated, the coachman departed—just not for the location the would-be murderers believed it was.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
With the winds at their back, the packet ship from Nassau carrying the all-important letters from the Bennets announcing their survival, as well as one from Lord St. John confirming their identity, met a ship from England at about the halfway mark, at a predetermined location.
The crews made the exchanges, and after taking fresh stores on board, each ship started the return voyage from whence they came.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“I feel like I need to bathe after being in the company of those two!” Louisa exclaimed, relating the cavalier attitude of Mrs. Bennet and her daughter at the news they had murdered Elizabeth.
Mr. Philips was present, and, as far as they knew, the Gardiners and their three young children were on the way from London.
While Miss Bingley was collecting Elizabeth’s clothing and possessions at Longbourn, Mr. Bartholomew and the surgeon, Mr. Jackson Harrison, had arrived.
The two were assessing her state with Mr. Jones while the group were talking in the sitting room.
Louisa had not mentioned her brother’s request to meet her to anyone; however, she felt it was important, so she was determined to keep her appointment with him on the morrow.
She could not put her finger on it, and now was not the time for her to contemplate it, but there was something different about the way he had talked to her.
There was a softness she had never seen from him before.
“Are you sure Lizzy does not want me to have those worthless women arrested, and Longbourn purged of their presence?” Jacob Philips asked. He knew what his late friend had written, but he also knew if Elizabeth wanted to wait, she had good reason to.
“I am sure, Mr. Philips. She was specific about the fact she wishes to be there when they see they have not killed her—only themselves. It may sound callous of me to talk in such a way of the woman who bore me; however, she stopped being my mother years ago, and kept encouraging my sister’s false sense of worth.
Nobody forced them to do what they did to Lizzy.
Further, what they planned to do was so far beyond the pale that if I had not broken with them before, there would have been no choice for me,” Louisa stated with emotion.
“As I was with my cousin when she made her wishes known, I am able to verify Miss Bennet’s version of what her sister said completely.” The Duke looked at Louisa meaningfully. It was the first time anyone called her by the last name that her sister had bestowed on her, and it sounded good.
The Duke explained it had not been a slip of the tongue, but what his cousin wanted, but everyone present understood that, in public, Louisa would go by Miss Bingley, at least until the criminals were arrested.
Mr. Nichols cleared his throat. “Your Grace, your cousin’s housekeeper and butler are here to enquire after her; they are with my wife in the kitchens.”
“Please show them to this sitting room, Nichols,” the Duke allowed.
A few minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Hill entered the room nervously. “We apologise for disturbing you, your Grace. We just need to know how our girl is doing. She is the only one of three left; we could not endure losing her too,” Mrs. Hill said with much emotion.
“You will not lose her, madam,” Doctor Bartholomew assured them as he and Mr. Harrison entered the sitting room, with Mr. Jones trailing them.
“Do you have an update on my cousin, doctors?” Richard asked, hopefully.
Before the doctor could answer Nichols announced a new pair of visitors, “Lord Andrew and Lady Marie Fitzwilliam, Viscount and Viscountess Hilldale.”
“Andy! Marie!” Richard pushed himself out of his chair, hobbled over to his brother and sister and hugged them both. “Where are my nephew and niece?”
“Jamey and Amy are in the nursery with their nursemaids. They are a little tired after our mad dash from Holder Heights,” Marie informed her brother. “How is my cousin?” Marie saw Mr. and Mrs. Hill and immediately hugged her cousin’s beloved housekeeper.
“The doctors were about to give us a report when you interrupted us,” the Duke said with a grin. Given his doctor’s opening remark, he was feeling more optimistic about Elizabeth.
Before the report could be given, Edward and Maddie Gardiner were announced. Six-year-old Lilly was holding her mother’s hand. “Eddie and May have joined your two in the nursery Marie,” Madeline Gardiner informed her cousin by marriage.
“Perhaps the doctors will finally give us their report,” Jacob Philips returned the attention to, just now, the most important person in the room.
“As I was saying before the new arrivals, Miss Elizabeth will survive. As bad as the injuries to her left arm and leg are, thankfully, they sustained most of the blows. She was extremely lucky that her chest received but a few weak blows. The wound to her head was superficial, and although she did lose consciousness, she shows no symptoms of concussion. Neither Mr. Harrison nor I would have done differently. Mr. Jones did a stellar job,” Mr. Bartholomew reported, and there was a collective sigh of relief throughout the room.
“I examined both the arm and the leg. Luckily, the arm was a clean break and as Mr. Jones surmised, the lower leg bone was not a complete break. From everything my examination revealed, there is no need to make any changes to the splints that our colleague applied,” Mr. Harrison added his assessment.
“I agree with Miss Elizabeth’s request; we do not want her on laudanum in the long term. As of tomorrow, she will be placed on sleeping drafts to help her rest, ones with no opiates in them,” Mr. Jones concluded.
“Would you and Mr. Harrison remain for a sennight, just to make sure that there are no complications?” the Duke asked his personal physician.
The two men conferred briefly. “I am able to remain, but Mr. Harrison needs to be back in London in two days, your Grace,” Mr. Bartholomew replied.
“Thank you, doctors,” the Duke thanked and dismissed them at the same time.
Both the arriving Fitzwilliams and Gardiners had the same question: “What happened?”
Between everyone present who knew pieces of the story, all was related.
Once all was known, Andrew Fitzwilliam and Edward Gardiner had to be restrained from riding to Longbourn and doing what the other four men desired to do the day after the attack.
With some reasoning by those same four men, they were able to calm down the new arrivals.
“Mr. and Mrs. Hill, where do those two think you are?” Madeline Gardiner asked.
“It is our half day, Mrs. Gardiner. Those two care naught for servants, so they would not have thought to ask, in any event,” Mrs. Hill replied.
“Miss Elizabeth is awake,” a maid reported, timidly. It was decided that two at a time would visit the sickroom for as long as she was able to bear it. First were her Uncle Edward and Cousin Marie.
When Elizabeth saw Marie, tears for their lost families ran freely from both.
Gardiner kissed his niece’s forehead and withdrew, allowing the cousins time alone.
“Lizzy, it is just us,” Marie said between sobs.
“I am so glad the doctors say you will recover. I could not lose you as well; you are the last Bennet.”
“When did you and Andrew arrive, and did you bring my little cousins?” Elizabeth asked.
“In the last two hours, and yes, Jamey and Amy are here. We are not going anywhere until you are back on your feet, and you rid Longbourn of its current criminal infestation!” Marie stated, firmly.
“As much as I appreciate the sentiment, you and Andrew have your own lives, Marie. I cannot ask you to put them on hold…” Elizabeth stopped when her cousin raised her hand.
“Elizabeth Rose Bennet! We are not leaving! Remember, I have as much of the Bennet stubbornness in me as you, so accept it graciously, little cousin of mine,” Marie stated with a challenging glint in her eye. Elizabeth raised her good hand in surrender.
“I see that you have discovered how my wife does not appreciate being gainsaid,” Andrew said as he entered the bedchamber.
“She is like she always was, all of the years I have known her,” Elizabeth stated with an arched eyebrow.
“You two know I am in the bedchamber as well, do you not?” Marie interjected, with mock effrontery.
After a few minutes, Marie and Andrew noticed their cousin’s eyelids drooping. They wished her a good sleep and returned to the sitting room to inform their friends and family that the patient was asleep again.
When they heard the name Bingley mentioned by someone, they both looked at Louisa with suspicion until they were enlightened about her. Not long after, Marie and Andrew had requested their adopted cousin Louisa to call them by their familiar names.