Chapter 8 #2
All five Darcys and Anne de Bourgh were waiting to welcome the Fitzwilliams when their carriages came to stop in the inner courtyard.
Seeing his niece forced Reginald Fitzwilliam to think of the conversation he would have with his ward.
There was no hiding what her mother had done, and unlike many in society the Earl thought that knowledge was the way to protect his loved ones, not hiding the truth from them.
Anne and George Darcy looked at each other questioningly.
They could see that something was weighing heavily on Elaine and Reggie and though they had no clue what it was, they were both anxious to assist in whatever way was needed.
As they always had, the children mingled and greeted each other warmly.
William was holding Alex’s hand, who was enormously proud of his burgeoning walking skills.
After the Fitzwilliams had changed and washed off the dust from their short journey, they met the Darcys in the music room where Lizzy and Georgie were sitting at Pemberley’s baby grand.
Reggie quietly asked George if he and Anne would have some time to meet with himself and Elaine.
After a few minutes, the four older children were left in charge under the watchful eyes of a governess and a footman or two.
Alex, much to his consternation, was taken up to the nursery by his nursemaid to nap as the four parents decamped to the master’s study.
Before the Darcys could ask what the problem was once the door was closed, Reggie handed Mason’s express to George, who read it with his wife. “No!” Anne gasped. “Could my sister really be as bad as this?” she asked as she sat down, now as white as a ghost.
George Darcy reread and then read the missive a third time, but no amount of reading would alter the words contained therein.
“It seems that the answer to your question is yes, she is,” he said, sounding detached as he thought about all of the strange and demanding behaviour of his sister-in-law.
He always suspected that she was unhinged, but even he had not thought to read the sort of letter he now held in his hands.
Then he turned to Reggie. “What is being done to find her?”
Reggie related the contents of the expresses he had sent to Lord Metcalfe and Rosings’ steward. “I am still awaiting responses from both; they will be forwarded to us here as soon as anything from Kent arrives at Snowhaven,” he relayed.
“When I was around ten,” Lady Anne said as she delved into her memories, “I asked mother why Cathy seemed so angry all the time. She told me that she had not always been thus, that within days of you being born, Reggie, there was an accident where Cathy almost drowned and once she had recovered, she was never the same. Could it be that something happened to her that day?” Anne wondered aloud as that was the day her mother pinpointed as a change, so she would count on the same instincts she had regarding her own children.
“Possibly,” Reggie responded thoughtfully, “however we will never know, and it will not excuse her of murdering the poor maid and fleeing.”
“Mayhap it was an accident,” Anne offered, hoping that there was some sort of redemption for her older sister while knowing deep down that there could not be.
“If it was an accident, then why did she run, Anne?” Reggie asked the pertinent question and Anne shook her head sadly. “I have not told any of our children yet, but they must be told. It will be an awfully hard conversation with our niece, but there is no choice,” he said with his head down.
“Will you tell Lizzy as well?” Elaine asked her husband.
“What do you think?” Reggie asked the other three. “Is it time to destroy her innocence? She has never met Catherine and hopefully never will.”
“Could we wait to tell her until we have the conversation with her of how she came to live with us?” Elaine asked.
The others all agreed that there was no imperative to include Lizzy in that particular conversation yet.
As Lizzy was inordinately intelligent, her parents had decided to wait until she reached her tenth year before they would tell her about how she had been discarded and came to be part of their lives.
Even though she was more intelligent than any other they knew, she was still a young innocent child.
“Can we get an idea where she had gone when she withdrew her dowry or the bank drafts that she already had?” George asked. Reggie explained how his sister had obviously planned to disappear at some point.
“So we have no idea where she may be?” Anne asked.
“No, Anne, we do not,” Reggie admitted. “She could be anywhere, including out of England. She had more than a sennight to leave unmolested from any port of her choice. In a way I hope that she has left the kingdom, so we never have to cross paths with her again, but there is no way of knowing.”
“Elaine and I will go sit with the younger girls and send Anne and the boys to you,” Anne and Elaine stood and left for the music room. The four older children entered the study wondering what they had done to be in such trouble and called to the mat.
“Anne, please sit with me on the settee, my dear niece,” Reggie requested softly.
He proceeded to break the news of what Lady Catherine had done and what they knew of her flight from justice.
Anne sat stoically as she heard the recitation; her three cousins seemed more moved than she was at the Earl’s disclosure.
Anne really had no feelings toward her mother other than relief that she was no longer under her thumb.
It had been one of the happiest days of her life when Uncle Reggie had permanently removed her from her mother’s influence.
Things had started to improve once Uncle Reggie had installed Mrs Jenkinson who had protected her from her mother.
Try as she may, she had no fond memories of her mother.
She did remember her father rather fondly; he had always been very loving until he passed.
“I am very sorry that the maid was murdered,” Anne said after a pause, “and I am disgusted with the actions of Lady Catherine.
It has been some years now since I have considered you and Aunt Elaine as my parents.
The last straw for me with my former mother was the way she used to rail against Lizzy without ever meeting her.
“I knew from my interactions with my cousin that what my mother was saying was not connected to reality, so there was nothing that she said which I believed from that point forward.” Anne looked up at her kind and gentle uncle and squeezed his arm.
“Do not make yourself uneasy on my behalf, Uncle Reggie. I cannot mourn the loss of a woman for whom I have felt for years that I have no connection other than being grateful for distance between us.”
Reggie was impressed by his niece’s maturity and level-headed thinking. To him she seemed mature well beyond her twelve years. “Do any of you young men have questions we can try to answer?” George asked.
All three shook their head and then Andrew turned to his father, “Will you tell our sister, father?” he pointedly asked.
“I will, Andrew,” Reggie responded. “When we met in here before your mothers summoned you, we decided that when Lizzy is ten, we will tell her about her joining the family and Aunt Catherine.”
“She knows that she was not born a Fitzwilliam,” William said. His father and uncle looked at him in silent surprise. “Do you really expect that one with her intellect would not be able to put the pieces together?” William asked, surprised that his father and uncle did not already realise this.
“I hoped, more than knew, that she did not know yet,” Reggie said shaking his head as he was given further proof of how special his daughter was. “How is it that she never mentioned it to any of us?” Reggie asked, now bewildered.
“It did not change how she feels about any of you, and she told me you would talk to her when you felt ready,” William said with somewhat of a grin.
“She knows that you and Aunt Elaine will always tell her the truth. She does not know the circumstances of Andrew and Richard finding her, but she knows she is not your natural daughter.”
“I think it is time for a family meeting that we had thought we could defer until she turned ten,” Reggie said.
“Would you like to use one of the parlours?” George asked his brother-in-law.
“We would want you, Anne, and William with us when we have the conversation,” Reggie told George.
“Then I suggest we meet in the family sitting room on the family floor,” George suggested. “What say you to our meeting in an hour?”
Reggie agreed and the meeting disbanded as the Earl went to break the news to his wife.