Chapter 9
The town of Packwood in Warwickshire was unexceptional in every way.
It was like any one of many market towns dotted throughout the kingdom.
Mrs Carol Fitzpatrick had taken up residence in her home a sennight before.
She had selected the town well, as it had a small population, and with her dressing like a widow of modest means, she did not stand out.
Her house was a red, two-story brick building that had an east facing drawing room so that it would not get the afternoon sun, a dining parlour, and a kitchen with attached servant’s quarters on the ground level.
Above stairs there were three bedchambers and a private sitting room.
Mrs Fitzpatrick took the largest bedchamber, which was nothing of note, but it was expected that the mistress of the house would claim the best chamber.
The only thing that was out of the ordinary was that her lady’s maid, Miss Toppin, was given the small bedchamber down the short hall from her mistress.
If anyone enquired about the out of the normal arrangement, they would be told that Miss Toppin doubled as a companion for the older lady, which was not far from the truth of the matter.
As Olive Toppin was privy to all of her secrets, the former Lady Catherine made sure that she treated her well, hence the bedchamber and the fact that her salary was twenty pounds a month, many times what it used to be.
Olive was the recipient of a new wardrobe in keeping her role as companion and ate her meals with her mistress.
Mrs Fitzpatrick was still an angry and vengeful woman; she was just hiding her true character from everyone so far below her.
However, she was aware that she needed to be accepted by them as part of the community so they would not ask too many questions about the town’s newest resident.
She had employed two former soldiers, discharged from their prior employment for less than honest dealings with the employer, as spies.
The men were housed above the small stables and doubled as footmen for now.
When she was ready, she would send them forth to gather intelligence about her enemies.
In addition, she hired Mrs Matilda Dudley as housekeeper and her husband Benedict was the de facto butler, although she would not use the title since it did not fit with the persona that she was presenting to the area residents.
The two had been let go for pilfering from the estate they had previously worked for in Surrey.
They would, therefore, be loyal to the lady, as no one else would hire them without references.
The lady had deposited the bulk of her money between two banks—one in Coventry and the other in Birmingham.
She also opened an account at the local bank of a little more than a thousand pounds in keeping with her being a widow of moderate means.
Each month, she would receive a draft from the bank in Coventry for twenty pounds which was her ‘pension’, and so would deposit it each month at the local bank.
The Birmingham bank was instructed to put any interest payments back into her account.
Her days were spent thinking of ways that she would exact her righteous revenge, but so far, she did not have a feasible plan.
She knew that, as one who knew everything about anything, she understood it was only a matter of time before she would have a plan she could put in motion, and she did not care how long she had to wait so long as she extracted her vengeance.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“She was a servant and Mr Bennet married her!” Caroline exclaimed.
The ladies had just returned from a visit with the town gossip, Mrs Long.
Mrs Long had long envied the Bennet’s wealth and had hopes of filling the role of mistress of Longbourn herself in her younger years, but the older Bennet son, James, had shown no interest in her.
When the younger brother inherited, and before anyone could blink, Fanny Gardiner had entrapped the man.
She had accepted Mr Long as she had no other prospects.
The Longs had not been blessed with children, so gossiping was what gave her pleasure.
“Of what do you talk, Caroline?” Mr Bingley asked, as he and Charles stopped in the drawing room to welcome the ladies home.
“That Mrs Bennet who thinks she is so much above us,” Caroline sneered as her sister and mother nodded. “She is naught but a servant!”
“Oh yes, Mr Bingley,” Martha chimed in. “Mrs Long told us the whole sordid tale of how he seduced the woman while his first wife was fighting for her life.”
“Then the former Mrs Bennet was not even cold in the ground,” Louisa added, “when the servant entrapped Mr Bennet, and she gave birth to that James six months after they married!”
“As we are so wealthy, how can a servant be above us?” Caroline asked.
“Are all three of you addlepated?” he asked with barely concealed rage.
The three had learnt to recognise when Mr Bingley was really angry, and their mouths shut as one.
“I have spoken to our landlord, so I know the true story.
What that gossip has told you has a kernel of truth, but the rest is falsehoods!
“I will remind you that no matter what she had to do after her husband was killed and she was left destitute, she is a gentleman’s daughter,” he looked at all three women pointedly, “something none of you are or will ever be!”
“Husband, how can you speak to us thusly?” Mrs Bingley asked indignantly in attempt to regain the upper hand. “We are just repeating what we were told by someone who we have no reason not to trust.”
“Yes, I could hear the glee in your words as you relayed the story,” he derided them.
“Do you think that it makes you higher if you believe that Mrs Bennet is below you? She is married to a gentleman, and not just any gentleman but our landlord who will put us out of his house if one bad word comes back to him about his wife from any of us. Do you imagine that with his wealth it would be hard for him to ruin us? Where would your aspirations to rise in society be then?”
Mrs Bingley and Louisa had the decency to look chastised while Caroline had a pinched look on her face.
‘What has happened to Papa?” she asked herself.
“How can anything bad happen if we talk about a servant?’ She resolved to bide her time, to make it seem as if she was complying with her father’s wishes for now, but it made her feel particularly good, believing she was above the mistress of Longbourn.
The next morning Mr Bingley rode to Longbourn and requested an audience with his landlord.
He was shown into Bennet’s study where he was currently going over his ledgers.
Once Bingley informed Bennet what Mrs Long had said about his wife, that man was no longer calm.
Bingley decided then that he had been correct in surmising that he never wanted to be on the receiving end of his landlord’s wrath.
After he farewelled his tenant, Bennet had Jupiter saddled and rode to his friend Jonathan Long’s small estate, Longmeadow, where he was shown into Mr Long’s study. “Good morning, Bennet,” Long welcomed his friend, “to what do I owe this unexpected honour?”
“Good morning, Long,” Bennet returned. “When you hear why I am here, you may not feel it such an honour.” Bennet relayed all of the salacious falsehoods that Long’s wife had told the Bingley women. When he was done, his friend was red with anger. Not at Bennet, of course, but at his wife.
Jonathan Long knew that his wife, Cheryl, was disappointed that she had not been able to become with child and that she liked to gossip.
Until Bennet entered his study, he had always thought that she indulged in harmless on-dits, but what he had been told was beyond anything that he would accept from anyone in his household.
He rang the bell and asked the housekeeper to inform the mistress that she was required in his study forthwith.
Mrs Long walked into her husband’s study and was smiling, until she saw the thunderous looks on her husband’s and Mr Bennet’s faces.
She had a feeling in the pit of her stomach that this time she may have gone too far when the Bingley women visited her.
Her hope was that mayhap the men did not know everything she had said.
She was disabused of that notion very quickly when her husband repeated everything that had been repeated to Mr Bennet, which was all of what she had shared, almost verbatim.
“Mrs Long,” her angered husband said, “do you deny that these vile things came out of your mouth?” She shook her head in shame, knowing that she could not deny that she was the source of the words.
“What have my wife or I ever done to you to deserve such vile falsehoods to be repeated?” Bennet asked the woman as tears of mortification ran down her cheeks. The only question left was whether she was upset at being caught, or that she had to admit that she had done the wrong thing.
After a few minutes, she was able to squeak out, “Nothing.” She collapsed into a heap onto her husband’s settee. Long handed his wife his handkerchief so she could dry her eyes.
“Help me understand what motivated the vitriol that you spewed, Cheryl,” her husband urged her in a much calmer voice.
“T-they t-told m-me h-h-how h-high they are, and I w-was t-trying to impress them,” Mrs Long managed between sniffles.
“How high they are?” Bennet scoffed. “Did you, who prides yourself in knowing what is going on in the neighbourhood, not know that they are in trade?” Mrs Long’s mouth made a perfect ‘o’ as she realised that she had been trying to impress pretenders, which further sunk her behaviour and she hung her head in shame.