Chapter 5 #2
“This is all my fault,” Martha cried, looking most distressed. Her husband stood and came and sat close to her on the other chair in front of the big desk.
“It is something inside of Caroline, my love,” he soothed. It had been some months now that they had started using endearments in their address to one another again.
“How can you say that Oscar; it is I who placed all those wrongheaded ideas in her head!” Tears were rolling down her cheek.
“Did you or did you not place the same ideas into both of our daughter’s consciousness?
” he asked pointedly. She nodded in her shame that she felt whenever she thought about her past follies.
“Does Louisa persist as she used to be or has she genuinely changed?” he asked leading his wife to see the point he was making.
“Louisa is a well behaved and pleasure to be…” Her lips made a symmetrical ‘O’ as she suddenly saw what her husband was pointing out. “Both girls heard the same from me when I uttered the social climbing nonsense, and both heard my contrition.”
“That is exactly my point,” Oscar hugged wife close, happy she realised on her own which meant that she would not forget this and want to flagellate herself again. “They both were privy to the same information and look at how differently they have reacted to it.”
“What are we to do with Caroline, husband?” Martha asked sadly.
“We will follow the advice of the headmistress.
Caroline will stay there for the Christmas holiday, then she will have one more term to change her behaviour in a meaningful way.
If she does not, then I will know how to act.
I will try the strictest school first; if that is not effective, then we may have to commit our daughter.
As much as Martha would have liked to rail against her husband’s plan, she could not as she knew that he spoke nothing but the truth; there was something fundamentally wrong with her youngest child.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Bennets had just celebrated their twins’ fourth birthday.
Kitty and Tom were as close as twins could be and still liked to do everything together.
Their parents wondered how many more years it would be thus before the interests of their little girls and boys pulled them in different directions.
Bennet was still reminded of Lizzy when he looked at Kitty, but as she got older the similarities seemed to be fewer and fewer, with only her hair colour remaining as the common trait that he could remember.
The family was all together for the birthday.
The Gardiners, with the almost ten-month-old Lilly, would stay until after Twelfth Night, making an extended stay.
It was the second time that the family had come together in a month; Franny Phillips had turned six in November, but Gardiner could not be away from his business for that long, so they had only stayed for four days that time.
Everyone congregated in the gold drawing room, the largest one at Longbourn, the children included.
They were to have a family dinner and they were awaiting the arrival of the Bingleys and Longs.
The same families were invited to a massive Christmas Eve dinner, along with the Lucas and Goulding families.
Since her heartfelt apology, Martha Bingley had been completely embraced by the ladies of the area and, no longer hiding from her lies at Netherfield, had a surfeit of invitations.
The pinnacle of her acceptance was when Tammy Bennet and Lady Sarah Lucas as the co-chairladies of a charitable foundation invited Martha to join the board.
There had been no doubt in the lady’s mind as she tearfully accepted the invitation with pleasure that her past follies were well and truly behind her and that her future was a much happier one than her past.
In one of the evenings that the men had spent around the billiards table that had included Bennet, Phillips, Bingley, Long, and Sir William Lucas, Oscar shared the gist of the letter that he had received from his youngest’s school.
The men commiserated with him but agreed that he could not do any more than he and his wife were doing to try and correct his wayward daughter.
It lightened the burden somewhat to be able to share it with the men that had become his friends.
After dinner, the men were sitting in the library enjoying their tobacco, cognac, and port. “Gardiner, how is the construction on the new location for the carriage works near Tattersalls progressing?” Oscar asked as he blew a ring of smoke into the air from his cigar.
“When you come stay with us after we return to Town, you will see for yourself. Construction should be complete in early February, and I stand by my projected opening day of the first Monday in March,” Edward reported as he sipped his excellent Cognac.
“It is not an imposition for Martha and me to be your guests for a few weeks?” Oscar asked.
“Not at all. We have plenty of room in our house and Lilly sleeps through the night already so there will be no wailing babe to spoil your rest,” Edward returned.
In the drawing room Jane and Louisa, who had become good friends notwithstanding the five-year age difference between the two, were sitting and talking. “Your sister is staying at her school for Christmastide?” Jane asked. She noticed how her friend’s countenance clouded for an instant.
“Yes, Caroline will not be coming home for the foreseeable future,” Louisa said sadly. Jane understood the situation and did not want to distress her friend, so she changed the subject.
“How are you enjoying the finishing school?” she enquired.
“It is an enjoyable programme, and I am learning much of value. Now that I no longer seek the approval of the daughters of the Ton, I am much more comfortable there and have made some genuine friends who accept me for myself. I have even become friendly with the Daughter of a Duke who does not seem to judge one by their background. Her name is Lady Marie Rhys-Davies, the daughter of the Duke of Bedford. She is a little older than me and has made sure that the girls that were rude and nasty to me because father is in trade have been warned off,” Louisa told her friend.
“She sounds like a truly good person, and I hope that I get to meet her one day,” Jane returned.
“I am going to extend an invitation to her for Easter. If she accepts, you will meet her when she is here.” Louisa’s mood was completely restored as all thoughts of her sister had been pushed out of her consciousness.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Miss Caroline Bingley could not understand what had gone wrong with her brilliant plan!
Here she was stuck at the hated school with Miss Lydia Thatcher, the old crone, and servants.
She had planned her actions perfectly. How had her plans been discovered?
As she sat on her bed steaming, she remembered the conversation with the headmistress a fortnight earlier.
Caroline had been summoned to the crone’s office. She assumed she would be told when her father’s carriage would arrive to take her to Netherfield. She sat when invited to do so like the demure lady that she was playing.
“Miss Caroline, do you really think that your act has fooled us?” Caroline’s mouth opened in shock. “Do you think that you are the first girl that had tried to pull the wool over my eyes by acting in a manner that she thinks I expect to see?” the headmistress asked.
“I am sure that I do not know to what you refer, Mrs Gilbert,” Caroline attempted to save her situation by acting the part once more.
“You may as well drop the act, Miss Caroline. No one has been fooled by it, including your father who had seen past your honey-dripped letters and knows the truth, so you will not be going anywhere for the Christmas holidays,” the headmistress delivered the final blow that caused Caroline to drop the veneer.
“You withered old crone you!” the red-haired girl screeched. “How dare you stop me going home!”
“It is not my decision, but that of your parents. Until you learn to act like a true lady and drop these delusions of yours that you are more than you actually are, you will not be welcomed home.” As Mrs Gilbert spoke, Caroline got more and more furious and would have leapt across the desk with her talons ready to claw the headmistress’s eyes out if a footman had not been standing ready.
“I will get my revenge on all of you!” Caroline yelled.
“Thank you for showing your true colours. You will be restricted to the punishment chamber for a week where your only meals will be gruel.” She could see that the girl was about to unleash a steam of invective and vitriol, so before Caroline could, she continued.
“I can add more weeks onto the time; it is entirely up to you Miss Caroline.”
Caroline’s mouth clapped shut, as she had heard from Miss Thatcher how unpleasant being isolated in the punishment chamber was.
She was brought out of her reverie when her chamber mate, flounced into her room before the rest of the girls returned. “La, why do you look so glum?” the silly girl asked.
“You must be one of the silliest girls in England to ask me that!” Caroline spat out with disdain. She earned herself a hard slap in the face.
“Do not call me silly; that is what my father calls me! I hate it!” Miss Thatcher informed Caroline then with a huff turned and flounced out of the room.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Elizabeth was in anticipation as the two carriages approached the entrance of Snowhaven.
She could not wait to show her brothers and Will how much progress that she had made since they had returned to their educational pursuits.
She only used one crutch now as every day it seemed like her muscles were getting stronger.
Andrew was the first out of the lead carriage as he sprinted up the stairs and picked up his sister and twirled her around as her crutch fell to the floor.
“My goodness, sprite, you have grown; it is so much harder to pick you up now!” The sprite appellation was one that only Andrew used.
He was well pleased to hear the giggle of joy that his sister made as he put her down on the ground.
Richard and William arrived on the top step just behind Andrew and both took their chances to hug the young girl.
Their three friends stood back in amusement seeing how the petite girl had turned their three friends into little boys.
The Earl and Countess watched in indulgent pleasure as their sons and William forgot protocol to lavish attention on the recovering Lizzy.
The Countess suggested that they repair to the drawing room where mayhap her sons would remember to introduce the two friends that they had not met previously.
With a sheepish look, Andrew followed his parents as it was his office as oldest to make the introductions.
His parents were familiar with the De Melvilles, Rhys-Davies, and the Ashbys, with Reggie working closely with all three patriarchs in the Lords.
The connection with the Ashbys was even closer, with the vicar they had recommended universally loved in Hunsford.
William was especially happy to see Lizzy looking almost like her normal self and was pleased to hear that his parents, sister, and brother would arrive on the morrow.
He had missed them all but had seen the logic in himself waiting for them at Snowhaven as it would only be one day before he saw them.
Charles Bingley was in awe; he had never seen a castle before, never mind been inside of one.
He did not know what to expect when Richard told him that a castle was part of his home, but he had envisaged a drafty old building with crumbling walls and ramparts, certainly not what he saw.
The castle portion of the house was well maintained, anything but cold and drafty, and the newer wings of the house had been incorporated seamlessly.
Here he was, the son of a tradesman welcomed into the home of a peer of the realm.
It did not take long after he changed from the road for Elizabeth and William to be found ensconced in the library discussing the latest work, a Cowper anthology.
Seeing Lizzy sitting close to him, William could not see any physical signs of her trauma except for the scar that was visible on her left arm.
It was no longer red and angry as it had been in months past but had become the same colour as her skin and was less noticeable now.
Anne de Bourgh was most pleased to have her cousins with her for the holidays. She had turned twelve in October and was open with all of her cousins and their friends, except for Ian Ashby. She would blush when he talked to her and would only manage monosyllable responses.
By ten the next morning, the Darcy carriages arrived, and William was warmly hugged by all four of his arriving family.
He was amazed at how much Alex and Georgie had grown since he saw them last. At almost six, his sister had grown taller and looked like a little lady in the making, and Alex at two and a half had stretched quite a lot and his speech was much more understandable now.
Charles extended an invitation for the Fitzwilliams and the Darcys to join the Bingleys for Easter the next year, which was politely declined as the family would be at Rosings.
As the Rhys-Davies and De Melvilles would be joining the party at Rosings, the Countess extended an invitation to the Bingleys to join after she had understood that it would be four, not five, Bingleys in the party if they were to accept.
She would never allow the youngest Bingley near her daughter again.