Chapter 9 #2
Mr and Mrs Bingley had considered every option that they could think of, they had consulted with the Bennets and other friends in the neighbourhood, hoping against hope that there would be a suggestion different than the one that they had to make, but in the end, it came back to the fact that their daughter was mentally unstable and there was no other option other than to have her committed to the asylum on the Isle of Man.
At least they comforted themselves that unlike a place like Bedlam, the inmates were treated humanely and not put on display for the sport of the public.
It was almost a fortnight after the date that they knew that their daughter would be moved to the asylum that the letter arrived. Oscar Bingley almost collapsed when he read the missive and dropped it like it had seared his hand. His wife picked it up and read it.
15 June 1801
Greenlake School for Troubled Girls
Mr and Mrs Bingley,
It is my sad and solemn duty to inform you that your daughter Caroline took her own life…
Martha dropped the letter and collapsed into a sobbing heap on the closest settee. Her husband joined her, and they held each other and commiserated together, both feeling crushing guilt that their daughter’s life had ended thus at the tender age of sixteen.
It was like this that Louisa and Charles discovered their parents a little later when they both missed the midday meal. Louisa was extremely concerned as she saw her parents’ distress; Charles picked the missive from the floor and read it silently.
“It is all my fault that my daughter is dead,” Martha wailed as her husband held onto her. “If I had never put those wrongheaded ideas into Caroline’s head…”
Louisa was in shock as Charles silently handed her the offending letter and she too read it.
“Mama,” Louisa took one of her mother’s hands as she sat down next to her.
“I heard the same words as my sister did and yet I chose to amend my way and change the path I was on. You could not control the fact that Caroline refused to hear anyone’s council but her own anymore that you could order the weather. ”
“That may be true, Louisa,” Oscar responded sadly as he wiped tears from his eyes, “but as parents we are responsible for our children.”
“Did you and Mama not do everything that you could to get Caroline to amend her ways?” Charles asked firmly. “Yes, parents are responsible for their children, but how do you control one’s mind?”
“I agree with my brother, Mama and Papa,” Louisa added, “as sad as I am that Caroline took her own life, her life was driven by her own decisions, right up until she decided to run over the edge of a high cliff with rocks at the bottom. None of us imagined or desired this outcome; it was my late sister and she alone that chose this result.”
“Yes,” Charles agreed, “this is a tragedy and a waste of my sister’s life, but she was always determined that everything must be done her way and her way alone. In the end my sister’s tragic end was authored by none but herself!”
“You both may have the right of it,” Martha finally opined, “but this goes against the normal order; a parent is not supposed to survive their child.” She broke down into great racking sobs.
Oscar held her tightly while Louisa sat on her other side and Charles sat next to his father.
Eventually it was decided that even though she had taken her own life which the church looked upon with censure, they would mourn Caroline for three months of half mourning.
The Bennets were expected that afternoon for a visit and before a note could be sent to cry off the tea, they arrived and were shown into the drawing room by Nichols.
Tammy knew that something was awfully wrong by the anguish that she saw on the four Bingleys’ faces.
“Martha, what has happened? If it is a private family matter, we will return to Longbourn,” she said to her friend.
“No, Bennet, Mrs Bennet, please stay,” Oscar invited them to sit, “I would much rather that you hear what has transpired from us rather than as a rumour after it has been embellished many times.” Once the Bennet parents were seated, Oscar told them what had transpired and handed the letter to Bennet to read for himself.
Bennet read the letter and no matter how she had behaved during her short life, he felt the Bingley’s pain.
“On behalf of Tammy and my family, you have my deepest sympathies and condolences, Bingley,” Bennet expressed.
“We suspected that she may be unstable, but to run off the edge of a cliff, it must have been much worse than we knew; mayhap we could have done something different,” the Bingley patriarch said sorrowfully.
“You and Martha did everything you could to try and put her on a good path; for a reason that none of us will ever understand, she refused to change,” Tammy stated as she held her friend’s hands having replaced Louisa on the settee.
“That is similar to what we told our mother and father,” Louisa revealed.
“We have been mourning our sister for some years now; the only difference is that now the mourning period is finite. I loved my sister, but at some point, she became someone else. She used to be sweet and kind.” Louisa saw that her mother was about to blame herself again.
“No, Mama, she started to change before you ever started to talk to us about social standing.”
Martha had to acknowledge that what Louisa said was true. The Bennets remained for another short while before returning home and giving the Bingleys privacy to mourn their daughter.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Sam Hodges brain was working harder than it had in years; he had ignored the ranting of his employer about the founding from Sherwood Forest as one of the many things that she espoused that had no basis in fact or reality.
Earlier that day, he had a discussion with the boy, George Wickham, who said he was seventeen.
As he recalled the details, he became more and more convinced that Lady Elizabeth Fitzwilliam was the toddler that he had discarded in the forest as he took flight.
“Wickham, what be this nonsense about a foundling that Mrs Fitzpatrick is always going on about; sounds like a fantasy to me,” Sam probed.
“It is no fantasy; she is the one that I meant to kill, still do if I ever get away from this place!” Wickham spat.
“What did she do to ya’ that ya’ wanted to kill her?” Sam asked.
“She has the life that should have been mine! She is a mongrel foundling, most probably the daughter of a servant and yet she gets it all and I have nothing!” Wickham was very bitter.
“Aint’ ya’ the son of a servant?” Sam asked amused that the young man would be so upset at the possible parentage of the girl when his own parentage was not pristine. Like he always did when faced with inconvenient facts, Wickham ignored the question. “Do ya’ know when she been found?”
“Yes, they found the mongrel in June of ’82,” Wickham informed Sam. That was the same month that he discarded the brat, and in the same forest; there was too much for this to be a coincidence now.
“Was she not wearing anything that identified her,” Sam hedged.
“A ruby encrusted cross with the name ‘Elizabeth’ on it,” was the answer.
Sam stood and left the young man wondering what he was about.
As he came out of his reverie he knew, it had to be her!
She was the daughter of an Earl now. He had always regretted that he had not time to snatch the cross before he took off.
That had always been his intention when he discarded the crying child, but the other carriage had been approaching too fast. If he had waited, he would have been apprehended and no cross was worth that!
He had kicked himself as he drove the hired carriage away at all speed.
He should have taken the cross off her while she was drugged, but in the end, it worked out well as it was the last piece of the puzzle that let him know that it was her.
How to use the information for profit? There was no one that he could share the information with at the overbearing lady’s house and even had he help, thanks to the boy’s attempt on her life, he was sure that she would be guarded better that the crown jewels.
He would bide his time and when he thought that enough time had passed, he would contact Younge and see what they could do.
There was potential for two ransoms here, one from the birth family and one from the adoptive family!
Once his employer started to send him and the other footman out to spy again, he would gain the information he needed to plan and then he would contact his former compatriots.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
“You are so old,” Georgiana teased.
“As I am only three years older than you Gigi, less in fact, that would make you old too,” Elizabeth bantered back as she watched the footmen carefully carry the chocolate cake with eleven candles on it, with cook supervising, to make sure that they carried her creation carefully.
“Well at least I only have a single number in my age while you have two,” Georgiana shot back with a wide smile.
“I agree with Gigi,” Alex, who had recently turned four, interjected. “You are so very old Lizzy.”
“If you two think Lizzy is old, what does that make the rest of us?” Lady Anne smiled proudly at her two younger children.
“Ancient,” Georgiana managed before William and Richard held her and started tickling.
“Boys!” Lady Elaine warned quietly. Before they took it too far, the two released Georgie.
After cake and lemonade and other drinks, the seven cousins took a ride where, to no one’s surprise, Lizzy wanted to race her brothers and cousin Will.
Georgiana was enormously proud; she had been presented with a cob in March on her birthday which she named Stars for the starlike shaped on her forehead.
When pointed out that the name was close to her pony’s name, she stubbornly stuck to her decision. So, Stars she was.
“That daughter of mine will be the death of me!” Elaine exclaimed.
“She is as she ever was before the attack and after she made her full recovery,” Anne pointed out.
“Yes, she is,” Elaine was thankful that other than the visible scar on her left arm and the scars on her left leg—only visible when she bathed or changed—were the only reminders of that terrible day.
Over two years, the visible scars had faded so much that if one were not aware that they were there, it would be easy to miss them.
“Can you believe that ball of energy and intelligence had been with us for nine years already?” Reggie noted. “It feels like Andrew and Richard found her yesterday. Time does march on, does it not?”
“It does, brother,” George agreed. “Do you think that her birth family still look for her?” he asked.
“Possibly but not actively,” Reggie answered. “I am sure that they always look at little girls with similar features to what they think our Lizzy would have.”
“Only another year at Cambridge before Richard joins the regulars.” Elaine still had not reconciled his decision to her desires, but she would not try and force her son to change his course. “With all of the trouble in France and the ineffectual King, I am sure Richard will be sent to war!”
“Now, Elaine, let us not tempt fate,” Reggie stated gently.
“The year after, William will take his grand tour,” Anne added. “My firstborn is eighteen already!”
“Mine is two and twenty already,” Elaine reminded her sister-in-law,” “and Richard is twenty!” George remembered something he meant to discuss with his brother and sisters.
“Are we all agreed that no matter how much time passed without any attempt on Lizzy or anyone else in the family that we will not relax our vigilance?” he asked.
The other three all nodded agreement. As long as Lady Catherine and George Wickham, and even that deranged youngest Bingley, were out there they would have to be vigilant.
Within a fortnight after Elizabeth’s birthday, the families had heard about the suicide of Caroline Bingley and the passing of the Duke of Bedford. Andrew’s friend had just become a duke.