Chapter 22 #3
“The extra money of which Papa could not tell you the source, comes from me!
The Bennets paid my husband twenty thousand pounds to break the entail and to my great financial advantage, God took the insensible man home before he could turn the money over to his ‘all knowing’ patroness who never cared about his actual wellbeing and is now ensconced in an institution where she can cause no harm to anyone any longer.
She would have wasted the money in no time at all, and if he had lived, I would have nothing.
The money is invested with Gardiner and Associates and will grow by two to three thousand pounds a year.
“Yes, Mama, your plain penniless Charlotte has such an income. I elected to leave most of it to compound and only take five hundred a year, of which at this point four hundred a year will go to Papa to use as needed for the comfort of my family. Where do you think the two new maids and manservant came from Mama?” Charlotte noticed that her father had entered the room, though this was not yet noticed by his wife for most of her speech She turned to him and said, “Papa, I love you very much, but unless you convince Mama to cease this one-sided competition, it will be déjà vu. You know about the friends we have lost because of some perceived slight to Mama and you also know what happened to the Bingleys who failed to check their sister. It does not mean that the same would happen to us, but would you rather find out the hard way? I do not feel that I am exaggerating Papa. I beg you for the friendship you have had with Lord Longbourn since you were young lads not to allow this to get out of hand.”
Sir William, his normal joviality gone for the moment, rose up to his full height, and with all of the gravitas as the master of Lucas Lodge he could muster, looked directly at his wife alone. “Sarah, please follow me to my study, now.”
It is not reported here what was said between husband and wife, or more accurately what the husband said and the wife listened to, but a much-chastised Lady Lucas emerged, one who started to think that perhaps the way she comported herself was not best for her family.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Once the girls had changed and washed from their ride, they joined the rest of the Bennets in the largest drawing room.
All five girls were effusive about what they had seen at Longbourn.
The balance of the family that had not seen Longbourn earlier that day would go there by carriage on the morrow.
When Kitty mentioned that they had seen Charlotte, Maria, and John in Meryton, Fanny recalled that she had intended to invite the Lucases and the Phillipses to dinner also on the morrow, as she missed her friend and her sister.
Rather than forget again, she rose and walked to the escritoire, the same one where Darcy had tried to write to Georgie as Miss Bingley had refused to leave him alone.
Once completed, she rang for Mr Hill and asked him to have the notes sent to both families and to wait for an answer at each home. When the messenger delivered the missive to Lucas Lodge, Sir William read the short note and then looked at his wife questioningly.
She read the note and realised that this offer was the chance her husband said she would receive to repair her friendship and move forward. She looked expectantly at her husband who gave a nod, so she wrote an appreciative note accepting her friend’s invitation.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
A forlorn group of men sat in Darcy’s study nursing snifters of brandy. There was no sound other than the odd sigh and the occasional sip of the libation.
“Look at us, we would be disdainful of this moping about if we saw it in others!” Richard scoffed at them and himself.
“Did you not know Richard? I am a practiced hypocrite,” groused Darcy.
“You were cousin. Were, not are. We all know that Lizzy would not have granted you a courtship if you had not amended your behaviour. Unlike dear Auntie Cat in Falconwood, you have the capacity to change,” Richard replied drolly as he sat missing his betrothed.
“Tell me again why did we not accompany them back to Hertfordshire?”
“When does your steward, Mr…I forget his name, arrive so that I can help you complete your business? Have you received the final copies of the marriage settlement back from your solicitor yet, Richard?” Darcy challenged, knowing exactly what was between his cousin and his Jane, though it could all have been done in Hertfordshire, if at more expense and inconvenience to those they needed to meet.
“You two sound like an old married couple!” Hugh slurred, slightly in his cups as he too was counting the days until he saw his Mary again.
“Thank you for your assessment, Birchington,” Richard replied sarcastically.
“As I have told you more than once, Murray Lefroy, my steward at Brookfield, arrives on the morrow. And I received a note from Mr Abernathy that the final copies of the settlement will be ready in the morning, two days hence. Do you think that we will need more than one day with Lefroy, William? Or can we hie to Hertfordshire as soon as the settlement papers are delivered?”
“I cannot foresee a reason why not, Richard,” Darcy opined.
“Based on what you told me I do not anticipate any complications, as long as there are not more issues that he has yet to enumerate,” Darcy explained, hopeful that in two days he would see his beloved again.
It was a testament to his unbridled love for Lizzy that he had not hesitated when Georgie had uncharacteristically requested to be allowed to accompany the Bennets.
There were few people to whom he would entrust his precious sister, and the Bennets were now among them.
How he loved and missed the woman! As infuriating as she could be at times, he had an unquenchable need to be in her company, to bask in the warmth that he felt when she was near.
“When will your parents and brother and his family go into Hertfordshire, Fitzwilliam?” Hugh tensed up, hating the distance of those infernal four and twenty miles he was certain were too long a distance between here and there.
“Mine will arrive three days before the wedding in time for the pre-wedding ball.”
“Given that I am the groom, my family will join us two days after we arrive. I wanted to thank you, William, for asking your cousin Archibald Darcy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to perform the wedding ceremony. It is not every day one can say that they were married before the Archbishop.” Richard felt quite smug about this fact, although he would have been happy with a curate officiating as long as he was to marry his Jane.
When they had discussed a venue for the wedding and his mother suggested St George’s Church in Town, Jane had disabused his mother of the entire notion and had brooked no opposition.
She would marry from her home or not at all.
After that there was no resistance to the location of the wedding from any quarter.
Yes, his Jane, no matter how serene she appeared, had a backbone of steel when it was needed.
His beloved was not, nor would she ever be, anyone’s pushover.
Especially not his, and he openly admitted to himself that he found his Jane entrancing and tantalizing.
He would indulge anything that she ever asked of him and he would dedicate his life to her and make sure that she would never repine accepting him.
The three decided to head to White’s for dinner rather than sit around and be maudlin thinking about their ladies.
At the club, they joined a table where Andrew Fitzwilliam was sitting with a friend of his, Lord Harold Smythe, the Earl of Granville, a very eligible and single man most of the mamas of the Ton would be focusing on now that these three were off the market.
Though it was true, the matchmaking mamas had been after him for years, he was not about to be caught in the parson’s mousetrap until he was good and ready.
It was known that he would not offer for anyone who attempted to compromise him, which was not doubted, as he always meant what he said.
Granville had known Andrew Fitzwilliam almost from birth as his estate Granville Park in Staffordshire was close to the western border of Snowhaven and just south of Hilldale, the home of the heirs to the earldom of Matlock.
As the three men were welcomed, Lord Granville looked at the three clearly besotted men and could not help but chuckle.
“Andrew tells me that you two,” he indicated Darcy and Birchington, “are courting the sisters of the beauty to whom Richard is betrothed. Are there any more like them at home? They must be some family to attract you three. Not bad, daughters of an Earl, who I hear are rich beyond imagination.”
“Their wealth is the least attractive characteristic of the lady I love; of any of them, actually. There are two more sisters; one is seventeen and the other fifteen and neither one is out yet. Let me tell you about them, and my folly that almost lost me a chance with Lady Elizabeth…” In a quiet voice so no one else would overhear, Darcy shared a shortened version of his history with the Bennets and about their elevation to the peerage.
As he spoke, Granville’s mouth hung open as if he was attempting to give all the flies of London a new home within.
“Good Lord above, Darcy, it is miraculous that she granted you a courtship! What a family! Pity that the two remaining at home are so young. I am not one that ascribes to the mores of society that a man can marry a girl no matter how young she is. That is not for me!” Lord Granville frowned.