Chapter 1
St Margaret’s in London near Cheapside and the Bellamy and Gardiner houses on Gracechurch Street, was the site of the wedding between Edward Gardiner and Madeline Lambert.
At the time they were told to, Jane and Lizzy set off up the aisle sprinkling petals about them as they walked. As she reached the head of the aisle, Lizzy giggled as Jane remained serene. Their mother hissed for them to be seated with her and their father.
Both inner vestibule doors were opened, and Lambert entered the church with his daughter on his arm.
Maddie walked up the aisle and was proudly given to her groom by her beaming father, who had arrived with Adam on the first Friday in February, a week previously.
Not only had his patron not objected to the parson being away for about a fortnight, but he had also provided one of his coaches for the Lambert men to travel in comfort.
Peter Bellamy was standing up with the groom while, much to her delight, Veronica, who was almost thirteen, was Maddie’s maid of honour. Veronica followed them holding the bridal bouquet and looking very pretty in her white dress.
The time from the point that Papa placed her hand on Edward’s arm until they were signing the register seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Maddie must have recited her vows correctly because she was now Mrs Edward Gardiner with a lovely gold band on the relevant finger of her left hand.
With the two Lambert men and the three Bellamys present, all of Maddie’s living family were in the church.
On Gardiner’s side were his two sisters and their husbands.
The Bennets, at Gardiner’s insistence, had brought their two eldest daughters, Jane who was eleven, and Lizzy, eight, to act as flower girls.
The wedding breakfast was celebrated at the Bellamys’ house.
The first time after her wedding Maddie heard her soon-to-be sister-in-law denigrate Lizzy about not being the son she needed, she employed her father to give Fanny Bennet a lesson in theology.
Her pinched face notwithstanding, Fanny had listened.
When Lambert had pointed out that questioning God’s will could be seen as blasphemy, Fanny Bennet had almost fainted dead away.
He had followed up by informing her it was a sin to not value all the gifts God has given us.
He pointed to Fanny’s saying that Lizzy’s looks were nothing to Jane’s.
Children are one of His greatest gifts. Since then, the nonsense about Lizzy being able to choose the sex she was to be born or not being anything to Jane, was not mentioned again.
Thomas Bennet had the decency to look ashamed when his wife had been lectured by Mr Lambert.
He could have told her the same as soon as Lizzy had been born, but it had been more amusing not to do so.
Even though the clergyman had not spoken to him directly during the time he was educating Fanny, Mr Lambert’s eyes were locked onto Bennet, who afterwards felt suitably chastised.
Madeline, who by the day of her wedding had fallen in love with her very soon-to-be nieces, thanked Papa for the best of wedding presents. Now if only someone could get Fanny to stop treating Jane like a china doll. That was for another time.
Towards the end of the breakfast, Maddie approached her new sister-in-law, Fanny, with a request. She had learnt enough about Fanny’s selfishness to know she needed to couch her request in terms which made it sound like it was something good for her new sister by marriage.
Hence, Maddie thought about her words carefully before approaching Fanny.
She knew it could not be when Fanny was alone, but rather when she was part of a group.
“Sister, you must be a slave to your daughters’ education with five at home,” Madeline remarked as she joined the group. The Phillipses, Hattie the eldest Gardiner and her husband Frank were there along with Thomas Bennet and his wife.
“Indeed, Sister, I have told Mr Bennet that often.” She flapped her lace-edged muslin square furiously. “All of the care I give them causes such flutterings, palpitations, and spasms,” Fanny claimed dramatically. “No one knows the travails I must bear.”
“I do understand,” Maddie sympathised. “To that end, I will invite one or two of your daughters at a time to spend some months with Edward and me. We will make sure they receive the appropriate education, thereby freeing you from that burden.”
Even though she knew she could no longer berate Lizzy for being a girl, Fanny still resented her second daughter due to the attention her husband lavished on Lizzy.
The thought of her spending time in London did not sit well with her, but her new sister-in-law had tied her up in a neat bow.
What she proposed was for all of the girls, not just Miss Lizzy, and it would allow Fanny to relax far more without all, or even some, of her daughters at home. She had no choice but to agree.
Bennet had understood exactly what his new sister-in-law was doing.
Even had Fanny not agreed, he would have.
Not only would it make his house quieter, but it would save him money by not having to employ a governess.
Money he could spend on books and port. Gardiner had urged him to invest for his daughters’ futures, but Bennet had not been willing to trouble himself.
“I add my permission to that of my wife’s,” Bennet added.
A little later, Madeline sat with her brother, who was about to turn sixteen. Adam had grown taller since she had seen him last. “Are you still close to the Darcy heir?” she asked.
“Very much so. To Andrew and Richard as well, even if Andrew is beginning at Cambridge this year,” Adam reported. He noticed his older sister did not recognise some of the names. “They are William’s Fitzwilliam cousins. Andrew is Viscount Hilldale, and Richard is his younger brother.”
“What of Mr Darcy’s godson?” Madeline probed. Over the years, her uneasy feeling about the Wickham boy had intensified, not receded.
“You mean George Wickham?” At a nod from Maddie, Adam continued, “He is not an honest boy and likes to cause mischief, sometimes cruelly. Then he blames others for his misdeeds. William has tried to warn his father, but for some reason, Mr Darcy will not hear anything negative said against his godson. Because of that, William has stopped trying to tell his father about George.”
What Adam told her showed that her intuition about the Wickham boy had been correct. “Have you spoken to Papa about the boy?” Maddie enquired.
“Yes, indeed. Papa says he needs some concrete evidence if he is to speak to his patron on this subject. He opined that given Mr Darcy’s preference for the boy, it would have to be something irrefutable to make him see that Wickham is not as he portrays himself to be,” Adam replied.
“It seems that Mr Darcy suffers from the affliction referred to in Jeremiah 5:21: ‘Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.’ I wonder what it is that has blinded his eye to the truth about George.”
“Papa told me that since Lady Anne passed away, the young Wickham boy is one of the few who are able to cheer Mr Darcy; perhaps it is that?” Madeline speculated.
“On a less contentious subject, are you looking forward to returning to your studies at Eton? Your Darcy friend is in the same year as you, is he not?”
“Very much!” Adam exclaimed. “William and I share chambers. Richard Fitzwilliam is a year ahead of us, so he will be there for two years with us.”
Soon after, Adam rejoined his father, and Maddie found her husband.
An hour later, they left the wedding breakfast. After thanking their family members for sharing the special day with them, Edward and Madeline Gardiner made the short walk from 21 to 23 Gracechurch Street.
They would take a wedding trip to Ramsgate in the summer.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
22 August 1800
23 Gracechurch Street
London
Papa and Adam,
Edward and I had a wonderful month in Ramsgate. I believe that the sea bathing has set me up for life! How invigorating it is.
We did use bathing machines, but one day, we took the carriage for a drive away from the city along the coast. We discovered a very secluded cove and at the risk of scandalising you, Edward and I went sea bathing together, not separated as done on the proper beaches in Ramsgate.
My husband, how well that sounds, was able to leave his business thanks to Uncle Peter managing it for him until we returned.
We did not go directly home, but we stopped at Longbourn, where we were hosted for a few days. Fanny was again bemoaning that she has no sons.
As an aside, I must agree with Fanny on one thing: entails are terribly unfair.
The man who wrote this one did so with very little sense.
He did not exclude from the line of succession the line of the man who lost almost half of Longbourn’s land in games of chance, and when his father would give him no more, he changed his name to Collins.
In addition to Jane and Lizzy, we spent time with Mary, who was just 7, and Catherine, whom her family calls Kitty, who is 5 now. Both are sweet girls, but Mary is a rather serious girl. I hope she will grow out of it. Lydia is approaching the age of 4 and is, I am afraid, very indulged by Fanny.
Having agreed to allow them to come to us, Fanny begrudgingly permitted us to take Jane and Lizzy when we departed.
Thomas assured us that regardless of his wife and her mercurial moods, we would always have his permission to take any of his daughters to our home for as long as we want them with us.
We arrived home this past Friday, and the girls have settled well. I would never say it to them, but I think the fact that neither Edward nor I suffer from any supposed nervous complaints and the house is much calmer has led to the girls being able to relax much quicker.