Chapter Three #2
Elizabeth chewed her lip for a moment as she stared at the pictures.
And then she saw it – the young officer holding the book as if reading some sonnet of love to his lady – and upon the hand that held the book was a scar.
She pointed it out to Jane, her voice hollow with disbelief.
“Mr. Bennet has just such a scar. It had faded with time, but the placement is the same, diagonal across his left hand, from sparring with one of his comrades when he was in the militia.”
Jane gasped. “Then it must be him. He is our father!”
Elizabeth’s heart ached, the pain of Mr. Bennet’s twenty years of deception mingling with the joy of discovering that she had a sister – a sister born the same day as herself.
“You have been told more, I believe, of your parents’ history, for you reside with your aunt and grandmother.
You must know enough that we might make sense of it all. ”
Jane finally set aside her half of the watercolor and produced two small individual portraits – one of a soldier, and another of a beautiful, fair-haired lady. “This is my mother, Phyllis Fairfax. My aunt, Miss Bates, is her younger half-sister. Here, this is she.”
Elizabeth examined it and then picked up the matching miniature of Captain Fairfax.
He did resemble Mr. Bennet a little, perhaps, for his hair was the same shade of light brown, not quite the golden blonde of all the ladies, but his eyes were dark and had not the same humor as the man in the other picture – as her father.
Jane handed Elizabeth another picture from her box of keepsakes, and Elizabeth studied it curiously.
Something strange nagged at her, and she studied the picture for some clue.
“Oh! But your aunt’s eyes are blue! Look.
” Elizabeth pointed first to the picture of Mrs. Fairfax.
“Her eyes are brown.” Then she put the two halves of the watercolor together again.
Father’s eyes are green, and her eyes are blue.
These lovers are not Captain and Mrs. Fairfax. ”
“No, it must be a mistake,” Jane cried, shaking her head emphatically. She laid all five pictures out, clustered together, and twitched her lips from one side to the other as she studied them. “My aunt must have made an error when she painted this.”
Elizabeth ran her over the initials in the corner of her half of the watercolor. “PF. Jane, Phyllis Fairfax is not in the picture – she painted it.”
Jane squinted at the letters. “Are you quite sure that is not an FB, for Fanny Bates?”
Elizabeth gazed down at her little treasure box as her mind whirled with thoughts and questions.
She had no doubt as to the initials of the artist who painted the watercolor; she was merely confounded by that name, Fanny Bates.
And as she gazed down into the accumulations of beloved objects that reminded her of the significant moments of her life, her hand was drawn to a small, very worn book.
She picked it up with a smile. It was a wonderfully illustrated copy of Gulliver’s Travels , which she had relegated to her treasure box when she began to fear for the condition of the spine, worn from so many reads.
The book was dear to her, for she had purchased it the first time she ever travelled away from Meryton, and even at the age of ten she had been sensible of the irony.
The book also brought to mind Bessie Hill, the poor widow of one of Mr. Bennet’s late comrades from his days in the militia, whom he had given aid in the form of employment.
Indeed, he allowed the outspoken woman to assume a considerable degree of tyranny over both of his homes, and she had always been more maternal to Elizabeth than Lady Amelia ever was.
Elizabeth recalled vividly the day she purchased this book, accompanying Bessie Hill to the shops in a charming village that was smaller even than Meryton.
They had gone to see old friends of Mrs. Hill afterward, and Elizabeth had been filled with pride to see the woman so well regarded by strangers, and they had all made an unaccountably big fuss over Elizabeth herself.
She pressed on in her reverie, thinking of how Mrs. Hill had reacted to her friends exclaiming over Elizabeth, as if her girlish charm were some great secret to be concealed.
And then they visited a woman at the edge of the village, a woman with an air of great sadness about her.
Elizabeth had offered her candy, and was pleased that it brought a smile to the woman’s face.
With a rising sense of presentiment, Elizabeth opened the book, recollecting an inscription there, though she had not opened the cover in years.
“Lizzy’s first purchase with her allowance. She is quite grown up. Highbury, October 1801.”
Elizabeth ran her fingers over Mrs. Hill’s elegant script, smiling with high emotion. “Jane, what is the name of your home village? Is it not Highbury?”
“It is,” Jane said, still examining and pondering their collection of portraits.”
“And when did you go away with the Campbells?”
Jane screwed up her face for a moment as she considered. “I believe I had just turned ten.”
Elizabeth displayed the inscription to Jane.
“I remember now. I went there, I saw her, I saw our mother,” she said, her voice choking with emotion.
“Father spoke to her for an hour while Mrs. Hill took me to the village. She said to remember my friend Fanny Bates. I think I saw you, Jane, looking back at us from the carriage.”
Jane looked down at the book and then back up at Elizabeth.
“That Christmas, my aunt gave me a copy of Gulliver’s Travels, identical to this one.
” Tears began to slide down her cheeks. “But she is not my aunt, is she? She is my – she is our mother, she has always been my mother… and she sent me away!”
The sight of her Jane’s tears was overpowering for Elizabeth. She delicately set the old book aside and threw her arms around Jane, weeping as she finally allowed herself to speak the truth aloud. “Oh, Sister!”