Chapter 16 #2
“If she is anything as selective as you regarding who she will marry…” Lord Hilldale began to jest before his parents turned their displeasure on him. “Please pardon me, Miss Bennet; it was a poor attempt at humour on my part. I am usually better at jesting than that.”
It was unfathomable that the viscount was apologising to his impertinent cousin. Collins could not understand what was happening around him.
Thankfully, the butler called them to the dining parlour for the meal before Mr Collins could make more of a cake of himself.
Elizabeth looked at Lady Catherine, who looked like she had aged during Elizabeth’s stay in the area.
She supposed that the stress of Miss de Bourgh’s illness and impending loss was wearing on her ladyship.
Elizabeth understood that the family was looking for as much normalcy as they could find while waiting for Miss de Bourgh to go to her final reward.
Elizabeth stepped over to Lady Catherine and offered the matron her arm. “I am thinking of you and Miss de Bourgh, my Lady,” Elizabeth said softly.
Lady Catherine said nothing, but she gave a tremulous smile and applied pressure to Elizabeth’s arm with her rather bony fingers. She allowed Elizabeth to escort her to her place at the table.
As she sat after guiding Lady Catherine to her seat, Elizabeth did not miss the resentful glare from Mr Collins. She ignored the petty man.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As Phillips had asked for more time to verify what he and his clerk had discovered, he invited Bennet to his office on Monday morning. It was the sixth day of April, a clear, warm spring day when Bennet tied his gelding’s reins to the bar in front of the law offices.
Bennet accepted the offer of a cup of coffee and waited across the desk from Phillips.
“Did you never read the copy of the entail documents which you have at Longbourn?” Phillips enquired.
“I never saw the need until this business with Lydia and the scoundrel forced me to reevaluate my choices. I always assumed they said what I already knew: the estate is entailed to heirs male and can only be broken with the agreement of my heir.”
“It does say that; however, Henry Bennet, your great-grandfather was furious at his son who caused him to sell almost half of his estate. He was disenchanted enough that he added a clause to the entail stating that any descendants of William Bennet, who later became William Collins, are forbidden to inherit Longbourn.” Phillips sat back, his fingers interlaced as he waited for his words to sink in.
“My idiotic cousin may not ever be master of Longbourn!” Bennet realised. “That excludes any sons he may have, does it not?”
“Indeed, that is correct.”
“As I have no son, and as far as I know Collins is the only other one in the line of succession, what happens to Longbourn?”
“If there is no male heir, the entail to heirs male is at an end. You may will the estate to any of your daughters you chuse, and it cannot be divided between them. The entail becomes one for descendants of the body of Henry Bennet’s son, your grandfather James.
That way, William Bennet’s line remains ineligible.
In addition, the entail prohibits the estate being mortgaged or sold off in pieces, or sold at all for another five generations, and then only to one of Bennet blood.
” Phillips looked at the papers before him.
“I think that is everything. Wait, there is one more thing. The husband of the daughter you leave the estate to must take the Bennet name so that a Bennet will remain the master. If you are alive to see grandsons, you may leave it to one of them.”
“Are you sure there is no other possible Bennet cousin?” Bennet questioned.
“Bennet, look at your family Bible. Your family is not a large one, and you were the last male child born to a male of the Bennet line. Even if there are any males out there born to a female Bennet before you had daughters, he is not in the line of succession. No one in the Bennet-Collins line can inherit, so that leaves only you and your girls. From this point the line of succession flows through both males and females; and after you, the next generation is all female.”
“I need to tell Fanny. As much as I make sport of her, I know her fears are real. That she will never have to leave her home should help banish her so-called nerves.”
The two men talked while Phillips prepared the document to be filed with the court of chancery. They agreed that Collins would not be told anything until the court issued the new deed.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Being home at Pemberley had not been the balm to Darcy’s soul that he had hoped it would be.
Sleep was scarce. When he did sleep, the dream he had was actually a recurring nightmare of Elizabeth Bennet excoriating him and sending him away. He was not one to imbibe under normal circumstances, but things were far from normal.
Darcy was in the study close to noon on Monday.
He had a tumbler in his hand; it had contained two fingers of his best French cognac.
Now, there were only a few drops left. He still had three cases left in his cellar.
At the rate he enjoyed the amber coloured liquor when he was not feeling as he was now, what he had was enough for some years.
The way he was indulging now, that time would be significantly less.
As he sat feeling sorry for himself, Darcy decided the overarching theme of his life was loss. First, his mother, then the elder Mr Wickham, and then his father. The next series of losses were not of life, but of confidence and then recently friendship and love.
But he still loved Elizabeth Bennet. If anything, he loved her more so than he had before he proposed to her.
Thinking of the proposal brought back all the mortification as soon as he remembered the manner in which he had asked for her hand.
She had been right to refuse him, even if she had been wrong about some of the things of which she had accused him.
She had been correct about enough, and chief among them was his pride.
Who the hell was he to judge others when he had so many deficiencies in his own character?
Darcy decided that he needed to dull the pain with another measure of cognac from the decanter on the sideboard.
He stood from the settee, which was placed between the windows, which began three feet from the floor and went up to the ceiling.
He stumbled to the sideboard and placed the tumbler on the silver tray.
He was about to pour himself more when a bout of melancholy crashed around him.
“Mother and Father, why did you leave me and Anna? Why did you not leave any instructions beyond your will, Father?” Darcy asked the empty study.
“I wanted someone to sit at my side and share the responsibility with me, but my pride and arrogance destroyed my happiness.”
He felt the need to hit something, so he aimed at the thing nearest to him. The wood panelling on the wall of the study was closest to him. He pulled his fist back and drove it into the wall. Part of his reason to do so was that his hand would be hurt, and who deserved to feel pain if not him?
Instead of pain, his fist broke through that section of panelling.
He had broken some sort of door and left two pieces hanging from their hinges.
Inside was a void, and within, Darcy saw a green leather pouch held closed by some sort of twine crossed over from top to bottom and left to right.
The twine was tied into a bow to secure it.
What was this? Why did he not know of this secret place?
A memory stirred. Father mentioned a place only known to him and Mother and not in the safe. This must be it.
He extracted the pouch and sat behind his desk; any thoughts of cognac were quickly forgotten.
He reverently untied the bow and removed the twine.
He opened the pouch. Within were several letters.
Some were to him and others were addressed to Anna.
There were epistles in his mother’s hand, and there were those written by his father.
Darcy put those to the side for the moment and lifted one which was wrapped in a page which had his father’s script on it. It read:
Read this if Anne de Bourgh passes away before she marries, or has married and has no surviving child. William, if Matlock is alive and I am not, then you will join your uncle and become an executor of Lewis de Bourgh’s will.
Robert Darcy
As he knew Anne was not long for the world, and she was certainly not married, Darcy opened the yellowed sheet of paper and read. What he read there shocked him to the core.
“Oh, my!” was all he could exclaim. Come Monday morning, he would be travelling south again. He had to reach Rosings Park to see Uncle Reggie.
When he looked at the letters, he saw they were meant to be opened at certain points in his and Anna’s life.
The pouch, which was worth more than all his wealth, would join him as he travelled.
He intended to read the letter from Mother and the one from Father meant for after he gained his majority.
Here, he had been lamenting his parents leaving him; and now, he would be able to hear their voices again.
Darcy lifted his eyes to the heavens. Could it be that his late parents had guided his hand to strike the panelling at the exact point where the secret door was? He liked to believe that it was their influence. “Thank you Mother and Father,” he said with his eyes still looking to the sky.