A Surprising Visitor #3
“Ours is through the female side, so there is no inheritance involved,” Bingley said. “I believe my father’s grandmother was a Darcy who eloped and was cast from the family tree.”
“Eloped?” Lydia perked up from her scribbles of officers and their uniforms. “Did they go to Scotland?”
“Not back then,” Bingley said. “Before Lord Hardwicke’s law, any two lovers could simply declare themselves before witnesses. No banns or church service required.”
“Your great-grandmother was a Darcy?” Mr. Bennet’s voice was casual, but Elizabeth saw his eyes sharpen. “How interesting. Do you know her name?”
“Yes, she was, although she was never spoken of again by the Darcys. Why, I do not believe our mutual friend, Fitzwilliam Darcy, is aware of a great-great-aunt Mathilda. Father told me the story and said we should seek Darcy’s friendship to repair the connection.
Though I confess I befriended Darcy because he is a good fellow, not because my father told me to. ”
“Indeed.” Mr. Bennet’s expression tightened. “And has your great-grandmother ever told about her brother’s connection to the Bennets?”
Bingley shook his head. “No. She lost her dowry, her connections, and her home. All because she married a tradesman named Bingley. She had two older brothers though, and I believe the younger one gave her help when she needed it.”
“Was his name George?” Elizabeth’s hand closed around the miniature in her pocket of a baby named George.
“I do not rightly know,” Bingley said. “But when I go home, I can search the family papers. Mathilda never forgot Pemberley, and as you can imagine, through the years, the estate grew grander and grander.”
When Elizabeth looked at Jane, she was dabbing her eyes, moved by the story.
“Well, I would have marched back to Pemberley and demanded my due share.” Lydia threw up her improvement journal, breaking the spell. “It is not a crime to marry a tradesman named Bingley.”
“No, it is not,” Jane said softly. “But as Mathilda had two elder brothers, Pemberley would not have passed to her.”
And here, Elizabeth had to laugh. “One never knows, though, if the branches run dry, where the next heir would be found.”
“True, true,” Mr. Bennet agreed. “And now, with the insertion of females to the line, the line will not dry, as long as the man who marries the heiress takes the name Bennet.”
Bingley colored visibly, covering up his consternation with a hurried sip of wine, and Jane said, “Perhaps we shall still require the remote branches if we stay here together, five spinsters.”
“You mean it might go back to Darcy again?” Kitty looked up from her watercolor. “Why, perhaps one of us might marry Darcy after all.”
At this, everyone laughed, except Charlotte. Elizabeth gave her friend another slice of seed cake.
“The question is,” Bingley continued, his brow furrowing with the honest concern of a man grappling with a moral puzzle, “ought I to tell Darcy about the connection? My father always said to keep it in reserve, but that sits badly with me. Darcy is my friend, and he was the one who wrote me. Told me what he did with the entail and how I might call on Miss Bennet and her family. I feel rather a fraud keeping a family connection secret when he has been nothing but open with me.”
He looked around the room, and his gaze settled on Elizabeth. “Miss Elizabeth—you know Darcy better than most, I think. Would he want to know?”
Elizabeth cringed at the curious looks directed at her, at Aunt Philips pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth, at Mrs. Hurst’s narrowed eyes, no doubt observing on behalf of Caroline, and then she lifted her head, because yes, she did know Darcy more than the rest of them.
“These past few weeks have brought Mr. Darcy’s character to light, and I find that he values honesty above almost everything.
” She was surprised to find her voice steady.
“We have developed a friendship while stewarding Longbourn, and he has confessed things that did him no credit. I appreciate that candor, and Mr. Bingley, I believe he would far rather learn of a family connection from a friend who tells him freely than discover it himself and wonder why it was concealed.”
“That is well put, Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley said, looking relieved. “I shall tell him when next we meet. Darcy deserves honesty, even about things that happened a century ago.”
Mr. Bennet raised his glass. “I quite agree, Mr. Bingley. Although I would suggest—and this is merely the counsel of an old man with a taste for dramatic timing—that such a conversation is best conducted over good wine and with some leisure. The family trees of the English gentry have a way of producing surprises, and surprises are better received sitting down.”
“You sound as though you expect surprises, sir,” Bingley said.
“I always expect surprises, Mr. Bingley. I find life far more tolerable when one does.”
“Hear, hear,” everyone assented, raising their glasses, and outside, the new year settled over Hertfordshire like a promise—cold and clean and full of things that had not yet been discovered.