Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Read online

  Then all of the ladies looked to Aunt Eleanor as she continued with her tale.

  “Darcy and my son Richard would go to Rosings Park each year as they had since they were all children. Both of them knew of Lord Lewis’ request of his steward regarding Anne, and they also knew that under Anne’s direction there was no real need for them to come at all. But, they deemed it a courtesy to Lady Catherine and, for their own pleasure of visiting with Anne, they continued their visits.”

  “Besides,” stated Anne clasping her hands in her lap, and looking from face to face as she willed them to grasp the extent of her business acumen, “it gave them an opportunity to speak with me about the current political atmosphere and business interests that appealed to all three of us. At the same time, it was an opportunity for me to discuss various investment opportunities, strategies, and trends with Darcy and Richard and solicit their thoughts.”

  Lowering her eyes, she released a soft sigh, plucked an imagined piece of lint from her pristine gown, and continued, “After finally officially taking the reins of Rosings from Mama’s hand, I wrote to Darcy. Arrangements had been made by me and my steward to have the head of Mills Ventures, the import/export business that purchased the bulk of the wool and grain from Rosings Park, visit in person to discuss our mutual business interests.”

  Placing her hand over her niece’s, Aunt Eleanor gave it an affectionate squeeze as she looked at Jane and continued the tale. “Anne had invited her Uncle James, the Earl of Matlock, and Darcy to attend the same meeting to advise her if needed.” Smiling, she continued, “Her Uncle James and I accepted her invitation. Darcy, still on his honeymoon, sent Anne questions of inquiry regarding her current investments and another further list of investments that he was considering and thought that Anne might be interested in as well. Richard, though invited, was tied up with military matters and was unable to attend.”

  “Jerome Mills, the head of Mills Ventures,” offered Anne smiling at the prone figure lying on the bed, “came to Rosings Park and brought his lovely wife, Elizabeth, as I learned was always his custom when discussing finances and investing. When I first met Elizabeth, I was struck with how her financial expertise reminded me so much of Darcy’s. But where Darcy was austere, she was welcoming smiles.”

  Raising her chin and looking rather complacent, Aunt Eleanor continued where her niece left off, her eyes sparkling: “Anne, Lord Matlock, and I were immediately impressed with both Elizabeth and Jerome Mills, but we readily saw that the real genius behind their investments was Elizabeth.” Her chuckle very nearly grew to a full, hearty laugh as she remembered, “Jerome had not been too proud to recognize that fact and capitalize on it, with Elizabeth’s whole-hearted participation, of course.”

  Anne explained, “I wrote to Darcy with answers to his questions and some feedback regarding those investment opportunities that he was considering.” With a broad smile lighting her face, she looked at Jane and Georgiana. “After my letter, Darcy later wrote that he had dropped several possible opportunities that he had considered, in favour of some of those presented by Mills Ventures. At the end of six months, he was pleasantly surprised to find that almost all of his new investments had shown considerable profit, with the majority of them nearly doubling and one actually tripling in value.”

  Sharing her aunt’s amusement, she began to laugh as she placed her hand on her upper chest and continued: “Darcy also wrote that he was very much interested in meeting with Jerome Mills. But everyone who came to Rosings Park for that initial meeting knew that Elizabeth was the genius behind the investment strategies of Mills Ventures and her own Affinité Enterprise.”

  “Since that meeting,” Aunt Eleanor again interjected, “Anne and I have had a very warm business and personal relationship with Elizabeth, welcoming her advice and counsel as well as her friendship.”

  “Yes we have. Plus, I happened to mention to her that my longtime companion, Mrs. Jenkins, sought to shift her care from me to Mama, whose mental health was rapidly declining. She offered to write a letter of inquiry to a childhood friend from Hertfordshire who might be amenable to the situation. That is how we found Charlotte.”

  At this point, she gently squeezed Charlotte’s hand. “As Mama would say, ‘Charlotte is a jewel in the truest sense of the word.’”

  Charlotte spoke as she let her eyes linger on her childhood friend, still unconscious, but keeping the little girl close to her body, “I was so thankful for the letter that Elizabeth sent to me. She knew that I really had no desire to marry and worried for my future. The offer of the position of companion for Lady Anne was truly a blessing indeed.”

  A wisp of Aunt Eleanor’s hair had escaped the chignon, and she hastily adjusted it, eager to explain the growing closeness between the women. “Anne and I wrote to Amanda and often told her about some of the things that Elizabeth had told us.”

  With her eyes sparking with the knowledge of their shared confidences and a slightly crooked smile, Anne looked admiringly toward the form in the bed, “Elizabeth was always frank and sincere in her letters and slowly revealed parts of her life to us.”

  Aware that they had for some minutes monopolized the conversation, Anne and Aunt Eleanor sat back almost as if they were marionettes whose strings were pulled by a puppeteer and urged Jane and also Charlotte to clarify any facts that they may have incorrect as the two ladies continued their collective tale.

  “Elizabeth had grown up on a small estate in Hertfordshire called Longbourn near the town of Meryton. The estate took in about £2,000 each year and had been the Bennet family home for over two hundred years. She was the precocious second of five daughters, and, with an entail on the estate and no male heir to satisfy the entail, she knew that she would not always be able to call Longbourn her home.

  “She had not been born the heir that the family so desperately needed, but simply because of her curious and unrestrained nature, her father often treated her as though she were. She played with the children of the neighborhood and often as not joined in the games of the boys as much as those of the girls.

  “The boys even gave her a wooden sword of her very own so that she could help fight the imagined pirates as they tried to board their fantasy ship. She played ball and could hit it as far as the tallest boy. She put her own worm on the hook when they went fishing, and she carried her catch back home to Mrs. Hill to give to the cook, no matter how much or how little it might have been. She learned to ride astride, since that was the only way the boys knew to ride. She simply leaned forward, reached to the back of her skirt, drew it through her legs, and pressed the hem under her belt to create makeshift pantaloons.

  “She also did those things expected of her as a young girl. She simply did not enjoy them as much as the things that the boys did.

  “Elizabeth had tried for years to convince her father to adopt some of the new farming methods that she read about as a way of increasing the income for Longbourn, or to incorporate some new ideas for investing what little money was left over at the end of each month. But her father, normally very supportive of her ideas, had been unwilling to listen to her, and this had hurt Elizabeth’s feelings a great deal. He told Elizabeth that, since his daughters would not be able to inherit Longbourn, he would not make improvements to the estate that was to be eventually given to his toady nephew.

  “Well, if her father would not listen, the boys she played with did, and some even told their fathers. A couple of the fathers, Mr. Goulding and Mr. King, surreptitiously did their own research and found that the farming methods mentioned by little Lizzy Bennet were quite successfully being implemented elsewhere in England, and so they quietly introduced and implemented them on their own estates.

  “The boys also discussed the methods Elizabeth divulged for investing their allowances, and again Mr. Goulding and Mr. King listened carefully. When they would see her on one of her walks around the neighborhood or when she came into Meryton with her sisters, they sought her out to speak with her about the
se methods. Sometimes, when she was invited to dinner as a guest of their daughters, she ended up talking with the father of the girls as much as she talked with their daughters.

  “Of all his daughters, Mr. Bennet identified with Elizabeth the most. She had a very quick mind, could remember everything that she had ever read or heard, and therefore had absorbed most of the books in the Longbourn library at a very early age. She loved poetry and plays the best.

  “Once, deep in the back of one on the shelves in Longbourn’s library, she had found an old text written in French. Undeterred, using the ‘books of instruction’ she had asked her father to order for her, she taught herself to speak and to read French, so that she could read the book. She ended up being quite a bit embarrassed, when she discovered the book was supposedly written by a French madam and was quite explicit in nature telling stories that were most scandalous and deliciously wicked at the same time.

  “Finding that she truly had a gift for languages, she later taught herself Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and then German. She was currently learning Dutch. She told Anne that she always felt as though she were expelling spittle as she grunted and groaned through the spoken German, while she felt that her tongue was quite literally dancing with the words spoken in French or Italian.

  “Anne said that she had chuckled to herself when Elizabeth described the spoken German language. She knew Elizabeth’s opinion about French and Italian versus German was the same as her own, only expressed much better than Anne could have ever done.

  “For this and other reasons, Anne had been surprised when she learned that Elizabeth had had no ‘formal’ education and had educated herself and any of her sisters who had wanted to learn. Unfortunately that was only her elder and the next younger sister. The youngest two were too absorbed with fashion and officers in red coats to sit through lessons involving reading or mathematics.

  “Elizabeth admitted that she played the piano very poorly, but it was her own fault, for she did not practice enough. Still, she told Anne that within herself she had found a remarkable ability with mathematics, finance, and investing, and thereby was surprised at her lack of skill at the piano. After all, the structured measures of music reminded her of the structures of mathematics.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Shortly before lunch, Aunt Eleanor and Anne began to talk between themselves of their acquaintance with Elizabeth. Georgiana stood up from her chair and brushed the wrinkles from her gown. With Jane’s help, she was able to extract Anne Elizabeth from Elizabeth’s embrace. At almost the same time that Jane remarked that Elizabeth felt exceedingly warm, Georgiana noticed that the toddler felt overly warm as well. Looking concerned, Charlotte immediately jumped from her seat and went to offer her aid to Jane. With Charlotte’s assistance, she turned her sister so that she lay on her back. Pressing her hand to Elizabeth’s forehead, she discovered Elizabeth had a high fever.

  The child continued to sleep with her head resting on her aunt’s shoulder and neck as Georgiana immediately pulled the cord to summon help from the household staff. Providence must have been smiling on her, for no sooner had she released the cord than Mrs. Wyatt entered the room.

  With obvious concern, Georgiana quickly explained that Elizabeth had developed a fever, prompting Mrs. Wyatt to suggest she take Anne Elizabeth to the nursery immediately.

  At the mention of her name, the girl’s little emerald eyes opened and she squirmed to be let down. Immediately Georgiana took her niece’s little hand, “Sweeting, we need to look after Mrs. Mills now. Once she is better, you may come back to see her.”

  With a face surrounded by sleep-tussled curls, the child looked from her aunt to the bed and then back and up to Georgiana’s face, nodded her head and followed Georgiana from the room, all the while continuing to look back over her shoulder at the bed.

  All conversation had stilled instantly at the mention of fever, as anxiety filled the room. Once Mrs. Wyatt knew that Georgiana and the child were out of the range of hearing, she said to Jane, “We need to examine the wound on the back of her head for any sign of infection or anything overlooked that may still remain in the lesion.” As she began to turn Elizabeth back onto her side, a maid entered the room. With a tone of urgency, Mrs. Wyatt requested that the girl bring hot water and her apothecary box.

  With Jane at her side, and the remaining ladies on their feet ready to lend assistance if needed, Mrs. Wyatt removed the bandage covering Elizabeth’s wound. Directing her attention to Elizabeth’s sister, she told her of her findings, “Mrs. Bingley, I do not see any sign of infection, but I will clean the wound again and then re-bandage it.”

  Relief spread over Jane’s face as she grasped the arm of the housekeeper. “Thank you, Mrs. Wyatt. Would you have some cold water and cloths brought up so that I can wipe them over her face and arms to help lower her body temperature?”

  “That I will, ma’am,” she responded taking Jane’s hands, “but I will apply the cool cloths.” Looking at Jane directly, she continued, “You need to save your strength, for you do not want to do harm to your baby. I will help you to look out for Mrs. Mills. Do not worry.”

  Aunt Eleanor moved swiftly to Jane and took her hands into her own. Looking deeply into the young woman’s face, she spoke gently, but firmly, “Jane dear, I know that you want to be of the best service to Elizabeth, but please allow us to assist her in your stead.” Moving the pregnant young woman to the seat near to the one that she had recently vacated, she cautioned, “I know that is what your sister would want.”

  By the time Georgiana had returned to the room, Elizabeth’s wound had been thoroughly cleaned and re-bandaged. Seeing the sweat-dampened nightgown, she dispatched a maid to fetch several more sets of nightclothes for her to use. Soon, Elizabeth was dressed in a fresh nightgown, and Georgiana and Mrs. Wyatt were taking turns wiping her face and arms with the cool cloths.

  Moments later, Darcy knocked at the door, and with him were Mrs. Gardiner, little Thomas Mills and his nurse, followed immediately by Charles Bingley. When he saw Georgiana and Mrs. Wyatt working over Elizabeth’s body, he pushed brusquely into the room asking, “What happened?”

  Aunt Eleanor made note of her nephew’s unusual behavior and responded quickly. “She developed a sudden fever. Mrs. Wyatt has cleaned and re-bandaged her wound, and now she is working with Georgiana in an effort to bring the fever down. I believe the doctor should be sent for, as well.”

  “Of course, Aunt.” With a nod of his head, never diverting his eyes from where Elizabeth lay, Darcy instructed Mrs. Wyatt to send the nearest footman to seek the doctor.

  Looking to the fashionably attired woman standing just behind her nephew, Aunt Eleanor smiled as she spoke, “Lilly, I am so glad you are here. It appears that both of your nieces are in need your assistance.”

  “Eleanor, from what I can see you are absolutely correct,” Lilly Gardiner answered, smartly, as she gently patted and then gave little Thomas’ hand to his nurse. Stepping around Darcy, she walked to where Jane sat. “Jane dear, Elizabeth is in good hands at the moment. Show me to your bedchamber, and I will stay with you a while as you rest. Then, we will take our turn looking out for Elizabeth later in the day.”

  With that being said, Jane stood and almost collapsed into her aunt’s arms. Charles Bingley immediately stepped forward and drew his wife protectively to his chest. “Come Jane.” He spoke gently as he ran his large, yet gentle hands over her back, “your bedchamber is just a few steps down the hallway. You can be here with Lizzy in a matter of moments if need be.”

  As Charles, Jane, and Lilly Gardiner left the room, Thomas Mills, clad in a stylish miniature coat, waistcoat, and trousers, slipped his hand from that of his nurse and ran to where Darcy now stood, having moved to the side to allow the trio to leave. The boy placed one slender arm completely around Darcy’s leg and looked up searchingly, as he stuck his thumb into his mouth.

  Darcy instinctively reached down to stroke the child’s head, never removing his gaze fro
m Elizabeth. As though pulled by an invisible force, he stepped closer to the side of the bed and had almost reached down to caress her brow, only to have Georgiana surreptitiously grasp his hand to draw his attention, and whisper, “Brother, it is unseemly for you to be here now. Why not wait in your study for the doctor to arrive? I will let you know if there is any change in Elizabeth’s condition.”

  As Georgiana physically turned him toward the door, the child still clung to his trouser leg. When his nurse attempted to pick him up, he turned his entire body toward Darcy and held on even more firmly.

  Peering down on the top of Thomas’ curl-covered head, Darcy murmured to the nurse, “If it would be all right with you, I will keep the boy with me a little longer, but only until I think he feels more secure. Then I will bring him to you in the nursery.”

  Almost immediately, the nurse then got down on her knees to be at a level where she could look directly into the liquid silver of the wide-eyes set in his sweet little face. “Master Thomas,” she said making sure his attention came to rest on her, “I will wait for you in the nursery.” She ever so gently caressed his cheek with the tips of her fingers as she stood up and, following a maid, departed for the nursery.