The Forgotten Sister

by Louise Hathaway

  Can you imagine my shock?! As I read the letter, I was flabbergasted. At first I was confused: I thought that he was proposing to me. Then, I was angry at both of them and felt betrayed. Next, I felt responsible for what happened. Had I not been so lost in my dark world, I never would have left an opening for his attentions to go elsewhere. It was my own fault, but still I was angry at Kathleen and she knew it.

  She told me that she had not answered his letter and didn’t know what to do. She was surprised he proposed just as much as I was. I couldn’t help but think that she had encouraged him. At first, I wanted to see the letters she had sent him, which was ridiculous because she had not made copies of them. She showed me the rest of his letters and they pained me more than I thought possible. I had never felt jealousy before and didn’t like the feeling. It was very awkward because Kathleen and I spend a lot of time together. Now, every time I look at her, I feel angry. I told her that I needed some time away from her and it was probably for the best if she stays with family or friends. She begged me to let her stay and said that she would decline his offer of marriage.

  I asked her if she loved him. At first, she did not want to reply; then she admitted that she indeed was in love. I told her that it was hopeless for us to stay together and that she had better accept his proposal forthwith and make arrangements to stay with him. I expressed a coldness that I did not think possible. She was absolutely broken-hearted and said that I had always been like a sister to her. I told her that she was forgetting her station: I was her employer and superior. I was mortified by the words coming out of my mouth. I felt like my soul was black with bitterness. I didn’t like myself at all.

  1st of January 1838

  I am writing this diary entry while the bells of Notre Dame chime in the distance. Yes! I am in Paris! Darcy decided that Elizabeth and I needed a change in scenery to lift our spirits after Jane and Bingley’s deaths, so he has escorted us to the most beautiful city in the world, at least in my humble opinion. We have a busy day ahead: we plan to visit the Louvre and after that, dine at the Hotel Ritz. Tonight, we shall go hear a string quartet play at the beautiful cathedral Sainte-Chapelle. I can hardly wait.

  ***

  I have just arrived home after visiting the most beautiful church I have ever seen. Sainte-Chapelle is breath-taking. It is a magnificent example of Gothic architecture. The interior gives a sense of fragile beauty. It feels as if the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows are holding up of their own accord because the structural supports have been kept to a bare minimum. The result is a feeling of being enveloped in light and color. It was heavenly.

  I felt overwhelmed with emotion sitting there and began to weep. I started thinking about Kathleen and how badly I had treated her. Before going to bed, I wrote a letter to her and Lawrence, giving them my blessings.

  15th of January 1838

  On the morning we were planning to visit Versailles, I woke up with a cold and a fever. Darcy and Elizabeth said that they would wait until I felt better and go to Versailles another day, but I told them that they should go ahead without me.

  I fell asleep after they left and by the time I awoke, the sun was beginning to set. I became very worried about them. After pacing the floor for an hour, I got dressed and went downstairs to speak with the desk clerk. Perhaps they had left word at the desk? I asked. The clerk had no information but promised that he’d let me know immediately if he heard anything.

  By the time it was 2 o’clock in the morning and I had still not received word, I asked the desk clerk to help me contact the police. He woke up the hall boy and told him to go to the police station to see if he could learn anything.

  Hours went by until finally, there was a knock on my door. Just as I had feared, it was a policeman looking very grave. I asked him to enter, fearing what he had to say. He told me that the carriage that my sister and Darcy were riding in was held up by armed robbers. Only one passenger survived. He said that Darcy tried to wrestle a gun away from one of the robbers and shots were fired. Bravely, Darcy threw himself in front of Elizabeth to protect her, but was killed instantly. Elizabeth was also shot and killed. There was only one survivor and he was alive only because he pretended to be dead. The three highwaymen escaped with their stolen booty.

  To say that I was in shock would be an understatement. How could this have happened? Would it have been different if I had gone too? Maybe I could have helped Darcy fight them off? What was I going to do? I was in a foreign country. I had never felt so helpless in my entire life.

  The policeman was very kind. He asked if I had any family or friends in Paris whom he could notify and bring to me. I told him that I had just lost all my family and was all alone, except for my nephews who were at boarding school in London. He asked for the details about where they were staying and said that he would notify the police in London who would make a visit to their boarding school to let them know. He asked how old my nephews were and I told him that they were 12 and 17. He told me to let him know if there was anything more he could do for me. I couldn’t think straight. I knew that I had to make arrangements for their funeral, but I wasn’t in any position to decide that at the moment. He knew that and told me that he would come back to visit me in a few hours, once I had some time alone to grieve.

  I have never felt so lost. Now, I had no family. My nephews are virtually strangers to me because I have spent such little time with them. I assume that we would be spending much more time together now.

  I cannot say more. My heart is too heavy.

  9th of February 1838

  I knew that I must arrange to have Elizabeth and Darcy returned to Pemberley, but I didn’t know where to begin. I wish my French was better. I found a friend in the French gendarme, Monsieur Jan Baptiste Duvalier. He was a very agreeable fellow. In other circumstances, I might have even been attracted to him; but now was not the time for love-making. He helped me make the arrangements and asked if he could correspond with me once I returned to England. I readily accepted and welcomed his kindness to me. I would not have been able to cope with my loss without his assistance. Who knows what our future might be?

  *******

  We buried Elizabeth and Darcy in the family plot at Pemberley. It rained the entire day and it was a very gloomy affair. If I had not been so overtaken by grief, I would have found some comfort in the fact that neither had to bury the other. If I were ever married to a man like Darcy, I would prefer to die with him—rather than go on living without him. It was a silly, romantic notion on my part; but I could not help but feel thus.

  My nephews treated me with civility, but without warmth. I had hoped that they would think more kindly of me. I am their mother’s sister, after all. They seem to have inherited Darcy’s pride and none of his dignity. They were young, I told myself. Hopefully, they will change.

  *******

  My nephews and I were called to a meeting at Darcy’s solicitor’s office to go over his will. He told us that the sons would inherit all of Darcy’s fortune when they came of age, except for a small allowance that he had left for me. The will also stipulated that I can stay at Pemberley for the rest of my life.

  30th of September 1838

  Silly me, I have been waiting in vain to hear from my French gendarme. He has not written, as he promised. Perhaps I had dreamt him up? Maybe he was my guardian angel? Would I have been happy married to someone from another country? I was once willing to cross the seas to be with my love at his plantation in Virginia, even if it meant sacrificing the possibility of ever seeing my family again.

  Realizing that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for a letter, I resolved to find a cause that I could put my energies into and be of use to those less fortunate than myself.

  Recently, I read about the appalling conditions in the cotton mills. Women and children must work twelve to fourteen hours a day. They are subjected to cruel discipline. Children are often hit with a leather strap and some have iron weights hanging around the
necks as punishment. One inspector found children hanging from baskets because they “misbehaved”. In another report, children’s ears have been nailed to the table because their overseer thought they were slacking in their work. The factory workers are not allowed to talk or even whistle without fines being imposed. Some managers had even altered their clocks to make it look like their workers were late for work, so they could fine them. Such treatment made me wonder if conditions in England’s cotton mills where just as inhumane as those in the southern plantations in America.

  After reading this article, I resolved to visit some of these factories and see for myself what the conditions were like. Afterwards, I planned to write letters to the authorities and do my part. In the back of my mind, I also recognized that these conditions might make interesting plots for another novel.

  That set me wondering about my former lady’s maid and coauthor, Kathleen. I knew that she had been writing a book before our argument. Did she ever finish it? I wrote to our book publisher to ask if she had contacted him about a book she was writing. He said that she did have a book finished but did not have the money to get it published.

  I asked myself, what if I paid for it? Could I be that magnanimous? Especially after she’d stolen my beau? I had to admit that I missed her, and I missed writing.

  2nd of December 1838

  What an interesting situation I found Kathleen in when I paid her a visit in London. She was living in filthy conditions with another family. I wondered, how could Lawrence have come to Queer Street like this? She was very glad to see me, and very ashamed of the state of her living quarters. She told me that Lawrence had abandoned her and ran off with a wealthy, older woman. I was so surprised! I felt sorry for Kathleen, even though the devil on my shoulder was whispering in my ear, that’s what she gets for stealing your beau. Then I chastised myself and thought, neither one of us knew him very well. Good riddance. We are lucky to have him gone.

  I invited Kathleen to join me for tea at a nearby shop. While walking to one she recommended, we made our way through piles of horse manure in the streets. There were boys trying to sell it. I asked Kathleen, “Who would want to buy manure?”

  She told me that farmers wanted to have it for fertilizer. She said, “You wouldn’t believe the things that the poor are reduced to selling. Well-dressed children are often kidnapped by old hags and stripped of their fine clothes which are later sold secondhand. The cloth of poor quality is sent to paper manufacturers.” She continued, “Drippings of fat from roasting animals is sold as butter. Bones are sold to make fertilizer. Even the dead are not safe in their graves because surgeons employ grave robbers to bring them bodies, so they can practice dissecting humans instead of animals.”

  I was shocked when she told me this.

  She insisted, “It is true. They are called ‘resurrection men’.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I protested.

  “They do it surreptitiously: sometimes, they employ women (many former prostitutes) who go to funerals and stand in the background, learning the lay of the land. Then, they report what they saw to the ‘resurrection men’, who return to the cemetery at night.”

  “Don’t the families protest? I would hate to think that that my loved ones were dug up and ill-used in such fashion.”

  “Yes. Relatives do try. They set traps and watch at the graveyards.”

  “It seems like it would be dangerous work indeed,” I said. “I imagine some of them might be shot by grieving relatives.”

  “Probably. But the grave robbers are quick about it. They dig the grave down to where they imagined the head to be in the coffin and pull the body out. That way, they will cause the least disturbance to the gravesite.”

  “How extraordinary. How do you know all these things?”

  “I find it interesting. I talk to my neighbors.”

  “It sounds like great fodder for a novel.”

  “Indeed, it does,” she answered.

  I told her that I wanted to read the book that she had written. She told me that the publisher had the only copy. I shall go ask him if I could have it for proof-reading purposes.

  *******

  He allowed me to take it. Fortunately, he trusted my connections to the Darcy family and knew that I could be counted on to return it when I was finished reading and editing it.

  I could not leave Kathleen in such filthy living conditions and insisted that she pack up her belongings and come back with me to Pemberley. Lord knows, there were plenty empty bedrooms.

  15th of January 1839

  I am shocked by the ill-treatment I’ve received from my nephews. The eldest married a young fortune-seeker who has been especially cruel to me: she insists that I have no right to live at Pemberley and chastised me for inviting Kathleen to live there.

  They are threatening to kick us both out!! I told them that it was Darcy’s wishes that I live there for the rest of my life. They went to a solicitor who said that because Darcy left Pemberley to his sons, they could sell it and split the proceeds from the sale. I resolved to fight this, despite my paltry allowance.

  The younger son has a kinder disposition but is easily swayed by whatever his old brother suggests.

  Kathleen feels terrible about being the cause of a family dispute and says that she should go back to her former lodgings in London. I told her that it had nothing to do with her; but she has taken it upon herself to vanish in the middle of the night.

  I miss my sister Elizabeth very much. She would have been shocked to witness how cruel my nephews were being towards me. This would never have happened if she and Darcy were still alive. I miss my family so much.

  20th of January 1939

  I made a journey to London to see if I could find Kathleen and beg her to come back with me. She was not living in her former house and I had no luck finding her. With resignation, I went back to Pemberley alone.

  30th of January 1839

  I proofread Kathleen’s story and loved it. Despite my sinking fortunes, I put up the money to have it published. It has been earning royalties which she has never collected. I felt obliged to try to find her. I started writing a story about the working conditions of women and children in the coal mines, but I cannot afford making a trip to the worksites as I had planned.

  As I have grown older, I have found it increasingly difficult to put pen to paper. My arthritis is limiting a lot of activities in which I hoped to participate.

  My nephews have won their case against me in court and my future is very uncertain. I don’t know where I am going to live and feel like I do not have a friend in the world.

  23rd of March 1840

  I no longer live at Pemberley. My nephews succeeded at making me vacate the premises, so it could be sold. If it was not for Darcy’s allowance and the royalties from my book, I would be living on the street. I have had trouble getting used to all the noise of living in London, where I now reside in the East End, along the docks beyond the area of the Tower. All day long I hear the incessant sound of the horses’ hooves clacking over the pavement, the cries of the street peddlers, the bell of the muffin man, and the children playing in the street doing cartwheels in the hope of earning a half-penny.

  The fog is especially thick this morning and I have to light a lamp inside just to see. I heard that the fog can get so thick that you could take a man by the hand and not be able to see his face. People have literally lost their way on the Thames and drowned. I find it hard to catch my breath and feel a burning sensation in my lungs.

  Last month, I read in The Times that several poor souls died in the latest cholera epidemic, one of whom, to my immense sadness, was Kathleen. Now, I do not have a friend in the world and do not know how much longer I shall be able to write in my diary because of my arthritis. Hopefully someday, a woman writer will be able to use her real name when her novel is published.

  24th of April 1840

  I had the most extraordinary visitor yesterday. At around noon, I heard a knock upon my
door and looked out to see a fine-looking young gentleman dressed in breeches and a blue coat standing at my front door. I thought he was a salesman and hesitated to open the door. There was something familiar about him, however; he had a kind face, so I took a chance and opened the door.

  He said to me, “Are you Mary Bennet?”

  “Indeed, I am,” I replied. “Who might you be, sir?”

  “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “No sir, I do not.”

  “It’s Tommy. You know, the chimney sweep with the burnt feet.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake. Do come in,” I told him. “I’m sorry my house is in such disarray. I rarely have visitors.” I realized that I had curl papers in my hair and was very embarrassed to have him see like this.

  “I am sorry I have my hair like this,” I told him. “I was not expecting anyone.”

  He sat down in my wing back chair and said, “I’ve been following your career.”

  “Have you really? How extraordinary!”

  “Yes, I remembered that you wrote a book under the name Ashley Parker.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “Yes. All the servants talked about it. Kathleen told us.”

  “She never told me that.”