The Keeper- Mary Bennet's Extraordinary Journey

by Don Jacobson

  Sam had vague memories of his Grandfather installed behind the Restoration style worktable, his mane of white hair swirling around his head as the light from the setting sun haloed him, giving him the aspect of Elijah. The scent of his Virginia Burleigh pipe tobacco still tinctured the air even though his son Richard Bennet was not a smoker. The aroma, Sam guessed, was ingrained in the pages and bindings of the books that packed the shelves lining the walls as well as the upholstery of the sofa standing beneath the French windows overlooking the rear garden. The oaken wardrobe with the fantastic design scribed across its front hulked in a corner.

  Richard Bennet did not carry himself as his father had. He was trim of frame, a man of action—as far as a gentleman could be active without being vulgar. He rode daily, hunted with his friends, spent time in Town when required to sit in Parliament and served as the local Magistrate. He was in every respect a pillar of the county, a dependable man. And, he wanted only the best for his family; thus, the meeting with Samuel to reveal the boy’s future.

  Sam knocked on the door and, upon being bidden to enter, crossed to stand in front of the worktable. Mr. Bennet looked up and cleared his throat, an indication that he was making a pronouncement that would not brook further discussion. Sam knew his father’s cues, and he further knew that whatever was said next would be his life’s path.

  “Well, Sam, your brother will be returning from Cambridge next month; time for him to start learning the business of managing our estate. But, that is neither here-nor-there when it comes to you and your life. George will inherit Longbourn. You will come into a fund I have set aside for your benefit, and you will also receive a small estate in Kent from your mother’s dowry. So, you can expect a secure life. However, all of that is in the future and most not until you become five and twenty,” Mr. Bennet began.

  He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. Considering his second son, he saw a young man, past being a stripling boy, still lanky, not having filled out into his final form. His near-chocolate brown hair, curly and perpetually wild, always threatened to fall over his deeply set rich brown eyes. He needed some seasoning, some experience. And, that is just what Mr. Bennet had planned for him. He motioned for the boy to sit.

  Bennet continued, “I have considered your situation for some time now. You have always been a good son. Maybe you have been more interested in walking outdoors than in your Latin, but the bookish life is not for everyone. Most recently your efforts in helping the village cope when the Mimram[iv] overflowed have shown me your ability to take on a gentleman’s responsibilities.

  “Now is the time for some structure. I contacted some friends at Horse Guards about finding a commission for you. I was fortunate to learn that Colonel Dunbar is filling the ranks of the 48th Foot in advance of joining Braddock[v] in Virginia. They will be leaving for the Colonies early next year to teach the French a lesson or two.

  “I purchased an Ensign’s commission for you in the 48th. That will keep you close to the Colonel, so you can learn the military way. It’s a junior position, I know, and I also know of some Captains who are also only six and ten, but they are just parade-ground boys playing at soldiers. They will use their fancy red coats and shiny buttons to turn the heads of some silly small-town maidens.

  “But, put them in front of some French muskets or a battery of le brutal[vi] and they will melt like the Hertfordshire snows in early March.

  “You, however, will become a soldier, a professional leader who will serve his King with honor and defend us all from those Gallic poseurs,” Bennet finished with passion.

  Silence descended over both father and son as the younger man absorbed the news.

  Samuel looked up into his father’s eyes, stamped like his from the same dark pigment. The corners of his mouth twitched, and he impertinently commented, “Father, you would think you were getting ready to take the King’s shilling again and break out that red coat hanging in the wardrobe back there,” he slightly leaned his head back over his right shoulder, “since Culloden.[vii]

  “However, did you get Mother to let you go fight the Young Pretender?” Sam grinned.

  “I reminded Mrs. Bennet that your Great Grandfather was one of those who sailed to Orange to encourage William and Mary against the Princess’ popish father James back in ‘88. I asked her to imagine what would happen to us if Bonnie Prince Charlie defeated King George. That settled her nerves quite nicely,” his father parried back.

  Sam now looked at the older man more seriously. There were depths to his father he had not considered. What impressed Sam was that there was always a pragmatic, yet often intangible, reason for most of his sire’s actions…and it usually came down to protecting his family and his home. How many men would have raced off to Scotland to make a name, to impress their betters, to score a title or preferment? How many more would have stayed safe behind their shutters, letting others push back the threat? His father neither sought gain nor safety, but instead at the age of six and thirty marched into battle nine years ago, leaving his wife and three children home alone, solely to defend Longbourn and its legacy.

  There was no need for Sam to decide. That had been done for him. But, he did have one choice yet to make. Would he honor his family name and heritage with good cheer and dedication? Or not?

  “I must admit, Father, that this position you have found for me comes as no surprise. I, too, have been dwelling on my future for some months now. And, I, like you, have seen this current state of affairs, war with our ancient enemy, as an opportunity for me to watch accomplished men lead, to test my mettle and to add to our family’s reputation. I will, of course, accept this path gladly and without reservation.

  “My only request is that before I leave, you will meet with Mr. Lucas and agree to allow me and Miss Lucas to announce to our friends and family that we are engaged to be married. She is the one I love, and if I am to be across the ocean, I want to be able to write to her without concern for propriety. We can marry later once I return home and take charge of the estate in Kent,” he solemnly intoned.

  Bennet felt warmth grow in his heart as he listened to this earnest speech. How wise a head sat on those young shoulders! What was it, though, about Bennet children and love? His eldest, George, had professed infatuations with at least three women in the past four years—and not because they had substantial dowries. Sam’s attraction to young Martha had been obvious for years. And then there was their in-between sister Maude’s involvement with their cousin, the pompous Jonathan Collins. That he did not understand. But, his daughter begged him to approve the union because she loved him. That thought caused him to frown, dampening his previous happiness.

  Sam jerked upright. Was his father about to refuse him? To destroy his hopes? Was his dear Martha tainted because her father was in trade?

  Richard Bennet sensed his son’s immediate concern.

  “I’m sorry, son. You must allow an old man to woolgather for a moment when his youngest begs permission to marry. Not every memory is pleasant. If I led you to believe that I am less than pleased about your request, please put those fears to rest. You, of all my children, are sensible when it comes to matters of the heart. You have remained constant and faithful to that young lady. Your mother and I have spoken of you two often and we have never, ever, expressed any concern about an alliance with the Lucas family despite their station or lack of connections. That is not what marriage is meant to be.

  “So, Samuel, you have my blessing. I will talk with Mr. Lucas today. I doubt if he and Mrs. Lucas will have any difficulties either,” Mr. Bennet concluded.

  “Then I will go to my new posting secure in the knowledge that Martha and I will be together forever,” enthused the youngster.

  

  The Monongahela Wilderness July 9, 1755

  The battle raged around him. Bullets snapped through the foliage that everywhere darkened the sun in the oppressive heat of a backcountry summer. To Sam’s ears, they buzzed like angry bees. Occasi
onally, that buzzing ended in a meaty thunk sometimes followed by screaming, sometimes only by a wheezing sigh. Death walked in the woods. And men were crying for their mothers.

  Lt. Colonel Burton’s abortive charge up the hill to give Braddock some relief failed miserably. Too few of the 48th had rallied to the colors borne by Corporal Silas Hill and Ensign Samuel Bennet as they led the assault. Even fewer came back to huddle next to Braddock’s beleaguered command group.

  Burton was wounded. Hill had taken a grazing wound across his brow and was mumbling incoherently. Sam had grasped the regimental colors after Hill went down to keep them flying high for all the force to see. For the moment, things had settled. Sam leaned against the flagstaff and took a breath, twisting to see a private wrapping a cloth around Hill’s bleeding forehead.

  Braddock was conferring with his secretary William Shirley, trying to decide the next step to take when a torrent of lead ripped through the detachment. Sam felt a searing pain tear down his left leg. As he collapsed, Sam saw Shirley’s head explode like an over-ripe melon and impossibly red blood cascade down Braddock’s pristine white waistcoat as his mouth gaped in agony. The private by Hill collapsed without a sound.

  Yet, through all of this, an incredible sight—the tall, muscular redheaded Virginian Colonel Washington, Braddock’s colonial counterpart, strode through the hailstorm of gray seemingly without a thought. Every once in a while, the tails of his uniform would twitch, but he was never touched.[viii] To Sam, it was like magic. Washington’s calm, his power, his presence quieted the men. He rallied what troops he could as the French onslaught abated. Sam learned little more as darkness fell upon his mind.

  

  The Backcountry of Virginia July-August 1755

  For Sam Bennet, the retreat from the Monongahela was torture indeed. Dragged through the woods on a litter, he bounced back through the mountains at a snail’s pace, pain searing his body and dulling his senses. His wound had been too high on his leg to amputate, so the doctors wrapped it assuming that he would die from infection soon enough. Yet, through it all, mile-after-mile, the faithful Silas Hill tended the weakened Ensign with rum, herbal potions and poultices, even binding living maggots into the hole, refusing to allow the rot to take him. By the time the remains of the army trickled into the growing town of Richmond, Sam was healed enough to ride in a wagon while others, the few remaining walking wounded, straggled behind. However, Sam never moved without the aid of a stick for the rest of his life.

  With the return to the Colony, so, too, did the mail and the world catch up with Samuel Bennet. Amid the stack of happy correspondence from Martha came a black-edged envelope from his father.

  He was no longer the second son. His brother George had been crushed by a giant oak while he had been supervising logging on the further reaches of the estate. There would be no happy honeymoon time with Martha in Kent. Sam needed to return to Meryton to take his place beside his father as the next master of Longbourn.

  Chapter IV

  Longbourn Estate, Hertfordshire, May 4, 1758

  The new babe’s cries echoed down the stairwell to the library where Sam and his father sat together. Sally Hill, an upstairs maid ran down the stairs and whispered into the footman’s ear. She raced back up to the second floor. Her husband, Silas, turned into the library as both men expectantly stared at him, the younger looking more worried than Silas had ever seen. The expression on the elder’s face was more difficult to read.

  “It’s a boy, zurs,” he smiled reassuringly to Samuel and nodded at Mr. Bennet.

  “Martha and I agreed to name him Edward George, Father,” Sam said.

  His father seemed relieved, yet still tense and somewhat grim. His mood had been unpredictable and dark these past few weeks, so unlike his normal regulated self.

  “Edward George…two regal names and an honor to your brother. He will be formidable,” replied Richard, “let us drink to his birth…and to the parents who brought him into this world.” A pair of brandies were poured and consumed.

  “When will they let me go up?” Sam wondered.

  “Oh, it has been my experience that they have to clean Martha up and prettify everything. You know she has been through a lot. First children are frequently difficult births,” Richard neutrally soothed and then he looked up as if suddenly reminded, “Oh, Hill, I understand that congratulations are for you and Sally as well.”

  Well not quite yet, Mr. Bennet, zur, Sally and I have a few months before I can be looking like Mr. Sam over there.” Sam was nervously sipping his drink, eyeing the doorway, waiting for his summons to share the joy of Martha and Edward.

  Suddenly there was a flurry of running feet in the halls upstairs. Doors were slammed. Then silence. The babe wailed. Samuel started toward the doorway when the powerful frame of Silas Hill, the scar that laced across his forehead puckered with concern, blocked his passage.

  “It is best you stay down here, Mr. Sam,” he said in a low voice. “Sounds like they be pretty busy upstairs right now.” He gazed over Sam’s shoulder at Mr. Bennet, a pleading look in his eyes.

  “Come back over here, son. It has been my experience that fathers just get in the way until they send for them,” Bennet advised, his countenance darkening, his shoulders slumping in resignation.

  Sam looked up at Hill for a moment, his heart beginning to freeze in his chest. Then he turned to his father, who stood stock-still, fearful knowledge for his daughter, his son and their child flickering in his deep brown eyes.

  “If she dies, I cannot go on.”

  “You can and you must, son, for soon it will all be on you.”

  Sam turned back and pushed against Hill until the footman gently gave way.

  Gripping the bannister, Sam worked his way up the stairs, turning into the hall where he saw his mother seated on the floor, collapsed against the wall, weeping uncontrollably. Her face was smeared with red, her gown a crimson ruin. Her hair, freed from its pinned restraints, curtained her lowered face as her shoulders lurched with every new spasm.

  “Mother?”

  “Mama?”

  “MOTHER!!!—What has happened? Is it the babe? Is it Martha? Oh, God…is it both?”

  The world darkened as his chest refused to take another breath. Better I should die now. I knew my life was too charmed, too lucky, to last. Oh, if only it were yesterday, and she was seated with me in our bed, holding hands, talking of nothing except what it would be like raising our child. Child? Oh, he’s gone, too.

  Charlotte Bennet’s muted voice cut through the fog that clouded his sight.

  “No…. only the one of them. The Lord took Martha. All the blood. She fell asleep and never woke up. But the babe is here still. Poor motherless child.”

  She grabbed his leg as he limped past. “Sam, ‘tis not fit for you to see her like this. Give the women a chance to clean her. She is with God now and will always be young and fresh. Let them do what they can so your last memory is of her beauty.”

  Thus, Sam waited.

  Eventually, Sally Hill, eyes red from weeping, opened the chamber’s door.

  As Sam crossed the threshold, he looked over to their bed, the seat of their love, and saw Martha, her damp hair braided with the plait threaded over her right shoulder, her face a pale peaceful mask. She wore a simple nightgown and the room was illuminated by the glow from a single candle on the table next to her. Lying on her still breast was the ebony cross he had given her on their wedding day.

  He heard a smallish snuffle and, turning, saw the nurse cradling his son, wrapped in a soft blanket. Somehow, he found his voice.

  “Has she held him?”

  “Oh sir, she was feeding him when it happened. One moment she was with us, smiling so happily. The next...I took the babe to let them work.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “She seemed surprised, and then she got really determined—like she knew that whatever she did next would be her last.

  “Mrs. Martha looked rig
ht at Mrs. Charlotte and then at Sally Hill. She said as clear as day ‘Tell Sam I love him and will see him again. You tell him to love that boy with every ounce of strength because he must do it for both of us. And, then you tell him that Lizzie will be waiting for him whenever he is ready.’ And that was all.”

  Chapter V

  Longbourn Estate, Hertfordshire, June 1760

  Elizabeth Bennet sewed quietly in the sitting room with her mother-in-law. In the seven months since her wedding to Samuel Bennet, the young woman had adjusted to her role as both a ready-made mother as well as, most recently to her delight, mother-to-be. Her marriage to the young widower was doubly unusual given that he was just not her love match, but she was his second!

  She had known both Sam and his first wife Martha Lucas since childhood. Martha’s father had run the mercantile in Meryton. Lizzie’s father was the rector at the Longbourn living controlled by Sam’s father, Mr. Richard Bennet. All three had grown up together, running the fields, fishing the streams and climbing the trees (at least until nine-year-old Lizzie had tumbled out of an ancient apple, breaking her arm). By the time they had each adopted the manners of young adults, there was an undeniable attraction between Martha and Sam. That attraction grew into an understanding—an agreement that was not objected to by the elder Bennet as he, himself, just two generations removed from trade, was close friends with Martha’s father. While his shooting and billiards compatriot worked in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves, he was in every other respect a gentleman in waiting. Mr. Lucas always said, “Well, Richard, if you are any example, if not my son, then surely his!”

  And then that horrible day two years ago when her father returned to the rectory, slow of step as if he had aged 20 years in an afternoon. He came into the sitting room and perched on the edge of a chair, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands supporting his bowed head. A long sigh escaped from his lips.