by Don Jacobson
“If I live to be a hundred, I pray never to see that ever again,” he muttered.
Lizzie begged him, “What, Father, what?”
The old man looked up, “It is Martha; dearest, Martha is gone. So young, so bright and beautiful. That flower is crushed and swept away.”
Elizabeth recalled his anguish and agony. She was convinced that the death of Martha Bennet broke Reverend Johnson’s heart, a wound that led to his collapse and death one morning only three weeks later.
But, the Reaper was not finished with Longbourn. Even as the black dye on Lizzie’s gown was still fresh for both Martha and her own father, the triad was completed as the last was called home. Richard Bennet had just finished closing the compartment in the bottom of the Wardrobe when a great weight crushed his chest and his vision tunneled down to a tiny point of light. A grim smile and a small nod was all he could manage as he dropped to the library’s floor. The year 1758 was an annus horribilis[ix] for all who loved Longbourn.
Yet, now, after two years, time finally seemed to be moving ahead. She and Sam had come together in their grief as events unfolded. Throughout their lengthy common mourning for a wife and friend and two fathers, Sam and Lizzie stood side-by-side drawing shared strength from inner reserves neither knew the other had. As their broken hearts mended they came to understand Martha’s last prophecy. They were becoming one, turning childhood acquaintance into adult love.
With the appointment of a new rector, Lizzie moved to Longbourn’s dower cottage, but her days were spent at the manor house. Time passed, and clothes shifted from black to grey and then to light summer shades. Young Edward toddled across the sitting room from Sam to Lizzie as Charlotte watched. His first word was ma-ma spoken while reaching out to Lizzie to be cuddled. Sam offered for her that same night.
Married in late November 1759 in the Longbourn Chapel, the young couple honeymooned at home, kept warm in the arms of their tiny family circle augmented by the faithful Silas and Sally Hill who had been over-joyed to welcome a son, George, during the Autumn of 1758. Little George and Edward, separated by a few months, became as brothers, passing the usual benchmarks nearly side-by-side. And, now, Lizzie was increasing to add one more to the Longbourn crowd.
Charlotte Bennet stopped her needlework and looked over at her daughter-in-law. Pregnancy suited her. Elizabeth was a slight girl with a strong jaw that could be firmly set when she was angered. Her countenance was pleasantly featured, resting above a womanly shape that matched her petite stature. Her delicate fingers stitched well enough. Her musical skills—harp and singing—were advanced although untutored.
But, it was her conversation that sparkled. Her mind sought out information like ivy climbing a trellis. When issues of The Public Advertiser[x] arrived in the post, Elizabeth would often snap them up before Sam had a chance to read them. She would pore over them, gleaning information about the war, political news and even some gossip, though that was not high on her list. Then, at table or when guests stopped by, this young woman parried and riposted with the best the colleges of Cambridge, Oxford, or Edinburgh could offer. Some men (not her Sam, of course) found her wit and intelligence to be impertinent. They preferred their women to be meeker, caring only for fashion and domestic matters.
“Elizabeth, how are you feeling today? Has the babe been active?” Charlotte opened.
Lizzie set her work aside and stretched her back. “Oh, he is busy enough. I think he decides when he wants me up and about. I will get a kick—oh, you know where—and that is his signal that he wants his mama to shift,” she replied with a small grin lighting her face.
Charlotte detected a note each time she said him.
“Well, Lizzie, you seem to be convinced that you are carrying a boy. Every time you speak of the child, you say ‘him.’ Well, out with it. If you are so sure it is a boy, are you ready to offer a name?” Charlotte gently pushed.
“Both Sam and I hope the little fellow may be suited for the university or the church. So, we’ve decided on Thomas after Becket, Aquinas, and More. He may never tower above Europe like those three, but I feel that a name like Thomas Bennet will be strong enough to be remembered for a long time,” Lizzie reasoned.
Continuing after a tiny grimace and a raised eyebrow as the babe planted a foot or elbow on one of Lizzie’s already re-arranged internal organs. “In fact, I think our little professor is showing that he wants me to take a stroll right about now. I have not been out all day. I think I will take a pass through the garden.”
Charlotte nodded. “If you wait a moment, I will collect my things and walk with you. In the meantime, could you let Sam know what we are planning?”
Both women left the room in opposite directions; Charlotte to advise Mrs. Hill they were stepping out and requesting their light cloaks and Lizzie to the library to see Sam.
Chapter VI
After softly knocking on the library door, Lizzie stuck her head into the room and beamed a smile her husband’s way.
“Dearest, your mother and I are going out for a turn in the garden. The day is glorious, and I can feel life vibrating everywhere,” Lizzie bubbled.
Sam could not suppress the smile that pushed out from deep inside until his cheeks threatened to crack from sheer joy. How his world had shifted, how bright things seemed now that he and Lizzie were united. Edward adored her. Even his mother could not love Elizabeth more if she had been her own daughter. The tedium of managing the estate was as nothing when she joined him at the desk, checking his figures or making true copies of his correspondence for the letter book.
He tried to rearrange his features into a serious mien.
“I will have you know, Elizabeth,” he intoned in his most serious Master of Longbourn voice, “that I have some very, very serious matters which demand my undivided attention right now. I cannot possibly engage in outside frivolities.”
Lizzie stepped into the room and sashayed around its perimeter, flirting with Sam as she ran her fingers gently along the spines of the tomes crowding the shelves. She put on her best pout and raised her eyebrows in an attempt to look innocent and hurt.
“No time for a stroll? No time for your weary wife who is carrying your son?
“Oh, that’s all right. You go ahead. Tend to your dry figures and stale letters and b-o-r-i-n-g reports about yields. I’ll just go on and maybe see you at dinner,” she teased.
Sam rose up from behind the worktable, his eyes fixed on her swinging bottom.
He managed to choke out, “Eliz-a-beth, you minx. Your ‘little bit of muslin’ act is maddening. You keep that up and the only walk you’ll be taking is to the divan by the window.” He approached her and, standing behind her, reached around to her front, pulling her against him, discovering she had forgone wearing her stays.
“Why, Mr. Bennet, all of your protestations about your work. Yet, it is obvious you are very glad to see me” Lizzie said breathily, finishing with a significant rub against his hardened middle.
Sam groaned and, pushing against her backside, started to hike her skirts and lean her forward until she had to plant both palms firmly on the front doors of the wardrobe.
And then all hell broke loose.[xi]
The babe leapt toward the Wardrobe but was restrained by Lizzie’s body. Sam felt her midriff shift and turn violently. Lizzie herself heard little as the sound of 1,000 buzzing bees invaded her head. Her knees grew weak as she began to faint. Her arms dropped from the wood, and she sagged back into Sam’s arms.
Shouting for both Hills, Sam cradled Lizzie and carried her to the sofa.
“Darling…can you hear me,” Sam pleaded in terror, “Don’t leave me. Come, dear Lizzie, say something.”
Elizabeth lay still for a moment and then began to shift in his arms.
“You need not worry, Sam, I am still in the land of the living, although, I must admit, it seemed like I was being ripped apart for a moment.
“Then I had another even more frightening sensation…that the babe was
elsewhere or was just leaving.
“I did everything I could to stay here, but I could feel myself going,” she declared.
“There just was not enough pull for me to go. Oh, Sam, what could it be? Am I going mad? Was it I? Or the babe…?” With this she swooned again.
The Hills and Charlotte burst into the room. Lizzie was bundled carefully upstairs to bed. Little damage seemed to have been done except to everybody’s nerves.
Chapter VII
Later, when Sam had a moment to settle into his chair behind the worktable, a glass of brandy in front of him, he reached under the top and pushed a small lever. A section of gilt edge nearest him popped out revealing a shallow drawer that contained a few envelopes tied together with a crimson ribbon. Sam pulled the packet, undid its binding and selected one of the missives.
July 11, 1758
Longbourn Estate
My Dear Son,
I regret your grief at reading this communication, as it is certainly days if not weeks after my death. You have already borne so much pain. That you can share it with your Mother and Elizabeth may bring some degree of comfort. But, you must remain strong for them, the family and Longbourn.
The only way you have come into possession of this letter is because our family solicitor, Mr. Gardiner, has given you a sealed envelope that I left with him. That note, rather than revealing what is to follow below, instructed you to go to the wardrobe to probe for something unique under the embossed B. Thus, you discovered a cache of documents in the hidden compartment, of which this is the most recent.
What comes now is a conversation I had hoped to have with you on the night of the celebration of your birthday next year. Except that I knew I would not be here for it. Just as I knew that Martha would not survive Edward’s birth. And that awareness has worn on me to my detriment that now, I know, is leading to my demise.
You may ask how I knew these things…that Martha would pass after blessing us with little Edward and that I will die on July 11th. It is because I saw the evidence.
How, you may wonder?
Because I, your father, a profoundly rational man in full control of his faculties, travelled in time, going from my present to a future where I could learn what I now know not to be gypsy mumblings, but verifiable fact. All you need do is compare the date on this letter with my headstone in the Longbourn cemetery.
The Wardrobe in which you found this letter and the other documents is a unique device. Made for your Great Grandfather by a mystic philosopher, it is, for lack of a better term, a doorway to the future. This sounds fey, I know. But, son, it is the truth. I have done it. Your Grandfather and Great Grandfather, or so I was told, used the Wardrobe as well. There is a possibility that other Aunts and Uncles may have, but I cannot be sure. Your brother George had not yet reached one-and-twenty, so I had not told him of the Wardrobe’s properties. Even if I had, nothing would have changed George’s end of life as nothing changed because of my knowledge of Martha’s and my mortality.
Enclosed in another envelope you will find “The Rules of the Wardrobe”. You will also see the amendments. The first one— “Destiny, once composed cannot be undone.”—is written in your Great Grandfather Christopher Bennet’s hand. I think he asked that first important question…” Can the future be rewritten?” I do not know what he may have seen or when. I imagined that it was the death of a loved one, and, try as he might; he could not alter the outcome. It could not be changed for the simple fact that it had yet to happen.
I cannot explain the visions one sees past the next sunset. They seem to be certainties not possibilities. Yet, I wonder. One may not be able to prevent a man dying on a specific day because that is the length of his cord. But, might it be possible to alter an existential outcome by changing the life’s conditions?
Is one man destined to be a thief and another a priest? If we raised the thief as a gentleman and the priest in ruder circumstances, would the first avoid falling into bad company? Would the second become a man seeking to turn his luck by gambling? Or are their paths so deeply scribed into the fabric of the universe that there can be no change? The dour Scots and their Mr. Calvin would say that this was so.
I, however, see life more as a river. While its course is always generally from the mountains to the sea, its channel depends upon the quality of the obstacles encountered—some are so hard that they must be circumnavigated; others are soft enough that the river may cut through them. Some man-made barriers—a weir, for example—regulate the flow of the river, slowing its current, making a pond, diverting part of it to a water meadow. The river still arrives at its mouth on the ocean, but its path has been changed, its mission is different than if it were left wild and unchecked.
The Wardrobe makes this an interesting question. But, as it cannot be used to travel to the past, we cannot hope to alter the present in which we reside. And while it is apparent that we cannot alter the future by acting in the future, might it not be possible to adjust that future by modifying our actions in the present using the knowledge we have gained? Might you be a more loving and attentive father if you knew that your children would lead happier lives as a result?
But I ramble…and time does grow short.
Earlier I wrote that I never told George about the Wardrobe’s nature because he died before his birthday. Now, I will tell you something else: I never told your sister. Maude was married to Mr. Collins by the time she reached her majority. I do not trust her to keep the secret from Collins. Even though he could not actually use the Wardrobe himself, his knowledge of its powers could never result in anything good. Already I watch how they raise their son Bartholomew (and it pains me to write thus of my grandson). They indulge him and are creating a selfish, vile boy who will only coarsen with age.
I am thankful that, despite losing our dearest Martha, your son Edward is the heir to Longbourn. The entail will remain a dusty codicil, without threat to us—as we have produced sons in every generation. If Bartholomew Collins or his descendants were to inherit—but that is not to be.
As for how I discovered that which I did; I made my only trip shortly after George died. I needed to know your fate, as I had received no word from you for months after Braddock marched into the wilderness. Here is where the peculiarity of the Wardrobe comes to play. You cannot say, for instance, “I want to travel to 1821.” This has been tried, and nothing happens. But, go to the cabinet with a wish, a dream, a desire, and amazing things occur. It is as if the Wardrobe divines the essence of your need, that which really lies behind it. And, then, it sends you to where you will find the solution.
I wanted to know if you would survive the war, to come home and become the Master of Longbourn, marry, and produce heirs. In my grief over George’s death, maybe my sense of dread pervaded my soul.
When I touched the doors with my hands, I was transported from 1755 to sometime in the future. I stepped out into the library. Little different from the way it is today, it was empty, being that it was just shortly after dawn. The mists shrouded the landscape; the air smelling of freshly mowed hay. I opened the French windows and stepped out over the sill.
Something pushed me, dragged me to the Longbourn cemetery. There I saw two new graves; the grass had yet to grow back. They stood next to the family monument. Fresh engraving sparkled in the early morning light and listed my death as July 11, 1758…this day. The blank spot for your mother was untouched. Just to the right was George’s history. To your mother’s left was the space reserved for you.
I trembled as I stepped slowly to that side, already stunned by the few years remaining in my span. What would I learn? More terrible knowledge? Or joy? I looked up at the monument to see a life span and dates carved there. But, it was not for you, but rather Martha.
Martha Lucas Bennet February 19, 1738 – May 4, 1758
Beloved wife and mother
Wife and mother! But, there were no markings for a child buried with her. Nor was there anything about you other than your name, rese
rving your space for sometime in the future. You survived. Happy news? No. Your grief at your lost love had to be momentous. Gibbons’ words from his letter to Christopher Bennet echoed in my head.
“But as with all great things, there will be equal measures of sorrow.”
You lived. Your child lived. But, Martha did not. Nor would I.
I flew back to the Longbourn library, planted both hands on the Wardrobe and was swept back to my own time.
I have carried this knowledge for nearly three years. It was with unbearable pain that I saw you return, love Martha, share her joy, and exult in her increase. I knew all, and all that I knew was that I could not alter the path down which we all walked.
Some last instructions, my son, as I must prepare now.
Protect the Wardrobe at all costs. Be sure your children know its secret when they are old enough but keep the knowledge within the Longbourn family. Read all the documents and be sure to pass them on. This is a remarkable device, one that can bring joy but also pain.
Beware of what you seek. The answers may be more destructive than not knowing.
You are a brave and upstanding man. I am certain that you will bring great credit to our family and our estate. Always act as a Bennet would.
Care for your mother. She is dear to me. I pray for the time I will hold her close when we both are in our Heavenly Father’s House. Please tell her that I will watch over all our people but will save a special measure for her.
Your father,
Richard Bennet
Sam folded the letter and then reached for another document—The Rules. The ancient paper was yellowed and dry. Gibbons’ firm hand was clear, though. As was the added note from Christopher that Richard had identified. Sam reached for his quill, dipped it in the inkwell and carefully wrote at the bottom.