The Keeper- Mary Bennet's Extraordinary Journey

by Don Jacobson

  He then turned his attention to a thick envelope also bearing the seal of the Trust. Unstringing the closure, he removed a cover letter typewritten on premium cream-colored bond.

  October 23, 1885

  Dear Mr. Fitzwilliam;

  Allow me the opportunity to congratulate you on assuming your role as a Director of the Bennet Family Trust. This letter will inform you, now that you have assumed a position of responsibility in the management of the Trust, of certain non-financial activities that the organization has undertaken in recent decades.

  Pursuant to our charter, we have been engaged in providing a number of discrete services for members of the Bennet, Darcy, Bingley, and Fitzwilliam families since the Trust’s creation in early 1812. Our investments have inspired social change in the industrialized world.

  The recent Berlin Conference is one such example. The dueling nations of Europe, bent on carving up the African Continent into colonial possessions, were induced to meet and establish rules to govern an inevitable although distasteful process. Where modern war had been a distinct possibility, peace appears to be the order of the day.

  One of our smaller, although no less important ventures, is the creation of and maintenance of alternate identities for family members who may require a new legacy. One only has to read the archives of the Trust to discover several instances where in earlier days family members had to undertake extraordinary efforts to create a well-defined history.

  Per your Great Grandmother’s request, I have included a “legend” for a young woman of between seventeen and twenty years of age. The Dowager Countess and her sister, the late Mrs. Benton, were particularly insistent that we keep this identification fresh and ready for immediate use. Our Standing Committee most recently updated this set of documents yesterday afternoon. Please review it and visit the Trust Offices in Lincoln’s Inn if you have any questions. I would recommend that if you have cause to use this history, you and the young woman should visit our offices as soon as is convenient.

  Over 70 years have passed since Mr. Thomas Bennet served as our first Managing Director. Since those early days, the staff of the Trust have, I believe, served the interests of the Five Families with honour and distinction. Speaking on behalf of all here at the London headquarters and in our offices around the globe, we look forward to being of service to you.

  Your obedient servant and etc.

  Jonathan S. Hastings

  Chief Deputy Managing Director

  The Bennet Family Trust

  Copies to: Wm. Anders, M. Hill, L. Wilson, G. Reynolds

  Henry put the letter aside and sorted through the documents: birth records, parish filings, school records, and letters of recommendation from family acquaintances. He wondered how this Catherine Marie Bennet could exist having supposedly been born in 1868 to parents residing in Matlock. Then he smiled. His elder cousin, Charlie Benton, had been the rector of the Matlock parish church since the mid-1860s. If anyone could produce a birth record, it would be old Charlie, the lapsed Catholic turned Anglican priest.

  At least on paper, Catherine Bennet was a living, breathing person.

  

  At this moment, eight months after he read the letter from Mr. Hastings, Henry Fitzwilliam understood that the decades of waiting for Aunt Kitty were finished. The bell jingled again pulling him to his chamber’s door.

  Stay calm. No, calm her. No fast moves.

  Henry raised his hand and gently tapped on the door. No response. He tapped again and spoke.

  “Hello. My name is Henry Fitzwilliam. You are at Matlock House in London. I am here to greet you. Please do not be afraid. May I enter?”

  He heard some tentative shuffling as someone approached the door. The knob turned, and the door pulled back.

  Facing Henry was a pretty, no, beautiful, young woman of average height with china blue eyes and blonde hair. Those eyes were wide with terror, and she was breathing quickly. Her clothing was hopelessly old fashioned.

  Henry stepped back. He had been thinking of her as “Aunt Kitty.” That forced an image of an older and more matronly woman…not this stunning creature! Her adolescent vulnerability and fear took his breath away. All he wanted to do was hold her, stroke her hair and soothe her. Then he remembered that she was just seventeen years old. What he had to do was regulate his response to her.

  He bowed and reintroduced himself. This little bit of familiar forced formality centered Kitty who curtseyed in response, named herself, and assured him she was pleased to make his acquaintance. Her face began to relax, and she looked out into the hallway. Then she glanced at Henry, her eyes quickly sweeping up and down his frame. An involuntary intake of breath between rosy lips echoed the twinge Henry felt in his abdomen. Victorian civility answered the call.

  “Miss Bennet. Would you accompany me to our small parlor where we can discuss what has happened to you? Perhaps some tea and cakes will settle your stomach and calm your nerves,” Henry ventured.

  Kitty’s bubbly personality asserted itself as she acclimated. “Oh, Mr. Fitzwilliam. You are related to the Colonel are you not? Where is he? I assume he returned to Town after Lizzy and Jane’s wedding. As for tea and cakes, well, I do thank you for the invitation, but I broke my fast only an hour ago before Papa…” Her eyes widened again as she realized that something amazing had transpired. “Oh my.” Tears gathered on her eyelids. Her lower lip quivered.

  Henry realized that he needed to act quickly.

  “Come Miss Bennet. Take my arm and walk with me. The after-effects of a trip in the Wardrobe can be unsettling,” Fitzwilliam pointed out. Kitty’s alert glance suggested a level of curiosity that, Henry hoped, would make her take up his hint.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fitzwilliam. Perhaps a cup of tea would restore my spirits. Let us walk. I am in your hands. I am afraid that I do not know my way around the upper levels of Matlock House having only been a guest downstairs when I attended Lizzy’s engagement ball several weeks ago,” Kitty stated with some degree of aplomb. She took his arm.

  Henry smiled reassuringly as they started back down the hallway.

  

  Approaching Lydia’s chamber, Henry remembered Gran’s demand that the traveler be brought to her immediately. He looked at the door, at Kitty, and then stopped.

  Kitty looked at him questioningly.

  “Miss Bennet, do you feel up to meeting someone very important to us?” Henry asked. “I would not seek to impose upon you so soon after your arrival, but she is very old and is in failing health. She has asked that she talk with you as soon as you arrive. I am sure that she would understand if you felt unable, but it would be a tremendous goodness if you did agree.”

  At her nod of assent, Henry gently knocked on the door. A maid quickly opened it.

  “Is my Great Grandmother awake?”

  Hearing the affirmative, Henry gently led Kitty to Lydia’s bedside—on her right. Her stump was hidden out of sight under the bedclothes. He dismissed the maid. This was family time.

  Lydia lay amidst an immense pile of comforters and pillows, their snowy mounds supporting her frail frame, but making her look even tinier than she already was. Feathery wisps of cottony white hair did nothing to conceal the parchment skin pulled tight across her skull.

  Leaning down, he gently touched her shoulder. “Gran…Gran….are you awake? It is Henry. I have a visitor, someone you have wanted to see.”

  Lydia slowly turned her head and opened her eyes. As her emerald-green orbs settled on Kitty, her deeply wrinkled face rearranged itself into a visage of pure joy.

  Running her tongue around dry lips, Lydia glanced to the bedside table where a glass of water stood. Kitty reached for it and, settling on the edge of the bed, held it to Lydia’s lips.

  Refreshed, Lydia spoke one word, “Kitty.”

  The teenager jolted back as if she had grabbed onto of Mr. Edison’s live wires. She was astonished. She knew the voice, the inflection, but was it possible that it inhabited th
is ancient body?

  “Kitty, do you know me?”

  Kitty stared into the deep green eyes, still clear, not rheumy with age.

  “I do not know what to think. You sound like my sister Lydia, but she is away in Newcastle with her husband. You have her eyes, but that is not possible. Are you one of my mother’s relatives? She always said that Jane and Lydia got their looks from her side of the family,” Kitty rushed in her confusion. She looked at Henry, imploring him to come to her aid.

  “Miss Bennet—a complete explanation of what you have experienced today is too lengthy for right now. Suffice to say, and brace yourself, that your today and my today are separated by 75 years,” Fitzwilliam stated.

  Kitty’s eyes widened, and her knuckles went into her mouth to stifle a loud gasp.

  With some of her last reserves of energy, Lydia reached up and grabbed Kitty’s other hand before speaking firmly.

  “Kitty. I am Lydia. Attend me closely for I have little time. On this timeline I am 90 years old. But my internal clock has spun off a few more. Someday when you think back on this, you will know what I mean.

  “Something happened to you when you touched Papa’s Wardrobe. I pray that it will be something wonderful.[lxxxiii] Kitty, you travelled forward in time. Whatever you were feeling and thinking when you placed your hands on those doors, the Wardrobe sent you here to us.

  “And that where/when is London in 1886.”

  As Lydia paused to gather herself, Kitty verbalized a few of her swirling thoughts, “If you are Lydia, where is Wickham, Mama, Papa? Oh my…I wished to be away from everybody who was bothering me about my role in your affair! Are they all gone?”

  “That’s right, love, they have long since passed away. I am the only one left. I held on waiting for you to show up. I promised Mary that I would. I imagine the Wardrobe figured that I was the situation behind but not the cause of your discomfort. So, it dropped you in my lap right at the end to make things right,” Lydia mused in a soft, thoughtful voice.

  Lydia’s grip remained firm. She gazed up at Kitty’s face, willing every ounce of her remaining strength to pour a message of love to her now baby sister.

  “Do you trust me, Kitty? I may have led you astray, but I never was false with you. Will you believe what this old woman has to say to you?” Lydia asked.

  Gulping back her questions, Kitty nodded.

  “Kitty, I have so little time and so much to say. I cannot give you the Keeper’s speech. Papa would have done that when you turned twenty-one. Let Henry explain how the Wardrobe works.

  “You have to know that I am so sorry for having involved you in my plots and schemes. We did not know the fates we were tempting. But, then again, nobody had given us guidance on how to be sensible. I was the ringleader—and I led you wrong.

  “Can you forgive me, Kitty?”

  “Oh, Lydia, I am so confused. I missed you so much when you got married and left Longbourn. But, for me, that was just four months ago. I saw you last when you stopped with Wickham on your way North,” Kitty said.

  “And for me, it has been 75 years and four months,” Lydia replied.

  Kitty continued, “But, accepting that you are my sister…and that I have come unstuck in time,[lxxxiv] of course I forgive you. I love you.”

  With that balm easing the remaining pain in her soul, Lydia quietly began to collapse back into her bedding.

  “I love you, too, darling Kitty. Drink it all in. I will tell Papa that you are safe,” she said as her voice trailed away, and her eyes closed.

  Kitty sat for some minutes caressing her sister’s hand while Henry went to bring the maid and doctor back to the room. Henry and the medical man stood quietly watching the tableau of the two women, one leaving this world, the other yet to learn the world to come.

  

  Now that Kitty had come home, Lydia let her attention slip and drifted away. She heard music as the orchestra tuned up for the first set. Running back to her room, she reached out to grab the rich sapphire toned shawl that was spread across the end of the bed. Mama called out for her to hurry. Not wanting to delay any longer, she wrapped herself in the stole’s silken embrace. Quickly she reached the top of the stairs and she saw them there standing at the bottom! Both had come to the ball!

  She breathed slower, ever slower, more softly, and gently. Her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly, but without struggle.

  Richard stood there, resplendent in his General’s uniform, a silver coronet on his brow. Next to him was George, also in his regimentals, wearing his GCB sash and the Prince’s Sword. Her two husbands smiled up to her and held out their hands to receive her, whole again, Richard on her left arm and George on her right. She could hear Mama whisper behind a fluttering fan to Mrs. Long, Lady Lucas and Aunt Philips “How fitting for my Lydia! An earl and a knight of the highest water!”

  The doors to the ballroom swung open to reveal the shining faces of those dearest to her—her sons, Martha and Angus Campbell, Jane and Charles, Lizzy and Fitzwilliam…and Papa. Maria Rochet stood talking with her husband Will and her sister Charlotte. As one the crowd turned to applaud her. This was her night, her ball!

  Now, I will wait for you, Mary.

  The conductor raised his baton and swooped it downward as the lines formed for the set. Breaking with convention—nothing new for me—she held out both arms to Richard and George and wiggled her fingers as the music picked up. Then, escorted by the two handsomest men in the room, Lydia Bennet Wickham Fitzwilliam, Dowager Countess of Matlock, danced her way into eternity.

  

  Other Works by Don Jacobson

  If you are interested in reading other Kindle-friendly works by Don Jacobson please check out these titles:

  Henry Fitzwilliam’s War (Bennet Wardrobe Book 2)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L0W7ILA/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i8

  The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque (Bennet Wardrobe, Book 3)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B072C876Q1/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

  Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess (Bennet Wardrobe, Book 4)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075YPTWB5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i6

  The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn (Bennet Wardrobe, Book 5)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B079FH13FT/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i5

  The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament (Bennet Wardrobe Book 6)

  https://www.amazon.com/Avenger-Thomas-Bennet-Fathers-Wardrobe-ebook/dp/B07L9PS59M/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1545278713&sr=1-1&keywords=the+avenger+thomas+bennet

  Lessers and Betters, A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1719277109/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7

  Miss Bennet’s First Christmas (a Bennet Wardrobe novella)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019NZ4YYK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

  The Bennet Wardrobe: Origins (a Bennet Wardrobe novella)

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019R5S12W/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

  End Notes

  * * *

  [i] A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 2, General; Ashford, East Bedfont With Hatton, Feltham, Hampton With Hampton Wick, Hanworth, Laleham, Littleton. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1911. P 139-141. From http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol2/pp139-141#anchorn8 Accessed 11/11/15

  [ii] http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/2007/10/27/the-red-violin-a-spooky-story accessed 11/11/15.

  [iii] Pope Julius and Michelangelo, Duke Ernst and J.S. Bach.

  [iv] Based on the thoughts that JA’s Meryton is located near Welwyn or Ware, http://austenonly.com/2013/02/08/ware-is-meryton-did-ware-in-hertfordshire-provide-jane-austen-with-the-inspiration-for-her-fictional-market-town/ accessed 11/17/15.

  [v] http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=48th_Foot accessed 11/17/15.

  [vi] French military slang for artillery https://en
.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Arm%C3%A9e_slang accessed 11/17/15.

  [vii] http://www.nts.org.uk/Culloden/Home/ accessed 11/17/15.

  [viii] 73 of 86 of Braddock’s officers, including Braddock himself were killed or wounded. Washington’s seeming invulnerability to enemy gunfire was also observed during the American Revolution. For the battle of Monongahela http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1755-07-09_-_Ambush_on_the_Monongahela Accessed 11/17/15.

  [ix] Queen Elizabeth II referring to 1992.

  [x] The public advertiser. H.S. Woodfall, London, 1752- accessed 12/23/15.

  [xi] John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1667.

  [xii] Coleridge composed “Kubla Khan: Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment” in 1796 after dreaming that he had been composing a poem. He awoke and raced to write down all he could recall as his senses returned. Some argue that he had been under the influence of Mrs. Bennet’s favorite nerve restorative, a tincture of morphine known as laudanum.

  [xiii] 1 Peter 3:3 New International Version https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Peter+3:1-7 Accessed 12/7/15.

  [xiv] Speaking in December 1811, Lizzy is justified in scoring James Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women (1769) as being woefully out-of-date. He had already fallen from common use by the 1790s, before Mary’s birth.

  [xv] William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, scene 2, 2–5