by Don Jacobson
Yes, Tom Bennet had his excuses. But they were feeble, and, as they withered in his mind’s eye, Bennet’s facile mind turned to England’s great moralizer, Milton, as he comprehended how acidic revealed truth could be.
…the Forbidden Tree springing up before them, they, greedily reaching to take of the Fruit, chew dust and bitter ashes.[lvi]
If he really did know the truth of the years from 1800 to 1810, then what was he about when he had shunned Fanny?
Mayhap I was protecting myself and not her: but, in a craven manner, I sought to transfer the responsibility of our estrangement from myself to this fragile woman.
Bennet now realized that he had abandoned his lady wife, who was, at that earlier moment, but one score and ten. Yet Mrs. Bennet had proven her fecundity with five live births out of six increases. She had, then, many more years of childbearing yet before her. But, contrary to the protection of his family by persisting in his efforts to cut the entail, rather he had turned his face into his books and ignored the beautiful woman who would have been so different if she had been able to bring a son to term. He had never given her the chance.
His copybook was well and truly blotted.
He was surrounded by the evidence of his failings. Every image he conjured up, despite the Keeper of the Future’s injunctions when Lizzy was returned to them in 1801, cried out against his behavior.[lvii] He was the one who was in control of the family’s fortunes. He could have discovered a way to protect the Wardrobe and to divert Elizabeth from contemplating that which she had seen while still loving and supporting his wife and daughters in a less reprehensible manner.
Then there was the lady seated by his side: she of sky-blue eyes: richly flecked with purple, so deep that he would fall into their depths, often forgetting to breathe.
She deserved better than he had offered. That she devoutly held continued faith in his intelligence and goodness both shamed and exhilarated Thomas Michael Bennet.
Chapter XVII
Mrs. Bennet continued, “Now, through your truths and confessions, you have proven to me that you are my partner and are also, at long last, ready to hear me speak of my sorrow.
“Attend me now so that I may never have to repeat this; rather putting it behind me as a past which brings me no pleasure.
“Tom, you have rightly seen me as an astonishingly flighty creature. You could have judged me irredeemable, so distracted I was after my misfortune. My outcries must have grated upon your most sensible soul. They surely must have impressed all who could hear with the unshakable belief that I was thoroughly self-absorbed.
“Yet, contrary to that, and perhaps this makes my behavior even worse, I was not unaware of how I sounded. On the contrary, I actively sought refuge in my nerves. I allowed them to become louder and even more strident as time went on.
“You see, I was ashamed of what had happened; because I had lost you your heir through my failure to carry our babe to term. I took the guilt upon my shoulders, for is it not the woman’s fault that her body betrays her by ending the pregnancy prematurely?
“Because of that, in my mind, I thought that I had no true cause to repine. You were the man who had lost his posterity with no boy Bennet to inherit Longbourn, to carry on your name. T’was my fault.”
Bennet made to demur, but his wife would have none of it.
“No, your manner after that day told me all I needed to know. How else could I explain your indifference toward me? From the moment the blood puddled around my feet, you drew away, and hid yourself behind cryptic cynical remarks, your newspapers, and books. You never visited my chambers
“You are so much more intelligent than I, Tom, and I trusted your judgement. If you believed me guilty, then I must have been!” she exclaimed.
Bennet could bear no more of her self-recriminations. He pulled her close to his chest, muffling any more protestations which would have sullied the innocent lips of the only woman he had ever loved. His tears wet her locks.
“No, Fanny, no. NO! T’was not you. Never you.
“I was the fool who turned his back…putting himself first rather than seeing to your care.
“I left you to Mrs. Hill and your friends; arguing to myself that a woman would respond best to the efforts of other females, not the bumbling man who put her in the situation in the first place. And, I may have been correct in some manner.
“But, to abandon you entirely, to deny you your life partner, was unconscionable.
“I put you through years of agony, something no person should ever be condemned to by the one she most trusts.
“I am ashamed that I was the instrument of your pain.
“I may not merit it, Frances Lorinda, but will you ever be able to find space in your heart for one so undeserving? Will you ever forgive me?” Bennet gasped.
He felt two tiny fists pushing against his chest. He realized that he had been clutching his wife as a castaway would a floating timber tossed upon the wine dark sea.[lviii] His arms swiftly dropped away, freeing Fanny.
She leaned away and tilted her head up, her widened eyes regarding his more somber ones. She realized that there was but one thing she could say that would relieve his suffering and clear their path forward.
“Mr. Bennet: you, as do all men, take too much upon yourself. While t’is true that you pulled away, I could have changed my conduct.
“Rather, I wallowed in my despair, wearing my misfortune like a badge of honor making me supreme amongst all Daughters of Eve. While I could not garner your favor by continually returning to our loss, I could play upon the knowledge of some ladies and the fears of all the women in my circle. That went on for years and years until it became my natural way and not my second nature.
“You are an academic, a brilliant debater…no do not protest, my love…you are. In that spirit, consider this little thought experiment.
“How might you have acted if, say in ’03 or ’04, well before your hide had become thickened to my outbursts and, thus, left you immune to me, I had used my arts and allurements upon you? Would you not have likely responded much as you did when I first poured tea for you back in ’89?”
Bennet started at her words, staring at her, and then, with eyes gone slightly soft and dreamy as he imagined that which he would have done, broke into a wistful smile. His wife nodded in her victory.
“You silly, foolish, man. As in all marriages around the globe, we both bear our share of blame. Since t’is clear that we women who marry for love often have their men at Hello,[lix] I was atop the box of our shared carriage. I could have brought you to my side at any time if I had only set aside my guilt and had acted the wife to your husband.
“Instead, I chose to be selfish; to content myself with the thin gruel of chin-wagger sympathies rather than the hearty stew of a lover’s embrace.”
Her fervent assertion stirred Bennet to decisive action. He cupped her cheek and lowered his lips to hers. Two pairs of eyes drifted shut as heartbeats quickened in a sympathetic synchronicity. Time, already fluctuating in its invisible waves along this centuries-old trail, settled in its rush toward entropy as twin embers sparked brighter and created inevitable eddies.
Mrs. Bennet broke away first with an audible huff.
“You, Tom Bennet, are an original! You virtually ignore me for years and then, at the first sign of my desire to be your wife once again, you break loose with bonfires and illuminations bright enough for November Fifth! It is simply not to be borne!” she exclaimed.[lx]
Bennet tried to assay the blushing look of a gangling boy caught out by his sisters as he tried to sneak a look at the milkmaids bathing after their day’s labors. He failed miserably ending up delivering something between stunned innocence and the knowledgeable gaze of the four-and-fifty-year-old that he was.
At his wife’s ‘I am trying to say something serious here’ glower, he regulated himself as best he could and signaled her to continue.
Fanny composed herself, fanning her flushed cheeks before cont
inuing, "You need to understand that I mourn not only our babe’s physical presence...oh yes, I am sorely grieved by his never-life...but I mourn the loss of his possibilities. True, he would have been our salvation against Collins. He could have protected his sisters, our daughters. He would have raised us from the despair of your loss.
“Yet, a life unlived means so much more.
“Beyond the very real reasons…ones with which I have made you too familiar over all these years…I am laid low every time I try to imagine how he might have acted in this situation…or that. What would he have said as he watched Bingley and Darcy court Jane and Lizzy?
“Would our son have tried to be the young pup, all of one-and-ten, and sought to engage those two in some sort of defense of his sisters? Would he have insisted on standing at your shoulder as Bingley fumbled through his request for Janie’s hand? How would he have interacted with Mr. Darcy? Would he have been convinced that this man of 10,000-a-year thought he could purchase our Lizzy?
“Somehow I think I know what he would have said to Wickham…and I thank the Good Lord that even that dissolute rake would have only spanked the boy with the flat of his sword and sent him on his way.”
Mrs. Bennet gathered herself for her final assault on the heights of Kitty’s story.
In a voice fraught with emotion she bored in, “And, now you tell me my darling girl is gone? All I can do is cry...again for her lost possibilities; at least those lost to my knowledge.
“I never saw her grow into what was one of the most remarkable forces standing astride her age.
“I never met her beloved Viscount Henry nor watched her as she emerged into the Countess of Matlock, a worthy successor to Mr. Darcy’s Aunt Eleanor.
“I never saw her wed in what had to be the society event of the season.
“All my memories of Kitty end with me scolding her for her being a coughing, unschooled girl of seven-and-ten.
“You, however imperfectly and briefly, knew her both as a child and as an older woman. You can mourn her lived life.
“I have nothing but rapidly fading images of her china-blue eyes beneath that blonde fringe.
“You must be her biographer.
“And now you must tell me the end of her story.”
Thomas’ insides curdled for he himself had only recently read the eyewitness accounts of August 19, 1944. Those reports had been assembled by Commandant Maxim Robard shortly after Deauville’s Liberation.
Robard, of course, wanted to record the bravery of the Three Martyrs…two of whom were dear to him: his father and the woman who stood as a surrogate mother after the loss of his own. She later became his cherished mother-in-law. The third may have been an invader, but he had been a fair man and not an oppressor. Their sacrifice would serve France well in the months and years of recriminations that were sure to follow.
However, he had been particularly scrupulous in making certain that no detail—either great or small—was left on the cobbles paving la place. He had been unsure what would matter to those seekers who came after him, so he mined it all and deposited it in the hoppers of the Bennet Family Trust and MI6 as well as duplicates in his own archives at la Deuxieme Bureau de la Sûreté. One never knew, n’est pas?
Bennet briefly gave a history of the recent war. Then, as gently as he could, he charted what he could of their daughter’s life in occupied France. He explained that Kitty had remained behind in her home to protect the Wardrobe and one other dear to both the elder Bennets…Lydia. Then he spoke of how their youngest tapped reserves of human kindness to care both for her ailing sister as well as the weakest amongst Deauville’s captive residents.
Before his wife could quiz him about Mrs. Wickham, Bennet gently shushed her with two fingers against her opening lips.
“I cannot offer up Lydia’s story at this time, Fanny. If I do, I will never complete Kitty’s. I assure you, another day will be devoted to her history.
“Rest in the knowledge that Lydie went forward to be with The Countess, much as another of our girls did earlier in the century. But, I truly do not know how her journey ended. We Keepers are a bit jealous with glimpses of the future.”
With that, Thomas returned to his narrative and explained how the black uniformed executioners carried Kitty and Jacques off to Deauville’s city hall. There they were joined against the rough-hewn granite wall by the town’s Wehrmacht commander who paid for his attempts to spare them from the death squad’s ministrations with his own life.
“All three now rest side-by-side in the dunes near Miss Darcy’s Beach House, something which will not be constructed until 1819. From what I understand, the family cemetery has become a place of pilgrimage for all those scarred by this worst of wars. A guard of honor composed of British, French, and German veterans—men and women alike—stands watch over Kitty, Monsieur Jacques, and the German Colonel,” he concluded.
The end of the tale was the beginning of Mrs. Bennet’s questions. Three were chief among them:
“Do we know the names of the perpetrators?”
“Have they ever been caught?”
“What are we going to do about it?”
Chapter XVIII
After the Bennets had returned from their walk on Oakham’s slopes, the couple had enjoyed a not-so-quiet dinner prepared with great happiness by Longbourn’s staff. The young men and women who had, for the previous two weeks, served The Founder’s wife, their-many-times Grandmother, with no small sense of awe, found that the dropping of all pretense unleashed their youthful vigor. Now that they could speak in her presence, they found it difficult to keep quiet.
Mrs. Bennet’s insistence that all join around the great table encouraged much merriment. She somehow sensed…and the common cast of every pair of eyes looking back on her as she sat facing her husband down the long board turned intuition into conviction…that each person chattering happily over a solid English meal of roast beef (ably carved by Mr. Bennet) was related to her. Unaware of the continuing privations that wartime rationing, now two years into peacetime, still visited upon the British people—even those as wealthy as the members of the Five Families—Fanny Bennet was astonished at how the meat, Yorkshire Pudding, freshly harvested ramps braised in butter, and roasted potatoes, carrots, and parsnips all vanished. Yet, the image of clean plates and shining eyes eagerly anticipating ample servings of apple crumble warmed her heart as she recalled how her five young ladies regularly demolished Cook’s best efforts to keep adolescent hunger pangs at bay.
After the meal had run its course, Mr. Bennet gently escorted her into the parlor where he showed her how electricity had pushed back the night and had relegated even the best beeswax candles into museum curiosities. Beyond the stunning nature of that revelation another discovery warmed her heart: someone had located her work basket and had lovingly placed it by her armchair adjacent to the fireplace. Within minutes, the familiar feelings of thread sliding through her fingers soothed her.
That her Tom poured her a small sherry before lowering himself into the matching wingback opposite warmed her much more than the liquor itself. He chatted about nonesuch from behind a snifter of vintage port.
Within an hour, the couple, wearied by the day’s exertions, the fine meal and companionship, and imbued with the congenial atmosphere of their post-prandial communion, chose to forgo their individual rooms and shared the balance of their evening in the Master’s Suite.[lxi]
The Bennet Family Trust Offices, Lincoln’s Inn, August 3, 1947
Bennet’s resolution had hardened in the twenty-four hours since he had revealed the underling secrets of the Wardrobe to his wife. What had begun as a pleasure jaunt to allow the good woman a chance to spend time with her next youngest daughter had now become a quest for justice.
Mrs. Bennet’s query “What are we going to do about it?” clearly set the stage for his assuming the leadership of the effort to track down his child’s killers. While he did not
doubt Matlock’s devotion to avenging his mother, Thomas Bennet understood that the man’s responsibilities to the Government and the realm far outstripped his personal desires.
Another, with as much interest in the outcome, would have to step forward.
There were two others on site—The Founder and his Mistress.
However, Bennet recognized that well-intentioned protectors of the Wardrobe and its secrets could impede his plan to make Mrs. Bennet a full and equal partner in his efforts. She needed to be read into all the intelligence that helped inform the search for the murderers of Kitty, Jacques, and the Oberst. Thomas simply could not imagine proceeding without his wife at his side.
Those from cadet branches of the Five Families would little comprehend the acute pain felt at the loss of a child, even though she was an elderly lady of seven-and-seventy years. He feared they would view him and his wife at best as quaint anachronisms who could upset too many apple carts through their activities.
He hesitated to consider their reaction when he also revealed another whom he wished to bring into the privileged circle—Alois Schiller, a non-Bennet, albeit one married into the Wardrobe. However, he had read much about this young man who, along with Bennet’s own great-grandson, Denis Robard, served as the sharp tip of Matlock’s spear. His motivation to winkle out his father’s killer would sharpen his acuity and unleash his unique talents as a special forces operator. And, he contemplated that Robard would demand that his wife be granted the same consideration as Mrs. Bennet.
Thus, for the operation to begin, Bennet had to assert his brand of authority over the Trust. That meant a board meeting of the Life Directors. Therefore, before he and Mrs. Bennet had departed Longbourn yesterday morning, he had placed a telephone call to the Earl demanding that an emergency board meeting be called to consider a revision to Gibbons’ Rules of the Wardrobe.
Leaving Mrs. Bennet at Oakham House in Town, Bennet was carried across London in the maroon Rover 16 saloon, never ceasing to be amazed at the amount of destruction wreaked upon the capital city. Even now, two years after the end of the War, piles of rubble still awaited clearing and rebuilding efforts. The closer they drew to the Thames, the more complete the devastation. Yet, he quickly dismissed the scenes passing outside of the glass and turned his thoughts inward as he considered the extent of his upcoming coup de main.