by Don Jacobson
She stopped when Bennet held up a questioning hand.
He asked, “By ‘happiness,’ I imagine you are referring to wedded bliss, my not so subtle but ever-dependable wife?”
She snapped her sky-blue eyes at him and replied in an exasperated tone, “And just what is wrong with any woman finding comfort in the love of a good man, my ever-sarcastic husband?
“I am in no way suggesting that Eileen would find fulfillment as a glorified domestic servant in the mold of what the Americans now are trying to sell to their women. Can you imagine someone with an MBE who was and still is an intelligence agent skilled in demolitions and assassination, being satisfied to have dinner prepared for her husband returning home after a long day toiling at the Gas Board?
“No, Tom, our girl is suited only for the highest reaches of Family life—and I mean that wondrous amalgam that our descendants have created—the Five Families.
“And, as such, there is only one man for her.”
Bennet hid his grin behind a cupped hand, hoping that he was able to keep the upper half of his face impassive, but his choked, “One? Only one?” gave him away.
An impish Fanny bathed him in a brilliant smile and replied, “Yes, my love, only one. I wanted to advise you that I would be focusing my not so modest talents on this problem.
“After all, I managed to align our family with both the Darcy and the Bingley of Darcy-Bingley Enterprises. And, while Wickham was no saint, I have discovered that your namesake, the current Earl of Matlock, is descended from Lydia’s alliance with Darcy’s cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam. So, I will chalk up her success to my tutelage.
“As for Kitty, how can you argue against the fact that she, too, married into the Fitzwilliam line and rose to be a Countess as well?”
Bennet, loath to stop his wife when she was recounting her marital-match successes, found the need to interject, if only to scratch the itch and provoke her, “And, Mary, dearest? What about Mary?”
Fanny stared back at him for a full minute, her jaw working furiously behind closed lips as her eyes flicked back and forth, sorting her thoughts in the way Tom had come to love through the years.
She finally answered his modest goading by stating, “Mary was an interesting problem. Such a serious girl. I know I always set her down by saying she was so plain. I am full of regret about that.
“I will allow you to contemplate your own role in her unhappiness at another time.
“However, for my part, Mary was only plain by comparison with the other girls.
“I am glad that Mr. Benton, Edward, found the beautiful rose which she was and cherished it into the beauty she became. And, it seemed that the two of them were made for each other. The chronicles over at the Trust seem to offer up Mary and her husband as a team in harness equivalent to Queen Judith and the Prophet Samuel.
“Oh, I know that many today might consider their relationship irregular, but then again, how odd was it that we had first cousins marrying back in our day? At least the Bentons joined for love and not just to increase land holdings,” she firmly concluded.
Bennet calmly absorbed her indictment and her declaration and then smiled back at her, running his fingers through his hair, a twitch of his that signaled his approbation. He did slide her accusation about his behavior toward Mary off to the side, to be examined and sadly savored at his leisure.
He offered only, “Quite so, madam. And, you are telling me this because…”
Fanny preened like a ladybird and visibly wiggled as if reorganizing her plumage, showing her own pleasure.
Pride filled her bosom from the knowledge that he would continue to scrub at the stain, seeking to erase all those years of disdain, by conferring his interest upon her. Fanny then offered, “Because I find it quite enjoyable to involve you in my schemes. Oh, maybe scheme is the wrong word…”
“Campaign?” smiled her husband.
“Yes…campaign seems so much better. You used to laugh at me and suggest that I was moving the girls around Meryton—the assembly rooms, the parlors of the four-and-twenty families, and the streets of town—as if I were the Tyrant himself preparing the Grande Armée to conquer our little piece of Hertfordshire.
“However, and you know this to be the truth, Mr. Bennet, in our time, a woman of our class had but three real choices as an adult—marry and have her own household, remain a spinster and depend upon the charity of her family and, perhaps, friends, or seek employment as a governess or companion, but lowering her status in the bargain. We made the first seem like the pinnacle and used the other two as a cudgel to focus young ladies on catching a husband.
“As long as I could take a breath, I had vowed never…never…to allow any of my girls to live a life of poverty.
“I know…and do not try to dissemble, Tom, because I have changed since the Year Eleven…that my exclamations about being thrown out of our house and into the hedgerows because of the entail just passed through your mind.
“I have thought much upon those fears. I even asked my Guide for help in understanding why these shadows so terrified me.
“On the surface it seems rational that any person would find anguish at the prospect of losing one of the Three S’s of life: Shelter, Sustenance and,” she blushed, “Sex!”
Even the well-educated and more worldly Bennet, with two years of modernity added to his earlier four-and-fifty, reacted with surprise at her forward speech.
Mrs. Bennet giggled and tried to regain her composure. She, none-the-less, continued marching into the breach she had blown through his walls, “Yes, Thomas Bennet…SEX. There I have said it. Lud, how we tiptoed around that word with all those…umm, how do you say it? You know, the thing you create to describe something or some act without really saying it lest you shock and dismay the listener.”
“T’is euphemisms that you seek,” her bipedal dictionary responded helpfully.
“Yes. Euphemisms. However, I require you to pull your mind from the gutter lest we become diverted from the point I was trying to make about Shelter and not the marriage bed,” she continued in a somewhat teasing voice, “I know that my protestations led everyone who heard me to believe I was only concerned with my own comfort.
“But, their view was utterly incorrect because they were taking me out of context,
“Yes, they heard Mrs. Bennet of Longbourn fretting about losing her home.
“And, yes, they saw me plotting to pair my daughters with rich men.
“But, that was only half the story—if even that much. These hearers of my lamentations never considered me to be anything but a greedy middle-aged woman who somehow managed to survive birthing five children.
“All of Meryton—and especially you, sir—missed my point entirely. They saw only the adult sitting with the other chin-waggers. They did not consider me as the sixth woman in a squad of females. They ignored the fact that I would be driven by anything but my own self-interest.”
Then she drew in a deep breath and raced into her conclusion, “That impertinent Miss Austen who wrote of our family certainly did not help my cause in any manner: showing me in just one light, and the worst one, at that. Of course, she never met me and only drew her portrait based upon second-hand information, probably supplied by jealous mamas of the ton.
“Know this, Thomas Michael Bennet: I was acting as a brood mama protecting her chicks from the headsman’s axe or the sly fox lurking around the coop. My maternal instinct would not permit me to act otherwise.
“So, a final yes to my earlier stream! I spoke of being thrown into the hedgerows because a mother’s worst nightmare was that her babes would suffer any privation.
“T’was never about me. T’was always our daughters.”
With this final pronouncement, she subsided back into her seat. Bennet, not only surprised at her fervent speech, but also at the depth of comprehension of her own self, slowly rose and crossed the small gap between their chairs. He dropped to his knees and leaned into her, planting a small kiss
on her forehead.
“You have always been an exemplary mother, Mrs. Bennet. Am I correct in thinking that you are readying yourself to foster another ball of fluff?” he softly said, stroking her hand before lowering his head to kiss its back.
A thrill coursed through her entire body at the touch of his lips.
Then tears sparkled on her lashes and she gulped, so deeply moved at his closeness and tenderness of thought and word. Her reserves threatened to crumble when he pulled her into his arms; still seated.
She struggled to maintain her composure…and eventually calmed herself as he stroked her hair.
Chuckling into his collar, Fanny gibed, “And this is how you make love to an overset woman? By comparing her to a chicken? On top of that questionable characterization, I don’t think that Eileen could ever be compared to a little cheeper. She has far too many sharp teeth as our nation’s enemies have discovered.”
Bennet released her and sat back on his heels, feigning outrage with a mock-shocked look reshaping his features.
“Never a chicken, Fanny, but rather a mother hen!”
She pulled back and swatted his arm, playfully, forcing him to retreat.
“Get! Scoot! Back to your seat. I am not through with you yet.”
Bennet got.
Fanny continued, “T’is Richard. The two of them would be perfect together. They have known each other for years.”
Bennet muttered, “Until she tried to kill him.”
“I know about their encounter in the Orkneys,” Fanny snapped, “Eileen told me all. You know we do talk, don’t you?”
Tom threw his hands up in surrender, shook his head, and said nothing more in his defense.
His silence gave her permission to arrive at her destination.
“In spite of their, ahem, difficulty, she has worked through why she was susceptible to those terrible suggestions.
“She has led me to believe that she and Richard were more than wartime comrades behind enemy lines. Relationships forged in the heat of battle are much deeper and more profound. Partners must trust one another implicitly lest they fail at a critical moment, leaving one or both dead.
“And, I ask you to consider that her later travails were not very different from Kitty’s at the hands of that awful Junius Winters.
“Is not Eileen’s work with Miss Freud similar to Kitty’s cure at the hands of that lady’s father? Is that coincidence?”
At the mention of the word “Winters,” something niggled below the surface of Tom’s consciousness. However, as soon as he reached out for it, it flitted away, ephemeral atop so many weightier subjects. His wife had not finished speaking either.
“And, look at the two of them any time they are in the same room. They immediately seek out one-another. The other youngsters, the married couples, have always found common ground, just as you and me, the elder Fitzwilliams, and the Cecil-Darcys gather together.
“Richard and Eileen, though, could choose to band with either clutch.
“They do not. Rather, they seek out one another. Sort through your recollections and tell me if I am overstating the case.
“I am convinced, Tom, that they are already in love, but are unable to recognize it because nobody has prodded them in the right direction.”
Bennet chuckled lowly, “And, of course, that is your opening.”
“Indeed it is,” crowed Mrs. Frances Lorinda Bennet, a happy smile crossing her lips and a slightly unfocused romantic glaze covering her eyes.
Chapter XXXI
From his vantage point, Tom considered his wife, glowing back at him in self-satisfaction envisioning that she, once again, could engage in combat on the Field of Venus. Bennet comprehended that Fanny had spent the past quarter hour informing him of her observations not to ask his permission to proceed, but rather to share with him what would become the context for her future actions. He would trust her to pull back the moment she perceived any discomfort on the part of either of her principals. However, he would not interfere in what, as she had surmised, was also a pairing he devoutly wished to come about.
Like Mrs. Bennet, he, too, had been reflecting upon Eileen’s future. His concerns were not matrimonial. Rather, they grew from the uncomfortable knowledge that the Trust had made little to no provision to secure the financial status of “lost Bennets.” Eileen Nearne was most assuredly a “lost Bennet:” and one who had no family and no fortune.
True, she could petition the Board to acknowledge her as a direct descendant of Jane and Charles Bingley. That would trigger a life-long cascade of pounds from long-maturing DBE bonds. Bennet had no doubt that he and Lord Thomas could force a favorable conclusion.
However, he was equally convinced that Miss Nearne, unassuming and quiet as she was, would never allow either the Founder or the Managing Director to advocate on her behalf. The lady clearly cared nothing about fortune or position.
A cynic like Bennet might have concluded that earlier Boards had decided that “ignorance was bliss”—necessary to preserve their own shares of Trust income—when they took the decision in the 1860s to disband the Trust’s Genealogy Department. That division had been tasked to ascertain the lineages of the various descendants of Christopher Bennet. The office had been quite diligent—and successful—in their efforts to reach out to those who might be unknowingly eligible for a great inheritance.
The uncomfortable presence of additional acknowledged heirs rising along Five Family lines in addition to those from the adjacent Hunters and Collins family trees could damage Five Family fortunes. The collective and individual treasuries had been weakened in 1865 by disastrous losses due to unsound investments in Confederate States of America notes. The search for “lost Bennets” was therefore abandoned with alacrity. Not a single case of an individual claiming Bennet blood unprompted had been encountered in nearly forty years.
Bennet smiled as he imagined the Second Earl of Pemberley, sour, greedy Managing Director that he was, cringing each time he had to sign letters prepared by Wilson and Hunters advising unsuspecting Smiths or Joneses that they were heirs to ducal-sized fortunes. His fingerprints were all over the hasty action rolling the Genealogy Department into the Research Department “for the sake of efficiency.”
The Founder had tasked the self-same, albeit more modern, legal minds at Wilson and Hunters to explore how he and Mrs. Bennet, as closely related to Miss Nearne as to nearly any living Fitzwilliam or Cecil-Darcy, could assist the young woman.
Bennet had hoped that he and Fanny could do that which they had done after the Fire: adopt the child. However, as Lawyer Crawley had advised, there were no provisions for adult adoption in 20th Century British law. Crawley had suggested another option.[lxxxv]
Earlier in the day, Wilson and Hunters, Lincoln’s Inn
Edward Crawley’s distinctive Bennet Eyes peered at the patriarch through a gap between documents and lawbooks stacked upon his desk. The barrister, his baritone tinged by too many cheap cigaros, offered, “Your question is compelling and unusual, indeed, Mr. Bennet. In fact, if I might suggest, it is unique in Trust history.
“We have never before encountered a Bennet from a previous age wishing to specifically provide for a descendent five or six generations further down the time line.
“Obviously, as the wealth of the Families increased after you established the Trust in 1812, there was little need to engage any but the most conventional of inheritance provisions.
“However, the descent tree eventually became a gigantic pyramid, especially that of your eldest daughter, Jane. Not only did she herself birth seven children, each of those offspring had large families and sometimes very large ones, especially for those who had multiple spouses. The Bingleys were particularly fecund.
“As with many sizeable families, some descendants ‘fall off the map’ either by accident or design. The moment one disappeared, all others who came after were invisible.
“There have been a few instances of ‘l
ost Bennets’ seeking us out, usually because someone found a trunk full of old papers buried in some attic. We had a spate of queries and claims in the 1920s, especially after the children of martyred fathers sought to recapture their heritage. Once inheritance rights were clarified, whatever bequests remaining were brought forward in their name.
“However, as was sadly learned by those in the Bingley line, the orders of magnitude of removal from your own children’s generation coupled with multiple sibling’ claims usually resulted in a terribly diluted portion. On top of that, the death duties instituted at the beginning of this century played havoc with fortunes not protected by complex trusts.
“Bennets who dropped out of sight in the Sixties and Seventies probably cared little for wealth and likely never considered the finer points of trust and foundation law.
“Thus, where Jane and Charles Bingley’s Great-granddaughter, Caroline Anne, was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in the 1880s, because her fortune was securely wrapped in Trust crimson bands, Miss Nearne might only expect to see between £5,000 and £10,000, even if we could readily leap the gaps in her genealogy.
“The research to establish her descent from Jane Bennet would be time-consuming,” he noted.
Bennet steepled his fingers beneath his chin before prompting Crawley with an order and a question, “Then, do the research, if for no other reason than to let her know where she fits into the Family scheme of things.
“However, you have just spent nearly thirty minutes explaining why traditional solutions will not bring Miss Nearne much of anything. What do you propose to fulfill our wishes or are you saying there is nothing which we can do?”
Crawley, a member of the cadet branch of the famed legal family, straightened, excited at the unusual nature of what he was to propose.
“I wish you to know that I have managed to convince all of the partners—all of them—of the soundness of this idea. I would not wish you to believe that this is an absurd plot cooked up by a junior barrister, one who has yet to take silk. Every member of the firm agrees that this would be a plan that would appeal to your sense of whimsy.”