Page 10 of A Life Diverted
The man looked at it. From what he could read of the smudged writing, it had something to do with a little girl who had been found.
He remembered some toffs from neighbouring Derbyshire had offered a reward for a lost child.
But they had withdrawn the offer, so there was no reason to and no profit to be gained by stirring himself.
“It ain’t nufing,” the man told his son as he tossed the remains of the page into the hungry flames. He watched as it smoked and caught. Soon enough it was nothing but ash.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Even though she did not want to use the name Ellie anymore, she did not complain when her new family began to call her Lizzy. She would not whinge about anything, as she did not want her new family to give her away like her old one had done.
Slowly, as time passed, Elizabeth shared more of her memories with Jane, including that her old family used to call her Ellie and that she never wanted to be called by that name again.
That fateful night was still hazy in her head.
All she remembered was something to do with faeries and pixies.
Someone had given her a special drink, but she could not see their face.
She spoke of Dawy and Bawny who she said were her brothers before her old mama and papa had sent her away for being bad. She did not know from where the idea that she had been sent away came, but she remembered it from one corner of her mind.
Miss Weasley made sure to do as the master and mistress asked.
She made notes of everything she overheard or that the maid on duty at night had reported of what had been said when Lizzy dreamed.
The girls always spoke in her presence, never concerning themselves with her hearing them, and to make sure they kept speaking freely, Miss Weasley never interjected or asked questions about what she had heard.
Based on what Lizzy had told them of her age, they did not know what her birthdate was, but the Bennets surmised it was sometime in February. They arbitrarily chose the twentieth day of February to mark Lizzy’s birthday. Hence, they determined she was three on that date.
Weeks became months, and months became years. Much had happened in the seven years since Lizzy had come to join the family.
1795 was an event-filled year. Fanny’s brother, Edward Gardiner, married Madeline Lambert in March. Lizzy had recently begun to speak without her lisp, so it was much easier to understand her now.
There was sadness because Elias Gardiner had passed away in August of that year. Hattie’s husband Frank had taken over the running of the law practice, as Edward was more than satisfied with his import-export business in London.
Fanny suspected that she had become with child in October.
Up until then, she had been very sad mourning her father, but the possibility of another child cheered her considerably.
Her being in the family way was confirmed when Fanny felt the quickening in early December, only days before the first Christmas Lizzy would celebrate with the Bennets.
She shared her news with her daughters and family on Christmas Day.
Lizzy had been calling her and Thomas Mama and Papa for the best part of a year, so they had bestowed the name Bennet on her.
Throughout her increasing, the thought of a miscarriage was in the back of Fanny’s mind.
However, she had worried for nothing. On the eleventh day of June 1796, Fanny was brought to bed, and four hours later she delivered a son and heir, whom they named James Elias Bennet for his two grandfathers whom he would never meet.
Like his mother and eldest sister, James had golden blond hair.
By the time he passed the age of six months, his eyes remained blue just like his mother’s and Jane’s.
With great pleasure, Bennet had written to his distant cousin, Clem Collins, to share his good news.
Collins had stood to inherit Longbourn when Bennet went to his final reward if no Bennet son had been born.
Bennet had not rubbed his good fortune in his cousin’s face, but that had not stopped Collins from having someone—he was illiterate—write a vitriol-laced letter on his behalf.
Other than to employ additional footmen to act as guards, Bennet ignored his distant cousin’s bluster.
He had already increased the estate’s income before James’s birth, but after it, Bennet began to invest in purchasing any available land around Longbourn. In this endeavour, his brothers-in-law Gardiner and Phillips were a great help to him.
In April 1799, much to her older daughters’ approval, Fanny delivered another daughter. She was named Mary Catherine Bennet. Her hair colour was light brown like her father’s, and by four months of age her eyes had become hazel coloured like her papa’s and Grandmama Beth’s.
By the time the Bennets and friends from the neighbourhood celebrated Lizzy’s tenth birthday on the twentieth day of February 1801, she had no more memories of her old family, as she used to call them.
As far as Lizzy and the rest of the Bennets, the Phillipses, and the Gardiners were concerned, Lizzy was as much a Bennet as any of her sisters or brother.
She did not tell anyone, but occasionally she still had dreams of shadowy figures from her past. As she did not remember that past any longer, she ignored the dreams as some sort of fantasy.
She and Jane were still taught by Miss Weasley, but Papa had employed masters as well.
Lizzy was a voracious reader and was very good with languages and maths, but even though she could play well, she rebelled against practicing the pianoforte and did so under protest. Jane too was good with languages and also loved history, and she could play the pianoforte, but her first love of music was the harp.
She had started lessons on the harp at seven, and now that she was thirteen, she was an excellent harpist.
Lizzy loved her life with her family. She knew she was a foundling; the Bennets had never made a secret of that fact, but she was accepted like any other member of the family and never made to feel less than.
As the Bennets were the only family she could remember knowing, Lizzy never longed for her former family.
For her tenth birthday, Mama and Papa gifted her with a pony, just like they had when Janie had reached that age.
Like her older sister, Lizzy loved to ride.
Also like Jane, she could not wait until James, who would be five in June, began to ride.
She loved to walk as well, and often her walks and rides would lead her to Oakham Mount, the only hill of any significance in the area.
Mama and Papa would never allow her, Jane, or their siblings to leave the house unprotected, so whether on her own, with Grandmama Beth—either in her phaeton or riding alongside it—or with Janie, a groom and at least one footman always escorted them.
Beth Bennet considered Lizzy her miracle granddaughter.
She had come to their family at the lowest point in Beth’s life, and the special bond between them, which had only strengthened over the years, had, in Beth’s opinion, given her a new joie de vivre and a desire to remain in the mortal world for as long as God allowed her to stay.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
In the more than seven years since Ellie had been taken from them, life had gone on for the Wendells; none of them ever forgot Ellie. Even for Wendell, who had accepted she had been murdered by whoever it was who had robbed him, his little Ellie still lived in his mind.
Her dowry account, which he never expected she would claim, had been transferred to a Mr Edward Gardiner in 1796.
He more than doubled the rate of return of the funds.
By the time Ellie would have been ten, her ten thousand pounds had more than doubled.
As none of them ever spoke of Ellie outside of the tight circle of their close family, Wendell never told Gardiner it was a dowry for his missing, presumed dead, daughter.
Cilla had kept to her promise and had been the best mother to her sons as possible.
When David had begun at Eton at the age of fourteen, two years after Ellie had been taken, she had missed him but still had Barney at home.
That was until the new school year of 1799, when he had also begun his studies at Eton.
By then, David had been in his first year at Cambridge.
At least Barney had William and Richard with him at Eton, although they were a year ahead of him at school.
Andrew was one year ahead of David at Cambridge, so he too was not alone at university.
Elaine had been her stalwart since Ellie’s disappearance.
The late Anne Darcy had been as well. It still hurt three years after Anne’s passing.
She had been so happy that she had finally been blessed with a second child, and on the fourth of March 1797, she, Elaine, and Catherine de Bourgh had attended Anne when she had delivered a daughter.
The girl was named Georgiana Felicity Darcy.
Little Giana, as everyone called her, was as healthy as could be, but the bleeding never stopped, and Anne got weaker and weaker.
The day before she passed away, Anne had her three sisters—Cilla was counted as one as well—in her bedchamber with her where she had elicited promises to look after her children, especially Giana.
Even at the end, she had funned with Catherine, making her promise not to attempt to impose her will on the Darcys.
Catherine’s husband, whom she had grown to love, had passed away eight years past, and her beloved daughter, Anne de Bourgh, had contracted a virulent strain of scarlet fever which had taken her to God’s side before she was ten years old.
Being able to assist the Darcys made Catherine feel like she was being useful.
Although she was the owner of Rosings Park and the other de Bourgh properties and holdings, Lady Catherine spent no time at them.
Being either at the estate in Kent or de Bourgh House in London reminded her too much of her losses.
She told Elaine and Reggie that as soon as Richard graduated from university, it would all be his.
Robert Darcy had wanted to withdraw within himself, but his sisters-in-law had not allowed him to be so self-indulgent.
At first unwillingly but soon willingly, he fulfilled his role as father and master.
The thing which had turned him around was when Catherine suggested he ask himself if Anne would have been happy with how he was behaving.
Darcy had remembered the vows he had made to his beloved wife before she was called home to God and began to act in a manner of which she would have been proud.
At least that leech George Wickham, was no longer hanging around the Darcys, Fitzwilliams, and Wendells.
Darcy’s steward, Lucas Wickham, had joined his wife in death in 1798.
Although Robert Darcy did not want to believe how bad the son of his late steward was, there had been too much evidence to ignore.
Rather than send Wickham to receive a gentleman’s education, Darcy had only agreed to pay for local schooling with others of his station.
Wickham had not been well pleased, but it was all he would receive.
His former patron had made it clear there would be no more from him—ever.
Her thoughts returned to the present. Cilla was dreading the morrow.
It was the fifth day of March, the day Ellie would be ten, and no matter what anyone else believed, Cilla knew she was alive somewhere.
She could feel it. Her husband and sons knew better than to try and tell her Ellie was no longer living.
Elaine was the only other one who believed the same. Anne had as well, but her support was being sent from heaven now. Yes, tomorrow, like all of her darling girl’s birthdays spent away from her, would be excruciating.