Page 41 of A Life Diverted
B arney did not release Ellie from his embrace for some minutes. He felt like if he released his sister, she would vanish all over again. He finally opened his arms, but very slowly, and was inordinately pleased when she did not disappear as a wisp of smoke would on the wind.
Elizabeth did not object to her brother holding onto her the way he had, as she understood the emotions he was experiencing.
He felt guilt for believing Ellie was no longer alive but admonished himself for the useless emotions.
Whatever they had believed, all of them save for Mother and Aunt Elaine, the fact was that his sister had been discovered, and instead of the little pixie he remembered, before him stood the woman Ellie had grown up to become.
“Come, there are many others for you to meet,” Wendell told his second son.
“Father, before we do, will you please tell me how this miracle occurred so many years after Ellie was taken from us?” He remembered something David had said. “Wait, David, you are engaged to a woman who grew up as Ellie’s older sister?”
“Correct, do you remember me saying that Edward Gardiner is Jane and Ellie’s uncle?” David wondered. You received my letter that I was calling on a lady?”
“That I do remember, but I missed the part about her being related to Gardiner,” Barney replied, making sure this was not all a dream .
“Her name is Jane Bennet. Until the night of the dinner, I was unaware that Jane’s next younger sister was a foundling. By some act of God….” David, with help from his mother and father all told parts of the tale of the dinner.
“The Bennets tried to find us. They…” Wendell told of how Ellie was found, the condition she was in, and why the Bennets needed to keep travelling south.
He enumerated the steps they had taken and what happened to the coachman they had sent to retrace the route they had travelled from Dronfield.
He spoke of her being found in Meryton. “The same night we were hosting Jane and the Gardiners; there was an assembly in Meryton. Your Aunt Catherine, Richard, and William attended…” He told his son about how Ellie had been seen on that night and her reaction to being called Ellie.
Lastly, his mother explained how Ellie had believed she had been cast out of the house and family. She made sure her younger son knew that Ellie was certain that had never been the case.
When all was told, the most Barney could do was shake his head in wonder.
As far as he could tell, Ellie’s location was discovered separately here and in London on the same day.
Providence had ordained that Ellie was to be discovered on the final day of September, one way or the other.
He did find it amusing that both David’s fiancée and Ellie had fainted at almost the same time while separated by more than twenty miles.
“It seems to me that David meeting the woman is thanks to that spineless milksop, Bingley…a woman who sounds far better than he deserves,” Barney remarked.
“As little as I want to give that dishonourable man credit for anything, had she not felt so repulsed by what the investigators wrote about the puppy, Jane would not have come to London then,” David agreed.
“I may not have met her at the same time, but we would have still met because Richard and William would have seen Ellie at the assembly. We would have come here, and hopefully, our relationship would have begun and grown at that point.”
“We mere mortals will never be able to comprehend His plans, so I suggest we stop trying to do so and repair to the drawing room,” Cilla decided. She took Ellie’s hand and led the way out of the study, not waiting for her husband and sons.
While he followed, Barney thought about the change for the better in his mother.
He so much hoped Uncle Stephen was on his way and that seeing Ellie would be the thing he needed to shock him out of the dark place in which he had remained since first believing her dead and then added to that sorrow, his wife and babe had been taken from him.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On Friday afternoon, as was their wont, the residents of Netherfield Park were at Longbourn when an express rider arrived.
The rider told Hill his destination had been Netherfield Park but the butler there had directed him to Longbourn.
Longbourn’s butler took the missive from the man and handed him the requisite coins.
While the rider remounted and took off up the drive, Hill made his way to the drawing room, where he knew he would find Lady Matlock and Mrs Wendell.
All eyes were on Hill when he offered the Countess the salver. As soon as she had the missive in hand, Hill bowed to the room and withdrew.
“It is from Stephen,” Lady Matlock revealed. “Come, Cilla, let us hope Stephen is on his way.”
Barney watched his mother sit next to her sister.
How glorious it was to see Mother glow with contentment once again.
He had believed he would never again see that level of joy on her countenance.
All he could do was pray that Uncle Stephen was travelling to Meryton, and he too would be affected in the same way.
Cilla sat next to Elaine and nodded. Her older sister broke their brother’s seal and unfolded the page .
3 October 1811
Glenmeade
Sisters,
Convinced that the news was bad, I almost decided against travelling to meet you.
The tone of the letter changed my mind. It seemed hopeful, almost ebullient. My prayer is that I have not raised my expectations falsely, thinking that this is good news, the best of news.
Unless there are unforeseen problems along the way, I should arrive the day after this missive.
Please pass my thanks to Wendell for writing on your behalf.
I bestow my regards on all family members who are with you, sending you brotherly love,
Stephen
“He is coming!” Cilla exclaimed. “Seeing Ellie again renewed and refreshed my happiness. I pray it will do the same for Stephen.”
“Let us pray He hears you. It may just be what Stephen needs to bring him out of the deep melancholy into which he slipped since Adelle and his babe were called home to God,” Lady Matlock hoped.
“How could seeing me accomplish that?” Elizabeth asked.
“You became like a surrogate daughter to your Uncle Stephen and late Aunt Adelle. When you were taken from us, your aunt and uncle took it very hard. It was less than a year after Stephen accepted you had been murdered that Adelle was brought to bed. When both she and the babe were lost, our brother slipped into a deep melancholy, one from which he has never recovered. We are not sure it will, but we hope that seeing you will have the same effect on him as it has had on me,” Cilla explained.
“I hope he will not be disappointed in me,” Elizabeth said quietly as a little of her prior insecurity asserted itself once again.
There was a chorus of emphatic “Never!”
The immediate and positive response drove away the momentary self-doubt. “I am afraid I do not remember Uncle Stephen at all,” Elizabeth owned.
“That could be because you did not see him and Aunt Adelle as much as you saw the rest of us,” Lord Matlock hypothesised, “and you used to call all of your uncles, including William’s late father, ‘Unca’ without our names.”
There was a noise from the entrance hall followed by the door bursting open.
James Bennet was home. “What was all of the fuss which necessitated me missing classes and travelling to Longbourn?” the Bennet heir demanded playfully.
There was no anger in his voice, only amusement.
It was then James realised there were many in the room he did not know.
His eyes settled on two ladies who looked like older versions of Lizzy.
“I think I know why I was summoned,” he said, his voice subdued as he looked between the ladies and Lizzy. The similarities were uncanny.
“Bennet, will you make us known to, I assume, your elder son and heir?” Lord Matlock requested.
“James, go wash and change, and we will tell you the whole tale,” Fanny suggested. “When you return, you will be introduced to everyone.” Fanny watched as James took his mother’s suggestion and exited the drawing room.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Once he had changed, James walked down the stairs, but instead of the drawing room, he made for the music room, attracted by the sound of music emanating from there.
“James!” Mary, Lydia, and Henry exclaimed simultaneously.
“Giana, this is our older brother, James Bennet. James, Miss Georgiana Darcy from Derbyshire. She is Lizzy’s cousin by marriage,” Mary told her eldest brother.
What Mary said added confirmation to his guess that Lizzy’s birth family had been discovered. If they were the ones who rejected her and sent her away, they did not deserve to have her in their lives. “Lizzy seems happy, even though these are the ones who gave her away,” James fished.
“They never did. The Wendells and all her family members looked for Lizzy, or as they call her, Ellie, for many months before most of them believed she had been murdered by the miscreant who she stumbled across robbing the safe in the study,” Mary corrected.
He felt chagrined, especially as the pretty Miss Darcy was giving him the gimlet eye. James owned, to himself, he could have phrased his question better.
“I will see you later. Mother and Father are waiting for me in the drawing room,” James stated. He nodded to Miss Weasley, Mrs Frost, and the lady, he assumed was Miss Darcy’s companion, seated together on one side of the room.