Page 41 of Elizabeth is not a Bennet

Parlor

The Frog and the Toad Inn

The parlor was generously proportioned, but the fire was sufficiently large to warm the entire space. Harold paused in the doorway and looked around at those already present; Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were seated at the table at one end of the room eating breakfast, and Mr. Bennet and Mr. Wickham sat nearer the fire.

“It is more a question of whether Mrs. Stowe will agree, then,” Elizabeth said and then turned and smiled at him.

“Harold!” the lady cried out. “Good morning, Brother. I hope you slept well?”

“Well enough,” Harold replied, bobbing his head at the three gentlemen in the room. “Good morning, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Wickham.”

“Good morning,” the three gentlemen replied in a chorus, and Darcy gestured toward a side board.

“Please, break your fast with us, Stowe. The inn’s food is quite good. ”

Harold, observing the dishes of eggs and ham and rolls and preserves, could not disagree. He hastily collected his food and a cup of coffee and then, rather uncomfortably, sat down next to his sister at the table.

To his relief, the others did not speak either of Mrs. Stowe or of Greymere as he ate. Rather, they turned their focus on Ravenswood, which was, he learned, also in dire straits, with leaky cottages and windows and broken fencing. The difference, apparently, was that the Darcys were all too ready to pour money into Ravenswood to renew all that had been neglected these last years. When he had finished his last bite of food and swallowed his last sip of coffee, silence fell, and when he had lifted his head, it was to discover that everyone was staring at him.

“Mr. Stowe,” Darcy said gently, “as I am certain you realize, we have been discussing the best disposition of your mother.”

“Yes,” Harold rasped, and then, clearing his throat, said in a more normal tone, “yes, I acknowledge that she cannot return to Greymere and must be settled where she cannot harm anyone.”

“I know it is hard, Brother,” Elizabeth replied, reaching out to touch his hand with her own. “She is your mother and only living parent. We understand how difficult this must be. ”

Harold did not have the gift of expressing himself with ease, and his sister’s sympathy caused his throat to clog again.

“We have an idea,” Darcy continued, his own expression kindly. “I am owner of a small estate, Winden Acres, some twenty miles north of Edinburgh. I have only visited it once, but it has been well taken care of for decades. If you and your mother are in agreement, Mrs. Stowe can live there under the watchful eye of hired servants. She will not have a carriage and will not be able to mix freely with the neighbors, but she will be comfortable, well fed, and well looked after.”

“Which is, frankly, more than she deserves,” Mr. Bennet said coldly.

“I know,” Harold managed to say, and felt his eyes fill again with unwelcome tears. He knew he was behaving as the weak boy his mother often accused him of being, but he could not help it. It was horrific that his mother had tried to kill the vibrant beauty sitting at his right, his own sister.

Elizabeth handed over a clean handkerchief and said, “You must know that we are entirely in sympathy with the difficulty of your position, Harold.”

“I should have done more,” he mumbled. “I had no idea that the estate was encumbered so badly, or that my mother... ”

A scoff interrupted him, and he turned a confused gaze on Wickham, who said, “Stowe, please do not in any way blame yourself for the situation. Part of the reason that I was able to fool your mother is that, in the past, I was also accomplished at manipulating those around me. I have never tried to kill someone, but I was a thoroughly selfish creature and did not mind mistreating others to gain what I wished. Your mother is clever, adept at discerning the desires of others, and single-minded in her desire to rule those in her sphere.”

“She reminds me a great deal of my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” Darcy remarked. “My aunt oversees a large estate in Kent, and she has one daughter, my Cousin Anne, who is heiress of Rosings. Lady Catherine will legally lose control of the estate to my cousin in a few months, but I do not expect anything to change; my aunt has overborne my poor cousin her entire life.”

“Like my mother has overborne me,” Harold said wearily.

“You must not be too severe on yourself,” his sister said firmly. “If you were as strong willed as Mrs. Stowe, you would have lived a life marked by dissension and argument. I assume that since you are only nineteen years old, you are not yet legal master of Greymere?”

“No, my mother has legal rights to the estate until I reach my majority. ”

“That is what we thought,” Darcy remarked, and turned to his wife. “We will need to have Mrs. Stowe relinquish her legal oversight of Greymere before she moves to Winden Acres.”

“I rather doubt she will,” Harold said miserably. “She will loathe being stuck in the middle of Scotland...”

“The alternatives; being deported, imprisoned, or hanged; will be far less pleasant,” Darcy said, and Wickham added, “Stowe, I beg you not to concern yourself. Again, I believe I understand your mother and am confident that she will agree to this. She is the sort of woman who is always looking out for the main chance, which is to say, her own desires. I am certain she will agree to avoid a trial, and she will also think that she can manipulate the situation at Darcy’s estate.”

“She will not be able to,” Darcy said, “but she does not know that yet.”

Harold compressed his lips and then said haltingly, “I am anxious about Greymere as well. I have little knowledge about overseeing an estate in good order, and no doubt one in poor condition is...”

He trailed off, and Darcy said, “I assure you that we are well aware that your situation is a difficult one, and we are willing to assist you. I believe I can give you cogent advice, as I have been master of Pemberley for more than five years and have a great deal of experience.”

“You would ... you would do that for me?” the young man asked in obvious wonder. “When my own mother attempted to murder your wife?”

“You had nothing to do with that,” Elizabeth said, “and while we have been separated all these years, the bond of blood unites us, my dear brother. I am thankful for the Bennets who raised me and my husband, who loves and protects me, but I am also overjoyed to have found my brother at last.”

Again, his eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.”

/

On the Road to Greymere in Northumberland

A Week Later

The carriage rattled along at a goodly pace, the road beneath the wheels hard-packed and slightly dusty, with clear blue skies above. Her husband’s weight was a warm reassurance at Elizabeth’s side, while her brother and Wickham sat across from the Darcys. Elizabeth watched through the open window as the landscape rolled past them. Her mind, however, was less on the verdant fields and tall lush trees than on the past sennight.

She had spent most of her time in company with her uncle and brother, with her husband’s footmen hovering nearby. Harold had been eager to please, making himself agreeable to both his sister and her guardian. Mr. Bennet, in turn, had been kind and gracious to his ward’s half-brother, to Harold’s shy pleasure and Elizabeth’s gratitude. She thought compassionately that Harold was rather hungry for family; he hung on Mr. Bennet’s every word and paid her rapt attention when she spoke. She did not think that his life, growing up with only Moira Stowe, could have been a very good one. Though he had not wanted for creature comforts, the woman was not a warm or doting mother, and the young man brightened at every hint of affection shown to him by his newly discovered sister.

Darcy and Wickham had been conspicuous only by their absence. They had collected the two footmen whose task it was to guard Mrs. Stowe, as well as the miscreant herself, and had hustled to the Darcy estate north of Edinburgh. Mr. Adair had gone with them both as cousin and solicitor of the woman held prisoner in his house. Darcy had not told his wife details of the confrontation, only that he had presented two options to Mrs. Stowe; retire to Winden Acres and there live out her life making no trouble, or be dragged through court, have her name utterly besmirched with scandal, and end either on a gallows or in Australia. Elizabeth was intimately acquainted with Darcy’s kindness, but she knew that he could be fearsome when required, and given that Mrs. Stowe had attempted to have Elizabeth murdered, she was confident that her husband had been menacing indeed.

As Wickham had predicted, Mrs. Stowe had preferred a quiet retirement to public arrest, disgrace, and possible execution. Elizabeth had briefly met the woman hired to be Mrs. Stowe’s companion and to hold the keys to her nicely appointed prison. Mrs. Amesbury, a childless widow of some forty summers, was a cousin of Mr. Adair’s, and was a no-nonsense sort of woman who was built like a draft horse. She would be the one in charge of all finances and outings, ensuring that Mrs. Stowe was always under guard and did not have ready access to sympathetic ears that would fall prey to her manipulations. Elizabeth had listened, briefly, to the outlines of Moira Stowe’s confinement; how she would be permitted to amuse herself, what concessions she might have. No money was ever to pass through her hands, and her freedom was severely curtailed. If she attempted to thwart Mrs. Amesbury in any way, she would lose the privileges of new dresses and pleasant food and knickknacks .

Darcy, Adair, and Bennet had also convinced Mrs. Stowe to give up legal rights to Greymere to the Darcys until Harold reached his majority. Again, Elizabeth did not know the details associated with that particular battle, but they had won, and Mrs. Stowe no longer held any legal power over Greymere or her son.

Harold was already starting to compile a list of books recommended to him by Darcy regarding estate management and the like. His mother had left him woefully under-prepared for his responsibilities when he came of age, and Elizabeth, seeing her brother’s anxious face, pitied him for his deficient upbringing. At least Harold genuinely loved Greymere and was happy to talk about it. It was his home, even if it was in poor repair now, and he had many happy memories of running through the halls and playing hide-and-seek through the rooms with his nurse.

He had certainly painted a pretty picture, though Darcy’s thoughts ran along more pragmatic lines. He had seen how neglected Ravenswood was, and between that sight and Wickham’s descriptions, his expectations for Greymere were grimly realistic. Harold had accepted this pessimism humbly, confessing to a deep gratitude that someone with far more experience was coming to review the estate.

Now the entire party was rolling along to the estate to look it over. Mr. Bennet had opted to ride in with the servants, their number greatly lessened by the departure of Mrs. Stowe’s guards and temporary retainers. He wished to get some reading done without needing to make himself agreeable to his traveling companions. Elizabeth, well aware of her uncle’s penchant for solitude, could only be grateful that he had spent so much of his time and energy of late with her and her half-brother. For her own part, she was perfectly content to ride with her husband, her brother and even Mr. Wickham.

“We are only a few miles from Greymere now,” Harold remarked, looking out his window at the rolling, green fields to his right.

This caused the others to look outside curiously, and Wickham said, “This area looks remarkably different from my earlier visit, which is no surprise, of course; your winters here are dark and cold and snowy.”

“Indeed,” Harold said, his eyes suddenly faraway. “My mother dislikes the long winters, but I rather enjoy them. There is something powerful about being outside and looking up into the black sky, broken up only by the stars.”

“The air is certainly much cleaner here than in London during the winter,” Wickham remarked.

“Cleaner and clearer,” Darcy agreed. “Only last autumn, there was a great fog in London which lasted a full week. Horses and their riders lost their way, pedestrians were run down; it was quite dreadful.”

“Will you think me terrible if I admit I do not find any real pleasure in visiting London?” Harold asked uneasily.

“Not at all,” Elizabeth declared. “My Uncle Bennet despises Town, so much so that in spite of Longbourn being but five and twenty miles from London, he only visits the metropolis when he absolutely must do so.”

Harold noticeably relaxed at this reassurance and, a few minutes later, said, “That oak tree marks the beginning of Greymere.”

The entire party looked out as the carriage rolled smoothly past the oak and allowed the passengers to observe the estate where Elizabeth had lived for the first two years of her life.

Elizabeth, while no expert on farming, had read enough to be cautiously optimistic about the fields passing by their window. The land was undulating but not steep, and shoots of wheat had appeared, rendering the dirt a lovely green.

“That is one of the fields that is prone to flooding,” Harold said with a gesture. “My mother always said that we did not have enough funds to have it drained. I realize now that she could have found the money but did not choose to.”

“She is not the first mistress of an estate to spend extravagantly on her own wants while ignoring the needs of the estate,” Elizabeth said gently.

“I know, but it is very frustrating,” Harold replied and straightened his back. “I should not complain. With your assistance, and my willingness to spend less, I am certain the estate can be reclaimed.”

“I am certain as well,” Darcy agreed.