Page 81 of Heiress of Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice Variations)
Rosings
April, 1823
Spring had come late to Kent this year, which made the smells of early flowers, and the sounds of twittering birds, all the more to be relished. Lady Catherine de Bourgh pulled her attention away from the budding plants in the back garden of Rosings and again read the letter she had just completed a minute earlier. It was vital that she provide the proper direction to her emissary; there must be no mistakes. She nodded with satisfaction after inspecting it in full and carefully sealed her letter with wax, then made an imprint in the wax with the symbol of the League. She set it aside on the silver platter reserved for outgoing mail and turned a weary eye on the remaining pile of correspondence. The League of the Golden Daffodil had grown in the last decade, and she was struggling to keep up with necessary paperwork. Of course, she had Anne and several loyal secretaries to help her, but in the end, she was the leader of the organization, and thus must handle the vital decisions. Unfortunately, she had been laid low for two weeks with a virulent cold, and she would have to work hard to catch up.
The door opened to reveal her butler, Mr. Notley, who said, “Mrs. Warrick to see you, Lady Catherine.”
The leader of the League hopped to her feet in a way that quite belied her age and surged forward to embrace her niece with fervor. “My dear Georgiana! How wonderful to see you!”
Mr. Notley retreated out of the office as Georgiana returned her aunt’s embrace with enthusiasm. “I am so glad to be here, Aunt. I must thank you again for giving Mr. Warrick the Hunsford living.”
“He was a very obvious choice, Georgiana,” her aunt replied, waving a hand toward a comfortable chair. “Do sit down, my dear. You are close to your time, and I suspect standing is quite uncomfortable.”
Georgiana Warrick obediently sat down and caressed her bulbous torso. “It is, I confess, and it is more difficult to stand than walk, though I do not know why. It is hard to fathom that I must wait another month for the baby to be born; I feel enormous.”
“I believe most mothers do near the end,” Lady Catherine responded, inspecting her niece fondly. Fashionable society had been quite shocked when Georgiana Darcy, a great heiress and granddaughter to an earl, had married the humble parson Mr. Warrick, who held a moderate living at Bastow near Pemberley. The marriage had certainly not been an advantageous one from a societal or financial perspective, but Darcy, Elizabeth, Anne, and Lady Catherine had been overjoyed. Mr. Warrick, second son of a gentleman of Derbyshire, was a true man of God with a particular aptitude for ministering to the broken-hearted in society. He and Georgiana had married three years previously and since then, Georgiana’s husband had been working with the women dwelling near Pemberley, who were being assisted by the League.
“Elizabeth always says that she feels like a great whale at the end of her pregnancies,” Georgiana agreed in amusement. “Of course, my dear sister is significantly smaller than I am.
“Have you heard from Elizabeth of late?” Catherine de Bourgh asked delicately.
“Yes. There was a letter waiting for me at the parsonage. She will probably write you soon, or perhaps she will not; she knows you have been ill and have a great deal of League correspondence with which to contend.”
“Is Elizabeth well?” the lady asked worriedly.
“She is grieved over the death of her father, but she has my brother and nephews to comfort her. I believe it will take some time for her to entirely recover her spirits, but she is as well as can be expected.”
“Good,”
The door opened again and Georgiana rose to her feet as Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam and their children surged into the room.
“Anne, Richard!” she enthused, beaming at her married cousins. “It is so good to see you; it has been a full two years I believe. The children have grown so much!”
“Georgiana, welcome to Hunsford at last! Susanna, Anthony, do you remember your Cousin Georgiana?”
Georgiana began to lower herself nearer her little cousins, but her current physical form did not permit for such movement. Instead, she sat back down on the chair and reached loving hands towards the children, both of whom looked bewildered.
“I doubt you remember me at all,” she declared, “though I remember you. You have grown up so much, Susanna. How old are you now?”
“I am eight years old, and Anthony is only four years old. He is just a baby compared to me.”
“In a few months, he will not seem like a baby to you anymore, Susanna,” her mother declared.
It took a few seconds for Georgiana to understand, but when she did, she found herself leaping to her feet again. “Oh, Anne, Richard, congratulations!”
“Yes,” Lady Catherine said in obvious delight. “Rosings and the parsonage will be filled with children, which is a tremendous gift.”
***
Netherfield Hall
“Go ahead, Ruth,” Mrs. Priscilla Selkirk, formerly Miss Priscilla Colby, instructed.
Ruth Galloway took a deep breath and advanced on the tall man hovering a few feet away. When she was in range of the man’s long arms, he made a sudden grab for her. In a few quick movements, she knocked his hands aside, stomped on his heavy boots, shifted to one side, and swept his left leg from under him. He fell onto the soft turf of the east lawn of Netherfield and lay there, gasping.
“Are you all right, Robert?” Priscilla asked, stepping forward to assist her husband to his feet.
“Yes,” he assured her, accepting her helping hand and rolling to his feet. “Miss Galloway did a marvelous job of knocking the wind out of my sails. Excellent work.”
Ruth blushed a little and straightened her skirts. “Thank you, sir.”
“I believe you are ready, my dear,” Priscilla continued.
The girl looked up at her mentor with eager eyes. “I am truly ready? Thank you, Mrs. Selkirk.”
“You are one of the most accomplished members of the League,” Mr. Selkirk agreed, rubbing his sore wrist complacently. “I have no doubt that if Sir Niles Ellis should choose to make you the focus of unwanted attention...”
“Which is, regrettably, all too likely,” his wife interpolated.
“Yes, but if he does, you can hold your own. All the same, Miss Galloway, I urge you to attempt to find the documents without engaging in a physical altercation with Sir Niles. We can better move against him if the papers disappear and he does not discover their loss immediately.”
Ruth clenched her teeth at these words, but if nothing else, her two years of service to the League of the Golden Daffodil had taught her obedience. “Yes, Mrs. Selkirk.”
Priscilla swept forward suddenly to embrace the younger woman. “What Sir Niles did to your sister, Eloise, was horrific, my dear.”
“She has never been the same,” Ruth said hollowly, accepting the embrace. “He is a despicable man.”
“He is, and while I know you would enjoy administering physical pain to the man, he will be far better served by being imprisoned and hanged for treason. I hope you can trust me that he will see justice, if not for his attack on your sister, for his crimes against the Crown.”
“I do trust you completely.”
“Priscilla, I am sorry to interrupt you...,” a new voice came from a few feet away, and the threesome turned to observe Mrs. Lydia Hamilton, formerly Miss Lydia Bennet, standing with a concerned look on her face.
“What is it, Lydia?” Priscilla asked.
“A messenger arrived a few minutes ago from Longbourn. My mother is most distressed with the Collinses moving into the house, and Elizabeth has decided Mother needs to come to Netherfield immediately . We need to hide all signs of the League’s activities before she arrives here. It seems unlikely she will notice anything at the moment, but she cannot reliably keep a secret of anything she does observe.”
“Of course, Lydia!” her older friend assured her. “Robert, my love, can you inform the League members staying in the old lodge that they must hide all evidence of their activities?”
“Yes, I will do it immediately.”
“Ruth, change into your maid’s outfit. We will arrange for transportation to Sir Niles’s estate on the morrow or the next day; it depends on when we receive the false references from Mr. Campbell.”
“Yes, Madam.”
Priscilla Selkirk hooked her arm in Lydia’s, and they began walking back to Netherfield.
“Are you well, Lydia?” the older woman asked tenderly.
“I am well enough. My father’s death was a shock but not a surprise; he has been fading for more than two years. We were never particularly close, but of course I mourn his passing.”
“Yes, naturally.”
“It is much harder on Lizzy, who was Papa’s favorite daughter. But we all have our own husbands and children, and I can only trust that Mr. Darcy and Lizzy’s sons will provide her the affection that she needs during this difficult time.”
“I am certain they will,” Priscilla responded with amusement as they entered a side door. Mr. Darcy of Pemberley still looked on his wife as if she was the brightest star in the firmament. It was adorable in such a tall, reserved gentleman.
“Charlotte Collins has obviously been waiting for months to change the sitting room into Mr. Collins’s book room,” complained a familiar voice from the front hall. “That room has been a sitting room since your great-grandfather’s day, and she thinks she can change it into a book room? What is wrong with your father’s library for Mr. Collins? It is outrageous!”
Lydia and Priscilla stepped into view of the party from Longbourn as Elizabeth Darcy took off her bonnet, handed it to a servant, and turned to her mother. “Mama, Charlotte has always been very practical, as you know. The library is a fine room, but it has always been one of the coldest spaces in the house and Mr. Collins suffers from the cold. Besides, the view is better from the sitting room.”
“Well, and why should that matter?” Mrs. Bennet huffed. “Mr. Collins should be reading in the library, not looking out the windows. Ah, there you are, Lydia. I suppose it was too much to ask that you be at my side when I was thrown from my home?”
Lydia suppressed a sigh and surged forward to wrap an affectionate arm around her smaller mother. “I am sorry, Mama, but the baby slept poorly last night, and I knew his crying would distress your nerves.”
“Oh, it would, it would!” Mrs. Bennet agreed. “It is nonsense that you girls all insist on caring for your children as much as you do. We had wet nurses for every one of you, which is far more sensible. But no one listens to me! No one has compassion on my nerves!”
“Mama,” Jane Bingley said, appearing suddenly with her only daughter, Naomi, at her side. “Please do come upstairs and lie down. It has been a difficult week.”
“Yes, yes,” the lady agreed querulously. “I must lie down. Perhaps you can send some tea and toast in an hour? Oh, Jane, to think of losing my home in this way! Charlotte Collins! Why should she be mistress of Longbourn over me?”
Jane’s lips tightened, but she did not bother to argue with her mother, who was beyond reason; instead, the Bingley matriarch shepherded her mother up the stairs with Lydia in pursuit. Priscilla Selkirk accepted several letters from the butler, all of them marked with the symbol of the League of the Golden Daffodil, and drifted off to a private place, leaving Elizabeth alone with Naomi Bingley.
Elizabeth blew out a slow breath and reached forward to embrace her nine-year-old niece. “My dear Naomi, are you well?”
“I am,” the girl replied softly. Even at a young age, Jane’s daughter was showing signs of her mother’s remarkable beauty. “I cried about Grandfather, but Mama says that while it makes sense to be sad, it is easier that he is in Heaven because he was so sick.”
“Your mother is entirely correct, as usual,” Elizabeth said fondly. “I find myself crying frequently, but Grandfather was ready to meet his Savior. Now, did you, your brothers, and your cousins enjoy visiting the Home Farm together with your father and your uncle Darcy?”
Naomi giggled at this. “I did, very much, but Josiah and Alexander snuck away and tried to pet some young pigs, and they let them escape, and the piglets had to be rounded up by the servants, and my cousins got very dirty.”
Elizabeth groaned softly as her husband appeared at the top of a nearby stairwell. “Fitzwilliam...?”
“Yes, I fear that I lost track of our youngest two again. They are so very quick.”
“They are,” Elizabeth agreed. “I suppose it is no surprise that I would birth four energetic boys, all of whom are prone to wandering and making messes. I was the same way as a child.”
“There was no harm done,” Darcy assured the lady of his heart, “but I fear the boys and their clothing will require significant washing before they stop being…”
“Odiferous?” Elizabeth laughed. “Well, we will have to make the servants’ Christmas bonuses especially robust this year. Naomi, I quite admire your capacity for staying tidy, though your mother always did; I suppose it is no great surprise.”
“I get dirty too, Aunt Lizzy,” the girl responded complacently. “Samuel likes it when I make mud pies, after all. But I do not like the smell of pigs.”
“Neither do I, my dear.”
There was a sudden shout from outside the front door and Naomi ran to a nearby window, whereupon she squealed. “Oh, Aunt Lizzy, it is Aunt Kitty, Uncle Robert, and my girl cousins, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Benjamin! I am so glad they are finally here!”
Her voice brought servants and Bingley, who all rushed out the door. Elizabeth took a step in pursuit; both Kitty and Mary had wed gentlemen from Scotland and thus had not been able to reach Longbourn before their father passed on. She found herself halted by the long arm of her husband wrapping suddenly around her shoulders.
“Elizabeth?”
She turned around and looked up into that beloved face, slightly more roughened with age, but just as handsome as he had ever been. “Fitzwilliam?”
“My love, we have been so busy these last days that it seems we have not been able to speak much. Before we greet your other sisters; are you truly well?”
She smiled mistily up at him. The loss of her father was a sharp ache, but she had him and her sons and … “I mourn, but I have you, our children, our families, our friends. Yes, my dear, I am very well.”
She went up on her tiptoes, he leaned down, and they kissed lovingly just as Kitty’s oldest son ran into the hall.
“Oh, Aunt Lizzy, Uncle Darcy! What are you doing ?”
The End ... but turn the page and keep reading four short stories that continue the adventures of The League of the Golden Daffodil! New threats have arisen. Can our heroes thwart evil plans?