Desperate Hearts: A Pride and Prejudice Variation Read online

  The housekeeper asked Bridget if they wished to leave a forwarding address for any post or callers they might receive, but Bridget assured her it was not necessary.

  By the time she got outside, Gino was waiting for her in the carriage. He jumped down to help her into the carriage, returned to his seat, took the reins, and sped off towards a completely different section of town.

  Unbeknownst to them, they were being observed by a gentleman in the house across the street. Darcy had already called for his own horse and was on his way out the door and atop his mount just in time to see the Morettis’ carriage turn at the corner. He followed them at a discreet distance for what seemed an eternity but was in actuality about ten minutes. Darcy was concerned that Moretti might be spiriting his Elizabeth away, perhaps to Italy, and that he would never see her again. When the carriage stopped in front of a not-so-handsome building in a working-class neighbourhood, Darcy turned and rode back around the block. When he returned to the same location some minutes later, neither the Morettis nor their carriage were in sight. He rode past the building and made note of the address – 98 Greypool Lane – before heading back to Mayfair and his townhouse. Where, in deference to his cousin’s warnings, he remained awaiting Fitzwilliam’s return the following morning.

  Twenty-eight: Netherfield and back to Longbourn

  Shortly after returning to Netherfield from Longbourn, Colonel Fitzwilliam realized that he needed to address this matter straight away with Mr. Bennet, and possibly with Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself, before returning to town. He needed answers – Darcy needed answers – and he sensed that the resolution of this mystery lay with the Bennet family. In his experience, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. From everything he had ascertained about the matter, the idea rolling around in his head was a long shot and highly improbable. But it certainly was not impossible, and so he must have another conversation at Longbourn, and without Bingley.

  He told Bingley he needed to take care of some business in Meryton before going back to London and asked if he could impose on Darcy’s friend to the extent of accommodations for the night. Bingley affably invited the Colonel to stay for as long as he wished, and asked if he needed any assistance in whatever was his planned venture. The Colonel thanked him and assured him that he could handle the matter himself. Bingley advised him that his room would be made up directly, and that one of his men would serve him during his stay – and that he only need ask the man for anything at all that he might want. Smiling gratefully and shaking Bingley’s hand, the Colonel took his leave.

  Arriving at Longbourn just as the family was sitting down to supper, Colonel Fitzwilliam begged their indulgence to allow him a few words with Mr. Bennet. Unaccustomed to having his meals interrupted by anyone but his flighty youngest daughters, Mr. Bennet was most displeased. Mrs. Bennet of course invited the Colonel – the son of an Earl – what a wonderful thing for her girls! – to join them for their evening meal. He declined, saying that he was expected at Netherfield for supper but had something to discuss with Mr. Bennet that could not wait.

  Resignedly, Mr. Bennet led the Colonel into his private library and study. Taking his seat behind the desk, Mr. Bennet indicated a chair in front of the desk and invited Fitzwilliam to sit down. The Colonel did so, and then Mr. Bennet asked “Now what brings you here with such urgency that my supper must be delayed, son? I understand that you are the cousin of Mr. Darcy. Is aught amiss with the gentleman?” Leaning back languidly in his chair, Mr. Bennet regarded the Colonel expectantly.

  “Mr. Bennet” Fitzwilliam began somewhat uncertainly, “Do I understand that you have five daughters?”

  Mr. Bennet raised one eyebrow at the Colonel and asked with the beginnings of a scowl. “Is that what brings you here at this hour? To ask how many daughters I have? I am quite certain that Mr. Darcy, or Mr. Bingley, could have easily given you that information without the need for a special trip or a private audience with me.”

  “I simply wondered, Mr. Bennet, whether it is possible that you in fact have six daughters. That your second-eldest daughter is one of twins. Is that possible?” Fitzwilliam ventured.

  Mr. Bennet’s countenance changed immediately. He paled as the scowl disappeared and a look of surprise followed by uneasiness took its place. He leaned forward, placing both of his hands flat on his desk. “What reason do you have for asking such a question, Colonel?”

  “Mr. Bennet, I believe I have seen Miss Elizabeth’s twin sister. In London. Now please, I beg you to enlighten me: Is there a sixth daughter in your family, and is she in fact your second-eldest daughter’s twin sister? If so, what is she doing in town these past weeks?”

  Mr. Bennet rose, and trying to regain his composure he turned his back on the Colonel for a moment. When he turned again to face him, he had taken out his handkerchief and was mopping his forehead.

  “I do not know under what circumstances you saw this young lady, but I have known that sooner or later this day would come.” Mr. Bennet walked towards the door, then said to Fitzwilliam over his shoulder “I believe that my daughter Lizzy should be in on this conversation, as it materially affects her.” He opened the door and, espying a footman, instructed the man to fetch his daughter to the study.

  Mr. Bennet resumed his seat, sinking down wearily and resignedly. Within moments there was a light tapping on the open door. The Colonel smiled wanly up at Elizabeth, and Mr. Bennet waved her into the room, indicating that she close the door and then seat herself in the chair next to his desk.

  “Lizzy, Colonel Fitzwilliam has uncovered some intelligence that concerns you – that concerns our whole family in fact,” her father said in the saddest voice she had ever heard him use. “This intelligence requires a rather lengthy explanation, and I believe it necessary that you partake of the discussion as well.”

  Elizabeth could not imagine what intelligence the Colonel might have gathered about her or her family, nor how it could alter her normally sardonic father into this defeated-looking man. The possibility that something dreadful had befallen Mr. Darcy began to unnerve her. Her fear was all but confirmed when Mr. Bennet turned and reached for the bottle of port that he always kept at the side of his desk. “I feel a need for this right now” he said, pouring the liquid into three glasses: two full, one half-full. One full glass he placed on the desk in front of himself, and one he handed to the Colonel. The third glass he turned and handed to his daughter. “I do not generally approve of young ladies taking to drink, but I believe you may want to keep it near, Lizzy, in the event that you have need of it.”

  Lizzy took the glass, the quizzical look she had on her face since entering her father’s study now turning to alarm. “Oh Papa, what is it? Are you ill? Is Mr. Darcy ill?”

  “No, nothing like that, my dear” Mr. Bennet assured her. Lizzy’s anxious look showed that she was in fact not reassured. “Then what is it, Papa?” she beseeched him. “And what could the Colonel have to do with it?”

  Mr. Bennet leaned back and steepled his fingers. Through half-lidded eyes, he began: “Lizzy, you do know that I had a younger brother, don’t you?” Lizzy nodded. “He was next in line to inherit Longbourn after me, had he out-lived me. Alas, he did not.” Mr. Bennet slowly and sadly shook his head in remembrance.

  “Yes, I believe he was killed in a carriage accident when he was but a young man,” Lizzy added.

  “When we were both young men,” her father smiled ruefully. “My brother Timothy and I were very close,” he addressed both the Colonel and Elizabeth, although it seemed that he spoke mostly to himself. “He was a good man, and he married a lovely woman – Penelope – shortly after I married Mrs. Bennet. They lived in London, where he had his own shop. He was a silversmith, and very talented. He crafted these wine cups, my inkwell, all the silverware in the dining room, and several pieces of your mother’s jewelry.

  “It was during the first year of their marriage – almost twenty years ago now
– that Timothy met his untimely end,” Mr. Bennet recalled sorrowfully.

  He continued: “Penelope’s heart was broken. She adored my brother, and did not want to continue living without him. The only thing that kept her going was her daughters. Two adorable baby girls. Only her responsibility to them, and to her late husband to raise his children, kept her from taking her own life.”

  “Such profound despair is very sad, Papa” said Elizabeth. “But what has it to do with me and the Colonel? It was all so very long ago.” Lizzy was clearly confused.

  Mr. Bennet adopted the mien of a parson as he explained. “Life takes us to many unexpected places, although it also takes us places where we think we want to go – until we get there that is. Penelope developed consumption. As she became sicker and sicker, I spent more time with her to take care of her and her children – my brother’s children, my nieces. Penelope’s elder sister Maureen frequently stayed with her too – Maureen was a widow herself, living on the Isle of Wight.

  “Penelope knew she had not long in this world, and indeed she would have been happy to spend eternity with Timothy as soon as may be, but she wanted to ensure that their children were taken care of in this world. She and Timothy had named me as their godfather and Maureen as their godmother, so she begged that one of us would take the girls. Maureen had no children of her own so she seemed the logical choice, but she did not feel herself qualified to care for two small children, nor was her income sufficiently generous to support three people. Knowing that I already had a young daughter, and thinking it would be good for the girls to be part of a larger family, she begged me to take them. Or at least one of them, and she would take the other.

  “Penelope and I much preferred that they stay together, although I knew that your mother would never agree to accept both of them. Penelope and I both begged her to take both girls. Maureen, however, was adamant: she would take one, but not two. So I went home to present the problem to your mother. I was sure she would be amenable to raising my dear brother’s child. That was our first major disagreement: she absolutely refused to allow the child into our home much less be responsible for raising her as a daughter. You see, your mother had convinced herself – with the help of her gossiping sister Philips” (and here Elizabeth rolled her eyes in understanding at her father) “that I had been dallying with my brother’s wife and that the girls were the result of that dalliance. Why else would I want to bring them into our family circle? ‘I will not have your by-blow taking a place next to our own beloved child’ she told me. It took a lot of convincing, of reminding her that Maureen, and Penelope’s maid, were both at the house whenever I visited. The apothecary was also a frequent visitor, and all of them would vouch for the fact that nothing untoward had occurred. But it was not enough. Finally I threatened to leave your mother if she refused. Eventually she gave in, but our marriage was never the same after that.”

  “And that little girl was me?” Elizabeth asked in an almost childlike voice. “Is that why I have always been Mama’s least favoured daughter?”

  Mr. Bennet slumped in his chair, and with his head hanging answered sadly “My dear Lizzy, always quick to understand. Yes … to both questions.”

  “So I have another sister? Well, actually it seems that I have only one sister. What is her name, Papa, and why have I never met her? Does she look at all like me? And … ” here Lizzy looked down to avoid his eyes “… must I now call you Uncle instead of Papa? Must I now treat my sisters as cousins? This is rather unsettling.” Lizzy asked quietly and apprehensively.

  “Lizzy, I will always be your Papa. I have always loved you as a daughter. And we adopted you when we took you in – I most willingly although your Mother was under some duress. We had agreed that we would tell you that you were adopted when you reached majority – age twenty-one, and as that date is approaching, I would have told you soon in any event.”

  Mr. Bennet smiled benevolently at his favourite daughter. “The name my brother and his wife gave to your sister was Eleanor. After she took the girl in, Maureen changed her name. She had been living in Wight until Maureen died a couple of years ago, and then she used her small legacy to remove to London. I have seen her myself on only four or five occasions these many years, and of course I could not bring her to visit us here at Longbourn because of your mother. I sent her whatever financial help I could manage, but it was not very much. Your mother saw to that. She would not let me take the food out of her own daughters’ mouths for the sake of that child.” Mr. Bennet’s voice took on a dramatic tone, but his shoulders drooped and he slowly shook his head from side to side, his face reflecting his sadness.

  “As to whether she looks like you, yes, she does. In fact,” here Mr. Bennet looked to the Colonel “she looks just like you. She is your twin sister.” Elizabeth’s mouth gaped open and then turned into a grin.

  Mr. Bennet and the Colonel both reached for their cups at the same time, and each of them took a significant swallow. Lizzy fingered her cup but decided not to drink anything; she wanted her head to be completely clear during this conversation, as she was sure there was more – and perhaps worse – to come.

  “So what has changed now that you are telling me about this? And how does Colonel Fitzwilliam fit into the story?” Elizabeth was almost afraid to ask.

  “I will allow the Colonel to explain why he came to see me.” Mr. Bennet gave the Colonel an encouraging and expectant look.

  Colonel Fitzwilliam, with a look somewhere between bewilderment and surprise on his face, stood up and began to pace the room before starting to speak.

  “Miss Elizabeth, if you recall, when I arrived here with Bingley I asked you how you had reached Hertfordshire before I did. Well, recently while we were in town both Darcy and I have several times seen a woman who Darcy swears is you. Now that I have met you, I must agree with him. This woman looks so much like you that, if she were not you, there could be no other explanation except that you have a twin sister, and Darcy knew of your having no twin sister. So I applied to your father for information.”

  He paused and sipped from his cup before continuing. “Not only have we seen the lady, I am sorry to have to report that we have seen her in circumstances that neither Darcy nor I could explain. She was … she is … well, to put it plainly, she appears to be living with a gentleman who is not her husband. An Italian gentleman. Darcy believes the woman to be you, and to be perfectly frank, he is heartbroken. I cannot rouse him from his melancholy. He is convinced that he has not only lost your regard for him but that you tossed him over in order to become the … excuse me” here the Colonel flushed red and carefully avoided both Mr. Bennet’s and Elizabeth’s eyes “ … to become the mistress of an Italian diplomat.” He licked his lower lip and then drained the cup, not quite sure what to do or where to look in his embarrassment. After several very long seconds, the Colonel looked plaintively towards Elizabeth’s father.

  Elizabeth’s eyes had opened wide as saucers upon this revelation, and she clearly did not know what to think. She first regarded the Colonel, then her father, and then … then she began to laugh. “Papa, is this not the pinnacle of absurdity? My long-lost twin sister shows up in town as the consort of a supposedly respectable gentleman and Mr. Darcy sees her and, thinking she is me, he begins to believe in not only my inconstancy but in my being a … fallen woman, which leads him to melancholy?” She shook her head and continued laughing until she started coughing, at which point she took a sip from her cup and realized that both her father and the Colonel were looking at her as if they thought she had gone mad. “Really now, do you not think this is the stuff of a lurid novel?”

  Mr. Bennet and the Colonel exchanged uneasy glances, and then her father began to laugh too. “Yes, this is certainly a scenario that one might expect Mrs. Radcliffe herself to devise!” Mr. Bennet chuckled.

  The Colonel, not privy to the camaraderie of the father and daughter, nor to their shared enjoyment of observing the follies of human nature, looked at both
of them somewhat skeptically before he sank back down into his chair and held out his cup for Mr. Bennet to refill. Father and daughter continued to laugh for several more minutes until they had laughed themselves out and resumed their normal expressions.

  Mr. Bennet spoke first. “So, Colonel Fitzwilliam, now that we have that sorted out, what would you propose that we do to assure Mr. Darcy that all is well with the object of his affections?” He turned to his daughter and gave her a quick wink. “Will you return straight away to London, or shall we engage an express rider and send him the good news in a letter?”

  “Wait a minute,” Elizabeth interjected before the Colonel could respond. “While I certainly wish to reassure William of my affections, and will certainly endeavor to do so, there is an equally important question: When can we arrange for me to meet Eleanor? Or whatever her name is now … to meet my sister, that is? After so many years apart, this can be delayed no longer.” Elizabeth placed the cup onto the desk in front of her, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at her father expectantly.