Page 5 of The Best Of Relations

“Good, and then you must come with me to your father and we shall talk, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner said rather ominously.

Jane looked at Elizabeth with eyebrows raised, but Elizabeth could only shrug her shoulders, her eyes wide with confusion. “I beg that you will tap on my door when you are ready for me, Aunt,” was all she could say, and then they were at the door to Jane’s room. “I shall call Sarah to attend to you now.”

“I should think half an hour, Lizzy,” was Mrs Gardiner’s parting remark.

Of course, half an hour stretched into a great deal longer once Mrs Bennet realised her sister by marriage had arrived. She made a great fuss, demanding to know what disaster had befallen her brother, or her nephew or nieces in London. It took Mrs Gardiner a good while to soothe her, all the while fending off impertinent and silly questions from Lydia and Kitty respectively. And then once they had managed to extricate themselves, Mrs Gardiner and Elizabeth encountered Mr Collins in the hallway downstairs. Of course he had to be introduced, and spent a good ten minutes making fatuous remarks, bowing in Elizabeth’s direction every few moments, as Mrs Gardiner watched with a sardonic eye and glanced at Elizabeth often, smiling slightly.

Mr Collins even attempted to enter the book-room with them, but was firmly and not too politely evicted by Mr Bennet, who declared that he had not been invited to this particular, private discussion and as such could wait along with the rest of the family for any results he might care to disseminate.

“Good Lord,” Mrs Gardiner sank into a chair, smiling at her brother-in-law and her niece. “Tell me you shan’t let Lizzy marry that idiot, Thomas!”

“I have already advised Lizzy of that fact,” Mr Bennet said with a smile, “and I am only hoping that the buffoon has the decency to propose to her within earshot so that I may be amused by the setting-down she shall give him.”

“Papa, that is cruel,” Elizabeth admonished. “He may be a fool, but he is a decent man who means well. I should take no pleasure in being forced to reject him, and I would far rather you made it clear to him before-hand that his suit would not be accepted. I have certainly done my best to do so but I do not think he has heard a word I have said; perhaps he might listen to you!”

“Well said, Lizzy,” Mrs Gardiner approved.

“Oh, you are spoiling all of my diversion,” Mr Bennet sighed. “Very well, I shall have a word with him tomorrow, I daresay. For now, Madeline, why don’t you enlighten us on what all this to-do is about? Because Lizzy seems to not have the faintest idea. She was just as bemused by your note as I.” He glanced at the sideboard. “May I pour you a sherry?”

“Do you know, I think I will. I was quite overset yesterday when I received Lizzy’s letter, and I declare I slept not a wink last night.” Mrs Gardiner accepted the small glass of sherry Mr Bennet pressed upon her, sat back and made herself comfortable while Mr Bennet poured himself a glass of brandy and seated himself also. Lizzy perched on a stool, gazing at her aunt in confusion.

“Dear Aunt,” she said, “I have not the faintest idea what I could have said to make you rush here so precipitously! Our opinions of Mr Darcy seem to be most peculiarly at odds, but that could not make you react so drastically, surely? And in your note, you mentioned Mr Wickham?”

“Wickham,” Mrs Gardiner, Elizabeth’s mild-mannered, sweet aunt, fairly spat the name. “Elizabeth, that man is scum.”

“Aunt Gardiner!” Wide-eyed, Elizabeth stared. “Pray, whatever can you mean?”

The tale her aunt told then shocked both Elizabeth and her father utterly.

As a young girl growing up in Lambton, Madeline Thompson (for that was her maiden name) enjoyed an enviable position as the daughter of the local solicitor. Distantly connected to and under the patronage of the Darcys of Pemberley, the Thompsons were one of the foremost families of the district, despite not being strictly gentlefolk. They were invited everywhere, and Madeline had been admired by not a few of the well-born young gentlemen of the area. As was her sister Louise.

“You have a sister?” Mr Bennet interrupted, astonished. “I did not know!”

“She is dead,” Mrs Gardiner said grimly. “Dead these eleven years.”

Louise was five years younger than her sister, a blossoming beauty of fifteen, when she came to the notice of Mr Wickham. He was attending his first year at Cambridge, and came home for the Easter holidays. The young Mr Darcy had gone to visit his aunt in Kent and Mr Darcy the elder was unwell, the first hints of the illness that would take his life four years later laying him low. Mr Wickham, bored and in want of diversion, turned his sights on Miss Louise Thompson. She, dazzled by his good looks and charm, allowed herself to be entranced. Believed his whispers that they would be married as soon as he finished his studies.

“And then the holidays ended,” Madeline said bitterly, “and he was off back to Cambridge.”

Elizabeth and her father looked at each other, and then back at Mrs Gardiner. “Well – this does not sound so very wicked,” Mr Bennet said slowly, “rather a case of young love that had no time to blossom.”

“Oh, it blossomed all right,” Madeline said, and then, to their mutual horror, she raised her hand and described with it an arc above her belly.

“No!” Elizabeth gasped.

Oh, yes. Louise Thompson was with child, and when the unworldly young girl realised what had happened to her – several months on – who else could she confide in but her beloved big sister? By then the summer holidays had come and gone too, Wickham and his promises with them, and Louise finally understood that the plumping of her belly was not due to eating too many sweetmeats.

At first, Louise was convinced it would be all right, that her lover would come directly home and marry her, and she managed to convince Madeline of that as well. But by the time October came around, Louise’s swelling belly was becoming too hard to conceal and her letters to Cambridge went unanswered. Madeline gathered up her courage and went to Pemberley. Mr Wickham senior was dead by then, but it was known that Mr Darcy was the younger man’s godfather: he would ensure Wickham married Louise and everything would be all right.

Mr Darcy senior, though, was not at Pemberley. He was in London. Having known Mrs Reynolds for many years, Madeline asked to speak to her privately and poured out Louise’s tale. Disapproving, but sympathetic, Mrs Reynolds promised to write to the master.

“But before a response could be had, Louise went into labour,” Madeline concluded. “She was more than two months before her time. The distress and the worry caused it, the doctor believed – and the fact that she was carrying twins. Neither my sister nor her daughters survived the birth. She died in my arms, still believing that her dear Wickham would come for her.”

Elizabeth was wide-eyed with shock. Mr Bennet, older, and a man of the world, sat back, thought for a moment and said “Mrs Gardiner, this is a shocking tale – but – it is a story of a young man of but eighteen or so. I do not doubt he was most regretful…”

“He denied it all,” Mrs Gardiner said flatly. “When informed of the date of Louise’s lying-in, he claimed that he could not possibly have been the father, because he had been at Cambridge around the dates she had to have conceived. She was not even seven months along; but it was twins and they were big. Everyone thought her further along than she was, and so Wickham managed to convince the elder Mr Darcy that Louise had lied. No one had ever seen them together – I had no inkling of it until she told me – but my sister was no liar. She had no reason to lie. Any other man would have married her in a minute, and my father would have seen them well set-up. As it was, the shock killed him – he died, I am convinced of a broken heart, not a month after Louise – and I went to Oxford to stay with my brother while he finished his studies – which is where I met my dear Edward.”

She went on to tell them that her reputation had been destroyed along with Louise’s in Lambton, but there were still a few faithful friends there who maintained correspondence with her. One of those friends had told the younger Mr Darcy of Louise and Wickham, after he inherited Pemberley, and a year or so after that he had come to visit the Gardiners in London. He told Mrs Gardiner that he did not doubt her story for a moment, that Wickham had been just as wild in his behaviour at Cambridge, and offered his sincere condolences for her sister’s death.