Searching for Pemberley (4 page)

When Beth returned from church, she found me sitting at the kitchen table rereading the letter yet again.

“Jack stays after church and plays backgammon with the pastor,” she explained while removing her hat and gloves. “The house is too quiet for him with our older son, James, living in London with his wife and daughter, and our younger son, Michael, serving in the RAF on Malta. Jack's mother, a perfectly wonderful soul, lived with us until she died two years ago.”

Beth asked about my family, and I told her a little bit about my sisters. Katie was a new mother, Annie had joined the Sisters of St. Joseph, a religious order, and Sadie was a recent high school graduate. And then there was Patrick. He was my only brother, but with a brother like Patrick, one was enough. His own grandmother referred to him as “one of the divil's own.”

Minooka had its fair share of boys who got into mischief on a regular basis. Patrick was just more creative than most. He had been expelled from the Catholic school we all attended in Scranton and was banned from most homes in town with good reason. When he had led a strike at the high school and gave an interview to a reporter from the Scranton newspaper where my father worked, my parents had finally had enough. He was sent to live with my mother's brother, who ran a bootleg coal operation, and Uncle Bill worked his butt off. Patrick behaved himself for a while, but it took the Navy to really straighten him out.

But I didn't want to talk about my family. I wanted to talk about Mary's letter. “May I ask where you got the letter?”

“Jack's Aunt Margie. She had a keen interest in the Lacey
family history because of their connection to
Pride and Prejudice
. Margie traveled around England, searching for the people and places in the novel. By going through church records, she found the Garrisons, six girls and one boy. The youngest girl had died when she was two and the boy when he was twelve.”

Placing a teapot, two cups and saucers, and a plate of biscuits on a tray, Beth gestured for me to follow her into the parlor. She had a way of carrying herself that was almost regal, especially when compared to her husband, who reminded me of a former football player who had taken a hit or two. Their class differences were especially noticeable when they spoke. Beth's accent was definitely upper class, while Jack's was the local Derbyshire dialect.

After pouring the tea into dainty Belleek china cups, Beth explained how it was that the Garrison/Bennet family had managed to evade the entail.

“After George Waggoner's death, Lucy married Jake Edwards. I'm referring to Austen's Wickham and Lydia. I'm not sure if the farm is still owned by the Edwards family, but it was right before the First War. Reluctantly, Mrs. Edwards admitted to Margie that the family was the inspiration for the Bennet family. It wasn't talked up because they didn't particularly like how the Bennets were portrayed in the book. She thought they were either silly or lazy or, in Lucy's case, of low moral character.

“Mrs. Edwards allowed Margie to go up into her attic, where she found the letter from Mary to Charlotte in a portable writing desk, what was known as an escritoire. Fortunately for us, Mary never posted the letter to Charlotte. Mrs. Edwards told Margie to take the whole lot, saying that no one in her family cared about old letters and papers. She seemed to want to be rid of them short of actually throwing them on the fire. Margie got as much history
out of Mrs. Edwards as she could, but it wasn't much. She knew that Waggoner's regiment had been transferred to Canada because Lucy had moved back home, which must have been difficult for everyone, but most especially for Mary. The last person in the world she wanted to live with was Lucy, whom she considered to be a fallen woman because of her hurried marriage with Waggoner.

“After Charlotte married William Chatterton, Jane Austen's unctuous Mr. Collins, Mary visited with the Chattertons in Kent. When Lucy took up permanent residence at her parents' home, Mary again visited Charlotte, but she never went home. There is a whole other story about those three living together, but I'll save that for another time.”

I thanked Beth for what was clearly an invitation to return. Jack had come home about midway through the story but seemed content to let his wife tell it.

“The reason William Chatterton didn't inherit the estate was simply a matter of Mr. Garrison outliving him. Since the entail stipulated that the heir must be a male, Charlotte could not inherit. After Mr. Garrison's death, the estate passed to the next male descendant in the family, Jane Garrison and Charles Bingham's oldest son. That kept the farm in the Garrison family. Charlotte and Mary eventually returned to the village of Bennets End, the book's Meryton, and lived in a house in the village until their deaths.”

Looking at the grandfather clock in their entryway, I thanked the Crowells for sharing what they knew of the Lacey and Bingham families and for their hospitality. I was pleased I had been invited back because we had barely touched the surface of the story, but I also liked Beth and Jack and wanted to see them again.

On the drive to Pamela's house, I asked Jack what it was like growing up at Montclair. “Fantastic! My father's family served as butlers to the Laceys for three generations, and my mother was the housekeeper. By the way, the housekeeper's job in a house of that size has nothing to do with dusting.

“Except for the cooking, my mother and father saw to everything else in order to keep the house running smoothly, including being in charge of all the servants who didn't work for Mrs. Bradshaw, the cook, who had her own little fiefdom downstairs. The Laceys entertained a lot, so my parents' jobs were very demanding. My brother and I were pressed into service when the Laceys had their big affairs. We had our own evening clothes, white gloves and all. We were the cat's meow,” he said, winking at me. “We'd help the ladies out of their motor cars or their carriages because some people were still traveling by horse and carriage. When some of the male guests started driving their own cars and not using chauffeurs, we were allowed to park them. That was a big deal in those days.

“The Laceys had four children, three boys and a girl. Along with my brother, Tom, we were all great mates—very close in age. After chores, we played football every day during the summer. The second oldest boy, Matthew, and my brother, Tom, were two of the best footballers I'd ever see.”

Arriving at Pamela's house, Jack opened the car door for me. “Beth thought you might want to have something to read on the way back to town.” He handed me a large brown envelope.

On the train ride to London, I told Pamela about my overnight visit with the Crowells and asked her if she believed that the Laceys were the Darcys.

“A lot of people in Stepton believe it, including my mum. I think a lot of it's true, but I've always had a hard time with all the coincidences. You know, Darcy and the evil Wickham being in Meryton at exactly the same time, and Mr. Collins being Darcy's aunt's minister and the Bennets' cousin. Stuff like that. It's just too much. But if you look at the big picture, the two families had enough in common so you think maybe Jane Austen had heard about the Laceys and Garrisons and had used them for the Darcys and Bennets.” After listening to Pamela, I felt a bit silly believing any of it. She was absolutely right—too many coincidences.

When I finally settled into bed for the night, I opened the brown envelope. It contained a letter from William Lacey to his cousin, Anne Desmet, who was the novel's Anne de Bourgh. Her mother, Lady Sylvia Desmet, was Jane Austen's overbearing aristocrat, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

26 March 1792

Dear Anne,

Please be assured that I will send Mr. Oldham for you a week Monday as promised. If your mother has any objection, I will come and bring you to London myself. Georgiana is especially eager for your visit, as she wants you to hear the pieces she has been practicing so diligently.

Bingham has taken a lease on a house in the country and will remain there until such time as he finds a property of sufficient acreage to satisfy his passion for horses and hunting. Hopefully, that will be soon, as there is no reason to linger here. He has already befriended many of the
neighbourhood families, and, in turn, he has been visited by every gentleman who has a daughter of marriageable age.

The day after my arrival, Bingham insisted that I attend a local assembly. I was in no humour to do so, as I had just come from a visit with Mrs. Manyard regarding her son. I told the lady that it was impossible for me to continue to pay Roger's gaming debts, and that I had instructed my solicitor to contact the gaming houses he frequents and let it be known that Manyard's debts would no longer be discharged by his client. Up to this point, I had avoided involving my solicitor because I did not wish to revisit this whole unfortunate affair. I do not blame my father for seeking female companionship after my mother's death, but he erred in seeking comfort from Mrs. Manyard, a woman of such low birth. I hope my visit will put an end to any further contact.

At the assembly, Bingham met an attractive young lady, the daughter of a gentleman farmer, who seems to have captivated him. He kept insisting that I dance, but as you know, country dances are much closer to athletic events than to actual dancing, and I had no wish to bound about the room in unfamiliar company. Unfortunately, my comment that the only thing worse than dancing was to be forced into conversation with such company was overheard by the young lady's sister. I considered apologizing but decided that, since I will not be seeing her again, it was of little importance.

Fondly,

Will

If this really was a letter from William Lacey to his cousin, Anne Desmet, then it revealed that Will's father had a mistress, and his son was left to handle the fallout from the relationship! And what was Roger Manyard to Will Lacey? No wonder he was in such a bad mood when he attended the assembly. The letter also showed that, although Will dismissed the insult heard by Elizabeth as being of no importance, he had noticed her.

I could only guess that the reason I had been given this letter was to back up the Crowells' claim that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy were Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey. What I needed to know was, where did they get the letter?

WITH SO MANY BUILDINGS destroyed in air raids, housing in London was at a premium. A friend of a friend from my time in Germany had found a place for me to stay with her former neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Dawkins. The room I rented was a tiny bedroom sitter on the third floor of a terrace house in a working-class neighborhood in north London. My rent included kitchen privileges if I cooked my own food or, if I chose to eat with the family, I was charged for the meals. This was necessary because an austerity program had recently been implemented, which included additional cuts in food rations.

As for bathing, I could have a bath if I gave Mrs. Dawkins enough notice so that she could turn on the hot water. There was a line drawn around the tub to indicate when the maximum allowable height of five inches had been reached—a holdover from the war. When I paid my rent, Mrs. Dawkins totaled up all of my baths and charged me extra for them. As long as I watched out for the wallpaper and carpet, Mrs. Dawkins was a fair if not the friendliest landlady.

More than two years after the war, it wasn't difficult to find evidence of a city that had been bombed night after night during the Blitz and later with V-1 and V-2 rockets. Vacant lots where bombed-out buildings had been cleared were a common sight, especially near St. Paul's, where only the archdeacon's house had miraculously survived, and certain areas were cordoned off because of the instability of the buildings or unexploded bombs. There were shortages of fruit, eggs, meat, and petrol, but as an employee of the Army Exchange Service, I had access to government commodities at the Post Exchange. I shared some of the scarcer items, such as sugar, flour, tea, and coffee, as well as Spam, with Mrs. Dawkins, who doled them out to her neighbors.