Searching for Pemberley (28 page)

When we arrived at Crofton Wood, Beth had prepared a casual tea that she was serving on the patio. She had just returned from the village, which was humming once again with visitors on their way to the Peak District.

After lunch, I returned the parcel containing all of the letters to Beth, and she asked me if I had any questions. I hesitated for too long, and she noticed I was uncomfortable. She put her arm around me and walked me into the house. “Tell me what's bothering you.”

After telling her of my reservations, she said, “You think that the diary may be a forgery. Is that your concern? Well, let me put your mind at ease. It is not a forgery. To the best of my knowledge, the diary has never been outside of Montclair since Elizabeth's death.”

“How is it possible that there are so many similarities?”

With a look of total confidence, Beth said, “Maggie, we have discussed every character in that book except one. Can you think who it is?”

I ran through all the cast of characters in my mind before realizing who I had missed: Georgiana Lacey. Beth nodded. “Yes, she's the last piece of the puzzle.” I asked Beth if I was finally going to hear about the mysterious Mr. Oldham. “Yes,” Beth said. “After this, you will know it all.

“Georgiana Lacey was a talented pianist, and her brother arranged for her to study with a master in London. Because it
was necessary for his sister to remain in town, Will Lacey hired a companion for her, a Mrs. Brotherton, but if Georgiana wanted to do anything out of the ordinary, it required his permission. When Georgiana was just about seventeen, she wrote to her brother asking if Mrs. Brotherton and she could go to Weymouth, a popular bathing resort, and indicated in her letter that George Waggoner had offered to accompany them for their protection.

“Now, in Georgiana's defense, she knew nothing bad about Waggoner. What she did know was that he was the son of Montclair's steward and had been mentioned in her father's will. As soon as Will received the letter, he set off for London. After questioning his sister, he learnt that Waggoner had visited the townhouse on more than one occasion, so Will immediately discharged Mrs. Brotherton. We know all of this because Mrs. Brotherton wrote to Will asking to be reinstated. She explained that Georgiana had assured her that Waggoner was a friend of the family. When Waggoner offered to escort them to Weymouth, Mrs. Brotherton insisted that Georgiana write to her brother for permission. They were awaiting his answer when Will arrived at the townhouse in person. Mrs. Brotherton said she had done everything that had been asked of her, and to be discharged in such a manner, was unfair.

“To his credit, Will relented and reinstated her. However, his subsequent action was completely over the top. He wrote to George Bingham, asking if he could hire one of his men. George was a wise man. He knew a young girl wouldn't want to be seen around town with some bewhiskered strongman. Instead, he sent Mr. Oldham, a handsome man in his mid-twenties, who was perfectly capable of protecting Georgiana. As long as Mr. Oldham was with her, Georgiana could travel to Kent or Derbyshire or Bath.

“When Will and Elizabeth married, Georgiana lived with them at Montclair and in London. Georgiana was delighted by her brother's choice of wife and shared the story of Lizzy and Will's romance with a group of women who attended a Bible study at the parsonage led by Charlotte Chatterton. Anne Desmet added what she knew, and I'm sure Mary Garrison told everyone about Lucy's elopement with Waggoner. She probably saw it as a morality tale. But there were two other women in this group, a Miss Knatchbull and a Miss Leigh, both cousins of Jane Austen.”

Beth handed me a letter from Will to Anne in which he acknowledged that parts of
Pride and Prejudice
were a retelling of his courtship of Elizabeth Garrison. Will, Elizabeth, and Charlotte all seemed to be pleased with Jane Austen's description of them and the events recorded in the novel.

13 September 1813

Dear Anne,

I was glad to hear that Col. Devereaux was able to be with you for Christmas. When next you see him, ask him why he was not defending us against Monsieur Bonaparte instead of dancing in Bath.

Yes, I have read Miss Austen's novel. As you can imagine, Elizabeth is the most pleased with it, as she appears in the best light. My wife has assured me I am not nearly as boorish as portrayed and that I have improved greatly under her instruction. Jane also admires it, as she is quite happy with how Elizabeth and her husband are described.

Jane's daughter, Miranda, says the novel is talked of everywhere in London and it has prompted a guessing game
as to the identities of its characters. Of course, no one thinks to look back twenty years. Once we recognized ourselves in the story, it prompted our own investigation as to how Miss Austen came to know of our affairs. We finally traced the source to my sister. Georgiana admits she is one of the sources and has no regrets for sharing the story with a group of women whom she knew in Kent. She feels she has additional protection because, apparently, you were not only there when these stories were being told but provided some of the information.

I wonder if your little group would have been so willing to share stories if you knew that two of the ladies present were cousins of a talented novelist. I am teasing you because, with the passage of twenty years, who will ever learn the names of the people who inspired the author? Of course, the description of your mother's behaviour is devastating but not undeserved, and more than anyone else, you are the most inaccurately portrayed.

Elizabeth and all the children are well. The only complaint comes from Franny who misses Chris terribly now that he and Laurence have returned to school—one of the disadvantages of being a twin. Georgiana, Nathan, and Stephen were with us during the holidays, and as talented a pianist as Georgiana is, her son outshines her. His fingering is amazing to watch. As for Phoebe, unlike her older sister, she is very sociable and talks of nothing other than her coming out into society. Despite her pleadings, she will have to wait until she is eighteen. Of course, to a sixteen-year-old girl, two years seem an eternity, but you and I know how quickly the years pass. I can hardly believe that it has been twenty years since I took my lovely wife as my bride.

Elizabeth sends her love. We will send word of our arrival date in Bath, as soon as our plans have been finalized.

Your devoted cousin,
Will

“Now that you know it all, you can appreciate what a master storyteller Jane Austen was. She took a moderately interesting story and turned it into a timeless novel.”

I must have still looked confused, so she continued: “Let me give you an example of how Miss Austen spun straw into gold. In
Pride and Prejudice
, Darcy comes upon Georgiana just as Wickham has persuaded her to elope with him, and his intervention prevents the ruin of his sister. The truth is that Georgiana never left London and would never have married Waggoner without her brother's consent. I'm sure if Mrs. Brotherton were alive in 1813 and had read
Pride and Prejudice
, she would have been horrified to see her character portrayed as the complicit Mrs. Younge.”

“What did happen to Georgiana?” I asked.

“Remember Mr. Oldham? He went to Will and resigned his position as Georgiana's protector. He said if Georgiana had ever been vulnerable to the likes of someone like Waggoner, it had long since passed. Because he had developed an attachment for her that was not appropriate to his job, he had to give up his position, and Will accepted his resignation. But when Georgiana found out about Oldham, she told her brother that she loved him.

“Will wouldn't have been all that surprised because Georgiana had accompanied Lizzy and Will on their honeymoon, which
lasted more than a year. When the party returned to England, Georgiana asked that Mr. Oldham be reinstated, and in doing so, she had tipped her hand. After marrying, they lived in London at the Lacey townhouse, and Nathan Oldham started his own, for want of a better term, detective agency.”

When Beth finished telling me about the Oldhams, I realized I had heard the stories of all the actors in Jane Austen's novel. The only part of the larger story that had not been told was about Beth's brother Reed, and I would have to accept that. I was thinking about all of this when Beth said: “Maggie, you have been very considerate in not asking personal questions, but if you don't mind, I would like to tell you about my family.” Jack came and sat down next to his wife on the sofa, and Rob came and sat on a chair near me.

“Years from now, your generation will divide events into things that happened before Pearl Harbor and those that happened after. The demarcation line for my generation is 1914.

“Christmas of 1913 is one of my most cherished memories. We were all at home for the holidays. The servants came to the breakfast room for our traditional holiday tea, and we had such a good time. Jack and I had fallen in love during our summer auto tour visiting the sites mentioned in
Pride and Prejudice
, and if for no other reason, I am grateful to Jane Austen for writing her novel.

“None of us could possibly have imagined our world would self-destruct in 1914. There had been saber rattling all summer among Britain, France, and Germany. However, when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated, we didn't know that that event would lead to the ruin of so many lives.

“Trevor enlisted a few weeks after the war started and
was killed at the Battle of Loos in September 1915. Matthew and Tom joined the Sherwood Foresters with many of their friends from the Crofton football club. So many of them were killed on the Somme in 1916, that there was black bunting on almost every door in Crofton. Matthew's remains were never recovered, but he is commemorated on the Wall of Remembrance at Thiepval in France, and Tom is buried in a cemetery nearby.

“My youngest brother, Reed, was not called up after his first physical, but as time went on and England needed more cannon fodder, he was accepted into the Army. He served as an orderly in Boulogne loading stretcher cases onto boats taking them to England. He might have been all right if he had remained an orderly. However, when the Germans broke through the British lines early in 1918, General Haig issued an order that every person must do his duty. Matron told us we would remain at our posts and do ours because, if the Germans weren't stopped in front of Amiens, Britain would lose the war. Reed was in combat for only a short time, but it was enough. He was sent back to England to a mental hospital.

“Reed eventually ended up at Craiglockhart in Scotland. The head of the hospital, W.H.R. Rivers, was a visionary who had taught experimental psychology at Cambridge. In other hospitals, many shell-shock victims were treated with drugs or electroconvulsive therapy, but Dr. Rivers believed the best results might be achieved by talking to these poor souls.

“After Craiglockhart, my parents placed my brother in a private hospital near home, and he improved enough to be discharged to their care. When they brought him home to Montclair, he couldn't stand the sound of so many noises that are
part of everyday life. If someone dropped a glass, or he heard a car on the road, he huddled in a corner. But the worst sound was a train whistle. Jack thinks it's because assaults or artillery barrages often started with an officer blowing a whistle. When Reed was unsettled, he would move furniture in front of his bedroom door. And there were relapses.”

At this point, Beth stopped talking. She leaned back in her chair, and for a minute or two, she sat quietly. Although it was clearly an effort to continue, she did.

“My Aunt Ginny's in-laws had a hunting lodge west of Perth, and she suggested that my parents see if Reed would do better there. It was very remote, being used only a few times a year for fishing and grouse shooting. The estate was owned in common by the Burdens, and several of the families, including my Aunt Ginny, had their own cabins. She offered her cabin to my parents for Reed's use. The Burdens employed a full-time gillie, Mr. Lachlan, who managed the estate. He and his wife agreed to look after my brother when my parents were not able to be there. Reed did improve, especially after my father returned from Montclair with six of our dogs.

“I had been corresponding with Margie Loftus, the nurse who had been in charge of my training at a London hospital. I asked her for suggestions because she had such a calming effect on the wounded men in her care. Margie was Scots by birth, and she wrote back asking if the family would consider hiring her as Reed's personal nurse. My mother interviewed Margie, who was ten years older than my brother, and came away feeling that Reed would benefit from her experience and care.

“The people in the nearest village were very kind, but in such a conservative society, a woman did not live with a man unless
they were married. So, for about a year, Margie lived at the lodge while Reed stayed alone in the cabin. Not the best arrangement. It was Margie who suggested that she and Reed marry. In that way, she could take care of him by herself, allowing my parents to resume some semblance of a normal life. They got married in 1924. By that time, Reed could not have lived without Margie, and he was so happy she wanted to be married to him.

“It was then that my parents gave up Montclair. I had no objections because I was haunted by the memory of my brothers running up and down those staircases or racing in the long gallery. The house had become unbearable for me.

“After Reed's marriage, Jack, the boys, and I went to India and visited whenever we were home. Margie came up with the idea of building a stone-wall enclosure. She hired some local lads from the village to collect the stones. After hundreds of stones had been collected, Reed and Margie began to build the wall, which was only about four-feet high. He believed that as long as he was within the wall, he was safe, even if Margie wasn't with him. This was so important because it allowed Margie to go into the village and to have some time for herself.

“It was such a success that additions were made. They built the wall so that it ran down to a nearby stream. Now Reed could go fishing, which was something he loved to do. After they added a gate, Reed felt comfortable enough to walk down to the road.