Chapter 24

William Collins was beyond pleased as he looked on all that would be his as soon as the current master did his duty and died. The house looked far larger than he had been led to believe based on what his late father had told him.

Collins was a man of eight and twenty, below average height, on the portly side, but not exceedingly so. The wide brimmed, black, clergyman’s hat which adorned his head hid the fact he was balding on the crown of his head. No matter how much he greased and styled the few long hairs remaining, they did not hide the truth from the world: he had very little hair on the top of his head. He was vexed at the disrespect shown him, the rightful heir of the estate, as only one person was waiting to welcome him to his future home.

He climbed down from the seat and approached the man waiting for him. “Cousin Bennet I assume. I would have expected…” Collins closed his mouth as the man interjected.

“I am not your cousin, Mr. Collins. My name is Hill, Longbourn’s butler.” he intoned.

When he discovered the man who greeted him was not his cousin but the butler, Collins’s anger burned hot. How dare his cousin humiliate him in this fashion! He would exact his revenge by refusing to marry one of his daughters and then as soon as his cousin passed away, before the man’s body was cold, he would throw the wife and daughters from his estate into the hedgerows.

“Where is my cousin?” Collins demanded frostily.

“If you will follow me, I will show you to the drawing room where the family awaits you,” Hill requested. First he instructed two footmen to take the guest’s trunk to his chamber. Then he led Mr. Collins into the house and to the drawing room. “Mr. Collins,” Hill announced before the curate could push past him.

As he was about to express his anger, Collins noticed there were many more in the room than he expected, certainly he had not anticipated there would be so many males present. One of the men looked familiar to him but for the moment he could not place the man.

“Which of you is Cousin Bennet?” Collins entreated.

“I am,” chorused several persons, both male and female.

“My male cousin,” an exasperated Collins returned. To his chagrin three men replied they were. For the first time Collins truly looked at those who had claimed to be his cousins. One was older and two younger, but they all resembled one another closely. He was greatly confused.

“I suppose we should introduce you to those in the room,” Bennet proposed. He did not wait before he began. “Lord James Carrington, Viscount Hadlock,” As he bowed low on hearing the rank, Collins did not see the looks of amusement from those assembled before him. Bennet continued on regardless. “The Honourable Mr. Richard Fitzwilliam of Rosings Park in Kent…”

“The one who dishonoured his aunt and tried to steal her estate while denying me the living I deserved,” Collins interjected with venom in his voice, as he recognised from where he knew the man.

“You dunderheaded, pusillanimous bootlicker!” Richard barked causing Collins to shrink back. “It seems you are unable to see the truth even when it is as plain as the sun in the sky. I owe you no explanation but my late aunt was the one who attempted to usurp my rightful inheritance. I cared far too much for the spiritual wellbeing of my tenants and the other members of the parish to entrust them to a sycophantic dullard like you. Now I suggest you close your mouth before you display your ignorance more than you have, and allow Bennet to continue to make the introductions.”

By now Collins was sweating with fear. Not only were there several large and fit looking men in the room, but he turned slightly and glanced towards the door and noticed two of the most enormous men standing behind him. “P-p-please c-continue C-Cousin,” Collins stammered.

“Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, my brother-in-law, Mr. Frank Philips, who is also my solicitor, and his clerk, Mr. George Wickham.” Bennet turned to his family. “Mrs. Frances Bennet, my wife and Mrs. Elizabeth Bennet, my mother. My daughters Jane, Mary, Catherine, and Lydia. Lastly Miss Elizabeth, who until very recently, we thought was our daughter. Then we come to these two, who their relationship to us was only recently revealed; my sons Saul and Philip Bennet.”

He had heard the words but his brain was having an impossible time of understanding them. Before he thought Collins blurted out, “How can you have sons? They must be imposters! My father assured me he had made sure you would never have a live son…” Seeing the thunderous looks being directed at him, Collins closed his mouth with a clack. It was then he understood what he had just admitted.

“What did your late damned, sorry ladies, father do?” Bennet demanded.

In a panic Collins attempted to break for the door but he ran into a solid wall of muscle. Biggs and Johns looked to their respective masters who both nodded. Each man hooked one of his enormous hands under one of the quaking curate’s arms and effortlessly lifted him a foot above the ground and then turned and forced the petrified man to face those in the drawing room.

“Cathy and Lydia, please return to Mrs. Frost and your lessons,” Bennet instructed.

Lydia especially wanted to remain but she would not disobey her father. The two curtsied to those in the room—other than the curate suspended between the two footmen—and made their way up the stairs.

“Now Collins, tell us all, and if we think you are dissembling we will allow Biggs and Johns here to have some sport with you,” Bennet stated menacingly.

Out of a desire for self-preservation Collins accurately related what his father had told him some weeks before his murder. By this time he was crying from fear and was sure that the men holding him would be beating him soon enough.

“You may put him down,” Bennet told the two footmen. “There is a room with no windows in the stables, lock him in it and make sure the door is well guarded until we decide what to do with this snivelling waste of humanity. He is to be unharmed,” Bennet did not miss the look of relief Collins displayed, “for now.” The look vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Biggs and Johns marched the shuddering man out of the drawing room and the house.

“I am sure as soon as my parents, the aunts, and uncles arrive, they will agree there is a need to interrogate Mrs. Brown and her daughters,” Jamey stated.

“It is the only way we will know the whole of the truth,” Fanny agreed.

“Thankfully for us, at least we know Mrs. Brown refused to murder us as babes,” Philip noted. “It seems she chose to make the swap instead. However, as Jamey indicated, it is all conjecture until we confront the Browns.”

“Papa, do you think Mr. Collins has the Bennet birthmark?” Elizabeth wondered.

“As the first Collins male was a Bennet, it is quite possible,” Bennet averred. “Why do you ask Lizzy?”

“I was thinking that as far as we know this Mr. Collins has done nothing illegal, has he?” Elizabeth postulated. Her father allowed it was probably so. “His belief that Longbourn was stolen from the Collins line was ingrained in him by his father, and I am sure, his grandfather as well. Would it hurt if we attempted to show him the proof of the truth?”

“Lizzy may be onto something,” Beth Bennet agreed. “If he can accept he has been lied to the whole of his life, he could end up being a productive member of society.”

“It is something to consider,” Bennet allowed.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

After spending time cooing at their new granddaughter and great niece, the three sisters were sitting with their husbands and Andrew in a cozy parlour when the butler entered bearing a silver salver. Rather than his master, he approached the Earl of Holder and proffered the salver to him.

Holder took the letter and the butler retired from the room. The Earl broke his son’s seal and skimmed the missive after he unfolded it. “Good God,” was all he managed. “It is to all of us, I will read it aloud.

“25 July 1808

“Netherfield Park

“Mother, Father, Uncles Bedford and Matlock, Aunts Rose and Elaine,

“You all need to hie to the above estate as soon as may be. I would not normally write the following in a letter if I were sending it by royal post, but as I am using one of our couriers, I have not the concern it will go astray.

“I will condense the tale as much as I am able in hope of seeing you all here soon enough. There is no easy way to say this, so I will be direct. Saul and Philip are not of our blood.”

Rose and Cilla gasped simultaneously. “This cannot be! Saul is my son and Philip is Cilla’s. No one will ever convince me differently!” Rose insisted defiantly not wanting to consider the alternative.

“As disconcerting as this is for you to hear, Cilla and Sisters, give me leave to continue reading,” Holder requested. Both affected mothers nodded tightly.

“The same is true for the Bennets, who were the other family who were at the inn in Meryton when the babes were born on the 5th day of March 1790. Sadly it seems there were 4 babes born, not 3. Saul and Philip are twins! The birthmark they have is unique to those of Bennet blood and they resemble the portrait taken of Bennet very closely. It was painted when he was 20. In addition, there is no mistaking the resemblance even now.

“Additionally, the young lady who was born that night and has been known as Miss Elizabeth Bennet looks like younger versions of Aunts Rose and Elaine, and bears many similarities to Mother.

“I will not say more at this time, other than it is imperative for you to journey hither without delay. William has sent a similar letter to Pemberley.

“With regards and respect,

“Jamey”

“You must all depart as soon as may be,” Andrew was the first to speak. “I will tell Belle what has occurred when she wakes from her nap.”

“Andrew has the right of it. We must away with speed,” Bedford agreed.

“Please send a courier to announce our coming,” Matlock requested of his eldest. Andrew nodded and made for his study to scribe the missive.

No one addressed the sword of Damocles hanging over two of the sisters. If all of this was correct, then one of them had a babe which had been stillborn or died shortly after its birth.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

The express from William reached Pemberley a little later in the day than the one which had been directed to Holder Heights. The reactions were very similar. Even though the Darcys were only in fact related to the Fitzwilliams, they had always felt as close as family by blood to the Rhys-Davies and the Carringtons.

There was no question they needed to travel and support the families about to have their lives turned on their heads. Even living in the same house as Miss Caroline Bingley, and putting up with her behaviour, would not deter them from rushing to be with their family and close friends.

The Darcy traveling coach, followed by a carriage with the master’s and mistress’s personal servants was on the road within an hour of receiving the note.

A fresh courier was dispatched to Netherfield Park with the information of their coming.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Collins did not know what to expect when a footman led him back into the house a few hours later, but kindness had not even entered his consciousness as a possibility. He was unrestrained and invited to take a seat in the drawing room with the same people who had been present when he had arrived and been humiliated.

“Mr. Collins, do you have a triangular, off red birthmark on your right upper arm?” Bennet asked directly.

“I do; what of it?” Collins replied tentatively.

“That birthmark is only found on Bennets by blood,” Bennet explained. “What that tells you is that although your name is now Collins, the first Collins was in fact a Bennet.”

The information rocked Collins back on his heels. Had he not always been told the Collins’s history was longer and more illustrious than the Bennets? If what Mr. Bennet was saying was true, then what he had learnt was false.

With the family bible and documents to aide him, Bennet laid out the family history and the truth of why there had been a split in the first place. Included in the evidence were the vowels which had been signed pledging parts of Longbourn to satisfy debts of honour. As much as he wanted to refute the claims, Collins recognised the writing as his great-grandfather’s which was found in his own family bible.

Next Bennet revealed what the investigators had uncovered regarding Clem Collins and his criminal activities. As Collins attempted to make sense of what he was being shown and told, his mind returned to all the things he had been told about his father, and especially to when his dear mother had her accident on the stairs in their home and what his father had told him afterwards. As the fog of the lies his father and grandfather had told him lifted, it hit Collins like a wild stallion’s kick to the gut—his father had murdered his mother. Following that epiphany, the understanding that nothing he had been told was true was not far behind.

“Longbourn was never mine or my family’s birthright, was it?” Collins verified.

“No it was not. If it was, why would the Bennets be able to stand against a legal challenge?” Philips asked. “Also, why would your late father have felt it necessary to order the murder of any male Bennet offspring?”

“Think about it, all of the deception and perfidy was on your father’s side, not ours,” Bennet stated.

“This is all so much.” Collins was feeling overwhelmed by the realisations which were washing over him in a seemingly unending line of waves. “May I request some solitude to think on everything?”

Bennet looked at his wife who nodded. “Biggs here will show you to your chamber. He will be in the hall and escort you back to us when you feel you are ready,” Bennet granted.

Without another word, Collins followed the huge footman out of the drawing room.

“Just like the rest of us, his whole world has been upended,” Jane stated. “Let us hope he is able to accept the truth and move on.”

Richard squeezed Jane’s hand with pride and the others in the room nodded their agreement.