My Cousin Caroline: The acclaimed Pride and Prejudice sequel series The Pemberley Chronicles Book 6

by Rebecca Ann Collins

  Captivated by youth and good looks, he had married a woman of weak understanding and unstable disposition, realising too late that his imprudence had put an end to any hope of real domestic happiness. His elder daughters Jane and Lizzie had both been well aware of the sad lack of any esteem or understanding in their parents' marriage.

  Looking to change the subject, lest it should cause her father pain, she sought in her mind some other matter to address when, to her immense relief, the door opened and Mr Darcy came to join them.

  He brought news that was sure to lift Mr Bennet's spirits.

  An invitation had been received from Sir Thomas Camden for Mr Darcy and his guests to visit Camden House, where a rare collection of books had recently been received into the library.

  “It includes the diary and notebooks of one of our first explorers, and I am assured by Sir Thomas that it is quite absorbing.” said Darcy.

  “Mr Darcy, I can think of nothing I would like better,” said Mr Bennet, and Elizabeth noted how swiftly her father's mind was engaged as they talked together eagerly of the earliest possible date on which they could arrange a visit to Camden House. No trace remained of his earlier melancholy mood.

  THE YEARS FOLLOWING THE DELAYED coronation of George IV were not particularly glorious or happy ones for most of the people of his kingdom.

  While the King appeared more concerned with his private affairs and the desire to wreak vengeance upon a recalcitrant Queen, whom he wished to discard, the government lurched from one crisis to the next.

  Dominated by a high Tory faction, they had set their minds against reform as firmly and implacably as the King had refused to allow his legal wife to be crowned in the abbey with him.

  Repressive measures against those who demanded change, such as the infamous Six Acts, meant that all but the most determined or foolhardy of Reformists like Cobbett and Hunt were driven underground or overseas. Meanwhile, gentlemen farmers and absentee landlords alike continued to enclose farms and common land, evicting rural families, whose only recourse was to the work house or the grimy tenements of factory towns, where they either worked or stole to eke out a living.

  In the Midlands, where unemployment was rising, agitators and machine breakers plagued the lives of the few men—usually middle-class entrepreneurs—who kept some industries running and contributed to the expansion of trade.

  Mr Gardiner was confident that it was the only route out of the despair that had gripped the country. As he was fond of reminding everyone he met, not all of whom agreed with him, “Free commerce, not protectionism, is the solution. Only trade will bring Britain out of depression.” Mr Darcy, convinced he was right, supported his view, but many did not.

  Amidst all this gloom and unease, on a bleak North Country morning, church bells rang out across the village of Lambton and a large crowd of relations, friends, and neighbours turned out to see Caroline Gardiner and Colonel Fitzwilliam married.

  The colonel, having consulted his father-in-law and his bride, had invited the entire village of Lambton as well as his own tenants and workers from his property at Matlock. Housed in a large marquee erected upon the lawns of Oakleigh Manor, everyone who attended, from Sir Thomas and Lady Camden to the humblest tenant-farmer and his nine children, was made welcome. It was something unheard of in the village and very much appreciated by the people Fitzwilliam hoped to represent in the Commons after the next election.

  Thankfully, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, being unwell, did not grace the occasion, else she might have suffered a seizure from the shock of it.

  It was a phenomenon that certainly left Mrs Bennet, who had arrived from Hertfordshire with her husband and her sister, Mrs Phillips, speechless for several minutes. Never had she found herself in such motley company.

  “I cannot believe my brother has invited all these common folk to Caroline's wedding, Mr Bennet,” she said, when she finally found her voice. “Why, half of them must never have polished their shoes!”

  “You are probably right, my dear, that is if they ever had shoes to polish at all; of course, the other half probably have far too many pairs of shoes and servants to polish them too!” said her husband, and Mrs Bennet, feeling extremely vexed at not being taken seriously, flounced away to find someone else who would listen to her.

  She had no luck with her sister-in-law Mrs Gardiner and her husband either. When she attempted to tell them how well their daughter had done by “catching the dear Colonel,” who had “done very well for himself in the colonies,” Mrs Gardiner, by now her son-in-law's greatest advocate, pointed out that Colonel Fitzwilliam had worked exceedingly hard to make his fortune. She then proceeded to deliver the coup de grace, by adding pointedly that, “He is very well established now, and our greatest comfort comes from knowing that Colonel Fitzwilliam is devoted to Caroline; indeed, we cannot think of anyone else to whom we would so gladly entrust our daughter's happiness.”

  Having intimate knowledge of the effort that had been required on the part of Mr Darcy and her own husband to bribe Wickham into marrying Mrs Bennet's daughter Lydia, Mrs Gardiner had a distinct advantage over her sister-in-law. Mrs Bennet knew it and retreated quickly.

  Poor Mrs Bennet, it seemed no one wanted to hear her opinion. Even her daughter Jane, to her great surprise, contradicted her when she tried to suggest that Lady Catherine's absence must signify her disapproval of the match. Jane was happy to inform her mother that it meant no such thing; in fact, the happy couple had been invited to spend next Christmas at Rosings. Her Ladyship, she said, was genuinely indisposed. By the time the couple had left on their wedding journey, Mrs Bennet had been silenced and was seen concentrating her attention upon more of the excellent fare that had been provided for the wedding breakfast.

  For Caroline, memories of her wedding would always remain a blur of activities and faces seen through tears; tears she had vowed never to shed on this her happy day. She'd forbidden all her relations and friends to weep; yet tears had come unbidden at the moment of parting from her family.

  Only then, when she saw her father and mother and they embraced as they said farewell, did she fully realise the enormity of the step she had taken; leaving her warm and secure family for the uncertain life of a very young woman married to a rising politician.

  But in her heart, she felt she was right.

  It was hard to tear herself away, even as Fitzwilliam waited patiently, having given again his promise to her father that he would do everything in his power to make his daughter happy.

  Yet, once having left her home, Caroline turned with so much love and loyalty to her husband that neither was left in any doubt of their feelings nor of the rightness of their decision to marry. Theirs was an unusual marriage. It was one of those unions which seem at the outset to bring out the doomsayers, of whom there were many, only to have their gloomy prognostications proved utterly wrong.

  During the first years of their marriage, Caroline experienced a wider range of feelings than she had known in all her happy young life and, together with her husband, learned also the lessons of love in marriage.

  Realising, while they enjoyed their intimacy, that married life was not all passion and ecstasy, though there was a good deal of that for they loved one another deeply, they discovered too the many simple pleasures that came in its train. Together with fun and laughter, there was disappointment and, inevitably, anguish. From none of these did she shrink, accepting and absorbing everything into a greatly enriched existence.

  Setting up home at Colonel Fitzwilliam's farm at Matlock was one of her keenest pleasures, as each day brought fresh excitement and new responsibilities. With the guidance of a mature and loving husband, Caroline found no difficulty managing her new home, despite the very great differences between their farm and her parents' home at Oakleigh. Whereas Mrs Gardiner employed several maids, a cook, and menservants to do her bidding around the house and grounds, Caroline and Fitzwilliam had only a few servants, as society might expect, since theirs was to be
a working farm, not a squire's manor.

  They found they had no need of a large staff and seemed happy with a couple of trusted personal servants, a maid or two, and a good cook to look after them, while the majority of farm labour was drawn from the neighbouring village. Fitzwilliam was quite determined that he would not play the country squire; rather, he put himself forward as a farmer, a man who would represent all their interests in the Parliament, because he knew and shared their concerns.

  Caroline explained it to her mother as a sensible measure, which her husband had undertaken as a matter of principle as much as for practical reasons.

  “Fitzy says,” she said, using the funny little sobriquet that only she was ever permitted to use, “he wants to provide work for the people of the village, the farmhands, and their families. They do not need to learn to bow and curtsey or polish the silver, he says, they need to work as they have always done, on the land. Many have lost their own farms in the enclosures, and this is a chance for them to do the work they are good at doing,”

  Her mother looked doubtful. “Surely, Caroline, they could benefit just as well by learning to serve at table, make beds, or run a household,” she said, unaccustomed to this new theory of household management, but Mr Gardiner agreed with his son-in-law and daughter.

  “What good would it do? They would only learn to be servants, never their own masters. Now, on the farm, where they know the land and have the skills to work it, they could be achieving something worthwhile.

  “I think your husband is right, my dear,” he said, making Caroline's eyes shine. To have her father's approval for the man she loved was all she asked.

  “Thank you, Papa, I knew you would approve; besides, Mama dear, I really do enjoy having only a few servants, there is not a great deal to do at the moment and until there is, I am perfectly content,” she said.

  Mrs Gardiner had no cause to doubt her daughter's words.

  Throughout the year, which proved to be busier than expected, Caroline not only appeared content and happy, she worked harder than ever to help her husband in his campaign for Parliament. It soon became her chief preoccupation.

  Certain of standing at the next election, Fitzwilliam worked assiduously to advance the cause of reform and Caroline was always at his side, learning every day and bringing her own special talents to promote his cause. A charming wife, with the happy gift of being able to put complete strangers at ease while they listened to his message, was an asset most politicians would covet. Fitzwilliam was proud of her and took her everywhere with him. Whether among the farmers and country gentry of Derbyshire or the Reformists and their supporters in the city, she was his most effective ally; some said, his secret weapon.

  However, not everything was perfect in Caroline's new life.

  She never spoke of it to anyone, not even to the husband she so dearly loved, but her life lacked only one thing to make it complete. Seeing all her cousins, Kitty, Lizzie, and Jane, with their children, Caroline longed for one of her own, and it showed in her eyes when she played with them. Only Jane seemed to understand and feel for her, yet she never mentioned it. Sensitive to her cousin's feelings, Jane remained discreetly silent but understood Caroline's longing.

  Happily, that was soon to change, when in the Summer of 1822, Caroline knew her dearest wish was to be fulfilled. Fitzwilliam was delighted, and between them, they appeared to share their happiness around, conveying a sense of bright optimism to all who met them at a time when optimism was sorely needed. The year had not been a good one for the people of England, and two things symbolised the incipient despair that many felt, even as they went about their work amidst a climate of growing discontent that reached from the lowliest to the very highest in the land.

  The shocking suicide of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, a man at the peak of his political career, seemed such a senseless act, it could only be explained as a personal cry of rage. It shook the confidence of everyone at Westminster, and even those by whom he was widely hated could not deny that he had worked tirelessly to prevent another eruption of war in Europe. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had been in London at the time, was severely shaken.

  “I met Murder on the way, He had a face like Castlereagh!” raged the poet Shelley, expressing in savage satire his anger at policies of the government. Yet, a few months later, Shelley—whom Castlereagh would have regarded as a dangerous radical—was gone too, drowned in the Aegean Sea while making a futile attempt to help the Greeks in their struggle against tyranny.

  For Caroline, who had idolised Shelley ever since she had read his “Ode To a Skylark,” it was a bitter blow, one she wept over inconsolably, bemoaning the loss of “the brightest and best of our land, Keats and Shelley, both gone within a year of each other…”

  So harrowing was her grief, Elizabeth was concerned for her health.

  But when, in the final months of Autumn, her son Edward was born, Caroline was transformed. Soon she became the mother she had longed to be. Supported by her family and the devotion of her husband, she settled into a contented domesticity which overwhelmed all her other preoccupations.

  When, a year later a daughter, Isabella, arrived, Elizabeth was astonished at the change in the young girl, who had wept in her arms for the lost poets, now a devoted mother, whose children were her chief concern.

  “She is so altered, I could scarce believe it,” said Elizabeth to her husband, as they returned from a visit to the Fitzwilliams' farm.

  But Mr Darcy pointed out that Caroline was intrinsically an intelligent young woman and reminded his wife that he had predicted she would soon recover from her romantic melancholy. Elizabeth laughed and admitted that he had been proved right again.

  Caroline enjoyed the role she had longed for, doted upon her children, and spent as much of their waking hours with them as she could, to the point where her mother was heard to complain that the nurse they employed was being paid well for very little work.

  When, however, it was time to help her husband in his campaign, collecting signatures for petitions or handing out pamphlets, Caroline had no doubt of her duty either. Frequently, with one or both of her children, the nurse, or her sister Emily, she would set out in her pony trap to carry Fitzwilliam's message to the farms and villages around Matlock.

  Even though the majority of people could not vote, Fitzwilliam believed it was necessary to inform them of the issues, the need for reform in the Parliament, and the extension of the franchise, because, he said, “If ordinary men and women do not know what benefits the franchise can bring, they will think it not worth fighting for. If we are to convince them that it is to be their government one day, we must help them understand how that will be so.”

  Determined to do her part, Caroline and her young family would take his campaign to the people at markets, fairgrounds, coaching inns, and public houses as well as isolated farms around the area.

  Concerned that she should not overtire herself nor put her children in jeopardy as she travelled around, Mrs Gardiner appealed to her husband to intervene. “Could you not speak with Colonel Fitzwilliam? She will listen to him,” she said, but Mr Gardiner was proud of his daughter's spirit and tenacity.

  “Caroline will undertake only what she knows she can successfully complete. She is too sensible to bite off more than she can chew,” he declared confidently. Mrs Gardiner could only pray he was right.

  Marriage to Fitzwilliam had broadened Caroline's horizons, giving her access to a new world of political and social causes, which she gladly embraced. Not in a naïve or sentimental fashion, but with clear understanding and deep concern. She was a romantic at heart, but she was also a perceptive young woman. That his ideas meant a great deal to her husband she knew and took them up with enthusiasm, promoting them to everyone she met.

  To the increasing astonishment of her older cousins Jane and Elizabeth, who led much more leisurely married lives at Ashford Park and Pemberley, Caroline threw herself into Fitzwilliam's political activities whilst s
till managing to retain the warmth and intimacy of her family life.

  While Jane and Lizzie may have marvelled at her capacity for hard work, they could have no doubt at all of her happiness.

  The Summer of 1830 was a particularly significant one.

  Not one but two unexpected deaths; King George IV and Mr Collins, both not greatly lamented, save by their immediate families, passed away suddenly, with consequences unforeseen and unexpected.

  The death of the king caused a general election to be called, in which Fitzwilliam was again a candidate, this time with even more hope of fulfilling his plans for effecting reform; while the demise of Mr Collins materially affected the lives of many people, from Mrs Collins and her three daughters to Mr and Mrs Bennet and their family.

  For a start, no longer did Mr Bennet have to endure the complaints of his wife, detailing her fears of being turned out of Longbourn by the Collinses. With the death of Mr Collins without a male heir, the estate reverted to Mr Bennet.