by Don Jacobson
“But, until I can return here to intone his name above the hallowed precincts where our dear Manfred will rest, I will do as did the Egyptians before us. I want Manfred to recognize this man in case he encounters him beyond the River, although I would imagine that the good Sergeant may do better to pass it along to St. Peter who will use whatever means at his disposal to alert the gatekeeper at the other place.”
Prior to the final closing of the box, and under the watchful eye of Claudia Liebermann flanked by the Founder and his Mistress, Alois Schiller, manfully seeking to hold back his tears, hoisted his friend into his arms. Capitaine Denis Robard, then draped the massive silver links of Liebermann’s hereditary office around his pale, bull-like neck, too cold for a man once so vital.
Viscount Richard Fitzwilliam, himself wearing his full-dress uniform, his public and secret honors, and his modest aristocratic coronet, next marched into the room, the great sword of the Schillers held high. He stopped in front of the Earl of Matlock, dressed in his robes of state and wearing the strawberry leaf and pearl bedecked coronet of a British Earl, who held the scabbard. The son slid the bare blade into its sheath. The completion of this act allowed the father to ceremoniously hand it off to the Graf.
The young man, reversed the weapon: its hilt forming the Cross before which every knight of the realm had bowed. Schiller solemnly stepped to the bier. He bowed and laid the sword atop his comrade. He folded Liebermann’s hands atop the hilt, closing the symbol of aristocratic power in an eternal grasp.
In a choked voice he intoned, “Depart in peace, good and faithful servant. Long you have been the steward of our lands. Continue to watch over the Schillers and use our sword to guard our patrimony to the end of days.
“May we see you again in that bright new world Our Lord and Savior promised us.”
Manfred Liebermann was then carried by the men and followed by the women out of the Beach House and into the nearby dunes. There they lowered him into the dust of two continents to lay next to, not at the feet of—and thus standing as an equal to rather than a servant of—his Graf, the Oberst, beneath the Schwarz-Weiß-Rot ensign flapping from one of the three flagpoles bathed in the rich aroma of the rose-colored fieldstone wall.
Book Four
Intermezzo
(1948)
scherzando…subito
(Playful…Suddenly)
“No matter how dark the moment, love and hope
are always possible.”
George Chakiris
Chapter XXIX
Longbourn Estate, Hertfordshire, September 27, 1948
A casual passerby would assume that the middle-aged lady, whose face was obscured beneath the brim of a bleached canvas campaign hat, scrubbing around the rose beds behind the Palladian-style manor house of indeterminate vintage was a volunteer, a docent determined to preserve the county’s heritage. She had the air of many post-war matrons of the squirearchy, often prone to dressing in wellies and sturdy tweeds, frequently seen striding down country lanes armed with a brolly and a formidable handbag.
Yet, the lady in question was neither solid nor stolid, but rather a still attractive woman in full possession of her looks, more confidently assured of the power of her attributes.
A careful observer, perhaps one who was acquainted with the denizens of Longbourn, would have realized that the subject of scrutiny was no woman doing a public act of goodness. Instead, t’was the mistress of the house, albeit celebrating the sesquicentennial of that title, bending herself in the service of her flowers.
In this exact moment, however, there was no contemporary lady of the house: the current title-holder having been supplanted by the Founder’s wife. That worthy woman and her husband, along with their children, had decamped to Oakham House when the elder Mrs. Bennet had begged her husband to take them from the city and back home. A simple house trade had been organized, sending one Mrs. Bennet who longed for the country to the home of another Mrs. Bennet who wished for a respite in Town.
The weeks and months since Liebermann’s interment in the Beach House’s small cemetery had seen Detachment Anubis scatter somewhat.
The Bennets had flown to Meryton where the healing powers of Longbourn’s grounds comforted the couple after the tragedy.
Letty, Denis, and Little Robard had remained in Deauville to comfort Madame.
Lizzy and Alois Schiller monitored any progress, although there was little enough of that, in the pursuit for the killer of now eight of their own. They based themselves at Darcy House.
Richard Fitzwilliam had resigned St. Mary’s. He was acting now as Anubis Prime and his father’s deputy at the Trust. He lived a bachelor rector’s existence at Matlock House.
Sadness had transformed everyone. Many quietly had begun to wonder if the Families’ long run of good fortune had trickled down to nothing. Shock after shock had shivered their foundations. They had seemingly lost control of a universe determined to balance accounts.
Yet, there were those who understood that a Bennet need not travel in the Wardrobe to learn that which they needed to learn. From the Founder to Elizabeth Schiller, the highest levels of those bound by Bennet blood cherished the belief that the past was an annealing heat through which they would emerge all the stronger, purified to once again swim the currents of flowing into, through, and around them all.
Fanny Bennet carefully brushed dirt clumps and grass clippings from the knees of her pantaloons, what her grand-daughters and nieces called slacks, as she finished her afternoon’s attention to the manse’s rose beds. She stood and knuckled her lower back with clenched fists, trying to relax middle-aged muscles unused to being stretched as they had been for the past several hours.
What would Mathilda Lucas and Louisa Goulding have said if they spied me wearing a pair of Annie’s jodhpurs. The two of them probably would have fled down Longbourn Lane cackling like a pair of prize biddy hens. T’would be the stuff of Meryton gossip for weeks, if not months.
I could not care less! Back in my day, t’was always near impossible to do the right type of weeding around the base of the plants. Ground-length skirts and stays were never intended to permit a lady to drop to the ground. Of course, the gardener and grounds’ servants could be tasked to do the job, but oh lordy, they would make a first-rate mess of things.
Now, in this age, I can get down amongst my plants, making sure that the fall fertilizer is worked into the soil around the roots.
The reaches behind the manor house had always been special to Mrs. Bennet. Before she had moved to Longbourn after her wedding, the pretty little wilderness stretching away from the kitchen garden had become overgrown, having been ignored by Tom’s father, Samuel, in the decade after Mrs. Lizzie’s death. His heir, while a farmer, concentrated his agrarian efforts upon wheat and barley as well as turnips and swedes instead of ornamentals. The young matron had been given carte blanche by her new husband when she suggested that, in addition to redecorating their home’s public rooms, she begin the recovery of the eastward-facing acre.
Fanny had always lived with a purpose. Once she had set her mind to a project, she would not let it drop by the wayside. Longbourn’s distinctive beds were the first of many schemes she undertook as Mrs. Bennet.
Upon Bennet’s say-so, she descended upon her mother’s garden behind the Gardiner residence on High Street: a walled space that was a riot of sharp-edged greenery. While Longbourn’s workers chopped brush and stripped back turf to reveal Hertfordshire’s rich, dark loam, the newly-increasing young wife began thinning her parent’s largess, carefully splitting away excess runners and then taking cuttings of the more unusual varieties before removing about one in every three mature plants. All were carted back to the estate to eventually grow into broad-shouldered bushes filled with the scents and colors determined to calm even the most troubled soul.
In her mind’s eye, she could see her five girls, each in brilliant white gowns and broad-brimmed bonnets, moving sedately betw
een the beds. The older ones were armed with shears while the younger carried the baskets into which Jane and Lizzy would drop the flowers destined for the countless vases and displays throughout Longbourn’s halls.
Now they are all gone. Nothing is left in this time to comfort me except my memories…and my roses. Odd how my work still lives after over 150 years. I guess that is the best sort of immortality.
However, Fanny Bennet knew she had no cause to repine. While her children had gone on ahead, she still had two of her grandchildren, Tommy and Eloise, as well as a fleet of great grandchildren who were of an age to call her ‘Grandmother.’ Those children were blessings…as were disparate nieces and nephews.
And, then there was Eileen.
Try as she might, Fanny could not separate the image of her Jane and Jane’s descendent. As Mrs. Bennet stood by the tilled ground, she looked across the sward to the oaken boundary under which branches Miss Nearne rested, nose buried in a book—probably another deep study of the human condition. The last time Fanny had asked after Eileen’s reading, the quiet young woman simply held up the slender tome which was entitled Pour une morale de l’ambigüité.[lxxxiii] Eileen’s curiosity about the nature of Man’s navigation of life grew from her own trials.
And, thus, an inner difference from Mrs. Bingley was added to the more obvious man-made physical ones.
While Mrs. Bennet had undergone many changes since Lizzy and Jane had married and her husband had once again refocused his ardor upon her, she was still much her old self in terms of her interests. Chief amongst those was seeing her girls well settled. And given that she saw Miss Eileen Nearne as her daughter separated by one hundred-odd years, she had recently been sorting the cards of her memory.
A powerful resolve now gripped her. She straightened up and called out to Miss Nearne saying that she was going into the house to bathe before the planned trip into Town for dinner. She reminded Eileen that she was included in the invitation and should not tarry in the garden. The younger woman never looked up from her book—how like two of my other daughters—choosing simply to wave in acknowledgement.
After splashing around in a tub of sudsy water to remove a layer of gardening grime, Fanny padded into the old mistress’ chamber which she had appropriated as her dressing room. Her nights recently had been spent in the well-sprung bed found in the master bedroom.
The modern Bennets have definite views on the marriage bower…that it is for life. Thankfully, Tom and I are past the point of worrying about any additional little ones resulting from our new-found bliss. That ship sailed a few years ago.
Lady Bennet—yes, she did enjoy knowing that her husband truly was a baronet—had found other aspects of the 1940s to be as appealing as shared accommodations. Amongst those were the fashions of the times and the foundation garments needed to wear them. Stays and even Kitty’s Victorian spring-steel corsets had long since given way to elastic brassieres and girdles. Over the course of the past year, Fanny had gradually accepted and then eagerly adopted modern lingerie.
While young women still were expected to affect a wasp-waist look, more mature ladies could avoid organ-shifting and enjoy being able to breathe while still appearing in haute couture. As Fanny had discovered in conversations with both Countesses, her Kitty had favored Miss Chanel’s suits. Neither for the first time nor for the last did Fanny Bennet silently marvel at the woman her fourth daughter had become. She, too, had found Miss Coco’s salon to hold numerous wonders.
She took her time dressing for dinner, using the extra minutes to mull over her planned appeal to Tom. She sat on the edge of her chair carefully rolling sheer black silk stockings over still-firm calves and onto her thighs. She pulled the garter straps one-at-a-time to snap them into place. A black silk slip slid down over her head. Finally, one of Coco’s Little Black Dresses draped over her, capped half sleeves allowing for the elbow length gloves she later would don. A pair of black medium-heeled pumps completed her ensemble.
Grabbing one of Tom’s older shirts that had been destined for the charity bag, Fanny donned it like a smock to protect her dress. She seated herself at the dressing table and carefully smoothed her complexion with a modest amount of liquid foundation. She had learned how to apply what current ladies’ magazines referred to as makeup at the Helena Rubenstein counter at Harrods. A little rouge applied in the tri-dot method added a bit of blush atop the healthy tan fostered by afternoons in her garden. Fanny essentially ignored her eyes: no liner or mascara, a bit of pencil to fill out her brows and only a hint of pastel to accentuate the sky-blue that had arrested her husband so completely. Her lips, however, underwent a modest transformation as she gave them depth with Miss Arden’s Victory Red lip color, still popular even three years after war’s end.[lxxxiv]
Rising and carefully removing the cast-off chemise, Fanny Bennet turned to the swivel mounted pier-glass. Giving herself a head-to-toe once-over, she carefully patted her coiffure, her naturally curly locks, shorter than ever before and now brightened by white highlights as her age began to catch up with her hair.
All ship-shape and in true Bristol fashion as Maria’s Captain Will Rochet says!
Now garbed to do battle, she moved through the family wing, stopping to softly knock on Eileen’s door. She gave the young lady a half-hour warning, commenting that they needed to be at the Savoy by half eight for cocktails with the Fitzwilliams and the Cecil-Darcys. A pleasantly exasperated assent came from the chamber. That gladdened Fanny’s heart as happiness for Eileen had often been in short supply. She was also reminded of countless times she had apprehended that tone delivered by other young women with Bennet Eyes.
Chapter XXX
Descending the main staircase, she was surprised to see the library’s door wide open. Her husband could usually be depended upon to require a company of grenadiers to drag him out of his book room and off to any social function. She peered in and did not see him ensconced in his usual place, one of the low leather wingbacks by the fireplace.
And where might Tom Bennet be found if not in the bookroom? I would have heard him upstairs as I passed our room when I came down. Hmmm. Time to search.
Her quest was brief. Upon entering the parlor, she discovered her tuxedo-clad husband at the drinks cart pouring himself a fortifying cognac. His long figure was accentuated by the inky Italian superfine. She admired how the cut of the dinner jacket made the garment cling to his hips, thinner now that he had begun regularly accompanying Lords Tom and David onto the golf course. Walking eighteen holes did much for a man’s waistline—and lower.
Of course, Sir Thomas had also begun to mutter and genially curse whenever she asked him how his game went. The general theme of his commentary revolved around the ‘devilish Scots getting their revenge for Culloden.’
Hearing his wife enter the room, Bennet turned and assessed her as she approached. The demure gown, which covered her to mid-calf, pleasingly hugged her body, emphasizing her figure, still hourglass in most respects, although five successful births had reshaped her waist and hips somewhat.
How readily I yet can see the Miss Gardiner who assented to my pleas all those years ago. She has aged like some of Baron Rothchild’s clarets.
Smiling at her, Tom waved his hand above the collection of decanters.
“A sherry would suit,” Fanny replied before adding, “Although, if you are pouring cognac, I might enjoy a short one in its stead.”
Bennet shrugged and grinned wryly before dispensing about a half inch of the potent aromatic liquor into a tulip-shaped snifter. He handed it to his wife who took a dainty sip and nodded in appreciation.
She drifted over to an armchair and pointedly glanced at the empty seat opposite in a time-honored signal secretly entrusted by mamas to their bridal daughters on their wedding day—Sit…I would speak to you.
And Thomas, having absorbed his wife’s idiosyncrasies through six-and-twenty (counting the past twelve-month beginning in 1947) years of marriage, qu
ickly found his seat. He focused his eyes upon hers.
Fanny saucily lifted one brow and tilted her head.
“You are not in trouble, Tom. I simply desire to have a conversation with you about…” she began.
Tom interrupted her with a good-natured gibe, “I am relieved! Fanny, I have spent over a quarter century never quite knowing upon which side of your temper I would find myself.”
She shot a heated glance at him strangling his rejoinder.
Then she continued after another draught of cognac, “You are aware such uncertainty is how I keep you on your toes.
“But, seriously, my impertinent husband, I wished to speak with you about the young woman under our care.
“You know how dear Eileen has become to me and, I would wager, you as well. T’is more than that she reminds me of our Jane.
“Since we discovered her relationship to us, I have realized that she is a wonderful mixture of all of our girls.
“She certainly possesses Jane and Lydia’s good looks, but she also owns an added measure of Lizzy’s and Mary’s bookish depths.
“And from what I have learned of Kitty in the time since we came to be here, Miss Nearne can lay claim to that sweet child’s heritage of bravery and determination.
“T’is few women or men who could have passed through that which she has and survive, let alone thrive.
“But, now, I am convinced, Eileen needs our help to allow her to find her own happiness.”
