The Exile- Kitty Bennet and the Belle Epoque Read online

  The Exile:

  Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque

  By

  Don Jacobson

  A Pride and Prejudice Variation

  © 2017, 2018 by Don Jacobson. All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means electronic or mechanical without the expressed written consent of the holder of this copyright except for brief excerpts for review purposes. Published in the United States of America.

  Cover painting: Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Portrait dit de Margot (1878). This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923 and the creator of the work died more than 95 years ago. Accessed from Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pierre-Auguste_Renoir_-_Portrait_dit_de_Margot.jpg

  All characters, real or imaginary, are treated as fiction and may have been altered for literary purposes. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. All errors are the author’s own. He humbly apologizes in advance for any inconvenience or discomfort these may cause.

  Cover design by Janet Taylor.

  Portions of this work have been previously published and are excerpted from “Henry Fitzwilliam’s War” © 2016.

  Works by Don Jacobson

  The Bennet Wardrobe Stories

  Miss Bennet’s First Christmas

  The Bennet Wardrobe: Origins

  The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey

  Henry Fitzwilliam’s War

  The Exile (Pt. 1): Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque

  Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess

  The Exile (Pt. 2): The Countess Visits Longbourn

  The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament

  Other Pride and Prejudice Variations

  Lessers and Betters Stories

  Of Fortune’s Reversal

  The Maid and The Footman

  Lessers and Betters

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  A Bennet Genealogy

  Dramatis Personae

  Preface

  Prologue

  Gibbons’ Rules of the Wardrobe

  Book One: Childhood’s End

  Author’s Preface

  Prelude

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Book Two: The Winters’ Tale

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Book Three: A Passage Into Darkness

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  Chapter XXIV

  Chapter XXV

  Chapter XXVI

  Chapter XXVII

  Chapter XXVIII

  Book Four: The Renoir Likeness

  Chapter XXIX

  Chapter XXX

  Chapter XXXI

  Chapter XXXII

  Chapter XXXIII

  Chapter XXXIV

  Chapter XXXV

  Chapter XXXVI

  Chapter XXXVII

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Chapter XXXIX

  Chapter XL

  Book Five: An Epilogue of Sorts

  Epilogue One

  Epilogue Two

  Afterward

  About the Author

  Other Works by Don Jacobson

  End Notes

  To Pam:

  Who possesses

  the brightest

  eyes

  I know

  The Bennets of Longbourn

  Gibbons’ Rules of The Wardrobe

  Only blood descendants of Christopher Bennet of Longbourn Estate, Meryton, Hertfordshire will be able to utilize the Cabinet to visit the future. No other person will be able to activate the forces channeled by the Wardrobe.

  Time transit will be accomplished from the Wardrobe in the present to the Wardrobe in the future. If the Wardrobe is altered, damaged or destroyed in the future, travel beyond that point in time will be impossible.

  Each time voyage is a cycle that must be completed. A cycle is one trip to the future accompanied by a return trip to moment of departure. The Bennet cannot use the Wardrobe to jump to one future and then jump to another future beyond.

  Time travel will only be undertaken based upon the expressed desire of the Bennet. However, the Wardrobe will interpret that desire and ascertain what is best for the Bennet, the Bennet family, and the Wardrobe itself.

  Travel forward in time does not stop the progression of time in the Universe. If the Bennet spends a year in the future and uses the Wardrobe to return, the Bennet will have aged one year.

  No travel to any past before the immediate present is possible.

  No male Bennet will be able to sire offspring in the future having travelled to that future through the Wardrobe in order to prevent improper relations. No female Bennet can increase in the future and then return to the past while awaiting confinement. Bennet children born in the future will not be able to return to the past with their parent.

  Other rules may be discovered that will modify these strictures.

  Destiny once composed cannot be undone (C. Bennet, 1697)

  9. Under no circumstances should an increasing woman, be she a Bennet or a non-Bennet carrying a Bennet babe, touch the wardrobe lest both be transported because of the closeness of their bond. (S. Bennet, 1760)

  10. All traveling Bennets must immediately contact the head offices of the Bennet Family Trust in London using whatever means fitting for the epoch. (T. Bennet, 1812)

  11. A non-Bennet may travel if in close contact with a Bennet when the Wardrobe is activated. However, that non-Bennet cannot complete the cycle without the assistance of the original Bennet. (T. Bennet, 1814)

  12. Upon arrival, traveling Bennets must ascertain the correct date and location prior to leaving the vicinity of the Wardrobe. Under no circumstances shall the Bennet leave the vicinity of the Wardrobe until personal security is established lest the Wardrobe be compromised. (M. Benton, E. Benton, 1816)

  Dramatis Personae

  Those of Longbourn Estate

  Thomas Bennet, Master of Longbourn Estate, Meryton

  Catherine Marie Bennet, Fourth Daughter of Thomas and

  Frances Bennet of Longbourn Estate, Meryton

  Michael Bennet, Master of Longbourn Estate (1880s)

  Those of London and the Five Families

  Henry Thomas Richard Fitzwilliam, 11th Earl of Matlock

  Lydia Georgiana Fitzwilliam, Dowager Countess of Matlock (8th)

  Elaine Fitzwilliam, Countess of Matlock (10th)

  Madelyn Anne (Darcy) Johnson, daughter of Fitzwilliam and

  Elizabeth Darcy

  Eleanor Fitzwilliam, sister of Henry Fitzwilliam

  Lord Junius Winters, Freiherr von Winterlich, Swabia

  Lady Astrid Winters, sister of Junius Winters

  Sir Thomas Gardiner (Bart.) of Rosings, Kent

  A Professor of Mathematics at a smaller British University[i]

  Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective

  John Watson, M.D., Holmes’ confidant

  Those of Paris

  Aline Charigot-Renoir, wife of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  Maggie Small, late of Poplar, Greater London, a who
re

  Jacques Robard, St. Denis, a teamster

  Sigmund Freud of Vienna, scientist of the mind

  Paul Durand-Ruel, art dealer

  Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Impressionist painter

  Colonel Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s criminal executor

  Time

  Flowing like a river

  Time

  Beckoning me

  Who knows when we shall meet again

  If ever

  But time

  Keeps flowing like a river

  To the sea

  Alan Parsons & Eric Wolfson. “Time,” 1980.

  Author’s Preface

  The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque is Part One of the arc of the life of Kitty Bennet in the Bennet Wardrobe Universe. While the novel’s story is self-sustaining, you will find a previous reading of the novella Henry Fitzwilliam’s War to be useful. There you will gain insights into the formation of Viscount Henry Fitzwilliam’s personality and the way he reacts to the refugee from 1811, Miss Kitty Bennet.

  For a fuller understanding of how The Bennet Wardrobe bends the fabric of the Pride and Prejudice universe, please read Volume One in The Bennet Wardrobe Series, The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey. You will also discover how Mary Bennet rises above her prosy, moralizing self as immortalized by Ms. Austen.

  A note on dialect:

  One character you will meet as you read The Exile is Miss Margaret Small, who was born and raised in the London East End slum/enclave known as Poplar. Logically her accent would be thicker, almost Cockney—think Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

  There is no Professor Henry Higgins to turn Maggie into a lady by teaching her the proper way to round her vowels. On the contrary, you can accept the fact that Miss Small would speak much better French than she ever would English until the Good Lord carried her home.

  What then of the fact that as you read more of her dialogue, her “…’in’” becomes “…’ing,” her “so’s” become “so,” and “Oi There” vanishes entirely? One could argue that authenticity would demand a continued use of the dialectical structures that would have placed her language within the East End discourse.

  Yet, I have decided to place you in the person of Kitty Bennet. She was exposed to Maggie for months upon end in the course of this narrative. As anyone who encounters a pronounced accent over an extended period, Kitty would have eventually normalized the sound of Maggie’s speech. To Miss Bennet, because she had incorporated the accent into her own aural program, she immediately would have filtered and translated Miss Small’s utterances into her own Hertfordshire/Belgravia tongue.

  Prologue

  Longbourn Estate, Meryton, Hertfordshire, December 11, 1811

  Kitty Bennet was furious. Papa was being thoroughly unreasonable. Why punish her when it was Lydia who had run off with Wickham? In fact, Lydia getting to marry her dear Wickham only irked Kitty even more. She was the older sister. She should have married before Lydia! She wrapped her arms around her waist and huffed as Papa droned on about sending her off to a seminary in Cornwall.

  Cornwall? Why not Van Diemen’s Land? Just as far away. And just as much punishment.

  OOOOH. She could just spit!

  Jane and Lizzy got married yesterday. Come the morrow and the axe falls on the sweet neck of Catherine Marie Bennet. Botheration!

  Papa had risen from his leather armchair and was staring out the window at the front drive. Kitty stormed around the room, first looking out the French windows, then at the bookshelves. She was so angry—so angry. She wanted to pick up something and throw it. Or at least punch something. She turned and saw Papa’s Wardrobe. Why he kept it in the library, she could never discern.

  It did not matter. This was to be her victim. She stood in front of it. Words jumbled through her mind. Cornwall! Horrible. I am sick of everybody. I wish they were dead! Anywhere but there! Anywhere but here!

  She slammed both fists against the marquetry doors.

  A thousand bees buzzed…and the pressure built.

  

  Matlock House, London, May 17, 1886

  Henry Fitzwilliam quietly closed the door as he slipped out of Gran’s room. She was resting now, looking withered and tiny in the middle of her ancient four-poster bed. How she held on was beyond him. She was a tough old bird, to be sure, but with the 20th Century looming on the horizon, he realized that there were very few Englishmen or women alive who could look backwards to the pre-industrial 18th Century as being part of their lives.

  Now twenty-four years old, Henry was a man of good height, just short of six feet tall, with broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist. Like most young men of his class, he enjoyed athletic pursuits including cricket and hunting, but he supplemented these with a fascination for the rugged life. He had emulated the German wanderkinder and had hoisted his rucksack onto his back and trekked along the highways and byways of England, Wales, and Scotland. Henry had clambered to the heights of the Peak District that cast their sunset shadows over Pemberley and Matlock. He dreamed of taking a steamer across the Atlantic to dive into the wilds of the American West: to see the undulating furry carpet of the gigantic herds of bison rolling across the landscape.

  He had been inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, published just last year. Like Roosevelt, young Fitzwilliam had weak lungs, and like the twenty-eight-year-old American, Henry refused to allow his infirmity to hold him back from showing that he knew no limits.

  But Roosevelt had been born with chronic asthma. Me? I earned mine thanks to the ‘genius’ of modern chemistry—and British military incompetence.

  He pulled his pocket watch, checked the time and snapped it closed with authority. I have just enough time to go to the club and see if I can work in a few rounds with Billy Johnson or Eddie Darcy. With that thought about his cousins dangling in his mind, Henry straightened, shot his cuffs, and tugged his vest to smooth out any wrinkles. He strode down the hall.

  And skidded to a halt when the sound of a tinkling bell broke through his musings.

  The warning signal was a result of Gran’s insistence that the Keepers be alerted when the doors on the Wardrobe opened. She feared Bennets from the past, disoriented and frightened, would wander off before they could be intercepted and comforted.

  The Wardrobe was installed in Henry’s bedchamber. Servants knew never to disturb the contents of the young Master’s cabinet. The only reason the doors would move was if someone had just arrived.

  Conversations with his great-grandmother floated to the surface of his mind. Caution in handling the pilgrim seemed to be the first rule.

  Gran had said, “The person who arrives will be young, inexperienced, and without knowledge of the powers of the Wardrobe. She will be terribly upset. She will certainly have difficulty grasping what has just happened to her.

  “You, Henry, have to be gentle. Ignore whatever she may throw at you. Help her to relax. Tea may be best. Offer some cakes. She always liked sweets. Try to keep her calm.

  “Eventually, you will have to explain how she arrived here at Matlock House. That is liable to set her off again. Once she has settled, bring her to me if I still live.”

  Great-Grandmother Lydia then revealed the secret, and why she was so confident in applying the feminine pronoun to the traveler.

  “Henry, remember our policy about Wardrobe use? Since my Papa’s time, every Bennet user has been required to leave a note attesting that they left. That document along with any details of the completed cycle is then archived at the Bennet Family Trust offices. From your own experience, you know that most users have been quite forthcoming with information. That allows us to prepare future Keepers to receive their ancestors.

  “After my unplanned trip over 70 years ago, the family agreed that access to the Wardrobe must be limited. That put an end to accidental journeys.

  “But, there is one wandering Bennet left sliding along the strands of time, unknowing that he
r fate is yet to be written. That person of whom I speak is my sister, your grand-aunt, Kitty.

  With that, Gran had given Henry a locked dispatch box with the crest of the Bennet Family trust embossed in gilt on its tanned leather lid.

  

  Opening the case in the privacy of his bedchamber, Henry had discovered a thick file labeled Catherine Bennet. Inside he found a summary of the case of Kitty Bennet as compiled by The Three Great Keepers—Thomas Bennet, Mary Benton, and Lydia Fitzwilliam—over the course of seven decades.

  He learned was that seventeen-year-old Catherine Bennet had, in a fit of pique, activated the Wardrobe in December 1811. She completed her cycle, but not until she had aged well over 40 years…so she had spent considerable time on the future timeline. The report mentioned a longer letter written by Kitty to her father. It was this letter, along with the contents of what Mrs. Benton called The Ravel Portfolio, that allowed the Keepers to calculate Kitty’s approximate arrival date as being sometime in the mid-1880s. But Henry, having searched the file two times, could not locate Kitty’s letter to Mr. Bennet.

  He then turned his attention to a thick envelope also bearing the seal of the Trust. Unstringing the closure, he removed a cover letter typewritten on premium cream-colored bond.

  October 23, 1885

  Dear Mr. Fitzwilliam;

  Allow me the opportunity to congratulate you on assuming your role as a Director of the Bennet Family Trust. This letter will inform you, now that you have assumed a position of responsibility in the management of the Trust, of certain non-financial activities that the organization has undertaken in recent decades.