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 stoies 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.