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You have been like a son to me,

Philip Delaney

Having reached the signature, Mr Elliot looked up and saw that tears were spilling from the rector’s eyes. Reaching into his pocket, Martin withdrew his handkerchief and mopped the old man’s face.

He really did not have the heart to remind his mentor that his circumstances did not permit him to contemplate marriage. Instead, he thanked Mr Delaney graciously.

Then the rector pointed to the sealed letter.

“You wish me to post this?” asked the curate, wondering what on earth Mr Delaney could have to say to the Marquess of Wolver.

The old rector inclined his head, then closed his eyes, obviously exhausted by his communications.

The curate pulled the blankets, which had fallen down, up around the rector’s neck before retreating, wondering hopelessly whether he dared to leave the old man alone for a moment while he stepped out. It was really a terrible time for the blessed event of Hannah’s daughter, but he supposed neither life nor death could be neatly arranged.

As Mr Elliot contemplated whether he could trust one of the village boys to deliver the letter to the receiving office, there was a knock at the door. Opening it, he encountered Mrs Fairbanks, one of the village women.

“Good afternoon, Mr Elliot. Hannah asked me to pop round occasionally and see if you needed anything. I understand the rector has taken ill.”

Blessing God’s providence, the curate thanked her profusely. After setting her in the way of things, he headed off to post the rector’s letter. But as he deposited the missive in the locked box at the receiving office, the most novel thought occurred to him and he detoured to Longbourn on the way back. He arrived at the gates just after Mary, who had clearly gone out walking after delivering his soup. Mr Elliot could not like the way the Longbourn ladies went about alone and volunteered his escort to the door. He did not offer his elbow, considering that too forward, but merely walked beside Miss Bennet.

“Miss Mary,” he began, choosing his words carefully in the light of her recent bereavement, “does Longbourn have a copy of the Baronetage?”

“Why, yes, Mr Elliott, although I suppose it is one of the books that Lizzy is preparing for sale. I do not think she has packed them up yet.”

The books were indeed found to be still on Mr Bennet’s desk in the dim study. Lizzy had gone off elsewhere. After reconnoitering the piles, their alphabetical arrangement was appreciated and Mary carefully extracted the baronetage from the ‘D’ pile, handing it to the curate. Taking it to the window, he quickly scanned the front matter to discover that Delaney was indeed the family name of the Marquess of Wolver, the 10th Marquess being Giles Delaney.

So! Mr Delaney is related to a member of the peerage! thought Mr Elliot. How curious that he has never mentioned it!

Handing the book back to Mary, the curate thanked her for her indulgence before attempting to depart. But now Mary’s curiosity had been piqued.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Mr Elliot?” she prompted.

Suddenly conscious that if Mr Delaney had wished his connection to the Marquess of Wolver known, he would not have been so secretive about it, Mr Elliot realised a confidence had been placed in him.

“Yes, thank you. I merely wished to check how I should address a friend.”

Bidding her a civil good day, the curate departed.

He returned to the rectory to discover that Mrs Fairbanks had lit the fire in the parlour in his absence.

“I hope you don’t mind, sir. It was terribly cold in here.”

“No, not at all!” replied the curate, ashamed to admit his failed attempts to set a fire going. “It does feel much more comfortable. Thank you!”

Back at Longbourn, Mary had been about to return the baronetage to its designated place on the desk when her curiosity got the better of her. Having noted the page Mr Elliot had been reading, she reopened the book and immediately spotted the name of Delaney. After coming to the same conclusion as the curate—that their rector was in fact related to the Marquess of Wolver, her investigations went a little further. She turned to the page containing the biography of the Marquess and read the following entry:

GILES DELANEY, tenth Marquess of Wolver, son of Montagu Delaney, ninth Marquess, and Marguerite Guerron; younger brother and twin of Philip Delaney, Viscount Fontley, who relinquished his right of accession to the title to his younger brother to enter the Church in 1760...

Doing some quick calculations, Mary realised that their rector, Philip Delaney, would have been thirty in 1760 and wondered whether he was in fact the Viscount Fontley or merely related to him.

Before replacing the book in the pile, Mary also had the forethought to turn to the front matter, where she discovered their edition of the Baronetage had been printed in 1780, before her father had ever inherited Longbourn. She supposed that made perfect sense—she could not imagine her father ever having use of such a book; likely he had never opened it.

Chapter 13: Plan B

Mr Gardiner returned to his warehouse feeling somewhat like a whipped dog. Knowing Mr Darcy to be well connected from their acquaintance through the Royal Society, he’d had little hope of inducing him to marry his niece, but he had hoped to have some sort of dialogue with him, possibly to obtain monetary compensation for his niece’s woes. An addition to her dowry might have enabled him to quickly find Lizzy a husband from among his business associates. It was a pity he had not better appreciated just how well-connected Mr Darcy was before he had embarked on calling on him. Of course, he had gone straight to Hookham’s Library in Bond Street afterwards to establish the identity of Mr Darcy’s uncle—the Earl of Matlock. Mr Darcy’s mother was the daughter of a peer, making him, despite his lack of title, a member of the upper ten thousand or ‘the Ton’. Fanny was aiming at the moon if she thought she could snare him for Elizabeth. Based on his luxurious domicile, Mr Gardiner suspected that the income of ten thousand a year that Fanny proclaimed was an underestimate of Mr Darcy’s worth. In retrospect, it had probably been a tactical mistake to have started the negotiation with marriage before letting Mr Darcy talk him down to a reasonable dowry. Mr Gardiner felt his claims probably seemed grasping and absurd given their social divide. He rued the fact that he had not done his homework beforehand, as he would have in one of his business transactions—he should have paid more heed to the Grosvenor Square address.

Getting down from his coach in light drizzle, Mr Gardiner sent it back to Gracechurch Street so that his servants could transport Jane’s trunk to Ludgate Hill. After walking back up the stairs to his office, he dealt with a few issues that had arisen in his absence before turning to the last Longbourn-associated task he had allocated to himself for the day—hiring a bailiff. Mr Gardiner had never hired a property manager, but he was fairly sure that only the scaff and raff who had been turned off elsewhere would be found at the agency. Thus, Edward had come to a painful decision, but one he felt was necessary to protect Fanny’s position over the next twelve months. His plan had been suggested by the need to rethink his own business position in the light of his reduced income. Sighing, he rang for his foreman.