“The head of the Bingham family was George Bingham, a financial genius. Along with his brothers, Richard and James, they owned a large import/export business with warehouses in India and America. When the Revolutionary War broke out, the warehouses in New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston were shuttered. Once the war was over, George sent Richard to America to check on the condition of their properties, and he took Charles with him. But after a year, Richard sent him home. Compared to his colonial friends, who had been educated in England, Charles was coming up short.

“A Mr. Montaigne was hired to tutor Charles in the usual subjects a gentleman of that era would have been expected to know: Latin, French, science, mathematics, and the classics. Socially, George Bingham wanted Charles to be comfortable in any situation, including attendance on the king at the Court of St. James. For that, he turned to William Lacey, Jane Austen’s Mr. Darcy.”

“The Laceys were an old Norman family, their land grant going back to the twelfth century and the reign of Henry II. Will’s father, David Lacey or Old Mr. Darcy as Jane Austen called him, married Anne Devereaux, a pretty young lady from another of the old Norman families.

“When David Lacey died, young Will went over the accounts of the estate with George Bingham, the co-executor of his father’s will, and found out that all of his mother’s dowry had been spent on the remodeling and expansion of Montclair and that the estate was deeply in debt. Will decided that if he was to maintain the Lacey lifestyle, as well as provide for the proper support of his sister, Georgiana, he had to come up with other ways of making money.

“This is where George Bingham came in,” Jack continued. “He had a reputation for helping out some of England’s finest but financially stretched families. George and Will worked out a deal. In return for taking Charles under his wing, George Bingham would make the necessary loans to get Will Lacey out of debt as well as provide investment opportunities in the Bingham enterprises. That was the start of Charles and Will’s friendship. It was an odd pairing, but it worked because they balanced each other out.”

I knew little about the English aristocracy or how one got to be a duke or an earl, but I did know that titles were important. I wondered why the Lacey family did not have one.

Beth chose to answer my question. “Great deference was paid to these old Norman families because of their ancient ties to the monarchy. The Lacey name and land grant were much older than most of those who had been granted earldoms and dukedoms, so the Laceys rested on their ancient Norman laurels.”

A combination of the train ride from London, the visit to Montclair, and an overload of information had left me exhausted, and I called an end to the evening. I was shown to a large room that had once been the shared bedroom of their two sons. A dozen pictures of the boys hung on the walls, and more pictures were displayed in a glass case along with their many trophies and ribbons. The evening had been so interesting that, although we had spent eight hours together, I never once thought to ask the Crowells about their children.

Lying in bed, I tried to take it all in, and a lot of what I had been told made sense. It certainly explained how someone from a family as prestigious as the Laceys came to befriend a man whose family had acquired its wealth by trade. But the one question that kept popping up in my mind was, “How on earth did the Crowells

know so much about the Bingham and Lacey families?”

Chapter 3

When I came downstairs the following morning, Jack and Beth were at church, but Beth had left a note on top of a large manila envelope saying, “I think you’ll be interested in this. Help yourself to some tea and whatever is in the icebox, Beth.” Inside the envelope was a letter yellow with age.


11 September 1813


Dear Charlotte,

Thank you for your kind letter. My father’s health is much improved, so much so that I believe I will be able to return to Canterbury within a fortnight. I long to be back in my own home where I will be safe from Lucy’s complaints. Conversation of any length inevitably leads to a discussion of Pride and Prejudice, Miss Austen’s book. I have assured her that no one would recognize her in the character of Lydia. These events took place twenty years ago, and there are very few who remember or care about something that happened at such a distance in time. She’s afraid that Jake will learn the whole of the story if he reads the book. Jake read a work of fiction? When? The farm takes up all his daylight hours, and my nephews’ demands on him in the evening do not allow time for anything but smoking his pipe.

I have read the novel and feel there are enough differences in our situations that none would recognize the family. I hardly recognize it myself. Was Elizabeth ever so clever or Jane so perfect? For my part, was I really that tedious a person? As you know, I have never considered myself to be a vocalist, limiting my musical exhibitions to the pianoforte, so the humiliating depiction of Mary Bennet’s performance at the Netherfield ball is particularly galling to me. And why did the author choose to disguise only Lucy and Celia’s names? If I am to be portrayed so unsympathetically, why was I not given the courtesy of a name change? I will admit that after Henry’s death, our mother’s occupation of seeing her daughters married consumed most of her thoughts. However, my father could never have married someone as ridiculous as Mrs. Bennet. I think Papa has been dealt with quite harshly as well. The novel is meant to be lighthearted. Therefore, writing about the death of the male heir could not be included. Yet, Papa made his decisions based upon the fact that he did have an heir who would free the family from the entail.

Of course, Lucy’s elopement veers most from the truth. As you know, I disagreed with my parents’ decision to receive her at their home after embarking on such an escapade. But I think reconciliation would have been impossible if they believed Lucy had knowingly left Brighton with Waggoner without an understanding that they were to be married in Gretna Green in Scotland, where such marriages take place. Lucy insists to this day that nothing happened between Waggoner and her, as she would not give in to his urges until she was in possession of her wedding clothes. The worst, of course, is Lucy’s character living with Waggoner in London for a fortnight without being married!

I have already wasted too much ink on this subject, but some part of the story is discussed every day. One would have hoped that, with the passage of time and the birth of four children, Lucy would concentrate less on herself and more on others, but that is not the case. The most pleasant part of my stay is visiting with my nieces who, despite the shortcomings of their natural parents, are well-mannered and thoughtful young ladies. Lucy has arranged for Antoinette and Marie to go up to London to stay with Celia for the winter season. She feels their marriage prospects would be much improved being in town. With respect to matchmaking, Lucy is very much her mother’s daughter.


Yours in deepest friendship,

Mary Garrison


My mind was racing. I was trying to understand what I had just read, so I reread the letter and then again for a third time. If this was actually a letter written by Mary Garrison to Charlotte, Elizabeth’s closest friend, then it contained a wealth of information.  Waggoner/Wickham, the young handsome seducer, who had been bribed into marrying Lucy/Lydia, had died, and his widow had remarried Jake the farmer. Celia/Kitty must have married well enough for her sister to believe that by sending her daughters to stay with Celia in London, they would have a better chance of making an advantageous marriage. But why was Mary living with the Collinses in Canterbury?

When Beth returned from church, she found me sitting at the kitchen table rereading the letter yet again.

“Jack stays after church and plays backgammon with the pastor,” she explained while removing her hat and gloves. “The house is too quiet for him with our older son, James, living in London with his wife and daughter, and our younger son, Michael, serving in the RAF on Malta. Jack’s mother, a perfectly wonderful soul, lived with us until she died two years ago.”

Beth asked about my family, and I told her a little bit about my sisters. Katie was a new mother, Annie had joined the Sisters of St. Joseph, a religious order, and Sadie was a recent high school graduate. And then there was Patrick. He was my only brother, but with a brother like Patrick, one was enough. His own grandmother referred to him as “one of the divil’s own.”

Minooka had its fair share of boys who got into mischief on a regular basis. Patrick was just more creative than most. He had been expelled from the Catholic school we all attended in Scranton and was banned from most homes in town with good reason. When he had led a strike at the high school and gave an interview to a reporter from the Scranton newspaper where my father worked, my parents had finally had enough. He was sent to live with my mother’s brother, who ran a bootleg coal operation, and Uncle Bill worked his butt off. Patrick behaved himself for a while, but it took the Navy to really straighten him out.

But I didn’t want to talk about my family. I wanted to talk about Mary’s letter. “May I ask where you got the letter?”

“Jack’s Aunt Margie. She had a keen interest in the Lacey family history because of their connection to Pride and Prejudice. Margie traveled around England, searching for the people and places in the novel. By going through church records, she found the Garrisons, six girls and one boy. The youngest girl had died when she was two and the boy when he was twelve.”