Acworth within six miles of Pemberley! It was a disturbing thought. The question instantly arose as to what he could be doing there since Bakewell was certainly not on the road to London, but caution prevailed over curiosity and she forbore to question Wakeford further. She glanced at her husband and fancied she saw her own feelings reflected in his countenance. He said nothing, however, and turned almost immediately to speak to his cousin. His observation was received in silence; she appeared not to have heard a syllable, but toying with the food on her plate in her usual languid manner looked as if she knew not how to hold herself up.
Elizabeth had sometimes thought that much of Anne de Bourgh’s ill-health was assumed in order to escape exertions that were unpleasing to her. Established as a semi-invalid she could be as lazy as she chose without being criticised. Latterly, and particularly since Lady Catherine’s departure she had seemed in better health, but this evening she looked positively ill. Elizabeth felt so concerned for her that on the ladies returning to the saloon she asked her whether she would not like to retire.
“I am afraid you have one of your very bad headaches,” she said as gently as possible. “Perhaps you would like to disappear from view. You should not stay if you do not feel equal to it. Pray do as you choose.”
Anne hesitated so long that she appeared to be deliberating. In a voice of constraint and without raising her eyes she replied that she did not feel so very ill.
“If I do not feel able to support the fatigue of staying up so late as the end of the ball I shall take advantage of your kind permission. Should I retire very early I trust no one will think it necessary to follow me.”
In some surprise that such a proviso should be mentioned Elizabeth assured her that her wish would be respected. As the lady closed her mouth with the manifest intention of not speaking again for that time and clearly desired to be let alone, she went away to speak to Georgiana.
“Everything has passed off well so far,” she said, after drawing Georgiana aside. “But do not too openly avoid him.”
“I will do my best,” Georgiana answered, her face clouding. “But oh, how I wish that this evening were over.”
Elizabeth could but echo the sentiment from the depths of her heart. Desiring as she did to see both Georgiana and Wakeford happy, or at least relieved from misery, she was most cruelly divided in her sympathies between them, since the relief of one must procure the misery of the other. Her main concern was naturally for Georgiana, but how she was to endure witnessing Wakeford’s final disappointment she preferred not to think.
Chapter 23
The time had now come when every private thought must be put aside. Shortly after the gentlemen joined the ladies in the saloon the guests began arriving, and soon the first small cluster round the Darcys had swelled to a throng, and the separate, intelligible strains of friends and acquaintance greeting one another and falling into light talk were blended in an indistinguishable buzz of voices. Dancing young men set about securing pretty partners and carried them off across the hall to the ballroom; the older people got round the card tables or found seats to watch the dancing. After the usual delays the first dance was formed and the violins struck up a lively tune.
It fell to Elizabeth to lead off with a certain Sir Charles who danced with punctilio while directing upon her a smiling gaze in certain expectation of those pearls of wit for which the most charming woman in Derbyshire was justly famed. She returned his smiles, but although she talked with persevering sprightliness she was unable to throw off anything so remarkable as to please her own ears. Luckily her reputation came to her aid, and Sir Charles continued to display all the admiration it merited.
After they had gone down the dance and she had a moment of leisure to look about her, she saw that Anne de Bourgh was standing up with Bingley, always the most considerate of partners, and that Georgiana’s portion was the eldest young Vernon. Major Wakeford, she supposed, had been secured for one of the tables of whist. But no, while her eyes were directed towards the door she saw him stroll into the ballroom, as if he had but the moment before strolled out of it, and take up his stand among a group of older men who preferred talking among themselves to dancing or playing cards.
Lofty and spacious as it was, the ballroom became very hot in the course of an hour or two, and one of the long windows, that farthest from the card players, was thrown open to the night at Elizabeth’s behest. As soon as a dance was over the young people, disregarding what their elders might say about the dangers of night air, flocked towards it, and some of the most venturesome stepped outside upon the gravel walk to look for the moon or their favourite constellations. Such stargazing was all very well for the hardiest, but careless young men and easily led young girls can soon stray beyond the limits of the prudent or the allowable, and by degrees the chaperones with looks and observations began to make their disapprobation felt. Darcy, ever watchful, thereupon directed that the window should be closed, or very nearly, but before the servants were to execute his order, he stepped outside himself to make sure that no loitering couple should be left shut out.
A figure, the figure of a man to judge by its height, standing in the shadow cast by an angle of the house was visible, but not very clearly, upon the path a few yards away. Advancing, Darcy found that it was Wakeford, and able to guess pretty well what his friend was feeling and thinking, he spoke his name quietly and without any note of surprise.
“You find this sort of thing no more to your taste than I do,” he said, after accosting him. “From time to time we give these entertainments for the benefit of the neighbourhood and oblige our acquaintance to go to the same trouble in return. I have no doubt it will go on until three or four.”
“Some of your guests have already departed,” replied Wakeford, “although it is not long after twelve. I heard the clock strike not three minutes since, and as it did so a carriage drove away from behind the house.”
“From behind the house!” Darcy ejaculated. “That’s extraordinary; it is usual to leave from the front door. Someone, probably, wishing to slip away easily without fuss,” he added, dismissing the matter as explained.
Wakeford made no rejoinder and Darcy, recollecting the business of the window, returned to the ballroom to direct its being closed. Having done so, he came out of the house again and found Wakeford still standing where he had left him.
“I have been thinking, Darcy,” he began almost immediately, “that I did unwisely to come before you had answered my letter. I should have waited for some assurance of a favourable reception before venturing here.”
“I doubt whether that would have been the wiser course. Boldness, precipitancy is said to pay in these cases.”
Wakeford’s silence spoke his lack of conviction, and after a pause Darcy continued,
“It is probably very unwise to lay down a general rule respecting a matter which affects everyone differently. To be candid, how Georgiana regards you I do not know. Even Elizabeth, who has her confidence in most things, says she does not.”
“I feel very much as I did on the eve of my first battle,” said Wakeford. “Beforehand I had been all eagerness and confidence, but as the moment of going into action arrived my blood began to run cold. A change has come over Georgiana and I feel that I no longer know her. It may be better for me to go away tomorrow.”
In ignorance of what had actually passed between Wakeford and his sister, for Elizabeth had told him only so much as he needed to know, out of consideration for Georgiana’s feelings, Darcy attributed his bewilderment to the novelty of a situation he could never have experienced before. To be in love for the first time at thirty-two is to be overpowered by emotions which properly belong to callow youth, and he was doubtless ashamed of being driven by a force he did not comprehend.
“I would by no means seek to influence you,” he replied, “and I do not feel justified in offering any advice. While this ball is in prog
ress you can only watch my sister dancing with other men as she must do whether she likes it or not, just as they feel it an obligation to offer themselves as partners. You have my best wishes, Wakeford. I cannot say more.”
Wakeford uttered a quiet “thank you,” and a silence then ensued which indicated that everything had been said on either side for the present. After a moment or two Darcy, excusing himself, returned to his other guests.
On looking round the ballroom for his cousin he could nowhere see her, but as Elizabeth had prepared him for her early withdrawal from the scene he felt no surprise at her absence. He had observed how wretchedly ill she appeared, and with what an effort she had gone through the first two dances with Bingley. Afterwards, although he had offered to introduce other partners to her she had resolutely declined to stand up again, and had sat beside the Miss Robinsons staring before her with a strained fixity of gaze and deadly pale. That was the last he had seen of her, and in pity for her evident suffering he was relieved to find that she had stolen away. He almost wished he could do likewise. In his view the last hours of a ball must beget in all but the most indefatigable dancers a feeling of weariness and satiety, a fervent longing that the violins would cease scraping out their well-worn tunes and that the incessant noise of laughter and chatter be silenced. He would have marvelled that Elizabeth should still seem fresh and lively when by rights she should be drooping, had he not learned long since a woman’s power of endurance in the great cause of social duty.
But the guests began to melt away with the dawn, and at length the door closed behind the last departure. Suddenly feeling utterly exhausted Elizabeth mounted the stairs in the agreeable anticipation of much desired sleep. Behind her in the hall below Wakeford stood talking to her husband. She could not hear what was said, but from Wakeford’s despondent look she could guess tolerably well what it was. Georgiana, if she had not absolutely rejected him in so many words, must have made it plain that she would not do otherwise.
At that point in fatigue when her head refused thought she came to the door of her room. There in trembling agitation stood Reynolds awaiting her, there as well, less trembling but in a state of horror as deep and awestruck was Mason.
“Oh, ma’am,” cried the housekeeper, hardly able to articulate for the heaving of her bosom, “I hardly know how to tell you what has happened. I would not disturb you at this hour but for its being so shocking. Oh, ma’am—”
“What has happened?” exclaimed Elizabeth. “An accident—Master Richard? Tell me at once.”
“It is not Master Richard, ma’am. It concerns Miss de Bourgh and Rachel Stone.”
“Good heavens! What has occurred?”
The story which Reynolds now began to relate fell upon ears so little prepared to receive it that its purport was at first rejected as incredible and impossible. Elizabeth heard that between eleven and twelve o’clock Rachel had been summoned to Miss de Bourgh’s room by the ringing of her bell. It was to be expected that she would remain there, an hour or more, but when nearly three hours passed and she did not return, the housekeeper judged that some enquiry was necessary. It was ascertained that Rachel had neither come downstairs, nor had she gone to the bedroom she shared with the other young maids. Reynolds therefore took upon herself to go upstairs and discover if possible what was keeping her so long with Miss de Bourgh.
Approaching the door of Miss de Bourgh’s room she saw that it stood ajar, and this circumstance so strange in itself emboldened her to open the door still farther and look into the room. A single candle upon the dressing-table was so nearly burnt out as to be flickering in its socket, but it gave enough light to see not only that the room was untenanted, but that it had been left in disorder. Wardrobe doors and drawers hung open exposing their ransacked interiors, discarded articles of wear lay where they had been cast upon the bed or on the floor amid the odds and ends of rubbish that a packing-up to go away throws out to be tidied up afterwards. Everything spoke of the frantic haste of flight.
As Reynolds gazed horrified, hardly able to credit what she saw, the candle on the dressing-table flared up and then went out, leaving her in darkness. She came away in all the distraction of knowing not what to think, still less what to do. The ball would not be over for at least another hour, and until then it was not possible to gain speech with either her master or her mistress. Yet something must be attempted, if only for her own satisfaction, and fetching Mason from a doze in her chair in the servants’ hall, the two women went upstairs, fortified by each other’s company, to see if they could by any means arrive at comprehending what had happened.
While hunting round the room in the hope of finding something to enlighten them, they came upon a letter which had been left lying beside the candlestick on the dressing-table. It was addressed to Mrs. Stone, and as Rachel could neither read nor write, must have been written for her by another person, presumably Miss de Bourgh. After some debate with Mason whether she should open and read it Mrs. Reynolds decided that it was not for her to do so, but that it should be preserved and handed to Mrs. Darcy.
The finding of the letter marked the conclusion of the housekeeper’s narrative. It was now produced and Elizabeth entered her room to read it while the women waited outside. Rachel, in the language and handwriting of Miss de Bourgh, informed her mother that she was quitting Pemberley in the service of a new mistress and was going to live with her either in London or Kent. As she might be some time on the journey thither a further letter should not be expected just yet. Rachel sent her love to her mother and sisters and begged her mother not to be uneasy about her as she had got a very good place where she would be well treated and live happy. Then there followed these words which were perhaps intended as a message for others besides Mrs. Stone.
“We are travelling at first into Scotland as Miss de Bourgh has business there before she can return to her own home. When this is concluded she will communicate with her relations.”
Elizabeth read this sentence twice over although its significance and intention were so clear as to strike her immediately. Miss de Bourgh had eloped—with whom? Only one name occurred to her for there could be no other, and her chief wonder was that with so many circumstances to suggest something of the sort being in the wind, she had been so little suspicious, so little penetrating, that such an outcome as now burst upon her should find her all unprepared. Anne de Bourgh had eloped with Horace Carlini. It was quite natural, almost to be expected. She was in love with him and he was not proof against her fortune. He must have persuaded her to it, knowing that Lady Catherine’s partiality could not possibly survive knowledge of the truth about himself. Whether Anne knew it as yet was in doubt, but Elizabeth could give Carlini credit for making every disagreeable fact appear in the guise of totally unmerited misfortune, thus exciting her pity and increasing the ardour of her affection for him.
Such musing did not detain Elizabeth longer than a few seconds. While still reading the letter she comprehended the need for instant action. Her first duty was to find her husband and tell him everything, or at any rate as much as she knew; indeed her thought flew to him with mad impatience for his presence, his attention, his counsel. She ran out of the room to seek him, leaving the women standing outside the door and met him coming through the gallery. Her distraught looks would have astonished her could she have seen herself; she saw their effects in his face as he caught her arms and asked her what was the matter.
Commanding herself to speak intelligently, she repeated Reynolds’ story, and then, for she was still clutching Rachel’s letter in her hand, gave it to him to read.
Darcy heard her calmly and in silence for the most part, merely asking a slight question or two on some detail she had not made perfectly clear, and having read the letter, he led her back to her room. Reynolds and Mason were still waiting in the same place, and before following his wife through the door he stopped to speak to the housekeeper. Without emotion, for she was pas
t any fresh sensation, Elizabeth heard him order breakfast for himself at eight o’clock and a chaise for a quarter of an hour later.
“I have every confidence in your discretion,” he concluded. “You will, I know, ensure that the events of the night go no further than need be. Your mistress will acquaint the Widow Stone of her daughter’s departure.”
“You intend to follow them?” Elizabeth said on his rejoining her.
“Yes, I must go after them—there’s no question. They will have had several hours start, but they will not travel so fast as I can do, and before the end of the journey, before they cross the border into Scotland, I shall come up with them. By that time Anne may have repented of her rash action and will consent to be escorted to her own home.”
“I feel certain she will persist in her folly.”
“That may be, but neither she nor Lady Catherine must ever be able to say that she was not given the chance to change her mind.”
“You are perfectly sure that she has gone with Ac—Carlini?”
“There is no doubt of it, I fear. All that we know points to it. Lady Catherine encouraged her to like him—very likely to view him as a possible husband. Yesterday he was seen in Bakewell by Wakeford—not six miles away.”
Elizabeth, all thought of sleep banished and hardly conscious of the passage of time, now began to detail everything she could remember to have witnessed in Anne’s behaviour since Carlini had quitted Pemberley which, regarded as merely eccentric at the time, now bore a very different complexion. Her daily disappearances to the Parsonage or upon solitary excursions in the carriage, her studied avoidance of her hostess and fellow guests, her insistence upon Rachel’s inexperienced and inadequate services for sole attendance upon herself, now made up a coherent story, the interpretation of which was not far to seek. She and Carlini had doubtless been meeting secretly with the help of the Miss Robinsons, though it was improbable that these ladies were aware of their scheme to elope, and the flight had been planned for the night of the ball, as affording an excellent opportunity to get away undetected. Rachel Stone had been drawn into the business as a confidante, Carlini having discovered in her an infinite willingness to be persuaded into anything, and had become a useful aider and abettor. Anne’s feebleness and helplessness, indeed, could not have carried all through without Rachel’s continued assistance.
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