Goodwin bowed in acknowledgement and withdrew, a chill disapproval emanating from his person. Darcy smiled as he left, privately amused; he had often thought that, given Goodwin’s sense of personal dignity, he ought to be no less than a duke.
Entering the hall, he found six men, somewhat scarred and battered-looking, but generally clean and upright in appearance. At their front was quite a small man, waiting patiently at a parade rest, as one who has lived through great strife and turbulence will wait; he had an enormously strong physique—one of the strongest of any man Darcy had ever seen. To this man Goodwin gestured and pronounced: “Corporal Sands, Sir.”
Darcy stepped forward and said in greeting: “Corporal Sands.”
“Sir,” the other responded with the briefest bow.
“Goodwin, these men are here to help me in a matter of some importance; perhaps you could find something for them in the kitchen,” suggested his master, gesturing towards the men who stood behind the corporal. Goodwin bowed and said, “Of course, Sir,” in that resigned tone that means “On your head be it.”
Corporal Sands spoke up, as though issuing an order: “Just tea and toast; no ale for these lads.” To Darcy he said, “Beggin’ yer pardon, Sir. I knows this lot.”
From behind him one of the men muttered, “Oi, Sandy…!” Sands turned slowly to the men, who all suddenly froze, as mice will when the cat appears; while the smallest of the men by far, there was about the corporal a sense of sheer physical presence that suggested he could, should he take a mind to, tear the house—and every one in it—down with his bare hands. Goodwin turned rigidly on his heel, leading the men away, and they followed him single file, averting their eyes from Sands’ face.
When they were gone, Darcy motioned his guest towards the front drawing-room. “Have you eaten, Corporal?” he asked.
“Yes…Sir,” the man replied. There was that in his manner when he spoke, though, that made Darcy press: “This morning?”
Sands gave a faint, sheepish grin, “No, Sir.”
Darcy called a footman and told him to bring his breakfast there, and to double it for the corporal. Looking about him, the man hesitated to sit on the elegant, tapestried cushions perched on the finely carved legs of the chairs placed about the room. “Oh, do be seated, Corporal,” Darcy told him briskly. “I dare say they have supported less worthy hindquarters than yours. Tell me about yourself.”
“Nothin’ to tell…Sir,” he replied.
“Where have you served?”
“Here an’ there.”
“Well, then, how is it you know Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“Never claimed to…Sir,”
Darcy believed he had deciphered the corporal’s code: hesitation before the “Sir” signalled prevarication. He decided two could play at this game. “Did I say you had?”
Another faint smile showed on Sands’ face. “No, Sir.”
“As it happens, I do know Colonel Fitzwilliam, and very well: he mentioned you by name, and your being here says he vouches for you. So, how does he know you?”
“I was a Corporal o’ the ‘Orse in the Royals. The Colonel wanted me for ‘is batman, but on account of a misunderstandin’ with a captain, I got volunteered to go to the lowlands last year, instead. When officers got thin in the cavalry, we was assigned to the Grenadiers, and I got blown up a little—bad knee; can’t tell, normally, but I can’t ride for long. They offered me reg’lar Army, but I’m Cavalry, I am. That’s ‘ow I’m ‘ere.”
“‘Nothing to tell’, I believe you said?” Darcy said, cocking a brow in the man’s direction.
“Yes, Sir.”
“I should very much like to hear what you might consider worthy of mention,” Darcy said drily.
Their breakfast arrived just then: eggs, sausages, cold ham, bread, fresh muffins, two different sorts of cake, scones, butter, honey, and jam. The corporal sniffed appreciatively and gave a cheerful, two-tone whistle, but Darcy held up a restraining hand to the footman. He asked the corporal politely: “Unless you would prefer tea and toast?”
The man finally smiled openly. “No, Lieutenant, I’ll make do with this ‘ere.”
“Excellent; I am obliged to you,” Darcy said. Wondering at how the man had calculated his rank, he mentioned: “You know, I imagine, that I have never been in military life. But I have listened to what Colonel Fitzwilliam says, and he always says that feeding the men is the first, and biggest concern for any army, no matter the size.”
“The Colonel’s a man I wouldn’t argue with, Lieutenant,” Sands agreed. “Now, wot’s this we’re about, then?”
Darcy explained while they ate. When he had done, the Corporal, after working half a sausage around in his mouth so he could speak, said “Yer goin’ through all this trouble for some article wot run off with a man…Sir?”
“Not at all,” Darcy disagreed, noting that he had lost his rank again. “I know her, and, silly as she is, it would hardly be worth the attempt.”
“Well then?”
“Her family is worth the attempt, and the man is my responsibility; he was brought up at my family’s expense, and it is on me to see to it he does not dishonour that endeavour.”
The corporal considered this a moment; apparently he found it satisfactory, as he then nodded, saying, “Right; when do we start?”
“As soon as we have done eating.”
“I’d rather fight than eat, so let’s be gettin’ on with it.” Prepared to leave that instant, he stood up, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand.
Darcy waved him back to his meal. “Finish your food,” he told him, “we have until the carriage is ready.”
“Aye, Lieutenant,” said the Corporal, sitting down and tucking back into his plate.
Before leaving, Darcy made sure to give him sufficient funds for the needs of his men for a reasonable period of time. The Corporal preferring to ride with the coachman, Darcy was left to himself inside the coach during the ride back to Deptford. When they arrived at Edwards Street, Sands swung down and, clinging to the coach, said through the window, “You wait ‘ere whilst I get inside their lines. Lemme ‘ave three minutes, then you come in.” He dropped easily off the side of the coach and walked down the street towards the house run by Mrs. Younge. Darcy asked himself when the other had taken command of this incursion, but did as he was bidden.
As he approached the door some few minutes later, the sound of a raised voice reached his ears. “Be off with you, I said,” a woman’s voice cried; Darcy recognised it as belonging to Mrs. Younge, but in an accent far more common that any she normally used in his presence. A man’s voice, speaking too low for Darcy to distinguish, answered back. “I don’t care about that: leave, I tell you!” came Mrs. Younge’s voice again.
Darcy made his entrance without knocking; at the sight of a gentleman at her door, Mrs. Younge appeared momentarily relieved; upon recognising her caller, however, her high colour left her, and she cried, “Mr. Darcy!”
“Mrs. Younge,” Darcy acknowledged. “Not whom you were hoping to see?”
The lady merely glowered at him spitefully. “No, I should imagine not,” said Darcy. “Let me ask you again: where is George Wickham?”
“He still isn’t here, if that’s what you’re after,” she said rudely. “And I am about to call the watch on this ruffian, so if you would rather not come to their notice, I suggest you leave immediately.”
Darcy ignored this. “There is only one way for this to end well for you, Mrs. Younge,” he said. “Wickham is the only link left between us; sever that link, and I have neither reason, nor desire, ever to seek out your company again. Understand this, though: I will find him, and if that means tearing you down to get to him, I shall not hesitate.”
Sands asked, “You want me to search for ‘im, Captain?” Darcy nodded, gratified to an irrational degree by his field promotion.
Mrs. Younge looked from one to the other, comprehension dawning that they were in league together. “You can’t do that
,” she cried in great indignation, stomping her foot three times on the floor in exasperation: those who make free with others’ prerogatives are often quite jealous of their own. Ignoring her, the Corporal left the room. She made as though to follow, but Darcy stepped in front of her and held up a restraining hand.
“‘Ere,” cried Mrs. Younge, her accent reverting to one whose native haunts were closer to Manchester than Westminster, “You wouldn’t ‘it a lady!”
“Not on my life,” Darcy agreed. “I merely wished to point out that the other gentleman might not be so nice in his manners; and as he would barely notice if you were to hit him with a hammer, I urge you to consider carefully what you expect to accomplish, before going after him.”
After that Mrs. Younge merely stood without speaking, looking at Darcy with a hard and calculating eye. The sounds of Corporal Sands moving about the place could be heard; starting at the top floor, he worked his way down, stopping to open various doors, and moving methodically from front to back; back on the ground floor, as he passed the sitting-room he reported: “No one ‘ere now, Captain, and only the one woman livin’ in the ‘ouse.” Going through the kitchen, then opening the door to the cellar, Darcy could follow the sound of his steps going down the stairs; suddenly, the crashing noises of a scuffle reached Darcy and his hostess; there was a cry and a heavy thump, followed by a short, cheerful whistle and a lengthy silence. Steps approaching from that direction, Mrs. Younge looked eagerly towards the door to the kitchen, only to sink back into a chair as Corporal Sands reappeared, a satisfied smile on his face.
“’Tis a fine mornin’, Captain,” he observed, apropos of nothing in particular. “I found a freebooter with a very ‘andy little club ‘idin’ down the cellar. He was ‘idin’ summat else, too: a big pile o’ candlesticks, jewellery boxes, silk ‘andkerchiefs, and whatnot. The missus ‘ere ‘as a side-business, seemingly; I shouldn’t wonder if the watch ‘ereabouts would be ‘appy to know about that.”
Darcy felt suddenly at peace: “It is a fine morning, Corporal,” he agreed.
Chapter Sixteen
Just past noon Darcy and Corporal Sands arrived in Whitechapel, where Mrs. Younge had supplied them a direction in George Street. As the coach could not negotiate the narrow by-ways of the neighbourhood, Darcy sent it home. They began at St. Mary’s, as she had told them the address was in that parish, but they had considerable difficulty finding their way. The day was overcast, and with no sun to steer by, it was easy to get turned about in the warren-like streets; and they very soon learned that the locals’ information was not to be trusted, having been sent on several detours that had ended at establishments for the entertainment of men.
From the church, they searched to the east and south along the dirty streets and alleys bordering Whitechapel Street. Darcy and the Corporal had decided to come on their own to perform the search, rather than deploy all of their men; the Corporal had felt they would be less conspicuous that way. Less conspicuous was a relative term, as Darcy, always tall, and to-day, far too well-dressed for his surroundings, drew the attention of the urchins, hawkers, and muslins at every turning. It was slow going, and they eventually took to the expediency of having him trail Corporal Sands by twenty or thirty paces, allowing Sands to progress unimpeded out in front.
They were to spend some hours in this manner, searching the close and weary dens south of the high street; it was getting on in the afternoon when they crossed Whitechapel and proceeded up Osborn. It was there they encountered their first real incident of note: as the light from the sun behind the clouds began to fade, Darcy suddenly found himself set upon by two men; the first, wielding a knife that missed being a sword by inches only, stepped right out in front of him; he was wiry and quick of movement, holding his weapon with practiced ease. The second, a hulking beast of a man, though unarmed, got between Darcy and Sands, obviously intent on delaying Sands from coming to Darcy’s aid.
When Darcy had been up at Oxford, he had, along with most young men of his class, taken lessons in the sword at a salle d’armes in town. Darcy had enjoyed the exercise a good deal, but there had been one individual whom Darcy never could abide, who was a most devoted student of the rapier; rather than undergo the daily aggravation of practising with this disobliging individual, Darcy had turned to the single-stick. His pleasure in the art had given him application, and, by the time he left, he was more than proficient. At the time it had all been rather for his enjoyment and convenience, but now it turned to material advantage, as a walking-stick differed from a single-stick only by the lack of a guard. He had the reach on his assailant by more than a foot, and addressed his blade en garde in third almost with amusement.
The footpad, seeing that Darcy had no intention of yielding easily, lost a good deal of his initial enthusiasm and swagger; he began circling Darcy, looking for an opening. Darcy took a quick scan of the footing around him, and noticed too that the crowded street had become suddenly empty. From behind him, he could hear Corporal Sands giving out as good as he got; his cheery whistle told Darcy there was little to worry about from that quarter. The man before Darcy, waving his blade sinuously in front of him, made an exploratory lunge to test Darcy, but his distance was faulty, and he came within reach of Darcy’s arm; Darcy took his blade in fourth with a riposte volante to the left, which he carried down to low-line, cutting back hard across the kneecap with the brass tip of his walking stick. As the man cried out, Darcy administered a soporific that quieted his cries: a solid coup de taille montante that caught the man on the left angle of the jaw, bringing his adversary an instant, alleviating sedation, temporarily putting him beyond the pain which his knee, and now his jaw, would know for weeks to come.
Darcy spun now to his rear, executing a passe avant to reach the other two, and finished with a heavy blow to the sinews on the back of the larger man’s heel just as he took his weight on that foot to leap at Sands; while the timing of this manœuvre was entirely fortuitous, the results were both impressive and satisfying: instead of vaulting forward at Sands, the man’s leg gave way under him directly; clutching at his leg as he fell, his skull came down on the curbing with a resounding crack, and suddenly all was still. Sands looked in surprise at the man on the ground before him, then at Darcy; he then looked over to the other man where he lay motionless, his knife still in his grip, and finally back again to Darcy; he gave a low-pitched whistle and rubbed his cheek in wonder. While astounded at his good luck and the ease of his victory, Darcy met the Corporal’s gaze impassively—though he held his features in check with difficulty: his elation at having the whole engagement go so perfectly, as thoroughly in his favour as any he had ever imagined as “Dirks Darcy” in the woods at Rosings, made him want to dance about and wave his fists in the air. Such a very un-piratical display would, naturally, rob his performance of much of its effect, so he contented himself with a little twirling flourish as he brought his stick back to its proper place under his hand. Sands went to the smaller man and, kicking the blade from his hand, reached down and retrieved it; he offered it to Darcy, who declined with a gesture. The corporal tucked the blade into his belt at the back under his coat by way of compensation for his troubles, and, with a new respect, gestured for Darcy to precede him.
While they were able, after this, to proceed unhindered through the streets for the first time in hours, with the crowded streets parting miraculously before them, Darcy questioned the wisdom of staying on after dark; it would not do to trust his luck to such a degree twice in one day, nor did he like the attention their skirmish had given them; in addition, the Corporal, while not seeming to notice, had not escaped as easily from his struggle as Darcy had from his; he was bruised and bloodied, and Darcy thought the two of them had best be off the streets. However, just then they found the looked-for street, and the very unprepossessing inn whose direction Mrs. Younge had given them. Darcy, at a bit of a loss, said, “Corporal, you need attention and I should not be seen here; yet it goes against the grain to leave j
ust when we have him.”
“Aye, Major; just you stay put right ‘ere,” Sands told him, gesturing to a recessed doorway; he then slouched across the street to the inn. Darcy reflected happily on the agreeable prospect of his out-ranking his cousin by day’s end, if events continued at their present pace. In a moment Sands reappeared, and, motioning Darcy to step around a corner into an alleyway, joined him there. “E's there, right enough,” he confirmed. He looked round until he spotted a ragamuffin boy with an intelligent face. “Hi there, Jonny! —come ’ere,” he waved him over, some coins showing in his palm. The lad stepped over warily, one eye on the coins, and the other searching the vicinity for a trap. “You’ll do,” Sands drawled. “’Ere lad, see this?” he said, showing him the miniature of Wickham. “This young blood bides over in that ‘ouse across the street. You seen ‘im?”
“What if I ‘ave?” the boy asked suspiciously.
“’E's a sharper, is what, and this gen’leman ‘ere wants ‘im.”
“Wot’s in it fer me?”
“Enough,” answered Sands, “if you can stay awake long enough for me an’ my mates to get back ‘ere.” He tossed the boy a ha’penny, who snatched it dextrously out of the air. “That’s for starters, and if you and the swell are both still ‘ere when we get back, there’s thrupence waitin’ for you.”
The lad thought it over, then spat in his hand and offered it to Sands, who solemnly repeated the ritual; they shook on it.
“What are you called?” asked Darcy.
“My name is Tibbs, Mister,” the youth replied, and Darcy found himself possessed of another vassal. The corporal then led Darcy back to St. Mary’s and on down the high street. They took the first hackney coach they could find back to Grosvenor Square; sitting back against the seat, Sands grunted and sat forward again; reaching behind him, he pulled out the long knife he had tucked into his belt. He gave it an appreciative look, then, seeing Darcy’s eye on it as well, passed it politely to him. As Darcy looked it over, he felt some qualms about his willingness to engage it in combat: it was a savage thing, and unwholesomely sharp. He looked down at his walking stick, and observed a four-inch gash marring its finish, about a third of the way up from the tip. “Blast!” he swore; the cane was a favourite, and he was sorry to have injured it. Sands, tucking the knife back behind him, settled back and closed his eyes; soon his contented snores announced he was sleeping, as any experienced campaigner will, when there is no chance of action in the offing; Darcy, however, was not inclined to join him, as the prospect of tightening the net around his quarry was too exciting to allow for repose.
Darcy's Tale, Volume III_The Way Home Page 13