Mr. Darcy's Great Escape

by Marsha Altman

  “The Prussian coast. I’m trying to arrange passage, but it is very difficult, with all of the retreating soldiers.”

  Again, if Darcy knew anything about it, he gave no indication. “Dr. Maddox?”

  “Another complication; he can’t be moved easily. He has a bad fever. They’re keeping him under with laudanum.” He did not know if Darcy wanted to know more; he was very hard to read. “How are you feeling?”

  “I want to go home.”

  It was simple enough. The frightening part was how desperately he said it. This man was not Darcy. He was a shell of Darcy. Austria had hollowed him out. “As soon as we can get a ship and move the doctor.”

  Darcy looked down, playing with his hands. He looked up at Fitzwilliam. “You can understand, maybe. You are a soldier. You have seen things.”

  “Yes.” He’d actually only seen live combat once, in a pitched battle, but it was enough. “I’ve bought myself out now because of the earldom and Anne. I said, ‘This is my last campaign.’”

  Darcy smiled weakly at that but said nothing.

  Fitzwilliam rose. “I’m off to look for a ship. Is there anything you require?”

  “I’m well, thank you.” It was a lie, but that was all right for the moment.

  Fitzwilliam bowed and took his leave with a heavy heart. He knew Pemberley would restore Darcy, and his family, all of whom were now safe. He just knew it would take time and, until then, would be painful to watch. “Good day, Darcy.”

  “Good day, Richard.”

  Fitzwilliam left and shut the door. The inn housing them was small but clean and rather pleasant, except for the strain of war all around them and the harsh winter winds beginning to blow in. They were all tired; home was so close, and yet so far. Even Grégoire, first hesitant to leave, agreed to come and take the patron saint of Bavaria with him. “Well, he is from England,” he finally rationalized, “originally.”

  “Stay with your saint and Darcy,” Fitzwilliam said. “I’m off to the docks.”

  Grégoire bowed, fully understanding the gravity of his charge.

  ***

  Lord Matlock was gone for quite a while, to the point where Elizabeth was worried that it would be another fruitless day of searching for a ship that was willing to take them home. Napoleon’s blockage was quite strong on this side of it, and while they could go north into more favorable territory, it was obvious that Dr. Maddox could not, for the moment, be moved again. He tossed and turned in his sleep as Caroline put another cold cloth on his forehead.

  “It will break,” Darcy assured her. He had insisted on seeing Dr. Maddox. “The fever will break, and he will be fine.”

  Caroline tried to look assured but failed. Elizabeth passed Darcy off to Grégoire and had conference with Caroline in the other room. “We must do something.”

  “Agreed.” Caroline looked especially tired from tending to her husband, who was getting worse, not better. “Perhaps the docks are the wrong place to look. We could at least ask around.”

  Since they knew Darcy would not accept the idea of them venturing out on their own, they did not tell him. They merely went down into the tavern beneath the inn, a seedy place that they had only walked through, having had their meals sent up. It was awful, but it was the best place in town. They had been here two weeks and not found anything better.

  “Yer lookin’ fer passage?” said the barkeep. Surprisingly, many people were also English, in the same proverbial boat or just current residents for one reason or another. “There’s a cap’n over there.” He pointed, a rather rude thing for him to do, but Elizabeth held her tongue as they looked around. The place was mostly empty. There was a French soldier splayed out on a couch in the corner by the door, smoking a long pipe. There were a few people playing cards, natives speaking German. And at one table, two men, who very much looked like sailors, were devouring a plate of unrecognizable food.

  The ladies curtseyed. “Are you the captain?”

  “Name’s Jack,” he said. “This here is Handy. Which ’e is,” he said.

  “My name is Mrs. Darcy, this is Mrs. Maddox,” Elizabeth said as they semi-reluctantly seated themselves across from these unsavory-looking men. “We’re looking for passage to England.”

  “I heard. You got that lord, been askin’ around,” Jack said.

  “Yeh can’t go to England,” Handy said. “Boney’s got ships attackin’ the Grand Old Navy. They’re holdin’ up, but yeh gotta get across them. ’S dangerous.”

  “Please,” Caroline said. “We must get to England. Name your price.”

  “And my reception when I return? Fer that I wouldn’t take the royal treasury,” Jack said. “But—we’re all English. Let’s not be unreasonable; ’haps there could be some ’greement—” And he slid his hand across the filthy table and over Elizabeth’s.

  “Sir!” She instantly tried to withdraw, but he held her hand fast. “Unhand me at once! You know very well my husband—”

  “Isn’t your husband laid up?” Handy said. He turned to Caroline. “And isn’t yours Irish?”

  “I am not Irish!” Caroline furtively looked around, but the few patrons of the bar didn’t seem interested in what was going on in the corner. She wondered how far it would have to go before they did. When he reached for her, she slapped him, but it had little effect on such a burly man.

  “Hey,” said a voice from the other side of the room. It was the smoking soldier. “Yameroo.” (Hold it.)

  “What? Hey, feller, stay outta this.”

  The man lazily got off the couch; his posture was all slack and unconcerned. As he emerged into the light of their table’s candle, it became obvious from his expression that he meant business. He also had something strapped over his shoulder that could only be a weapon, probably a sword. He was wearing the long, blue overcoat of a soldier, but a brown tunic beneath. He seemed to be wearing wooden shoes with stilts, different from the Danish clog shoes. He was also wearing a French officer’s hat, turned backwards, and it did not obscure his face, which was decidedly not European. He stared down Handy, the man who had tried to scare him off. “England. They go.”

  “What did I just say? Or do you even understand me?” Handy said. “This is just a business matter, and yeh’re in hostile territory, so you might as well take a walk. That is, if you don’t speak in clicks and whistles.”

  “Kore de sugita.” (I’ve had enough of this) he said, knowing that they would not have understood a word. “Leave them alone.”

  “Or what, Chinaman?”

  It was faster than any possible reaction as the man pulled the long sword from his scabbard and swung it at Handy, who was only able to scream and tear himself back, clutching his severed limb as his hand and forearm dropped lifelessly to the ground. The Chinaman seemed unaffected by this but did not replace his sword, grabbing Jack and slamming his hand on the table with his own slender, tattooed arm. “Now.” He held it so Jack could not escape as his partner thrashed about behind them and the few other patrons hid behind the bar. “I take finger. Count to three. Ichi—”

  “Please, sir, I beg of you—”

  “Ni.”

  “All right! All right! Just—leave me in peace! I’ll go!”

  “Is shame,” said the Oriental, and with only a hold on Jack’s hand, hurled him across the room to join his severed partner. “Go.”

  They did. Following them were the rest of the patrons. The Chinaman turned to the two women, horrified at the bloodshed that they had just seen, and very aware that if Jack and Handy had been at his mercy, so would they. He put his sword on the table. “Madokusu-san?”

  “I am Mrs. Maddox,” Caroline’s voice was trembling as she unconsciously linked arms with Elizabeth.

  He bowed, and pointed to Elizabeth, “Darushi-san?”

  “I am Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy.” She rose and curtseyed to him. “Are
you looking for us?”

  “Madokusu-san and Nadi-sama send me. You go to England?”

  “Yes. We were trying to arrange it—”

  “He arrives. Ship.” He looked out the window. “Soon.”

  “We’d best leave, anyway,” Caroline said. “After all the carnage you’ve caused, Chinaman.”

  “Mugin,” he said. “No Chinaman. Nippon.”

  “I’m afraid we do not fully comprehend you,” said Elizabeth, “but our husbands are upstairs, if you would follow.”

  “Hai.” He put his blade back in the scabbard and bowed to them.

  As they climbed the stairs, they could hear the clonking of his wooden shoes following behind as Caroline whispered, “Why are we listening to him?”

  “Because I’d rather listen to him than lose my arm!” Elizabeth replied and opened the door to their room.

  Darcy was in the armchair. He rose with his cane at the entrance of his wife. “Elizabeth. Mrs. Maddox—” and then he caught sight of the very angry and dangerous-looking person following them. “Sir?”

  “This is—I have no idea,” Elizabeth shrugged, “but he just saved our lives, if in a very gruesome way.”

  Darcy did not seem to have the energy to ask for the details. “Sir,” he said, with a very small and stiff bow, “I am indebted to you.”

  “Please, don’t strain yourself,” his brother pleaded beside him. “Sir, we are grateful.”

  The man shrugged it off. “Go to England.” He pointed to the doctor, still unconscious on his cot. “Madokusu-san?”

  “Dr. Maddox,” Elizabeth said. “He’s very sick. We’ll have to arrange—”

  But the man slid past her, without any hesitation, picked up Dr. Maddox and slung him over his shoulders. “We go. Junbi dekiteru?” (Are you ready?)

  “If I might inquire—”

  “Darcy,” Elizabeth said, grabbing his arm. “I think this man was sent by—Brian Maddox. I don’t think we have the option of not listening to him.”

  For it seems they didn’t, unless Caroline wanted to raise her pistol at the man carrying her husband over his shoulders with surprising ease for someone on clog stilts. Elizabeth gathered what little belongings they had and put her husband’s arm over her shoulder, helping him follow the Oriental down the steps and out the door as Grégoire carried the box containing the reliquary.

  It was a small town, and he seemed to know his way to the docks. Aside from their feet against the cobbled stone, they made very little noise. The water was in sight when they heard it.

  “Halte!” It was an occupational guardsman, coming up with a lantern and a pistol.

  “Nani?” said the Oriental.

  Several others joined the guard, with bayonets.

  “French,” Darcy said. “We have to go, Chinaman.”

  “No China! Nippon, gaijin!” He slid the doctor’s body off his shoulders and onto the ground. “I take care.” He drew his very long sword.

  “Darcy, don’t let him,” Elizabeth whispered. “He’ll kill them!”

  “Nanika atta?” (What’s up?) came a voice from behind them. A lone figure standing in front of the entrance to the docks, wearing a lampshade for a helmet, from what it seemed in the light. “Mugin? Daijoubu?” (Are you okay?)

  “Saikou da!” (Couldn’t be better!)

  “Remember what I said,” the lampshaded figure said in the King’s English. “No killing, Mugin.”

  “Hai, hai, Madokusu-sama,” said Mugin as he approached the three very confused soldiers. Actually, what he did was not so much approach as it was to duck off to the side, catch the tip of the raised bayonet between the grooves of his wooden shoes, and stamp his foot down, punching the man in the jaw as he went down. The leader fired a shot with his pistol, but Mugin was already gone from that spot, leaping over him and clocking him from behind with the butt of his sword. The third man might have reached him had the lampshade-hatted man not used that time to join him, drawing his sword and swiping it across the bayonet, slitting it in half. Between that and a hit in the head from a flying shoe, all three men had been sufficiently incapacitated in a few brief seconds.

  “We should go,” said the man, turning to his English spectators, “immediately. Nady has the ship waiting. But first, tell me—is my brother alive?”

  “Barely,” Darcy said. “And if it were not for your wild Oriental there and my own infirmity, I would sock you for it, Mr. Maddox.”

  “That I can’t help,” said Brian Maddox, lifting his hat, which seemed to be made of some kind of straw, so they could see his face. “What I can do is get you all to England—now. Mugin?”

  “Hai?”

  “We’re leaving.” He re-sheathed his sword—he had two of them—and attempted to pick up his fallen brother, but the doctor was much taller than him and therefore much heavier, and it was Mugin who took him fully.

  There were screams and alarms in the distance. After all, they had caused a ruckus in this little town. They barely made it onto the ship where Fitzwilliam was waiting. “What—” but he got no response as they ran past, with Brian using his small blade to cut the ropes as they went. Shots were fired as the mainland disappeared behind them. The doctor was wrapped in a blanket by a woman in a silk robe and eased onto the deck floor. Mugin, completely relaxed by the whole series of events, merely kicked off his sandals and laid down against the side of the bow.

  “Some—introductions are in order,” said Brian Maddox, removing the hat and revealing an oddly shaved head, long in the back and tied up over the front. “Mr. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Maddox, Colonel Fitzwilliam—this is my wife, Princess Nadezhda Maddox.”

  Upon closer inspection, in the light afforded to them by the full moon and the various lamps on the bow, they could see that despite her clothing, the woman beside him was dark, but certainly not Oriental. She was undeniably European, and curtseyed to them. “Pleased to meet you all.” Her accent was heavy but certainly excusable. She whispered something in another language, presumably Romanian, to her husband, and he laughed.

  “No, I assure you, she’s not,” he said and, without explanation, turned to Darcy. “You must sit down. You look horrible.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Amazing what months in captivity by an Austrian count does to you.”

  Brian didn’t flinch as he ordered the hired crew to settle Mr. Darcy down on something soft and attend to the ladies as well. It was only then that he fully turned his attentions to his brother, whom he could not wake. “Danny?”

  “Laudanum,” Caroline said, kneeling on the other side of her husband, “for his hand. And the fever.”

  “His hand?” With all of the bandages, it was obvious.

  “If only we’d known, we wouldn’t have—”

  “I know,” Brian said. “I know. I wrote every day I was still on the Continent, I swear. I sent couriers and couriers to say we were safe, but none of them reached you because of this… bloody embargo!” He fumbled in anger and tore at his hair, pulling down the carefully tied topknot. “Danny, I’m so sorry.”

  “How did you find us?” Darcy asked.

  “Mrs. Bingley filled me in on the particulars upon our arrival from Japan.”

  “Japan?”

  “Yes. We took the rather long way home to avoid my father-in-law. I think I’ll be happy never to be on a ship again in my life.”

  “And your—I don’t know his name, the servant.”

  “Mugin. He isn’t a servant. He’s just sort of… traveling with us,” Brian said, sitting down beside his brother and resting his arms in the sleeves of his silk robe. He added, “And he can understand you, even if he pretends otherwise.”

  From his position, Mugin huffed, but said nothing.

  Chapter 23

  Brian’s Story, Part 2

  1810

  Embarrassingly for Brian’
s self-esteem, it was Nadezhda who was the chief reason they survived the first few weeks. She was a far better huntsman than he was, having been raised with it as a means of sport in her native homeland. She was also a better cook, so she was largely responsible for the food, and he only the fire, which she often chastised him for being too high or too low to bring the meat to a proper temperature. He had spent more years on the run, and in this he bested her, knowing how to hide (which they did from every passing authority figure, no matter from what country), how to make shelter, and how to treat burns from the frost on a particularly chilly evening. He was surprised that they made it to St. Petersburg without having to eat their horses, and still managing to stay off the well-traveled roads. There, he was mainly lost. He had been there once on an errand, and his Russian was poor, while hers was fluent.

  “I don’t know which one of us is being rescued,” he said to her with a smile as they enjoyed what they considered the luxury of one-room lodging with a pipe stove. The bed wasn’t very large, but neither of them minded. In fact, it helped pass the time.

  Paper was expensive, but they had her dowry, and he slowly began to quietly convert small amounts over to Russian coinage, with multiple trips to multiple banks. He spent his spare time, while she shopped for food, writing to his brother, carefully not revealing their location but relaying the events of the past few months. He sent every letter with a prayer as it dropped into the iron box.

  “If we stay here much longer, we’ll have to winter here,” he said.

  Nadezhda curled up against him. “The sea is frozen by now. We can’t sail to England.”

  “Maybe we could skate.”

  Nadezhda giggled.

  He’d been frightened—she had never been more than a few miles from home, and here she was, fending largely for herself in a foreign country with a foreign husband. She never complained. “I am alone with you for the first time. No spies.”

  “That we know of.”

  She laughed again and kissed him.

  ***

  Any degree of tranquility they enjoyed was shattered, but with enough time for them to make it out of St. Petersburg before it became too cold to do so. For this, Brian was grateful, but in the days to come, he would look back on their weeks in that tiny apartment with great affection, as if it had been their true honeymoon, drab as the surroundings were.