A Will of Iron

by Beutler Linda

  “Your ladyship does me a great honour.”

  “Yes, well, you must be repaid for the many little honours you did my Anne,” Lady Catherine said as she filled their cups.

  Next, she cut the cake and placed a large portion on Mr. Collins’s bread and butter plate. There was a tap at the closed doors.

  “I am not to be disturbed!” Lady Catherine reminded whoever was on the other side.

  The rapping came more loudly.

  Exhaling a sigh that revealed great agitation, she called, “Come then, and be quick about it.”

  Her butler entered. “Please, I do apologise, your ladyship, but if I might have a word. There is a grave problem in the stables.”

  Mr. Collins stood as his splendid but visibly irked patroness quit the room, closing the doors behind her. He sat back down and felt he might drool for the delightful smells. Perhaps a sip or two of tea and the merest few crumbs of cake would not be noticed by her ladyship, for he longed to partake.

  After taking a swallow of tea, it occurred to him that Lady Catherine was fond of dipping cake and biscuits in her coffee. He noticed she would create a layer of residue in the bottom of her cup, which she would finally eat with a spoon after drinking off the liquid. Although not appetising to him, would she not appreciate his courtesy if he ministered to her coffee as she would do for herself whilst it was still hot?

  After another swallow of tea, Mr. Collins noticed specks of glaze and crumbs on his plate, which he tucked into his mouth with relish. They were delicious. His stomach growled. Deciding he would seek Lady Catherine’s forbearance after the fact, for he was quite hungry, he ate a bite of cake, followed quickly by a larger one, filling his mouth and leaving him unable to speak as, without warning, she returned.

  “You have started? I should have known.”

  “Murf…snerk,” Mr. Collins managed, as the cake had gone rather gummy before he could swallow.

  Lady Catherine observed that his tea was half gone as well as the cake. She took up the book, turned to a page at a bookmark, and read, “Seventh of January. I dwell upon the mouth of Mr. C this morning with only the fondest of remembrance.” She watched as Mr. Collins began sweating and started to colour. “When I recall him suckling as his fingers pressed inside me, I can conjure his touch again and revisit every pleasure.”

  From within his gathering physical distress, Mr. Collins did just manage to make some sense of what her ladyship was reading. Its salacious nature, written by the virginal Miss Anne de Bourgh, was confusing. She had written “Mr. C”? Was she given to flights of fancy about him? His guts twisted. “Gck…” he sputtered.

  Lady Catherine stood, backing away from him, for she knew what was likely to occur. She continued reading. “‘That such delight could come from a man’s mouth, from beyond a kiss on the lips. And his whispers! The words Mr. C placed in my ears as he had at me, his heated description of his own sensations, will warm me to my very bones for all my lonely nights to come…’

  “How did you agree you would not meet again?” Lady Catherine asked just as Mr. Collins forced his chair back from the table and vomited all over his knees.

  His eyes were wild. Lady Catherine could not know whether this was caused by what she was reading or was a symptom of the poison. Then his body gave a great jerk, sending him over backwards in his chair, banging against the sideboard and causing the contents of a tray of kippers to land on his shoulders and slide down his coat. He continued shallow convulsions as she heard his bowels give way. He made inarticulate sounds that seemed to have some purpose, so Lady Catherine drew out her chair and picked up her coffee, preparing to watch the death throes in case anything of sense should be uttered. She would not sound an alarm until he was quite dead.

  She absently took a large swallow of coffee, followed by another. Lady Catherine preferred her coffee strong and dark and did not notice the infusion of almond in her drink until she had a third mouthful. It was spit out unceremoniously. She looked aghast at her cup, and poured out its contents. As she felt herself becoming breathless, she beheld the sludge of sodden cake drip and pool onto the plate.

  She stood at the table, staring as her hands reddened. She would not be sick. She would not fall into the squalor of Mr. Collins’s death. Her body began to tremble with her effort and the effect of the poison. She would not be killed by the likes of the ninny William Collins. And such were her last thoughts.

  Darcy had desired a morning ride, only to find the bodies of three large stable hands being seen to by Dr. Roberts. The physician instantly pronounced that the men had been poisoned. Suspecting his aunt had some knowledge, Darcy proceeded into the house.

  As he reached the doors to the small summer breakfast parlour, he could see Colonel Fitzwilliam approaching at a furious pace from the opposite direction. Darcy flung open the doors, and they watched in horror together as their aunt, with skin now turned quite red, quaked and quivered, at last expelling a volume of bloody bile and collapsing dead upon the floor.

  The room smelt dreadful, a wretched stench of bodily effluvia, kippers, and most heavily of almond. Darcy covered his lower face with a handkerchief and crossed the room to throw wide the windows. The midwife appeared behind the colonel.

  “Oh my!” She crossed herself.

  “The physician is at the stables. I shall bring him hither,” Darcy said and disappeared down the hallway from whence he had come.

  He had not been gone a moment when the sound of loudly panting ladies and billowing skirts announced the arrival of Elizabeth and Charlotte. They stood gasping at the door.

  “We are too late!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “Damnation! I would not have had you see this,” the colonel shouted and just managed to slide a chair behind the knees of a stunned and sinking Mrs. Collins.

  Charlotte could only stare at her dead husband.

  Elizabeth stepped into the room and leaned against an open door, slowly taking in the whole appalling tableau: her cousin and Longbourn’s heir supine in a chair tilted against the sideboard, covered in kippers and goodness knows what; Lady Catherine collapsed upon the floor, reduced to a bundle of black-clad and bloody joints with a black ostrich plume bobbing in the draft from the window; the table with the remnants of tea and cake; the missing journal lying open with the spring breeze idly fluttering a page to and fro, breaking the silence.

  The cake looked the same sort as the one set out for her a few days before in the bedchamber of Anne de Bourgh with the same scent of almond dominant in the air. Elizabeth felt her thoughts labouring until she forcibly realised she had narrowly escaped the same fate as her cousin.

  Darcy and Dr. Roberts rushed into the room. Elizabeth stared at Darcy, certain in the knowledge that the moments of falling in love with him—enthralled to distraction by his smiling portrait—had saved her life. Then, emitting a quiet sigh, she fainted into the arms of the doctor.

  Chapter 13

  Into Mourning

  Saturday, 18 April 1812, Rosings,

  the small summer breakfast parlour

  Dr. Roberts was not a large man and of a wiry configuration. Thus, he was chagrined to find himself draped with the limp body of a goodly young woman not much smaller than he. Now this one will be a fit breeder, he mused absently in the manner in which a learned physician assesses a patient. Far more robust than Miss de Bourgh. Elizabeth’s fichu had gone astray, giving him an intimate view of just how robust parts of her were.

  “Er, uh…gentlemen?” The doctor squirmed to hold Elizabeth upright. “Would either of you…” He looked from Darcy to Colonel Fitzwilliam. It seemed as if they had momentarily turned to stone.

  Darcy’s startled gaze landed upon his cousin. Damn it, Alex… Carry her upstairs. Exert yourself for her. You are a military hero, for God’s sake!

  The colonel returned his cousin’s expression. Th
e family resemblance of the two men was briefly apparent when they scowled together. You are in love with her. Make the grand gesture for once in your life. Send a-begging any thoughts she may have for whoever sent her that ring.

  “Oh, bother,” muttered Mrs. Spiggotson. She moved to Elizabeth’s slumped body and called, “Mrs. Collins!” in rather a sharp voice.

  Charlotte had returned to something resembling awareness when her friend fainted, and she stood.

  “I am adept at moving unconscious women. We will make a basket of our arms.” Mrs. Spiggotson showed Charlotte what was required, and the doctor managed to slide Elizabeth into their grasp. He then adjusted her fichu.

  Darcy and the colonel were shamed into action, making way for the women and their burden with Darcy calling ahead of them to have the housekeeper open a bedchamber. She chose Anne de Bourgh’s, knowing it to be cleaned and recently aired for the viewing of the jewellery.

  As they neared the room, Darcy saw his portrait. “Dear God! Poor, poor Anne.”

  Colonel Fitzwilliam snorted. “I shall have it removed.”

  Upon entering the room and catching a faint whiff of almonds, the colonel glanced around suspiciously. “Smell it?” he asked Darcy so the others would not hear.

  “I smell it,” whispered the doctor. “Cyanide.”

  The colonel and Darcy each took two corners of the velvet cloth upon which the de Bourgh jewels were displayed on the bed’s counterpane and bundled them as if the treasure was so much kindling. It was set atop the remainder of the jewels on the tea table in an indecorous heap.

  The ladies set Elizabeth upon the bed rear-end first, and Charlotte swung the yielding legs upwards as Mrs. Spiggotson settled Elizabeth’s shoulders upon the pillows. The physician followed with salts, and Elizabeth was soon sputtering and awake.

  She threw a hand over her eyes and pulled Charlotte close. “Oh, please, Charlotte, reassure me I am nothing like my mother.”

  Something in the plaintive tone of her voice brought laughter, or at least a smile, to everyone in the room.

  But Elizabeth was not amused. “I am not squeamish.”

  “Dear girl,” Charlotte cooed, placing the cold cloth that had been handed to her on Elizabeth’s forehead. “I know. You are strong as an ox.”

  “And you…you have lost a husband, yet you did not swoon.” Elizabeth squeezed Charlotte’s hand.

  “I plan to run mad later—at the next full moon, perhaps. I think it would suit me better than fainting.”

  “Dear Charlotte…” Elizabeth smiled crookedly.

  Mrs. Spiggotson approached. “If I may say, miss, in all my years as a midwife, ’twas the prettiest swoon I ever saw. So gentle and graceful-like.”

  Elizabeth looked solemn. “Thank you, Mrs. Spiggotson. I may add another accomplishment to my credit: swoons prettily.” At hearing Darcy chuckle, Elizabeth looked carefully around Charlotte, spying the colonel and Darcy. “Who carried me?”

  “Dr. Roberts caught you, and the midwife and I carried you.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” Elizabeth said, lying back upon the pillows.

  Darcy approached with a weighty question but was too overwrought at being in a room with Elizabeth Bennet on a bed to look directly at her. “Miss Bennet, did our aunt serve you tea when you came to see the jewels?”

  “Yes, sir, but she was called away before we entered the room. I…” Elizabeth paused, unsure how to state what had occurred. “I, uh, was distracted by…everything. I did not partake of the tea and cake.”

  Unable to resist, Darcy looked into her widened and luminous eyes. “Whatever it was that distracted you, saved you.” His throat grew tight and he croaked, “Do you understand me?” That those beautiful eyes might have been forever dimmed was nearly more than he could bear. He stepped closer.

  Elizabeth spoke in a low voice only Darcy and Charlotte could hear. “I understand you, Mr. Darcy, and I understand myself a little better.” She looked down, embarrassed to be so bold.

  Charlotte was caught between them and felt rather certain that, without her presence, Darcy might have taken Elizabeth’s hand or sat by her side on the bed. Charlotte chanced a glance over her shoulder at the colonel. He caught her eye with slightly upturned lips and shrugged.

  “Lizzy!” Georgiana sped into the room and leaned over Charlotte to look at Elizabeth.

  Darcy stood back, unable to take his eyes from his beloved. The proximity of her death brought the return of his usual stony countenance. He dared not risk any other expression.

  “I am well, Georgiana,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “Abominably silly, but otherwise well.”

  “What has happened?” Georgiana looked to her brother for answers.

  Darcy held out his hand to his sister and led her into the hallway.

  Charlotte stood away from Elizabeth and turned to the colonel. “It would seem, sir, that you are now the owner of Rosings Park, free and clear. May I be so forward as to act as your hostess and call for tea?”

  “NO!” came the loud chorus from everyone in the room.

  Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed. “Perhaps the better idea would be for you to bring some of the excellent tea you serve in your home. I am certain no one could wish to drink the Rosings tea until assurances are made that I have laid in a new store.”

  Elizabeth heartily seconded the suggestion. “Oh, do, Charlotte. Jane must be returned by now and worrying. And poor Maria! Please bring some of my aunt and uncle’s Indian tea, and bring Jane to me. And I shall get myself upright.”

  As Charlotte departed, the colonel called for a fire to be laid in the hearth of Anne de Bourgh’s sitting room. The midwife helped Elizabeth to stand, and after settling her charge into the soft chair by the fireplace, departed to make her morning calls. The colonel kept Elizabeth amused for a few moments before being beckoned into the hall by Darcy. The doctor returned to the small summer breakfast parlour to see to the bodies and try to verify what he believed had occurred by interviewing the servants. The magistrate was sent for. The private sitting room of Anne de Bourgh had never seen such activity as it became the heart of comings and goings. From its mantelpiece, the benevolent portrait of Pemberley and its landscape waited patiently to be noticed.

  Georgiana spoke in a low voice once she and her brother had gained the relative privacy of the hallway. “Brother, I want you to tell me honestly: Has our aunt attempted to kill someone?”

  Darcy took in a deep breath and regarded his sister. She stood still and solemn in a grey gown, looking more mature than her sixteen years. Georgiana was clever, and there must be some good reason she had reached this conclusion. He would not lie.

  “Indeed, she has made attempts and at times succeeded. I believe the tables were turned on her today, and now she has died by the same poison she used upon others. Our aunt was thwarted by her own despicable cunning.”

  Georgiana nodded as though this answer was not unexpected.

  “May I ask how you know of this?” Darcy asked.

  “I found something in the library—an altar of sorts. It must be where she concocted her poisons.”

  Instantly alarmed, Darcy sought reassurance that Georgiana had not endangered herself by handling anything.

  “You will think me quite silly when I tell you how I came upon it. I have been reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream and thought to play Puck. I had an idea that if I could devise the proper herbal potion, I could compel Miss Bennet…Elizabeth, that is, Lizzy…to fall in love with you.”

  Darcy felt his cheeks warm. He pursed his lips and attempted a frown. “Say on…”

  “Or I might make a truth serum so that you could not deny your affection and would speak of it to her.”

  Darcy rolled his eyes. “Oh, Georgie…”

  She shrugged defensively. “Well, I li
ke her. She is kind and joyful, at least she is when in the company of other women. She is more subdued in your company. You love her, do you not? And I already owned I was silly. Thus I went looking for an herbal or perhaps an old book of spells or—”

  “No more Shakespeare,” Darcy grumbled.

  Georgiana huffed in reply. “Let me tell it.”

  “By all means…”

  Charlotte Collins passed them. “I am to bring Jane and some proper tea from the vicarage. Lizzy has been moved to the sitting room.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Collins,” Darcy said with a brief bow.

  Darcy and Georgiana were once again alone. “Please continue, Georgie.”

  “Where the herbals and old books of alchemy are kept, there is a false shelf. I found it accidentally when I moved a large book of old remedies, and three shallow shelves lifted to show a little cache behind them. There are beakers and a mortar and pestle with a little scale and jars of powders. There are notes in our aunt’s hand. Her intentions are made clear by them.”

  “You must show me.”

  Darcy went to the door of Anne’s sitting room and motioned for the colonel. He said nothing that might disturb Elizabeth until they were in the hallway. “Georgiana has found something. Please bring Dr. Roberts and join us in the library.”

  When Colonel Fitzwilliam met the physician in the small summer breakfast parlour, he noticed the black bound book.

  “It is the journal of Miss de Bourgh,” Dr. Roberts informed him.

  “I shall keep it safe,” the colonel promised, tucking it under his arm. “It may be of assistance to the magistrate.”

  Thus it was, between the evidence in the library and Anne’s memories in her journal, that the murderous business of Lady Catherine de Bourgh was fully understood.