North by Northanger

by Mr. ; Mrs. Darcy Mystery; Carrie Bebris

  We know little about specific treasures held by the convent before the Reformation. As the abbey was richly endowed, I imagine that it was as glorious within as without, filled with ritual objects, art, tapestries, and other gifts of great beauty and worth. Most of them, of course, were either surrendered to the bishop or seized by the Crown when the priory was disbanded; we do, however, possess several items uncovered during renovations to various portions of the house. As the nuns apparently hid these items rather than allow them to be destroyed as idolatrous, it is entirely possible that they might also have secretly consigned other objects to trusted individuals. Perhaps the ivory statuette came into the care of your mother’s family at that time.

  Should you wish to come to Northanger Abbey and see where your mother’s heirloom originated, I would take great pleasure in showing you the house and the few objects we have found. General Tilney suggests you bring the ivory, as your description of it has aroused his curiosity. Do consider our invitation. Your visit would be most welcome to—

  Your servant,

  Helen Tilney

  Northanger Abbey

  12 June 1784

  Dear George,

  I have safely arrived at Northanger Abbey. Mrs. Tilney is as gentle and amiable as her letter suggested, and we get on as if acquainted for years. Already we call each other by our Christian names, and I believe a lifelong friendship has been formed. General Tilney is a harder man to like—rigid and, I daresay, even oppressive at times—but strives to be an attentive host.

  The abbey grounds are lovely. The many gardens abound with flowers, including some varieties with which I was previously unfamiliar, nurtured in the estate’s succession houses. Helen has adopted one of the abbey’s oldest gardens as her own. It is a meditation garden, designed in a rosette pattern and filled with the most beautiful, fragrant blooms. I am quite infatuated with her Madonna lilies, and am determined to have some of my own at Pemberley. She has instructed her gardener to send Mr. Flynn a quantity of bulbs when they are ready for transplant.

  Despite the modernizations undertaken by the General and his father, much of the house retains its ancient character, and I can imagine these walls once having held my mother’s ivory. Indeed, in one of the former chantry chapels, now an ordinary room, the walls are lined with ten small niches for which the ivory appears perfectly sized. The General, who had already taken great interest in the ivory, became even more curious about it upon this discovery. He has examined the statuette most closely and asked me a great many questions. Do I know exactly how my mother’s family came into possession of it? Do we know the whereabouts of any others? Have we ever sought an appraisal? Though he is all politeness, I sense he resents my ownership of an item that, as it once belonged to the abbey, he believes should rightfully belong to him.

  Helen has suggested that I might learn more about the ivory by visiting the nearby cathedral. Perhaps its treasurer might know of similar statuettes, or its library might contain a record of items held by Northanger before the Crown seized them. She has offered to accompany me, and we journey there on Wednesday.

  I enjoy good health; the babe gives me no trouble. I look forward to returning home before my condition becomes apparent to the world. Though Helen, with three children of her own, soon guessed my secret.

  I will write when I have more news. Until then, I remain—

  Your Anne

  Northanger Abbey

  17 June 1784

  Dear George,

  What an extraordinary day this has been! We have returned from the cathedral, where we spent two dusty days in its library. Though its modern books are as well organized as those in Pemberley’s library, records predating the Reformation lie jumbled in an old vault. Thank goodness Helen accompanied me, or I should have been twice as long searching—especially with the reverend canon casting his suspicious gaze upon me all the while, as if I intended to smuggle one of the neglected volumes out of their tomb. I had to invoke my brother’s title, which you know I am loath to do, to gain access at all.

  After many hours’ fruitless labor, we had despaired of finding anything pertaining to our enquiry, when I happened upon a mottled volume titled Inventorie of the Jewells and Riches Belonging to Northanger Abbey. Dated 1536, it catalogued every item of gold and silver plate, every work of art, every saints’ relic the abbey held. George, I read through the entire register, and I believe I possess a treasure more valuable than I ever imagined! The statuette was listed—one of ten ivory figures as old as the abbey itself. The fate of the others, one can only speculate.

  Helen is quite as thrilled by the discovery as I. She has given me a beautiful new strongbox in which to safeguard my treasure. It is a small rosewood casket with a Madonna lily carved on its lid and velvet cushioning inside. The statuette and its cloth mantle fit perfectly.

  General Tilney’s reaction to our findings was not nearly so gracious. I believe he envies me the ivory more than ever. Helen, however, managed to placate him by sharing the particulars we also learned about the items in his possession.

  I depart here Monday. Though excited by my success and delighted in my new friendship with Helen, I look forward to returning home. I have missed you, and remain ever—

  Your Anne

  Twenty-three

  “The vicious propensities—the want of principle which he was careful to guard . . . could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments.”

  —Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

  D arcy approached Elizabeth’s dressing room with apprehension. His wife had sent word through the servant that he should come quickly, but had not indicated why. Though the maid had assured him of Mrs. Darcy’s appearing perfectly well, the distance between his library and their apartment had never seemed so great as it did now, with one dreadful imagining after another flying through his mind.

  He found her seated beside a trunk, one letter in hand and surrounded by others. Upon his entrance, she with obvious reluctance dragged her gaze away from the open letter.

  “I hastened here directly you summoned me,” he said. “Are you quite all right?”

  She regarded him eagerly. “These are letters from Northanger Abbey.” She made a sweeping gesture toward the piles of paper. “I tried to wait for you, but I could not help myself.”

  “Is that all?” Relief overtook him at the knowledge that her health had not created the urgency. He sat down beside her.

  “Is that all? These are filled with information about your mother’s ivory. It seems that the statuette once belonged to the abbey—before the Dissolution, when it was yet a religious house. Upon receiving the statuette, your mother contacted the Tilneys in hopes of learning more of its history, and a friendship formed between Lady Anne and Helen. Here—these two messages are the earliest.”

  She thrust the notes into his hands. They were dated the year of his birth. She watched him impatiently while he read. He had barely finished, and was yet absorbing the particulars, when she picked up a third letter.

  “Now in this one, Lady Anne learns that her ivory is one of ten such statuettes. And here—listen to this. Helen Tilney gave her ‘a beautiful new strongbox in which to safeguard my treasure. It is a small rosewood casket with a Madonna lily carved on its lid.’ ” She looked up at him excitedly. “That is what we ought to be seeking. We have been searching all this while for the statuette itself, not a rosewood box with a lily on top.”

  A sickening sensation began in the pit of his stomach as a longburied memory forced its way into his mind. A rosewood box with a lily on top. Dread rapidly enveloped him. Oh, Lord. Oh, dear Lord.

  “Darcy? All the color has drained from your face. What is the matter?”

  He had held such a box in his hands that day.

  The day Georgiana was born.

  The day his mother died.

  He swallowed, but the bile in his throat would not recede. “I
have seen that box.”

  “Indeed? Where?”

  “In the summerhouse of the south garden.”

  “Lady Anne’s garden?” She reflected a moment. “I suppose it makes sense that your mother might keep it there. When her sister finally returned the statuette, she put it in a place significant to her but outside the main house, where Lady Catherine would be unlikely to casually notice it and revoke its ‘loan,’ or to seek it if the determination ever possessed her—which it has, nearly twenty years later. But Darcy, you appear quite distressed. This is a happy discovery, is it not? We need only go down to the garden now and—Oh! But when did you see the box ? As a boy, or recently? It might not be there, as we know that when your mother went looking for the ivory, it was not where she had left it.”

  Because he had moved it.

  Guilt suffused him, the overwhelming remorse of a child who has committed a deed so naughty he fears his parents can never forgive it. While his mother had been suffering, his actions had denied her the one item that might have brought her comfort.

  “I came upon it that morning—the day of my sister’s birth. My mother was short-tempered at breakfast that day. For a fortnight she had been expecting her pains to commence at any moment, but they had not, and I think she grew weary of the waiting. As soon as I finished my toast, I fled the house in search of more pleasant society. I found it in . . .” He shifted his gaze, unable to meet her eyes. “George Wickham.”

  The very thought nauseated him. Of all people whose companionship to prefer above his mother’s on the last day of her life! With whom to have committed his folly!

  “He has not always been the scoundrel we recognize him as now. He once was your friend.”

  “But even then, I sensed a wayward bent to his character.”

  “You could not have known what he would become. Your own father did not, and he possessed the acumen of an adult.”

  She was too forgiving. But then, she had not yet heard the remainder of what he had to tell. Like a penitent to his confessor, he continued.

  “We wandered into the garden. Wickham had entered it only once before and been run out by Mr. Flynn, who never liked him—in retrospect, the gardener had better judgment than any of us. But in my company, Wickham need not fear eviction. He had never been inside the summerhouse and wanted to explore it. Have you been within?”

  She shook her head.

  “There is a fountain in the center—a statue of a lily. When in operation, water spouts from its blooms. It was dry; my mother had decided it made the air in the summerhouse too damp, so it had not run all season. Wickham wanted to see how it worked. I was curious myself—I had entered a stage in my education where I took great interest in the physical sciences and I wished to examine its components. At the base of the fountain we discerned a section of loose bricks. Speculating that they concealed the fountain’s mechanism, we removed them and discovered instead a small casket—the very one my mother’s note just described. It was secured with a letter lock.”

  “I do not believe I have ever seen such a lock.”

  “Instead of requiring a key, it has moveable rings inscribed with letters that must be turned to the proper combination to open it. Wickham, of course, wanted to see what the strongbox held. He attempted to guess the code but was unsuccessful.” Darcy recalled the scene with disgust; Wickham’s failure had resulted largely from the fact that the lock had four rings, and he had amused himself by spelling all manner of vulgar words. “I indulged the experiment for a few minutes, despite uneasiness. The box did not belong to us, I told him, and should remain undisturbed. He responded that as heir to Pemberley, I had a right to everything on the estate. Then he challenged me, asking whether I was clever enough to puzzle out the combination.”

  “And you could not retreat from such a challenge, especially issued by Wickham.”

  “My pride would not allow it.” Remorse washed over him. He had ignored his conscience and listened instead to the voice of conceit, allowed an unprincipled ne’er-do-well to goad him into conduct he had known to be wrong. “Wickham worried that Mr. Flynn would interrupt us, so we quit the garden and brought the casket into the woods. I tried all day to determine the code—I could not bear for Wickham to witness my failure.

  “When the dinner hour approached, I was at last forced to admit defeat. We returned the strongbox to its repository and I left Wickham to go dress for dinner. Immediately upon entering the house, I learned that my mother’s travail had begun some hours earlier.” He shook his head, as if denying them now could change the events of the past. “She must have gone to the summerhouse while I was vainly using the thing most precious to her to prove to the worthless George Wickham that I was more clever than he.”

  “You were the thing most precious to her.”

  Elizabeth’s statement only made him feel worse. “And I repaid that affection by stealing from her the one object that might have succored her.” That might have saved her. Though Darcy did not believe the statuette or any other good-luck charm held any innate power of its own to affect one’s fortune, he did believe it possible that the faith of its owner might influence a course of events. If his mother had held the ivory, might she have drawn on inner reserves she did not realize she possessed?

  “You were a child.”

  “I was eleven years old. Old enough to know better than to take, even temporarily, something that was not mine. Especially at the very time it was most needed.”

  “You did not know what it was, and could not have known your mother sought it.” Her eyes held the forgiveness he would never be able to beg from the person he had injured. “If you would blame anyone, let it be Wickham. He bears at least as much responsibility as you, and deserves so much censure for other offenses that he will hardly notice the addition.” She took his hand. “Come, let us set aside these remaining letters for now and go to the garden to retrieve the strongbox.”

  The air inside the summerhouse had been cold on the January day Georgiana was born, and, the anniversary of that event approaching, the temperature was just as low when Darcy entered with Elizabeth. Not inclined to linger in a place that held a memory so repugnant to him, he immediately approached the fountain and located the section of loose bricks. Elizabeth stood behind him as he knelt to remove them.

  The slight gap that had admitted his fingers as a boy now proved too small for him to obtain a grip on the initial brick. “I am afraid this requires a woman’s hand,” he said.

  He helped Elizabeth lower herself to the ground. She grasped the brick and worked it out of its niche. Once it had been removed, the rest followed more easily. Soon the small cavity was exposed to view.

  It was empty.

  “Did you ever return for the strongbox?” Elizabeth enquired.

  “No. My mother died that night, and I was so distraught, and the household in such chaos, that I forgot about it entirely. Indeed, it never entered my thoughts again until this day.”

  “Apparently, someone remembered.”

  Darcy suspected they need look no further than one individual. One who had been extremely disappointed at Darcy’s failure to figure out the proper alphabet combination. Who had become surly when Darcy forbade him to smash the lock to discover what the box held. “I believe an interview with Mr. Wickham is in order.”

  “Agreed. But where? Will you summon him to Pemberley?”

  “Certainly not.” So long as the reprobate remained in England, he was already too close to Pemberley for Darcy’s liking. Why could his regiment not be sent to India?

  “Then a trip to Newcastle is required. I suppose Lady Catherine will insist on accompanying you to continue performing her duty to the courts.”

  “I will travel there alone. If Lady Catherine seeks the ivory for herself, we need not aid her by making her aware of this development. We must offer a plausible explanation for my journey and a compelling reason that she must stay behind with you.”

  “That will prove difficult. She
will enquire into every particular of the business you undertake, and even then is unlikely to let you out of her sight with the courts providing such convenient justification for inserting herself into our affairs.” She thought a moment. “I believe it is best she know nothing of your absence at all.”

  “But I shall be gone for several days at least—longer, should Mr. Wickham prove uncooperative. Surely she will notice my empty seat in the dining room.”

  Elizabeth contemplated, then looked at him archly. “Cough a bit at dinner tonight. Leave Graham behind at Pemberley. And trust the rest to me.”

  Twenty-four

  This morning has been spent in doubt and deliberation; in forming plans, and removing difficulties.

  —Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra

  Northanger Abbey

  19 January 1788

  Dear Anne,

  Your account of Fitzwilliam’s latest caper amused me exceedingly. There is nothing quite like the mind of a child. He must be a source of happy diversion for you as you await the arrival of his sibling.

  I confess, in the four years we have now known each other, I have formed an impression of your sister that is not quite favorable. I can scarcely believe your entreaties to Lady C. fall upon deaf ears. Even if convinced the ivory statuette rightfully belongs to her, can she not at least lend it to you, to set your mind at ease during your approaching confinement?