“That is quite inadmissible. It is irrelevant to the case.” Mr. Godfrey stood up with a sarcastic smile. “It also, I think, is an admission that Mr. Hawdry knows he cannot prove the guilt of Mrs. Darcy.”
Hawdry pointed at Godfrey. “He is paid for by Darcy’s money. Darcy intends to subvert the justice of the crown by stealing Mrs. Darcy from the prison by force, if you act to see justice is done. Do not listen to anything he says.”
The judge angrily said, “Sit down, Mr. Hawdry. You have stated your case. Mr. Godfrey is quite right that your love for that dead woman has nothing to do with the question of whether Mrs. Darcy is guilty of her murder. That is the question you are here to establish.”
Elizabeth looked at the jurors. They looked serious and the one who caught her eye frowned and looked away.
Her palms were cold and sweaty.
“Call the prisoner forward as the first witness.”
Elizabeth was brought to the dais. She was made to swear an oath to tell the full truth. Then she was asked, “Tell us what caused the quarrel with Lady Catherine.”
Elizabeth had been coached by Mr. Godfrey, and she replied the way she’d been told to. “Lady Catherine had struck at my pupil Emma Williams. I stepped between Lady Catherine and Emma, and Lady Catherine swung her cane at me and struck me upon the arm. When she drew back to strike me again, I grabbed the cane and refused to let her strike me again. She then dismissed me.”
Mr. Hawdry said, “Was it not Lady Catherine’s right to discipline her ward as she saw fit?”
“I feared she would do serious harm to the child. Emma is dear to me.”
“You care nothing for her, and merely hoped to attach the girl’s affections so that you might profit when she came of age, and she gained control of her fortune.”
Mr. Godfrey said with his perpetual sarcastic frown, “I really believe the prosecutor should not make such statements unless he has evidence. I will bring a collection of witnesses as to Miss Bennet’s good character, and who can testify to her sincere attachment to Miss Williams.”
Hawdry said, “You all know not to listen to him.”
Elizabeth’s eyes looked towards the jurors.
Hawdry and Mr. Godfrey alternated. They asked Elizabeth a series of questions. During the questioning Anne entered the courtroom. Elizabeth only saw her from the corner of her eye.
The questioning continued.
Elizabeth’s numbness had worn off. Her heart pounded and she shook. She knew she must look exactly like a woman guilty of murder and frightened of the punishment would. She did not look like a woman confident of her own innocence and the laws of England.
I don’t want to die.
Sweat soaked through Elizabeth’s dress leaving her chilled like she had run through a thunderstorm.
After a while, the judge asked, “Are there any further questions for the witness?”
Hawdry then turned back to Elizabeth and pulled a piece of paper from his coat. The paper looked vaguely familiar, like the stationary she used. He asked Elizabeth while holding the paper carefully in his left hand, “Is it true — remember you are under oath — is it true that you wished Lady Catherine to die?”
Mr. Godfrey stood up. “That question is inadmissible. It is well established that a defendant need not answer such a question. The answer in any case is irrelevant. There is a huge distance between antagonism betwixt two people, even serious antagonism, and a willingness to engage in such a foul crime.” Godfrey looked between Elizabeth and the jury. “One can see in the physiognomy whether a person has such a character.”
“I only wished her to answer to show the jury her perfidy. I have a letter written by the accused to her sister.” Hawdry waved the paper he had pulled from his pocket. The bottom half of the sheet was black from an ink spill. “This letter was left behind in her room when she fled Rosings. It says—” Hawdry pulled the letter in front of his face and squinted for half a minute. He mumbled agitatedly under his breath. At last he made a tiny exclamation of victory and read, “If only Lady Catherine would conveniently die, like a character in a novel whose death allows everyone to become happy.”
Elizabeth remembered writing that. She had been writing to Jane to help herself think through what to do to protect Emma. She looked towards the jury, but then she flinched away, and she could not look again.
Mr. Godfrey said something else, but Elizabeth could not hear anything over the rushing pounding in her ears. She looked towards Darcy, but he had his hand on the table in front of him. He had noticed Anne and he frowned at her. She pulled a paper from her reticule and squeezed it between her hands.
Elizabeth wanted to stand and scream. She hadn’t done it. It was unfair. She was innocent.
Mr. Hawdry spoke something to Elizabeth. She looked at him and realized she was beginning to panic. The world seemed far away and there was rushing in her ears. The edges of her vision were black. She should at least face the end of this trial with dignity.
“I d-d-did not hear you.”
“I am done with questioning you. Return to your bench.”
Elizabeth tried to stand up, but she stumbled against her chair. Darcy stood up and tried to get around the table to help her, but the soldiers who had brought her to the courtroom stopped him. A soldier put out his arm and helped her back to her seat. She was unable to feel her feet.
While she sat back down, Anne walked up to the dais. The woman spoke in a wavering voice, “I...I h-have something which must be spoken. Before…before you judge. It must be said.”
“This is most irregular.” The judge frowned. “Who are you?”
Anne stared at the judge for a long time without saying anything. Mr. Hawdry spoke for her. “She is Lady Catherine’s only child. But she has been most disobedient to her ladyship’s wishes. She should not be allowed to speak anything.”
Elizabeth felt dreamy, as though she’d been struck in the head hard, and nothing seemed quite right. She would swear those were tears on Anne’s cheeks. How odd.
Elizabeth turned her eyes to Darcy. She did not know how many more minutes she would be able to see her husband. There could only be a few dozen. He stared at Anne with his hands forming claws. There was a tension in his posture, as though he was consciously holding himself in place instead of throwing himself out of his chair to attack Anne.
Anne’s voice quavered out, barely audible to Elizabeth. “I know — I know who did it.”
Something in Darcy’s expression changed.
The judge said, “What do you mean?”
“It was not…not Miss Bennet…Mrs. Darcy. Someone else killed my mother.”
Elizabeth heard what she said. Darcy’s hand had curled into a fist and he smiled.
Anne stared at the ground, and she started crying.
The judge said, “This is an extraordinary statement. Who do you believe did it, and what proof do you have.”
“It…it was my husband. He… last night, he told me. He made his confession. It was my husband who killed my mother.”
Hawdry exclaimed in a shocked voice, “Colonel Fitzwilliam! I do not believe it. Where is he?”
Anne cried out, “He has fled. He already has boarded a boat to the continent.”
There were gasps and whispers among the jury and the crowd watching the trial. It was like a cold splash of water that snapped Elizabeth out of her numbness.
Colonel Fitzwilliam!
She wasn’t going to die.
Elizabeth realized tears were streaming down her face.
“No. No. This is another lie. Another trick employed by Mr. Darcy.” Mr. Hawdry looked at the jury. “You all have heard the evidence before this. Colonel Fitzwilliam has only been convinced by his cousin to make this confession and flee so that Mrs. Darcy would escape her proper punishment.”
“Do you think I am such a fool!” Anne shrieked at him. “He killed her. And then the next day he married me! I know! You aren’t serving my mother’s memory, you…you—” She
stuck forward towards the judge the paper she had crumpled in her hand. “He…he wrote his confession here. He wished to have all of the evidence clear so there could be no doubt.”
The judge held his hand out.
Anne looked at him without moving. Then she tottered unsteadily towards the dais on which the judge sat and extended her arm, holding the creamy piece of paper shakily out.
The judge reached forward and took the paper. He put on spectacles. There was another long pause when he held the paper out, and then pulled it in and looked at it closely. “I, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam of the — regiment, write this to inform the court that Elizabeth Darcy is innocent against the charge against her. I murdered my aunt. I used my service knife, which I have left behind. The surgeon likely can confirm that her wounds match the weapon. It has been two weeks, and the body is probably too decayed for more. Lady Catherine had become a tyrant. She intended to use her position to murder a servant who she knew was innocent of the crime she was accused of. Then she made, in my hearing, threats against the life of a child under her guardianship. Further she had acted to destroy the happiness of many other people. There was no action within the law that could stop her. But as a gentleman it was my duty to act to protect the innocent. I did so. Any letter sent to the notary Mr. Picard in Calais will reach me if you wish me to answer further questions.”
The judge finished and took off his spectacles.
Mr. Hawdry said, “I do not believe it. Do not believe it. The scion of such a great family as the Fitzwilliams would not murder a woman. He has been paid by his cousin to lie for this woman who enthralled him.”
Agonizing fear ran up and down Elizabeth’s spine. Would the jurors believe that?
“Enough, Mr. Hawdry. We know your view of the matter. I think all that needed to be said to the jury has been.” The judge waved his hand. “Remember, you have been empaneled by the authority of the king to look for the truth and to assess the evidence.”
Elizabeth’s heart squeezed as she waited. Any hope of calmly accepting her fate was gone. She desperately wanted to live.
Her pulse beat faster and faster. Black spots began to swim in front of her again. Darcy looked at her intently, and after an agonizing moment when their eyes met, she looked down. She couldn’t look at him again until she knew if she would be killed.
The jury went to the side and talked to each other. Elizabeth lost track of the time as she stared at them. Had they been talking for one minute or twenty? She was not sure. They would only take this long if they were going to declare her guilty.
The jurors shook hands and walked back to the dais, smiling slightly. Their leader walked up to the judge. He had grey distinguished hair and large neatly cropped sideburns. “We find the defendant not guilty.”
Elizabeth did not understand what she had heard. The word guilty sat in her ears, overpowering the not.
But she was not sure. She could not move.
Darcy leapt over the chairs between them, and took her up in his arms, holding her aloft and kissing her. The soldiers did not stop him this time.
Elizabeth realized. She squeezed herself against him, the tightness of her hold proving she was alive. She sobbed hysterically. “I was sure. I was sure that no matter what I said…that there was too much hope of happiness and…”
“Shhhh, Lizzy, shhhh. We are well. It is over.”
She wanted to say how much she loved him, but she couldn’t through the tears. His fingers running through her hair felt so safe and soothing as she gasped out long shuddering sobs.
Not guilty.
Darcy clenched her tightly against him. Tears ran down his cheeks and onto her hair. He whispered again and again words of love and relief.
Elizabeth concentrated everything on his voice, and his smell, and the tightness with which she was held, and the way his tears streaked down her forehead and mixed with her tears running down her cheeks. Everyone around them was talking but they ignored them all.
At long last Elizabeth choked out what she most wished to say, “Can we go home? To Pemberley?”
Chapter Twenty-six
Darcy held Elizabeth’s hand — his wife’s hand! — as their carriage took them across the short distance between his townhouse and the house owned by Richard’s older brother, the Earl of Matlock. Sometimes he simply gazed at her in amazement that it had happened. That she was his wife, and that they would live together for the rest of their days.
He squeezed her hand tighter and kissed her cheek and whispered, “You will charm everyone.”
Georgiana sat on the other side of the carriage. She squealed, “Again! You are both so picturesque and pretty! The portrait of a couple!”
Darcy embarrassedly sat straighter. He’d forgotten, again, that Georgiana was present.
Elizabeth pulled Darcy’s hand back to her and cradled it against her stomach. “Georgie, I have seen how you and Andrew touch each other when you believe no one is watching.” Lord Chancey had taken to Elizabeth immediately, and he’d insisted Elizabeth use his Christian name. Darcy would have found this more reassuring if he and Georgiana had not also decided to invite George Wickham to their wedding.
Georgiana sighed and her eyes went distant. “Two more weeks.”
Darcy shuddered. He knew exactly what an amorous young couple would spend their honeymoon doing. He and Elizabeth had quite embarrassed themselves by inventing a silly excuse to leave the family party in the middle of the afternoon yesterday.
No one had argued with them, though they all knew what they were going off to do. When they made love, Elizabeth’s eyes had been wide open, and her mouth screwed up with desire. The feel of her legs and her warm curves as his hands explored her body. The way it felt right to be pressed against her.
Elizabeth nudged him and whispered into his ear, “I know what you are thinking.”
The carriage rolled to a stop, and Georgiana lightly leaped out without waiting for Darcy or a footman to help her. Elizabeth and Darcy followed.
They all looked up at the familiar marble columns of the façade of the building. Elizabeth calmly studied the building and then turned to Darcy. “At least it is grand.”
Georgiana said, “It is strange to be coming here to meet Charles instead of Richard. That he killed our aunt…it is so odd.”
They rang the door. Darcy wondered how Matlock would treat him.
He had always been far closer to Richard than to Charles, who was ten years older than them both. The butler opened the door and led them to the drawing room. Their boots squeaked on the marble floors. The house was full of the scent of the flowers that Charles’s wife layered everywhere around the London house whenever she was obliged to be in London after the season ended.
The Matlock townhouse was in a district that had been the most fashionable decades before, but which now was more deeply in the city.
Charles Fitzwilliam, Lord Matlock, was a mid-sized man of about forty, whose head had gone completely bald. He was no more handsome than his brother, and he lacked much of Richard’s charm, but he had instead the allure that possession of an earldom and a handsome fortune gave. His wife sat behind him, a tall faded woman who always wore extravagant pearl necklaces. Both of them wore black to signify mourning for Lady Catherine.
Neither Darcy, Elizabeth nor Georgiana made any pretense of mourning.
Properly Georgiana’s marriage should be delayed, but she and Lord Chancey had no intention of doing so. And the three of them wore bright summer colors and light cottons. It was shocking to society’s opinion, but Darcy did not care. Elizabeth had been on trial for murder, and he still shivered when he remembered that day, and Hawdry pulling out that letter. Appeasing the customs of the crowd seemed… unimportant now.
Charles and Darcy looked at each other for a long time. Then in a convulsive movement they embraced. Charles exclaimed, “Richard! Poor Richard.”
Darcy felt a dark cloud in his mind every time he thought of it.
“Did you
have any notion he had done it? I mean before he sent Anne to deliver the message.”
“No. I still… I still hardly believe it.”
“I can believe it. Richard always had that in him.”
Darcy shook his head. He remembered Richard’s dark moods. Maybe he did have it in him.
“What I can hardly believe is that you would marry at all. Let alone to a governess.” Charles laughed and studied Elizabeth who stood straighter. “I hope you shall be an asset to the family. The story is the worst scandal we’ve faced ever. If only Richard had not decided to off our aunt — the deuce is I cannot blame him. He had to if he was ever going to marry Anne.”
Elizabeth said in a sweet yet firm tone, “I shall strive to be an excellent wife.”
Darcy shook his head. “That is not why Richard…that is not why it was done. I had already told both Richard and Anne that I would not marry her.”
Lady Matlock stood and came to stand behind her husband. “Truly. That is not a story?”
Darcy peered at his cousin’s wife. “A story? That would do what?”
“Make you look better in Mrs. Darcy’s eyes. Make it seem less likely she would have done the deed herself…”
Darcy sharply stepped away from his cousin. His face hardened, and he felt a twitch in his hand. He would not stand for such suggestions from anyone. That Lady Matlock was a gentlewoman no longer had any bearing on him. He knew now that gentlewomen had an equality with gentlemen in their potential for viciousness.
Elizabeth laid her hand on his arm. “I know people will always wonder. As soon as Hawdry refused to speak to us after my acquittal, I knew he still believed his story, and if he did, others would.”
“The deuce!” Charles looked at his wife. “Is that what you mean to suggest?”
The woman looked at Elizabeth. “Better a murderess for a cousin than a murderer for a brother.”
Elizabeth replied coldly. “I have a sister who behaved in a profoundly disgraceful manner, and I cannot argue with your preference.”
The Trials: A Pride and Prejudice Story Page 22