North by Northanger m&mdm-3

by Carrie Bebris

  “My walking stick?” Darcy had not expected ever to lay eyes on it again. “Where did you find it?”

  “My butler came across it after you departed.”

  Darcy took the cane in his hands and examined it. The silver band was fixed — it hid no secret compartment — and the wood’s signature flaw had never appeared so agreeable to his eye as it did now. “So you believe our account of events?”

  “I do. Though it means something far more alarming than theft transpired at Northanger Abbey. In the fortnight since my brother died, someone sent his servants away, made free use of his home, enacted an elaborate masquerade for your benefit, and then erased all traces of their presence.”

  “Have you any idea who might have perpetrated this scheme?”

  “None. I hoped perhaps the two of you could assist me. May I impose upon you to repeat your tale, from the beginning? You said Frederick — or someone claiming to be Frederick — first contacted you in Bath?”

  “Yes,” said Darcy. “We received a letter—”

  Elizabeth rose. “We still have it.” She retrieved the note and handed it to Mr. Tilney.

  “It is dated before Frederick died.” He studied the lines closely. “And this appears to be his hand. If not, it is a convincing forgery.” He set the letter aside. “What occurred next?”

  They described their reception at Northanger, their encounters with the false captain and housekeeper, and their premature departure. When they finished, Mr. Tilney asked whether they had been able to discern any of the captain’s features beneath all the bandages.

  “He had blue eyes,” Elizabeth recalled. “At least, the one we could see was blue.”

  “Frederick’s eyes were brown,” Mr. Tilney said. “Not that there is otherwise any doubt that the man you met was an imposter. Can you remember anything he said that might provide some clue to his true identity?”

  Both Darcy and Elizabeth shook their heads. “Nothing obvious comes to mind,” Elizabeth said. “The whole interview was exceedingly odd, though the knowledge that our host was not in fact Captain Tilney now explains much.”

  “Obviously, I have an interest in finding this man,” Mr. Tilney said. “And so do you, for Mr. Melbourne told me the larceny charges will not be dropped even though I have withdrawn my interest in the matter.”

  “We are to stand trial for a crime with no accuser?” Darcy asked.

  “He claims the letter provides sufficient accusation.”

  “But the writer is nameless and suffered no damages.” While Darcy himself placed high value on justice, he believed it must be tempered by reason. He could not comprehend the magistrate’s zeal.

  “I can only guess that this whole scenario has provided Mr. Melbourne an opportunity to demonstrate his passion for the law. I am sure, however, that if the man who posed as Frederick can be identified, what tatters of a case now exist will fall apart completely, and you shall be spared the inconvenience and insult of a trial. Can I persuade you to return to Northanger Abbey with me? Perhaps working in concert we can find our answers more quickly, and I would appreciate your aid.”

  Assist Mr. Tilney? Without question — for in doing so, he helped himself and Elizabeth. The false Frederick Tilney held the key to their freedom, and Mr. Chase and Mr. Melbourne certainly were not going to do anything toward identifying and arresting him.

  But return to Northanger? To this he could not agree. He would not subject Elizabeth to additional time in that house, nor risk her being anywhere near it should the imposter return. He needed to get her to Pemberley, where he could keep her safe while awaiting the arrival of their child. And, much as he hesitated to leave the investigation entirely in Mr. Tilney’s hands, he needed to escort her there himself. Not only did the conditions of their release demand that they remain proximate enough for Lady Catherine to supervise them both, but his own heart demanded that he entrust Elizabeth’s care to no one but himself.

  “I freely pledge our cooperation, but I fear we cannot delay our return home.”

  Mr. Tilney nodded sympathetically. “Were I you, I should not wish to linger in Gloucestershire, either.”

  Darcy actually wished he could linger. Though Pemberley offered a safe haven where he could retreat and regroup, he could not conduct his own investigation as effectively from Derbyshire as from here. He would have to rely heavily on Mr. Tilney and Mr. Harper to carry out actions he would otherwise perform himself — and to do so as successfully.

  “Let us keep in close communication,” said Darcy. “My wife and I will review our memory of events for anything else that might prove useful. We will also speak with our servants, and I advise you to do the same. Though Northanger’s household staff has been on holiday, one of them might have perceived something unusual upon resuming his or her duties. Also talk with the groundskeepers and stablehands. I cannot believe that the imposters arrived at Northanger and set up housekeeping without somebody taking notice.”

  After a quarter hour’s further discussion of strategy, Mr. Tilney, eager to begin his share of the investigation, departed for home.

  “I trust Mr. Tilney,” Elizabeth declared when he had gone. “He seems an intelligent man. But we leave great responsibility with someone we do not know well, and that is unlike you.”

  Yes, it was. And it bothered him more than he could reveal to her. “After I confer with Mr. Harper, I will send him here to work with Mr. Tilney. In the meantime, we must get you to Pemberley.”

  “I will not enter my confinement for several more months. We can stay here awhile until we find the imposter and clear our names.”

  He studied her face — the anxiety lines that creased her forehead; the troubled expression of her eyes and the dark smudges under them. She looked as if she had not slept since Mr. Chase arrested him. “No, we cannot. You need to be home, where you can take proper care of yourself and our child. Not at some inn, or at Northanger Abbey.”

  “But what of the investigation?”

  “We are going home. Trust me, Elizabeth. Once we reach Pemberley, all will be well.”

  Fourteen

  “And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth! — of what are you thinking?”

  — Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Pride and Prejudice

  Derbyshire in any season was magnificent country, a landscape of wind-carved tors, rocky cloughs, deep wooded glens, and winding streams. Just shy of a year into the marriage that had made the Peak District her permanent residence, Elizabeth still surveyed it with the awe of a visitor each time she traveled its terrain. Nothing in her native Hertfordshire could compare to the imposing crags and lonely moors of the Dark Peak, nor the limestone plateaus and narrow dales of the White.

  Today, however, as the Darcys completed the last leg of their journey, Derbyshire’s distinctive grids of drystone walls partitioning rolling hills welcomed her with their familiarity. Though a great part of her felt they ought to have stayed behind in Gloucestershire until the Northanger matter was resolved, she had to concede solace in their homecoming. As their carriage wound its way through the wooded parkland of Pemberley, Elizabeth found herself watching for a glimpse of the noble house with as much anticipation as she had upon her first visit to the estate. Pemberley stood as a fortress, a bastion of stability. Surely the trouble that they had just endured could not reach them here.

  Indeed, when a bend in the road at last revealed dignified walls framed by trees still stubbornly clinging to golden leaves, the nightmare just past took on the sense of having been only that: an unpleasant dream from which they had finally awakened. The anxiety of their recent ordeal receded, and Elizabeth felt herself able to breathe freely for the first time in over a se’nnight.

  She noted a similar look of calm on Darcy’s countenance. Pemberley was his foundation, a source not only of strength but also, to a considerable extent, of his very identity. Here he would figure out how to set th
eir world back to rights.

  “What will you do first, now that we are home?” she asked.

  “What I always do upon arrival at Pemberley after a long absence — hear Mr. Clarke’s report. And yourself?”

  “What I do upon arrival anywhere these days. Visit the convenience.”

  The barest hint of a smile — the first she had seen on him since his arrest — touched the corners of his mouth.

  “I suppose if you intend to closet yourself with the steward, that leaves me the entire pleasure of ensuring that Lady Catherine is comfortably settled,” she said.

  “My aunt is rarely comfortable anywhere but at Rosings. She will not hesitate, however, to inform you of how she might be made more so.”

  Elizabeth dreaded the weeks, perhaps months, of Lady Catherine’s visit that lay ahead. She doubted even Pemberley would prove large enough to make her ladyship’s indefinite stay tolerable. At least Darcy’s aunt had come alone — her daughter would return to Kent with Mrs. Jenkinson — and in her own vehicle. Sharing a carriage all the way to Derbyshire might have driven one of them past the bounds of the tacit truce they had established in Bath.

  “I eagerly await her counsel,” Elizabeth replied. “Having witnessed her attention to the most minute details of Charlotte Collins’s housekeeping at Hunsford parsonage, I anticipate she will have twice as much wisdom to impart regarding my management of Pemberley. Though how she will advise me to remove the pollution wrought upon the estate by my inferior relations, I cannot guess.” Of the many objections Lady Catherine had voiced to a marriage between her nephew and Elizabeth, one of the most strenuous had been the connection it created between Darcy and George Wickham.

  The carriages came to a halt, and soon Elizabeth and Darcy entered the house with her ladyship. Lady Catherine surveyed the hall with the air of one determined to find fault.

  “I see you have painted in here since I last visited Pemberley,” she declared. “By your initiative, Mrs. Darcy?”

  “No, mine,” Darcy said.

  “I approve the color. Though were the blue a shade lighter, it would lend the room an even more regal air.”

  “Perhaps your ladyship would like to wait in the yellow drawing room while your belongings are brought to your chamber,” Elizabeth suggested. “We might find Georgiana there — no doubt she will take delight in the discovery that you accompany us.”

  “Georgiana is a charming girl. I look forward to her performances on the pianoforte in the evenings. You would do well, Mrs. Darcy, to practice the instrument more assiduously yourself. You will never match my niece’s talent, of course, but your execution would benefit from more serious application. I still cannot comprehend why your parents did not insist on better musical training for you and your sisters. It is one of the most basic accomplishments of a gently bred young lady. It instills discipline. Your youngest sister would not have turned out so wild had she engaged in serious musical study.”

  “Not everyone possesses the temperament for serious musical study.” They started walking to the drawing room, where Elizabeth hoped to deposit Lady Catherine and win herself a temporary reprieve. “Lydia certainly does not.”

  “From all reports, Mrs. Wickham does not possess the temperament for any serious undertaking, save a determination to engage in scandalous behavior with no regard for the consequences to herself or her family.” She stopped a few feet before the drawing room door and addressed Darcy. “I do hope you have ordered your wife to cut off all communication with her?”

  “I have done nothing of the sort.”

  A look of horror crossed Lady Catherine’s countenance. “You do not receive the Wickhams here?”

  “Of course not. But Mrs. Darcy is free to correspond with or visit any of her sisters as frequently as she chooses.”

  Upon entering the drawing room, they found not one but two young ladies passing the morning: Georgiana and a visitor. Elizabeth stopped just inside the doorway, astonished beyond measure.

  “Lydia?”

  “Lizzy! You are home at last!” Lydia sprang from her seat and hastened to Elizabeth. “Is not this an excellent surprise?”

  “Lydia—” Still stunned, Elizabeth could only blink as Lydia grabbed her hands.

  “Ha! Look at your face — I laugh just to see it!”

  “Lydia, what are you doing here?”

  “Lord almighty, Lizzy — after you left Jane’s, things were dull as dishwater! Our sister’s head is full of nothing but that baby. Did he eat enough? Does his napkin need changing? Is that a smile? Hush, he is sleeping. And Mama is just as bad! Whose eyes does he have? Whose nose? Whose ears? Bringing up relations dead so long I do not know who she talks about. Good grief! I could not stay one day more.”

  Lydia’s boredom was easily believed, though it did not explain what had led her to arrive, unexpected and unwelcome, on their doorstep. “But, Lydia, why did you come to Pemberley?”

  “To visit you, silly goose! You keep forgetting to invite me, so I decided to surprise you. Was that not a delightful scheme? Only you were not here. Did not you tell Jane you would stay in Bath but a fortnight? It must have been so jolly! Did you actually go bathing in public? Did you ride in a sedan chair? I always imagined it would be ripping fun to be carried around town in a sedan chair. Oh — you must tell me all the latest fashions you saw! La! I long to go to Bath! I keep asking Wickham to take me, but he says we have not got the money.”

  Here Lydia paused for air just long enough that all heard the snort of derision issued by Lady Catherine, who had observed the sisterly reunion in stony silence.

  Georgiana crossed the room to greet her ladyship. “Good afternoon, aunt. Your arrival here is an unanticipated pleasure.” Her expression suggested that she meant it. As Lady Catherine was nobody’s favorite relation, Elizabeth presumed poor Georgiana welcomed not so much her aunt as the distraction from Lydia her presence offered.

  “Aunt?” Lydia asked in a whisper so loud that it excluded no one. “Lizzy, is this the famous Lady Catherine?”

  Though her ladyship had not requested an introduction, Elizabeth now felt obliged to attempt one. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh, may I present—”

  “No, you may not.” She abruptly turned to Darcy. “I would go to my chamber now.”

  “Allow me to accompany you,” Georgiana offered.

  Lady Catherine spared Lydia a final glance that left no doubt of her contempt, then turned her back and marched from the room.

  “Well!” Lydia said. “What got under her bonnet?” She laughed at her own remark.

  Darcy merely regarded his sister-in-law in weary silence as Elizabeth pondered how to remedy this unforeseen turn of events. The presence of Wickham’s wife at Pemberley created awkwardness even without Lady Catherine among the party; the two could not possibly coexist in one house. Lydia would constantly expose herself to ridicule. Lady Catherine would surpass all known measures of insolence. And Elizabeth, caught in the middle, might well begin to consider gaol a not-so-dreadful alternative after all.

  “Look at you!” Lydia exclaimed. “Your face is still all amazement. What an excellent joke we have played!”

  Apprehension passed through Elizabeth. “We?”

  “Wickham and I.”

  Darcy stared at her. “Mr. Wickham is not here?”

  “Of course he is. The scheme was half his idea — he could not send me off to enjoy it alone!”

  His expression hardened. “Where might I find him?”

  “Oh, he’s somewhere about. In the billiards room, I think. Or perhaps the saloon.”

  Darcy met Elizabeth’s gaze. “Excuse me.” He departed with such purpose that Elizabeth almost pitied Mr. Wickham. It would not be a pleasant meeting.

  “I declare, Lizzy, I do not know how you managed to marry into such a disagreeable family. None of them ever talk, they simply glare. Mr. Darcy—”

  “Mr. Darcy cannot and will not receive Mr. Wickham at Pemberley, for reasons your husband full wel
l understands.” To Elizabeth’s knowledge, Lydia remained unacquainted with Wickham’s attempted elopement with Georgiana, and she did not intend to share with her sister information so sensitive to Darcy’s. But Wickham himself knew better than to blacken their door. Elizabeth marveled at his temerity. Surely he realized how Darcy would respond to his unauthorized presence at Pemberley? “What were you thinking in coming here?”

  Lydia pouted. “I wanted to help you, is all. You know — with the baby coming.”

  Given Lydia’s lifelong preoccupation with herself, Elizabeth found it difficult to believe that altruism motivated her, especially since among the five sisters, they two were probably the least intimate. Elizabeth had possessed little patience for Lydia’s silliness and selfishness before her elopement, and lost all tolerance afterward. She studied her sister’s face to divine her true purpose. “My confinement will not begin for another few months.”

  “I thought I could help you prepare. I suppose the baby will need clothes and such.”

  If she relied upon Lydia to complete her infant’s layette, she might as well name the child Godiva. “You came to Pemberley to sew?”

  “Yes! I have improved at it, you know. I had to tear apart half my gowns this season and make them over because the linendrapers will not let me buy any more material until Wickham pays for what I have already purchased. Wickham says he will, as soon as he has got the money, but in the meantime I could not go to the officers’ balls in last year’s gowns with all the other wives wearing new. Only imagine how everyone would talk! I think their husbands must receive better pay than Wickham, though I do not understand why. He is such a favorite in his regiment. He is always drinking with the other officers.”

  No doubt.

  “I told him he should just inform his captain that he deserves better pay. It is unfair, you know, not to be able to buy the things my friends do, and never to go to places like Bath. But Wickham will not ask. He says someday we shall have pots of money. But in the meantime it is quite vexing to have Mr. Lynton calling all the time.”