He called out that the fire lay between Darcy and their exit.
Running back to the throng of people who had already initiated a water brigade, Elizabeth screamed to the men they must open the doors at the other end of the building. Several ran for them, Elizabeth in pursuit, the tail of Darcy’s coat dragging upon the ground behind her. The weight of the coat and the stones upon her bare feet allowed Fitzwilliam to overtake her lead. By the time she got to the doors, the barrels that blocked them had already been rolled away.
When the doors were thrown back, they were greeted by a spewing cloud of smoke and five more freed horses galloping by. Not seeing Darcy, Elizabeth attempted to run in, but Fitzwilliam grabbed her arms and held her back. Hardly impeded, she hastily yanked her arms from the sleeves of the coat to free herself and started into the smoke again, screaming her husband’s name.
Fitzwilliam knew well if Darcy survived but to learn that he had allowed Elizabeth to enter the flaming stable, he would never be forgiven. Hence, he ran and caught her again, this time by her night-gown, and held her fiercely to him. Impatiently, he shouted to her if she would just stay he could go, but, in hysteria, the reasonableness of this was lost upon her. She was still struggling thusly when Darcy emerged from the smoke. He had a rag over Boots’ eyes, the singular way he could get the terrified mare through the fire. Smoke curled up from his figure and, thinking it was his hair, Elizabeth ran to him. As it was just his jacket that smouldered, she and Fitzwilliam both beat it out, Elizabeth with her bare hands, Fitzwilliam using the coat Elizabeth had escaped.
It was but when she clutched herself to him in relief that Darcy realised she was there.
“Elizabeth! What are you doing out here? You should have stayed! Fitzwilliam, how could you have allowed her to come?”
Wrenching the greatcoat from his cousin’s hands, Darcy wrapped Elizabeth in it. Fitzwilliam gifted him with a look of confounded exasperation. Thereupon, with a shake of the head, Darcy withdrew the reproach, both understanding the difficulty of thwarting Elizabeth. (If she was chagrined at being the culprit in this vexation, contrition did not visit her until later.)
The large stable in irreversible ruin, they rerouted the bucket brigade to wet down the roofs of the other buildings. Blessedly, dawn brought a soft shower of rain. It smothered the smouldering timbers, and the family sought refuge in the house.
*
Sitting in smut-stained faces around the informality of the big wooden kitchen table, they took assessment. It appeared just three horses were lost, one, the horse that Reed had beaten. Those three and Elizabeth’s horse had been deliberately tied in their stalls. Darcy had but time to untie Boots. Such were the circumstances, all were convinced the fire had been set intentionally. Moreover, no one doubted that it was at Reed’s hand. Elizabeth found it difficult to conceive of a heart so hard, even in a horse-beater. Could any man do such an inhuman thing? Certainly, someone had done it. She had to admit one thing to herself. In the face of the facts, although she might not be as naïve as was Jane, unquestionably, she would have to readjust her notion as to just what some individuals were capable of.
The certainty of Reed’s guilt could not be proved, for eventual interviews with the servants and grooms could not place him upon the estate after he was dismissed. Nevertheless, when the sheriff set out to question Reed that next day, he would find no trace of him. That would be further reason to believe him the arsonist. However, in the early hours after the fire, all could see that nothing could be accomplished just then and returned upstairs to beg at least a few hours rest. Darcy and Elizabeth fell into the deep, black sleep of exhaustion.
*
If Darcy and Elizabeth found easy sleep, Fitzwilliam did not. He lay there for some time, tossing restlessly. Initially, he told himself his insomnia stemmed from extreme fatigue, the excitement of the fire, or a combination of the two.
Fitzwilliam had witnessed, although he knew Darcy did not, Reed’s look as he directed it upon Elizabeth. Fitzwilliam had taken a step forward in her defence at such an ominous provocation, but in light of the man’s banishment from Pemberley by Darcy, he had held his counterstroke to that single step. He did not then report to Darcy Reed’s perceived insult, if not outright threat, to Elizabeth. For at the time, his cousin was labouriously trying to reclaim his thoroughly ruptured temper. Nor did Fitzwilliam think it wise to bring up such a minor affront in the light of the contemptuous crime perpetuated upon the stables.
It was a vile end to what had begun as a delightful diversion.
*
Fitzwilliam had happily accompanied Darcy upon his search for the perfect horse for his wife. As it happened, he held no little conceit of the fact of how well he knew horseflesh. His own horses numbered twelve, and he was happy to lend his animals and advise those favoured among his fellow officers. It was the single judgement Fitzwilliam would not find modesty to disclaim. He knew horses. It was perhaps a family trait, for Darcy’s eye was thus discerning as well. Old Mr. Darcy did not have this virtue, for he thought if a horse had a high stepping gait and a nice coat it made him as much a horse as a man might want to draw his coach. Darcy’s mother was the horse fancier of that couple. She was a prodigious rider and could recite the bloodlines of any horse in their stable.
Hence, it was reasonable that her brother, Fitzwilliam’s father, had harboured the same love. Darcy inherited it from his mother, Fitzwilliam from his father. When Darcy went on a quest for a horse for Elizabeth, he trusted his own horse judgement, but did hesitate not at all to have Fitzwilliam’s opinion as well. Betwixt the two of them, it would be impossible not to obtain the finest horse with which to gift Darcy’s wife.
The dusky horse they chose was named Dulcinea. Fitzwilliam and Darcy thought that a coy enough name and in no need of changing. They asked Elizabeth’s opinion but as a courtesy. That she named her new horse Boots had seemed rather odd to Fitzwilliam, expecting, if not something more sophisticated, at least a little more…more…horsy. Initially, Darcy had seemed puzzled by her choice, thereupon simply embarrassed that his wife had named her exceedingly well-bred horse something so “precious.”
It was quite unlike her nature. That was one of the little quirks of Elizabeth’s that Fitzwilliam had found endearing. She was so compleatly acerbic, witty, and arch, then, in turn, could do something so unfathomable as name her horse after its fetlocks.
Thus, when he closed his eyes seeking sleep, Fitzwilliam did not think of the horses, the fire, and the pandemonium, or even of Darcy nearly being killed. The single thing that unsettled him was more of a sensation than a conscious thought. And that wonderment was how it had felt when, clad but in her night-gown, he had held Elizabeth to him.
He dozed fitfully. In time, he awoke and sat upon the side of the bed, relinquishing any ambition to sleep. In his soldierly way, he endeavoured to embark upon the troubling employment of analysing the shades of his own mind.
Elizabeth was pretty and charming. What was there not to admire? Any man who possessed a heartbeat would look upon her with favour. Nor, he reasoned, was it improper to look upon Elizabeth with fondness, for she was Darcy’s wife. Fitzwilliam considered that his unsettled feeling perchance told him it had been too long since he had been favoured with the attentions of a woman. Perhaps, when he returned to London, he would rectify the situation. That decision made, he laid back and closed his eyes, thinking of that woman, any woman. Yet, when her image came to him, her face was not anonymous. It was Elizabeth’s.
Fitzwilliam sorely wished he had not been at the fire at the stable, for he would then not have held her. Nor would he have had to face that he was very much in love.
30
John Christie fell into a deep and abiding sleep each night. The work, although tedious and steady, had a rewarding symmetry. He lugged about heavy feed buckets and filled the mangers so the horses could have their oats. Those same horses he turned out onto the pasture for their exercise, then scooped up their dung and flung it
onto the manure wagon to be cast upon the new crop. Order and rule.
That such a peaceable world existed, and that he had managed to insinuate himself in it, was an unending astonishment. Edward Hardin chuckled at the zealous diligence with which he undertook each and every chore. But then, Edward Hardin had never once been to London, nor seen the lodgings they had once kept on Buck’s Row.
Hitherto, the horses John Christie had tended were tired and often illused, frightfully few offering any glimpse of past distinction. Inevitably, horses left overnight at an inn were either hired or recruited from a plough. They were nags, no denying that. Yet, the barmaid’s boy indulged these disreputable animals with furtive currying and purloined sugar. It fell to reason that if he managed to dispense kindness to the inglorious, the fine horses at Pemberley were in respectful hands.
That was reasonable, but not the whole truth. The simple fact was that he had always taken affection, and bestowed it, where it was found.
As beauty of temperament and confirmation were not an impediment to fondness, the horses at Pemberley were not slighted. On the contrary, horses at the inn were not there long enough for John to build a true attachment. At Pemberley, he came to know them each by name. And if they did not know his name, they knew his presence. A gratifying orchestration of nickering began whenever he entered the barn. This was most pleasing, for it was a family of sorts. Something that he missed.
Was he called upon to name it, his Family Equus would have to include Edward Hardin who had taken to calling him, not John nor Christie, but “Johnny, me lad.” The man was a little deaf, hence he always sounded a bit rankled when he doled out orders.
Yet he began every one, “Johnny, me lad…”
John Christie did understand there was a hierarchy at Pemberley—not hereditary, yet an oligarchy, nevertheless. The line of rule was rarely transgressed. John knew he answered to Edward Hardin, who answered to Mr. Rhymes. Mr. Rhymes answered to Mr. Darcy, and evidently, Mr. Darcy answered but to God.
It was fitting. John’s life had been subjected to little but the bedlam and discord of Whitechapel, but also to the general chaos of his mother’s love life. It was reassuring to know exactly where one stood. That one stood at the end of the line was not pertinent. At least there was a line in which to subsist. Order and rule.
He had even managed to elude Tom Reed.
Edward Hardin despised the man (no greater obligation of regard could be asked) and had complained to Mr. Rhymes about Reed abusing the horses. Why Reed was even at Pemberley, no one seemed to know. Reed was hired in London; his single recommendation had come from his brother, Frank. All the other footmen and grooms disliked him, even though, as do most men who are bullies, Reed seldom confronted other men. He turned his roughest hand toward the weaker: animals, women, and boys.
The single blight upon his tenure had come at Reed’s hands, but John knew, ultimately, that it was his own fault. For he had the poor judgement to honour one of Reed’s orders. That day of the hunt, Reed had told John to bring the shortest horse in the barn for that sweating, pear-shaped gourd of a vicar. And he had done it. He had delivered that innocent little chestnut pony unto the hands of that buffle-headed meacocke, Collins.
Of course, the vicar did end up the worse for wear.
Reed laughed uproariously at each retelling. John was convinced that the pony mistook his part in the whole debacle, for thenceforward, he looked at John maliciously every time he passed his stall. It was just another in the long line of Reed’s wicked deeds.
The confrontation with Mr. Darcy was unexpected. It was not, however, unwarranted or unwelcome. Hitherto, Reed had been clever enough to hide his malevolence from those of higher rank behind a somewhat smirking amiability. Almost everyone who witnessed the public disclosure of his cruelty savoured it. (Frank Reed may have savoured it, too, one can but conjecture.) Regardless, John loathed that the horse that he beat had to suffer to expose him.
John liked that horse in particular. He was an Irish Draught called Farley, a bit long in the tooth, yet still spry. He was the horse of choice for the housekeeper upon her infrequent trips to Lambton. She liked him, not in spite of, but because he was plodding and slow. The old woman likened herself to that horse. When Mr. Hardin claimed he was getting too stiff, she reproached him.
“No, we are both old, yet we can get on with the work.”
Normally quite placid, Farley always jumped about nervously when Reed approached. Having been given the employment of driving Mrs. Reynolds to Lambton that day, Reed was in his usual ill-humour. Like most of the other servants, he feared her. Yet, unlike them, he despised her as well. His hate exceeded his fear by half. She bade him sit up straight and not mutter curses under his breath, rapping him across the knuckles with a switch (one that she carried when he drove her just for that purpose) upon an expletive. Hence, when the horse that reminded Mrs. Reynolds of herself would not behave, Reed’s pugnacious temperament exploded.
For fate to allow Mr. Darcy to hear the welter was not just propitious, for the horses it was providential. Indeed, had John not been so ungoverned as to drop the lead rope to Mrs. Darcy’s new horse and follow, he might have missed the entire rumpus. Witnessing Reed’s comeuppance at the stinging end of a carriage whip and by the hand of none other than Mr. Darcy was the single event for which John would have risked his employment.
John did not read, but he had heard of books that portrayed fearless figures performing heroic deeds. When Reed suffered the bastinado, John was convinced that was what he was witnessing. Weaponless, the valiant Mr. Darcy saved the horse and turned Reed out. Out of Pemberley he fled, tail betwixt his legs, like the feisting cur he was. Mr. Darcy was a noble warrior. He was just. He was courageous and he had the most beautiful and kind lady at his side. It was difficult not to become giddy with admiration of the man as well as the deed.
The entire valorous episode had lasted less than a minute. Reed was struck and banished. Quick as that. Struck and banished. Reed was gone and with his departure, John breathed a considerable sigh of relief. Yet, it amazed him how such a momentous event to him seemed not to alter anything else. Another man harnessed another horse to the gig in Farley’s place. Mrs. Reynolds came and another man drove her to Lambton. Everyone dispersed. Poor, shuddering Farley was led back to his own stall. John returned Mrs. Darcy’s new horse as well, whistling as he did.
After supper, everyone, including Frank Reed, sat tranquilly about the stove in the stable room, warming their feet against the cool night air, no one quite ready to retire. One man whittled, another beat some tune out on his knee with a spoon. Mr. Hardin came in and got a flame to light his pipe. Gradually, the men stretched, claimed weariness, and admired the thought of their beds.
John, however, was not ready for sleep. He was still beside himself with excitement over the afternoon’s altercation. Such was his relish, he wanted to savour it a little longer. He found a shrivelled crab apple at the bottom of a barrel. Tossing it in the air, he determined that it was still good and took it to poor Farley. At the stall, he stepped up on the gate to lean out with the apple, talking quietly to the horse. He spoke in a soothing voice, not unlike that he had once used with his sisters.
“Did that man hurt yer, Farley? ’e got his due, din’t ’e? ’e got what’s comin’. Yer’ll be fine, now. Yer’ll be fine.”
From behind, a hard hand gripped John just above his Adam’s apple, lifting him back off the rail and hard against the wall. Instinctively Farley backed away, stamping his feet nervously, whirling, and looking for escape. John would have liked to find escape himself, but his feet could not achieve the ground. Using both hands, he frantically sought to pry loose Reed’s hold on his neck.
Hysterically gasping for air, John squeaked out, “Mr. Darcy ran yer off! He’ll see yer ’ere and do it agin!”
“Mr. Darcy! Mr. Darcy! That bastard’s not gonna get ’is ’ands dirty. Save yer breath to cool yer porridge!” said Reed, using a strangely benign circu
mlocution.
“Yes ’e will! Yes ’e will!” squeaked John.
John struggled, wanting to believe it. Reed let him drop. John fell to the ground soundly with a loud “Uuh” as he landed. Reed laughed.
“Yer too stupid t’even know, do yer? Do yer?”
He kicked John in the knee and John looked back, uncomprehending.
“That rich bastard’s the one whot poked yer ma. She tol’ me. She tol’ everybody. ’e’s your pa and ’e don’ even speak to yer! Does ’e? Well, does ’e?”
He kicked him again. John shook his head dumbly. Reed grabbed him up and yanked him so hard it rattled his teeth. More than life itself, he wanted to fight him, but his senses were far too compromised. He felt beaten, but not by Reed. Quite vociferously, Reed threatened that if he told anyone he had seen him, he would steal back and kill him. That seemed less a threat than a promise.
Unexpectedly, Reed relaxed his grip, allowing the boy to fall to the ground again.
Scrambling to his feet, John ran, not looking back. He ran hard and for a long time. Stumbling into the woods, he fell to the ground flat out. Then he sat up, out of breath, his mind unable to catch up with his thoughts. He put his head in his hands. All he could hear was his own chest heaving and Reed’s words still echoing in his ears.
John shook his head as if to expel Reed from his mind. Yet the words remained, contributing more to the lump in his throat than the grip Reed had inflicted about his neck. Because he could not dislodge Reed’s words, John gingerly examined them again, for he knew his mother had left Pemberley with child. He had but once asked her who his father was.
She had answered absently, “A man that ’as no use for either of us.”
But she had been drunk and feeling sorrier than usual for her circumstance. Hence John never asked her again.
If what Reed said was true, and somehow John thought it was, Mr. Darcy was that man. For the past few hours, John had thought Mr. Darcy a courageous hero. Momentarily, he was elated. He was of Mr. Darcy’s blood?
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 27