Her mission, however, stopped at the head of the stairs. For there in the vestibule stood Edward Hardin with Mr. Rhymes talking to Darcy. Hardin had his hat wadded nervously in his fist.
“Aye can’t believe that boy to steal, Mr. Darcy. It aren’t like him at all. Johnny’sa good lad. But that gig and him are both gone. Aye don’t know what else to think.”
“There is nothing on this day that I cannot believe,” Darcy assured him wearily. “If he has them, let him be. I want no retribution.”
Mr. Rhymes looked surprised that Mr. Darcy was not angry at the idea of thievery. Stealing something as valuable as a horse and gig was a hanging offence, which was most probably the reason for Edward Hardin’s nervous wringing of his hat.
“He means to be a soldier, he’s been drillin’ regular,” Hardin said.
“No matter,” replied Darcy.
“You might have thought if he wanted to go off to war, he would’ve just walked,” Edward Hardin could not yet believe the foolhardiness of John’s apparent act.
As soon as the door closed behind Rhymes and Hardin, Elizabeth descended the stairs.
With her first step upon the floor, and breathless from the scurry as well as fright, she announced, “Georgiana has gone.”
“Gone?” he repeated.
Elizabeth nodded.
“Where?”
“I know not.”
Albeit it was not remarked upon, it was immediately recognised by those witnessing the alteration in his countenance that the missing groom, gig, and sister added up to kidnapping to Darcy. As he began to heave with rage, his face did not flush, it blanched. The pallor he bore was eerily familiar. It was a lividity Elizabeth had not seen upon his countenance since the day he burst through the door and skewered Reed.
Elizabeth knew it might be a matter of only a few moments before he demanded John’s head on a stick and sought a gun to run him down himself. Piercing his ever-increasing high dudgeon was no easy task, but her reasoning was sound.
“If John had abducted Georgiana, she would not have packed her bag. Hence, if she went, she must have gone of her own volition.”
That reasoning may have mollified his murderous rage, but it did not answer the rather large issue of why. Such an impenetrable question was set temporarily aside whilst Darcy issued orders. In his usual logical manner, he dismissed the notion of setting out after Georgiana himself, for he could ride in but one direction.
Thus, ten men were charged to investigate all routes from Pemberley to trace both John and Georgiana, presuming they had absconded together. A half-dozen more were hied to as many towns to enlist constables in their search. All were laden with gold to make certain they met with no hesitation to cooperate.
There was a brief consideration of what to do with John was Georgiana in his company. Darcy might have favoured having him thrashed, possibly drawn and quartered, but Elizabeth insisted it best to wait before inflicting mortal consequence.
They could be jumping to a conclusion of monumental error.
After watching all the riders pound away, Elizabeth and Darcy sat in miserable inaction upon the step. It most likely looked peculiar for the master and mistress to plop themselves down unceremoniously upon their stoop with all manner of servants standing about in wait for instructions. But Darcy and Elizabeth were baffled.
In a moment, Darcy stood decisively and announced he would look for clues again in Georgiana’s room. Thinking that was more profitable employment than sitting with her chin in her hands, Elizabeth accompanied him to research her room.
Her room, however, was just as neat and undisturbed as Elizabeth had seen it that afternoon. Her dresses hung in the armoire, her jewellery lay in her case. The dressing stool was set precisely at a right angle to her dressing table. Upon it were only a few perfumes (most of them early gifts from a brother who had no idea whatsoever to buy his sister as a birthday gift), for she did not favour scents. Elizabeth interrogated Anne again about Georgiana’s demeanour the last time she was seen.
As they were speaking, Darcy walked to the secretary and touched a leather-bound book that was sitting at a precise right angle upon it.
“Pray, what is this?”
Elizabeth walked over and looked at it as it sat perpendicular to the corner of the desk. Very precisely perpendicular. They both stood looking at it wordlessly, neither making a move to pick it up. Thereupon, as if by prearranged decision, they both reached for it at the same time.
“It is Georgiana’s journal,” Elizabeth said.
Darcy stood impatiently as Elizabeth flipped the pages to find the last entry. She read it silently. She turned back a page and read it, then turned page after page each more urgently than before.
“What?” he said, again impatiently, “What?”
Not wanting to give interpretation, she handed it to him, and he sank upon the satin counterpane and bestowed upon it his full attention. His hands took the same trip as did hers, for page after page contained not a single line of her own composition.
They were filled with unattributed quotations, the Bible, Bacon, Blake, and Shakespeare again and again as well as many others. The theme, however, was ominously similar.
“It is impossible to love and to be wise.”
“There is no fear in love,
but perfect love casteth out fear.”
“If thou rememberst not the slightest folly
that ever love did make thee run into,
thou has not loved.”
“Set me as a seal upon thy heart,
As a seal upon thine arm:
for love is strong as death.”
Neither Darcy nor Elizabeth much liked the sound of it, and as he read the last word of the last entry, Darcy’s only recently regained colour lost ground.
Elizabeth thought it possible, even probable, Georgiana was unhappy. But until that moment, she had not considered the magnitude of her loneliness. She believed it unforgivable that she had not recognised it. Very few emotions in life could move a person to drastic action and love was one of those few.
An incredulous possibility moved him to ask, “Has she eloped with that boy?” The contemplation of such an execrable possibility caused his face to crimson to such a degree, Elizabeth feared he might well be felled by apoplexy before the day played out.
“Not necessarily,” she soothed.
“Not necessarily eloped, or not necessarily eloped with your groom?”
“Either or neither. This could be symbolic love of which she recites.”
“You are suggesting she intends to enter a nunnery and bid that boy to take her?” he demanded.
“I am saying perhaps she too has a commitment to love mankind. Perchance in service. Her love of nursing the ill is profound.”
“Surely she has not followed her flight of fancy off to war. What flummery!” he exploded. “This entire thing is preposterous!”
She was eternally grateful he chose not to repeat her now infamous assurances that hysterical obsession would not overtake Georgiana. If he did not, it was quite possibly because, outrageous as that possibility was, it was far better than the one that included elopement and John Christie. Certainly, he prayed, the gods could not be so cruel as to allow his sister to run off with a lowly groom.
“If only a nurse, Lizzy,” he reconsidered, “but what if not? Then she has run off with a groom! A bastard groom! Wickham’s bastard!”
With that fit of temper, enlightenment descended upon them both. Only that morning John still believed Darcy to be his father. The unlikelihood of a romance betwixt Georgiana and John grew as they thought of it.
“Perchance it was not he with whom she eloped. He was not the reason, just the means,” Elizabeth suggested.
“Has she been seeing the Howgrave son, Lizzy?”
Elizabeth shook her head, “I know not. Quite obviously, however, I know not everything.”
Grasping at straws (at least a more acceptable straw), she offered, “Newton Hinchcli
ffe?”
“The fatuous, dim-witted one?”
“You had best be more circumspect in what aspersions you cast until we have unravelled this mystery,” she said.
“With all the eligible gentlemen we have thrown into her path, could she have not befriended one sensible young man?” he lamented.
They had no idea if Georgiana was with or followed John. Even if she had, he may well not be in knowledge of it.
“She did not know he thought himself my son. Or at least I hope she did not know,” he fretted, yet disquieted by the notion of his sister learning of her brother’s infallibility.
“We know not yet if she did indeed elope. It may be as simple as a need to aid and comfort.”
“Or as complicated as the possibility of being killed,” he replied and Elizabeth could find no words of comfort.
Thereupon, he asked with no humour intended whatsoever, “Your cousin Mr. Collins did not offer her a story of a vicar fighting Napoleon, did he?”
She shook her head, but smiled briefly at the recollection of a time when their most formidable trial was Mr. Collins’s company.
It was decided that, in all probability and for whatever reason, Georgiana was en route to the continent. Such an understanding did not have the makings for a restful night. Darcy could not rid himself of the notion that his sister had run after a young man of the lowest order (John Christie, Howgrave, the dim-witted Hinchcliffe). Elizabeth believed he had seized upon that possibility simply because it was one that gave him the most grief. For he had assigned himself guilt that he had not foreseen his sister’s unhappiness.
The night lasted longer than a night, but by morning Darcy had decided he must trace Georgiana’s trail himself. To see where she had gone. To see if he could help her. He had been given guardianship of his sister. That responsibility was not something he took lightly. She had always been his to look after; he could not just stand and do nothing.
He assured Elizabeth, “I do not mean to deny her decision of will, only to try to ease what way she has chosen. And see her safe.”
Elizabeth believed most profoundly, just as he adamantly denied it, that he did intend to deny Georgiana her will. Darcy would never stand by and let his sister run about the English countryside, or French for that matter, flaunting convention and risking ruin. Certainly not with a groom. Or even Mr. Howgrave. She was not certain he would not throttle the dim-witted Hinchcliffe. “Seeing her safe” meant different things to different people. Darcy’s “safe” was the severest of all.
One of his riders returned with word that Georgiana’s gig had been seen upon the road south toward Portsmouth. Until that moment, Elizabeth had somehow believed Georgiana’s disappearance was a fluke, a frivolity. She could no longer. If Georgiana did board a ship for the war, undoubtedly as a nurse, Elizabeth knew there was no concern too extreme, no fear for her safety too great. Darcy intended to embark upon her retrieval as quickly as his coach could be readied.
If John had entered the army and Georgiana had gone with him or after him, they would end up on the continent and in Napoleon’s path. If it happened, Darcy intended to find Georgiana and bring her home. War or no war.
62
Most men of Mr. Darcy’s rank would have enlisted an emissary to search for his sister. But, as Elizabeth had once enjoyed reminding herself, her husband’s personal courage was far greater than most men’s, both of rank and lesser. And as Elizabeth again repeated that proudly to herself, she hoped she could be forgiven for grousing about it as well. For if the army were endangered across the Channel, she wondered what chance lay for a lone Englishman, whatever his merit. That same danger, of course, was tenfold for Georgiana. Thus, Elizabeth could not truly expect Darcy not to seek her.
It was difficult not to be angry with Georgiana for endangering them both, for surely she should have known her brother would move heaven and earth to find her.
What was she thinking? Of course, the answer was that she was not thinking. She was in love. Although Elizabeth had not shared that conviction with Darcy, she was certain it correct. Had Georgiana gone to war upon some quest of salvation of the wounded masses, she might have hesitated to announce it in advance, but she would have left word. Only love, either unrequited or unacceptable, would have made her surreptitious.
Georgiana’s departure already a fait accompli, Darcy’s anticipated one loomed before Elizabeth like a gaping behemoth, for it was immediate. There was to be no private time to hold each other in close embrace before he left, no special caresses to remember, no words to comfort. She was to be bereft and alone at Pemberley whilst he went into a raging war to seek his sister.
His intention was to search for Georgiana, if not incognito, at least in stealth. The men he had sent in pursuit of her were withdrawn in favour of private agents gifted in the nuance of discretion. Darcy feared for Georgiana’s reputation, but also that word not spread more than it already had that she was alone and vulnerable. For if that be known, every scoundrel in England would have their nose to the ground seeking her trail as well. Hence, Darcy refused Elizabeth to accompany him. Not only had she asked, she had wheedled, beseeched, and deliberately wept.
Darcy was unmoved. He would not even consider it.
“I can travel with much greater dispatch alone, by horseback if necessary,” he had told her.
“I can ride horseback!” she answered petulantly knowing that was hardly the point.
He must go in stealth, alone, and unaided. And she must wait. Alone as well. Elizabeth did not argue when her tears could not move him (and chastised herself for resorting to such a feminine weapon); his resolve was in place and thus additional entreaties were quite useless. There were certain times, when he used a specific voice, that she knew her powers of persuasion had peaked.
His preparations were methodical and calm. So unruffled did he appear, so disciplined, it was forbidding. Had Elizabeth not been already in a state of profound fright, that alone might have daunted her witless. Thus, when his stoicism included a reminder of where his important papers were in the library and just what arrangements he had made for her were he to die, she did not hear him. The moment he spoke of the possibility of not returning, she ceased to listen and began to tremble.
Unlocking the top drawer of his writing table, he opened it and removed a gun. The very gun he had taught her to use upon the lawn. Holding it for her inspection, he showed her again how to cock it.
“Remember, pull it all the way back, Lizzy.” The hammer clicked twice.
No answer.
“Lizzy?” he turned.
In times of crisis, his decisive reserve had always paid him well, but that day it demanded Elizabeth weather a struggle to maintain her composure. This was not lost upon his attention and it wrested him from the orderly delineation of details.
He carefully put the gun back in the drawer and closed it. Thereupon, he rose and drew her to his chest.
“Do not despair, Lizzy. These are but precautions. To ease my mind. Will you not allow me this?”
Because he caressed her neck reassuringly, she obediently nodded. It was with reluctance, but she did nod her concurrence. She understood her duty. If she could not accompany him, she would find the benevolence to ease his way. A wife must not make her husband’s tasks more arduous than necessary. One must acquiesce happily. Dutifully. Suddenly, she tore herself from his embrace and, with all the strength she could muster, struck him across the face. His look of stunned hurt incited her to slap him again. She brought her hand back a third time, but he grasped her wrists and drew her into his arms to soothe her. Her strength spent in a fit of wretchedness, she harmlessly pounded his shoulders with impotent fists and might have fallen to the floor had he not held her so tightly.
“Pray, do not leave me,” she wailed desperately. “Please do not. Take me with you! I shall be no trouble. I shall not complain. Please,” she begged, “take me with you for I cannot bear for you to leave me, for I know I shall never see you aga
in.”
He held her face in his hands and looked upon her so long and so deeply that she began to cry anew.
But he said simply, “Help me bear to go, Lizzy.”
Slowly, they slid in a heap upon the floor. The intimacy they had not had time for was found there upon the carpet, but not by kiss or embrace. She cupped his face in her hand and he kissed her palm. They sat thus for only a very few moments. In that time, Elizabeth realised she had not thought to write him a letter. It seemed an insurmountable oversight. She might have favoured hiding one in his trunk, reminding him of all the ways she loved him. It would have been lengthy.
The coach was called ready. They rose to go outside. Elizabeth realised there was not another word to be spoken.
By the time they reached the portico, they had both adopted their appropriately dispassionate masks. She stood aside as he, ever methodical, checked the horses one by one. When the task was compleated, he turned his attention to his trip and she saw upon his face the look of determination she had seen many times before.
Turning to her in reassurance, he said, “I shall be back before you realise me gone.”
He kissed her once upon the lips. She grasped his lapel as she returned it, then held on, pretending to straighten his jacket. Thereupon, she made her hands drop from him. It was the most difficult task she had ever asked of herself. He kissed her once again, took hold of the grip to step into the coach, turned and looked directly at her.
She mouthed the words, “I love you.”
He wordlessly said, “I know.”
Then, he pulled himself into the carriage and the door slammed shut. As Elizabeth watched his coach take the gravel lane away from Pemberley, she wondered was she right not to tell him before he left the one thing that might have made him stay.
No, she thought and shook her head imperceptibly but to herself. She could not put the burden of decision upon him: should he save his sister or remain with his wife? His wife, who was quite certain that she was again with child.
Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife Page 59