The Zephyr

Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

PLATO IN THE SHADE

T he following day was once again sweltering. I could not entice anyone to ride out with me, and though I should have been happy to sit at home, I felt the restless call to escape.

The house was newly busy, and much as I valued the restoration of my family, the presence of children, and the renewal of happier times for us, I missed the solemn serenity of the prior months. Mary and Kitty had often been at Lucas Lodge with Maria, my mother and father had been greatly subdued by both our circumstances and the wet weather, and I had been profoundly content to learn to drive the Zephyr and to shift for myself on most days.

Craving a taste of that solitude, I left the house on a thin excuse that there were letters to be posted, and I needed to order oats for my horses. My sisters were learning a new card game from Aunt Gardiner, my mother was upstairs with the children, and my father and uncle lingered at the table after breakfast to ponder an illustrated publication on the frontier territories of the American west. My desertion was apparently no loss to anyone, and I took June and July deep into the Lindbury Wood.

The riparian woods I loved so much were merely a small parcel in the holdings of a wealthy squire who died when my father had been a young man. After decades of legal contention, this property was reportedly making its long and bewildering journey into the possession of a sitting member of parliament who had just returned after a stint as Chief Secretary for Ireland. In short, the man who could declare rights of ownership over Lindbury was a committed politician, and it was rumoured he had no interest in the patch of trees on the bank of the River Lea awaiting his formal claim.

This was lucky for us, for the woodlands were pristine and well-tended by the farmers who surrounded them. The local gentry took pains to protect what we thought of as our own Puzzlewood Forest. Squatters were not allowed to encamp there, poachers were rousted and prosecuted, and gypsies did not dare even to pass that way. So naturally, this forest was where I often went when in search of silence.

I turned onto the same small track I had used to evade Mr Darcy some weeks prior, and because I knew my way both in and out of the maze of alder, beech, buckthorn, and elms, I threaded my little curricle through a gauntlet of low hanging branches farther down into the heart of the woods and found my way to the spring. In the deep shade of that ancient glade, I watered the horses and left them to idle in the trees while I sat on the mossy stream-side boulders and stared into the clear depths of the spring below me.

I thought of nothing at all, really, choosing instead to eventually close my eyes and to savour the silence by listening—like a rabbit—to every sound. The act of listening intently, however, sent me into a kind of reverie, and after a while, I slipped into a state that was neither sleep nor fully awake.

“‘’Neath this tall pine…’” I heard him drawl from somewhere off to my left.

I sprung up from the ground like the rabbit I had been pretending to be and whirled around.

“Forgive me. I did not mean to startle you,” he said, still standing in the shadows.

“Not startle me! How could you fail to do so, skulking around in the woods as you are! Where is your horse? Have you been following me? My word!” I cried. “I feel positively pursued!”

“Do you?”

“Pray explain why I cannot go anywhere in this county and not encounter you, Mr Darcy?”

He stepped forwards into a small puddle of sunlight. “Do you know Plato?”

“A little. Are you going to somehow suggest he is at fault for this intrusion?”

He quoted,

“’Neath this tall pine

that to the Zephyr sways and murmurs low

mayest thou recline,

while near thee cooling waters flow.”

My reply was justifiably tart. “How apt that Plato has written a little verse that would suit this place.”

“And you in it. You have not heard the rest of his poem.”

“If you say so. But I do not believe you are a romantic man, inclined to use verse to speak for you, much less wander forlornly after a lady in hopes of a chance to recite it.”

He smiled enigmatically at me and said, “Forgive me. I did not know you would object to ancient musings about your little Zephyr.”

“I am charmed, sir,” I said as I glared at him. “And now you will at last explain yourself!”

“Do you not know what dangers abide in a forest? Yet, you came in here entirely alone. You take a great many risks.”

“And what business is that of yours? Are you duty-bound to mind me?”

“Someone must.”

“I can only pray the cholera subsides, and you will go away very soon,” I said, marching over to my horses.

“Wait.”

I turned to look at him.

“I have wanted to ask what has become of George Wickham.”

“You stalked me in order to find out? You could have asked Sir William—or anyone else for that matter.”

“Yes, but you and I have spoken of him, and we have even argued over his goodness. I wished to hear from you why he is no longer here.”

“Ah,” I said, relaxing at last. “I now understand why you are here. Very well.” I turned to face him fully. “You were right, Mr Darcy, and I was wrong. George Wickham is not a good man. In fact, he eloped with Miss Mary King in January, and from what we hear, he is making short work of her fortune. Are you vindicated? Might I now drive around the countryside in peace?”

In an oddly tender voice, he said, “Did he wound you? ”

I stood stock-still. For some reason, the ready lie would not come out of my mouth! But neither could I tell this man what transpired, so I allowed a fulsome silence to act as my agent.

He stared at me before speaking in a low, dangerous tone. “If he dared?—”

“I assure you I am whole, sir. I cannot—will not—say more.” I turned to my horses, untied the straps from the tree branch, and led them around to face the track down which I had come.

He stood directly in my way.

“I should have done more to warn you.”

“And I should have listened to you. There, we have both confessed our failures in the matter. That should suffice, should it not? Might we now forget that man?”

“I never will. He tried to elope with my sister.”

I took a sharp, inward breath. “He did what?” I cried. “But surely, he did not succeed!”

“By the slimmest of margins he did not. I was afraid he would damage her reputation if I spoke more publicly against him, and it was this cowardice that prevented my saying more to you—to anyone.”

I relented in the face of such an admission of failure from such a prideful man.

“He tried to seduce Lydia and nearly killed her in the process. We skirted through it, as you say, by the slimmest of margins.”

“She is?—”

“She is in essence untouched but much altered.”

“As is Georgiana. Can you forgive me?”

“Easily. You forget how disinclined I was to believe you about anything. I wonder if I would have heeded a more urgent warning or if I would have ignored it to spite you.”

He smiled though sadly. “You would have accused me of having a narrow opinion of the man.”

“Certainly. But I now understand why you denied him the living.”

“But I did not. At his request, I paid him handsomely in lieu of it upon the promise that he would study the law.”

“The law! His only law is his own pleasure.”

“At last we agree upon something.”

What more could be said? The air had become so heavy between us, I wished to break the spell and could only think of leaving.

“Where is your horse, sir?” I asked abruptly.

“At the road.”

“Why so far?”

“I did not want to alert you to my coming. You would have bolted, and I wanted to talk—not race.”

“A pity, for I dearly love to race. Would you care for a ride on my little Zephyr?”

He eyed it a little sceptically but gamely said, “If you do not think I shall break it.”

“If you must know, matchsticks and glue are amazingly strong.”

“As are you,” he murmured.