The Zephyr

Chapter 19

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A HOST OF ACCOMPLICES

T he rank senselessness of the female condition, or rather my rude initiation to my legal standing in the world, invigorated me, and with my senses considerably sharpened, I went upstairs. After glancing behind me to assure no one had seen me, I crept into the little room in which I had hidden Mary King, only to find her soundly asleep.

I picked up her soiled dress and undergarments from the chair while she slept on silently and with a profundity that struck me, for she must not have rested with the consciousness of general safety for a very long time. She did not feel herself to be in danger for once, and almost against my will, I softened considerably more than I already had towards her. She was no longer so much a nuisance as she was representative of a cause—that of fairness and a symbolic protest against the fact that our society was not built to protect her in any reasonable way.

Beyond that, I better understood the social constraints under which men also laboured. They considered themselves bound to duty over kindness, whereas precisely because I was a woman, I had the liberty my father did not to dismiss my duty in order to exercise compassion.

I slipped Miss King’s clothes into a pillowcase from the drawer and went below stairs. I pulled Mrs Hill into a corner and said, “Might you see that these things are laundered and dried as quickly as may be?”

She agreed to do so. “Aye, if it will help her to find the door, miss.”

I then checked the time on the mantel clock and went up to my room and drafted two notes. The first was to my clandestine guest as a precaution should she wake and find I had taken her clothing.

I have gone to the village on an errand. I have asked that your clothes be laundered, and when I return shortly, I shall bring you a tray and something to wear. Meanwhile. I implore you, please do not make a sound! You must trust me to do what I can to help you if you will agree to keep your presence a secret.

The second note was much harder to write. I sat dumbstruck over the blank sheet of paper, for what I intended to do was not without consequences. I struggled for words, then knowing time was not my friend, I tossed aside all constraint, all pride, and all intentions of eloquence.

Sir, I am in a terrible scrape and have need of your help. Forgive me, for I do not ask lightly that you please come to Hertfordshire. And more than that, I also require your complete discretion. Send word under cover of correspondence from Mr Tomlinson of the company which built my Zephyr, and I shall meet you at the place of your naming. You know of all my haunts.

I must only add, come quickly.

I then threw on my coat, a serviceable scarf, took up my gloves and bonnet, and drove with real urgency to Standon, a village ten miles to the southeast of Meryton. There, I went to the post office, and all whilst enduring the stares of strangers, I held my nose aloft and sent my letter to Mr Darcy at the London address he had given me. In the process, I exchanged my pound note for more useful coins, and after watering my horses at the trough at the posting house and again suffering a great deal of impertinent curiosity, I drove at speed back to Meryton.

Once there, I stopped briefly at Lucas Lodge to collect my sister Mary on the thin excuse that my mother wished her to make a little drawing of a rose to include in her letter to Mrs Gardiner. When asked whether our mother could not wait, I replied she was in one of her pets, missing Jane and Lydia, and was impatient for no reason. But Mama had conceded that if Mary went to her, Kitty might stay behind with Maria Lucas if she wished—which she did, for none of us enjoyed our mother’s melancholies.

When we were away, I stopped the curricle on a flat spot just past the old stone bridge on the lane to Longbourn.

“Mary, forgive me, but it is I—not Mama—who has need of you.”

I explained as succinctly as I could, and with great hesitation, my sister agreed to come to my aid.

I chose Mary primarily because she was of the same height as Miss King. Moreover, they were neither of them terribly lush in their construction, with the lanky legs and wide shoulders that fashion did not consider to be anything but plain. Thus, I could borrow her clothes without fear of questions as to what had happened to this or that dress over breakfast, for Mary chose modest colours and a simple style. In short, she did not look any different from one day to the next.

“This will all come to grief, Lizzy,” she said solemnly, “and I fear I might be in trouble for it.”

“Yes, it is almost certainly a forlorn hope,” I conceded. “But only I shall face trouble, for you have been the victim of my insistence. You must plead ignorance, claim you were led to believe Papa was aware of what we were doing, and place all blame on me. Promise?”

“You are asking me to lie. Not just about my part in it, but you wish me to partake in a lie by keeping such a secret!”

I took a settling breath and spoke with all the gravity I then felt.

“Only you can decide what is right. For my part, I would gladly bear the weight of a lie over the sin of indifference and of the selfish impulse to spare myself the trouble of helping a woman in fear for her life.”

By degrees, as I clicked my ponies into a slow canter, Mary began to adjust to the notion and asked how I thought she could help.

An hour later, she told our mother she was feeling stuffed in the head. Perhaps she was catching a cold and might she be excused? She was granted permission to take a tray upstairs so long as she submitted to a mustard plaster on her chest.

Mrs Hill, our reluctant accomplice, made up the plaster with only half the noxious paste usually prescribed, and she loaded the tray with perhaps more than was required for one young lady. Thus, while we were at dinner, Mary went to the little room at the end of the hall and saw to our guest. She took with her one of her older dresses and several other items, including some serviceable shoes and a pair of woollen socks.

We were improvising as best we knew how, for it was possible our guest would have to leave unexpectedly and in poor weather.

The following morning found my sister much improved . I, however, thought my feather bed might be harbouring an insect—perhaps two—for I had a red spot on my ribs that itched a great deal. While still in her nightcap, upon being told this by Mrs Hill, my mother screeched orders for me to have the mattress burnt and to sleep in the guest bedroom until such time as new ticking and feathers could be ordered from Harrison’s sundry shop.

Between the two of us, Mary and I quietly trundled my bedding up to the attic while the upstairs maid attended to my mother. By Martha’s careless shrug, I assumed she was pleasantly surprised that the mattress was not there for her to deal with when she went next to my room, and shortly after, Mr Hill set fire to a mountain of wet leaves in the garden that sent up a great plume of smoke that smelt quite horrible. It was a smell that only added to my anxiety, for it seemed likely that Mr Hill had been taken into his wife’s confidence and added the plumage of last night’s dinner to his smoking pile of debris. The combination, however, resulted in a noxious cloud.

By the time breakfast was laid, my mother remarked that there was an odd smell in the house, and she might have to return to bed to endure it, whatever it was.

Mary and I exchanged conscious looks before I turned back to Mama. “Feathers, ma’am. Very unpleasant.”

Mary then quickly changed the subject, for a woman of my mother’s generation was all too familiar with the smell of burning feathers and might wonder why this particular odour was not quite the same. “I was wondering, Mama, if I might set up a little room in the attic for my painting,” she said.

“The attic? I do not know why you cannot paint at the table as you always do.”

With a wink at Kitty, I said, “She fancies herself in need of an atelier , Mama.”

My mother liked those of her daughters who remained at home to keep her company on dull afternoons when we had no callers, and so she waved off this request. “No, no. You will put Hill to too much trouble, and once you have your way, I doubt you would spend any time up there at all. You will be cold and damp and beset by spiders.”

My father, who had been studiously buttering his toast, had not seemed to be paying this conversation any attention at all. But he suddenly slanted an appraising glance in my direction before offering his rare opinion on a domestic matter.

“My dear, the running of this house is your purview, of course, but I wonder that you have not sent your daughter to the attics already, considering that you so often complain of the smell of turpentine in the parlour.”

By two in the afternoon, Mary King—whom I had permanently demoted from her title as Mrs Wickham out of sympathy for her plight and an unshakeable hatred of that name—had been smuggled up to the attic. I then took possession of the little room at the end of the hall that was conveniently closest to the service stair that went directly up to her.

Another night and full day passed. My sister went into the attic to paint but did not stay long. We were expected at a card party and returned home late—too late for any visits to our secret guest.

My plan to hide Mary King was painfully naive, and what was worse, I was aware of how it ultimately solved nothing. It was fairly lowering to have suffered such a failure of imagination, but I had not the power to summon up a brilliant solution. Even worse than that, it had been equally naive to expect Kitty not to become conscious that something was afoot.

“Well, I do not suppose you want me to know why Mary is in the attic,” she said petulantly under her breath at tea.

By a calculation that took less than ten seconds, I saw that she would not subside happily into ignorance, that she was feeling left out of a childish game—which she was—and that no good would come of trying to fool her any longer.

At my earliest opportunity, I pulled Kitty into a corner adjacent to the main staircase and spoke in a deliberate whisper.

“I have done something—well, it was not well thought out, I am afraid. I encountered Mary King on the road as she was running away from Mr Wickham, and I brought her here. Mama does not know, and Papa does not want her to know, nor does he want to know anything about it, and he says I must somehow get rid of her. But I cannot toss her out, for she has nowhere to go and?—”

We were interrupted by a maid come to fetch linens .

As we slowly followed the girl up the stairs, Kitty whispered, “Are you serious? Is she hiding in the attic?”

I nodded earnestly, but out of a slightly hysterical impulse, a horrid giggle fought its way out of my throat and burst out most unnaturally as we stood whispering on the landing. Only the sound of a door above my head sobered me out of a fit of nervous laughter, and we made our way into the privacy of my temporary room where I satisfied Kitty’s demand for every last detail.