Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE DERBYSHIRE SWIFT
I awoke with heavy eyelids and a slightly thumping head.
We had stayed with Mary for more than half the night, bickering over the multiple ways in which my plan-that-was-not-a-plan-at-all was doomed. I was eventually forced to declare an end to all debate.
“We must wait for Mr Darcy. If anyone can discover Mr King and devise a proper plan, he can. I only pray he is in London and not in Derbyshire, for that would mean a delay of many days. I rely on the fact that he despises Mr Wickham.”
“My husband hates Mr Darcy equally. It is because of him that he ended up?—”
“Yet another of that man’s lies,” I replied in a sharp whisper. “The truth of it is altogether different. Do not ask me for more, for I am not at liberty to share what has been said to me in confidence.”
After a stern silence, I continued. “And if Mr Darcy does not agree to help us find your uncle and spirit you away, I shall appeal to Charlotte.”
“Charlotte Collins?” my sister Mary asked in an incredulous, hissing whisper. “Surely, Mr Collins would not allow—that is to say, he is not unaware…” Her protest dwindled on the uncomfortable reality she could not bring herself to say aloud. By eloping, Mrs Wickham had made herself notorious.
“What about our aunt Gardiner?” Kitty offered weakly.
Besides the fact that my youngest sister should not be reminded of Mr Wickham in any way, I doubted my uncle would feel any differently about the matter than had my father, and what is more, my aunt should not have to shelter all of that scoundrel’s victims. I left this unspoken, but with a touch of exasperation, I looked pointedly at Kitty and said, “You do recall that Lydia is with the Gardiners just now?”
“Oh.”
“Indeed, oh . We await Mr Darcy,” I replied with reverberating finality. “That is all I can think to do.”
With our candle burnt to the nub, Mary King eventually broke our painful silence by clearing her throat.
“There is the matter of my chamber pot,” she said in a small voice of apology. “I took it from the guest bedroom when we moved up here, if you recall? It is becoming a little…inconvenient.”
This unwholesome detail nearly undid my every resolution to continue my farce. How long had she used the one pot?
“I should tell Mrs Hill that I need a chamber pot for when I work,” Mary offered tentatively.
“Well, that may suffice from now on,” I said glumly. “Meanwhile, put the full pot in the farthest corner, and I shall see what can be done. ”
We then crept back down the stairs and sought the relief of our beds. However, I was left wide-eyed and a victim of my vicious mind that continued to wind into one knot after another in search of a solution to every last contingency.
At breakfast the following morning, my mother was just as irritable as I, though I strove not to show my feelings as freely as she.
“I believe I shall ask Mr Hill to shoot that screech owl,” she announced to no one in particular.
“Oh?” my father replied with great disinterest. “Do you prefer mice in your larder to the animal’s cries in the night?”
She did not much care for this sort of rationality. “Very well. I may just get a cat,” she declared.
“Though you once swore you would rather have a pig in the house.”
They briefly fussed at one another in this uncomfortable way until she had had enough. “Well, sir, if you refuse to get rid of the owl, then you must do something about the infernal creaking of this house. I swear there is a ghost pacing about above my head!”
He shot a challenging glance in my direction. “Perhaps I should send Mr Hill upstairs to see what can be done.”
“And so you should, Papa, if it will bring Mama comfort,” I replied, boldly meeting his gaze. Mary and Kitty, who did not know what I suspected—that Mr Hill knew very well what was afoot—listened to our father bait me with their eyes wide with dismay. Though they composed themselves quickly, and my mother was never one to notice such signs of guilt, our father had clearly made note of it.
“Lizzy,” he said as the breakfast things were cleared away, “there is a passage from a letter from Mr Collins I would like you to decipher. I swear I have never seen such a scrawl. ”
Once behind closed doors, I said, “I know, Papa. I am very near to having her leave this house.”
“Forgive me for failing to understand why she has not already done so, and why you have dragged your sisters into this deception with you.”
“She-she has been ill,” I explained with the dismal consciousness I was a terrible liar, “and?—”
My lord! I was truly exhausted if I had nearly succumbed to the impulse to confess I had written to Mr Darcy!
“And?”
“And her clothes have not yet been laundered. And my sisters are not quite as stupid as you believe. I had no choice but to take them into my confidence or have one or the other tattle to Mama that something is afoot in the upper reaches of this house.”
He grunted and waved me away with a warning. “Might I assume we shall be undisturbed by ghosts in our sleep tonight?”
“Yes, sir.”
As I stepped away, he spoke in a mumble of distraction, for he was already opening his book. “Oh, and there was an advertisement folded amongst my letters today that is addressed to you. I put it by the lamp on that table by the door. You should enrage young Lucas by waving it under his nose.”
I picked up the paper and dipped out of the room only to encounter Mrs Hill looking every bit as annoyed as had been my mother earlier at breakfast.
“And now we are to explain away another pot?” she asked with her hands on her hips.
“What choice is there? Has her dress been cleaned?” I retorted .
“The rain has just now stopped long enough to hang it out to dry!” she cried, suddenly defensive.
I was weary and in no mood to pet anyone’s feathers back into place. However, the folly of antagonising a crucial ally led me to put my hand on her arm, to speak more calmly than I felt, and to say, “Forgive me. I know you are doing what you can, and you are only concerned for my mother. Might I know how you explained the presence of a strange dress in the laundry?”
Somewhat mollified, she replied, “Mrs Gardiner’s nursemaid left it behind.”
“I knew I could rely on you, Mrs Hill.”
Since she was indeed correct that the rain had cleared, I went to the stables to sit in the reassuring presence of my ponies and to breathe in the myriad smells so earth-bound as to calm my nerves at least a little. Sitting on an upturned tin pail, I pulled out the advertisement written by hand but in such perfect copperplate as to pass for a printed pamphlet. On the top was the first stanza of Plato’s verse:
’ Neath this tall pine,
That to the Zephyr sways and murmurs low,
Mayest thou recline
While near thee cooling waters flow
And then, underscored, the word:
Tomorrow!
At two in the afternoon, on this, the 23rd day in the month of February, Mr Tomlinson, inventor of ingenious and versatile sporting vehicles, will unveil his latest creation :
The Derbyshire Swift
The most reliable, well-constructed curricle to ever wing its way into the countryside! Make an appearance at the public square at Forest Spring Road for your chance to win!
A few errant tears rolled down my cheeks. I would see Mr Darcy as soon as tomorrow afternoon, and all would be well. Had he lingered in town in order to be close enough to come to my aid at a moment’s notice?
My very bones thrummed with the certainty that he had, and moreover, he would know what to do.