Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Gone Into The Country
Mr. Darcy returned to London at the close of day, earlier than had been intended, and in no temper for the attentions of society.
The house-party from which he had withdrawn had afforded him little pleasure and less distraction, and though his departure had been made with every outward propriety, his thoughts had been fixed, throughout the journey, upon his sister and the satisfaction he anticipated in seeing her once more securely established beneath his own observation.
Georgiana's townhouse was dark.
It was a circumstance sufficiently trivial to escape notice in many instances, yet it struck him at once, for Georgiana's habits were regular, and Mrs. Younge had ever prided herself upon order and foresight.
Darcy paused before quitting the carriage, and the wrongness of it—the absolute wrongness—settled in his chest before he had even crossed the threshold. Then he entered.
The hall was silent. The butler—Matthews, who had served Georgiana's household since its establishment a year prior—appeared, flustered and ill-at-ease.
“Miss Georgiana is not at home, sir.”
“Where is she?”
“Miss Georgiana has gone into the country, sir, to stay with friends. Mrs. Younge informed us of it not a fortnight ago. She said the change of air would be beneficial to Miss Georgiana's health.”
Darcy removed his gloves. “Which friends?” He recollected no such connexion. His sister had no intimates of that description, no family in the country to whom he had entrusted her, and no female acquaintance whose house he had ever considered as open to her reception.
Matthews shifted uneasily. “Mrs. Younge did not particularise the family, sir. She spoke only of friends in the country, and of a change of air that was to be of service to Miss Georgiana.”
What followed was conducted with deliberation and care, though the result could not have been delayed by any haste of manner.
Darcy questioned the household—Georgiana's household—not with anger, but with a severity that required no raising of the voice to make itself known, and from the reluctance of their replies, and the gradual yielding of particulars one by one, he understood, even before the whole was laid before him, that the harm was already done.
Georgiana and Mrs. Younge had gone, and his ignorance of their direction was complete.
At first, the absence occasioned no concern.
Then some little uneasiness. After a week had elapsed without word or message, an alarm which no one had thought it their place to communicate to him.
Georgiana's rooms had been put in order for travel, her personal effects removed—one trunk, nothing more—her music and books left behind in a state of such careful arrangement as might have been intended to reassure, yet which now served only to deepen his disquiet.
The under-footman had helped carry down a bandbox and a small valise and had seen them handed up to a hired carriage which Mrs. Younge had brought to the door.
The coachman was not one of their own men, but a stranger engaged for the purpose, and Mrs. Younge had spoken to him apart in the street before they set off.
He had taken his fare and driven away, and no one in the house could say with certainty what road he had taken out of town.
It was in the course of this examination, and almost as an afterthought, that the remaining circumstance was disclosed.
A gentleman had been calling during his absence.
His attentions had been received without discouragement.
Mrs. Younge had spoken of him with approbation, and the servants, ignorant of any impropriety, had supposed his visits were received with Mrs. Younge’s full approbation, and therefore required no notice to Mr. Darcy.
Darcy did not require to be told the gentleman's name. When the name was at last pronounced—Wickham—Darcy received it without outward agitation, for it fell rather as the confirmation of a dread already entertained than as a new alarm.
When the household was dismissed, Darcy remained alone in Georgiana's drawing room.
Whether she had been persuaded by artifice, overborne by authority, or carried off by force, the consequence was the same.
Her reputation was placed in the utmost peril, and her safety itself could no longer be presumed.
That Wickham's design had been to secure a hasty marriage admitted of little doubt. Wickham’s object could scarcely be mistaken, nor the means by which he was most likely to pursue it.
Whether he had already succeeded, or was still on the way to his purpose, Darcy could not tell.
His ignorance was complete, and every hour that passed increased the danger.
He rose at length and quitted the house, leaving instructions that Matthews should admit no visitors and that no report of Miss Darcy’s absence was to be circulated in the neighbourhood.
Within the hour he had changed his dress at his own lodgings, and gone in search of his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Colonel Fitzwilliam heard him in silence and replied with that plainness which Darcy had always valued in him.
They spoke first of the most immediate measures: of sending inquires along the principal roads out of town, of engaging men accustomed to tracing debtors and deserters, and of keeping Georgiana’s absence, as far as might be, from general knowledge.
“We will need more than servants’ gossip,” Richard said. “Let us have the posting houses watched, and the hired stables. If a hired carriage left town with a girl of fifteen and a woman in Mrs. Younge’s situation, someone would remember it.”
“We must begin with what little we know,” Darcy said. “They left London in a hired carriage, and they have had several days’ start of us. We cannot hope to overtake them upon conjecture. Let us set men upon the principal roads and follow where the first certain report shall direct us.”
“I will take the North Road,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, “and speak with the posting houses there. If they have gone in that direction, we shall have it from the inns and posting houses soon enough.”
“And I,” said Darcy, “will remain within reach of town, to receive whatever intelligence may arrive, and to press the inquiries respecting Wickham and Mrs. Younge. Send to me every hour you have anything worth the telling.”
Richard laid his hand for a moment on Darcy’s arm. “You shall hear from me more often than you like. Take care of yourself.”
There was no comfort in his countenance. They understood one another too well for pretence.
From that moment, conjecture was set aside.
Darcy applied himself to action with a steadiness born not of hope but of resolution.
He closed Georgiana's townhouse. He hired runners—four of them, experienced men with contacts across the kingdom—and gave them descriptions: a young woman of fifteen, fair, slight of build.
A woman of perhaps forty with dark hair touched with grey.
Inquiries were instituted with discretion.
Wickham's debts and connexions were pursued.
Mrs. Younge was sought and not found. No intelligence was obtained that could diminish the weight of his apprehension.
As the night wore on, and the street beyond his window grew still, Darcy permitted himself, for the first time, to contemplate the possibility he had hitherto refused to admit: that Georgiana might already be ruined beyond retrieval, and that all his care—the independence he had granted her, the establishment he had formed, the companion he had entrusted—had ended in irreparable loss.
Distance, he now perceived, had not been a safeguard but an invitation.
He had no power, none of his privilege could prevent the consequences of his neglect.
What good was wealth and status if it could not keep Georgiana safe?
He did not indulge in reproaches against others.
The blame was his own, and he accepted it without mitigation.
Whatever remained to be done, he would do it.
Whatever reparation yet lay within his power, he would pursue without hesitation.
If nothing remained but the knowledge of his failure, then that knowledge he would bear as he must.
At daybreak, the search began in earnest.
In this House
Her feet no longer pained her, and whilst she still found herself sleepy, the days of inactivity had done little for her anxiety.
She looked out the nursery window several times and the case clock had only struck a quarter hour.
Watching the slowly drifting snow flakes passed the time.
There was little enough to occupy her. She had read the same children's story twice, tended the fire until it wanted no more attention, and counted the panes of glass in the window.
The view offered nothing but bare trees and a grey sky, but it was preferable to the four walls.
She was watching a crow pick at something in the frozen garden when she saw the rider.
He came from the direction of the road, moving at an easy pace.
A gentleman, by his seat and his dress. Dark coat, no livery.
The horse was a bay gelding, unremarkable in every respect.
But the way the rider sat—the angle of his shoulders, the careless grace of his posture—made her breath stop in her throat.
He dismounted near the stable block, handing the reins to a groom who had come out to meet him. The groom gestured toward the front of the house. The gentleman nodded, said something that made the groom laugh, and turned toward the entrance.
She could not see his face from this angle. But she knew.
She knew the way he moved, the tilt of his head when he spoke to those he considered beneath him, the easy confidence that concealed something far uglier.