Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Uncertainty
Darcy remained where Richard had left him, the folded memoranda still upon the table. There was no other avenue left to him now but speed and certainty. Whatever could be done must be done at once.
He reached for the bell and rang. The small sound broke the stillness more than his cousin’s departure had done.
When the servant appeared, Darcy did not sit. “The men who attended me yesterday,” he said. “They are to come directly. Each is to be shown in alone.”
They were shown in separately to the small back parlour, that no two might shape their stories to one another’s hearing. Their boots left damp marks upon the carpet. Their hats turned and turned again in their hands as they stood before him, half respectful, half curious.
The first of them—a square-shouldered fellow with a scar along his jaw—was brought to him within a quarter of an hour, hat turned round and round in his hands, eyes moving quickly over the room before settling, warily, on Darcy.
“What you are to look for is this,” Darcy said.
“A young lady of fifteen, fair, slight of figure, dressed as becomes a gentleman’s daughter of fortune.
She is in company with a woman of perhaps forty, dark hair, some grey.
There may be a gentleman with them—tall, well-looking, with an easy address, calling himself Mr. Wickham.
You are to trace any chaise or post-coach that answers, in part, to this description, and send to this direction immediately. ”
He pushed a card across the table. The man took it between rough fingers and glanced at the superscription.
“You will have your usual fee,” Darcy added, “and double again if your intelligence proves the means of recovering the young lady.”
A flicker of calculation crossed the man’s face. “I understand you, sir. I’ll begin with the great yards at Hampstead and Highgate, and the smaller houses that feed ’em. There’s not a postilion on the North Road as shall not know me by nightfall.”
The others received similar instructions.
One was directed towards Barnet, another towards the western roads, a third to the hackney stands and low taverns where Mrs. Younge might have bargained for a cheap chaise.
All were furnished with the same brief written description.
All, as they left him, seemed to carry away some portion of his remaining composure.
The day wore on. Notes arrived from Richard, short and to the purpose, reporting only failures.
Two of Darcy’s own men came back by evening with nothing but denials and vague recollections.
A third wrote from a village beyond Barnet of a chaise that might, or might not, have suited.
The uncertainty was a torment almost equal to bad news.
As the house grew quiet, and the street beyond his window fell still, Darcy sat alone in the study, the candles burning low, listening for every step in the passage.
At last, near midnight, there came a more hurried knock. The servant announced one of the runners from Hampstead and Darcy had him admitted at once.
The man entered with mud still stiff upon his boots and cloak, the chill of the night in his cheeks. He stood just within the door, hat in hand, and inclined his head.
“I have something for you, sir,” he said without preface. “From the Hampstead yard. There’s a postilion as remembers a job t’other week—fits what you described as near as may be.”
“Tell me exactly,” said Darcy.
“He was called to a mews behind Brook Street—quiet place, good houses, such as you said.” The man’s gaze flicked, briefly, to the quality of the room and back again.
“There he took up a lady and a very young miss. They had a maid with ’em at first, but she was sent away after seeing ’em into the chaise.
The lady was steady enough, sir, but the young one had a lost sort of look to her—like she did not rightly understand what was doing. ”
Darcy’s hand, which had been resting on the back of a chair, closed upon it till the knuckles whitened, but he made no interruption.
“They drove first,” the man went on, “to a shabby tavern on the northern outskirts—he named the house, and I have writ it here for you.” He produced a folded scrap, which Darcy took but did not yet open.
“There, a gentleman joined them. The three were inside together for the better part of half an hour. When they came out again, the gentleman looked mighty well pleased with himself. The young lady kept her head down. The postilion said she spoke scarce a word the whole time he had ’em. ”
The room seemed unnaturally still. Darcy heard the faint crackle of the fire, and somewhere in the distance the roll of a carriage over the paving-stones.
“From there,” the man continued, “the lady bade him drive on towards the Hertfordshire Road beyond Highgate. A few miles along, at a crossroads, she told him his part was done. Said they had another carriage engaged to take them further. The driver said the man paid him off in ready money and then they waited in the road till he turned back. He did not see what conveyance took ’em up after. ”
“You are satisfied that he does not embellish his tale for the sake of a reward?” Darcy asked, his voice even.
“I thought of that, sir. I questioned him alone, then again before the yardmaster. The particulars agreed. He named the tavern without prompting, and two ostlers there remembered the gentleman’s looks, and the girl being awfully quiet.
They took little note of where the party went after, only that they left the yard by the northward road. ”
Darcy inclined his head. “You have done what was required of you. Return in the morning. There may be further need of your services.”
When the man had withdrawn, and the door closed behind him, Darcy unfolded at last the scrap of paper and read the scrawled name of the tavern. The letters swam for a moment before his eyes. A half-hour within such a house, with Wickham, was time enough for all to be lost past amendment.
He did not sit down. The resolve, once taken, suffered no delay.
His bell brought his valet from sleep. Orders were given, concise and unquestioned.
A small portmanteau was packed with what was strictly necessary.
His best road horse was to be saddled by dawn.
A brief note was written for Colonel Fitzwilliam, informing him of the Hertfordshire direction and desiring him to draw the wider net north and west, should this prove a false trail.
By the first light of morning, the thick frost lay white upon the stones of Grosvenor Street. Darcy stood at his own door, gloved and cloaked, whilst the groom fixed the last strap. The horse stamped and tossed its head in the keen air.
“You will ride on an hour ahead,” Darcy said to the second groom, who was mounted on a strong, plain hack.
“At every considerable inn upon the Hertfordshire Road, you will leave this.” He held out a packet of folded papers.
“It contains a description of the young lady and those with her. They are to send to me at once, to this direction, should any party resembling it appear. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lose no time—and waste none,” he added. “Your horse is to be spared but not indulged.”
The man touched his hat and set off at a trot.
A few moments later, Darcy swung into the saddle.
The movement, so long habitual, brought with it an odd sensation of unreality, as if all this were some exercise ordered for his diversion, rather than the consequence of his own folly.
He set his teeth against the thought and gave his horse the road.
The way out of town was heavy. Yesterday’s sleet had churned the surface to ruts and mire, now stiffening in the cold.
The wind came keen from the east, cutting through greatcoat and gloves alike.
At each posting house where he paused to water his horse and make his inquiries, he met only shrugs and civil denials.
No such party had been seen, or, if seen, had not been remarked upon.
Every failure, every blank look, drove him on the faster. If they were not to be overtaken upon the road, then he must reach some town where the gossip of the inns was thick enough to have caught a trace of them, if trace there were to be had.
Toward late afternoon, the sky darkened, and the wind rose to a steady, bitter gale.
The hedgerows bent beneath it. The last light drained from the fields.
At length, as his horse laboured up a slight rise, a cluster of roofs and chimneys showed against the lowering clouds, with here and there the glimmer of lamp light. A church-tower stood up dimly beyond.
He passed under a weathered direction-post at the road’s edge, its lettering half-obscured by age and lichen.
In the failing light, he caught only one word upon it: Meryton.
It told him no more than that he had reached a place of sufficient consequence to be pointed out to travellers, and that there was an inn to receive them.
A few minutes later, he turned in beneath a creaking painted sign, where a swinging board, just visible, bore the name The George, Meryton.
The yard beyond was a confusion of light and shadow—lanterns flaring in the wind, stable-boys running, the smell of wet straw and horseflesh thick on the air. Darcy drew rein and dismounted, his limbs stiff from the long hours in the saddle. An ostler came at once to his horse’s head.
“Stabling, sir?”
“For the present,” Darcy said. “Rub him down well and see that he is properly fed and watered. Your landlord—where is he?”
The Landlords
The landlord proved to be a stout, civil man, more curious than cautious. He heard Darcy’s account of a young lady travelling with a companion, and a gentleman answering to Mr. Wickham’s appearance, with growing attention, his brows lifting a little at the name.