Chapter 6
Six
In Which Darcy Acquires a Lead of His Own
Darcy felt the curious prick of eyes upon them as soon as their small party stepped out of the carriage in the middle of Meryton’s
high street.
The village was both smaller and busier than Darcy had been expecting. As a market town, a number of shops lined the street,
and the thoroughfare was busy with wagons and carts and plenty of pedestrians. Meryton boasted its own assembly halls, and
on the outskirts of the village were barracks for the British Army. That said, Darcy was fairly certain he could have stood
at the top of the street and looked all the way down to the end of the village and seen everything worth visiting in one glance.
“We’re still causing a bit of a stir,” Bingley muttered to him as he took Jane’s hand and helped her down from the carriage.
“Newly up from London, restoring the old estate, and all that.”
“Of course,” Darcy said, but the looks they garnered were not merely curiosity or excitement—there were wary glances and darting eyes. Darcy knew without hearing any of the whispers that the people of Meryton had heard about the dead man in the flue.
“All right, where is this haberdashery?” Lizzie asked as Darcy helped her out of the carriage. She sounded, unsurprisingly,
cross. Darcy offered a hand to Charlotte, who emerged last from the carriage.
“There,” Jane said, tilting her head ever so slightly to a small shop with a display of ribbons in its front window. “And
the milliner is next door.”
“How charming,” Charlotte said, taking in the village. “Well, this should hardly take any time at all, should it?”
“No,” Lizzie agreed. “But I fail to see how Meryton is so dangerous that I should require so much supervision.”
Bingley raised his brows, and Darcy gave a slight shake of the head. “It would be highly improper for you to go with Charles
and Darcy by yourself,” Jane said, which had been her argument back at Netherfield when she insisted on accompanying them.
She’d also invited Charlotte, and the other young lady had been quick to accept.
“I’m not making social calls,” Lizzie reminded her. “This is business.”
“And this isn’t London. This is the country,” Jane countered.
They’d made their plan in the carriage, and Darcy had been somewhat disappointed when Jane had insisted that Lizzie and Charlotte accompany her to the shops while Bingley and Darcy called on the vicar to discuss the dead man’s burial.
Darcy had looked to his friend, wondering if he had been privy to Jane’s machinations, but Bingley looked just as surprised as Lizzie.
“Are you worried that I’ll say something improper to a man of the cloth?” Lizzie had asked her sister, sounding irritated.
“No!” Jane insisted. “But this way we can all speak with more people about . . . the unpleasant discovery. You know how ladies
love to gossip.”
Lizzie didn’t argue, although Darcy didn’t miss her look of suspicion. Even so, he was surprised when she agreed, saying,
“You can question the vicar without me, can’t you?” He’d agreed, although the point wasn’t that he needed her—he wanted her
with him because he wanted her to stay invested in this case. But it seemed improper to argue when Jane was sitting across
from him in the carriage, biting her bottom lip.
Now Bingley hovered next to his wife, looking uncertain. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?” he asked. “Darcy and I would
be glad to accompany you inside.”
“It’s Meryton, not Mayfair,” Lizzie said, looking at her sister. “Right, Jane?”
“Right,” Jane replied, although she looked uncertain.
“We’ll be fine,” Charlotte said firmly, taking Lizzie’s arm, then Jane’s. “Now, off you go. We’ll reconvene in an hour and
compare notes.”
“Do be careful and try not to scandalize the villagers,” Bingley said.
He meant it as a joke, but Jane merely winced. “No promises,” Lizzie said as she was pulled in the direction of the haberdashery.
Darcy and Bingley continued on through the village. The church was at the end of the high street, on the edge of the village.
It was a demure stone building with a single bell tower, a small rectory, and a carefully kept churchyard that wrapped around
one side of the building and the back. The churchyard was full of modest stones arranged in tidy rows. Darcy wondered if the
man from the flue had family buried there, a clan he belonged to and who would be glad of a resting place for their loved
one.
Darcy followed Bingley to the door to the rectory, but before either of them could knock, it was opened by a gentleman far
younger than Darcy had expected.
“Ah, Mr. Bingley,” the man said. “I wondered whether I would see you today.”
“Word has spread, I see,” Bingley said grimly.
“Indeed it has. Well, come in.”
Darcy sized him up while Bingley made the introductions. In Darcy’s experience, vicars tended to be either elderly or boorish,
but this vicar was neither. His name was Mr. Thomas, and he appeared to be in his mid- to late twenties, and he had curly
brown hair and brown eyes that crinkled around the corners when he smiled. He greeted Darcy cordially, not appearing to be
intimidated at all by the presence of a gentleman and a solicitor in his small study. If Darcy had to guess, he would have
said that Mr. Thomas was likely the second or third son of a proper family short on assets.
“It’s frightful business,” Mr. Thomas said as he gestured for them to take a seat. “I heard an earful from Mrs. Jones—that’s the undertaker’s wife—but I’m not altogether clear on the details. She said that one of you pulled the body from the chimney?”
Bingley and Darcy exchanged glances before Darcy asked, “Does everyone in Meryton know what transpired last night?”
“Everyone in Meryton, and all the neighboring farms and estates, I’d wager,” Mr. Thomas said with a pleasant smile. “It’s
the most exciting news we’ve had since Mr. Boynton’s prize heifer had twin calves two springs ago.”
Bingley laughed. “Surely you can’t be serious!”
“Well, when your aunt passed and we heard that you intended to take up residence in Netherfield Park, that was probably a
close second.”
“It is nice to know where one ranks,” Darcy remarked.
“Indeed,” the vicar agreed. “Which is why you have to forgive my questions, and everyone else’s curiosity. Mrs. Jones said
it was impossible to tell who the body belonged to—was there any way of identifying him?”
“No,” Darcy said, not willing to give away their only clue, the silver Spanish coin found in the man’s jacket pocket. “The
deterioration is . . . severe. It may be difficult, but it’s imperative that we identify the man as soon as possible.”
“How long do you believe he’s been dead?”
“It’s difficult to say,” Darcy said with a quick glance at Bingley. “More than a handful of years, but beyond that I couldn’t
tell. However, given the circumstance, it’s likely . . .”
“No, certain that he’s been there since my aunt’s time,” Bingley confirmed with a sigh. “Although whether she was aware of his presence, we can’t say.”
Silence filled the small study for a long moment, and Darcy studied Mr. Thomas closely. He doubted that in all his liturgical
training, the vicar had ever been instructed on how to respond to the news of a likely decades-old murder victim discovered
in the house of one of his parishioners. He almost felt sorry for the man.
But Mr. Thomas seemed to take this news in stride. “I presume you’ll want to arrange for a burial?”
“Yes, please,” Bingley said. “A proper one, if we can. We may not know the fellow, but he doesn’t deserve a pauper’s grave.
I want to see that he’s laid to rest with a full service, even if only my wife and I are in attendance.”
“I doubt you will be the only ones,” Mr. Thomas said, but Darcy sensed approval in his tone. “I’ve already fielded a number
of inquiries.”
“Really?” Darcy asked. “By whom? People who might have known who the man was?”
Mr. Thomas shook his head. “Now, that I cannot say. No, the interest from the village is more . . . mundane, unfortunately.”
“You mean there’s been plenty of gossip,” Darcy said bluntly.
The vicar winced. “It’s difficult to overstate just how little excitement we get in Meryton.”
Darcy couldn’t help the sigh that escaped him. “I don’t suppose you might have any idea who our dead man might be?”
“I’m afraid not. But if he’s been dead a number of years, I’m not certain how much help I’d be anyway. I’ve only had the living here in Meryton for four years. Before me, Dr. Fellowes was here for, oh, I don’t know, twenty-seven years? But he’s passed on, unfortunately.”
That was disappointing news, but if there was one thing Darcy had learned from Lizzie, it was to keep pressing. “You’ve never
heard of any local man going missing, or stories of someone disappearing under mysterious circumstances? Or perhaps a newcomer
to the village who left abruptly?”
“No, none of that, I’m sorry to say. People do leave, of course. They strike out for better farms, sometimes they join the
military or navy, occasionally head off for work in London. But there’s usually no mystery in that.”
“Can you give us names?”
The vicar looked at Bingley. “I suppose, but no one comes to mind as someone who might be your dead man. You’re very motivated
to discover his identity?”
Darcy opened his mouth to say of course he was, a man had clearly been murdered and his body hidden away, but Bingley spoke
first. “Well, it only seems right. And besides, there have been some rumors swirling about that I think Mrs. Bingley would
prefer to be put to rest.”
“The curse?” Mr. Thomas asked sympathetically.
Darcy lifted his brows in surprise. “You know about the curse?”
Mr. Thomas chuckled. “You spend enough time in Meryton, and someone will mention it. My parishioners may shy away from sharing their superstitious lore with me out of fear I’ll keep them an extra hour in the pews on Sundays, but I’m afraid rumors of the curse on Netherfield Park are well-known.”