Chapter 9 #2
turned a corner to the family wing, where Jane and Bingley’s private rooms could be found. Most of the party was staying down
this hall. Straight ahead was another hall of more guest rooms, and this was where Darcy, as the lone bachelor, was staying.
To the right was the door to the east wing, locked tight. Lizzie and Charlotte chose to go straight down the hall, past Darcy’s
bedroom chamber, and began opening doors along the very long corridor.
“This feels like snooping,” Charlotte said in a hushed tone as they crept into a bedroom, Guy leading the way. His nose worked
double time sniffing across dusty carpets. White sheets covered the furniture, making Lizzie think of funeral shrouds.
“Be honest—haven’t you ever longed to go snooping through a grand house like this, to uncover all its secrets?”
Charlotte laughed. “I don’t know about uncovering secrets,” she admitted. “But sometimes I do wonder what might be in other people’s wardrobes.”
Lizzie grinned as she drew back a dusty sheet. “Why don’t you look?”
Charlotte opened the cantankerous old walnut wardrobe, whose unoiled hinges screeched. They both winced and froze, as if waiting
for someone to catch them, then dissolved into giggles with Guy pressing up against Lizzie’s side eagerly to see what all
the fuss was about. “Nothing but dust,” Charlotte said with disappointment.
“Oh, well,” Lizzie said. “There’s more where that came from, I bet.”
They moved methodically down one side of the hall and then the other, checking old fussy sitting rooms and dusty bedchambers
that had long since seen proper daylight. Guy ran circles in his excitement, sniffing away and sneezing quite often. Lizzie
checked every drawer and cabinet, and Charlotte opened up every wardrobe. They were all empty save for a smaller room toward
the back of the house, overlooking a corner of the gardens. The wardrobe there held a collection of stiff old dresses, the
fabric discolored with time. Lizzie and Charlotte exclaimed over the old mantuas and the open skirts, the yellowing lace and
the fraying ribbons.
“Do you suppose these belonged to Bingley’s great-aunt?” Charlotte asked.
“They must have. Look at the style—my father has a portrait of my grandmother in a dress like this, and she would have been of the same era as Honoria.” Lizzie looked around the small bedchamber.
The bed was small, with a worn mattress stripped down to the ticking, and the furnishings weren’t ornate, but they were solidly made.
“This must have been her room . . . but why would she choose this one, when there are larger and better-appointed rooms?”
“Perhaps she had bad memories elsewhere in the house, and this room suited her better?” Charlotte suggested, gently pushing
the dresses back into the wardrobe and shutting it.
Lizzie and Charlotte spent a quarter of an hour in that room, searching for false bottoms in drawers or hidden cubbies or
shelves. They even lifted the mattress and rolled back the rugs, searching for loose floorboards, much to Guy’s consternation.
Lizzie got up the courage to peer up the flue of the fireplace but found nothing.
“I don’t think there’s anything here,” Charlotte concluded. “And there’s not much in the way of personal effects, either.
Whoever cleaned up after she died might have moved the treasure.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. One more thing to ask Sally about.
They reluctantly left Honoria’s room and continued down the hallway that stretched along the back of the house. Here, there
were fewer chambers, but a slightly uneven seam in the wall caught Lizzie’s notice. She ran her fingers along the seam and
the panel of the wall, searching . . . click!
The wall swung inward, revealing a dark, dusty corridor.
“Charlotte, look! A secret passageway!”
“I’m sure it’s hardly a secret,” Charlotte said, peering into the darkness. “It’s likely a passageway for servants to get
from one end of the house to the other without having to run into guests or the family.”
Lizzie didn’t care—her heart was pounding with excitement. “Come on!”
Guy followed Lizzie as she took a few steps into the passageway, but Charlotte hesitated. “Are you sure we should go in there?”
Of course Lizzie was certain—this was far more interesting than a half-empty room full of dust. “We’ll leave the door open
for light,” she said. “And only go in a bit of the way. Far enough to get a sense for where it leads. We can always turn around
and fetch Bingley.”
“All right,” Charlotte said uncertainly, stepping into the corridor after her. The old wood creaked under their feet, and
the corridor itself was rather cramped—only large enough that two people could pass each other if they turned themselves sideways—but
the ceilings were tall. Guy forged ahead, not seeming to care that it was growing darker with each step.
“Lizzie, perhaps we ought to come back with a lantern,” Charlotte said.
Lizzie brushed away a cobweb she’d walked straight into and was glad that Charlotte couldn’t see what she was doing. “I just
want to see how far it goes. Surely it will come out somewhere.”
“I know, but it’s getting difficult to see.”
“Just a little farther down,” Lizzie said.
But very quickly, she realized, there was a wall before her. A dead end. “Oh, drat.”
“What is it?” Charlotte asked, her voice high with apprehension.
“Dead end. Don’t worry, we’ll just turn around.”
Lizzie turned to face her friend, who was backlit by the light all the way at the end, where the door stood open. “Sorry,
Charlotte, I didn’t mean to—”
BAM!
They were plunged into darkness and Charlotte screamed. Lizzie jumped but managed not to make a noise, even as she felt fear
claw its way up her throat.
“Lizzie!”
“I’m here,” Lizzie said, trying to keep calm in the sudden darkness. She reached out and felt Charlotte’s arm. At her touch,
Charlotte clasped Lizzie’s hand tightly. “It’s all right. A draft probably slammed that door shut on us.”
“The door opened into the corridor,” Charlotte whispered. “And I don’t feel a draft.”
Charlotte was right, of course—the only thing Lizzie felt now was the stuffy, closed-in air, Charlotte’s desperate grasp on
her hand, and Guy pressing against her skirts.
“Well, one never knows with these old houses,” she said with far more confidence than she felt. “Turn around and start walking
toward the door. I’ll be right here behind you. Guy, come.”
Slowly, they began to move back toward the door. “You’re doing brilliantly,” Lizzie encouraged Charlotte. “And Guy, what a good dog you are.”
It seemed to take an age, but they finally reached the end of the corridor, and now that Lizzie’s eyes had adjusted, she could
see a faint line of gray light where the seam of the door was. She could hear Charlotte feeling around for the knob.
“Lizzie, I don’t know how to open it,” she whispered.
“Try pulling?”
“I am!”
“Here, let me.” Lizzie brushed past Charlotte and felt her way down the door. She could feel the seam of the jamb, and a groove
where she supposed one might grip the door, but neither pushing nor pulling yielded any results—it was stuck. Or locked. A
shiver traveled down her spine when she thought about the way the door had slammed suddenly. She didn’t recall seeing movement
around the door before it closed, but perhaps . . .
No, she wasn’t going to think about the possibility that someone had trapped them here on purpose.
“Lizzie,” Charlotte said in a voice that sounded perilously like a whimper.
“I know. I’m sorry,” Lizzie said. Her friend was no coward, but she also vastly preferred office work and research to going
down strange corridors and exploring unknown spaces. “Look, there has to be another way out. They wouldn’t have built a corridor
to nothing. Let’s keep looking.”
“Perhaps we bang on the door and hope someone will come to our rescue?”
“That’s not a terrible idea,” Lizzie said. “But it could be hours before they realize we’re missing. I haven’t heard anyone else in quite a while.”
Charlotte sighed. “Are you sure you can find another way out?”
“Of course,” Lizzie said confidently. “Put a hand on my shoulder. Guy, with me.”
Lizzie turned once more and moved slowly back down the corridor, reaching in every direction. The sound of Guy’s small steps
beside her was a reassuring presence in the dark, and hearing Charlotte’s quick breaths grounded her. Lizzie wasn’t sure how
many steps she’d gone when she sensed that Guy was no longer right beside her—he was simply gone. He hadn’t pushed ahead of
her, she was fairly certain. “Guy?” she said, and reached out and felt along the wall and gasped when she felt the rough walls
give way to nothing.
“What?” Charlotte asked, barely containing her panic.
“There’s another corridor, to the left,” Lizzie said. “We missed it in the dark.”
“Lizzie, I don’t like this!”
“I know, but this has to be a way out. Trust me.”
Lizzie pulled Charlotte to the left, and she could hear Guy just ahead of her, leading the way.
Lizzie took tentative steps forward, sweeping her arm left and right as she went.
Charlotte clung to her shoulders, barely a step behind her.
They made their way like this for what felt like a few hundred more steps, turning left then and right again.
Lizzie lost all sense of direction, and there was a part of her that began to worry that they truly would be lost in the bowels of Netherfield Park, never to be heard from or seen again.
She felt vaguely glad that Darcy was not here—he was utterly useless in dark, enclosed spaces and would be panicking even more than Charlotte.
Darcy. She could just imagine what he’d say when she saw him next. You found a secret corridor and just went down it? With no lantern? Do you not value your life?
At the final turn—to the left—Lizzie blinked. “Charlotte, can you see that?”
“I can’t see anything, Lizzie!”
“No, but . . . I swear it’s lighter in here. I think there must be a way out up ahead.”