Chapter 16
Sixteen
In Which Lizzie Questions Her Prime Suspect
The key was fetched and the door to the east wing was opened, but no one could agree on who was to cross the threshold.
Lizzie wanted to run toward the sound of Guy’s barking, but her memory of falling through the floor was too fresh. She could
see the splintered floorboards from where she stood and recalled the terror she’d felt as she realized that the only thing
between her and a potentially fatal fall was a bunch of rotting wood.
A small crowd gathered, including Jane, Charlotte, and half a dozen servants. They all took turns calling for Guy, but no
matter how much they shouted and cajoled, the dog never sounded as if he were coming any closer. After nearly twenty minutes
of this, his barks subsided into unhappy whines and cries that pierced Lizzie’s heart. “What if he’s stuck? Or hurt? He clearly
can’t just come. I have to go retrieve him.”
“You’re not going back in there,” Darcy said, eyeing the floor as if plotting his own path.
“Neither are you! You’re more likely to fall through the floor than I!”
“If I may, sir.” They all looked to find Mr. Grigson at Jane’s elbow. “I took the liberty of fetching Sally. Of everyone belowstairs,
she knows the house best.”
Sally stepped forward, wearing a grim look and her dark blue maid’s uniform with a starched apron. She looked at the floor
of the east wing and grimaced. “It’s not safe to enter here. Right where Miss Bennet fell through earlier this week, and beyond
the corner of that hall, that’s where the fire burned the hottest. It’s the most unstable part of the east wing.”
“Then we go through a different way,” Lizzie said. “Charlotte and I accessed the east wing through a service corridor by accident,
and that seemed sound.”
Sally nodded. “More sound than this hall. But still risky once you reach the east wing.”
“We have to try,” Lizzie said. She didn’t care if she had to charge through all these people; she wasn’t going to leave Guy.
She stared into the other young woman’s blue eyes. “Will you help me?”
“Lizzie,” Jane whispered, but seemed unable to finish her thought.
To the others, it might have sounded like a selfish request on Lizzie’s behalf. What reason would a servant have to put her
safety at risk for Lizzie’s dog? But Lizzie knew something the others did not: she had seen Sally in the east wing on her
second night in Netherfield.
If anyone could help her, it was Sally. Lizzie poured every bit of meaning into her stare as she waited for Sally to respond.
“All right,” the other girl said, her expression betraying nothing.
Lizzie sagged in relief. “Thank you.”
“But you’ll have to come with me,” Sally said.
“I’ll do it,” Darcy rushed to say.
“No, it should be Miss Bennet. She’s lighter than you. That will be to our advantage.”
“Wait a moment.” Jane held up a hand. “Sally, how do you know it’s safe?”
“I grew up exploring this house,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve been in the east wing many times.”
“Let’s go,” Lizzie said to Sally.
“Lizzie,” Darcy said, a pleading note in his voice.
She turned to face him. There was a sort of desperation in his eyes, not unlike there had been back in London when Lady Catherine’s
threatening final letter had come through. Lizzie knew that he was scared for her, and that he just wanted her to be safe.
But unlike in London, now she reached out to take his hands and acknowledge his fear rather than brushing it to the side.
“I can do this,” she said. “I have to.”
He looked deep into her eyes and there was a moment when Lizzie felt as though everything and everyone had dropped away.
She saw how he didn’t like this plan one bit.
And she knew that his protests weren’t because he wanted to control her or limit her, but because he wanted her to be safe.
But this world wasn’t safe, and Lizzie had never been one to back down from a challenge.
She knew Darcy understood that, but he needed a moment to accept it. Finally, he nodded. “Be careful.”
And even though the hardest part was yet to begin, Lizzie felt relief course over her. “Always,” she promised, squeezing his
hands. He clung to her as if afraid to let go but released her after a moment more.
There was little discussion to be had after that. Everyone followed Sally down the hall to the back of the house, where Lizzie
and Charlotte had found the service corridor. The door swung open on silent hinges. Lizzie shivered now to remember it shutting,
locking them both in the dark passageway with no light.
“Will you stay here?” Lizzie asked Darcy. “Hold the door open until we come out?”
She didn’t need to voice her fears to him—she was sure he could see them written on her face as plain as day. “Of course,”
he said, sounding a bit gruff. “But if you don’t come back in a timely manner, I’m coming after you, structural integrity
be damned.”
His gaze slid toward Sally, and although it was fleeting, Lizzie saw the mistrust there.
“No one is getting hurt, do you understand?” Jane said. “Be careful, the both of you. Lizzie, if you don’t come back in one
piece, I will never hear the end of it from Mama. Or Papa, for that matter.”
Sally seemed unimpressed by these theatrics. She waited just inside the corridor, a lamp in one hand. Lizzie squeezed Darcy’s hand reassuringly, offered a weak smile to her sister, and turned to follow Sally into the darkened passageway.
They didn’t speak, the only sound being the creak of the floorboards beneath their feet and the sound of Lizzie’s breath in
her ears. It was much different, walking down the service corridor with a lamp illuminating what had been mystery the last
time Lizzie was here. The walls were not plastered, and the floors were rough-hewn boards. There was an expected amount of
dust, but not nearly as much grime as Lizzie might have expected. Sally led with quick, quiet confidence, and in the light
Lizzie noticed what she hadn’t before—doors, designed to lie flush against the walls.
“Where do these doors lead?” Lizzie asked, breaking the silence.
“Other rooms,” Sally said. “Don’t worry, none that any of you are staying in. The west wing doesn’t have the secrets the east
wing does.”
“Why is that?”
“I certainly wasn’t privy to those decisions,” she said. “Perhaps the previous generations of Bingleys didn’t care for secret
passageways leading into their bedchambers while they slept at night.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Lizzie muttered. But she could have sworn she saw Sally glance back with a wry half smile
in the sliding shadows. “Do you explore the east wing often?”
Sally snorted. “No, miss.”
Something about the way Sally said “miss” felt mocking to Lizzie, but she chose to ignore it. “No? Not even to check to make sure that there are no trespassers?”
Sally was silent for so long, Lizzie was sure she’d offended her, which, given the dangerous situation Sally was leading her
into, was probably not very wise.
“Not in several months,” she said finally. “Not since Mrs. Bingley died.”
It was not much, but it was a crack. Lizzie felt a surge of victory. She wanted to ask her about the other night but decided
not to press too hard.
“What was the previous Mrs. Bingley like?”
“What do you mean?” Sally’s voice was cautious, but not entirely defensive.
“Well, I hardly know anything about her at all. Was she short, tall? Was she sickly, or was she hale? Did she enjoy walking,
or was she confined to her chambers most of the day?”
Sally slowed, and Lizzie thought for a moment that she wouldn’t answer. But finally she said, “She was medium-height. She
had silver hair she almost always wore in a braid, like a girl. She was kind, but she was sad. She was terribly lonely.”
This was not the first time Lizzie had heard of Honoria Bingley’s apparent loneliness. “If she was so lonely, then why—”
“Why was she a recluse?” Sally cut her off, as if she’d heard the question before. “Because this village wasn’t very nice
to her when she arrived, and they were even more terrible to her when her husband died.”
Lizzie hadn’t always been mindful of such things, but she knew how awful people could be to those who were different from them—those with different physical characteristics, or those who came from beyond England’s shores.
Charlotte had stories, and Lizzie had seen it in the Mullins case. “Did she ever think of going back?”
Sally scoffed. “Nothing for her to go back to. She lost her entire family before she was twenty-five.”
Now, that was a detail Lizzie hadn’t heard yet. “What happened?”
Sally stopped. Lizzie realized they’d reached the end of the service corridor and were standing before the entrance to the
hall in the east wing overlooking the woods. Sally set the lamp on the floor and turned to face Lizzie. “She was the daughter
of a Spaniard and an Englishwoman, as you might have heard. She was born in the colonies. Her entire family—father, mother,
sisters—died of cholera not long after she came of age. She was left with a fortune in silver, but she had no one. Then, as
she told it, a handsome Englishman and his brother came to her island, and she fell in love with him because of the stories
he told about his family estate back home—how idyllic it was, the perfect place to grow up, how he dreamed of going home to
the green fields of England and restoring his family home. And to a girl with no family and no attachment to her current home
but an awful lot of money, well . . . you can’t be surprised about what happened next.”
Lizzie nodded. “She married him.”