Chapter 9
T he house became breathlessly still. The incident would have been broadcast in under a minute from the cellar to the attic. Stiff-backed and still smouldering, I took the stairs back to my room where Carsten stood waiting for me.
“We leave in the morning directly after the post has come,” I said. “And tell Keller I am aware of the state of the roads. We need not make London if it comes to that. I ask only for what miles can be gained to be also put behind us.”
By this time, I was speaking with dreadful calm, and no one who knew me for any length of time could mistake that I was in a dangerous state. Carsten attended me in silence as I continued. “Send the housekeeper to me.”
I then sat at a table with the inkstand and penned several letters.
Fitzwilliam,
I have done as you asked upon our parting, but with so little finesse as to prevent a rupture with Lady Catherine.
I confess to owning no regrets, for the circumstances were such that I do not anticipate ever wishing for, or making, reparations.
I leave precipitously, thus if I have not had a letter from you in the morning, I shall await news in London.
Anne,
Forgive me for failing to take my leave of you as I ought. Circumstances are such that I may not see you for some time, though I shall write to you as I always have. I welcome you to do the same and to visit if you have that liberty and are so inclined.
I did not mention her health, which must be wearisome to have mentioned so often, nor did I offer to send my personal physician to her, for I had done so repeatedly over the years to no avail. As I wrote, I faced the fact I could do no more for her now.
Georgiana,
I leave Kent earlier than expected, Georgie. I am anxious to see you after so many weeks away. You may count on Fitzwilliam and me to support you as you make your bows, and if you have mornings to spare, we must make plans to ride together.
I sat back slightly perplexed as I reread what I had written.
Fitzwilliam had always called her by her pet name, but I never had.
It seemed odd to me how easily I had just done so, how well it reflected a strange new tenderness—born, no doubt, of such shocks and humblings to which I had been so lately subjected.
Upon her arrival, I asked the housekeeper to see my note delivered to Miss de Bourgh and to send up a tray at dinner.
I then stepped away as Carsten handed her the customary pourboire for the servants.
Had he been more liberal than in the past?
I suspected he was sensible of the need to generously compensate those most likely to suffer Lady Catherine’s wrath for some time to come.
Still, I did not ask, for doing so would not convey my confidence in his judgment half so much as assuming he knew his job in all cases.
In my people, I was most fortunate. I hoped, unlike Lady Catherine’s servants, they could speak truthfully to me of such obstacles as presented themselves, and I also hoped I could listen wisely. The following day, however, was not a day for anyone’s counsel save my own.
My coachman was a well-seasoned man, known to me since before my majority. As I stepped out the front door, he looked directly at me and took a breath to remonstrate with me as to the consequences of leaving so late, not to mention, the unwisdom of leaving at all.
“I am aware this is likely to be a trying day, Keller. Spare the horses, and do only what you can,” I said, thus overriding his objections before he could voice them.
“Aye, sir.”
Carsten joined me in the coach, and with a footman behind on the boot and a groom seated next to my coachman on the box, we rolled away from Rosings Park.
I was still quite numb with stores of unspent rage, still mortified to have publicly lost my temper, and still so beleaguered by romantic confusion, I refused to even look at the parsonage as we slowly made our way past it.
As a rule, I did not make conversation to no purpose.
Yet anyone who might have seen me that day, sitting in stony silence staring at nothing outside my clouded coach window, could reasonably conclude I was brooding.
But in fact, I was not ruminating at all.
I was enduring time fatalistically, thinking of nothing whatsoever.
I had known our pace would be slow, but I did not expect to crawl down the road.
After several hours of this, I eventually focused my attention on the road below my window.
The ruts were deep, and the puddles were wide as I had expected they would be, but the combination of both, churned by other carts, horses, and carriages that had taken the road earlier in the day, had liquified the surface into what looked to be a sea of slime.
My wait for the post, specifically for news from my cousin about his business with Wickham, had been a poor choice indeed.
There had been no letter, and now we travelled behind nearly everyone on the road to London and partook of what ruination resulted from the sharp cuts of so many wheels.
This was but another lowering moment in what had been a string of defeats, and I took a sustaining breath in order to break a silence I had indulged for too long.
“Do you suppose he is gloating?”
Carsten, who had been reading, looked up in surprise to hear my voice. “Keller, sir? I would assume so, for a coachmen must always rejoice when his predictions of doom are proved right.”
“Just so. Still, it is a heroic job.”
“Hmm,” he mused, with a gleam in his eyes. “Perhaps it would be more so if he were not so very conscious of it, Mr Darcy.”
I managed a faint smile in return, which had surely been his aim, and we fell back into a more restful sort of silence for another interminable hour.
I dozed intermittently. Some sound must have roused me, however, and upon sitting upright, I realised we were no longer moving. “Where are we?”
“I shall soon find out, sir,” Carsten said, putting on his coat.
“You will need a heavy purse today, I am afraid.”
He patted his coat pocket. “I am prepared, sir,” he said, as he waved the young footman away and stepped down to the sodden ground.
What I saw as he opened the door to my coach was but an inkling of what I was beginning to suspect. We were in a long line of coaches awaiting ostlers and fresh horses.
Almost immediately, Carsten returned. “We are at Sevenoaks, sir.”
“Lord, have we made so few miles?”
“Yes, sir. And I believe you should come inside.”
“Inside? Whatever for?”
“The young lady who was Lady Catherine’s guest may have need of your?—”
I had my coat halfway on and leapt out the coachwithout waiting for the step to be lowered, taking no more than ten long strides before making the door.
What I then saw arrested my headlong rush, and I stood aghast. There before me was a wall of persons and a great clamouring of voices, demands to be attended to, and every manner of curses shouted to punctuate many voiced objections.
Against the wall, pressed close by this vulgar crowd, stood Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
I tossed persons from side to side as I made my way to her.
“Miss Elizabeth,” I said, still panting from the effort and almost shouting to be heard over the noise. “Might I be of service?”
She looked up at me in bewilderment, pale and daunted, until the light of recognition reached her eyes. I did not know if I had ever heard her sound so small.
“Mr Darcy?”
“Might I be of service? Where are your people? Come, let us at least step out of this din.” I took her hand and pulled her behind me as we struggled towards the door.
We made our way outside, and though it was still afternoon, the light of the sun had been so obscured, torches had been lit, making halos in the misting fog in which we stood. I asked again, “Might I be of service, ma’am?”
“I believe I am in need of assistance, Mr Darcy, but I do not know what it is I should ask of you.”
“Where are your people?”
“I do not rightly know. I took a hired coach from the Inn at Hunsford…” She paused to search the yard for them before raising her troubled eyes to me.
“And your maid? Has she deserted you as well?”
She then lowered her gaze and quietly confessed to me she had no maid. “Charlotte intended to send a girl from the parsonage, sir, but Mr Collins declared they have too few to spare.”
By her sudden refusal to lift her eyes from the ground, I knew then that he blamed her for my argument with Lady Catherine.
Had I not been acutely aware of the escalating shouts from within, I would have apologised for being the cause of this slight.
Instead, I thought only of what to do for her in that moment.
“Did you have two or four horses?”
“Just the two, with two men. I went inside and have not seen them for—oh, I do not know how long. I do not understand where they could be.”
“The roads are savage, and there has been a rush to find stabling until morning,” I said. “Unfortunately, this place cannot have more than a dozen hacks free at any given time and can likely only care for a dozen more.”
Ever ready, Carsten had been hovering on the periphery of this conversation.
I turned to him and said, “See if you can locate Miss Bennet’s coach and her luggage, will you?
” I turned back to perform an abbreviated introduction.
“My valet, Mr Carsten. While we discover what can be done, it would be best if you sheltered in my coach. Is there aught you need just now?”
She shyly shook her head, and I led her between horses, carts, drays, and shouting grooms to my waiting coach.
“I am so muddied,” she said apologetically, as she eyed the step.
“I do not know of anyone who is not,” I said, gesturing to my own state. “Come, this is an uncomfortable business, but you must try, at least, to make yourself comfortable. There is a rug just there and a man on the box. You will suffer no mischief while I step away.”