Chapter 10
I entered the dim interior of my coach where sat Miss Elizabeth, looking questioningly up at me.
“I am afraid I might not have been of assistance to you at all,” I said in a tone of sincere apology. “Our way ahead is well and truly blocked and our means of return is very uncertain. The only surety I can offer you is that we are in for a miserable night.”
She spoke too kindly, I thought. “I see,” she said, looking down at her gloves before meeting my eyes and asking the most salient question. “What must we do, sir?”
“I am sorry to again burden you with the choice, but it is entirely yours to make. We either stay here until such time as the way can be cleared, or we ride ahead to find shelter.”
“I-I do not ride, sir.”
“You would not have a horse in any case. I have only one saddle and would have to take you up with me.”
When she did not answer I continued talking—an anxious impulse, I suppose, for it is unlike me to say more than I must.
“If we continue, we would head to a crossroad and strike north some five miles to a village where we hope to find an inn. Our aim would be to circumvent this, the main road, and eventually reach a posting house where I could hire a coach. Keller and Carsten would ride alongside us, the footman and groom would be left behind—John to guard the carriage, and Charles, who is the stronger of the two, to ride back towards Hunsford with a spare mount to bring what help he can find.”
As I babbled on, she looked at me with confusion writ large on her face.
At last I fell quiet. When she still did not answer, I spoke again, this time in a much lower voice. “I am terribly sorry, but you must also know that it may take a full day to extricate this coach—perhaps even longer, if there is more rain.”
She offered me a tenuous smile. “Then press on we must, Mr Darcy. Is it foolhardy of me? I do not like to go backwards and would almost rather face worse than stand still.”
My heart twisted painfully in my chest, so much did her courage move me.
“It is the choice I myself would recommend,” I said.
“Might I help you to step outside? You may find it more comfortable while the team is unhitched. I must warn you we could be riding for several hours and perhaps you might like to stretch your legs.”
She pulled on her cloak and put the hood over her head. “I thank you, yes, Mr Darcy.”
I led her towards the edge of a scrubby mass of bushes, and by doing so, I knew that if she needed to briefly step behind them, she would.
John lit a torch and placed it in a bracket on the coachman’s box.
He then moved the trunks inside, where he would sit for the whole of the night and likely even longer.
I knew already that Carsten, when retrieving my ‘few things’, had also retrieved my valuables, papers, gold, and pistols. Those would travel with us.
Charles unhitched the team and led the horses one by one to a nearby ditch for what water they could be encouraged to drink. Keller, having joined the groom at the ditch, looked over each horse, patted them with paternal admonitions to show him their worth, and then pulled two forwards.
Meanwhile, I had taken my riding horse to the ditch some yards away from the carriage horses, for he was a touch high-bred and not on friendly terms with haulers. He drank, but unwillingly, and I looked him over and patted him, also giving him a lecture.
“You had best leave off your objections tonight, friend,” I said. “We have some work yet to do before you are coddled and hand-fed your oats.”
John came from behind the coach with a lantern that he handed to Keller, and I then led Windsor into the circle of light.
Carsten, meanwhile, had been occupied with securing our possessions in an oil cloth that he then tied on the back of one of the draught horses.
When he had finished, he borrowed the lantern from Keller and held it aloft as I padded the contours of the saddle as best I could with one of the spare rugs from under the box in a meagre effort to make the seat more comfortable for two riders.
Throughout our preparations, we worked deliberately and with quiet intensity, until at last Keller looked at me and nodded our general readiness.
I then retrieved Elizabeth Bennet from where she had been standing for more than half an hour, witness to our efforts.
I strove for a nonchalant tone which was not the least reflective of the severity of our situation. “Shall we go?”
I mounted and reached down for her as Carsten lifted her up to me.
She did what she could to arrange her skirts and her cloak while John helped Keller and then Carsten up onto the wide backs of our Belgians.
They shuffled restlessly because they did not like being ridden, but they had been trained to submit to it for just these circumstances.
Without a word, Keller struck out in front.
I followed with Carsten bringing up the rear.
The quality of the two men I had with me was reassuring.
The men we left behind were capable and trustworthy, and with one solid breath of resolution, I moved the entirety of my focus from the catastrophe behind me to the woman in my care.
Had she been used to riding a horse, I would have put her behind me, but she was too uncertain, and it was plainly safer to have her in front where I could actively ensure she would not fall off.
I did not speak for several minutes before I tried to put her at ease.
“You are shivering. Are you frightened, or are you cold?”
I did not think she would answer, for she did not immediately reply.
“I confess I am a little of both, Mr Darcy,” she eventually said.
“Does it help to know I am also a little of both?”
This time, she answered more quickly. “I allow that you may be cold, but I do not believe you are frightened, sir.”
“Oh, but I am,” I said in the lightest tone I could muster. “I have responsibility for you, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Burdensome, indeed, but hardly frightening.”
“But if I fail you? The possibility daunts me.”
She seemed to ruminate on this rather than reply. In this she was wise, for silence was the proper attitude for such an expedition. Still, I had one more thing I wished to tell her.
“We may be situated this way for many hours. It is awkward for you, and I am quite damp, but I must secure you properly and you must try, if you can, to be at ease.” I then tightened my arm around her waist and pulled her against my chest for support—for warmth—and so she could release the rigidity of her back.
Dusk turned to full night, and we went slowly past several ominous shadows that were only carts abandoned on the road.
We rode through miles of road where ancient hedgerows pressed in upon us and passages in which the fields of eastern Kent stretched out on either side, only sensing these changes, for we could not see past the pitiful glow of Keller’s lantern.
I did not rightly know how long we plodded along in this ghostly manner.
Time became quite abstract, for we moved slowly but unceasingly, and we could see no progress gained at all.
Eventually, however, Keller slowed our already crawling pace and turned north, passing a crude sign marking the way to the village of Binton.
What had been darkness on the highway quickly turned into a suffocating blackness as we made our way through a tract of untamed woods.
Miss Elizabeth spoke at last. “Are the men you left behind armed, sir?”
“We all are,” I said gently. The impulse to reassure her that this was mere precaution, that there was no danger whatsoever, died on my tongue. She had sensed its proximity already and did not need to be treated like a child.
Strangely enough, though I said nothing particularly to relieve her fears, she then seemed to settle, by increments becoming heavier against me.
She drew closer still when a steady rain passed over us.
We were helpless against it, left without any choice but to plod ahead regardless, both of us shivering involuntarily now.
The rain did eventually slow to the more familiar constant drizzle of spring.
We passed a ruined cottage in the shadows, a haystack, and first one, and then another lane intersecting our road.
I strove not to strain my eyes in search of lights—surely they would come.
After a mile or more, we saw a small house set back from the road with a single candle lit in the window, and to that we were drawn.
Keller slid off his horse, not bothering to secure him, for the poor animal was too worn out to move voluntarily, and he went to the door.
When it opened, he spoke for some moments to the figure backlit by the dim light within, returning to look up at me from below to say, “Binton is still up the road, sir. But the missus offers us shelter if we wish to come inside.” He glanced pointedly at Miss Elizabeth and added, “She says the tavern there is very low, Mr Darcy.”
“And the horses?”
“There’s a shed behind the house, and she has some small store of oats and apples to feed them a little, at least. In the morning, I’ll see what I can find for them.”
“Let us go inside,” I said tenderly to the woman in my arms. “You are dangerously chilled.”
Keller then reached up to take Miss Elizabeth from my grasp, and it was then I knew—I truly knew—there was worse than being in love with a woman who did not love me back, for I felt as though half of my body had been torn from me.