Chapter 13
S ince we had been up before dawn, it was only half past eight when Keller returned from his errand, driving a mule and a farm cart with hay for the horses.
I met him outside. “What news, then?”
“I fear this is the best I could conjure, Mr Darcy.”
I blinked. “A mule!”
“There are no horses to spare, sir. Nor men. The farming here is poor and most of them have gone to fight the French. I assume what horses they had were taken by the army.”
I stood speechless, conscious that Miss Elizabeth had stepped out and was standing at my elbow, party to this information.
By her presence alone, I was aware I was on the verge of an ungentlemanly eruption of curses.
Thankfully, she spoke before I had a classic fit of temper so peculiar to rich men, albeit with the intent to tease me.
“He looks to be an amiable mule, Mr Keller. Is he to see us to London?”
I was not yet prepared to be amused. “Can we not use one of our wheelers?” I demanded.
“Not with this harness, Mr Darcy. This beast is half the size of a draught horse.”
Mortified by this development, I turned abruptly to Miss Elizabeth and bowed. “Forgive me for this additional indignity, ma’am,” I said curtly. “Perhaps you should stay with Mrs Hamilton while?—”
“You forget, Mr Darcy. I am a country-bred girl. I have ridden in carts aplenty, though not so far as we have to go.”
My coachman suddenly decided it was his place to answer for me. “You would go only as far as Bromley, ma’am, where Mr Darcy has a team and a proper coach for hire could be found.”
“In that case, Mr Keller,” she said, “I shall be delighted to be ready to leave as quickly as I may.”
Well! I fumed as she went back into the house. Keller and Miss Elizabeth Bennet had given me my orders without so much as a by-your-leave. My coachman, observing me closely, spoke consolingly, which could only annoy me further.
“It is not so very far to go, sir,” he said as if I were twelve years old. “And if the lady does not object and the rain does not fall so heavily today, you should make fair progress. With luck, she could be in London tonight.”
I scrubbed my face as I struggled to contain my temper. “Very well,” I said. “And our horses?”
“I should stay with them, sir,” he said carefully. “Mr Carsten can manage a mule, I would hope.”
“As can I, but—Is there truly no other way?”
He was not terribly moved by my objections and only shrugged.
“Stock of quality would be worth a fortune here, sir. Mrs Hamilton cannot protect them. No one here could be trusted to do so. You could string Windsor along behind you, but to do so with two Belgians besides, one of them lame, is to invite aggravation and delay. If you are willing to sacrifice them, I shall bait them and leave them to fend for themselves until I can return.”
I had paid a fortune for that team, and I did not have the indifference required to leave them for Mrs Hamilton to fret over. “You will at least draw us a map,” I said in glum defeat.
“Aye. Let me empty this cart and water this animal, and I shall join you in the kitchen directly, sir.”
The indignity of sitting on the floor of a farm cart fell to Carsten.
He had beside him Windsor’s saddle, the bundle of our bags wrapped in oil cloth, and a basket filled to overflowing with sandwiches and tins of ale, the last a benefice of Mrs Hamilton who seemed near tears to wave us away with her handkerchief.
Keller secured my horse to the rear of the cart and then stood to one side looking paternalistically at our equipage, satisfying himself it was as serviceable as it could be.
He then helped Miss Elizabeth, who stepped bravely up to the seat beside me.
“We must look like a farmer and his wife on the way to church,” I grumbled.
She only laughed. “An improvement to how we must have looked last night. Had we come to the door of a manor house, we would have been turned away. How forlorn we were! I could not help but think of the flight into Egypt. Come, surely you can see the humour in this scene, Mr Darcy?”
“I am trying, ma’am.”
“Hmm. Let us talk of something other than our misfortunes, shall we? What shall we name him do you think?” She gestured to our mule.
“Snail, perhaps?”
“That was unnecessarily rude, sir. How about Ajax? Or Hector? What say you, Mr Carsten?”
“I believe we should call him the mule , ma’am,” he replied with amiable ease.
“Poo. Neither of you have any sense at all of this beast’s qualities. I say we should call him Trusty. Perhaps he will turn out to be just that. Come, Trusty,” she called to him encouragingly, “let us proceed through the mud with as much pride as we can, shall we?”
By dribs and drabs, I fell in with her enthusiasm. To her, this was but a continuation of our escapade, and I sensed I had better stop pouting or risk lowering myself even further in her estimation.
“Yes, come along, Trusty Snail,” I called. “We shall make a London clipper of you if we do not find a coach for hire.”
Rather than return to the main road, Keller had directed us on a route around the piece of the main road he considered to be the most likely to be obstructed, keeping in mind our original intention which was to find our way to Bromley.
However, his information had been pieced together from what he could gather from speaking to the aged owner of the mule and cart, for the roads we were to take were only country lanes and not on the map he carried in his brain.
He made this disclaimer by saying that if we did not reach Bromley, at the very least, we could find a decent posting house on a well-travelled road closer to town.
“I am rather amazed it has not rained yet,” Miss Elizabeth remarked, looking up at the sky.
“Hush,” I said. “Lord, now we are in for a downpour.”
“Mr Darcy! Surely you of all persons are not superstitious.”
“I was not before encountering this mule. I am braced for the worst.”
“What next? Shall I see you with a rabbit’s foot on your watch chain?”
“Carsten, see to the rabbit’s foot, will you? And while you are about it, I would like a scarab and a pressed four-leaf clover to carry in my pocket.”
I do not know how, but by the early afternoon we found ourselves enjoying a merry picnic seated on a log at the side of a stream.
My boots were fairly ruined, I observed dispassionately as I chewed—as were hers.
Wisely, she had changed out of her clean clothes to preserve them since we had no notion of what the day would bring.
As to the six inches of mud on her hem from the gown she wore yesterday, she seemed not to notice.
With a pang, I recalled the first time I had seen her this way, and I had judged her unfairly for what I now considered a strength in her character.
What wails would I have by this time endured had I been sitting next to Miss Bingley! My God. Nothing on earth could now induce me to be her husband.
“Sir?” Carsten said.
Had I grunted aloud? “Oh. I was only thinking we should finish our meal before Trusty Snail decides he has gone far enough. Shall we go?”
Oddly enough, had we had a coach-and-four we could not have made our destination any sooner.
Our cart was both small and light. We could choose whatever line we wished, passing lightly over rough patches and squeezing through narrow spots between puddles.
We did not sink in places where a heavier carriage would likely bog down.
That said, I realised that Bromley was too far for even our hearty little mule to carry us.
We would have to make do with the first likely place to hire a coach that we could reasonably reach.
With some difficulty, I chose not to arrive cringing with humiliation in Farthingale, the hamlet we eventually encountered.
This had required a spell of hard remonstration with myself, for it was surprisingly lowering to pass through even a small town as a peasant.
But recollecting that Miss Elizabeth was also sitting next to me and that my bearing must reflect upon her dignity, I assumed the posture of a man as proudly unconcerned on that lowly bench as I would had I been riding Windsor in Green Park.
Not wanting to contend with a press of persons, I pulled to a stop next to an outbuilding near a surprisingly busy posting house.
Perhaps, more truthfully, my pride could withstand only so much abuse, for we would have been snubbed—painfully so—had I arrived in a farm cart with the air of someone entitled to speedy service.
“Allow me, Mr Darcy,” Carsten said, stepping down and making his way towards the door.
“I have had no occasion to know anything about a gentleman’s gentleman,” Miss Elizabeth remarked as she watched him disappear inside. “But I own I am surprised at how…well, is there anything Mr Carsten cannot do, sir?”
“If there is, I have yet to learn of it. In fairness, I have never known any valet of his capacity. He is a gentleman’s son, you see, and has an excellent education in his favour, yet he has also suffered and knows how to work.”
“Oh? I am sorry to hear it.”
“His father and grandfather before him were unwise with their fortunes. Carsten once told me that he does not love leisure, since it did nothing for his family other than ruin them.”
“There is that, yes,” she said quietly. “I—well, I should say no more.”
“Only…you have begun and we are sitting in this miserable cart after a harrowing few days. I believe you should say whatever crosses your mind, Miss Elizabeth, for surely, there is no better place or time than this.”
“Well, I often wish my father had been wiser. A little industry would have served us well.”
“Your father strikes me as a man who would have prospered as an academic. Not every man is suited to land stewardship.”