Chapter 19 #2
“It was a great pleasure to make your acquaintance, madam. Please give my compliments to Miss Bennet and tell her I regret not seeing her this last time before our return to London. I sincerely hope our paths may cross again.”
And with this, he took his bow and departed the house in low spirits.
He did not see Darcy again until dinner, where he was sullen and all but silent, and then not again until the following morning when the two men took their coffee before calling for the carriage.
Again, Darcy said nothing but the most necessary words, and even these were short and almost rude.
Likewise, the carriage ride back to London was tense and silent.
Darcy refused to answer any questions and would say not a word about what he had written, or about Miss Bennet’s reception of his rather improper letter.
It was with great relief that Richard exited the carriage at last in front of Darcy’s fine town house.
He was to stay here until his return to the camp on Monday, the better to escape his mother’s scheming, but he felt now that he had chosen the worse of two options.
Nevertheless, he was not a prisoner in his cousin’s house and could escape its walls if the atmosphere became too uncomfortable.
Before he could make his plans, however, a note arrived.
His friend Colonel Hastings had heard of his planned return and requested that Colonel Fitzwilliam do him the honour of attending him in his offices before five o’clock.
All notions of a day in the park lost, he called for his horse and set off to make the visit.
Hastings was a short bulldog of a man. He exuded competence and authority, and his rapid rise to the rank of colonel was of no surprise to anybody. About fifteen years Richard’s senior, he had been instrumental in the younger man’s career.
He was not given to small talk or idle chatter, and Richard liked him very much, despite—or perhaps because of—his down-to-business manner.
Now he sat across the wide oak desk from Richard and leaned forward in his chair, elbows solidly planted on the table’s surface. “I have two pieces of news,” he said by way of preamble, “neither of which you will like very much, I’m afraid.”
“Do not prolong the agony. Tell me.”
“The first involves Major Jared Weekes, whom you asked me about several weeks past. I have a report on what has happened in his regard.” He sat rock still in his chair as he recited what he knew.
“He was, immediately after the court martial, sent to Fort St Catherine, by order of Colonel Barrow. Thereupon he was transferred out of the Bermuda colony completely and was sent back to England to be redeployed elsewhere. His ship arrived last week, whilst you were on leave.”
“Do not tell me he was not on it!”
“No, no,” Hastings assured him. “He was on it. But he came to the offices almost immediately upon landing to resign his commission.”
“He sold out?” This was not good news! Could the blighter not have been sent to Australia or some other outpost far, far from England? Preferably one with a great variety of annoying and poisonous insects?
“He did. Said he’d come by a small fortune and had a new way of supporting himself, handed over his sword, and departed.”
“And you have no notion where he has gone?”
“He left no direction. He said he would send a messenger to collect his final remuneration and any other items owing.”
Red spots appeared before Richard’s eyes. “Not good news at all. I need to keep a sharp eye on that one, for I fear he will fall further and further into vice, and I do not wish to be the subject of his malice again.”
“There is one bright spot in this,” Hastings offered.
“He did not return to sign the final paperwork. He ran out of here so quickly that he did not hear me calling after him, or if he did, he chose to ignore it. Without those papers, he is still an officer in His Majesty’s Regulars, and one who has now abandoned his post. If we find him, he will discover that things might not go so well for him. ”
This was faint comfort. If the blackguard had vanished into the country, or into London’s underworld, there was little chance of him being found to face justice. Still, the army had a long reach, and there was some hope. But…
“You said there were two pieces of unhappy news. What is the second?”
Hastings rose from his chair and walked to the sideboard to pour two rather large tumblers of whisky. He handed one to Richard and returned to his seat. This did not bode well.
“It concerns Barrow. He had planned, as you know, to order the bulk of his officers to be reassigned to different places in the empire. He was concerned about the cronyism and the corruption of so many of these men. Headquarters agreed with his request and made the assignments. However, the general also decided to reassign Barrow himself elsewhere. It was better, he said, to replace most of the officers at the Dockyard and to start with a clean slate, so to speak. Barrow is gone from those shores.”
This was stunning news. Is this why Emily had not written to him? “Where did he go?”
“That, I’m afraid, I cannot say. I had this from Colonel Johnston, who was to replace him, and not from any official sources. Johnston had no further information, and sadly, neither do I. I have been unable to find the documents that might let me know.”
So that was it. Barrow had been sent to parts unknown, along with his wife and Emily.
Were they in Barbados? Upper Canada? On some ship on the way to India?
A piece of his heart died in his breast at the thought of having lost Emily.
But why, oh why, had she not written upon receiving the news?
It had been nearly four months since last he saw her.
What he would not give to talk to her once more!
He stewed over these items long after his return to Darcy’s house.
He sat glumly at dinner and begged off the invitation to join his cousin for port afterwards.
Darcy’s blue devils had lingered, and Richard knew that he had only made the offer out of politeness.
There was no point in two troubled and heartsore men sitting together and feeding each other’s low spirits.
The longer he sat and brooded, the more the soldier in Richard roared for action.
He was not a man to sit still and wait for events to unfold.
No! He must be doing something. This was one of the many reasons he liked his chosen career: the need for action.
To sit idle on some estate somewhere while others did all the work might be of great appeal to some men, but not to him. Action. He must find some way to act!
In the matter of Weekes, this might be somewhat easily arranged.
There were men who engaged in private investigations who might take on his case.
These men had contacts in questionable places who might provide information.
He would inquire on the morrow about such investigators to seek out and hopefully discover where Weekes had gone.
Hastings might know of such a man; even Darcy may have something useful to relate.
It would be a matter of a morning to engage somebody. The thought satisfied him.
Finding Emily, however, seemed an insurmountable task. Emily’s brother could be anywhere in the empire; finding and writing to him was possible but unlikely. And her sister… married, and to a man whose name Richard could not recall. That was hopeless.
He could, of course, set himself on a chair in the records office, rifling through stacks of papers and orders in hopes of finding the relevant information.
Assuming, that is, that he was given permission.
He could probably find the person who had issued the orders and beg of that man the information he needed.
But if Hastings could not discover anything of value, his chances were not great.
For Hastings worked with these people and had the ear of the generals and paper-pushers whose business it was to arrange these matters.
It was likely so minor a concern to whoever it was that arranged it that he had long since forgotten what he had done, and documents so often went astray.
Furthermore, Richard was due back at his post on Wednesday. He had been on leave for nearly three weeks and was needed again at the camp. Any personal engagement in searching for the Barrows would have to wait until he had another long leave.
With warring senses of accomplishment and distress, he finally fell into an unhappy slumber.