Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sparrowhill
They spent the night at the Hallows Inn.
Darcy could not say their stay was convivial, given his preoccupations, but Bingley, bless the man, would not allow them to sink into melancholy.
His relentless cheerfulness kept them all afloat, and they spent the evening helping him plan his proposed new life at Riverlethe Hall.
Darcy slept ill, sharing a room with George, with Reid bundled up into a great chair set in front of the window.
He lay long awake, wrapped in his riding coat atop the counterpane—they none of them trusted the bedding—while George, similarly wrapped, snored lightly beside him.
Nothing troubled his old friend’s rest, it seemed.
Reid was a featureless dark shape, other than the glint of watchful eyes; always there, always awake no matter when Darcy glanced his way.
Dawn was welcome. It was a relief to be jerked out of a light doze by the noise of Reid folding back the window shutters to allow in the cool grey light. On the other side of the bed, George grumbled and turned over, pulling the collar of his coat up over his head.
Well. Today would see an end to it all, come what may.
Darcy rolled over and pushed himself to his feet, meeting Reid’s grave nod with one of his own.
Reid showed little of the toll of a sleepless night.
Most infuriating. A less generous-hearted man would resent Reid’s resilience.
Rousing George and finding him quite as sluggish and slow as Darcy felt himself, quite restored the balance.
He made a reasonable pretence at cheer, and forced down the breakfast the landlady produced for them.
He found time for a private word with Bingley, and although his friend complained that Darcy’s plan (“If one can term this bag of moonshine such!”) would make Bingley look the most besotted fool in Christendom, he agreed to carry out his part.
“Such as it is,” said Bingley, with a snort. “Well, I will do as you ask, and send young Hugh to join you if I can. I cannot be sure he will listen to me.”
“If he will not, ask Miss Elizabeth to speak to him.” Darcy could only hope she would be well enough to take on the charge. “He is more likely to listen to her than to anyone, and I trust her absolutely.”
Bingley gave him a long, considering glance. “Ah well. There is more than one route to brotherhood, I suppose. I will do as you ask.” He glanced at Reid, who watched over them from the inn doorway a few yards away. “I hope you will keep Reid close.”
“I would not venture to do aught else. John would not allow it, anyway. Thank you, Bingley. I am in your debt.”
“I will collect it one day, never fear.” And raising his voice as Reid moved to one side to make way for the rest of their party leaving the inn, Bingley spoke with unfeigned cheer. “Ah, here are the others! Come, gentlemen, I am eager to return to Pemberley in triumph!”
Darcy spoke seldom on the ride back from Riverlethe, allowing Bingley to carry what little conversation there was, mostly commentary on the number of black grouse scurrying away from under their horses’ hooves, and speculating on ownership of the shooting rights for whichever stretch of moorland they were traversing.
Luckily, that conundrum appeared to absorb his companions, and none remarked upon his introspection.
Five miles from Pemberley, Bingley signalled them to a halt. “I am minded to go on ahead, if none of you objects. I find myself eager to tell my sisters about the Hall.”
“Your sisters,” Darcy repeated, taking his cue.
Hurst guffawed, a great hearty noise that shook his large frame and startled his horse. “Your sisters! Do you think us all flats?”
Bingley did not blush, precisely, but did look silly. He grinned.
“Mooncalf.” Hurst’s tone betrayed affection and mild scorn in equal measure. “Tell me, Darcy, was he a dicked-in-the-nob, romantic fool in Bengal, too?”
“On occasion. Several of the traders had their families with them, and one or two of the ladies were handsome enough to tempt him.”
“Yes, you may laugh! I do not deny I would rather be a romantic than not.” Bingley’s wide grin proved it, too.
“My sisters will, of course, be interested in the Hall, but I do not scruple to admit the approbation of one lady in the house is of greater importance to me. I will amend my earlier statement. I find myself eager to tell her of the Hall, and hope to have her smile of approval to bolster my endeavours towards becoming landed. There. Is that romantic enough?”
“Far too much so,” George said, making a noise somewhat between a chortle and a sigh.
“I shall go on ahead. Do I go alone?”
Darcy glanced at George. “I think we should allow Bingley time enough without an audience to impress Miss Bennet. We pass near the lane to Sparrowhill, and I am minded, George, that I have not seen your father for a few weeks. Would it be inconvenient to call in now? It is yet early in the day.”
George looked startled, and from the sudden narrowing of his mouth, not entirely pleased by a notion he could not, rationally, refuse to entertain.
Still, he acquiesced with all civility. “You would be welcome, of course, and I am sure he will be glad to see you.” He glanced at Bingley and Hurst, and added, delicately, “You will remember, I hope, his uncertain health.”
“Of course.”
Bingley reached out to touch Hurst’s arm. “We have no business there, Henry. Do you wish to gallop on ahead with me?”
“Gallop?” Hurst flapped a hand before his face in the manner of a fainting lady fanning herself with cooler air.
“Gallop? I? I am not made for galloping. I am too heavy for it, and this poor horse would not thank you for the suggestion. No. You go on ahead, and when Darcy and Wickham turn off for… Sparrowhill, was it? Damned unusual names, these Derbyshire places! Well, when they turn off, I shall press on to Pemberley at my own plodding rate.”
Bingley grinned widely, and pulled his mount away. They watched him canter down the lane, and just before he rounded a bend and vanished from sight behind the drystone walls lining the road, he waved his hat in a circle around his head and let out the loud halloo of a hunter sighting the fox.
Cawker. A good friend to have at one’s back, mind you.
“You are a fair horseman, Hurst,” Darcy said.
“I am, but why would you think I wish to rush back to Pemberley to watch him abase himself at Miss Bennet’s pretty feet?
He is the romantic in the family, not I.
I am content to jog along behind him, and by the time I arrive, the atmosphere should be less mawkish, and I may enjoy a midday repast with my appetite unimpaired. ”
Darcy and George laughed, and Reid was grinning. Henry Hurst was an oddity, but not nearly as inconsequential as he liked to appear. There was more to him than met the eye—and given what met the eye was broad and had an impressive girth, that was indeed something.
At the turn-off for the lane to Sparrowhill, they came to a halt. Bingley was completely out of sight.
“Will you find your way, Hurst?” Darcy asked.
Hurst cocked his head at him with the air of an amiable spaniel. “My dear Darcy, I dare say Pemberley is no more than two miles farther on. I can almost see the house from here.”
George grinned. “You will see it when you top the next rise.”
“I will not lose myself between here and there.” Hurst gave them all a nod, and paused to look at Reid. “Do you go with Darcy, Reid?”
“Aye.” Reid returned the nod.
“A habit you picked up in India, I suppose. I wish you well, gentlemen, and shall see you this evening, I do not doubt.” And, true to his earlier promise, Hurst jogged on to Pemberley at his own serene pace.
George looked at Reid sidelong, then shrugged. He turned his horse to face down the lane to the steward’s house but did not urge the animal on. Instead he paused, looking along the lane to the grey roof rising above the drystone walls. “You have not met my father, Reid.”
“No. I will not lie, mind, and pretend nothing is said about his illness up at Pemberley. A great shame, all say, and he is much respected.”
George had a speaking grimace, but whether the discomfort was for them, for his father, or for himself, who could know?
“He was an excellent steward in his day, until the apoplexy changed him. He may not recognise me—he rarely does, these days. And if he remembers Darcy here, he may well think him the old master, who was his cousin and friend.” George shot Reid a thin sort of smile.
“I do not know who he will decide you are, but I beg you, please accept anything he says and do not contradict him. It confuses, and sometimes distresses, him. He is usually tractable and pleasant, but can lash out if overset.”
“I heard he caught Jim Denny,” Darcy said.
“I do not anticipate that will happen again. We have increased the amount of the Chinese powders.”
“Was Denny badly hurt?”
“A split lip, that is all. He did not dodge away quickly enough.”
“Mr Wickham’s care must be a great responsibility.” Reid should have been the diplomatist, not Darcy.
“He is my father. The responsibility must be mine.”
“Aye. Then be assured I will be careful not to disturb him.”
“Thank you.” George gestured to the Sparrowhill lane. “Shall we?”
He took the lead down the lane, and Darcy was content to let him.
Sparrowhill was George’s home, not his, for all that the house belonged to the estate.
They left their horses with the boot boy, who acted as George’s groom.
The lad would ensure the horses were watered and made comfortable in the small stable behind the house.