Chapter 10
Ten
FLEET OF FOOT
The party was over. Mr Jones, having attended the assembly, was treating poor Mr Goulding. There was talk of sending for a London physician. At least he yet lived.
After slipping out a side door, Elizabeth prepared to walk home.
The moon was full, and she knew the way quite well—after all, she had walked there, hiding her half-boots in a nearby hedge to be collected at her leisure.
In fact, she was crouched at the hedge, trading her dancing slippers for the boots, when Mr Darcy exited.
From her vantage point, she saw him standing in the middle of the paved lane, his tall figure hatless, as if he had run from the building, gazing intently down the road as if he wished to penetrate the darkness.
He stared in the direction of Longbourn, and by default, Fox Hollow.
Why was he out here? Who did he search for with such intensity?
A frightening thought occurred to her—had he wished to encounter her in the dark, alone?
Could there be something sinister in the way he had hurried out after her?
Did he have ominous reasons for all of his very specific enquiries?
Was warning her about Mr Wickham a ruse to disguise his own nefarious designs?
He could not be looking for her; it seemed impossible. It was impossible; she was indulging, as she had accused him, in melodrama.
Do not be foolish, Elizabeth. Someone points out the obvious to you, and you act as a frightened rabbit.
But she hid in the cover of the hedge until he returned indoors.
Sometime later, when a coach approached on the same road she walked, its lanterns swinging, she hid in nearby trees until it had passed.
She did not recognise the carriage, and its occupants sat in shadows.
It could have been anyone; there were other homes besides Fox Hollow and Longbourn in this direction.
A few minutes later, she did recognise the next vehicle—her father’s brougham.
She waited until they had gone past before walking on; if she hailed them, Mr Philips would fill her ears with insults and his glee over Mr Goulding’s poor health that her mother would somehow never hear, Jane would be upset to no purpose, and Mr Hill, who was driving, would probably risk his position again by accidentally-on-purpose tripping his employer into a mud puddle at the earliest opportunity.
She arrived back at Fox Hollow by midnight. Mr and Mrs Hill were both there now, awaiting her arrival.
“Thought ye would have the sense to take a ride home,” he grumbled. “I looked for ye along the way.”
“I am sorry to have kept you so late,” she apologised, suspecting that Mr Hill understood why she had not let him take her up. She asked after her brother.
“He was fine, Miss Elizabeth, as always. He’s a dear lad. Put himself to bed at the usual time with no chiding from me.”
No tantrums, she thought with some relief. “He is growing older, with less need for me.” Surprisingly, she felt a little sad about that.
“Oh, he is but a babe yet, dearie, and he misses ye when ye’re away.
He brought me his books to read to him, and listened to them as raptly as he ever did.
’Tis a good thing he does not try to eat them any longer.
” They both chuckled; when Neddy was younger, he had felt the need to taste the oddest things—his own books and their father’s, rocks, dirt, furniture, and nearly everything else.
If only Papa had lived! Papa had loved and adored his only son, for those few precious months he had known him. He would have done anything to help him learn, let him eat a hundred books to glean a single word.
Elizabeth was not unrealistic. If it became clear, when Neddy was older, that he could not manage Longbourn by himself, she was willing to find him the help he needed.
But to decide when the boy was yet an infant of two or three that he was an animal who never could?
It was Henry Philips’s greed and nothing else making that decision.
Should Mr Goulding die, he would be on the way to Chancery in a heartbeat, to apply for that guardianship.
True, he was not a gentleman ‘of equal or superior consequence’, but the courts were known to favour close male relatives, and Mama would doubtless support him.
Most importantly, there was no one to fight against it.
“Thank you again, Mrs Hill. The hens have been laying well, and I have extra eggs for you.” She fetched the basket she had set aside earlier.
Mrs Hill did not need her eggs, she knew. But to be able to offer them something for their help felt good and right, especially because the Hills did so much extra and beyond what Mr Philips would approve.
After they left, she crept up the stairs to the room she shared with her brother, adding more coal to the fire for his sake, and putting an extra blanket on him, for the night was a chill one.
In appearance, he was a great deal like a masculine version of Jane, golden-haired and handsome, a sturdy lad, tall for his age.
Yet, he was plainly still a toddler, with high cheekbones, unmarked skin, and an unmistakeable air of innocence.
Carefully, so as not to wake him, she brushed curls back from his dear face.
He stirred, rolling over, before his soft snore sounded again.
With a sigh, she fell into the bed a few feet across from his smaller one, exhausted.
She slept poorly, and was grateful when dawn’s light meant she no longer had to try.
Fox Hollow was a gloomy, draughty building; when her father had it built, he had meant it for a hunting box, a place of gathering for himself and his fellow hunters out for a day of shooting birds.
It had never been meant to house permanent residents.
Yet, the night sounds had never before disturbed her hard-earned slumber.
Moving quietly, she stoked the fire and had the eggs frying on the hearth griddle by the time Neddy, tousle-headed and bright-eyed, joined her there.
“Toast,” she said, even knowing it was futile. “Toast.”
He snatched it from her hands, devouring it as if he had never seen a slice of bread before.
She set the eggs before him, along with the fork that he would ignore.
She cut a sliver, handing him the fork with the piece of egg stuck upon its tines.
He ignored the implement, grabbing the egg with his fingers and wolfing it down quickly.
She knew she ought not to permit it.
She knew she should teach him to eat properly.
Somehow. Never, in the half-year since she had taken Neddy to Fox Hollow, had she felt so alone.
His needs were great, and yet she felt powerless to meet most of them.
He simply seemed not to understand words or reasoning.
He had never called her anything…not ‘Lizzy’ or ‘Sissy’, as she referred to herself for him.
Sometimes, she doubted whether he knew his own name, though at times he responded to it.
The Philipses’ one interest was in keeping Neddy alive; they would provide food and firewood, shelter and medical treatment if needed.
But would they help him to learn and grow in knowledge and social acumen?
No. They had already decided, practically in his infancy, that he was defective, nothing better than an animal.
What was more, they wanted to believe it.
And Henry Philips wished to be his sole guardian so he could continue to pillage Neddy’s inheritance for the rest of his life.
Only a sick old man and an unknown court stood between him and that objective.
When Neddy was finished with his meal, Elizabeth brought his shoes from the wardrobe.
If there was one thing her brother adored the sight of, it was his shoes; to him, they represented a ticket to the magical world beyond Fox Hollow.
Because he had a tendency to take flight once he was free of walls, she could not allow him outdoors without the strictest supervision, so he did not go as often as he wished nor stay out as long as he wanted.
His eyes alit when he saw his little boots, and he had slightly less impatience than usual with the dressing process. When at last she opened the heavy front door to freedom, he squealed happily.
“Hold Sissy’s hand,” she warned, grabbing his.
It had been an arduous process, teaching him to keep hold of her hand and to allow her to direct them, but now he was good about it, understanding that she would bring him home quickly if he refused.
He would walk for miles, if she would allow it, chattering the whole way in a language all his own.
Eagerly, he kept to the path leading towards the back gardens, but she was unsurprised when he tugged on her hand at the garden gate. It was a bit windy, with grey skies, but she judged no rain this morning, and they were both dressed warmly.
“Very well,” she said. “I suppose you deserve a long walk today, since you were such a good boy for Mrs Hill yesterday.”
“Tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a,” he babbled enthusiastically, pressing forward in obvious agreement.
He probably had not understood, really, anything she said; he just wished to keep going, and he knew if they left the garden the walk would be longer.
If only they could walk away and keep walking forever, far from the Philipses and their ceaseless ambitions!
If only Uncle Gardiner still was a part of their world! If only Papa had survived!
The two saddest words in the entire English language: if only.
Disaster happened in an instant. One moment, Neddy was clinging to her hand and practically dragging her along the path, and the next, he was tearing off headlong into the brush.
“Neddy!” she cried. “Neddy!”
She ran after him without hesitation, but he was smaller and the path was one he made himself, through low branches and brambles that caught at her skirts and bonnet, slowing her—and in seconds he was lost from sight.