CHAPTER 8 #8
The decision, once pronounced by Lady Catherine, altered the entire temper of Rosings more completely than any raised voice could have done.
Servants moved with that peculiar silence which belongs to the knowledge that something irretrievable is taking place within a respectable house.
Mrs. Fairfax was sent for immediately; two footmen were also summoned; and though Mr. Collins made one faint attempt to suggest that such proceedings might perhaps be postponed until morning, Lady Catherine silenced him with a look which made postponement appear nearly criminal.
Mr. Bennet, with the prudence of a man who knew exactly when his usefulness had ended, remained in the parlour with Elizabeth, Anne, and the rest, observing only that he had always preferred other people’s scandals at a reasonable distance, where one might enjoy their consequences without being required to climb their stairs.
Mr. Darcy, however, had no such privilege. This was his burden now, and he accepted it with the severe composure of a man to whom anger had become purpose.
Wickham accompanied them upstairs with the outward ease of one unjustly inconvenienced, though the effort of maintaining it had begun to show itself in the unnatural precision of every gesture.
He did not protest loudly; loudness would have been vulgar and, worse, revealing.
Instead, he carried himself with the injured dignity of a gentleman forced to submit to insult for the comfort of those too weak to trust him.
It was a performance of considerable skill, and under easier circumstances it might even have succeeded.
Lady Catherine ascended first, not because she moved quickly, but because indignation gave her rank a momentum no one thought of resisting.
Mrs. Fairfax followed, pale but steady, holding the ring of household keys with a gravity almost ceremonial.
Darcy walked beside Wickham, not touching him, not speaking, yet making escape feel both impractical and absurd.
The two footmen came last, their expressions carefully blank, as though loyalty to the house required blindness until commanded otherwise.
At the door of Wickham’s chamber, all movement stopped. Lady Catherine turned.
“The key, Mr. Wickham.”
The clergyman for the first time allowed silence to answer before words did. His face retained civility, but civility had hardened into something nearer defiance.
“I repeat, your ladyship, that I consider this proceeding unnecessary and deeply improper. A gentleman’s private chamber is not a stable cupboard to be opened because servants are imaginative and relatives suspicious. I submit only because your peace appears to demand it, not because justice does.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes flashed.
“You submit because you are in my house, sir, and because I have not yet decided whether I have been merely deceived or actively robbed. Spare me lectures on propriety until I am certain which injury deserves my attention first. Mrs. Fairfax has her keys. But I want yours. The key.”
For a moment it appeared Wickham might still refuse.
Mr. Darcy said nothing, but the cold steadiness of his gaze made the silence almost oppressive to Wickham.
At last the new vicar reached slowly into his coat and produced the key, holding it between two fingers as though reluctant to surrender not the metal itself, but the last appearance of control. He handed it to Lady Catherine.
She accepted it with cold triumph and immediately passed it to Mrs. Fairfax.
“You will open it,” her ladyship ordered. “I prefer facts to gestures.”
Mrs. Fairfax, whose hands trembled only once, stepped forward and unlocked the door. The latch gave with an ordinary sound so small it seemed almost insulting after so much consequence. Yet when the door opened, no one entered at once. The pause itself was accusation.
Mr. Darcy moved first. It was an excellent room by any ordinary standard—well furnished, comfortably situated, and more than generous for a clergyman whose preferment was still recent.
That comfort, under present circumstances, seemed less like hospitality than evidence.
The room was orderly—too orderly, Elizabeth would later think when it was described to her—as though care had been taken not merely to keep it neat, but to preserve the appearance of innocence.
Writing materials were arranged with exactness upon the desk; boots stood properly cleaned; clothing had been folded with the discipline of a valet more competent than sentimental.
Nothing in it belonged to chaos. That, somehow, made suspicion stronger.
Mrs. Fairfax went directly to the bureau and opened its drawers with the practised authority of a woman who had governed households longer than most men had governed themselves.
Linen, correspondence, ordinary personal effects—nothing remarkable at first glance.
One of the footmen examined the wardrobe; the other waited for instruction near the trunk at the foot of the bed.
Lady Catherine stood in the centre of the room like judgement made visible.
“Well?” she asked. “Am I to be informed that my entire household has descended into fiction?”
Wickham allowed himself the smallest smile.
“I should be delighted, madam, if reality were permitted the same defence as suspicion.”
Mr. Darcy crossed to the escritoire and opened it himself. Inside were letters, neatly bundled; a small locked cash box; and, beneath several papers folded less carefully than the rest, Hunsford’s household inventory ledger. He lifted it without comment. Mrs. Fairfax, seeing it, changed colour.
“That should not be here, sir,” she said quietly. “Those papers were kept below.”
Lady Catherine took one step nearer.
“And why,” she asked, each word distinct, “is my parson’s household inventory in your private desk, Mr. Wickham?”
The vicar answered without visible haste.
“Because I was attempting to restore order where none had been properly kept. The former vicar was probably an excellent clergyman, but not, perhaps, a man born for domestic accounts.”
Mr. Darcy, however, only placed the paper aside and nodded toward the trunk.
“That,” he said, “will be opened next.”
The footman bent immediately. Wickham took half a step forward before checking himself, and that single involuntary movement was more eloquent than any denial. Lady Catherine saw it. So did everyone else.
The lid was lifted. At first there was only clothing—carefully packed, suitable enough for travel.
Beneath it, wrapped in linen too hastily folded to be accidental, lay two heavy silver candlesticks unmistakably belonging to the smaller drawing-room at Rosings.
Under them, a velvet pouch containing cutlery engraved with the de Bourgh crest. Lower still, wrapped in cloth darkened by tarnish, were two pieces of church plate from Hunsford chapel and the gilt frame fittings from paintings recently declared “misplaced” during repairs.
No one spoke. Mrs. Fairfax pressed one hand against the bedpost as though steadiness had become a physical necessity.
One of the footmen looked at the floor with the moral concentration of a man determined not to have seen what he had absolutely seen.
Lady Catherine did not move at all. The second footman, after a brief hesitation, bent and drew from beneath the bed two framed paintings, both unmistakably from the Hunsford parlour.
It was Darcy who finally broke the silence.
“I think those are the paintings from Hunsford’s parlour. I know those for years,” he said, and his voice was now colder than anger. “So, I believe, the question of privacy has been answered.”
For several moments Lady Catherine did not move, and in that stillness the entire authority of Rosings seemed to gather itself into something far more formidable than mere temper.
She looked neither at the silver, nor at the church plate, nor even at the opened trunk itself, but at Mr. Wickham—as though objects, however offensive, were still less insulting than the man who had presumed to place them there in his possession, beneath her roof, and under her protection.
The room, though occupied by several people, had become so silent that even the faint movement of the curtains at the open window seemed an intrusion.
When she spoke at last, her voice had lost every trace of heat and entered instead that colder register which, in Lady Catherine, was infinitely more dangerous than anger. Rage might be endured; judgement was another matter entirely.
“Leave the room. All of you.”
No one moved immediately. Mrs. Fairfax lowered her eyes; one of the footmen shifted his weight almost imperceptibly; even Wickham, who had thus far preserved the appearance of composure, seemed uncertain whether the command had been meant to include him.
Mr. Darcy, however, understood at once, and his attention fixed upon his aunt with sharpened concern.
Lady Catherine turned her head only slightly, and the movement alone restored obedience.
“I believe I spoke plainly. Mrs. Fairfax, the footmen—out. Mr. Darcy, you also. I require no witnesses for what must now be said, and I have no desire to repeat myself in my own house.”
Mr. Darcy stepped forward immediately, the instinct to oppose stronger than etiquette, stronger even than prudence. His voice, when he answered, was respectful, but the resistance beneath it was unmistakable.
“But, Aunt, I cannot think it wise to leave you alone with him, particularly after what has just been discovered. I would rather bear your displeasure than answer later for having obeyed too easily.”
Lady Catherine raised one gloved hand, and though the gesture was slight, it carried the full force of lifelong command. Darcy stopped at once, not convinced, but checked.