CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
The instant the meal was concluded, both sisters coincidentally found themselves suffering from the most egregious of headaches and declared their intentions to retire early, which left Bingley alone in the company of Mr. Hurst, who seemed miraculously sobered by the repast.
“It appears since the rain has moved out, we might have quite the splendid evening on our hands,” Hurst spoke slowly.
“Certainly, it does appear so.”
“Would you care to join me down by the lake, then? Perhaps a drink and a cigar?”
“That is a fine idea,” Bingley replied. Having been cooped up in a carriage the last few days, and cooped up in London prior to that, he welcomed an evening taking in such incomparable beauty as the grounds at Pemberley afforded. On top of that, though he did not smoke often, he took great delight in a fine cigar, which of course were the only type preferred by Mr. Hurst. They ordered a bottle of brandy to the table near the reflection pool and sauntered down while lighting their sticks. The sun was low, but not set, casting a golden brilliance across the leaves and ripples in the water. A cacophony of sounds flooded their ears—sounds much more pleasing than the bustle and hum of town, Bingley thought. Across the way a group of egrets waded into the water, croaking at each other lazily. At the same time, the delicate and high-pitched calls of a thousand redshanks echoed across the pond, unseen in the thick brush beyond the water. Only adding to the serene and cheerful ambiance was a delightful breeze that whisked their puffs of smoke high and away into the atmosphere. The two brothers by law sat next to each other at the edge of the lawn, small round pedestal between them. Johnstone, one of Mr. Hurst’s footmen, poured the drinks and then was dismissed back to the house, leaving the freshly opened bottle on the table.
“Nothing like a fine brandy after pudding, eh?” Hurst said suddenly.
“Yes, very nice indeed,” replied Bingley.
“And on such a fine evening as this.”
“Extraordinary, indeed. Particularly after all the rain these last few days.”
“Was there much rain in London?” Mr. Hurst asked.
“Aye,” Bingley chuckled. “And nearly the entire journey to Derbyshire.”
“What an oddity! It only rained here last night and into the morning. In fact, it ceased almost the moment you arrived.”
“Remarkable,” Bingley answered politely. “Have you much chance to enjoy the weather, then?”
“Whatever enjoyment I am capable of is undoubtedly taken from the outdoors, yes,” Hurst said, puffing on his cigar. “I spent a couple days entirely fishing in Darcy’s trout stream.”
“With any luck?”
“Some, yes, but I find more contentment in the respite and the quiet than I do even from the thrill of the catch.”
“I see.”
Mr. Hurst sat still for a moment, gazing out across the surface of the water. A butterfly flittered about, and Bingley watched it land on the man’s knee without his notice.
“I have not, perhaps, made the best of my life, Charles,” he said sombrely. Bingley took a swig of his drink while his mind raced to decipher what could possibly be coming next. He had not, in all his years of knowing Mr. Hurst, ever heard him speak with such apparent and guileless vulnerability. “Your sister Louisa is a fine woman—fine enough. I daresay she is as handsome as a squab like me could hope to inveigle. She is intelligent and accomplished, no doubt, and carries herself with a dignified air, yet…”
“Uriah, I cannot account for where—”
Mr. Hurst put his hand up and nodded. “I am not daft, you know. I realize that for my part, not only was I seduced by her fortune, I was seduced by my own clumpish youth. I had not ambition, nor had I character. Truthfully, I had not any depth to me at all.” A large fish suddenly leapt out into the air and splashed back down into the green lagoon, sending golden ripples outward toward the edge. “As a young man, I was only absorbed by the acquisition of wealth—and by marriage preferably, having not a mind, nor a desire, for business. I accomplished as much when your sister was wed to me, and we were happy enough in our delusions of rank and class, and the like. As the years trudged along, I grew rather morose, and used drink to lift my mood. With time I became rather more dependent upon it than was my design.”
“I imagine that you understand that we noticed you stayed rather more cup shot than was usual,” interjected Bingley, if only to break up the unease he felt at the direction of the discourse.
Hurst took a sip of brandy and a long puff on his cigar. “I am not proud of it, I admit. Yet there was one event last year, however, that awakened me from my malaise.”
“Oh?” Bingley asked anxiously.
“The murder of Sir Andrew Fraser,” Hurst said, turning and looking Bingley in the eyes.
“I see,” he stammered. “You did certainly seem to take it rather—”
“Andrew was my friend, you see. Though he was nearly a decade my senior, at one time we operated in similar social circles. He was a serious man when it came to his duty for his country and his military career, but in more easy-going society he was quite corky—boisterous even, when he was dipping rather deep. Andrew was loved in parties and balls, among the ladies particularly. And though he never, himself married, I can assure you he had more than his fair share of—well, you know. I was never quite as wild as him, but I was drawn to him—you might say I enjoyed my own life vicariously through him.”
“Is that so?”
“His violent end sent me sputtering into oblivion, as you might well recall,” Hurst continued. “I lost all control over myself. It was a mixture of the depressed state I was already in, along with grief at the loss of a friend, and quite naturally shock and disgust at a crime of such savage inhumanity. I imagined I saw in that act, the descent of all society into barbarity and chaos, as I could not reconcile such a horror committed on our own Christian soil.”
Bingley swallowed and averted his eyes from the direction of Mr. Hurst. And suddenly, as if by some work of black magic, a cloud rolled over what was left of the sunset and all at once the pair seemed enveloped in night. A cold shudder ran up his spine and Bingley wondered what could be at the heart of such an oration.
“Uriah, I am terribly sorry about the loss of your friend,” said Bingley.
Almost without hearing him, Mr. Hurst continued: “In what moments of lucidity I was afforded, I could not shake the notion that Andrew’s demise was in some way personal—to me, I mean. The more I attempted to reason myself out of such a feeling, the more I felt impressed that I must pursue justice in his name. Early on I believed that his estate would persevere in catching his killer, but that conviction waned after it became clear that Fraser’s young nephew, upon whom the estate was entailed, was more interested in squeezing what income he could from it and using it for God only knows what other forms of folly. I had heard that he’d hired the volunteer constable, a village cobbler named Gallagher, to track his uncle’s murderer, but the cobbler soon became disenchanted and returned home. The nephew made no further attempt at the business, which infuriated me so—I felt it an affront to human decency, not to mention the rules of law and order. Eventually I composed myself enough to investigate the investigator. I found that Constable Gallagher was not only a man of good character, but had made significant strides in the undertaking, though he had been put off by the sheer magnitude of it; additionally, he felt very little support from the estate itself. Together we entered an agreement where he would tirelessly hunt the monster who murdered my friend, while I would reward him handsomely for his work. It seemed that in mere blink of an eye he was in London, following a line of inquiry that he was quite confident would lead him to conclude his investigation. Then suddenly, he was traipsing around Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, and then, without so much as a message to me, he was back in Grantley Village, mending shoes.”
Bingley felt his throat beginning to swell as he casually wiped his damp forehead with the cuff of his coat. “Very odd, indeed,” he muttered.
“Out of the blue, then,” Hurst resumed, not skipping a beat, “I received a letter from the Constable, loosely detailing the guilt of a known highwayman by the name of Garrett Surman, who had just been executed in Doncaster on conviction of unrelated crimes—none of which included murder, I might add. After even a cursory glance at the papers I was sure that Surman could not conceivably be the culprit. Was he violent? Certainly, but he was calculating, and did not act out of passion. Surman’s motives were strictly pecuniary and as you might recall, nothing was stolen from Andrew’s estate during his murder. Additionally, the Constable never asked for his reward in solving the crime—a lucrative sum for a simple cobbler with a family to feed. Hence, I became convinced that Gallagher had already been paid, and began to wonder by whom .”
“I do not see where you are going with this, Uriah,” Bingley retorted, labouring to conceal his panic.
Mr. Hurst relit his cigar, wafting a plume which floated off in Bingley’s direction. “I know what you have done, Charles,” Hurst stated, his voice dropping into a low and menacing register.
“Uriah, I cannot—”
“I may not be brilliant, but neither am I a dullard.”
A weighty silence ensued, save the sounds of nature which encompassed them. Bingley’s mind raced with the complexity of the situation, dozens of explanations and courses of action swirling in a mist of anxiety and smoke. Would he have to drown his own brother-in-law right there in Darcy’s lake? And how on earth had Mr. Hurst, of all people, discovered his dark deeds?
“I was sceptical from the very beginning of Fraser’s nephew and hired my own investigator to look into not only what clues existed, but also Constable Gallagher himself,” Hurst went on. “As I mentioned he did very well early on. Eventually, however, he was followed by my man to your very door in Grosvenor Street, where he departed rather hastily, if you will recall, and quit to his quiet country life in Grantley Village. Once I reengaged him, I found it curious that he had suddenly discovered the identity of the killer—Garrett Surman, supposedly—after being tracked by my man not only to Meryton, but further on to Netherfield Park itself.”
“Uriah—”
“I know not what other form of dastardly business you have involved yourself, Charles, but I know that you butchered Andrew Fraser… and I want to thank you for it.”
A noise escaped Bingley that came from bottled dread and adrenaline. He breathed heavily and quickly as Hurst sat, cross-legged and tranquil. Bingley leaned forward in his chair, feeling his pulse drubbing in his neck. “How on earth…?” was all he could muster.
Hurst leaned forward and patted him on the back. “Do not trouble yourself, Charles—your secret is safe with me.”
“Uriah, I do not understand,” declared Bingley, sitting back up in his chair.
Hurst took a sip of cognac and swirled it lightly in his mouth. He seemed to want to let the atmosphere breathe a moment before he spoke again—for this Bingley was grateful.
“Perhaps two years ago, Andrew entreated me to join him for what he termed, ‘a bit of a frolic.’ We were at his estate in Grantley with another gentleman—of significant distinction, I might add—and assumed he had hired a few bits of muslin, but as a married man of some moral fabric, I naturally declined the invitation. We were all by that point entirely corned, and Andrew had the habit of babbling about when he was in that state—in a very jolly manner, mind you. He went on to inform me that despite his various charms and riches, alongside his perpetual status as a bachelor, which in combination allowed him the company of not a small number of handsome ladies, he had a penchant for the young . As he prattled on, I managed to heed very little attention—partly because of inebriation—until he made what, even then, I marked as a most peculiar statement: that not only did he prefer ‘inexperienced maidens,’ as he termed them, he also preferred them helpless . It was this word that seared into my memory: helpless . Even as I wondered what on earth he could have meant, the other man in the room snickered along as if he was privy to a juvenile secret among schoolboys. Shortly after that, I retired to my room for the evening. I decided to leave the following morning after breakfast, though I had at first, intended to stay another two nights at least. Andrew, perhaps having no recollection of the previous evening’s bibulous ramblings, was near the point of taking offense. I assured him that I had business to attend to which summoned me back to town. I saw him but once or twice in town over the next year, as he disliked London, but our correspondence resumed as normal. The last time he entertained me in Grantley Park was last autumn, not a month before he was murdered. In all honesty, I wished profusely to remain ignorant to whatever indiscretions Andrew was party to, and it was not until a secondary event took place which convinced me that his departure from this world might not have been a random act of brutality.”
“And what event was that?”
“The murder of the other man with Fraser that evening in Grantley Park.”
“Who?” Bingley asked anxiously.
“Thomas Abbott.”
Bingley leaned back and breathed in deeply. “I feel sick as a horse,” he declared.
Hurst chuckled amiably. “Don’t be, Charles,” he said, taking a few seconds to puff on his cigar. “It was that connection between the ‘victims’ which prompted me to initiate my own inquest into whatever business my friend and this bastard were involved in. My man found nothing concrete for months, until eventually he stumbled into evidence that Fraser and Abbott were paying for young maidens to be… well, I do not have to belabour the point to you. During this time, we also uncovered the existence of a guardian angel, a man sent by the Lord who alone had the means, the intellectual prowess, and the physical capability of dismantling such a vile empire. And that man, Charles, was you .”
Bingley looked on the verge of tears. “Have you made my business known to anyone but yourself and your man?”
“Of course not,” answered Hurst. “I will go to my grave with our secret and the sentiment that my brother-in-law is a paladin of justice, virtue, and mercy. I only wish it could be made known to the rest of England, so that our fellow countrymen may comprehend the depth to which we are all indebted to you.”
“My quest is not for glory,” said Bingley, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. “I have only ever wished to be done with it all and to live in quiet and peace.”
“And that, Charles, is why you were selected for such a task.”
“Thank you, Uriah,” Bingley replied.
Mr. Hurst nodded and rose his glass: “To Mr. Bingley.”