Chapter 13 Willow Cottage #2
“I have not heard any suspicious sounds coming from outside the house since I awoke in the early hours of the morning. Besides, I doubt Richard has left any guards. It would leave him vulnerable to exposure as he knows as well as I that most people of our acquaintance would be loyal to me, not him.”
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at her estranged husband’s boast.
“I promise to be careful,” Mr Darcy muttered and was out of the door before Elizabeth could voice any further protests.
She turned her attention to her daughter, who had stopped retching and now lay listless in her lap.
She had been under the influence of the ether for an extraordinarily long time, and Elizabeth prayed the effects had not caused her any lasting harm.
Darcy came back with a leaky pail of water that looked clean enough.
“Where did you find it?” Elizabeth asked.
“There is a well to the left, hidden under a shrub, but the water is clear and smells fresh,” Mr Darcy informed her.
“Good, did you see anyone about?”
“No. There is evidence of someone circling the cottage, but there are no other paths beyond the one leading here. The ground is still moist from the heavy rain we have had lately, which made it easy to determine that there are only two sets of tracks from carriage wheels, one leading in and the other leading out.”
“I did not hear any other voices besides the colonel and Georgiana when we were brought here,” Elizabeth explained further. “By what I overheard, I believe he might have given his wife a dose of ether as well.”
“The bloody bastard!” Mr Darcy yelled.
Elizabeth turned away from him to conceal her pain. The vehemence of his outburst demonstrated that his precious sister mattered more to him than she and his daughter.
She busied herself with looking for usable objects for cooking or heating. She exclaimed in joy when she found an old flint and steel to light the fire. All she needed now was wood and something edible. It should not prove too difficult to find something considering the time of year.
“I am going out to find dry wood.”
Elizabeth proudly showed him the flint and steel her rummaging had procured.
“That was next on my list,” Mr Darcy informed her before he strode out of the cottage in obvious eagerness to escape her company.
Half an hour passed while Elizabeth busied herself by singing to her half-conscious daughter.
Mr Darcy returned with his arms full of firewood.
He put it beside the hearth and reached into his pocket, presumably for his watch.
It appeared to not be there. He then searched his coat, likely for his money clip, but that too was missing.
Holding up his hands, he showed her that his signet ring was no longer on his finger.
“Do you have any jewellery on you?”
Elizabeth automatically touched her neck for her garnet cross. It was not there. Strangely enough, neither was her wedding ring.
“How peculiar. I have been trying to remove my wedding ring for two and a half years. When I finally might need it, it is gone. I suppose I must count myself fortunate he did not have to cut off my finger for the coin he will receive at the pawnshop.”
“I doubt Richard intends to sell your wedding ring,” Mr Darcy contradicted.
“Why else would he take it?” Elizabeth demanded to know.
“To make our deaths look like a robbery,” her husband growled.
“He does not know much about thieves, does he? A real thief would never let you keep your expensive Hessian boots nor let our daughter keep her clothes. There is not a magistrate in the county who would think this was a robbery performed by highwaymen or cutthroats. Does the colonel not read the newspapers?”
Mr Darcy did not answer. He had the nerve to look hurt when she admitted she had tried to remove her wedding ring.
“I am going out. Do not let Ellie out of your sight,” she warned and strode out of the door. Someone needed to find something to eat.
Under a group of shady old trees, Elizabeth found common polypod ferns, which had a sweet root Ellie liked to chew on. It was not much but it grew in abundance. Farther afield she also found wild strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. She could boil up a soup or eat them fresh.
She was even more pleased when she found a patch of hedgehog fungi. She filled her skirt and strode back to the cottage.
Mr Darcy was out in the overgrown garden with Ellie, and it delighted Elizabeth to see the improvement in her daughter. They were removing the bark from an oak branch, and various twigs lay at their feet. She approached carrying her harvest in her raised skirt.
“What are you making?”
“A bow and arrow.”
“Are you planning to stay here long?”
“No, but we need to eat while Ellie recovers her strength. I have no idea where we are or how far we are from Pemberley. It could be hours, days, or even weeks before we reach home on foot, and we have no money. The bow will come in handy for hunting purposes when we set out towards Pemberley.”
“We are not entirely destitute,” Elizabeth reluctantly admitted.
“No, I was implying no such thing, but we have no money with us,” Mr Darcy explained.
“Yes, we do,” Elizabeth countered. “I have five pounds and sixteen shillings sewn into my garments. One never knows when one might find oneself tossed out into the cold, nor how much one might be allowed to take with her.”
Mr Darcy bowed his head, it was to be hoped in shame, and continued to scrape off the bark with a pointed stone.
“What will you use for the string?” Elizabeth asked.
“I was hoping you or Ellie might have something.”
“I shall have to sacrifice my stays. It is the only lace that will suit.”
Elizabeth cooked the mushrooms over the flames, and they had plenty of dessert.
Once they had eaten, Elizabeth ordered Mr Darcy to turn away while she removed her stays in a darkened corner.
She handed the lace to her husband, who went out to attach it to his bow.
Elizabeth cut out the five pounds and twenty shillings she had sewn into the garment and used the fabric scraps as cloths.
The cottage was in dire need of cleaning, and Elizabeth wanted to occupy herself.
Ellie demanded her own rag and happily dusted alongside her mother, humming a tune she had often heard Elizabeth sing while working in their cottage.
#
This picture of domestic felicity met Darcy upon his return.
He proudly showed his ladies the two wood pigeons that would serve as dinner.
He took them back out to skin and gut them.
Usually, he would keep only the breasts, but with not much else to eat, he would have to use every edible part of the birds.
Elizabeth joined him in removing feathers from the creatures.
A fleeting image of the former Caroline Bingley performing the same task popped into his mind.
He suppressed a chuckle, imagining the outrageous comments that surely would have followed.
He had likened his first visit to Hertfordshire to torture; how little he had known about true agony back then.
Despite being familiar with grief from an early age, nothing compared to the last two and a half years.
He lacked for nothing in the physical sense, yet his life had become a hollow existence.
Sitting on a log, outside a hovel, doing something as tedious as skinning a bird, was the closest to complacency he had felt in years, and it was due to Elizabeth.
She despised him; still nothing brought him more pleasure than to be of as much assistance to her as she would allow.
The colonel was a heinous monster, but Darcy was not much better than his cousin.
He had thrown the woman he loved out of her home, to sustain herself in utter poverty, and had treated her abominably after forcing her to return.
Why had he believed Richard? Because he could not fathom how Elizabeth could have mistaken the ogre for himself.
They were so different in body and manners…
“Were you kept in a tomb as well?”
Elizabeth’s question jolted him out of his miserable contemplations.
“Yes,” he admitted, shuddering.
“The mausoleum is so overgrown with verdure that it was a cursed accident I even discovered it. It struck me as contrary to your nature to leave your ancestors’ resting place in such disarray…”
It pleased him that she thought of him as an orderly, respectful man. In truth, it had never struck him to change the old arrangement.
“It was my father who ordered the gardeners to allow the ivy to grow freely. The mausoleum was visible from the master’s chamber before it was covered, and he could not bear being reminded of his loss every time he looked out of the window.
I sympathise with the sentiment and never contradicted his order. ”
“Were you in the same tomb as me and Ellie?” Elizabeth wondered, sounding puzzled.
“Yes,” he affirmed in a clipped voice. He was trying to forget that part of their journey.
“I felt someone tremble and heard something panting, but I was afraid it could be one of your big mastiffs. I was scared witless and dared not investigate,” Elizabeth admitted, bowing her head in what he assumed was shame.
“It sounds like a good plan, but the dogs are not dangerous, and it was only me.”
Ellie sat on the ground by their feet, playing with the feathers, compelling him to be more honest than he had ever been with another human being, but Elizabeth deserved an explanation.
“I was once trapped under the floor at school. I have been uncomfortable with tight spaces ever since,” Darcy continued.
Elizabeth turned her fine eyes at him in astonishment, and he met her gaze briefly before he had to look away or risk disgracing himself by enfolding her in a tight embrace.
“How is that even possible?” she exclaimed.
“It is when seven or eight boys force you down and nail the boards shut,” he replied flatly.
“Heaven forfend!” Elizabeth rose abruptly and began pacing in front of him. “Were you very young when it happened?”
“No, not particularly. I was fifteen. Tall and gangling, all arms and legs.
I matured late and spent my days reading or studying, but the incident taught me that I needed to become stronger.
I had always enjoyed riding, but after that event, I rode for a couple of hours every morning.
I joined the fencing club at school, and it turned out that it came naturally to me.
“I also entered Gentleman Jackson’s boxing academy when it opened in 1803.
It was good exercise, but I am too tall and slow to excel at pugilism—not like I did at fencing at Cambridge, where long arms were an advantage.
In any case, Bingley heard the boys bragging about nailing me in and freed me within minutes. That is why I am forever in his debt.”
“That explains something that has confounded me,” Elizabeth admitted.
“What is that?” he asked out of curiosity.
“I was surprised you would so readily welcome Bingley and my sister to Pemberley.” She looked away, staring unseeingly into the woods. “And why you shook and panted so violently in the tomb,” she added quietly. “Did you know who the culprit was and why they did that to you?”
“I do not know who. It happened so quickly, and I was terrified. The lads grabbed me from behind and pulled a burlap sack over my head, but I suspect I know why. Those of us who liked to study, attend classes, and read were laughed at by those who preferred hunting, gambling, and parties. Going to chapel was another pursuit they believed should be shirked as much as possible. Needless to say, I have always enjoyed learning and attended the service every Sunday.”