Chapter 21
Much later that same night, Darcy lay rigid upon his bed, the faint glow of the lamp he had not yet extinguished serving to illuminate the water-stained ceiling.
He had remained at the house that night, first dining with Georgiana and taking her for a short promenade about the Steyne, and then reading with her until she declared that he looked as tired as she felt and suggested that they both retire early.
He had not argued and had come to his bed directly, bringing brandy with him in hopes of deep slumber.
Instead, he had got quite the opposite: wide-eyed wakefulness, long into the early hours.
Engaged. Even the word itself was a torment.
Elizabeth Bennet—his Elizabeth, though she had never been his, not truly—bound to that insufferable fop, Hartham.
What could she possibly see in such a creature?
Try as he might, he still could not comprehend, after asking himself the same question for hours upon hours upon hours, why Elizabeth had accepted him.
And she had indeed accepted him. Hard on the heels of kissing him in the cupboard, she had very nearly run into Hartham’s arms. Miss Hawkridge had confirmed it when Fitzwilliam, in a valiant but ultimately vain attempt to allay Darcy’s worst fears, had called on her to ask how and when the proposal could possibly have happened in the short time since they left the house.
She had explained how she came upon them in the vestibule, standing very close to one another, Elizabeth’s hands clasped in Hartham’s, and he boasting of their having been ‘speaking about their future’.
She also reported that Elizabeth was dreamy-eyed and scarcely able to speak the entire drive back to Mrs Millhouse’s.
A small moan escaped him. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, as if he might physically push away the image of Elizabeth with Hartham.
The memory of her lips beneath his own, soft and yielding for one stolen moment, haunted him more cruelly than any spectre.
Who knew where it would have ended had the trunk not toppled from its perch to curtail their passion.
It had crossed his mind more than once—incessantly—in the hour immediately afterwards, that it would now be his privilege to discover the answer.
Then Hartham had arrived to crush his hopes, and he was sick to his stomach with the knowledge that not even Elizabeth herself would ever discover where her passion might take her in a heated moment—not with a man like Hartham for a husband!
Saye had blamed Elizabeth, declaring that, “Any woman who fell to a fop like Hartham was not worth pining over.” Did she know?
Had she fallen, was it love, or was it Darcy’s own folly that provoked her to accept such an offer?
Did she wish to permanently remove herself from his sphere?
He could reach no satisfactory conclusion, the questions circling his mind round and round and never providing any solace or consolation. Perhaps he had no right to either.
He had promised to call on her, but he had not this day, nor did he any longer know whether he should.
Was she secretly recoiling at the notion?
He could not bear it if he came to her lodgings, only to be received in a polite manner, as though their kiss had never happened, as though the shape of her was not branded into his palms. If he was even received!
Perhaps she had told the butler she was away from home to him!
Worse yet, she might receive him with Hartham by her side, and he would be forced to give congratulations on a union he thought a travesty.
He had only just put out his lamp when, from somewhere deep within the bowels of the house came the tortured wail of a fiddle, each note scraped raw and discordant against the night.
The unknown musician possessed neither skill nor mercy, sawing through what might once have been a melody with the determination of the truly tone-deaf.
The sound seemed to emanate from the very walls themselves, as if the house itself were giving voice to its decay.
The man would play awhile and then stop, just long enough to seem like it was over; then he would begin again.
And then came the sound of a dog, Saye’s dog, who evidently wished to howl and bark along. Against all miserable inclination, Darcy chuckled, already imagining his cousin’s pique.
He heard a commotion out on the landing as Saye—or so Darcy imagined—came to Fitzwilliam’s door and rattled the handle. Evidently, it was locked, for moments later, he burst into Darcy’s bedchamber.
He had clearly fallen asleep in the attire of the previous evening. His coat had been discarded, but his cravat hung loose and his shirt was untucked. From the smell of him, the spirits had flowed freely at Raggett’s after Darcy left, and Saye was yet affected by it.
“What in the bloody hell is this?” he exclaimed.
“Saye?” Darcy tried to make it sound as though he had been roused from slumber. “What are you doing here? Go back to your own bed.”
“What am I doing here? Do you not hear that infernal racket? Does nobody?”
“I heard your dog barking.” Darcy rolled onto his side as though he was about to go back to sleep. “You need to get a muzzle for him. I cannot be woken by his barking at every stray leaf that blows by.”
“Not Florizel! The music, if you could call it that. More like someone murdering cats.”
“Murdering cats?”
“Yes! Listen!”
Darcy made a show of listening as the continued screech of bow against unwilling strings continued to assault them both.
At length, he shook his head and said, in an exaggeratedly placating manner, “The sea air can play tricks on the ears. No doubt the quantity of whatever you drank earlier is aiding in that.”
“Sea air? Tricks?” Saye lurched forwards, gripping the bedpost for support with one arm and flinging his other arm wide. “Someone is in this house, playing music.”
With a sigh, Darcy sat up. “You mean to tell me you think someone has broken into the house for the purpose of playing music for us?”
“Incredible as it may seem, yes, someone is playing music somewhere in the house, and I sincerely doubt it is anyone invited to be here.”
“Well, did you look for him?”
“I sent my man.”
“Your man would have done better to clean you up a bit,” Darcy informed him. “What did he find?”
“I do not know, because I came to find you,” Saye said impatiently. “Obviously there is a madman about, and it is wholly likely he is on the verge of murdering us all!”
Darcy chuckled. “I think not. Probably just the ghost you keep telling everyone about.”
Saye grew very still. “Do you think so?”
“No.”
“Hear me, Darcy. My fire burnt green earlier. Green! Like something from Mrs Radcliffe’s books! I swear it upon my mother’s grave!”
“Is her ladyship unwell?” Darcy asked politely. “I had not heard. I shall write to her in the morning.”
Saye made a sound of strangled frustration as the fiddle player chose that moment to produce a particularly lugubrious passage. It was all Darcy could do not to wince or laugh. “My mother will be writing to you, sir, to enquire after your obviously faulty hearing!”
“If my hearing is faulty, then so must it be for the rest of the house,” Darcy observed very reasonably.
“Save for Florizel, no one else seems affected by these supposed musical performances or green fires. Do you not think Georgiana would be here in terror if she could hear it? Or the servants? Mrs Wiggins is not likely to remain silent upon having her sleep interrupted.” He was glad he had remembered, albeit belatedly, to inform her of their plans.
An angry housekeeper, railing at the fiddle player for waking them all up, would have ruined the prank in an instant.
Saye paused, seemingly unable to think of a reply.
“There is no music, Saye,” Darcy said firmly as the fiddle’s final wail trailed off into the night.
“You are overtired and overindulged, and so much accustomed to your own Banbury tales that even you have begun to believe them. Go back to bed; I do not doubt that morning will restore your faculties.”
In the silence, Saye only stared at him, swaying a little on his feet. “Mad,” he muttered. “Everyone has gone deaf, mad, or both.”
Darcy smiled, and made a great show of tucking himself into his blankets. “Good night, Saye. If you hear any other phantom musicians, pray keep it to yourself until morning.”
The silence remained; Darcy was unsurprised, as he knew they had only paid the man to torment them until he heard Lord Saye up and about. Then he would disappear as silently as he had come, through the servants’ passage between the kitchen courtyards of theirs and Lady Preston’s houses.
Thinking of Lady Preston brought to mind her nephew.
And thinking of her nephew immediately sank Darcy’s spirits.
He closed his eyes, willing his cousin to go away, and at last Saye did, still grumbling as he went off into the corridor.
Less than twelve hours ago, Darcy had been setting these traps and making these foolhardy plans with Elizabeth herself.
He had been looking forward—foolishly, as eager as a schoolboy—to reporting back to her their success.
Now she was engaged to someone else, and reports from him were of no concern to her.
Engaged, he thought miserably for the hundredth time. What am I to do about that?
The morning room was situated very nicely to take advantage of the first rays of the day.
Elizabeth sat with her aunt Gardiner and Mrs Millhouse, the remnants of a morning meal in front of them.
They had been discussing, with much energy, the letter received from Longbourn that morning with the news that Mr Bingley had returned to Netherfield and called on the same day at Longbourn to see Jane.
Though Mrs Millhouse did not know Jane, after she had listened to the tale of what passed between them last autumn, she was almost as hopeful as Elizabeth and her aunt that his presence in Hertfordshire might augur a renewal of his affections.
Privately, Elizabeth wondered what, if anything, Mr Darcy might have had to do with it.
At length, Mrs Millhouse excused herself, speaking of letters of her own in need of her attention. Elizabeth half-rose as well, but Mrs Gardiner stopped her with a little look.
As the door closed behind their hostess, Mrs Gardiner said, “You are very quiet this morning and a trifle pale. Did you not sleep well?”
Elizabeth toyed with the handle of her teacup. “I did not.”
Mrs Gardiner simply waited, her gaze steady on her niece.
“Yesterday I received an offer of marriage,” Elizabeth told her. Perhaps two—if what passed between Mr Darcy and me could be considered a declaration.
“An offer of marriage?” Mrs Gardiner’s brows shot up. “From whom?”
“Mr Hartham.”
“Mr Hartham!” Mrs Gardiner blinked several times as if to ensure she had heard correctly. “I was quite convinced that Mr Hartham’s…inclinations lay elsewhere entirely. Indeed, I should have ensured you were better chaperoned had I any idea that…that this was possible.”
“I was very surprised as well,” Elizabeth admitted. “I confess, part of my ease in his company was due to the fact that he indicated courting me was quite impossible for him. He did not say why, not in so many words, but I thought I understood it well enough.”
“I daresay you had the right of it, my dear. Perhaps he finds himself in circumstances that make marriage seem a prudent course, regardless of his natural inclinations,” Mrs Gardiner suggested.
“There is something odd in the business,” Elizabeth agreed. “To have changed tack so suddenly!”
“But what did you say to him?” With a cautious but extremely serious look, she added, “Do not give me the displeasure of seeing you unhappily married, Lizzy. Affection…family…children are, I think, at least of some importance to you?”
Elizabeth nodded, these thoughts in no way new to her after a sleepless night of rumination.
“I hardly know what I said. I think…I did not really give any answer. Miss Hawkridge was there, and it was all very awkward.” She sighed.
“We have been such good friends, which makes this all so much more difficult.”
“Makes what all the more difficult?”
“Refusing him,” Elizabeth said. “And yes, I will refuse him. I ought to have made it clear that was my intention yesterday, but I was just too shocked to reply with any degree of composure.” And her thoughts had been entirely too consumed in anticipation of another man’s call.
But neither Mr Darcy nor Mr Hartham had come, despite both promising that they would.
Instead, she had been left to wonder, and question, and remember, and disbelieve, and worry, and despair. Why, oh why did Mr Darcy not call?
“You must do it immediately,” Mrs Gardiner warned. “Do you think he anticipates a favourable reply?”
“I think any man who proposes anticipates a favourable reply else he would not propose,” said Elizabeth wryly.
“Do you think the house is the inducement for his sudden affection for me? Or this bit of fortune I now possess? I always thought my lack of dowry or fortune a disadvantage, but at least…” She swallowed, then looked away.
She did not wish to finish her sentence, which was that at least Mr Darcy showed no concern for fortune.
He had proposed to her when she had nothing, and the bit she had now was nothing to what he already possessed.
If he ever proposed again—and it felt to be a more tenuous ‘if’ by the hour—it would not be to gain a house in Brighton.
“Does it matter what his provocation is?” her aunt enquired gently. “If you do not wish to marry him and mean to refuse him, the reason is immaterial.”
Before Elizabeth could respond, a soft knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of the maid bearing another letter on a silver tray. “Letter for Miss Bennet, ma’am. It was mislaid this morning, beg your pardon.”
Elizabeth took it, pausing when she observed Lydia’s familiar, carelessly looped scrawl. “From Lydia.” She gave her aunt a look.
Mrs Gardiner wrinkled her brow. “Lydia? Why would she be writing to you?”
“If I know my sister, it can only be one of two things. She either needs money or is angry with me for something. Either way, there is only one way to find out!”