Chapter Fourteen
A Twist of Fate
Darcy ran an index finger around the rim of the teacup.
Not so many minutes ago, he and Miss Elizabeth had descended the hidden stairs to her room, their papers and notes in hand.
She had surprised him by requesting he remain on the small landing behind the hidden door, but realisation dawned when she then pulled the cord to summon a maid and requested a tray be sent up.
“Perhaps some extra cake, Millie? I am quite hungry today.”
He laughed as she released him from his prison. “You are resourceful, Miss Elizabeth, and not quite as guileless as you appear. I admit to being somewhat hungry and will be pleased to take a piece of cake.”
“Perhaps the cake is all for me,” she teased.
“Hurry back into the stairwell and I shall summon her back to request a piece for you as well.” They chatted about everything and nothing until a tap at the door announced Millie’s arrival with the tea tray, and he dashed behind the draperies like a character in a farce as the young maid entered to set out the requested refreshments.
When the door had been locked once more, and he had been given permission to reveal himself, they had giggled like schoolchildren before lapsing into a comfortable silence to enjoy their tea and cake.
How different this Elizabeth Bennet was from the severe young woman who would not accept his apology and who had resisted his friendship for so long.
She had every right to be wary of him, for his initial overtures of friendship had been designed with an object in mind.
That had only been at first, however. When had his desire to win her approbation for the sake of his mission transformed into the desire to win her esteem for his own sake?
When had he begun to seek her out, using her father only as a pretext for a visit?
When had he started to put her above his assigned task?
For just the other night, when she had caught him in the library and they had explored the tower room, he had considered ignoring some minor transgressions on the part of the father in order to ease the way for the daughter.
He had even considered abetting a traitor, as he had then considered Bennet!
For whom else would he even imagine such a thing?
Not a soul! No, he would do it for her and her alone.
And now, as he watched her fall backwards into an armchair by the window, sunlight in her hair and her face alight with laughter, he realised how much he not only loved her, but liked her too. And then, with a jolt that quite shocked him, he realised that he did, indeed, love her!
This would never do! Even though it seemed her father was not a foreign operative, she was wholly inappropriate for one of his station.
No matter that he was a gentleman and she a gentleman’s daughter, the essence of the matter lay in the specificities of their connexions.
Her father, though a gentleman in rank, was of the lowest sort, a small landholder of a struggling estate that would pass out of the immediate family with his death, leaving his daughters with nothing.
And her relations on her mother’s side were lower still: a country attorney and a merchant, no matter how fine they may be as individuals, were simply no match for his noble relations.
For his grandfather had been an earl, his mother an earl’s daughter, and his cousin Richard, whom he held as a dearest friend, was only one heartbeat removed from that elevated rank.
Even his father, whom the Fitzwilliam family had decried as being far below their daughter’s station, was a man of considerable wealth, and himself the great-grandson of a baron.
What was a mere squire’s daughter to such pillars of English nobility?
And yet she fascinated him. She intrigued him as no woman had done before. She made him think, made him laugh, made him yearn to be a better man. She made him long to improve himself enough to deserve her. The irony brought a bitter laugh to his lips.
“Mr. Darcy?” He shook himself at the sound of her voice.
“Apologies, Miss Elizabeth. I was wool-gathering.” He could not voice his true thoughts and grasped for an explanation.
“I find my mind wanders after such intense concentration as we achieved up in the storage room.” He raised his eyes to the ceiling, above which the table and its marvellous machine still sat.
He did not say that he was enchanted with her eyes and her lips and her playful intelligence. That would never do.
She broke the silence. “I have explained what I discerned about the code machine, sir, but you have not divulged your suppositions. Will you tell me?”
He took a second piece of cake and chewed a small piece as he assembled his thoughts.
“Of course I shall. We are friends, and comrades in this endeavour.” He washed the cake down with a small sip of tea.
“From what I can determine, this is a machine very similar to a device invented by Thomas Jefferson, who served as President of America until only two years ago. The man may have been a traitor to the Crown, but he was no less intelligent for it. His creation, which he called a wheel cypher, is little known, but it is ingenious in its simplicity. It, like our toy above, consists of a stack of discs with randomly arranged letters on them, and which can be reordered according to patterns known by both the sending and receiving parties.”
He watched as her chin bobbed in comprehension, but her brow furrowed above her pert nose. “Yes, I see how that applies to the machine above. How does Mr. Jefferson’s cypher work?”
He felt proud of himself for having this knowledge.
After accepting Stanton’s charge, he had sent out for as many books and treatises on codes and cyphers as his valet could find, and he spent the week between returning to his own townhouse from Stanton’s and his departure thence to Meryton in reading them, to learn all he could.
“The encoding is straightforward. Each disc is numbered. The sender then arranges his discs according to a predetermined pattern and creates a short message to be read in a straight line across the length of the cylinder. When he rotates the entire cylinder to any degree, the resulting row of letters immediately before him will be a nonsense string of random letters. He writes down that set of letters and sends it to his counterpart, who then recreates it exactly on his own wheel, according to the order of the discs, which he already knows. Once that is complete, he need only rotate the entire cylinder until he finds a row in which the letters are not nonsense but spell out a message.”
Miss Elizabeth’s eyes lit up as he spoke.
Intelligence and understanding were sheer beauty on her already lovely face.
“What a marvellous invention!” She clasped her hands together in glee.
“Truly inspired! And our machine is similar, in that you can rearrange the discs in a desired order, but it is more advanced, for the workings of the machine then rotate the discs to different degrees, further confounding the message.
‘Tis a pity the workings of several of the discs are so damaged, else I would love to see it in operation.”
“Aye, as would I! Perhaps if we can learn enough of the workings of the machinery, we can ask a skilled clockmaker or miniaturist to build us a duplicate, and then attempt to recreate the damaged areas.”
Miss Elizabeth was all but bouncing in her chair in eager anticipation, before she tittered an apology and returned to a more sedate posture. Oh, what joy it would be for some fortunate man to have a lifetime with this animated young woman.
“What a splendid idea! My uncle Gardiner in London is acquainted with such a man, who worked for a while as a clockmaker, but who now makes a fine living building mechanical toys and automatons. He is known and respected in many circles and enjoys company far above his station on the merits of his work. His name is Mr. Jacob Mendel. Have you heard of him?”
Darcy had to shake his head, no, although now he felt a need to meet this man.
“My uncle sells some of his simpler creations like cuckoo clocks and music boxes with dancing figurines—the ones where his own craftsmen and apprentices can do much of the work—in his warehouse, and they command excellent prices.
But his truly brilliant pieces are unique creations, made for chosen customers.
He is the man who accompanied the Gardiners and me to the exhibition where we saw some automatons, and when he noted my interest, he obliged me with several hours of his time and let me pore through some of his books and diagrams.
“Is that so?” This was a remarkable twist of fate! “And he is an intimate of your family?”
“Indeed he is. He and his wife are frequent guests in my uncle’s house. He gave me the clock that sits upon my mantel, and only last year, he gave me a wonderful present for my birthday.”
She rose and walked to a cabinet along the wall by the window, from which she retrieved a small box that fit into the palm of her hand. She wound a key and handed it to him. “Open it,” she urged.
As he did so, music began to play, light and tinkling, like an orchestra of tiny tin bells. He had, of course, heard a music box before, and had even given one to his sister, in which a tiny carved butterfly on a thin rod circled around a glass flower in the centre of the display.
This miniature box, however, outshone his sister’s prized possession like a diamond outshines coal.
An exquisite bird of bright enamel sat in the middle of the top plate, its wings separate pieces from its body, moving up and down in a perfect imitation of flight.
At the same time, its head moved from side to side, and its tiny beak opened and closed. It was magical.
“He made this?” His voice was full of wonder.
She nodded. “It is one of his simpler pieces. He is a man of exceptional skill.”
There was no option but to agree. He handed her back the box, which she replaced in its cabinet, and pursed her lips.
“I shall write to my aunt at once and inquire...” The light in her eyes dimmed.
“Such things ought not to be sent so openly.
‘Tis a pity he has not yet built our machine, else I might encrypt a message for him.”
She had the right of it. If there were observers about the town, the mail might well be read by unintended eyes; and if Bennet were suspected even by a few, anything from his household would be subject to the most careful scrutiny.
A letter requesting an introduction to this clockmaker would not do. Perhaps...
“I frequently visit my relations in December in the weeks before Christmas,” Miss Elizabeth mused, her voice wistful and her words slow.
“It would not be seen as unusual for me to engage on such a visit. If you should, by chance, be in town during that same week, a meeting might be arranged.” Her face was the picture of innocence, save her eyes, which shone with mischievous glee.
“A week in London you say?” He clucked his approval. Suddenly her unsuitable relations did not seem quite so unsuitable after all. “That might be a fine idea.”
***
IT WAS NOW GETTING on towards evening, and Darcy needed to return to Netherfield. He would have enough of a time explaining his whereabouts all day; being late to dinner would incur Caroline Bingley’s wrath, which was more unpleasant a prospect.
“I must be going...” he began.
“You will be missed.” She spoke over him and they both smiled. “Will you walk home, or shall I contrive some need for the pony cart? I often drive over to visit Charlotte, and it would not seem odd.”
This seemed a better idea, for the three-mile walk would take a great deal of time.
Reversing their earlier route, she led him down the stairs into the drawing room, and then through the door into the garden.
“Wait yonder, past the row of hedges, where the path meets the woods. I shall meet you anon.” And true to her word, he waited no more than ten minutes before the wagon appeared from around the curve of the lane.
The cart was light and the horse fast, and she handled both with ease.
She stopped directly beside him, and he alighted in an instant.
They might be seen together, for the cart was open, but none who knew Miss Elizabeth would think anything of it, other than that she was helping a neighbour, or so she assured him.
He ought to have been put out, being driven about the area by a woman like some sort of invalid, but he felt an inordinate pride in her skill.
Furthermore, the cart was not wide enough for any great distance between driver and passenger, and he was acutely aware of the thin crack of air between them.
She was so very near, just a breath away; it was both a delight and an agony to have her almost touching him and yet separated by the impenetrable wall of societal proscription.
He longed to reach out and touch her hand, but held himself firm.
He had risked enough being secreted with her all day—and in her own bedchamber, of all places!
He would behave as the perfect gentleman in public, to allow no shame to touch her.
Then the cart hit a small rut in the poorly maintained lane, and the cart jolted.
It was not enough to upset the horse or perturb the driver, but it shifted him sideways, and he found himself pressed hip to hip with her.
In his efforts to steady himself, he reached out to grasp the front bar, and found himself grasping her hand instead.
It was not the first time they had inadvertently touched, but this time something was different.
He felt a deeper connexion through the contact, and he did not pull his hand away as he ought to have done.
Neither, his mind reeled, did she.
Instead, she bit her bottom lip and gave him a shy smile and kept her hand in his, even as she handled the reins. They did not speak at all until they arrived at Netherfield, but their silence promised more than their exchanged offers of friendship two nights before.
Several servants were bustling around the drive in front of the house, and some young grooms were lolling in the shade just past where the carriage house sat, and she spoke loudly enough that all would hear her.
“Good evening, Mr. Darcy. I am so glad to have been of assistance in driving you home. How fortunate to encounter you in the village. I trust I shall see you tomorrow evening at Longbourn for dinner?”
“Indeed, Miss Elizabeth. Please offer my respects to your parents.” Then, in a whisper he added, “And I look forward to it with every ounce of my being,” before alighting from the cart and striding up the stairs to the grand front doors.