Chapter Eighteen
Toil and Travels
The next few days were filled with activity.
That very evening, upon finally retiring to her room after the dinner, Elizabeth sat down to write to her aunt and uncle, stating her desire to visit for a week or so.
Papa had acquiesced to her request with barely the blink of an eye, so usual had this become.
Mama was less pleased to agree but relented at last. “We shall hardly notice you are gone, at least, for all that you spent not five minutes with our company this evening. We can only be thankful that Colonel Fitzwilliam—what a gentlemanly sort of man he is, and the son of an earl!—chose to take his cigars with Mr. Darcy in the gardens, for they at least did not notice your absence. But poor Charlotte had no notion what became of you. I suppose you went to find a book and then sat and began to read. Really, Lizzy, this is not the behaviour I expect of you.”
Oh Mama, she thought in response, if only you knew what really transpired.
The next morning, she set about constructing the warning system that the colonel had suggested.
If she could somehow set a wire on the secret door from the library to the garden, she could arrange a cord to ring a bell in her own room when the door was opened.
With all the vines and trellises around that part of the outer wall, nobody would notice an extra rope ascending the outside of the tower, one which could slip through a gap by her window.
Setting the second cord was easier, because it could run up her secret stairs.
If the top door were left ajar, when she pulled the cord in her room, it would sound clearly in the storage space above her, alerting Mr. Darcy to his danger.
As soon as this was completed and tested to Mr. Darcy’s satisfaction, he set to work once more on his drawings of the machine whilst Lizzy sat in her room reading and listening for the warning bell from the library.
Rather, she sat trying to read. Concentration on the words before her was impossible, knowing that mere feet above her head sat Mr. Darcy, who had professed his love and offered her marriage, which offer she had then spurned.
He had not reiterated his offer, neither had he withdrawn it, and she had not given an answer.
She was quite uncertain as to the exact nature of their relationship—they were not engaged, nor estranged, but she could hardly consider it courting.
And still, his presence affected her in the most visceral of ways. It was all so very confusing.
The colonel had come by very briefly the afternoon after the dinner to pay his respects to the family and take his leave, for he had to return to his duties in London.
He was, once more, the cheerful, agreeable gentleman who had charmed everybody with his easy manners and happy disposition, and all agreed that it could not be too soon before they saw him again.
He had taken Lizzy’s hand and bestowed upon the back of it a kiss that sent Mama swooning and cooing about how grand it would be to form a connexion with the son of an earl.
“A duchess, Lizzy. You could be a duchess!” Lizzy rolled her eyes.
There was no use trying to explain to Mama that the colonel had no such intentions toward her, that an earl’s wife was a countess and not a duchess, or that his future wife was unlikely ever to achieve a title other than Mrs.
During the time that Mr. Darcy was in the storage room completing his drawings, Lizzy set herself to work in writing down her impressions of how the machine worked, with an eye to presenting a clear image to Mr. Mendel, should he agree to help.
Colonel Fitzwilliam had been given the clockmaker’s name and had returned a message through his cousin that an investigation showed Mr. Mendel to be exactly as he seemed—a loyal English subject with no ties to anyone suspicious and with no affiliation to any foreign power.
He could, the colonel suggested, be trusted in this matter.
A letter also arrived from Gracechurch Street, London, addressed to Lizzy.
It was, as expected, from her aunt and uncle, inviting her for a short stay the following week as the family began its preparations for Christmas.
Aunt Gardiner was a most perceptive woman, and had taken Lizzy’s hint, for she had suggested that “we might expect a fascinating man and his wife, to whom you are known already, to join us early in your visit, and who might be most interested in making the acquaintance of any friends of yours who might be in London at the time.”
Mr. Darcy worked in the attic room for three days, arriving in the morning after breakfast, and departing about an hour before dinner.
Lizzy believed he rode and left his horse tethered in the woods just beyond the park nearest to the tower garden, but he said little and she asked not at all.
She requested tea and cakes to be brought to her room, and invited him to join her, but he would take a sip of tea and a piece of cake or biscuit and return immediately to his task with little conversation.
There had been no instances of the Frenchmen returning during the day, although twice late at night, long after Mr. Darcy had returned to Netherfield, she had heard the quiet tinkle of her warning bell, which let her know that the men were returning to their labours in the room above her.
There they worked through the night and departed early in the morning, before dawn, before they might be noticed.
Where they went, Lizzy had not been able to determine, for there were no reports or gossip of a small group of men hiding in some hut or wandering through the villages anywhere in the area.
“I believe I have all I need.” His voice from the hidden doorway caused her to startle.
“My diagrams are complete, or as complete as I can manage without taking the casing off the machine, and I believe they are sufficient for a man of some knowledge to use. If I am so fortunate as to meet your aunt and uncle’s friend, I will entrust them to him. ”
His face was calm and unperturbed, but his eyes still spoke of pain.
Pain she had inflicted. She did not know whether she ought to speak or wait for him to renew his addresses.
Perhaps he was reconsidering his rash offer; if that were so, she could not accept a rescinded proposal, thereby forcing him into a marriage he did not want.
And yet she recalled Charlotte’s comments about Jane, advising her to pretend to more affection than she felt so as to capture a man.
He did not wait for a response, but added, “I shall return now to Netherfield, and then to London at first light. I must meet with Stanton, as I have arranged, although I shall tell him very little of what we have learned. I find I am increasingly uncomfortable with divulging information that certain divisions of the Home Office seem to consider highly confidential. I have left you my direction and look forward to hearing from you through your uncle when you are safely settled in his house.” He offered one of his deep and elegant bows and purred, “Farewell, Miss Elizabeth,” before disappearing through the doorway and down the stairs once more to his exit and escape from the house.
There now remained only two days before the Gardiners’ carriage was to arrive to convey her to their home in Town.
With Mr. Darcy gone and with all possible examinations of the code machine complete, Lizzy found herself quite out of sorts and in need of some employment.
Jane enticed her into completing some embroidery for some hours here, and Charlotte came seeking her assistance in preparing Christmas packages for the poor there, but much of the time lay heavily upon her; she could only repack her trunks so many times before she could think of no better way to fold her gowns.
“Lizzy!” Her mother’s voice cut through her thoughts after breakfast the morning she was to depart.
She had taken extra time at her morning walk in anticipation of the hours ahead in the carriage and was thinking still of the boys she had found playing in a puddle of mud.
How happy they seemed, and how unhappy their mothers would be upon having to clean those clothes! “Lizzy, have you heard a word?”
“Yes... I mean no, sorry, Mama. I was woolgathering.”
“Then I shall tell you once again: Mr. Collins has something to say to you alone, and I insist that you hear him.”
Her heart sank in her chest. She was departing this very day, and Mr. Collins was to be gone upon her return.
How greatly had she hoped to avoid this very interview, but the fates had not been in her favour.
She made the attempt nonetheless. “There is nothing Mr. Collins has to say to me that cannot be said here,” she gestured to her sisters who were still seated at the table.
“No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I insist upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins.”
There was nothing to be done but listen to what she knew would be a most unpleasant speech; she could see no happy resolution for either of them.
Sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again, and tried to conceal by incessant employment the feelings, which were divided between distress and diversion.
Mrs. Bennet bustled the rest of the company from the room, and as soon as they were gone Mr. Collins began.
“You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life.”