Chapter Nineteen
Invitations
Darcy had been three days in London, tending to affairs both personal and related to his estate. His staff at his town house all expressed their pleasure at his regained health and strength, and his housekeeper insisted upon him demonstrating to her the comfortable and full use of his arm.
A visit to Doctor Yarrow and his own personal physician confirmed that no further worries need be taken on that account, although the former still urged caution as to his head.
“How have the headaches been?” he asked, an avuncular look upon his mild face.
Darcy admitted to the megrim, to which the doctor clucked and replied that such was not unexpected, and that a complete recovery could take months.
“All I can recommend is rest,” he added, “which must be anathema to an active young man as yourself. Keep the more troublesome problems to a minimum,” he added, “and do not think too hard. You will mend in good time.”
Darcy thanked the man for his advice and compensated him for his time, thinking all the while that Stanton had clearly not informed Yarrow as to the task of discovering what he could of the code machine.
If Yarrow had known of the hours and hours of intense concentration spent in the examination and drawing of the particulars of the machine, he would surely have sent Darcy to bed for a month with nothing to do but sleep.
He paid some social calls to friends who had been inquiring as to his health and whereabouts, and another to his uncle and aunt, Lord and Lady Matlock.
Ever since the night of his ill-fated proposal, he had rethought each word he had uttered and stewed over his poor choices.
Surely Elizabeth would never consider him now!
They must work together still, for the code machine and its secrets still brought them together, but from the moment she had rejected him, her eyes had grown cold and the familiarity they had found had vanished in a moment.
Still, if he dared speak again, and if by some blessing of fate she accepted him, he must have his relatives’ approval of the match in order to smooth her way in society, and protect Georgiana.
No hint of a scandal could touch his sister, and the Matlocks were key to both concerns.
Luckily, his visit to his aunt and uncle coincided with a visit by Richard, their son, which gave Darcy added strength.
The meeting itself went as well as Darcy had expected.
The earl, a crusty old man who bore more family resemblance both in feature and character to Aunt Catherine than to his own late mother, listened to a recital of Elizabeth’s many attributes with a disapproving scowl, asked after her family and fortune, and upon hearing Darcy’s reply, stormed around the room shouting about how he had responsibilities to his family and to Pemberley.
“I absolutely refuse ever to acknowledge the girl should you dishonour the Fitzwilliam family with such a poor choice, William!” His voice rang throughout the house.
This was no more than Darcy had expected and he bore the assault with equanimity.
Lady Matlock, his Aunt Hermione, waited for her husband’s storm to abate before asking Richard, “What think you of this young lady?”
“She is everything proper and well suited to Darcy,” he replied with his garrulous smile.
“She is a gentleman’s daughter, well-spoken and intelligent, with a sparkling character and excellent manners.
And she is very pretty, which a lady ought to be if at all she can help it.
I believe you would rub along well with her, Mother. ”
Lady Matlock inclined her noble head. “Then I shall meet this young woman and if I approve of her character, I shall introduce her to my circle.” Lord Matlock glowered, but the case was settled and there would be no further arguments.
One other call needed to be paid, and that was to Lord Stanton.
Darcy had exchanged a great many letters with the baron during his weeks of recuperation at Netherfield but had only seen Stanton once during that time on one of his rare visits to Town to meet with Yarrow.
Stanton was a busy man and was less in Town than travelling around the country to see to his estates and conduct whatever business was involved in his work with the Home Office.
It was only on Darcy’s third day in Town that he received a reply to his message to Stanton, with abject apologies for the delay, an explanation of being out of town, and an invitation to dine.
Darcy was genuinely pleased to see his friend, and Stanton appeared to feel likewise.
Any apprehension as to Stanton’s actual position in the ranks of the government were quashed in favour of his pleasure at visiting once more with his friend.
For a moment, Darcy felt some guilt about asking Richard to make his inquiries into the baron’s position.
For his part, Stanton expressed his delight at seeing Darcy so completely recovered, asked about the neighbourhood at Meryton, and confessed that Darcy looked so exceedingly well that one would never know he had been so grievously injured, and so recently.
Over fine brandy, they discussed common acquaintances in Town and around England, and over a superb meal they talked about some new advances in steam power and the need to preserve natural spaces for birds and other creatures of nature whilst at the same time working to advance England’s industrial capabilities.
It was only after dinner, when they were sitting at ease in the comfortable room off Stanton’s library, taking their port and cheese, that the topic of conversation moved to that of the Frenchmen and their machine.
Darcy had given much thought to how much he ought to divulge.
From what he had seen and what little he had learned from Richard, the operation at Longbourn (whatever it might be) had the approval of some of the very highest levels of government, and they (whoever they were) had chosen to keep the matter a secret from Stanton’s superiors.
It was not up to him to break that confidence.
He certainly could not reveal that the device was French and not English, although he could not imagine why this vital detail ought to be secret.
Was it possible that Stanton’s superiors were less loyal to the Crown than good Englishmen ought to be?
Still, these were matters to be decided by men with far more knowledge of espionage and battle tactics than he and so he kept his silence.
In the end, he decided to tell Stanton only what he already knew, although embellished with enough detail to allow his friend to believe that great progress had been made.
He explained that he had, indeed, seen the machine, and described it for him.
“It is fairly large—too large to be kept in a pocket or even in a reasonable portmanteau, and likely far too heavy—and it sits upon a table. There is a cylindrical part of the machine on top, consisting of a large number of discs, each with a string of letters of the alphabet arrayed on its edge, and all placed atop the mechanical box, with its series of buttons and dials and levers. This part has been damaged quite severely, but I have not been able to assess the exact extent of the damage.”
Better to allow Stanton to believe that he had not been allowed close enough or prolonged enough access to the machine for a more detailed analysis than to admit to having sketched it most carefully but with limited understanding of the inner workings.
He had not committed a falsehood, merely allowed his friend to draw his own conclusions from a careful recitation of the truth.
“And the Frenchmen themselves?” Stanton asked. “Have you any notion of where they are, or of Bennet’s exact connexion with them?”
Here Darcy could speak unvarnished truth.
“I cannot say. They seem to come and go in the darkest hours of night, and they disappear into the woods like smoke. I have seen them depart the house, but have been unable to follow them, and I have heard not a word in the village or amongst the farmers about strangers in the vicinity. There is a Gipsy camp nearby, which I believed might have been their hiding place, but the denizens therein all have the dark complexions of their people, and look nothing like Frenchmen. The militia nearby also keep a close eye on both the camp and the town, and there is very little contact between the two. I do not believe the Gipsies are anything other than what they seem: a wandering group just passing through the area.”
Stanton seemed pleased enough with this report, although he clearly had hoped for more, and asked if Darcy were able to remain in Hertfordshire for a while longer, in the event that more information might become available.
“Indeed I can, Lord Stanton. Bingley is becoming more comfortable with his estate but still has a question for me every half day, and I have formed an attachment with a young lady from the neighbourhood, which gives me an excellent reason to remain without suspicion.” He did not mention the lady’s name.
There was no reason to raise concern that was not warranted.