Chapter Twenty-Eight
Execution
Elizabeth watched in wonder as her Papa transformed from antagonistic defender of his prize to eager collaborator.
She had not realised how much the past several weeks had troubled her, for even after learning that he was not a traitor to his country, until this moment he and she had been working at cross purposes.
Now, at last, they were reunited in a single purpose, one which would complete the task his cousins had set out for him and which, at the same time, would further England’s battle against the Corsican monster.
That he was now in accord with Mr. Darcy’s aims and those of Colonel Fitzwilliam, whom she had grown to like very much, merely added to her satisfaction.
Her three companions were soon deep in discussion over how best to execute their plans, and she inserted herself into the conversation with every assurance that her ideas would be taken at full value.
These were not men to discount her suggestions because she was a woman.
She was fortunate, she reflected, to be in the company of such men.
Not all of her sex would be so well heeded.
By the time the second tray of coffee and breads and jams had been sent back empty to the kitchens, the four had arrived at a plan. Papa insisted upon including his cousins in the arrangements, which notion was accepted with some arguments by the two men from London.
“It was their hard work and personal risk which brought this machine into our hands,” Papa insisted, “and they are the ones who will be most endangered by our scheme. I must have their agreement. I shall argue vociferously on your behalf, but they must be in accord. I will not be denied this.”
“So be it,” the colonel nodded at last. “How will you arrange to convey the message to them?”
Papa winked. “Follow me, gentleman. And milady,” he smiled at Lizzy.
He proceeded to the secret doorway in his library and led the others up the long circular stairwell until he arrived at the panel in the wall that mirrored the one leading from her own stairs.
This was the first time Lizzy had been in this hidden stairwell, and she compared it with her own.
There was no landing or doorway panel on the storey that housed her own chambers; this was why she had never discovered this second set of stairs.
When all were in the storage room, Papa walked to the window and opened the draperies that hung heavily over the single window. When they were completely drawn, he took a taper in a candlestick and set it upon the sill, far to the right.
“This is our signal. Curtains fully drawn mean we must meet. The candle on the right tells of my suggested site for the rendez-vous. We shall wait here for a response. In the meantime, Colonel, may I request your explanation of how the machine works and how these new discs will match the old?”
“I am more than pleased to tell you, Sir,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied, “but the real credit belongs to Darcy and your daughter for breaking the code. I should not presume to claim for myself what they have earned.”
In the end, it was Lizzy herself who explained to her father what she and Mr. Darcy had been able to discover.
She told of her notions of how the machine worked and then praised her friend for his meticulous drawings that had enabled the craftsmen—she still did not name Mr. Mendel—to recreate a functioning version of the device.
“But be aware, sir,” Mr. Darcy added, “It was Elizabeth who determined the exact nature of the code. She is a jewel; you ought to be most proud of her.”
“That, I can assure you, sir, I am.” Lizzy felt her face grow red, but she could not stop her smile.
With Papa’s permission, the colonel began to tinker with the damaged code machine.
Eyes wide, Lizzy watched as he manipulated some buttons and external levers.
The long arm holding the discs swung loose, and he wrestled with the first disc until it dislodged from the arm and came loose.
He held it up to the light with a wide grin.
“Darcy, shall we see how accurate your measurements are?”
He reached into his bag and extracted one of the new discs.
Papa was staring with full attention and emitted a sound somewhere between a gasp and a chortle as the colonel held the two discs up against each other.
Besides a slight difference in the colour of the metal and the order of letters upon each, they looked identical.
When the colonel placed the new disc upon the rod with the originals, it fit exactly.
“I say!” Papa breathed, whilst Mr. Darcy smiled more widely than ever she had seen him do.
“It’s perfect,” he chuckled. “Never doubt me again, Richard,” he teased his cousin.
Before long, the entire set of discs had been replaced with the counterfeits, and the machine was tested, as much as it would work, with the replacements.
“There!” Colonel Fitzwilliam gave a resolute nod. “No one need ever know that these are false. Our trap is ready to be sprung.”
Lizzy glanced up from the table to see a plume of smoke drifting upwards from some nearby cottage in the woods. “Papa, is that what you hoped to see?”
The party moved towards the window. The brown treetops were so many skeletal fingers reaching for the watery grey heavens, the wisp of smoke almost inconsequential against this bleak and colourless scenery.
Knowing that there was a small gardener’s shed in that part of the woods, about a half-mile distant, Lizzy might have seen that signal every day and not once have given it a second thought.
She turned to her father with a question on her face, but he merely answered with a smile. “They have accepted the request. Shall we?” He gestured to the doorway. “If they are close to hand, I suggest taking your winter coats.”
When all were assembled once more in the library with their winter boots and outer garb, Papa led them through to the salon below Lizzy’s bedchamber, where he opened a panel that Lizzy had never before seen.
A doorway appeared on the opposite side of the fireplace to the one leading to Lizzy’s room, from which cold air swirled into the room.
“Follow me,” he invited the small party.
This door also led to a stairwell, but this one led not upwards, but down into the cellars, and then down further still.
Surrounded as they were by the frozen ground, and far from the warmth of the fire, the walls emitted waves of dire cold and the air was dank and smelled of rotten leaves and mildew.
At last, after what felt like two storeys, the stairs levelled off, leading into a long passageway that disappeared far beyond the meagre light of Papa’s lamp.
The cold was deeper here, as intense as the unremitting inky blackness that stretched before them, and where water had seeped in through some unseen crevasse or chink, patches of ice made the walk treacherous.
At one place, Papa called for the adventurers to hold their steps.
“This area was blocked when part of the wall fell in,” he warned.
“My cousins have been clearing it when not at their other labours and have only this week rendered it passable and safe. There is much debris still, so please watch your steps.” And indeed, piles of stone and gravel covered the ground here, whilst the one wall was buttressed with a lattice of wooden staves and boards.
They walked for what seemed hours, but which Lizzy afterwards learned was only about fifteen minutes, through the tight pool of light from the single lamp, its flame flickering and sending wild shadows onto the walls of the tunnel.
By necessity they walked close together, and Lizzy was acutely aware of the presence of the two men so close to her side.
When, at one place, her foot slipped on a sliver of ice on the frozen stone floor, Mr. Darcy reached out to grasp her arm to right her and would not relinquish his hold on her arm.
In truth, she had been in no danger of falling, neither did she need his support, but the feeling of his strong hand on her arm pleased her so that she did not object or declare her competence to walk unassisted.
She dared to give his arm a slight squeeze where her arm now rested upon it, and in response he tugged his arm closer to his body, bringing her hand with it and filling her with a warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature in the dank space.
Thank goodness Papa was ahead of them and did not see this intimate gesture!
At last the passageway came to an abrupt end in a heavy wooden door.
Papa must have known when they were approaching it, for he slowed his steps; had she been alone, Lizzy would not have seen it in the darkness until she was right upon it and would have walked right into it.
No chink of light showed through the seams either at the sides or at the bottom, and the dark stained wood was black against blackness.
Only gradually now, in the shadows cast by the flickering flame, did Lizzy begin to see that the passage itself did continue, veering sharply to the right.
“It continues another couple of hundred yards and comes out in one of the storage sheds beyond the park.” Papa’s voice was scarcely a whisper in the silence.
Papa now held up his hand in a warning to refrain from noise—although the small troupe had spoken hardly a word on their journey—and rapped upon the door in some pattern he must have arranged with his cousins.
He waited a moment, then repeated the pattern, and at length drew out of some pocket a key, with which he unlocked the door and pressed it open.
The darkness now seemed even deeper, as if the light from the feeble lamp were swallowed by a great curtain, which proved to be exactly the case. The velvety blackness was shown to be dark velvet draperies, which, when drawn aside, at last revealed the room on the other side.