Chapter 12
Mr. Darcy
The message arrived by an innocent footman who knew nothing of any of it. He had taken the words from Miss Bingley's maid and carried them along as instructed.
"A lady in blue asks to speak with Mr. Darcy in the east saloon," McKeever repeated, in the flat, careful voice of a man reciting something he wished very much he did not have to.
Darcy looked across the crowded ballroom. Elizabeth stood beside Jane, shawl-less, her shoulders bare in the candlelight. She met his gaze and gave one small, steady nod.
She knew. Of course she knew.
He found Bingley near the supper-room door. "It has begun."
Bingley's jaw tightened until a muscle stood out along it. "I am coming."
They went together, McKeever following a few paces back.
Close enough to serve as a witness. Not so close as to look like company.
The east corridor stood empty, its lamps turned low for the ball, throwing long strange shadows against the panelling.
The saloon door stood ajar, a slice of lamplight falling across the corridor floor.
Caroline waited inside, wearing Elizabeth's blue shawl over her own silver gown.
The contrast made the theft plain at a glance.
Blue silk against silver silk, one borrowed and one bought.
She had arranged a single lamp behind her, so that anyone entering from the corridor would see the colour of that shawl before they saw her face.
Darcy stopped at the threshold. Bingley stood beside him, very still. Caroline turned with an expression of surprise so rehearsed it might have been performed for an audience of hundreds. It faltered the instant she saw her brother standing there too.
"Mr. Darcy. Charles."
"You sent for me," Darcy said.
"I did no such thing. Your valet must be mistaken."
McKeever stepped into the doorway's light. "The message came by way of Miss Bingley's own maid, madam."
"Then she misunderstood me entirely."
"Take off Miss Elizabeth's shawl," Bingley said.
Caroline's fingers found the fringe, defensive. "This is mine."
It was such a poor lie that Darcy nearly pitied her for it. Then he remembered Elizabeth standing bare-shouldered in a crowded ballroom while this very garment waited here to be used as evidence against her, and the pity was gone.
"Sarah mended that fringe with blue silk after Miss Elizabeth was caught in the rain," he said, each word deliberate. "McKeever chose that same thread for a book marker not a fortnight past. We could identify every knot in it if it came to that, Caroline."
Caroline's smile vanished as though someone had snuffed it like a candle.
Louisa came hurrying down the corridor, two ladies trailing a little way behind her. Curious rather than invited, drawn by the scent of scandal the way flies find an open pantry. When Louisa saw her brother standing at the door, she stopped short.
"Charles. I was looking for you."
"Send the ladies back to the ballroom," Bingley said.
Louisa obeyed at once. Her companions retreated, disappointed and no better informed than when they had arrived. Bingley stepped into the saloon. Darcy stayed at the open door. McKeever remained out in the corridor, a silent, immovable presence.
"Give me the shawl, Caroline."
She drew it off. Her hands were shaking now, and not, Darcy thought, entirely from anger. "This has been made to look far worse than it is. I only wished to speak privately with Mr. Darcy about his conduct."
"While wearing another woman's garment."
"It was a jest."
"You sent him a false message."
"My maid sent it."
"At your order."
Caroline turned to Darcy, pleading now. "Surely you understand. Miss Eliza has thrown herself in your path from the very moment she arrived. You were trapped in that pavilion. Everyone in the county expects an offer. I meant only to show you how easily appearances can be arranged, that is all."
"You meant to arrange them against me," Darcy said. "And you meant to use Elizabeth's name and Elizabeth's shawl without a moment's thought for her consent in the matter."
"I was protecting you. From a family beneath you."
"You were pursuing your own interest, Caroline. Do not dress it up as mine."
Caroline's eyes filled at last, glittering in the lamplight. Bingley looked away for one long moment. When he turned back to face her, the anger had gone out of him, leaving only something sadder in its place.
"You will go to Scarborough with Louisa and Hurst tomorrow," he said. "I will tell our guests that Louisa has had urgent news and that you have chosen to accompany her. Nothing of this leaves the family, or the servants who already know it."
"You are banishing me from my own brother's house. For a country girl."
"I am sending you away because you tried to force my friend's hand and injure my guest under my own roof, Caroline. Those are your words to answer for, not mine."
"Charles—"
"Tomorrow."
Caroline turned to Louisa for support. Her sister could offer none without admitting her own part in the whole affair, and so said nothing at all.
Bingley took the shawl and passed it to McKeever. "Return this to Sarah. She will see it back to Miss Elizabeth, and explain the truth of it."
"Yes, sir."
The handling was exact, careful. Darcy watched McKeever fold the blue fringe inward to protect it, the way a man handles something he has been entrusted with and means to honour that trust.
"I will stay with my sisters a while longer," Bingley said. "Go back to the ball, Darcy."
Darcy did not want to leave him alone with it. Bingley managed a tired, genuine smile anyway.
"Jane will worry if both of us are missing at once. Tell her I will be back shortly."
The Christian name came out without a flicker of self-consciousness this time. Bingley, Darcy was learning, had a courage of his own. Quieter than severity, and no less real for it.
Darcy went back to the ballroom.
Elizabeth was dancing with a Mr. Robinson when he came in. She saw him and finished the figure without a single misstep, though her eyes kept finding the door. Jane, for her part, had not stopped watching the east door since Bingley left. Darcy waited until the set ended.
"The shawl is safe," he told Elizabeth. "Bingley is with his sisters. He asks that Jane not be alarmed."
"She is already alarmed," Elizabeth said, with feeling.
Jane came to join them just then, and Darcy relayed Bingley's message with all the gentleness he could manage. "He will return as soon as he is able. He is not hurt."
"Thank you."
She accepted the limited account without pressing further, trusting him in a way that struck Darcy as rather remarkable, all things considered. Elizabeth did not accept it half so well.
"I want the whole truth of it, when we are able to speak properly."
"You shall have it."
"From you. Not filtered through some book marker this time."
"From me," Darcy said. "All of it."
They waited together. Bingley returned after the next dance had ended.
His usual brightness was subdued, but Jane's presence at his side steadied him, colour returning to his face by degrees.
Caroline did not reappear at all. Louisa sent word of a sudden headache.
Hurst carried on at cards without interruption, apparently the only innocent Bingley relation in the whole affair.
Supper was announced. The interruption gave Darcy the opening he had been waiting for.
"Miss Elizabeth. Will you walk with me in the orangery? The doors to the ballroom will stay open the whole time."
She glanced at Jane, who had Bingley's arm already. They agreed to follow along within sight, and Elizabeth took Darcy's arm.
The orangery ran the length of the ballroom's south side.
Candles lit the nearest end in warm gold pools.
Further along, moonlight silvered the glass and turned the sleeping orange trees to soft grey shapes.
Music and conversation still carried through both open doors, and the air smelled of citrus leaves and cold glass.
Underneath it all, the ghost of summer the trees seemed to be keeping in reserve.
Darcy told her everything, leaving nothing out.
Sarah's overheard warning. His own decision to wait.
The false message, the shawl, Bingley's presence, Caroline's poor denial, the journey to Scarborough arranged for the morning.
Elizabeth listened without a single interruption, her face pale in the candlelight.
"You should have told me before the ball," she said, when he had finished.
"Yes."
"Sarah feared I would stay away."
"I accepted her reasoning right up until the shawl was actually taken. That was wrong of me."
"You agreed because you wanted me there tonight."
"Yes."
The admission cost him nothing. It was simply true.
"I also believed the whole plan might come to nothing but words," he said. "I did not want to burden you with an accusation we could not yet prove. I should have let you decide for yourself whether that burden was rightfully yours to carry."
Elizabeth looked out through the glass at the dark garden beyond, where nothing moved but the faint silver shift of moonlight on wet grass. "I was angry with Sarah. I am angry with you."
"I know."
"I am also grateful. Which is thoroughly inconvenient of me."
"I have found gratitude a dangerous thing myself, ever since the pavilion." A small, rueful admission, offered without ornament.
She turned back to him. "Did you go into the room?"
"No. Bingley and I stayed together the whole time. The door stood open. McKeever waited in the corridor."
"And the two ladies Mrs. Hurst brought along?"
"They saw only Bingley and myself, standing at the door. Bingley sent them straight back."
"Then there is no public scandal in it."
"None."
Elizabeth's shoulders came down at that, some tension she had been carrying letting go at last. Darcy had watched her carry fear without complaint before, in the pavilion, in the rain.
He understood now, watching her, that relief needed someone to witness it too.
A person should not have to feel that particular unclenching alone.