Restitution #6
The red-faced orator spoke up. “No, your worship. We’re forming a party to search out a vagabond. A seducer, if you’ll pardon me. A magical fellow, a foreigner, who was making addresses to my daughter Bess, sir.”
“Ah, I see,” said the naval officer, with the air of one familiar with the phenomenon. “Got her with child and gone to sea, has he?”
“Well… no, sir… He only talked to her. But in a very particular manner, for ten minutes, when she was to be serving customers, sir. Cast a spell on her, I’m sure. He’s a conjurer, like I said. And foreign. Sicilian, if you can believe it.”
The officer looked well able to believe it. He was opening his mouth to reply when two dark figures stepped from the mob, clad in black clothes and hats and looking like two ravens among a flock of pigeons.
“Good sir,” the first of them said to the officer, “forgive my interruption, but I believe I can be of service to you and this poor, wronged father.”
The accent was Mediterranean, Robson knew that much. The voice itself sent shivers down his spine, as though it were that of a predator heard near at hand in the dark of the night.
“Oh? Do you know him, then?” asked the officer.
“We have long sought him,” the speaker confirmed.
“He offered grave insult to certain great men of our island. Men it is unwise to offend. We are the means of their retribution. Leave us to search for him. These good men may go back to their lawful affairs, and this interruption to your duties is finished.”
At that moment, Robson’s attention was drawn to some slight movement on the periphery of the malodorous alley. He waited, and it happened again.
Piled against the whitewashed side wall of the inn were empty ale casks of various sizes.
One of the larger casks rose and began to move slowly down the alleyway.
It seemed to grow bolder as it moved farther from the sound of the crowd and gathered speed, revealing a pair of scuffed, green suede cavalier boots.
Certainty forming in his mind, Robson followed. The alley was long, and before they reached the end, he had drawn level with the cask. The feet beneath the barrel slowed as they reached the junction at the end of the alley. Robson reached over, gripped the cask by its banding, and heaved.
Revealed was a wiry man with a gaunt, hawk-like face and a profusion of glossy black hair.
His snowy shirt, which was open almost to the navel, had the most elaborate ruffled collar Robson had ever seen and his frock coat, where the material was yet visible between the gold frogging, passementerie, and epaulettes, was a surprising shade of shell pink.
There was a moment of stunned silence, then a knife appeared in the man’s hand as if by magic, and he sprang forwards with the cry,
“Ne mortù ni vivù mi pighiartti!”
Robson, who had made some money as a prize fighter when he had first left London, sidestepped, relieved him of his weapon with a sharp twist, and faced the man as he recovered himself.
“Porcù!” The man spat. He waved both hands in the air before him. “I declare I shall run no more! You have chased for too long Il Miraggio. You, who have the misfortune to face me, I shall cast you from this world entirely, should you take one more step.”
“Well, that is a pity”, said Robson mildly. “Because I happen to have a job for you.”
Sarah brushed Jane’s hair in silence. Jane regarded her maid’s profile in the mirror. The girl had been getting steadily quieter these past weeks and, while never rude, had evaded her mistress’s attempts to converse as they used to do.
Those who had known Jane before her marriage considered her an astute observer, but not a woman of action.
This, she admitted, was not unreasonable given all they had seen of her.
It had been her curse to see all, to know for a certainty to what end this or that action would tend for those around her, and yet to feel that there was nothing she could do that would mend matters more than it would make them worse.
Now, however, she was mistress of her own house and also gaining a far greater admiration for her mother.
Mrs Bennet was ill-informed and widely ignorant, but she managed the seething, Byzantine tangle of intrigues that were Longbourn’s servants with singular mastery.
Mrs Kerridge, whatever else she was—and Jane was not without her suspicions—seemed determined to break Sarah’s spirit and drive her from the house.
What she might stoop to in order to accomplish it was not yet clear, and so Jane meant to put her to a test. To lay one of her mother’s favourite traps.
“Camberley,” Jane said, in her calm way. “I have a favour to ask you, if you are willing.”
“Of course, ma’am”, the girl said, lowering the hairbrush.
“I left a book in the summerhouse,” she said, indicating, through the window, the Grecian folly beside the lake. “In one of the cupboards, I think, or maybe on a shelf. Would you retrieve it for me? Then you may have the evening off.”
“But… your bath, ma’am? It’s Thursday,” said Sarah.
“Leave it until tomorrow, I think. Then the party on Saturday, and we can return to our usual routine after that.”
Sarah nodded and left.
Jane waited until she could see her walking across the lawn outside before pulling the bell cord. In Sarah’s absence, and with Mary on her day off, Mrs Kerridge would answer the bell.
While she waited, Jane opened her jewellery case and selected an especially showy silver pendant with what appeared to be a marquise-cut ruby in the setting.
Appeared only because, in fact, it was nothing but glass.
She gathered a nightgown from her wardrobe and, crumpling it, cast it on the floor in full view of the door.
She laid the pendant on top, as though it had been carelessly discarded.
She was back at her dressing table when Mrs Kerridge arrived and, in the mirror, saw the housekeeper’s eyes flick at once to the dropped gem, then away.
“You rang, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Jane, with affected vagueness. “I’m just about to bathe. Camberley will be up presently, but I just wanted to check about Saturday.”
“Again, ma’am?” Mrs Kerridge asked, stonily. They had spent two hours that day discussing the event.
“Will we have enough wine, do you suppose?” Jane asked.
“Yes, ma’am. There are hundreds of bottles in the cellar, as we discussed this morning.”
“Ah,” said Jane, smiling sunnily at her. “Of course! I had forgotten. Yes, that seems quite enough, does it not? You may go.”
She watched Mrs Kerridge leave. Jane went into the small room off her chamber that she used for bathing and only partially closed the door.
The bath was empty and the fire unlit, so the air was chilly, and even her shallow breaths seemed to echo strangely.
She stood just by the door and listened.
As the time stretched out, she began to doubt herself.
What an absurd thing to be doing, standing breathlessly in one’s bathroom hoping to hear evidence of ill intentions in one’s servants.
It was not only for her own sake, however, not the idle and somewhat egotistical pursuit it had been for her mother. It was also for Sarah.
There it was. The tiniest click of the door handle being carefully turned. The very beginning of the creak of a floorboard, before the erring foot was hastily lifted. She heard nothing more than that, but Jane smiled to herself at the grim pleasure of being proven justified in her dislike.
She waited a few minutes more, to be safe, then re-entered the room. The crumpled nightgown was gone from the floor, as was the pendant.
The Darcys arrived on Friday, the eve of the party.
Mrs Darcy was first out of the carriage, waiting for neither steps nor footman, but leaping down and running to embrace the sister she had last seen at the wedding.
Miss Georgiana Darcy came next, and Mr Darcy, master of Pemberley and quite the most handsome man any of the servants had ever seen, followed last. He and Mr Bingley shook hands heartily, and they were all very content in one another’s company until it was time to retire.
Mrs Darcy had brought no maid, hers having been stricken with a cold at the moment of their departure.
It was thus that Sarah found herself brushing out Mrs Darcy’s hair that night, while Mary saw to Mrs Bingley.
She admired the glossy, brown tresses as she worked, stealing more glances at Mrs Darcy in the mirror than perhaps she ought.
Mrs Bingley was beautiful, it was true, but there was something positively compelling about her sister’s face, the expressiveness of the mouth and eyes, the eyes themselves, with their brightness and depth and complexity of colour.
Whereas Mrs Bingley was serene, seeming to exist somehow apart in a state of sublime equilibrium, Mrs Darcy gave the impression of inexhaustible energy that she nevertheless controlled and directed with a force of will that was like a stout leash on the collar of some powerful animal.
She was a joy to work for, knowing as though by instinct when to turn or lower her head, and smiling warmly whenever Sarah caught her eye.
When all was done, Mrs Darcy said, “Thank you, Camberley.” Then she leaned a little forward and grinned.
“Tell me, how much do you believe Mrs Kerridge has stolen from the Bingleys so far?”
Sarah felt the colour drain from her face, and she knew her mouth flopped open and closed several times like that of a landed fish. “You… how did you know, ma’am?”
Mrs Darcy’s eyes widened and leaned in further, lowering her voice to a whisper, though she was plainly more amused than shocked.