Chapter Sixteen
Darcy had never before found his London study so ill-suited to purpose.
It was a room intended for calm reflection, its shelves lined with orderly ranks of books, its escritoire perfectly arranged and its windows overlooking the elegance of Berkeley Square.
Ordinarily he valued precisely those qualities.
Today they seemed only to magnify his impatience.
He had crossed the room so often since breakfast that even Burke had ceased pretending not to notice.
The letter had been dispatched within an hour of his arrival in London.
It had contained no explanation beyond the urgent request that Colonel Fitzwilliam come to Berkeley Square with all possible haste.
Darcy had trusted that those few words would suffice.
Richard knew him too well to mistake urgency for exaggeration, yet two days had now passed with no sign of his cousin and every passing hour seemed another hour in which Captain Henderson remained at liberty.
Burke continued arranging the morning correspondence with a calm composure that was grating on Darcy’s last nerve.
"I cannot imagine what is detaining him."
Burke glanced up briefly. "I imagine, sir, that the colonel has encountered precisely the same inconveniences upon the road as every other traveller. The storm has done lasting damage, and the weather never did show much respect for rank."
"He ought to have been here yesterday."
"I daresay he thought so himself."
Darcy returned to the window, though there was nothing to be seen that he had not already studied a dozen times.
Carriages rolled steadily across the square, footmen hurried about their employers' business and a lady in an extravagantly feathered bonnet had spent the last quarter of an hour attempting to persuade an exceedingly obstinate pug to continue its walk.
The ordinary business of London proceeded with its usual unconcern, whilst the one man Darcy required appeared determined not to arrive at all.
At length he turned away with an expression of increasing dissatisfaction.
"It is intolerable."
"Patience has never been one of your virtues," said Burke mildly. He had to turn away to hide a smile when Darcy growled at him like a bad-tempered tiger. Darcy opened his mouth to return a more verbose rebuke when the sharp rap of the knocker echoed through the house.
A moment later voices carried faintly from the hall below, followed by the unmistakable sound of an animated greeting delivered in the cheerful carrying tones of a man who had spent many years making himself heard across parade grounds.
Burke's mouth twitched. "I believe your wait is at an end, sir."
The study door opened without ceremony.
"Darcy, my dear fellow! And Burke, just the man! Could you pour me a brandy before I die of thirst?"
Colonel Fitzwilliam entered without waiting to be formally announced.
He stripped off his gloves as he crossed the room, tossed them onto a side table, flung his hat and travelling coat across the nearest chair and dropped languidly into a seat.
A moment later his boots were resting comfortably upon the edge of Darcy's desk.
Only then did he glance up at his cousin with cheerful curiosity.
"I have abandoned perfectly respectable company and endured two nights at inns of distinctly doubtful character, all because you sent me the most mysterious letter I have received in years. I confess I have been inventing explanations for the last twenty miles."
Darcy sat opposite him with folded arms and a scowl that would have discouraged most men. Fitzwilliam, long since inured to such looks, merely examined his cousin's face with increasing curiosity.
"I had settled upon a duel. Now I am less certain."
Darcy made no attempt to answer the jest and a flicker of pain crossed his features.
The change in Fitzwilliam was immediate.
The easy smile faded from his face and, after a brief hesitation, he lowered his boots from the desk and leaned forward, his forearms resting upon his knees.
A drink appeared at his elbow courtesy of Burke and he tossed it back.
"Very well," he said quietly. "Whatever this is, it is plainly no laughing matter. Tell me how I can be of use."
Darcy remained silent for a moment. "I need to find a man," he said at last. "Captain Henderson."
Fitzwilliam frowned thoughtfully. "Henderson?" He rolled the name about as though testing whether it stirred any recollection. "There are several. Do you know his Christian name? His regiment?"
Darcy shook his head with visible frustration. "Neither. Only that he calls himself Captain Henderson and that he was travelling on the London road from Hertfordshire a few days ago."
Fitzwilliam considered this for a moment before nodding slowly. "If he belongs to the Regulars, there is every chance we can discover him. A name has a habit of finding its owner soon enough. If he is retired or on half-pay, the trail may be colder, but not necessarily beyond following."
He looked steadily at Darcy. "May I ask why this particular gentleman has become so important?"
Darcy rose from his chair and crossed to the window, though he saw nothing beyond the glass. When he spoke, his voice was perfectly controlled. "Because three mornings ago he laid hands upon a lady."
Fitzwilliam's expression darkened at once, but he remained silent.
Darcy kept his back turned and said more quietly, "He assaulted the woman I intend to marry."
Fitzwilliam stared at his cousin for several long moments before standing and reaching without a word for the decanter upon the sideboard. He replenished his own glass, considered it, then poured another and set it deliberately upon the desk before Darcy.
"I think," he said, "you had better begin at the beginning."
???
Gracechurch Street settled into its familiar rhythm with ease, as though determined to persuade Elizabeth that nothing extraordinary had ever happened to her at all.
The children proved effective allies in this endeavour.
Mrs Gardiner, whose pregnancy had reached the stage at which the mornings were often her most difficult hours, willingly surrendered them into Elizabeth's care for the early part of the day.
Lucy insisted upon hearing the same fairy tale every day and protested bitterly whenever Elizabeth attempted to alter the ending, whilst George required supervision for an endless succession of ingenious but ill-advised experiments involving toy soldiers, string and the family cat.
Edward, having reached the dignified age at which he considered himself almost a man, preferred to accompany Elizabeth on errands into Cheapside and explain the business of London with an authority that far exceeded his eleven years.
The occupation suited her. It left little opportunity for brooding whilst small voices were forever demanding stories, settling disputes or enquiring why pigeons preferred one rooftop to another.
In the afternoons she accompanied her aunt about the shops, carrying parcels and chatting about happy nothings.
The evenings belonged to quiet family suppers, backgammon with her uncle and reading aloud whilst little Lucy gradually fell asleep with her head against Elizabeth's shoulder.
To anyone observing the household she might have appeared perfectly at ease.
Only Elizabeth knew how carefully the appearance was maintained.
There were moments now when the shame which had followed her from the Golden Goose loosened its hold, only to be replaced by the glow of bright indignant anger.
How dare he? How dare one coarse, wicked stranger treat her that way?
The anger never lasted long. Before many moments had passed she would find herself wondering once more whether she ought never to have invited Mr Darcy into her bed, whether she had sealed her own fate by behaving so wantonly.
Yet the questions no longer silenced the anger quite so completely as they had done at first.
Mrs Gardiner observed Elizabeth closely, but made no remark. It was not until four days after Elizabeth's arrival that she chose to speak.
The children had been dispatched into the square under Mr Gardiner's supervision to sail paper boats in one of the ornamental fountains, whilst the house enjoyed one of those rare moments of complete quiet that seemed almost unnatural after so much youthful noise.
Mrs Gardiner sat near the drawing room window with a basket of mending beside her, pausing every so often to rest her hands upon her swelling stomach before taking up her needle once more.
Elizabeth occupied the opposite chair with a volume open upon her lap.
"You have been a blessing to me this week," Mrs Gardiner said at length, her eyes remaining upon her work. "I scarcely know how I should have managed the children without you."
Elizabeth looked up and smiled. "They have managed me far more than I have managed them."
"They adore you."
"They are very easy to adore in return."
Mrs Gardiner threaded her needle afresh. "Yes," she said quietly. "I only wish they had succeeded in making you quite as happy as you pretend to be."
Elizabeth felt the colour drain a little from her face. "I do not know what you mean."
"My dear," said Mrs Gardiner gently, still sewing, "I have known you since you were born. You were never a particularly accomplished actress."
Silence settled between them. Outside, a costermonger called his wares somewhere in the street below and the distant laughter of the children drifted faintly through the open sash.
Elizabeth lowered her eyes once more to the book in her lap, though the words had become little more than blurred black marks upon the page.
"I had hoped..." She stopped and attempted a smile that vanished almost as soon as it appeared. "I had hoped I had hidden it better than that."
Mrs Gardiner reached across the little table between them and laid her hand over Elizabeth's. "My dear Lizzy," she said softly, "whatever has happened, you need not bear it by yourself."
For several moments Elizabeth could only stare at their joined hands.
It was such an ordinary gesture, so familiar, that she felt something within her begin to loosen.
She had spent days pretending that nothing was amiss, smiling for the children, reassuring her aunt and uncle, speaking of flooded roads and The Golden Goose as though it had all been a great adventure.
When she finally spoke, her voice was scarcely more than a whisper."I have made a dreadful mess of everything."
Mrs Gardiner did not interrupt.
"I did not mean to." Elizabeth gave a small, unsteady laugh.
She looked towards the window, unable to meet her aunt's eyes.
"I think... I think I fell in love or something very like it.
" And then she stopped, because saying those simple words aloud made them suddenly, painfully real.
For a little while she could say no more.
The words seemed to exhaust what little courage she possessed.
Mrs Gardiner neither hurried nor questioned her, but sat quietly with her hand still resting over Elizabeth's until, little by little, the remainder of the story found its way into the room.
She told her of Netherfield and the gentleman whom she had once thought proud beyond endurance.
She spoke of the storm, of finding him unexpectedly upon the flooded road and of the strange refuge they had shared at the Golden Goose beneath borrowed names.
She confessed, with cheeks burning despite herself, that necessity had forced them into the same chamber, then into the same bed, though she hastened to explain that throughout it all he had behaved with a delicacy and honour she had scarcely believed possible.
She admitted, too, how she had come to love him, though neither of them had spoken the sentiment aloud.
At last she reached the morning she had tried so hard to forget.
The words came less easily then. More than once she faltered, unable to continue until Mrs Gardiner pressed her hand gently in encouragement.
Eventually and in fits and starts, she told it all: Captain Henderson's unwelcome familiarity, his cruel assumptions, the force with which he had seized her, the kiss she had neither invited nor returned and, worse still, the dreadful conviction that he had been able to see that she was an unvirtuous woman. That she had brought it upon herself.
When she had finished, the room remained silent for several moments. Elizabeth could not bring herself to lift her head. She had expected pity, perhaps even gentle disappointment. Instead she felt Mrs Gardiner's fingers tighten about her own. "Oh, my poor, dear girl."
Elizabeth gave a miserable little laugh. "You see? I told you I had made a dreadful mess of everything."
"No," said Mrs Gardiner with such quiet certainty that Elizabeth looked up despite herself.
"You have told me of a gentleman who conducted himself with honour under circumstances that would have tempted a weaker man, and another who behaved like a brute.
The only person who ought to feel shame is Captain Henderson. "
Elizabeth shook her head. "You cannot say that if you had seen us. We shared a room. We shared a bed. I kissed Mr Darcy before he had made me any declaration. What respectable woman behaves so?"
Mrs Gardiner smiled sadly.
"A respectable woman caught in extraordinary circumstances, who trusted an honourable gentleman." She paused. "Lizzy, had Mr Darcy attempted the smallest liberty with you that you did not welcome, would you be speaking of him now as you have done?"
"Never."
"Precisely. The fault does not lie in the room, nor even the kisses. It lies entirely with the man who believed he was entitled to force his attentions where they were neither wanted nor invited."
Elizabeth's eyes filled despite every effort to prevent it. "But I cannot stop thinking that, had I behaved differently, none of it would have happened."
Mrs Gardiner sighed softly. "My dear, that is the bargain every wicked man hopes a good woman will make with herself. It is far easier to persuade yourself that you ought to have acted differently than to accept that another person chose to behave abominably."
Her aunt let out a long breath. "And this Mr Darcy?"
Elizabeth closed her eyes. "He does not know."
"No?"
"I could scarcely bear for him to look at me afterwards."
Mrs Gardiner studied her niece for a long moment. "Lizzy, forgive an older woman for saying so, but from everything you have just told me, I do not think your Mr Darcy is nearly so easily frightened away as you imagine."
Elizabeth felt the tears that had been threatening begin to fall. "But then why hasn’t he come?" she choked through a sob as her aunt took her in her arms and allowed her to fall apart.