Chapter 27
AN UNEXPECTED TRAITOR
W ith the east wing off limits for the foreseeable future, Darcy had taken over the Argyll room, at the opposite end of the house, as his permanent study.
It was a poky space by Pemberley’s standards, made even less welcoming by the pyramids of upended furniture and crates presently lining the walls.
For an hour, he had been picking his way through the unremitting stream of trivia and trouble that was strewn across his desk.
None of it ought to have taken this long to review, yet of late, he struggled to apply himself to anything, too occupied with the effort of ignoring the hollowness eroding him from within.
He snatched up another letter. This one was from Jacobs, expressing his professional reservations that even a decade’s worth of rainwater run-off could account for the severity of the damage sustained on the east wall.
‘Redirect the culvert, by all means,’ was his position, ‘but do not rely on it resolving the underlying issue.’ Would that Jacobs had applied himself as assiduously to identifying ‘the underlying issue’ as he had to decrying every solution Darcy’s own men had thus far proposed!
He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath.
‘Manifestly more than stones and mortar’—so Elizabeth had said, and so he kept repeating to himself.
Alas, such comfort as it gave was always countered by the misery induced by all reminders of her.
God knew Pemberley would be manifestly more if she were here, making it a proper home.
Someone knocked on the door, and he called an instruction for them to return later, then ran a hand over his face and forced himself to pick up Jacobs’s letter to read again, for it required an answer. He had forgotten the first knock entirely by the time the second came.
“Not now!” he repeated, this time allowing his displeasure to bleed into his voice.
To his consternation, the door opened anyway.
He prepared to deliver an angry remonstrance but bit it back when his housekeeper edged nervously into the room.
“Mrs Reynolds. I can only assume you did not hear me when I said I was not to be disturbed.”
“I did hear you, sir, forgive me, but I must speak to you. About something of the utmost importance.”
Darcy could not recall ever having cause to be angry with his housekeeper, and the sensation was not in the least agreeable. “Whatever your concern, Mr Ferguson is quite capable of dealing with it. There is nothing I can assist you with that he cannot.”
“I am afraid that is not so,” she said in a quavering tone. “This has to do with Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
“What?” The word tore from his lips before she finished speaking.
He regretted his discourtesy when Mrs Reynolds appeared to shrink from him.
Her shoulders folded inwards, and her countenance crumpled as though she might weep, which was most unlike her.
“You had better come in,” he said more collectedly.
His alarm increased when she shuffled into the room as though the weight of the world were bearing down upon her.
He waited with simmering impatience for her to come to a halt in front of his desk, but once there, she did not say a word.
She only fidgeted with her chatelaine and took the occasional deep, shaky breath.
It was as though someone had kidnapped his assured, competent housekeeper and replaced her with an awkward, inexperienced housemaid.
“Madam?”
“I beg your pardon, sir. It is difficult to know where to begin.”
“Well, I should be grateful if you would begin somewhere.”
She nodded and raised her head to look him in the eye. “I have made a terrible mistake.”
It took all Darcy’s restraint to wait in silence for her to gather enough courage to continue.
“When Miss Bennet first came to Pemberley, several things happened that made it appear she was not a friend to you.”
“And since when has it been your place to have an opinion on such matters?”
She ducked her head. “Never. I beg you would forgive my presumption, only it seemed very much as though Miss Bennet did not care for you beyond—that is, I had very serious cause to believe she was attempting to—that she would make you exceedingly unhappy. I know now that I was wrong, but I only wished to do the best by you, sir.”
“What have you done?”
She visibly swallowed. “I did not pass on her message to you.”
“What message?”
“That—that she was sorry to be leaving so suddenly. And that she—she hoped to see you again soon.”
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Darcy to remain calm. Fury, elation, despair, disbelief—they had all been whipped up at once, and he knew not which to respond to first. “When did she give you this message?” he said when he could be sure of his own voice.
“On the afternoon of the picnic.”
“And when did you have the opportunity of seeing her that afternoon?”
“She came to Pemberley, while you were with the magistrate.”
He launched himself to his feet. “Miss Bennet came here, and you did not see fit to tell me?” Darcy could scarcely believe what he was hearing.
Mrs Reynolds, whom he had known since he was four years old, who was gentle and kind, and who never allowed anything to go awry at Pemberley, had sabotaged everything.
He all but snarled a demand for her to tell him every word that was said and grew more enraged with each revelation.
“She asked to speak to you or Miss Darcy. I-I told her the family were not receiving visitors. She asked me to give you the message I have just relayed. Then she gave me a-a note for Miss Darcy, which said the same thing.”
“You read it?”
“I did, sir, heaven preserve me, I did. Then she—she returned your coat—”
Darcy spun away from her and gripped his jaw to prevent himself roaring at her in anger. Elizabeth had returned his coat! Not a servant—Elizabeth! In person, in the rain, seeking to see him before she left. And she had been sent away! “Where is the note she gave you for Miss Darcy?”
There was a pause before Mrs Reynolds eventually whispered, “I burnt it.”
“Good God!” he cried, beyond caring for manners. He whirled back to face her. “Why?”
“Forgive me, sir. I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what, exactly?”
“From Mr Wickham.”
Darcy recoiled as though struck. “What the Devil has Wickham to do with this?”
“He is the reason Miss Bennet was obliged to go home. He eloped with her sister.”
The room was not large enough for the surge of furious bitterness that overtook Darcy. The sound of his own, barely controlled breathing bounced back at him off the walls, and his voice, when he spoke, seemed to resound like thunder on the air, though he had not spoken any more loudly.
“Which?”
“The youngest I believe. Miss Lydia.”
“When?”
“At the beginning of August. They are married now.”
Darcy shook his head in disgust. “Miss Bennet revealed all this to you, and still you turned her away? You who know what sort of man Wickham is!”
“No, sir—she did not tell me any of this. She only asked that I pass on her farewell.”
“How do you know of it, then?”
Her entire frame slumped, and she exhaled feebly. “I stole her correspondence.”
Darcy had no capacity for shock remaining. He felt only bone-deep disillusionment as, with this ugly confession, one of the most trustworthy, respected, and enduring figures in his life revealed herself to be a total stranger.
Mrs Reynolds glanced up at him, and away again hastily, squeezing her eyes closed against whatever she had seen in his countenance.
“The postmaster asked me to pass them on, but the seal on one was broken. I saw Mr Wickham’s name written, and I know he has given you nothing but pain.
I was anxious that if Miss Bennet was connected to him, she should be kept away from you. ”
Darcy’s lip twitched, baring his teeth. “You have surpassed yourself in that case. She is gone. And I am struggling to comprehend why you are troubling yourself to reveal any of this to me now, given the extent of your success.”
She had begun crying, he noticed. Not sobbing, but tears were spilling down her wrinkled and hollow cheeks. With his boyhood affection for her ripped away, he saw for the first time how frail she had become with age. He wished her senescence had not arrived hand in hand with treachery.
“Because they are not doing very well. Mr and Mrs Wickham have no money and no prospects, and there is unkind talk, affecting the whole family. Miss Bennet’s father has been made unwell.
And I thought you would want to know. Because I understand now that my fears were unfounded—that Miss Bennet is not who I thought she was.
That she is important to you. I thought, perhaps, you might be able to help her.
That it might not be too late for you to—”
“Get out.”
“Mr Darcy, I cannot express the depth of my regret. I only wanted to protect you, to protect Pemberley—”
“Enough! You have done more damage to Pemberley by denying it Miss Bennet as its mistress than if every single wall crumbled to dust. Now leave !”
She did as he commanded. It was neither a hasty nor a graceful exit.
She fumbled and shuffled her way to the door, by which time, Darcy’s control had run out entirely.
Leaving Mrs Reynolds to hobble down the passageway, he wrenched open the opposing door and stormed instead through the billiard room, drawing room, and dining room into the hall, throwing doors open before him and leaving footmen scrambling to attention in his wake.
He charged up the stairs and into his bedroom, where he paced furiously back and forth, attempting to put everything he had been told in order.
He ought not to have been surprised to discover Wickham was involved—the man tainted everything in his path—but Elizabeth’s brother ?
How in blazes had that come about? He wished to rail at Miss Lydia but could not without censuring his own sister for the same frailty.
He knew, without a doubt, Elizabeth would think this was why he had not come—that a connexion to Wickham would extinguish his regard for her.
She would think that, because she did not know that he had loved her so deeply, and for so long, that his feelings had permeated every sinew of his body, every facet of his mind, and every fibre of his soul.
She had no way of knowing that a thousand ignoble relations could not injure his regard.
If he must accept Wickham as his brother to be with her, then so be it.
It would be more painful for Wickham than for him, of that he would make certain.
He rang the bell for his man, the act of which drove his thoughts to the servants’ quarters, and to the unfathomable actions of his housekeeper.
Mrs Reynold’s betrayal was sickening. Wickham’s behaviour was almost nothing in comparison, for his depravation was a well-known fact.
Hers was unprecedented. Darcy, like his mother and father before him, had trusted her, implicitly, with Pemberley’s intimate workings.
He had never doubted her loyalty, but it was in her power to cause untold damage to the Darcy name.
He shivered to think what else she had involved herself in beyond her admissions today.
Yet above and before all these concerns, there was Elizabeth.
She had not left to escape his attentions.
She had not sent his coat back to rid herself of any connexion to him.
She had not run away from him at all. She had run to her youngest sister, just as she had run to her eldest, when she took ill at Netherfield.
Her sublime compassion had taken her where she was needed, but she had come to him first .
Whether for assistance or comfort or merely to say goodbye, he cared not.
She had come to him, and so now he would go to her.
Vaughan entered from the dressing room. “You rang, sir?”
“I need you to pack. We are leaving for London tomorrow. Send word to Mrs Fairlight.”
“Of course, sir. And so that I might know what to pack, may I ask how long you anticipate being away?”
Darcy considered for a moment. He would need to speak to Ferguson to ensure the work on the house would be in hand in his absence, though in all likelihood, his steward would be pleased he was going; Darcy knew he had been getting under the man’s feet these past weeks.
Then there was Wickham’s chaos to set straight, and he knew not how long that might take.
Then there was the simple fact that he did not wish to return to Pemberley without Elizabeth.
“As long as it takes,” he replied. “Best pack well.”