Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE OWL DESCENDS
Darcy
Bingley, that blasted man who had never once savored silence, provided commentary on everything and nothing for the entirety of our ride to the western fields and back.
The day was delightful, the sun was shining, and the hedgerows were commendable.
Yet it was the Bennet sisters who captivated his discourse.
He wondered aloud how Miss Bennet was faring, without specifying which of the five Miss Bennets occupied his curiosity, perhaps all of them.
He described each sister’s peculiarities in such exhaustive and affectionate detail that by the time we reached the boundary stream, he had painted a portrait of the Bennet household so glowing it might have hung in the Royal Academy.
He seemed particularly pleased with Miss Elizabeth’s influence on Georgiana’s spirits, reliving the flour incident and Caroline’s rescue from sheep dung with such magnified delight that I began to wonder whether Miss Jane Bennet’s angelic disposition had been supplanted in his affections.
Even more troubling, I could not discern whether it was Georgiana or Elizabeth who had caught his fancies, and neither possibility sat well with me—the first because it was inappropriate, and the second for reasons that were too discomfiting to consider.
Hence, I dismounted in a rather prickly mood, despite the satisfactory progress of the drainage reroute.
The surveyor had met with Mr. Bennet’s man, the gradient corrected, and Longbourn’s lower fields no longer in peril.
While I longed to share this news with Miss Elizabeth—purely out of contractual obligation and certainly not to witness that expression she wore when proven right—I could not seek her out.
She would be engaged either in the music room with Georgiana or absorbed in the improving volumes I had recommended: sermons, perhaps, or even my mother’s journals on estate management.
Shaking the field dust from my boots, I entered Netherfield with every intention of seeking refuge, when Caroline’s shrill voice disturbed whatever measure of equanimity I had sought.
She reclined on her chaise, as imperious as Mrs. Long’s pug, while wearing the pained expression to magnify her injury—now reclassified by Mr. Jones as a twisted ankle rather than a real sprain.
“There you are.” She waved a hand with the languor of a woman who had been suffering in our absence and wished us to know the extent of the sacrifice. “I have been quite alone all morning. Louisa has gone to Meryton for ribbons, and your Miss Bennet took Georgiana out botanizing hours ago.”
“Botanizing?” Bingley raised both eyebrows along with his grin. “Is that now a word?”
I froze, awaiting her verdict with a new sense of dread. What had this intelligent companion I had procured gotten my sister into now?
“It is not a word, Charles, it is a catastrophe.” Caroline adjusted her shawl with the air of a woman steeling herself to deliver distressing intelligence.
“Your Miss Bennet marched Georgiana out through the kitchen door—not the front, not the garden entrance, but the kitchen door—armed with baskets and shears like a pair of tenant farmers’ wives.
They set about collecting herbs and vegetables, and heaven knows what manner of root from the dirt.
With their bare hands, I am told. Mrs. Jolliffe reports they were seen digging wild garlic on all fours, and subsequently climbing trees for apples—climbing, Darcy—after which they sat upon a stile and pelted ducks with the cores.
I understand the countryside offers limited diversions, but I had not previously considered the harassment of waterfowl to be among them.
” She pressed a hand to her temple. “They have been gone three hours now, chaperoned by nothing more respectable than sheep, cows, and whatever species of mud presently decorates the hem of Miss Darcy’s muslin.
I did suggest that Georgiana might prefer to stay and practice her sonatas, but Miss Bennet seemed quite determined to drag her through the hedgerows.
One does wonder what sort of cultural instruction involves mud. ”
Caroline’s indictment was complete and thorough.
I excused myself without comment, because commenting would have required admitting that my principal concern was not the mud on my sister’s muslin but the three hours during which Elizabeth Bennet had been exercising a guardianship I had not granted and my sister had not resisted.
I found Mrs. Nicholls in the kitchen and directed my questions to her. She confirmed Caroline’s litany but added, “Miss Bennet mentioned plant identification. Miss Darcy seemed very eager.”
Eager. My sister, who had practiced indifference as a vocation for two years, had been eager to collect plants.
“And the cat?” I asked, because by this point in my tenure at Netherfield, the ginger cat had become as reliable an indicator of Elizabeth’s whereabouts as a compass needle pointing north.
“In and out of the orchard all morning, sir. You know how she is—that cat treats Netherfield like her own estate. You are aware, I suppose, that she belonged to the previous tenant and was left to her own devices once he vacated.”
No, I was not aware, but Cinnamon was the least of my concerns.
Aloud, I said, “You say they have not returned.”
“No, sir, but the cat—”
I stormed out the kitchen door, no longer concerned about the propriety of a gentleman seen in the domain of servants.
My sister had been mislaid three hours in the company of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
I refused to picture Georgiana smiling or laughing as the two got up to mischief.
My sister was destined to be a mistress of a well-run estate and needed the discernment and authority befitting the highest circles.
Bingley had trailed me from the parlor with the bright-eyed alertness of a spaniel who has heard the word walk.
“Darcy, this sounds like a tremendous adventure. Climbing trees! Pelting ducks! I have not pelted a duck since I was twelve. Do you suppose they are still about? We could join them. I am an excellent duck-pelter, and I have been told my apple-throwing form is—”
“Bingley.”
“Yes?”
“My sister is missing.”
“Your sister is botanizing. There is a difference. One involves danger, and the other involves garlic.”
Ignoring his cheerful commentary, I found Cinnamon sitting on a fallen apple with a length of dark-green ribbon trailing from her mouth. She regarded me with the unblinking composure of a creature who had been expecting me and was not impressed by the delay.
“What have you got there?” I crouched, and she deposited her trophy at my boots. The ribbon was Elizabeth’s. I recognized it from her bonnet on the day she arrived. It was now muddied at one end and frayed on the other, suggesting it had been lost accidentally.
“Where is your mistress?” I asked the cat, which was the sort of question a rational man does not pose to an animal, and which I had been posing to this particular animal with increasing regularity.
Cinnamon turned and sauntered towards the orchard’s edge, her tail swishing gracefully as she approached the stile separating it from the meadows beyond.
I followed, and at the stile, the evidence became clear.
Two sets of footprints in the soft ground: one confident, the stride of a woman who knew the terrain, and one smaller, more hesitant, the tread of a girl who had never climbed a stile in her life.
On the rail itself, a thread of muslin clung to a splinter, and I recognized the weave as Georgiana’s morning dress. My sister, an earl’s granddaughter, had perched on this rough-hewn stile like a farmer’s daughter. Incredible.
Beyond, the stream glinted in the midday light, and there, pressed into the soft mud of the bank, the two sets of footprints headed toward Longbourn’s fields.
A surge of indignation and alarm rose in my chest—immediate and achingly familiar—the same protective instinct that had driven me to Ramsgate, that had birthed the programme, that governed every decision I made regarding my sister’s welfare.
She was unprotected, in a house I had not inspected, with people I had not approved, and exposed to influences I could not manage.
And yet. The footprints told a story. Two girls walking side by side, close enough that their steps overlapped at the stream crossing, one guiding and one trusting.
Nobody had been dragged anywhere. Nobody had been coerced.
The cautious footprints had chosen each stone deliberately, and the choosing was visible in the mud.
“Darcy!” Bingley chased after me with his long strides, as if out on an excursion rather than pursuing my sister’s propriety.
Any excuse that placed him in proximity to Longbourn was welcome in his mind.
“Mrs. Nicholls tells me you are looking for Miss Darcy. I believe she’s gone visiting with Miss Elizabeth.
Shall we ride over? Mrs. Bennet makes extraordinary biscuits. ”
“This is not a social call, Bingley.”
“Assuredly not. You’re retrieving your sister from a neighbor’s field. I am merely providing moral support.” He grinned. “And perhaps paying my respects to the family. It has been several days, what with the gig and Caroline’s ankle, and I confess I have been meaning to call.”
His suggestion to take the horses was sensible, rather than two gentlemen tramping over meadow and field to appear muddied and brambled at Longbourn’s back door.
En route to the stables, I scooped up Cinnamon, who permitted this liberty with the regal tolerance of a monarch being conveyed by sedan chair.
She nestled into the crook of my arm, her purr vibrating against my ribs.
“You are bringing the cat?” Bingley asked.