2. II
II
Wind Permitting
The ship had not sailed.
It might go out at dawn. It might lie all the next day in harbour, rolling at its moorings while men shrugged and called the wind unfortunate.
In either case, the wind would do precisely as it pleased, and he must submit to being delayed at Portsmouth like any other fool with money in his pocket and business abroad.
Darcy stood at the window and looked down into the yard. A boy was dragging a reluctant team through the mud while a sailor cursed and threw a bottle into the street. Beyond the roofs, the Solent showed itself in a long iron strip under the failing light.
He had been on the road since morning. Guildford had provided stale, cold meat, two letters from his solicitor, and no comfort.
In the carriage, he had signed memoranda until the road jolted the pen across the page, then gone back over every arrangement made in London and found each wanting.
Georgiana at Pemberley. Fletcher following with the second trunk, if he managed to arrive before the ship sailed.
The claim to be lodged at Madrid before the new government closed the door on it.
The sea still uncrossed, and beyond it, the whole length of a country lately at war.
He ought to have written to Georgiana before leaving London.
The reproach had ridden beside him all day.
By now, she would know only that he had gone south on urgent business.
Mrs Reynolds would soften it. Mrs Annesley would excuse it.
Georgiana, with that miserable gentleness which made every failure worse, would be more distressed by the want of explanation than by the business itself.
Reproof, one could meet. Patience left a man no shelter at all.
He set the writing slope on the table by the fire and opened it. Then he unscrewed the traveling inkpot and laid out a sheet of paper.
Then another, because the first showed a crease near the fold, and Georgiana kept his letters longer than any of them deserved, so it ought to at least begin as a fair copy.
Portsmouth 10 May 1814
My dear Georgiana,
You will have learned, before this reaches you, that I left town very suddenly yesterday, and I cannot bear that you should receive so abrupt an account of my absence without an explanation from myself.
I am gone abroad upon business connected with the loan our father advanced to the Spanish government during the late war.
You may remember hearing it spoken of in general terms only.
It was made approximately a year before our father’s death, when support given to Spain was believed not only honourable but secure.
The question now is not whether the claim is just, but whether justice will be done in time.
My solicitors received notice yesterday that the restored government is likely, and soon, to disown the foreign loans raised during the war, and that our petition must be lodged at Madrid before any such measure is made law.
I am advised that if the claim is not pressed immediately and in person, delay may prove very costly. I therefore set out at once.
I will not pretend I go without some reservation.
I am told the offices charged with these matters are much overburdened since the peace, and thinly staffed, so that some little delay in the hearing is to be looked for.
But the claim is sound, the papers are in order, and I have no reason to expect worse than a tedious fortnight spent waiting upon clerks.
I confidently expect a favourable answer within that time, and to be home to you before the summer is out.
There is no reason to expect danger from the journey beyond the common annoyances of bad roads, irregular post, indifferent inns, and the delays which belong to every country recovering from war.
But the matter itself is serious. The sum at issue is large enough that I could not, with any comfort, leave the whole conduct of it to agents at a distance.
Had it been a lesser concern, I would not have gone.
I am more sorry than I can say that I had no time to write to you before quitting London.
The intelligence reached me too late for a proper leavetaking.
By the time I had made the arrangements which could not be omitted, the morning was spent before I understood it to be gone.
You know me well enough, however, to believe that silence in such a case is not forgetfulness.
There is another subject on which I would rather you hear from me than from anyone else.
My understanding with Lady Honoria Vane has advanced so far that I cannot pretend it remains wholly uncertain.
She is the daughter of Lord Marchwood, and I am not ashamed to say that her dowry is of sufficient consequence that it might alleviate certain concerns.
That signifies not a little, but is, alone, insufficient to account for my regard for her.
Nothing formal has yet been concluded; still, matters are in such a state that you ought not to be left uninformed of them.
I believe Lady Honoria to be everything that can be properly valued in a woman.
She is well bred, amiable, accomplished, and of a disposition to promise great comfort in domestic life.
She has always shown me civility, and I have every reason to think she would endeavour to make those connected with me easy and happy.
If this connexion proceeds, I hope and trust that you will find in her a kind sister.
I know that any change in my household must concern you more nearly than it can concern any other person, and I would not have you uneasy on that account.
Nothing which may take place shall lessen my first duty to you.
Your home, your comfort, your consequence with me, and every plan for your future which has already been formed, will remain exactly where they now are.
I would have you consider this as certain.
Direct your letters to me at Madrid, to the care of the embassy.
I am warned the debt was contracted in Navarre and some part of the business may lie there before it is done; should it prove so, a letter will find me at Pamplona, by Messrs.
Alvaréz and Cordero, merchants. I shall send you my route more exactly when I know it myself.
Pray present my respects to Mrs Reynolds.
Tell her I plead necessity in excuse for so disorderly a departure, and will submit to any reprimand she chooses to reserve for my return.
Take care of your health. Walk when the weather allows it.
Do not sit too long at the instrument. If any difficulty arises before you hear from me again, Colonel Fitzwilliam must be applied to without delay.
God bless you, my dear Georgiana. I remain always,
Your most affectionate brother,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
He blotted the page and read it through.
Georgiana would be anxious, but not, he hoped, terrified into imagining brigands behind every Spanish hedge. The passage on Lady Honoria sat in its proper place, every sentence decent, judicious, correct.
Correct.
He put the letter down and crossed to the window. He opened the casement the width of his hand, and the cold salt air came in at once — better that than the coal smoke within, which had all the coarseness of cheap fuel and none of its honesty.
A shipping agent in the yard argued with three gentlemen in travelling cloaks.
One insisted upon assurances no wind ever gave.
Another declared he would go round by Falmouth sooner than lose another day at Portsmouth.
The third said nothing, and endured the delay with the black look of a man who had exhausted anger and been left with something worse.
Each lost hour magnified the thing. His father’s judgment.
Georgiana’s future. The mortgage raised upon the land to make the loan, and now falling due before the loan could be got back.
All of it depending upon money lent in a season of patriotic confidence, and now to be defended, like a bad debt, at the farther end of Europe.
The day returned in fragments. The dispatch opened in his solicitor’s chambers.
The clerk’s face lengthening as the case grew expensive.
Fletcher in the hall with half a trunk gaping open.
The call he had been obliged to make before leaving town — Lady Marchwood hoping the inns were cleaner now, and the roads safer, and the Spanish disposed to show all proper gratitude toward the English gentlemen who had supported their cause.
He had hoped only to escape before she asked when he should return.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
The chambermaid entered with fresh candles and linens. “Beg pardon, sir. The ship’s master has sent word there may be a shift in the wind by morning.”
“Then he differs from the rest of Portsmouth.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Has the north post gone?”
“Not five minutes since, sir, but the ostler says if your letter is ready, it may yet be took after.”
He handed her the folded sheet. “See that it is.”
“Yes, sir.” She accepted the letter and closed the door behind her.
He drew the claim papers toward him. Spanish names, official seals, sums set down by men now dead or retired or lost in the ordinary confusion of years, and figures that would not, however he recast them, come to a total a prudent man could afford to lose.
He read until the names ceased to be names and became only scratches on the page.
The road ahead lay in hard stages. Take the ship for Corunna, wind permitting; get the papers and the money ashore; hire horses and lodgings for the long road inland to Madrid.
His man, he had engaged already, in London—Jennings, with Castillian enough for officials and Basque enough for servants, muleteers, and every species of scoundrel who made his living from travellers. He ought to be well served.
He did not go down to supper; he had no patience to sit among strangers discoursing upon Bonaparte, trade, the peace, or the weather, as if any of the four would improve for being talked over.
By midnight, the yard had gone quiet; by one, only the sea made itself heard, and that fitfully, like a body too weary for regular complaint.
He undressed with care. Coat brushed. Papers locked away. Pistol examined and left within reach. He lay down, and did not sleep for a long time; and when sleep came at last, it had no mercy in it.