Chapter Eight
Mrs. Lofton, having come with her husband to collect Juliet for breakfast, apparently intended to remain her companion throughout the meal. “How did you rest, Miss Tilney?”
“Very well,” Juliet said, which was as true as it could be under the circumstances. “It is very peaceful countryside.”
“My sisters made this part of Hertfordshire sound positively wild, when Charles first settled here. As though one would find mud huts and Druids strewn about.” Mrs. Lofton laughed as she took her cup for coffee. “But, as usual, Louisa and Caroline had made much out of nothing.”
Juliet possessed sophistication enough to know when she was being baited to speak unkindly of another. Wisely, she instead asked, “Is Mr. Lofton well?”
“Oh, very well indeed. He has become rather fond of Hertfordshire, it seems. I believe he would gladly never leave.” Yet now that there was no chance of tricking Juliet into maligning Mr. Bingley’s other sisters, Mrs. Lofton’s enthusiasm for the conversation seemed to have waned.
She turned her attention back to her food, and Juliet most happily released her.
Even more pleased was she when Jonathan Darcy arrived midway through the breakfast hours.
He told her of his conversation with his aunt Jane, and she agreed that, while the peacock and the lady’s periodical seemed to be of little value, the information about the disturbance in the poultry yard might prove useful.
She, in turn, told him of her brief conversation with Becky.
“So the servant girl could tell us nothing beyond what we already knew?” Mr. Darcy said, looking remarkably disappointed for a young man who had just had a second helping of bacon.
“Perhaps,” said Juliet. “Though I have reflected upon it much since then, and I do not know whether Becky had no more to tell me—or whether she did not wish to tell me anything while Mr. and Mrs. Lofton stood nearby.”
Mr. Darcy dropped his voice to a whisper. “Do you mean that she feared them?”
Juliet shook her head. “It was not fear I sensed in her—at least, not the mortal fear of one who believes a killer to be near. She may have been concerned that the Loftons would believe her to be speaking out of turn, or above her station. That said, the likeliest circumstance is that Becky has no more information than that which she has already shared.”
“Which does not differ substantially from what Aunt Jane told me, or what I myself observed in the immediate aftermath,” Mr. Darcy said, between bites of toast. “In short, the poison could have been put in the foremost cup, with the rational expectation that the first person to come to breakfast and drink coffee would take it. The arsenic powder in the cup would have been all but invisible against the pale china, meaning that anyone—particularly a person very newly awake—might not have seen it while pouring in the coffee.”
“Yet you told me before that Mr. Hurst was rarely the first to rise in the morning,” Juliet said.
This had bothered her late at night, as she determinedly thought of the case and not Mr. Darcy.
“Either someone had to have been keeping watch on him at that time—seeing that he rose early, and acting accordingly—or else Mr. Hurst was not the intended victim, as we conjectured before.”
Mr. Darcy replied, “I recall as well as you that the first case of poisoning we witnessed struck down the wrong individual. Yet I feel it important that we do not allow our past experiences to color our perceptions in our present circumstance. The earliest to rise in the mornings were generally Aunt Jane, who does not drink coffee, and the Loftons, for whose potential murder we have as yet determined no possible motives. For that matter, we have as yet discerned no compelling motive for any person in this house or regularly visiting to harm any other.”
Conundrum though it was, Juliet found the puzzle oddly bracing.
After months on end of having little to occupy her mind beyond her disgrace, her dashed marital hopes, and her grandfather’s excoriation, she felt almost unfathomably grateful for the sheer liberty of thought—the freedom only found in questions without answers.
Mr. Bingley entered the breakfast room then, as cheerful as a man could be in mourning black.
“What a party we shall be tomorrow morning!” Bingley said as he went for coffee (swiftly, but definitely, checking his cup).
“I shall have to tell our cook to prepare food enough for an army. She will think Buonaparte resurrected.”
Juliet frowned in confusion, and Mr. Darcy gently said, “You will recall, the Allerdyces are coming.”
Well did she recall it, but this did not make the announcement of that family’s imminent arrival easier to hear.
It was Mrs. Allerdyce who had led them all into the art exhibition in London, who had made certain to shame Juliet before all the world, and most particularly before Mr. Darcy, with the wicked portrait Mr. Follett had painted.
It seemed to Juliet as though she stood in the gallery again, her humiliation fresh.
Rather than betray any sign of her turmoil, Juliet rose and left the breakfast room. If she lost her chance at determining a new clue—lost her chance to stay longer with Mr. Darcy—so be it.
Only belatedly did Jonathan realize that the day of the exhibition would be Miss Tilney’s strongest recollection of the Allerdyces.
So much had he thought upon his own desire to avoid that family that he had not fully reckoned with how very much stronger her response would be.
How painful to be brought back into the presence of those who had witnessed such a spectacle!
(Of course Jonathan had witnessed the event, too, but Miss Tilney evidently trusted him to know the truth of the matter and behave well. The faith she had shown in him struck him greatly, though not so much as the sight of her pain.)
Swiftly he took the final sip of his coffee, then set out to follow her.
His haste was not undue, but enough that Mr. Bingley raised one eyebrow at the proof that his wife had been correct about the bond between these two young persons.
(As to the cause of Miss Tilney’s disquiet, however, Bingley remained oblivious for the moment.)
Jonathan headed for the garden, in particular toward a folly his uncle had given his aunt, a miniature Grecian temple that could comfortably house a small picnic.
He believed Miss Tilney would be drawn to the beauty of its surroundings and the sense of privacy and calm.
Of course he could not be certain she would choose this precise spot to retreat, but as the only other possibility was her bedchamber, a place he could not follow, he must at least hope—but it was not hope that had led him to the folly, where indeed Miss Tilney sat, looking out at the green rolling hills. It was his understanding of her heart.
“Miss Tilney?” Jonathan called, not too loudly, just before he reached the steps. “Are you well?”
“As well as could be expected with that—that horrid—” Miss Tilney caught herself. “I must admit that I do not see how any person so grasping and cruel as Mrs. Allerdyce could be sister to a man as good of heart as Mr. Bingley appears to be.”
That Mrs. Allerdyce was “grasping” could not be denied, but as for cruel…
? Then Jonathan realized that Miss Tilney believed the discovery at the art exhibit to have been deliberately staged by Mrs. Allerdyce, a belief that, upon consideration, he was inclined to accept.
He came up, closer to Miss Tilney’s side; still, she did not turn to face him.
“If it is of any consolation, in my experience, Mrs. Allerdyce behaves more civilly in her brother’s presence than otherwise. ”
“Then consoled I must be.”
“Miss Tilney, please!” They could not continue on in this useless way.
Jonathan wished to be sensible of her feelings, but he would not accept her conclusion.
“Mrs. Allerdyce has done great harm, but she has taken nothing away from you. Do you not comprehend? All my wishes, all my plans, they remain steadfast.”
She wiped her cheeks with the back of her ungloved hand. “My wishes might be unchanged, but plans—we have nothing more of plans, Mr. Darcy. Your parents will not allow the match, and that is the end.”
“So you say, but I do not believe it, and you should not either.”
To his surprise, Miss Tilney’s response to this gentle entreaty was near ferocity.
“You do not believe it, Mr. Darcy, because you are a man. Your position, your wealth, your freedom to choose your own future: These remain unaltered. To some extent they are unalterable. It is not so for a lady! You could seduce a maid and abandon her, as Mr. Willoughby did, without receiving one visiting card the fewer. You could drink to excess every night, as did Mr. Hurst, and still they would call you a fine fellow and invite you back to drink once more. You do not feel the shame of what has happened because society gives you no part in that shame. No, that is mine to bear, mine alone, and for eight months now I have borne it. The contempt, the callousness, all the severity society can possess, it gladly bestows upon a woman who has done no wrong greater than be the victim of a wicked joke. Why should I think that this destroys all my hopes? Because I have seen it! I have felt it! Do not lecture me from the seat of Pemberley on the limitations of disgrace.”
These were, by far, the sharpest words Miss Tilney had ever spoken to Jonathan. Worse, he immediately understood they were, in large part, justified. “Forgive me, Miss Tilney. I did not wish to underestimate the cruelty that has been visited upon you.”
“Then spare me the cruelty of reminding me of what I have lost.” Miss Tilney’s words, now spent, trailed into silence. After a moment she ducked a short curtsy, then walked away across the grounds.