Chapter 41
Wickham unfolded the paper with more care than the act deserved.
Bennet watched the delay. Each neat movement gave Wickham another instant in which to recover himself. The fold opened, the page settled, and still Wickham did not speak.
Hill remained at the door. Bennet heard no movement from him, but the room had changed since the seal gave way. Three men now stood inside the same danger, and one of them still hoped to pass through it unstained.
Wickham lowered his eyes to the page.
“Read every word,” Bennet said.
“I understand.”
“No, Wickham,” Bennet said. “You have not yet begun to understand.”
Wickham’s mouth tightened. Then he drew breath and read.
“Mr Thomas Bennet is required to place ten thousand pounds in Bank of England notes, wrapped in oilcloth, beneath the third milestone upon the St Albans road by twelve o’clock three nights hence.
He will come alone. He will speak to no magistrate, officer, neighbour, servant, or relation.
If any alarm is raised, or any man follows the bearer, his daughter’s safety is forfeit. Lord Julian is not forgotten.”
Bennet felt the floor alter under his feet, though nothing in the study moved.
The map lay folded upon the desk. The tray still gave off its sickly smell of cold ham and cooling broth.
Wickham stood with the paper in his hand and Hill by the door; yet for one breath Bennet stood again in Dean Pember’s overlit rooms, with chairs set in obedient half-circles and candles multiplying themselves in the glass.
He saw the square pianoforte, dark and polished.
He saw Miss Pember raise her eyes. He saw Ashby’s smile come too quickly to be polite.
Ju—
Her lips had shaped the first syllable before she remembered the room.
Lord Julian is not forgotten.
Bennet looked at Wickham.
He held out his hand. “Now give it to me.”
Wickham obeyed, though not at once. His fingers lingered upon the page as if the paper had become a shield and not a charge against him. Bennet took it from him and read the words himself. They did not improve by silence.
Ten thousand pounds. St Albans road. Three nights. No magistrate. No servant. No relation.
Lord Julian.
He folded the paper once. “When are you expected to return?”
Wickham’s eyes sharpened. He had found a question he could answer and took refuge in it. “To-morrow.”
“At what hour?”
“Noon.”
“Then you shall return at that time.”
“For your answer?”
“For my answer.”
Wickham bowed. “For Miss Elizabeth’s sake, sir, I trust it will be the prudent one.”
Bennet placed the paper upon the desk with exact care. “You have already used my daughter’s name once too often.”
Wickham’s colour rose, but he held his tongue. That restraint, Bennet thought, cost him more than sincerity ever had.
“Hill,” Bennet said. “Show Mr Wickham out. See him to the gate.”
Wickham looked towards the door, then back. “I am sorry to have brought such distress to Longbourn.”
“No,” Bennet said. “You are sorry to have found it armed.”
The smile vanished. Wickham bowed again, lower than before, and left the room with Hill at his shoulder.
The door closed.
Bennet stood until the sound of their steps had gone from the hall. Only then did he set one hand upon the desk. The edge pressed hard into his palm. He welcomed the pain. It belonged to the present.
Dean Pember’s rooms returned without mercy: candles in the glass, Finch’s murmuring voice, Edmund Darcy grave beside him, David Fitzwilliam laughing into his wine, Julian Ashby crossing the room as if every door had been built for his entrance.
Darcy had seen it too. Bennet knew that now as he had known it then.
Not the whole of it. No man ever saw the whole of ruin while it still wore evening clothes.
But Darcy had seen Miss Pember’s eyes. Fitzwilliam had seen Julian’s smile.
Bennet had seen her almost speak his name and had mistaken recognition for girlish folly.
The memory cut there, as it always did.
Not at Stamford. Not at the overturned coach. Not even at the tribunal.
At the first syllable of a name spoken too nearly aloud.
Ju—
The door opened. Hill returned and closed it behind him.
“He is gone, sir.”
Bennet did not turn. “Did he look back?”
“Twice.”
“Good.”
Hill came no farther. “Shall John follow?”
“No. Wickham will expect it now.”
“Then what shall we do?”
Bennet looked down at Cowper’s The Task, still holding the corner of the map. The old blue calf had darkened where his hand had rested upon it during the night. Somewhere inside lay Darcy’s debt of honour.
“Leave me,” he said.
Hill did not move at once. “Sir—”
“No one enters. No one leaves without my order.”
Hill bowed. “Yes, sir.”
When the door closed, Bennet opened the volume. The folded sheet lay where it had always lain—between mercy and storm. The paper had yellowed to a pale ochre, the ink browned, but the hand was unmistakably familiar. He unfolded it and read once more:
My dear Bennet,
I write only to acknowledge a debt of honour. I would not have you suppose that silence or delegation arose from indifference. There are obligations a man must own, even when he cannot name them aloud.
May Providence keep you.
ED
Meministi, amice
The words had faded slightly, but the intention had not.
He read them again, and the voice returned—measured, dry, steady as it had sounded across a Cambridge quad half a lifetime ago.
A debt of honour. There had been no further letter, no proof of what that debt entailed, and yet it had been enough.
He sat, the letter open on his desk. Twenty-seven years since that packet had reached him in Bridgetown, one month after the lawyer’s note that had closed their acquaintance.
He refolded the paper and slipped it back between the same verses: To feel Thy presence in the calm, and own Thy mercy in the storm.
The book closed with a faint sigh.
He pulled the bell cord. Hill appeared at once.
“How else may I be of service, sir?”
Bennet looked down at the folded letter, then at the map beneath his hand. Darcy would most likely be at Pemberley, but Town was closer.
Delay had already cost him too many hours.
“Have John made ready for London,” he said.
Hill’s eyes sharpened. “Darcy House, sir?”
“Yes. He is to ride as an express and wait for an answer.”
“And if Mr Darcy is not there?”
Bennet touched the cover of Cowper’s The Task. “Then we must not learn it too late. Send Thomas north to Pemberley.”
Hill bowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Hill.”
The man stopped at the door.
“You remain here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No one enters. No one leaves without my order. If Wickham returns before nine to-morrow, he waits outside the gate.”
Hill’s mouth hardened. “Yes, sir.”
Bennet looked once more at the ransom note.
“And Hill?”
“Sir?”
“No livery.”
Hill understood at once. “No livery.”