Chapter 52
Redbourn Heath, the following morning
Morning entered by degrees, not as comfort, but as proof that the night had failed to end their captivity.
Elizabeth sat with her shoulder to the wall and listened.
For some time there had been no sound from the other side. Then the boards shifted, and Mr Darcy’s voice came low through the plaster.
“Miss Bennet.”
She turned her cheek to the wall. “I am here.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No more than I was last night.”
A pause. “That is not the comfort you may suppose it.”
“I had not supposed it would comfort either of us.”
A moment passed.
“You might ask whether I am well,” she said. “It would spare your imagination a most unnecessary ramble.”
Something very like a laugh touched the other side of the wall. “Are you well?”
“No,” she said, shifting her position. “But I am answering.”
“Take heart, Miss Bennet. This cannot last as they intend.”
“That is a handsome assurance. Upon what is it founded?”
“Upon my cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
Elizabeth stilled. “The Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
“Yes.”
That name had crossed more than county borders. It belonged to dispatches, broadsheets, and anxious drawing-room talk of Spain.
Yet a name, however celebrated, did not open a bolt.
“A relation is not always a rescue.”
“This one is.”
She let that answer settle. “How is my father?”
“Deeply anxious and determined not to appear so.”
“Oh,” she said. “Very much himself.”
A chuckle came through the wall. She allowed herself a brief smile.
“Does he know where I am?”
Something rubbed the plaster. “Not yet.”
She closed her eyes. “Then he is suffering twice.”
“Please, Miss Bennet,” he said. “Take heart.”
Footsteps sounded outside the door.
“Speak no further,” Mr Darcy said, his voice quite low.
The door beyond the wall struck open. Elizabeth drew back.
“Good morning, Darcy,” Mr Wickham said. His voice attempted cheer and found spite instead. “Your Mr Harding is a tedious fellow.”
“Then he is doing his duty,” Mr Darcy replied.
A chair-leg scraped hard against the boards. “Sit.”
“You do not need a pistol,” Mr Darcy said.
“It is merely a tool of our insistence,” Mr Kerr said.
Elizabeth did not breathe until Mr Darcy spoke again.
“There,” Mr Wickham said. “That should do it.”
“I am firmly secured,” Mr Darcy said. “Now, conduct your business.”
Elizabeth expelled a quiet breath.
A chair scraped. Mr Kerr’s step followed, slower than Mr Wickham’s, and stopped near the table.
“The letter has been delivered,” Mr Kerr said.
“To one of Harding’s clerks,” Mr Wickham said, bitterness roughening his voice. “Who had the insolence to say nothing could be done without Mr Harding’s examination.”
“Then you chose the correct office,” Mr Darcy replied.
“One that has given me nothing,” Mr Wickham said. “Ten thousand pounds is not conjured by politeness. We require another letter.”
“After you see to Miss Bennet’s needs,” Mr Darcy said.
Elizabeth gripped her skirts.
Mr Wickham laughed. “Still issuing commands from a chair?”
“Still understanding your interest better than you do.”
“My interest?”
“She must be presentable when payment is required.”
A silence followed.
Mr Kerr said, “See to her.”
Boots crossed the boards with a hard, ill-tempered tread. The bolt on Elizabeth’s door lifted.
The door opened no farther than his shoulder required. Mr Wickham held out his hand.
Elizabeth looked at him once, then took up the bucket by its handle and set it beyond the threshold.
His mouth curved. “A charming morning ritual.”
She said nothing.
The bucket vanished. A carafe of water and a small cloth sack appeared in its place.
“Your champion is particular,” he said.
“Then I am in his debt.”
Mr Wickham shut the door, and the bolt dropped back into place.
She drank too quickly. Water ran over her chin and spotted her gown. She set the carafe and the sack upon the small stool, then returned to the plaster.
Beyond it, Mr Wickham’s boots crossed back towards Mr Darcy.
“Miss Bennet has been seen to,” Mr Wickham said. “Now you will oblige us.”
“I have already written my man of business.”
“A convenient gentleman, this Mr Harding. Invisible, but hardly obedient.”
“It has been less than a day, Wickham.”
“You produced a bank draft for three thousand pounds from your desk.”
“Because I had expected you.”
“Expected me?”
“Men of your habits do not long neglect a fresh estate.”
Mr Wickham’s laugh came sharp through the wall. “And yet you call me mercenary.”
“I call you predictable.”
Elizabeth heard the slap through the wall.
A chair scraped hard against the boards.
“Stop,” Mr Kerr said.
Silence followed.
“Darcy is delaying both of us,” Mr Wickham said.
“Then stop helping him.”
“I am helping myself.”
“Precisely.”
A step crossed the boards. Mr Kerr’s voice came nearer the wall.
“You will watch the St Albans road. If Harding sends anything, it will come that way.”
“And you?”
“I shall watch what comes from Longbourn.”
A silence followed.
“Fine,” Mr Wickham said. “We pursue your wishes today.”
His boots moved towards the outer door.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I shall have mine.”
Elizabeth moved to the bolted door and pressed her ear to it. She waited until the second set of hoofbeats thinned beyond the yard.
She returned to the wall. “Mr Darcy?”
A breath came through the plaster before his voice did. “I am here.”
“Did you hear?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Mr Kerr means my father.”
A pause followed.
“Yes,” he said.
Her hand settled against the wall. “And Mr Wickham means your money.”
“Yes.”
“They are not friends.”
“No.”
“Then why does that not comfort me?”
“Because divided men may still do harm.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. “Did they hurt you?”
“No,” he said. “It was only a slap.”
Elizabeth kept her hand against the plaster. “I begin to dislike that word exceedingly.”
“You are right to do so.”
“Are you still bound?”
“Yes.”
She heard a faint movement, then the chair creaked.
“Do not injure yourself,” she said.
“I shall endeavour to be discriminating.”
“That is not a promise.”
“No.”
She lowered herself, placing her back to the wall. “You are a very difficult man to comfort.”
“I had not supposed I was the object of comfort.”
“You are mistaken. We have been reduced to a wall, Mr Darcy. We must make what use of it we can.”
Silence answered her, but it was not empty. She had begun to know the difference.
Beyond the shutter, a bird gave a short, indifferent call. Morning had fully entered now, laying a pale strip across the boards and showing every stain the night had hidden. Elizabeth looked at it and then away.
“Miss Bennet,” he said at last. “What has Mr Kerr told you of your father?”
“Very little plainly.”
“Then only what he has said.”
She drew her knees closer and looked at the bar upon the door. “He speaks of my father as if he were an entry left unsettled in a ledger.”
Mr Darcy did not answer at once.
“He has not named a crime,” she said.
Your father walked away from Stamford and left my family’s name in the dirt.
“He has named a debt. He says it as though there can be no difference.”
She turned towards the wall.
“Mr Wickham speaks of money. Mr Kerr speaks of punishment.”