Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
Elizabeth had already put on her boots when the rain began in earnest.
It came down in slanting sheets, the kind that rattled against the windowpanes and made the yard beyond them shine darkly.
She stood with one foot braced against the bedpost, pulling her laces until they strained nearly to breaking, listening to the sound with an impatience she did not attempt to disguise.
This would not do.
She had meant to be gone by now—out before anyone thought to ask where she was going or why she required her cloak so urgently. A turn along the hedgerow would suffice for an explanation. “A short walk.” Nothing that invited remark. Nothing that suggested purpose beyond air and motion.
She straightened and crossed to the window, pushing it open a fraction despite the cold.
The wind met her, sharp and damp, carrying with it the smell of soaked earth and leaf rot.
The path beyond the garden gate had already softened into a slick ribbon of brown.
One misstep there, and she would not only be wet but questioned.
Behind her, the door opened, and her mother fisted a hand on her ample hip. “Elizabeth, where are you going dressed like that? I thought you were fitting your ball gown today!”
Elizabeth watched the rain for a moment longer, as though it might change its mind if ignored. “For a walk.”
“In this?” Mama advanced into the room and halted at the window, drawing back as a gust sprayed the sill. “You will do no such thing. You were ill only a few weeks ago, and I will not have you missing the Netherfield ball through sheer obstinacy. Really, Lizzy, you have no consideration—”
“I am quite well,” Elizabeth said, too quickly. She reached for her cloak. “I only wished for air.”
Jane had stepped into the room now, and she folded her arms with an arched brow. “Lizzy.”
Elizabeth sighed. Jane was shaking her head slowly, frowning and glancing at their mother. She did not scold. That, somehow, made it worse.
“You have scarcely been still since breakfast,” Jane said. “And Papa mentioned the ground was already slick and treacherous by the lower field.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tightened on the clasp of her cloak. She had not told Jane where she meant to go. She had been careful of that, but Jane had guessed her intention, anyway.
“I will not go far,” she said.
Mama snorted. “You never do—and yet something always comes of it. I cannot imagine what possesses you to choose today of all days—”
Elizabeth closed her eyes for the space of a breath. She let her cloak fall back across the chair. “Very well. I shall stay in.”
Mama looked immediately satisfied. Jane looked as if she were waiting for a “However…”
Elizabeth turned away without another word and sat at the small table by the window, folding her hands together as though that had been her intention all along. The rain continued its steady assault, indifferent to her surrender.
She had not wanted mere exercise.
She had wanted to stand somewhere specific—somewhere quiet, open, unoccupied—and see whether the strange sense she had felt before would return. Whether it would sharpen, or soften, or do anything at all.
Now, the weather had made the decision for her.
Elizabeth stared out at the blurred line of the lane and felt a sharp, restless frustration settle in its place. If she could not go to the answer, then she would have to make it come to her.
Darcy brought his horse down to a walk as the posting house came into view.
The morning had offered no obstacle to a ride—clear enough skies, firm ground despite yesterday’s heavy rains—and the exercise gave him a reason to be elsewhere without requiring explanation. He dismounted near the posting house, looped his reins at a nearby post, and went inside.
At the counter, he drew the letter from his coat, the direction visible for the space of a breath as he placed it down to be weighed and entered.
Ink, ledger, the muted scratch of pen upon paper.
He kept his attention fixed upon the clerk’s motions, not upon the small awareness that he would prefer not to be standing there at all.
“Darcy! Out early today, I see.”
Darcy turned. Wickham stood only a few paces from the doorway, hat in hand, his gaze moving—not to Darcy’s face first, but to the letter on the counter as though the name upon it had drawn his attention of its own accord.
“Forgive me for staring,” Wickham said, with easy cordiality, “but I believe I glimpsed your sister’s name.”
Darcy did not answer. The clerk took the coin he offered, stamped the paper, and moved the letter aside with the rest. Only when it was done did Darcy step back from the counter.
Wickham’s expression remained open, almost companionable. “You must be writing to dear Georgiana. I do hope nothing is amiss.”
“Nothing urgent,” Darcy said. “I asked her to locate a particular volume of verse among my father’s effects and have it sent on to the London house. It is one I recall with some fondness.”
Wickham smiled, as though the explanation had confirmed something agreeable rather than deflected suspicion. “Ah. Poetry. That is reassuring. I had half-feared you were assembling more academic authorities.”
Darcy glanced at him. “On what subject?”
“Oh—anything that inspires people to speak with confidence when none is warranted.” Wickham adjusted his grip on his hat and turned back toward the door. “What luck to find you here, for I came on the same errand, as it happens. Just posted a letter of my own.”
They stepped out together into the street. Wickham fell easily into stride beside Darcy, matching his pace without effort.
“Speaking of letters,” Wickham went on, “I should think that you will have heard from your aunt Lady Catherine by now.”
Darcy’s expression did not change. “On what grounds?”
Wickham’s brows lifted, mild amusement returning. “On the grounds that Mr Collins has found himself in possession of an audience. A dangerous condition for any man inclined to explanation.”
“He explains what he does not understand,” Darcy said. “And he does so loudly.”
Wickham’s smile thinned—not unkindly. “Then Lady Catherine will already be in receipt of a very complete account.”
“There appears to be little I can do on the matter.”
“Oh, but you know how she is,” Wickham added. “Once a notion reaches her, it rarely improves with repetition.”
Darcy only grunted.
“You have my sympathy, Darcy. Truly. It is no small thing to have one’s movements weighed and measured by people who mistake expectation for entitlement.”
“That is not my concern.”
“No? Then you are fortunate. Most men I know would find it exhausting.”
Darcy stopped at the corner where his horse was tied. Hopefully, this was where their paths would part. “I do not concern myself with my aunt’s speculations. Nor with the inventions of those who repeat them.”
Wickham smiled faintly. “A sensible resolution.” He hesitated a moment, then went on, as though recalling something long dismissed.
“Though—if one were inclined to indulge the nonsense for a moment—I once heard your uncle say to your father that such matters, if they were ever to be finished at all, were best finished on the ground that gave rise to them. Not discussed from afar. Settled, as it were, by standing where the talk began. My memory on the matter might be faint, but I recall something… I believe it began with a ‘C,’ did it not?”
Darcy sighed in exasperation. “Ambiguous nonsense. I have heard it a thousand times, and never with any confidence in its veracity.”
“Ambiguous it may be, but I doubt it is nonsense. Is that not why you came to Hertfordshire just now?”
Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “I am here because Mr Bingley invited me.”
“Come, Darcy, even you cannot be so obtuse! You were a fair Classic when we were in school. Dredged up odd little old things our beaks never even cared to learn about, did you not?”
Darcy looped the rein over his horse’s neck. “I fail to see how my academic interests ten years ago have any bearing on the present.”
“Well, if even I recall it, then surely your memory is a fair sight more exact. One must look away from the Roman road. The places that were never quite claimed by one authority or another. Hertfordshire has been pointed to often enough in that context—close to the lands of the ancient Celts, close to old Londinium, but never properly either.”
Darcy’s expression cooled. “That is geography made to serve superstition.”
“Or gossip,” Wickham returned easily. “Plenty of that these days, particularly with the unseasonably warm autumn—unique, I daresay, to Hertfordshire this year.”
Darcy ground his teeth. This was all becoming rather tiresome. “If it ever meant anything at all, which is doubtful, it could have referred to any point between Northumberland and Kent.”
“Ah, yes… Kent. Collins has been repeating that notion with great conviction, but I daresay he has got it all wrong, circulating the idea that Kent holds all manner of answers, and Lady Catherine… or rather Anne… keeps the key.”
Darcy gathered his reins into a gloved fist. “You know as well as anyone there is nothing in it,” he growled.
“In Kent? Of course! I thought Collins’ weak intelligence on the matter as good a reason as any to dismiss the whole business. But I wonder if the same ought to be said for—”
Darcy swung into the saddle, intentionally letting the heel of his boot brush Wickham’s elbow in the process. “There is nothing to be done,” he said. “Here or in Kent or Derbyshire or on the dark side of the moon. The sooner that is understood, the better.”
Wickham inclined his head. “Indeed. Well! Good day, Darcy.”
Darcy put his heel into his horse and did not look back.
Elizabeth and Jane went to Lucas Lodge the following afternoon, armed with their sewing baskets and a purpose respectable enough to pass without scrutiny.