Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
The door was opened at Darcy’s direction, and the footman stepped aside to admit the Earl of Matlock. Darcy had been waiting near the table and came forward at once, bowing as his uncle entered. “I am obliged to you for coming.”
Matlock returned the courtesy and moved into the room. “Your note was explicit enough on that score.” He paused, then glanced past him.
Harrowe stood by the table, one hand resting among the open books and papers spread across it, his dress plain and clean but hardly respectable before such an audience, his manner unembarrassed by the room or its owner.
He inclined his head when Matlock’s gaze met his, neither diffident nor familiar.
Matlock’s brows lifted slightly. “I was not aware you were receiving assistance.”
“I wished you to meet the person who has been advising me,” Darcy said. “Mr Aldous Harrowe.”
“Harrowe…?” Matlock repeated, the name slowing him now, his gaze lifting briefly before returning to the table—the annotated margins, the diagrams half-pinned beneath a paperweight, the signs of sustained inquiry rather than casual consultation. “The same Harrowe?”
“How old are you thinkin’ I am?” Harrowe grunted with the ghost of a twinkle in his eye.
Darcy grimaced. “A relative,” Darcy clarified. “His ancestor collected the ballads and the family has overseen the narrative ever since. Mr Harrowe has spent his life testing them against what survives outside the poetry.”
Matlock looked again at Harrowe, this time with sharper interest. “I see. And in what capacity are you assisting my nephew, Mr Harrowe?”
“I know what no one else thinks is true,” Harrowe replied. “And where to look.”
Darcy turned back to Matlock. “He has knowledge of certain records not readily available, and a willingness to follow them where they lead.”
Matlock regarded Darcy for a moment, then removed his gloves and handed them aside. “I see.” He took the chair Darcy indicated, his expression thoughtful rather than disapproving. “You asked me here, Fitzwilliam, because you believe something is soon moving beyond speculation.”
“I believe it has done so already.”
Harrowe shifted as though to speak, but Darcy raised a hand and continued.
“There are several matters I must lay before you,” he said. “Some of them will appear disconnected at first. I ask only that you allow me to finish before you judge them so.”
Matlock inclined his head. “Proceed.”
“I had word earlier today that Netherfield has suffered damage.”
Matlock’s expression altered only slightly, but it was enough. “Netherfield?” He glanced, briefly, toward Harrowe, then back again. “The estate leased by your friend? I was not aware it held any particular relevance to your affairs.”
“Nor would I have thought so, until now,” Darcy said. “The staircase has collapsed from the tremors felt three days ago. But the staircase is almost incidental, for the house has been cut through—cleanly enough to suggest a weakness already present in the ground.”
Matlock frowned. “An old house settling poorly? Surely it is not unique.”
“It is not old,” Darcy replied. “And the damage is not settlement. Mr Bingley’s steward reports a fissure beneath the foundation, one that follows the line of an old waterway. It appears the ground has been strained there for some time, and the shock merely finished what was already underway.”
Matlock leaned back a fraction in his chair. “You speak as though you had anticipated this.”
Darcy’s mouth tightened. “I had reason to suspect it. I examined land records in November. There were inconsistencies—minor, easily dismissed—but persistent. Drainage altered, boundaries adjusted, and references to channels that no longer appear on modern maps. I did not know what to make of it then.”
“And now you do?”
Darcy sighed. “I know it is not isolated. Mr Bingley has taken up the inquiry where I left off. The fissure aligns with others—subtle ones, but present—running through the surrounding land. They trace a pattern.”
“And this pattern,” Matlock guessed, “has led you to revise certain assumptions.”
Darcy met his eyes. “It has confirmed them.”
A smile crawled across Matlock’s face. “You are suggesting that the Liber’s references to place have, indeed, been misunderstood by your aunt.”
“I am certain of it. I have been for some time.”
Matlock exhaled slowly. “Then you believe the centre lies in Hertfordshire. And you believe this with sufficient conviction to summon me here. You are aware of what you imply.”
“I am.”
Matlock’s voice, when it came, was quieter. “And the Lady? It must not be Anne, so who—?”
Darcy felt the words settle into place before he spoke them, as though they had been waiting for this moment to be acknowledged aloud.
“I know who she is. I… have known for some time.”
“You have!” Matlock leaned forward, his face paling. “What family? Where does she come from, if not the Peredur or Bedwyr lines? Do others remain?” He glanced curiously at Harrowe, who only drew back, shaking his head. He would not answer.
“The records do not support a continuous family line,” Darcy said, glancing at Harrowe.
“Not in the manner Lady Catherine insists upon. She does not descend from a house of note, nor from one that has been preserved with any deliberate intention. If anything, her family history is marked by interruption—removals, marriages that break pattern, inheritances that pass sideways rather than down.”
Matlock’s brows knit. “Then you ask me to accept that the centre has shifted without stewardship, without preparation, without even recognition.”
“I ask you to accept that it has endured… no…. that it has chosen without them,” Darcy said. “Which is not the same thing as saying it has been preserved.”
Matlock’s expression remained doubtful. “It is a distinction without comfort.”
“No,” Darcy replied. “Nor is it one I arrived at lightly. You know how thoroughly I sought another explanation—how unwilling I was to accept a conclusion that upended both history and sense.”
Matlock studied him for a moment. “And yet you are certain.”
“I am,” Darcy said. “Because the pattern did not begin in London, nor with theory. It began months ago, in Hertfordshire, before I understood enough to name it.”
He drew a breath and continued, more steadily now, as though the ordering of events allowed him firmer footing.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet suffered her first collapse near a fissure in the land behind her family’s home—an old break, long dismissed as poor drainage. At the time, it appeared a coincidence: overexertion, cold, fatigue. But it did not resolve. Her health declined in ways no physician could explain.”
Matlock’s fingers tightened together as he laced them over his stomach. He did not interrupt.
“The closest house for her to recuperate was Netherfield,” Darcy went on, “where her condition became more mysterious. Headaches, faintness, disorientation—always near the main staircase, which I now know sits directly above the same fault line that has since split the house.”
“You are suggesting,” Matlock said carefully, “that the Lady’s illness preceded any conscious recognition.”
“Yes,” Darcy replied. “And that it tracked the land, not her blood. Which is why distance alone never cured her—only displaced the burden.”
Matlock leaned back slightly. “And where do you place yourself in this account?”
Darcy rolled his eyes faintly to Harrowe, but there was no help there. He could not evade the question. “I noticed that her condition altered in my presence.”
Matlock blinked politely. “I’m sorry?”
“At first, I told myself it was coincidence, or influence, or nerves. But the pattern held. Symptoms of headaches, discomfort with touch, dizziness and poor appetite. However, I learned that over time, my presence was what brought relief from those very same symptoms.”
“I do not follow, Darcy. You occasioned pain, and then you were the remedy for the same?”
Darcy heaved a sigh. “We never spoke of… that, and so it was some while before I understood the entire nature of the matter. But the end of it was that her strength improved when I was near. Mine diminished. I could hardly lift her to my horse the day I found her collapsed outside Netherfield. There were strange sensations, odd occurrences. The exchange was not symmetrical, but it was consistent… rather, I should say, it was consistently evolving to a more… enhanced state.”
Matlock was silent now, his scepticism recalibrating rather than resisting.
“I resisted drawing meaning from that,” Darcy continued. “I told myself it proved nothing. But the land did not allow me that indulgence.”
“And this is where conjecture ceased,” Matlock said.
“Yes,” Darcy replied. “Because there came a moment when acknowledgment could no longer be avoided. When the matter was put to the test—when the connection was recognised rather than merely endured—the response was immediate.”
“You are still speaking in abstractions, Darcy.”
Darcy inclined his head. “Then I will be plain. I kissed her. Or rather, she kissed me… I think it was both.”
Matlock half-rose from his chair. “Indeed?” he breathed. “And?”
Darcy bit the inside of his lip and stared at the floor. “And she nearly killed me. I thought I was having a heart seizure. She saw it and ended the contact immediately. And at that instant, the ground answered.”
Matlock was nearly falling out of his chair now. “You are not saying… the tremors?”
“There was no interval,” Darcy said quietly. “No delay in which chance might be placed. The earthquake followed recognition as breath follows exertion.”
Matlock was very still, blinking as his gaze grew unfocused. “And you survived.”
“Yes,” Darcy replied. “Though not without consequence.”
“And the Lady?”
Darcy did not answer immediately. In his mind rose the image of Elizabeth as she had stood in the library, colour high, breath unsteady, eyes alight with something that was not weakness and not peace.