Three
White Club
Darcy
Mr. Sedgwick acknowledged Darcy with a perfectly civil inclination of the head before accepting a place at another card table, where half a dozen gentlemen presently made room for him with every appearance of cordiality.
There had been nothing discourteous in the exchange.
A month ago Darcy doubted he should have remarked it at all.
Yet he found himself watching the gentleman's retreat with a degree of attention that would once have seemed absurd, for it was the third such small alteration he had observed that week.
Mr. Halloway, whose ambition to attach himself to Darcy's circle had never been particularly well concealed, had remembered another engagement at the precise moment Darcy approached him two evenings before.
Just the day before, old Mr. Carruthers, whose acquaintance with the Darcy family reached back almost to Darcy's infancy, had begged leave to withdraw from a dinner Darcy had proposed, pleading an indisposition, which Darcy had accepted without hesitation until Fitzwilliam remarked, only that afternoon, that he had encountered the gentleman at White's the previous evening, where nothing in his appearance had suggested the least infirmity.
"You told me only this afternoon that you had no inclination for cards," Fitzwilliam, sitting across Darcy, observed, following his gaze across the room. "Yet you have scarcely looked away from that table these several minutes, and your port has gone untouched besides."
Darcy turned, managing something that scarcely deserved the name of a smile. "I find the company more instructive than the game."
His cousin returned his gaze to Darcy's face. "You think they avoid you."
"I think..." Darcy paused, unwilling to accuse honest men of conduct he could not prove.
"I think they have become rather more occupied elsewhere whenever I appear.
Each instance is too trifling to merit notice.
Together..." He broke off and shook his head.
"Mr. Grey has made me suspicious of things I ought perhaps never to have questioned. "
Fitzwilliam looked around the room and back to Darcy.
Around them the evening continued much as any other.
Cards were dealt, wagers laid, servants moved quietly amongst the tables replenishing glasses, and conversations rose and fell with easy familiarity.
Nothing appeared altered. Yet Darcy could not rid himself of the conviction that he had become, in some small but unmistakable fashion, separate from it.
"I have spent the better part of this week persuading myself that I am imagining it," Darcy said at length.
"It would be easy enough to attribute every slight to vanity. But you know that they say a man who expects to find coldness will soon persuade himself he has discovered it everywhere. Upon my introspecting, I cannot dismiss the thought that not only is this scheme against my business, but against everything that concerns me.”
Fitzwilliam grimaced, "What else has persuaded you?"
Darcy leaned back in his chair, his thoughts travelling farther than either of them had yet ventured.
"Until now I have confined my suspicions to business.
It did not occur to me until I left your house a week ago that there were other losses for which I have never found any satisfactory explanation. "
"What losses do you speak of?"
Darcy was quiet for a moment before speaking again. "There were two ladies." The admission came quietly. He leaned a little nearer to his cousin. "You may remember Miss Harwood. I wrote to you concerning her some four years ago."
Fitzwilliam considered a moment before recognition dawned. "Harwood... yes. The merchant's daughter."
"The same. I had begun to think seriously of paying my addresses to her when a report, entirely false so far as I could ever discover, spread through London respecting her conduct the previous summer.
Her family withdrew her from society before the Season had concluded, and I never saw her again.
The last I heard, she had gone to reside with relations in America. "
Fitzwilliam inclined his head slowly, the recollection plainly returning to him. Darcy continued before the silence could invite interruption.
"There was another, two years later. Miss Harper.
The acquaintance had not advanced so far, but I admired her sufficiently to hope it might.
I had every reason to believe my attentions were favourably received, and, had matters been left to themselves, I think I should eventually have offered for her. "
"You never mentioned her."
A faint smile touched Darcy's mouth before disappearing almost at once. "There seemed little purpose. The whole affair lasted scarcely two months."
"What happened?"
“I came to call one afternoon and I was told she had move to the country. No word or nothing. Soon, I heard she was married to a magistrate. It was shortly after the fire in the south fields, and several other unfortunate occurrences at Pemberley. I remember thinking her mother had perhaps concluded that my affairs had become more unsettled than she wished for her daughter.”
"And now you think that was contrived?"
"No." Darcy answered almost at once. "Had you asked me that question a fortnight ago, I should have thought the suggestion absurd.
" He rested his hand upon the arm of his chair, his expression thoughtful rather than convinced.
"I still do not know what to think. Separately, each disappointment admitted of a perfectly ordinary explanation.
Miss Harwood's scandal. Miss Harper's departure…
I have begun to wonder whether I accepted the explanation too readily. "
For some moments Fitzwilliam made no reply. His eyes had settled, not upon the gentlemen across the room, but upon the floor between them, as though arranging the several incidents into some order his own mind could better comprehend.
"Ruined ventures I understand," he said at length.
"Now you speak of ladies whose acquaintance with you ended abruptly.
Add to those the several misfortunes that have befallen Pemberley since you came into possession...
" He was silent for a moment, weighing the thought before continuing.
"If these things belong together, Darcy, then the object has never been your fortune alone. "
"They do." Darcy's voice had grown quieter still.
"That is what has troubled me these several days.
I can persuade myself that a rival might ruin a venture, or even two, if he stood to profit by it.
I cannot persuade myself that any ordinary enemy would concern himself with every part of a man's life.
If I am right, Fitzwilliam..." He stopped, unable for a moment to give shape to the thought that had pursued him ever since leaving Grey's chambers.
"If I am right, it is not my fortune that has been the object of these past five years. "
His cousin held his gaze a long moment before answering. "No. It is your name."
Darcy inclined his head slowly. "And I cannot produce a single man who would think it worth the labour."
Fitzwilliam reached for his glass and finished the last of its contents before setting it quietly upon the table.
"Nor can I. My acquaintance at the Admiralty has not yet written, though I expect word within the next few days.
Until then, we have little beyond suspicion, and suspicion, however well founded, is a poor thing upon which to build conclusions. "
Darcy drew a weary breath and allowed his eyes to wander once more across the room.
Mr. Sedgwick remained where he had settled half an hour earlier, engaged in conversation with gentlemen who had once been equally eager for Darcy's company.
One or two glanced towards him before turning away again with studied ease.
"I shall be glad to leave London for a while," Darcy said when he turned back to face his cousin.
"It is no bad plan," Fitzwilliam replied.
"A change of scene may prove of more service than either of us presently knows.
Meanwhile, I shall remain here and pursue every enquiry still open to us.
Should anything be learned of the Meridian, or of anything else that bears upon this business, you shall hear of it immediately. "
They spoke a while longer of lighter matters.
Fitzwilliam enquired after Georgiana, and Darcy found himself speaking with genuine pleasure of the few quiet days he had lately spent in her company.
It had been longer than either of them liked since brother and sister had enjoyed so much uninterrupted time together, and for a little while the conversation carried them back to easier subjects than conspiracies and ruined ventures.
Yet, when at last he took his leave and stepped out into the cool evening, Darcy found his thoughts already turning towards Hertfordshire.
There, at least, he would be among neighbours who knew nothing of the reverses that had attended him these past years, men and women to whom he was only the gentleman lately arrived with Charles Bingley.
The prospect afforded a measure of relief he had not expected, though whether it sprang from hope or merely exhaustion, he could not have said.