Eleven
Hertfordshire
Darcy
Darcy walked back to Netherfield in better spirits than he had known for some time.
He could not, upon examination, have said precisely what he felt, beyond a general lightness that sat strangely upon him after so many months of carrying the opposite.
The morning's conversation had been nothing so weighty as those which had preceded it, only an easy, meandering discourse of the Bingleys, his aunt, and, at last, his mother.
Yet it had settled somewhere within him rather more deeply than its lightness seemed to warrant.
He had not meant to speak of his mother at all.
The conversation had strayed there almost without his noticing it, and he had found himself saying more than he generally allowed upon so private a subject.
Elizabeth's response had been so immediate, and so entirely in accord with his own feelings, that the memory of it had accompanied him all the way back to Netherfield.
Darcy tried not to dwell upon it, for he was not yet prepared to question why the morning had left him so unexpectedly content.
It was only as the house came into view that another thought intruded. The mention of Lady Catherine had revived a suspicion he had never wholly dismissed.
She was one of the few people he knew who possessed both the determination his unseen enemy had shown and the means to accomplish it without exposing herself.
She had never forgiven him for refusing Anne, nor abandoned her conviction that Pemberley and her estate, Rosings, ought to be united.
If any relation of his could labour for years towards a single object, surely it was Lady Catherine.
Yet the notion soon began to falter, as it always did.
His aunt had never been a patient woman.
She preferred command to contrivance, and obedience to persuasion.
Would she truly spend five years ruining his affairs merely to accomplish what she had so often demanded outright?
More than that, was she capable of such calculated cruelty?
The more he considered it, the less he believed it.
Whatever hand had worked against him possessed a patience Lady Catherine had never shown.
He entered the house still without an answer and found the day's post laid upon the hall table. Several letters bore his steward's hand, and he set them aside unopened. They would contain the usual complaints from the estate, and he had little inclination to read them just then.
Two letters, however, caught his eye before he laid the remainder aside. He reached first for his sister's, breaking the seal with rather more eagerness than he generally permitted himself to show over correspondence.
He settled into an arm chair and read through it hurriedly.
“My dear Brother,
At last I have prevailed upon myself to answer the many kind letters you have written since leaving London.
You must not think my silence arose from any want of gratitude.
I have read each of them more than once, and always meant to reply the very next day.
Somehow the days slipped away faster than I intended, until I found I had delayed so long that I scarcely knew how to begin.
It comforted me greatly to learn that Hertfordshire agrees with you better than London has done for many months past. You seemed, in your last letter especially, more like yourself than you have been for some time, and I hope it continues so.
Mrs. Annesley has been very good to me, as she always is, though I fear she has had rather more anxiety on my account lately than she deserves.
She tries to prevent disagreeable things from reaching my ears, but it is impossible to stop servants talking amongst themselves.
More than once I have overheard mention of our family, and of a supposed curse said to attend our name.
I do not believe such stories, Brother, yet I confess I do not like to hear them repeated so confidently, as though they were accepted as truth.
I hope you have been spared such conversation where you are, and that Mr. Bingley's friendship continues to do you good. Pray write again when you are able. Your letters are always a great comfort to me, and the house seems much quieter without you than I had expected.
Your ever affectionate sister,
Georgiana”
Darcy read the letter through twice. It was only upon the second reading that he recognised the quiet change in her tone.
She sounded more like herself than she had for many months, and he realised, with some shame, how much he had feared finding the opposite.
Her silence had troubled him far more than he had admitted, even to himself.
The relief of hearing her voice restored upon the page was considerable.
It did nothing, however, to ease his concern over what she had overheard, nor how much more she might yet hear before this business was at an end.
He folded the letter carefully and set it aside, determined to answer it before the day was out.
Then he reached for the second letter, which was from his cousin.
It was the letter he had most wished to find amongst the day's post. He opened it at once.
“Darcy,
You have every right to complain of my silence in your last letter, though I hope what follows will earn me your forgiveness.
When I last wrote, I had nothing of consequence to report.
It has taken far longer than I expected to pick up the trail of the men who took the Meridian, and more than once I thought it lost altogether.
At last, however, we have something worth pursuing.
Three days ago a fellow was taken up near the docks, drunk enough to forget the value of his own tongue.
He claimed to have heard, some days before the Meridian sailed, a young fair-haired gentleman speaking too freely of a valuable cargo and the day it was expected to leave the Thames.
Taken alone, I should have thought little of it.
His confession, however, led us to another man of the same company, who remembered hearing much the same talk in a different riverside public house, one frequented by smugglers, thieves, and every sort of rogue the docks attract.
Two independent accounts of the same indiscretion are not so easily dismissed.
As we have long suspected, it seems increasingly likely that those who took the Meridian knew precisely what they were waiting for.
Whether this gentleman spoke from vanity, carelessness, or something more deliberate, I cannot yet say.
I have no name to give you, only the description, and I will not speculate beyond the evidence.
I know it is little enough to go on, yet I would ask you to cast your mind back to the weeks before the Meridian sailed.
Did you conduct business with, or place your confidence in, any young fair-haired gentleman who might have learned of the cargo or its departure?
If not, do you recall any such person with whom you had cause to quarrel, or whose interest in your affairs seemed greater than it ought?
It may prove nothing, but I would rather pursue ten false leads than overlook the right one.
It is the first worthwhile lead we have uncovered in months, and I have no intention of letting it slip. I shall remain in London until I have followed it as far as it will carry me. You shall hear from me again the moment I have anything further.
Keep your spirits up, Darcy. For the first time in a long while, I believe we are making progress. If fortune continues to favour us, I hope to have something rather more substantial to place before you soon.
Your affectionate cousin,
Fitzwilliam”
Darcy lowered the letter slowly. It was little enough, yet more than they had possessed in months. At last there was proof the Meridian had not been taken by chance.
Fitzwilliam's question lingered in his thoughts. Had he ever placed such knowledge in the confidence of a young fair-haired gentleman?
Before he could stop it, one face came unbidden to his mind.
He rejected the thought almost at once. It could not be. There was no reason that man should have known anything of the Meridian, nor any opportunity by which he might have learned it. The notion was absurd.
Besides, seven men had known the ship's route. The leak need not have come from his own affairs at all.
His thoughts turned instead to the merchant who had owned the cargo.
Barely a week after news of the Meridian's loss had reached London, the man had withdrawn from every future venture between them, confessing he had heard the same rumours that now followed the Darcy name and no longer wished to risk his fortune alongside it.
The injustice of it still rankled. Darcy had never intended to recover so much as a shilling from him unless the goods themselves were found, yet the merchant had severed their connection without hesitation.
It was surely more likely that the indiscretion had come from that quarter.
The merchant himself might have spoken too freely, or one of his clerks.
It might equally have come from a member of the Meridian's crew.
There were any number of explanations more probable than the first that had entered his mind.
Yet however firmly he reasoned against it, that first thought refused to be entirely dismissed. London was full of fair-haired young men, and still it lingered, unwelcome and inexplicable.
He laid the letter aside and reached for a fresh sheet of paper. Both Georgiana and Fitzwilliam required an answer, yet for several moments he did nothing but stare at the blank page before him.