Wickham’s Shadow #2
“You placed yourself between my grandson and an armed man.”
“Anthony had already gone for help.”
“Do not diminish what you did. It is tiresome.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Darcy will come to Hertfordshire.”
“He said he would.”
“Then he had better do so promptly. He has wasted enough time.”
Elizabeth could not prevent a smile.
Lady Catherine tapped her stick against the carpet. “Rosings will expect you again.”
“I should be glad to return.”
“Naturally. There is a great deal here requiring sensible attention.”
They left the following morning in the Selbournes’ travelling carriage. Lady Selbourne sat with Maria and Elizabeth, the children between them, while Sir Alexander rode beside them under a pale spring sky.
Charlotte had stood at the parsonage door to see them go, and Elizabeth had held her longer than she meant to. Charlotte, being Charlotte, asked for no explanation.
“You will write.”
“I will.”
“And you will tell me when there is something to tell.”
“There is nothing to tell yet.”
“No,” Charlotte agreed. “Yet.”
The carriage pulled away, Sir Alexander riding alongside, and Hunsford fell behind them, then Rosings: the shrubbery, the south wood, the empty chair, the whole of it receding into the green Kent distance until the road turned and it was gone.
Elizabeth did not look back for long.
Maria had been full of questions since the wood, most of which no one had answered.
“Lizzy, will Mr Darcy come to Hertfordshire?”
“I believe so. He asked whether he might call at Longbourn.”
Maria’s eyes widened. “And you said yes.”
“I did.”
“Does Charlotte know?”
“Charlotte suspects.”
“Does Lady Selbourne?”
Elizabeth glanced across the carriage. Lady Selbourne was listening to Anthony’s solemn account of the milestones they had passed, while Lewis slept against her side.
“I believe everyone at Rosings knows considerably more of my affairs than I should prefer.”
Maria smiled. “Except Mr Collins.”
“Especially Mr Collins.”
Maria laughed, then lowered her voice. “Will you marry him?”
Elizabeth turned from the window. “Maria.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you shall have.”
Maria settled back against the cushions, plainly unconvinced.
Lady Selbourne looked up. “My mother sent three separate instructions concerning our journey. Sir Alexander has obeyed two and ignored the third.”
“Which did he ignore?” Elizabeth asked.
“That we should stop at Rosings again before leaving Kent.”
“A wise decision.”
“I thought so.” Lady Selbourne adjusted the blanket over Lewis without waking him. “Miss Bennet, may I say one thing, and then I shall leave you both in peace?”
“Of course.”
“My cousin has always been very ready to make himself useful and very reluctant to accept the same attention from anyone else. I do not suppose the habit will alter quickly.” Lady Selbourne glanced towards Elizabeth.
“You seem able to make him listen when others cannot. I saw that at Rosings. I am glad it is you.”
For once, Elizabeth had nothing ready to say.
“That is all,” Lady Selbourne said. “Maria, you may resume your interrogation. I shall pretend not to have heard any of it.”
She turned her attention back to Anthony, who had begun explaining why the next milestone ought to count twice.
Maria waited a moment before leaning towards Elizabeth.
“She likes you.”
“So it appears.”
“She said she was glad it was you.”
“Yes, Maria. I heard her.”
Maria smiled and, with considerable effort, did not ask anything further.
By the time Longbourn came into view, the light had begun to fade. Maria leaned towards the glass, searching for the first glimpse of Lucas Lodge, while Elizabeth watched the familiar hedges and fields pass without feeling entirely returned to them.
The front door opened before the carriage had stopped. Mrs Bennet descended the steps with Kitty and Lydia behind her, her alarm at Elizabeth’s unexpected arrival giving way at once to astonishment at the crest upon the door and the gentleman reining in beside it.
“Lizzy! Maria! And who can this be?”
Sir Alexander dismounted before the footman lowered the step. Elizabeth accepted his hand and descended.
“Mama, may I present Sir Alexander and Lady Selbourne?”
Mrs Bennet’s understanding rearranged itself with remarkable speed.
“Sir Alexander. Lady Selbourne.” Her curtsey was deeper than anything Longbourn’s front step had witnessed in years.
“You are very welcome. Very welcome indeed. We had no notion. Lizzy wrote nothing of such acquaintance. You must come in, you must take some refreshment, the journey from Kent is so very long—”
“You are kind, Mrs Bennet,” Lady Selbourne said, “but we are expected at Netherfield, and we have already kept your daughter from you too long.”
“Netherfield! Then you know Mr Bingley. My Jane is married to Mr Bingley, you understand—”
“So Miss Bennet has told us,” Lady Selbourne said gently, “and always with great affection.”
Elizabeth had mentioned Jane’s marriage perhaps twice in the whole of Kent, but she saw what Lady Selbourne was doing and was grateful for it.
For a few minutes Longbourn’s front step held a scene Mrs Bennet would describe, in years to come, with steadily increasing detail: a baronet, his lady, two children, and her own Lizzy at the centre of it, arrived home in a carriage with a crest upon the door.
Lewis, set down upon the gravel, looked at Longbourn, then at Elizabeth, and made his decision.
He took her hand.
“This is your house.”
“It is my father’s house.”
Lewis considered the distinction and found it unimportant.
“I will stay.”
“You will not,” Lady Selbourne said. “We are going to Netherfield.”
Lewis looked at Elizabeth with deep dissatisfaction.
“You must go with your mama,” Elizabeth told him. “There is a kind and beautiful lady at Netherfield who will be very glad to meet you.”
After a doubtful look at Elizabeth, Lewis allowed himself to be returned to the carriage.
Sir Alexander held the door while Lady Selbourne paused beside Elizabeth.
“We shall not say goodbye. I do not think it will be very long before we meet again.”
“Then I shall expect to see you again soon.”
Lady Selbourne took her hand and pressed her fingers once before letting go.
The door was closed. Sir Alexander mounted, touched his hat and turned his horse beside the carriage. They pulled away down the drive, and Lewis’s face remained at the window until the turn of the road took him out of sight.
Then Longbourn was quiet, and it was only the family, the ordinary evening light, and Mrs Bennet already three sentences into an account of the visit that would grow in the telling for a month.
“Well!” she said. “A baronet, Lizzy. A baronet and his lady, brought you all the way from Kent, and you never wrote a word of it. Whatever were you doing in Kent, to be carried home by such people?”
“A great many things, Mama. I will tell you some of them.”
She would tell them some of it, though not about the wood, the pistol or the man dead in the leaf mould.
Mr Bennet stood in the doorway of his library, watching the whole performance with one brow raised.
“Lizzy.”
“Papa.”
“You have come home in remarkable company.”
“I have come home. The company was incidental.”
His gaze rested upon her face before moving to the crowded hall.
“Come and tell me about Kent. In my library, where it is quiet.”
It would not be the whole of it, but her father’s library would do to begin.
The next morning Jane came to Longbourn before breakfast had been cleared. She crossed the parlour without waiting for Mrs Bennet to finish explaining that Elizabeth had returned in a baronet’s carriage, and took her sister in her arms.
“Lizzy.”
“I am quite well,” Elizabeth said, holding her.
Jane drew back. “May we speak alone?”
Mrs Bennet looked from Jane to Elizabeth. “You have only just arrived.”
“I shall bring her down again presently,” Jane said.