Elizabeth's Refuge

by Timothy Underwood

  Lydia laughed. “You do suit Lizzy — seeing you two together. I worried for you, Lizzy, ever since I heard ‘bout your marriage. La, I could barely remember you, Mr. Darcy, but never thought you were the sort of man Lizzy could like.”

  Darcy smiled and took Elizabeth’s hand and kissed it smiling widely. “I am.”

  “I read that story you wrote, Lizzy — about how you fought off that horrid earl. Read it five times, aloud too, did I not?”

  “She did,” Captain Dilman confirmed.

  “I know how terrible it can be to walk whilst it is freezing. I did not even think of going back to Papa — I had a notion I’d return to Harriet and Colonel Forster in Brighton. So when Mrs. Younge turned me out, just the clothes on my back, I walked straight here, in the middle of winter. I had good shoes and a good coat, but it was not a pleasant walk.”

  “More than fifty miles!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She looked rather shocked at Lydia. The warm wind blew over them, but she still shivered. “You did not.”

  “A farmer gave me a ride for some five miles of the way, and I found friends to sleep with all but one night. ‘Tis easy to find friends when you are friendly yourself. There is many a poor person out there who if asked kindly, not standing upon your dignity, would give their last penny to feed a child.”

  Elizabeth tilted her head disbelievingly.

  That was not her sense of how the world worked. She wondered, but was unwilling to ask the question, if these friends who Lydia said had helped her may have been men who received a friendly recompense.

  It would be unkind to ask in any case. And whatever her past, Lydia now was married, and married to an officer of the British army.

  “And then we met.” Captain Dilman embraced Lydia. “I saw her when she came back to Brighton — I was still an ensign then, for two more months — and she was the prettiest girl I ever saw, wandering round, like a bedraggled cat who’d slept in her fur.”

  Lydia kissed her husband full on the mouth, in front of his soldiers. “He took me in, and ensured I was kept well — I never approached Harriet, or anyone from the regiment at that time. I was too shamed to. But I was also quite happy here. And then we decided to marry. And after that I miscarried Wickham’s child, which I suppose was God’s will — ah, but here we are, at the camp of the regiment.”

  There were lines of barracks housing for the soldiers, built around what had once been a farmhouse; it was all relatively empty, as this place had been constructed to hold a far larger force before the dismissal of soldiers followed close on the end of the war.

  The colonel’s house was a decent sized timber framed building, white and brown, with two floors, the second overhanging the first all around, and producing a nice covered porch the commanding officer of the regiment sat on while he watched his men parade in the drill grounds.

  Colonel Pike was a short man with balding hair and a deep limp that made him almost drag his foot as he supported himself heavily with a cane.

  Lydia’s husband saluted the colonel while the men who had escorted them stood at attention, the buttons on their coats gleaming, and the white belts of their uniforms making a clear X.

  Elizabeth had always rather wondered if that was the best design for an uniform, as it looked like an excellent target for the enemy to fire upon. However when she mentioned this while in Calais, General Fitzwilliam’s brother Fitz William laughed and said that musketry was so inaccurate in the general, that a man would be safer if aimed directly at.

  Colonel Pike shook hands firmly with Darcy. “My old friend Fitzwilliam’s cousin, eh? A fine man. Fine man. His regiment was in the square in front of ours at Waterloo. They took the beating of Marshal Ney’s horsed horde far worse than we did, and they stood firm and would not break. It was inspiring to watch, in betwixt that cannon fire that sought to blow our heads off.”

  “Did you gain your wound at Waterloo?” Elizabeth asked after she had been introduced to him.

  Colonel Pike blinked at her twice, and then laughed. “My leg? No, not at all — not even a battle wound. Fell off a horse wrong, some ten years ago, and the leg never healed right. Doesn’t bother me much, except when the weather is bad — come, come — too nice a day to sit inside. Sit down here, Mrs. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, Mrs. Dilman, sit down.”

  All of Elizabeth’s anxiety suddenly returned. What would happen tomorrow?

  They sent a messenger to ride to Lord Lachglass’s estate, some fifteen miles to the northeast, to tell that miserable excuse for a peer of the realm that Elizabeth would meet him tomorrow to talk about the return of her mother and sister, but not in his own house.

  The conversation between Mr. Darcy and Colonel Pike ran round and round, and Elizabeth could focus on none of it. Her stomach ached and twisted. Tomorrow it would all be decided.

  Darcy took her hand and squeezed it, and Lydia took her other hand.

  Elizabeth could see from a tightness in Lydia’s eyes that she worried too.

  After fifteen minutes, Lydia stood up and pulled Elizabeth to her feet. “No sense waiting here, you must meet your niece! Come on, Lizzy, come on.”

  So they went over to a collection of houses where the married officers of the regiment had taken their rooms, and Lydia called out to a woman who watched her daughter, Lydia’s and several other children toddle around the fields. They came over, with the woman holding the young girl, who looked to be two or three, in her arms.

  She handed the darling little girl to Lydia, and the toddler babbled happily to her mother in that incomprehensible speech of very young children. Lydia smiled, laughed and listened. She knelt and put her child on the ground, holding her by the hands so she could stay upright. “Fanny, say hello to your Auntie Lizzie.”

  Lydia waved the girls hand for her.

  Elizabeth’s face softened as she introduced herself. “Hello, how do you do?”

  Little Miss Dilman hid her face in the skirts of her mother.

  Elizabeth laughed. “What a sweet girl, is she shy?”

  “Nothing like me.” Lydia insisted, “I’d introduce myself to any stranger, no matter how frightening they look — I’d introduce myself to you, Mr. Darcy, just for a lark, if I was challenged to.”

  “I believe you,” Darcy smiled down at the girl who was now also his niece. “Such a pretty looking girl.”

  Fanny toddled towards Darcy at this, apparently less frightened of him, for some reason, than of Elizabeth. So Darcy picked the little girl into his arms, holding her far more lightly and easily, and he poked her nose and cheeks and made faces at her until she smiled and laughed.

  It filled Elizabeth with something tender in her heart.

  She desperately hoped she would, and soon, be able to present Mr. Darcy with his own child, with their child.

  They walked back, with Darcy still carrying Lydia’s child, to the house of Colonel Pike. Lydia explained that her and Captain Dilman lived quite modestly — they only had one room, in a house they shared with several other officers. The couple was putting aside the money so that once he had been in grade long enough, Captain Dilman would be able, with borrowing from some friends also, to purchase a major’s commission.

  Elizabeth felt odd to hear this, now that she was rich once more, and now very rich, instead of merely rich.

  Elizabeth had wondered often after Papa died, and they had become poor, just how they had managed to happily spend so much while he lived. But now that she was rich once more, the past months in Paris had given her a sense of how that could happen.

  It was easy to stop caring about the prices of matters, and so long as Mr. Darcy assured her that they were setting aside ample money for the dowries of any daughters she might have, and to purchase the commissions, law partnerships or livings of any sons after the first she might have, she could without any anxiety or second thought simply buy any book, or hat, or painting that caught her eye while making her morning visit to the Palais Royal to look at the crowd and take coffee.

  When they re
turned to the colonel’s house, Elizabeth noted how the stooped beggar with huge nose and scar across his neck sat in one of the alleyways between barracks buildings, extending his hand out desultorily, as if bored now by the action, any time one of the soldiers passed him by.

  While they waited Elizabeth played with little Fanny, who eventually overcame her shyness of Auntie Lizzy. Darcy played with her too, and Elizabeth’s heart swelled every time he made the child smile.

  He would be such a good father.

  “So what do you think of my husband?” Lydia said after they had been waiting nearly two hours for a return of the message sent to Lord Lachglass. Her voice was slightly angry. “A fine man is he not?”

  “He seems so to me,” Darcy said.

  Lydia stared at him, judging, and then she nodded. “And you, Lizzy?”

  “I like him. And he likes you, and you are happy, that is what is important… He is… more than I expected for you.”

  Lydia laughed. “I am fortunate, he was always the kindest — he married me when I was still full of Wickham’s child, because he had come to love me, and he did not want my child to be born into the world illegitimate. Do you understand? That is the sort of man he is. That is my husband — then Mama.” Lydia growled. “I nearly clawed her eyes out that day. When she came to visit us when we were in Newcastle, after Fanny was born. She saw how we lived, still then just one room, but even smaller. And we could barely afford that one room — there are so many costs for the mess that every officer is obligated to pay. I do not think it is at all fair to the poorer sort of officers; one of those ways that the quality sort try to make the lives of others unpleasant. Expecting everyone, whether they have family wealth or not, to contribute the same to the mess. It is like what Lord Lachglass has done.”

  “Not too like,” Elizabeth replied.

  “I nearly clawed Mama’s eyes out when she said I should have married someone who had some connections and consequence, and who could help her. Or she even suggested, she even suggested—” Lydia growled. “She suggested I ought to have sold myself as the mistress of some rich man — I would never, never, ever do such an intimate thing. The conjugal embrace with a man who I did not like, and like for himself — do not look at me that way. I am no hypocrite, I think women should be as free before they marry as men are, and I do not condemn myself for the fun I had with Mr. Wickham, or others, or with my dear Johnny before the church sanctified us. Not at all. It is imprudent for women because children are a chance, and I fancy that is the real reason the church claims it wrong and evil. Trying to scare girls with hellfire from doing things that feel very good, but are imprudent. The purpose is to make life easier for the parents who pay the tithes to the vicar, not to help women avoid sin. It is my firm opinion that girls just want to enjoy themselves.”

  “Certainly not every girl,” Elizabeth replied.

  Lydia laughed. “Not Mary.”

  Elizabeth laughed too. “Mary is happy in her way — she sends me and Darcy a great many letters upon all the books and lectures she has explored since we gave her the money to attend them freely in London. I believe she wants me to know that she uses her time well.”

  “If that is her notion of using the time well — but as Mary is happy, I’ll not think ill of her for it, though her notion of enjoyment and mine are decidedly different.”

  The messenger sent to Lord Lachglass returned on a sweating horse. A groom took the horse and led it to water as the messenger handed the letter to Mr. Darcy.

  Darcy read the letter several times, and then a thin smile crossed his face. “He has agreed to meet us on his lands, out of sight of his house, in the middle of the game forest.”

  “Ah.” Elizabeth said, “As we expected.”

  “He demands that you enter his power completely though, or else he will not release your mother or sister — he thinks tomorrow shall be a transfer of prisoners.”

  Elizabeth’s stomach was flipping with fear. But she took in a deep breath. She had faced Lord Lachglass, and she had faced Mr. Blight once before. Tomorrow she would face them again.

  Darcy gripped her hand fearfully, and though his face was stiff, she could see he was frightened too.

  They did not say anything; there was nothing further for them to plan. Tomorrow would come, and what fate declared would happen, would happen.

  Her heart beat heavy.

  After some time Darcy stood to take a turn around the streets, and Elizabeth pulled her feet up onto the wicker chair she sat on and wrapped her arms around her legs. As Darcy walked down the street, the beggar with the bulbous nose came out to him, stooped, and he extended his hand out pitiably, pointing to his throat helplessly.

  Darcy handed him something and then walked on.

  The beggar looked at what Darcy had given him, and the dying light of the sun caught a glow of something that was not happiness on his face. He then shuffled away, staying stooped the entire way, and disappeared from Elizabeth’s sight.

  That night, in bed, the two of them clung tightly and passionately to each other. There was an intensity to how they came together that Elizabeth had never felt before, for she feared the morrow.

  They made the time run with love, though they could not make it stop.

  And it was only when the night was darkest, during the hour before dawn, that they fell fitfully to sleep in each other’s arms.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lachglass was less than he had once been.

  That was Darcy’s first thought as their party came, rifles out and ready, to the location they had been ordered to meet Lachglass.

  It was a clearing deep in Lachglass’s own estate, where they were led by one of his gamekeepers, a nervous young man who kept insisting to them that he just did what he was told, and he had nothing to do with the master or Mr. Blight.

  Lachglass could easily have picked men from amongst his gamekeepers hidden in the thick spring foliage, waiting to shoot. Of course, the men here were nervous soldiers who were very ready to shoot back. But they were exposed, and the trees and leaves behind and around him made Darcy’s neck ache.

  This was the perfect sort of land for an ambush.

  Darcy had hunted enough to recognize three good spots around where hunting blinds were probably placed.

  Darcy’s heart pounded in fear with every step deeper into the estate. None of that showed on his face. He held Elizabeth’s arm and almost gaily walked along, helping her over the occasional thick trunk fallen across the path. It was for Elizabeth that he was principally frightened, but as Darcy smiled and pointed out to Elizabeth a bird’s nest nestled in the branches of a tree they walked past, he knew that he was frightened for himself as well.

  So easy to turn from this quintessence of dust into dust.

  At last they reached the clearing, heavy with the thick scent of grasses, damp earth and leaves. Lord Lachglass stood in the clearing with a half dozen pale and frightened looking men, badly outnumbered by the platoon of soldiers they had borrowed from Colonel Pike’s regiment.

  Mr. Blight stood next to Lachglass, his face pale, and his lips thinned as he saw the group of soldiers arrive. But he did not look particularly scared.

  Lord Lachglass held the wavering tip of his gun on Mrs. Bennet. He held it in his left hand, as his right hand had been wrapped up with a huge bandage, and he held the pistol protectively against his side.

  His other men looked between each other, and backed away from Lachglass with their hands held up as they saw the soldiers enter the clearing.

  The rake’s nose was twisted and flat. His hair seemed to have thinned. But that was not where the chief change was. There had always been a vicious brutal energy to Lachglass, but if you watched his movements it was as if everything animal and vital in his soul had been replaced by something hollow that could disappear at the first moment.

  That scared Darcy almost as much as the way Lachglass showed no concern at seeing the group of soldiers who had come with Darcy and E
lizabeth.

  This was not the face of a man who cared overmuch if he survived. Darcy tightened his grip on Elizabeth’s arm.

  “What… what do all these men do here? You, captain, you trespass upon my land.” Lachglass waved dismissively at Captain Dilman, as if he expected the man to actually turn around. “I give no permission for your presence, I am an earl, and you are to leave.”

  He gestured his pistol at the soldiers, without ever actually pointing the weapon directly at any of them, before turning his weapon once more on Mrs. Bennet.

  “You stand accused,” Captain Dilman said in a ringing voice, “of kidnapping and other crimes. I am here to bring you to arrest, and to see you stand trial.”

  Lachglass sneered and shuffled around Mrs. Bennet, so that he now held his gun against the back of the trembling woman’s head. “You have a warrant, I take it.”

  “A warrant signed by his honor, Mr. Crews, a magistrate in Brighton.”

  “No jurisdiction.” Lachglass dismissively waved his wrapped up right hand. “Get away, and when I sign a warrant of arrest against myself you may come here.”

  “Nevertheless, you shall release your guests, or you shall be thrown in prison today.”

  Lachglass laughed, a high-pitched keening sound. The way his finger seemed to play in the trigger of the gun terrified Darcy. Was he about to see Mrs. Bennet’s head splattered across the lawn due to an accidental misfire?

  “This is all too tiresome. You know I cannot be prosecuted. As a peer of England I have a right for the first accusation of any crime, save murder, to be dismissed. Even were it true that I had abducted this woman,” he kicked Mrs. Bennet hard in the back of her leg, and she moaned piteously, “I would not be punished for the crime due to my position and rank. Save us both the annoyance and get yourself away — But you.”

  Lachglass saw Miss Bennet, and he snarled.

  His nostrils flared with hatred, his eyes went narrow, the cords in neck throbbed. He spat at her, the spittle landing in Mrs. Bennet’s lap.