Suspense and Sensibility: Or, First Impressions Revisited

by Carrie Bebris

  The cool cast of Darcy’s countenance revealed his displeasure. “We are to understand that you have not been in town these past nine days?”

  “Just so.”

  The room fell silent. But in three minds at least, the falsehood echoed. Too many people, including Darcy himself, had seen Harry in the past nine days. He could not possibly be telling the truth.

  Disappointment—in Harry, for Kitty—settled in Elizabeth’s heart.

  Harry regarded them all in confusion. “Miss Bennet, if I—” He broke off as if suddenly understanding. “I should have told you in my letter where I went. Forgive me. I did not mean to keep you in suspense for so long. My plan to travel to Devonshire was formed very quickly. I departed in haste, at too early an hour to take proper leave of you. When I wrote, I thought only to get a letter to you as soon as it could be delivered. I should have considered better what it contained.”

  “It’s not that, Mr. Dashwood,” Kitty said.

  “Then what?”

  Kitty looked deflated. A glance at Elizabeth implored her older sister to continue.

  “A great many people have seen you in London during the time you claim to have been gone from town,” Elizabeth said.

  Mr. Dashwood shook his head. “I assure you, I have been in Devonshire. Or on the road in between. These people, whoever they are, must be mistaken.”

  “I am one of them,” said Darcy.

  Harry stepped toward him. “Upon my soul, Mr. Darcy, you must have seen someone else.”

  “In your own house?”

  Harry opened his mouth, but no words came out. He stared at Darcy as if trying to comprehend him. “You saw me in my townhouse?”

  “On Tuesday.”

  He pondered that a moment. “What was I doing?”

  “Observing me from your window as I returned to my carriage. After you refused to receive me.”

  “I would never ref—” He stopped, seeming to remember something. “Which window?”

  “The one in your bedchamber, I believe. Two stories up, overlooking the street.”

  Mr. Dashwood’s bluff had been called. He looked bewildered at first, as if he couldn’t believe his deceit had been discovered. Then agitation seized him.

  “Forgive me, Miss Bennet,” he said, putting on his hat. “I will call again in the morning, if I may. I—I have to go.”

  Darcy followed Mr. Dashwood down the stairs. He had words for Kitty’s fiancé that ought not be spoken in the ladies’ hearing. He stopped Harry in the front hall before he reached the door.

  “Mr. Dashwood, have you anything further to say for yourself?”

  “Upon my honor, Mr. Darcy, you quite mistake me.”

  “Your honor is in serious question at present. Perhaps you ought to swear on something more dependable.”

  “You doubt my honor because you think you saw me at a window?”

  “No—because of some of the other places you have been sighted of late. Mr. Dashwood, do you honestly believe I would allow my wife’s sister to marry a man who frequents gaming hells? Who surrounds himself with drunkards and rakehells?” He dropped his voice. “A man who visits nunneries?”

  Harry turned white. “You accuse me of spending my time with prostitutes?” He looked as appalled by the idea as Darcy.

  “I do not. But hearsay does.” He glanced up to the drawing room, relieved to see that the door remained closed. “Mr. Dashwood, I do not, as a rule, give credence to public gossip. I have witnessed too many reputations unfairly destroyed by rumormongers to believe every on-dit that circulates. But when my own firsthand knowledge catches a gentleman in one lie, I find it hard to trust his word on other matters, or the principles by which he governs himself. I want to believe that the tales reaching my ears are not true, because I want to believe you are a better man than the one they describe. But you cannot restore my faith in your character without first revealing what you have actually been doing this week.”

  “I have been in Devonshire.”

  Darcy turned away in disgust.

  “Mr. Darcy—” Harry moved round until he stood before him. He looked weary, and nervous, and more than a little desperate. He ran a hand through his hair, gripping the roots before letting go. “Something has happened—rather, may have happened—may be happening—” He broke off, distraught. “I cannot explain it just now.”

  Darcy studied Harry. He was obviously in some sort of distress. “Mr. Dashwood, are you in trouble?”

  He shrugged vaguely. “No.” He stared at some distant point. “Perhaps. I do not know.”

  What kind of mess had he gotten himself into? Was he in debt? Had he compromised a young lady? Darcy’s mind raced with all the possible fixes in which an imprudent young gentleman could find himself. Despite recent events, Darcy still felt a strong interest in Mr. Dashwood’s welfare. He wanted to assist Harry if he could.

  “Mr. Dashwood, if you would but confide in me, perhaps I can help you out of this scrape.”

  Harry sighed and shook his head. “No. I—It may all prove to be naught.”

  “I wish you would reconsider.”

  “There is nothing to tell. At least, not presently.” He crossed to the door. “Please excuse me, sir. I have to go home. There’s something to which I must attend without delay.”

  Twelve

  “Suspicion of something unpleasant is the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we have just witnessed in him.”

  —Elinor Dashwood to her mother,

  Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 15

  Darcy stood still for only a moment after the door closed behind Mr. Dashwood.

  “Mrs. Hale?” he called. “I require my greatcoat. I am going out.”

  The housekeeper hurried into the hall, followed closely by Darcy’s valet bearing his cloak. “Shall I have the carriage brought round, sir?”

  “No.” If he was going to follow Mr. Dashwood, he did not have time to order his own carriage. Besides, the family crest on its door would give him away. “Summon a hackney.”

  Mrs. Hale’s face betrayed a flash of puzzlement before returning to the standard-issue whatever-you-say-sir expression of all well-trained English servants.

  He jammed his arms into the coat sleeves. “Tell Mrs. Darcy that I left with Mr. Dashwood and may be quite late.”

  “Tell her yourself,” Elizabeth said as she reached the bottom step. “But if you are leaving with Mr. Dashwood, where is he?”

  The sound of Harry’s carriage departing answered that query. She raised a brow.

  “Perhaps not so much with Mr. Dashwood, as behind him,” Darcy clarified.

  Her eyes widened. “You are following him? I shall need my mantle.”

  “You cannot come with me.”

  “Darling, Mr. Dashwood has already left. We haven’t time to argue.”

  “How disappointing. He actually went home.” Elizabeth leaned back in the hackney and pulled her cape about her more tightly. The warm spring day had given way to a cool night, and she wished she’d thought to bring her muff. She’d have to remember it the next time she flew out of the house on a whim to spy all night on a future brother-in-law. “But will he stay?”

  “That is precisely what I intend to learn.”

  Darcy instructed their driver to remain at their present position, about thirty yards down the street from Mr. Dashwood’s townhouse. The location offered a clear view of Harry’s front door, a sight enhanced by the light of the full moon. Mr. Dashwood had just entered the house; his driver had then taken his carriage away. Fortunately, steady traffic in Pall Mall had helped prevent either man from noticing the Darcys’ surveillance.

  Candlelight brightened an upstairs window a few minutes after Mr. Dashwood’s entry. “That is Dashwood’s suite,” Darcy said.

  “If he simply goes to sleep, we are in for a dull night,” she replied. Mr. Dashwood had looked so tired that he might just do that.

  The window remained lit for some time, prompting in Elizabeth
a desire to consult the hour. After her conversation with Professor Randolph some weeks back, she’d begun occasionally carrying the watch she’d received from him. She now withdrew it from her pocket and tilted it to catch the moonlight.

  Darcy frowned. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Determining how long we have been sitting here.”

  “No, I mean, why are you carrying that thing around with you?”

  “Why not?”

  “I dislike the idea of its being so close to your person.”

  “Now, Darcy, you are the one who keeps saying it is nothing more than a watch. If that is true, then what harm lies in carrying it?”

  His silence transmitted his displeasure. He turned his attention back to the townhouse. A hackney stopped two doors down from Harry’s, releasing a pair of older gentlemen who stood talking on the street long after the carriage departed.

  “An hour, by the way,” she said. “We have been sitting in Pall Mall over an hour. It is nearly half-past ten. How much longer ought we—”

  “The light just went out.”

  Both of them now peered toward the darkened residence. It appeared as if Mr. Dashwood may have indeed retired for the day. No other signs indicated movement elsewhere in the house.

  “Well, this was scarcely the night of debauchery we had been led to expect.” Elizabeth slipped the watch back into her pocket. “I’m ready to return to a warm fire and—Oh! Now there is light one story down.”

  “That is the drawing room.”

  She burrowed farther into her mantle. “I suppose this means we shall be stopped here a little longer.”

  “It was you who insisted on accompanying me.”

  “I did not realize it would be so cold. Next time I shall dress more warmly.”

  “Next time I shall come alone.”

  The gentlemen who had arrived by hackney now walked to Mr. Dashwood’s house and mounted the steps. “Darcy, look! Someone approaches the door.”

  “Sit back,” Darcy instructed. “I do not want them to notice us. One of them is Felix Longcliffe.”

  “The man from the fencing club? Who is the other?”

  “I do not recognize him.”

  Mr. Dashwood’s servant answered the door and granted the gentlemen admission. No sooner had the door shut behind them, than another visitor arrived by private conveyance. This gentleman had to be at least eighty; he stooped heavily over his walking stick as he shuffled up the steps.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I believe that coach bears the Flaxbury coat of arms,” Darcy said.

  Two more carriages pulled up. Darcy didn’t recognize the occupants or their liveries. “Miss Bingley once said that a thorough knowledge of drawing was essential in any truly accomplished young woman. Have I married one?”

  Elizabeth almost laughed aloud. She labored to produce identifiable stick figures. “Would you want to have married someone admired by Miss Bingley?”

  He withdrew a small notebook and pencil from his breast pocket. “Sketch the family crests on the sides of those two carriages as best you can.”

  Her artistic skills, aided by the lighting and angle by which she viewed the originals, rendered illustrations that any five-year-old would be proud to display. Her lines of partition were tidily executed, but her white horse rampant looked more like a small rodent, and the lion couchant resembled a rabbit suffering ear amputation.

  “A new barouche just pulled up. How do the first two drawings come along?”

  “My finest ever.”

  Darcy glanced at her efforts. “Perhaps we should simply write down descriptions.”

  In the course of an hour, twelve visitors entered the townhouse. Darcy recognized one more on sight, and all but two of the others arrived in carriages marked by family crests. Most were far older than Harry; the gathering included at least three octogenarians.

  The last man to arrive brought with him a trunk. The large ebony box was inlaid with gold images that caught the moonlight as the servants carried it inside.

  “A most curious assembly,” Elizabeth declared. From the look of the carriages, Mr. Dashwood had some very wealthy and influential friends. “And at an equally curious hour. If only we could see inside the drawing room.” Given that the draperies were drawn and the room sat one story up, the possibility seemed unlikely.

  The driver, who had done a fine job up until this point of minding his own business while indulging his eccentric but well-paying customers, now shifted in his seat. “Uh, sir? Any idea how long ye might be wantin’ to stay?”

  Elizabeth consulted her watch again. “It is nearly midnight,” she told Darcy.

  Candlelight appeared in Mr. Dashwood’s suite once more. Its draperies opened.

  “Driver, how would you like to earn an extra crown?” Darcy asked.

  Thirteen

  “How you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess is beyond my comprehension.”

  —Elinor to Mr. Willoughby,

  Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 44

  Lord Chatfield frowned as he scanned Darcy’s list. “You wish to know what all these gentlemen have in common? Is this some sort of riddle, Darcy?”

  “I am afraid not.” Darcy paced the earl’s library, hoping Chatfield could provide insight into the gathering he and Elizabeth had witnessed—or tried to witness—the night before. Their hackney driver had scaled a tree to peer inside Harry’s window but had attained his perch only in time to see a white-robed figure draw the draperies once more. No other clue as to the activities within had presented itself until Dashwood’s visitors had tumbled out—many of them deep in their cups—just before dawn.

  Elizabeth still slept, but Darcy had risen after only a few hours. Eager to identify the men who had called upon Dashwood, he’d consulted his peerage books to match their coats of arms with family names, then had come to his friend. Lord Chatfield knew absolutely everybody worth knowing in London—from peers and politicians to poets, scientists, and scholars. The earl’s own gatherings were legendary for drawing together seemingly disparate individuals for evenings of stimulating conversation. If any common interest linked the names Darcy had written down, Chatfield would know.

  “Steepledown . . . Flaxbury . . . Westinghurst . . . Many of these men enjoyed considerable political influence years ago, but one hears little about them now.” The earl leaned back in his chair and studied the list more closely. “Parkington is well known as an art collector. He owns an extensive collection of sculpture. I’ve never seen it, but I understand much of it is of a, shall we say, suggestive nature—definitely not something for public display. He was a notorious libertine in his day.”

  “So was Longcliffe.” After encountering him at the fencing club, Darcy had made some enquiries about him. He was also a heavy gambler.

  “Bellingford . . . Bellingford . . . Why is that name familiar?” Chatfield absently tapped his finger against the paper. “I seem to recall a scandal several years back. Something about a mistress. Whatever it was, it ended badly.” He regarded Darcy apologetically. “I am sorry—I wish I could be more helpful. Might I ask where this list came from?”

  “I would rather not say. At least presently.”

  “That’s quite all right. I just thought the context might shed enlightenment.” He scanned the names once more. “Darcy, may I keep this list for a day or two? I know someone who might be able to help us. I assure you, I will be most discreet.”

  “By all means.”

  Chatfield called upon Darcy the very next afternoon. The normally genial man appeared more serious than was his custom.

  “Are Mrs. Darcy or your sisters at home?”

  “No, they are gone out shopping.”

  “Good. I have news on the matter we discussed yesterday that I would not wish a lady to accidentally overhear.”

  Darcy ushered his friend into the library and closed the door. The earl declined Darcy’s offer of refreshment, or
even a seat.

  “I hardly know where to begin.”

  “No one will interrupt us. Start wherever seems best.”

  Chatfield paused. “Perhaps I’ll take that wine, after all.”

  Darcy pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter on the side table. The interview was not off to a favorable start for Mr. Dashwood. Chatfield was one of the most forthright men Darcy knew; his present hesitation presaged ill tidings.

  “I shared your list with an acquaintance of mine,” the earl continued, “a fellow highly placed in the Home Office. I kept your name in confidence, of course, though he was very curious about the source of the list—for reasons I shall soon relate.”

  “I thank you for your discretion.” Darcy handed him the glass and poured one for himself.

  Chatfield took a fortifying draught. “You have, I presume, heard of the Hell-Fire Club? Sir Francis Dashwood and his so-called Monks of Medmenham?”

  “I know of it generally—what any young man hears from his schoolmates. But no real particulars.”

  “No one knows all the particulars, save those who participated in its activities, and most of them are long dead. The ‘monks’ kept the details of their rituals secret. Given what is known of their exploits, I cannot imagine what they considered too terrible to reveal. It was a most shocking organization.”

  “Most of the tales I have heard are too outrageous to be believed. Schoolboy exaggerations of sexual exploits and Black Masses.”

  “They are not exaggerations. The Friars of Saint Francis conducted obscene mockeries of Christianity. According to accounts, the rituals involved Satan worship, fornicating on altars, drunken orgies, black magic, and other wickedness I cannot even bring myself to say aloud. Its motto was Fay ce que voudras.”

  “ ‘Do what thou wilt,’ ” Darcy translated.

  “And apparently, they did. Horrible, horrible business! Yet many of the club’s suspected members were intelligent men who wielded considerable political power, especially during the years just before England’s loss of the American colonies. Their influence secretly extended into the highest reaches of the government.”