Mr. Darcy's Great Escape

by Marsha Altman

  “Who are the parents?”

  “His mother… his mother was a lady—well, the kind of lady that not many would call a proper lady. You understand? I hate having to say it. She deserves more respect than that.”

  Darcy nodded. “I understand.”

  “Her name was Lilly, and I knew her professionally—I used to treat men who fell ill where she worked, usually from drink or heart attacks. That was how I met Frederick’s father as well. I treated him for a minor wound on his chest. Never asked him his name. I found out later.” He shook his head. “After Frederick was born, Lilly became very ill, and her matron called for me. She had childbed fever, very advanced. She was dead within a few hours. And then, for reasons I’ll never understand, Caroline showed up in this horrible flat in the worst part of London, picked up the child, and said ‘We’re taking him.’ And that was that.”

  “Did you contact the father?”

  “He made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with his bastard son. Though he still sends him a gift on his birthday every year. It scares both of us. The thought that he could come in at any time and take Frederick away from us—our son—is…” He put his head in his good hand. “You understand.”

  “I understand.”

  Dr. Maddox sighed. “At least he has the good fortune to not inherit my vision. I’m told it happens less often in women, so Emily may escape. We won’t know for sure until her teenage years.”

  “Some things are beyond our control.”

  “So I would comfort myself after a patient died during an operation that I performed,” Dr. Maddox said, “even if he was living when I started and dead when I stopped.”

  After a while, Darcy said, “Why did you become a doctor?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I wanted to save my eyesight. Not so altruistic, is it? But I suppose you can’t expect that of someone who is fourteen.”

  “Considering the doctors who seem to only cheat their patients with expensive tonics, I would consider you a saint by those standards,” Darcy said. “They are cheating them, right?”

  “For the most part, yes. A giant scam. They make tons of money.”

  “What’s in them?”

  “In what?”

  “The tonics?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—they change the recipes every once in a while. Usually water, something with color, and maybe salt.”

  Darcy laughed. It was not a particularly healthy laugh, but it was nice to hear it.

  ***

  Nothing was fully resolved that evening, as Lord Matlock began to make his own preparations for the journey. Caroline Maddox held her position quite firmly, to the point where it seemed likely that she would not listen to anyone. Elizabeth held her own counsel, undecided herself. She prepared for bed and was just entering it when there was a knock on the door. “Come.”

  The door opened. It was Geoffrey, standing in her doorway. “Mother?”

  She rose from her bed, unsure of what to say.

  Instead, he took the lead. “I know you have to go rescue Father,” he said, with some trepidation, but no accusation.

  She opened her arms to him and took a seat on the bed, enveloping him in her robe. “I am still debating it.”

  “You’re not. You’re going to go,” he said. “You should go.”

  “You think I should?”

  He nodded. He was getting so big now, he barely fit in her lap, and she could still remember when he had been a tiny bundle in her arms. “If I was Father, I would want you to come rescue me. You’re the only one who makes him happy.”

  She smiled, but it exhausted her. All of her worries, fears, and other emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but she could not cry now, when she had to be strong for the boy in her arms and for the man very far away. “You are very considerate of your father’s feelings.”

  “But I don’t want to be master of Pemberley,” he said, leaning back so their eyes could meet. “Can Uncle Bingley be master of Pemberley for a while instead?”

  “Uncle Bingley cannot be master of three places, my dear,” she said. “I fear his head would explode.”

  Geoffrey laughed. He had a hole in his smile, where one of his baby teeth had fallen out and the new one had not grown in yet. It made her heart melt, and she kissed him on his head. “You do not have to be master of Pemberley. Yet.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “And you promise to come back with Father?”

  “Geoffrey,” she said more seriously, “I can promise to do all that I am capable of to return him, but you are old enough to know that I cannot do everything.”

  “But you can try.”

  “Yes, darling,” she said. “I can try.”

  Chapter 14

  Further Departures

  Arrangements had to be made for those leaving the country, however reluctantly their relatives would let them go. The biggest problem facing Elizabeth was her sister, who was more than a little reluctant to leave her spacious quarters at Rosings (“I don’t see why we have to!”) and return to Longbourn. Anne stayed with her mother, and Elizabeth made sure not to be present when they told Lady Catherine the news. She heard the shouting from downstairs, even with the thick walls of Rosings.

  Geoffrey was right; she was decided. She could not justify leaving her children, but nor could she bear to sit back any longer. She had been alone for too long, except for the child who would go with her. That, at least, she had had the good sense to keep a secret.

  Am I putting the child in danger? Yes. But I can’t have this child without Darcy.

  That, in the end, decided the matter.

  The Bingleys, assuming care of her children, stopped in Town on the way back from Kent to see her off and make yet more futile attempts to talk her out of it. The Hursts would stay in the Bingley townhouse, which was regularly kept open for Bingley’s own comings and goings, even though he and Jane would officially reside at Chatton, and Georgiana at the Darcy house.

  One more awkward conversation was needed. Lord Matlock and Elizabeth Darcy stood before a tense Miss Darcy.

  “If—and the chance is so very small—I do not return in time, you know the arrangements?” He was, though not her legal guardian, someone who would grant his consent to her marriage if Darcy were unavailable, for emotional reasons. “When you find someone who makes you happy and Elizabeth’s discerning eye approves, you have my blessing.”

  “Mr. Bingley will be Geoffrey’s steward until he comes of age,” Elizabeth said, “but it will not come to that.”

  “Please,” Georgiana said, oddly calmly, “make sure that it does not.”

  ***

  After heartfelt good-byes from the Bingleys, the three travelers watched England disappear behind them. They were straight to Prussia—not the short trip to France that Elizabeth had once taken across the strait. Slowly their home became a blur in the mist, and then it was gone.

  Elizabeth Darcy and Caroline Maddox’s unspoken truce of joint worry lasted a full five minutes beyond that. All things considered, Elizabeth would later think that impressive.

  Lord Matlock had just gone below deck when Caroline turned to Elizabeth and said, “You are in my debt.”

  “How so?”

  “You and I both know no one would have permitted you along if they knew you were with child,” Caroline said coldly. “You are putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”

  Elizabeth’s hand instinctively went to her stomach, though it looked to a more casual observer as though she was just adjusting her shawl against the windy ocean. “If you object so much, why did you not say something?”

  “I did not think it prudent.”

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. She knew she was lying. “As long as you don’t say anything to Lord Matlock—”

  “Why? Because he would
have you sent home, where you should be now?”

  “My husband is in Austria as well. Perhaps you have forgotten.”

  “At least I offer some service to the cause.”

  “Lord Matlock could easily hire a guide. He was just unwilling to stand up to you.”

  Maybe for someone else, it would have been a compliment, but not for Caroline Maddox. She huffed and faced out again. There was no more land to look at, but it was easier than looking at each other.

  “Are we going to fight the whole way?” Elizabeth said.

  “The possibility has not escaped me.”

  “Because I warn you, I am not in the best of moods these past three months.”

  “Neither have I been,” Caroline responded quickly. She sighed and then replied more softly, “You should not have come.”

  “If all you intend to do is raise further objection—”

  “No. At least Daniel had the good sense not to leave me in such a state, even if he had not the sense to not go in the first place.” She recovered, her voice more steady. “If I do happen upon Brian again, and it is not to everyone’s rescue, I will take great pleasure in slapping him.”

  “On this we can agree.”

  To Elizabeth’s surprise, Caroline managed a half-smile.

  “Perhaps we can agree also to at least be polite to each other. For Lord Matlock’s sake.”

  “For his sake,” she said, and they shook on it.

  ***

  They arrived on the Continent and traveled to Berlin without incident, but found no trace of Darcy or either Maddox brother. It was not as dangerous to walk openly as an Englishman as they had surmised from home. “An occupied country is never happy about it,” Fitzwilliam said as they made it to Berlin. Despite the anti-French sentiments of the general populace, they could find no traces of Darcy or Dr. Maddox’s visit there. Nor did anyone seem to know or care about some corner of Austria. After much talking, they decided that instead of a straight shot, they would make their way to Austria and try to recover Grégoire, and purchased a wagon and trained horses for their travels, as uncomfortable as they would be.

  “I believe it to be called the Confederacy of the Rhine now,” said Caroline, examining a Prussian newspaper.

  “What is this nonsense? Boney can’t redraw the map every year and expect us to keep up with it,” Fitzwilliam said in mock-indignation. “We’re going south, and that is that.”

  Lord Matlock’s easy manners at least put some levity in their long drive, made gloomier and bumpier by the well-traveled roads of Napoleon’s army on its way to Russia. They drove often through the night, with one or two people sleeping in the wagon on multiple blankets.

  “Look there, Elizabeth,” Fitzwilliam said, pointing her in the direction of fire lighting up the horizon of the night sky. The moon was in full wane, and there was not much light otherwise. “French soldiers encamped. I heard the general is moving five hundred thousand across Europe to fight the czar.”

  “Lord Matlock! Do you mean to frighten me?”

  “No,” he said, “I feel merely compelled to point out that we are literally crossing over what will soon be history. And to think, if not for Anne, I would be now preparing to fight them.”

  “You think England will go to war?”

  “While Bonaparte still lives, it is a certainty,” he said. “The question is when. But you must admit that is not a sight you see so often in Derbyshire.”

  “Or Kent,” she lamented. “Were the circumstances different, I might be at ease to appreciate this, but I find I cannot.”

  “Of course,” he said. “He’ll be all right, Elizabeth.”

  She wished she could so easily believe him.

  They stopped only when the horses needed to. While Elizabeth got her fill of the German landscape, which had mountains to dwarf everything but what she had seen in Italy, Caroline read from the only book she had taken. At first Elizabeth assumed it was the Bible or a book on the Germanic languages, but one day when they were stopped and Fitzwilliam was caring for the horses, she bothered to ask, “What is it you are reading? For I shame myself by having neglected to bring a book. And to think I consider myself an accomplished woman.”

  To her surprise, Caroline gave her the kind of knowing smirk she usually only reserved for Louisa. “Troilus and Criseyde.”

  “The romance?”

  “Hardly a romance. Or a very tragic one,” she said. “His favorite.”

  “I confess to not knowing my husband’s favorite book, him having so many he rereads,” Elizabeth said, sitting down next to her on the rock. “I suppose it could be My Account Ledgers as he spends so much time with them.”

  “I always thought it was How to Scowl Indignantly.”

  “I’ve not yet found his copy!”

  The sound of their laughter must have been so odd that it distracted Lord Matlock, who gave them a polite but inquisitive smile.

  It took them uncountable days—surely, weeks—to reach Munich. For the most part they had bought supplies and stayed out of civilization, so this was a welcome breath of fresh air, despite the fact that the air was not very fresh. The city, clearly, had just been run through by troops, and they were quick to learn that French soldiers were there as late as the day before. The city was dispersed, its residents in shock, many of them not unwelcoming but uninterested in three obviously English travelers. Fitzwilliam hid his pistol in the folds of his greatcoat as Caroline attempted to get directions from a blacksmith. “He says there was a monastery up the street, but it was dissolved a few months ago.”

  “Benedictine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did the monks go?”

  Caroline inquired and had a brief conversation with the blacksmith on his porch before returning to them. “Many of them went to Spain or Italy, he says. He doesn’t know much more than that.”

  The idea that Grégoire might not be found settled on them—or, more accurately, unsettled them. Having him lost and learning that there was no massacre of monks was still preferable to a grave for Grégoire Darcy and for them, but it did not give them good feelings.

  The abbey was relatively small in comparison to the great cathedrals and monasteries of Europe. It was more of a church that had once had monks, and the town around it on all sides. As Fitzwilliam tied up the wagon, Caroline and Elizabeth entered the church. It was mainly wooden and utterly abandoned. The altar had been looted, and most of the vestments were on the floor. Elizabeth searched everything with her eyes desperately but found nothing.

  “They’re gone,” Caroline said. “We are too late.”

  Elizabeth looked up at the one stained-glass window that remained mostly intact. The portrait was not of Jesus, but of the Virgin Mary, shown as she always was, with her head cocked to the side for some reason. The only hole was in her hand, and just then, a bird flew through it and entered the vaulted ceiling.

  “Elizabeth!”

  She turned, and Caroline, not so lost in contemplation, had located a door. It opened not to a side chapel but to a stairwell leading down into the storage rooms. She picked up a candle from the abandoned altar, lit it against the striker, and stepped down into the darkness.

  At the bottom was a door. Elizabeth knocked on the door to the storeroom. Inside were some hushed whispers, and then the door burst open on the other side, and a young woman came flying past, weaving between them both to escape up the steps in a hurry.

  “Uhm, hello? Guten tag?” Elizabeth said, and looked at Caroline, who shrugged, before opening the door further.

  Inside, Grégoire was adjusting his cowl over his washed-out robes next to a mattress and a stone box. “Bitte nicht—Elizabeth?” He squinted in the poor light of the one window as he tied his rope belt. “Mrs. Maddox?” He hurriedly bowed.

  Elizabeth was too shocked, but Caroline apparently felt
no need to hold back her laughter, except to at least cover her mouth when she did so. “Did you—”

  “It’s not—well—I cannot lie, but I can hold my tongue—”

  “Did I just see a woman go past? A half-dressed woman?”

  “Oh Holy Father, what have I done?” he said, crossing himself. “She—I just—she needed refuge—”

  “There are different types of refuge!” Elizabeth was having trouble deciding whether to be indignant or just outright shocked. Darcy, no doubt, would shake his hand and slap him on the back. “Excuse us for intruding—”

  “No! No, no, no, you are not intruding, Sister, I just…” He seemed unable to fully explain it, even to himself. “I will not make excuses. I am a sinner like any man.”

  “Well, you’re certainly more like any man now than you were before, I think,” Elizabeth said. “I will be honest—Darcy would be congratulating you right now if he were here.”

  Grégoire sighed and collapsed on the mattress. All of the important possessions of the abbey seemed hurriedly strewn about, including the massive, gilded box behind him. “What have I done?”

  “Finally become a man?” Caroline said, laughing.

  Elizabeth could not hold back her laughter either. “Oh, it is not so terrible after all, is it?”

  “I have taken a vow—well, I did take a vow—but everyone else took vows, and they just—walked off.”

  “Then you are the last?” she said, sitting down next to him. “The last monk of Austria?”

  “Maybe not the country, but certainly the last Benedictine of St. Sebald.”

  “Who?”

  He gestured towards the box. “His bones. I would not allow them to loot the place. Gold, of course, maybe, but not the holy container of a saint. The relics were brought here last year from the tomb in Nuremberg, in secret.” It was, upon somewhat closer inspection, a traditional reliquary.

  “So you have been down here guarding this—saint?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the woman?”