She reached for the bell pull. “I will have Cook bring you something light to eat,” she said. “I know the inn at Meryton serves supper very early, for they keep country hours, and you are undoubtedly hungry by now.”
“You are really very kind,” said Robert Darcy.
“I hope Colonel Fitzwilliam will not be sleepy tomorrow,” said Louisa, her mind still dwelling on their earlier exchange. “For I had hoped to question him more about our friends in London. I am so out of touch with everyone!”
“I am sure you will have the opportunity to talk to him,” said Caroline. “But I hope you will not exhaust him with your questions.”
“Oh, I need not stand on ceremony with him. He has been our brother’s friend forever. And you must not hold back, either, Caroline,” she said, throwing her sister a knowing look. “For I know you are anxious to enquire after a particular gentleman.”
Under Mr Darcy’s scrutiny, Caroline felt the blood rise to her face. “There is no one in particular I wish to discuss,” she replied, stung by this betrayal of confidence. And to someone they scarcely knew! “You will agree, Louisa, that I am acquainted with several very presentable young gentlemen in London.”
“All at the same time, Miss Bingley?” said Mr Darcy. “I must admit I am quite impressed.”
Caroline pressed her lips together tightly. Louisa had started this, but Mr Darcy was only too happy to find a reason to roast her.
“Come, come, Mr Darcy,” said Louisa archly. “You must admit that is a possibility. Caroline has many admirers. She is accounted a beauty in Town.”
Mr Darcy exclaimed in surprise. “Well, I never!” he said, peering at Caroline closely, as if he had never seen her before. “Now that you mention it, I see there is some truth in that judgement. I am grateful to you for drawing my attention to it, Mrs Hurst. I apologize, Miss Bingley, for not having realized it earlier.”
Miss Bingley did not know whether to blush or to be angry at his brazenness. Since she could not decide on one or the other, she contented herself with chastising her sister. “You should not to speak about me like this in front of strangers, Louisa.”
“But Mr Darcy is hardly a stranger, Caroline.”
Caroline could not believe her ears.
Robert Darcy raised an eyebrow. “She has a point there,” he said. “I imagine I know quite a number of things about you that are not generally known.”
She turned away quickly, pretending to busy herself with rearranging some ornaments on the table, and bit down on her lip to prevent herself from retorting. Insufferable man! To taunt her about that single moment of weakness! Never before had she regretted anything as much as that moment of emotional display at Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy’s wedding. The memory agitated her so much that before she knew it she had broken her resolve to stay silent.
“A gentleman would refrain from such references.” She realized too late that she had aroused her sister’s suspicions.
“What references, Caroline? What are you talking about? Did you have a prior acquaintance with Mr Darcy?”
Caroline was thrown into an agony of confusion. How could she answer her sister in a way that would satisfy her without lying outright?
“We were only introduced two days ago,” interceded Mr Darcy, smoothly. “Which was a great loss to me, had I but known it. Especially now that you have alerted me to Miss Bingley’s reputation as a beauty. However, I intend to remedy the situation very quickly.”
He smiled at Louisa, and to Caroline’s surprise, her sister tittered. “Mr Darcy!” said Louisa, coyly. “What nonsense is this?”
Caroline remained steadfastly unsmiling. She had allowed him a hold on her by giving in once to her feelings in a moment of weakness. But if he thought she could be influenced by a few meaningless words of flattery, he would find he was very much mistaken. She was not such an easy nut to crack, and she would make sure he knew it.
Chapter 3
Despite misgivings on Caroline’s part, Colonel Fitzwilliam rode over from the inn before seven o’clock the next morning, their planned departure time. She might not have noticed had they not discussed it the night before, but the colonel suffered from the effects of his late night. All attempts on Louisa’s part to engage him in questions about London failed, for he was reluctant to speak in more than single syllables, and spent much of the morning with his head against the window, snoring softly.
Robert Darcy, on the other hand, was perfectly alert. This gave neither of the ladies any pleasure, particularly since he cast several cynical looks at the colonel’s sleeping countenance, and seemed generally to regard the situation with amusement. To make matters worse, since Colonel Fitzwilliam declined to take any interest in the journey, it fell upon Mr Darcy to determine when to stop, which he did by consulting his borrowed copy of Paterson’s.
They stopped for their cheese at the Bell Inn at Stilton, despite the protests of Mr Darcy who objected to the smell that filled the carriage. It was quite useless to point out that they could not possibly smell the cheese inside when it had been placed outside, on the box. He insisted that the odour was quite overpowering.
By the time they reached Wansford, Caroline began to reflect quite cheerfully that if they continued at the same rate, they would make Stamford by late afternoon. Then on the morrow, if they started early enough, they would reach Pemberley. She cheered up, indulging in the hope that the journey would prove much easier than she had anticipated.
Her optimism was soon dealt a blow, however. A loud cacophony reached them, and the carriage began to slow down. Strident cries and shouts rang out, accompanied by a strange unfamiliar din that sounded as if a whole orchestra of ill-matched horns were playing at the same time.
“What could that be?” said Robert Darcy.
“If it is what I think it is,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, undoing the fastening on the window, “I doubt we will be able to reach Stamford for some time.” He put his head out, then slumped back with a resigned look. “Unfortunately, it is what I thought. A large flock of geese is blocking our way, and the cries you hear are the drovers shouting their warnings to the farmers to keep their own stock out of the way.”
“Oh, not geese!” Louisa groaned. “They are such smelly, nasty creatures! Now we shall be delayed for hours.”
The carriage slowed to a crawl, then came to a standstill.
“Surely it cannot be as bad as all that?” said Caroline. She leaned out of the window to survey their situation. An enormous gaggle of geese occupied the road. It stretched on and on, the birds waddling along in an orderly fashion, kept in alignment by a long line of drivers with birch rods walking alongside the roadway. Caroline was struck by the strangeness of the geese’s feet. Their webbing was dark, thick, and uneven. They all seemed to have some sort of disfiguring disease, which left their feet blackened and rough looking, with specks on them like sand.
Far ahead, the drovers rode on horseback, distant outlines visible upon the horizon, though their strange cries reached the carriage clearly.
The coachman blew on the yard of tin he used to call the tollgate keepers, trying to make the geese move aside and let him pass. They honked and hissed aggressively in return.
“Oh, this is ridiculous,” said Louisa. “We are on a post road, not a drover’s road. They cannot let their geese run wild on a public way. There must be some ordinance against it.”
Since the geese were evidently on the public road, no one had anything to say.
“I wonder what’s wrong with their feet,” said Caroline, unable to keep her eyes off the strange blackened forms.
The geese, however, did not seem to be in any kind of pain. They plodded along quite cheerfully, indifferent to the coachman’s attempt to drive them off the road. They were undaunted by the horses, and even when the coachman raised his whip and slashed it through the air, they scuttled away only briefly, cackled at the noise, then resumed their lumbering walk. One or two of them fluttered their wings to fly, but landed i
nelegantly with a plop, causing a burst of angry invective from the geese around them.
“I think we should resign ourselves to a very long journey,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I do not see any way through.”
“We cannot give up so easily,” said Robert Darcy. “Surely we can do something.” He opened the door and descended. Uttering a loud, high-pitched shout, “Yee-haa!” he swept his hat forwards and backwards like an oar.
The geese moved aside, squawking in indignant protest.
“Come and join me, Fitzwilliam,” said Darcy. “Perhaps we can scatter them.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam leapt from the carriage with a laugh.
“I can’t promise to reproduce that same blood curdling sound,” he said, “but I will do my best.” He let out a high pitched yell, “Yoo-hoo!” It did not remotely resemble Mr Darcy’s, but it proved equally effective in moving the birds. Soon the carriage was surrounded by clonking geese and it jerked forward, moving at a snail’s pace.
Louisa covered her ears. “I wish they would stop that infernal noise,” she said, “I can feel a megrim coming on.”
But the cries of the two gentlemen had added to the mêlée. Along with the high pitched cries of the drovers and the protesting squawks of the geese, the volume rose considerably. The noise invading the carriage from all sides was indeed overwhelming. Louisa, quite beyond dignity, covered her ears with her hands, her face crumpled with distaste.
Caroline, who had at first been quite rattled, now found that the discordant sounds brought out in her a strange urge to laugh. With her head out of the window, she watched the undignified antics of the gentlemen and the strident response of the geese in amazement, then leaned back into her seat and began to laugh, softly at first, then louder and louder.
Louisa stared at her. “Do control yourself, Caroline,” she said, scowling. “As if we do not have enough noise without that dreadful laughter.”
Louisa’s contorted face only served to boost her merriment. It was really quite out of her control. She could not recall laughing so loudly since she was a child.
Louisa, seeing nothing in the situation to laugh about, threatened to throw her out if she did not stop.
“In that case, Louisa,” she answered, still chuckling, “I will relieve you of my presence.”
She opened the door of the carriage. She had no clear idea what she planned to do, but she did not want to wait in the carriage. She felt a strong need for action.
Robert Darcy, who was the closest to them, came immediately to help her descend. “Coming to join in the revelry, Miss Bingley?” he asked, quizzingly.
“I would like to make myself useful,” she said, with an attempt at severity. But since her face was bright with laughter, Robert Darcy grinned in response.
“You would not like to join us, Mrs Hurst?” he asked, poking his head into the carriage.
Louisa shrank back in her seat and shook her head. “I think you are all being quite giddy,” she said. “It is this country air, no doubt.”
“We have little choice in the matter,” remarked Mr Darcy, “How does the saying go? What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander?”
“What nonsense!” she snapped. “What does the saying have to do with anything?”
“I am afraid I am not known for my good sense, ma’am,” responded Mr Darcy, turning back to his task.
Caroline took out the pins of her bonnet, one by one, and peeled it off her head. Copying the gentlemen, she swung her bonnet from side to side. Still, she did not go so far as to start shouting in that ridiculous manner.
“You should do it right, Miss Bingley,” said Mr Darcy, regarding her appreciatively. “Why not let your hair down?”
She ignored him. Geese surrounded her from every side, and she had a moment of fear when a few of the brave ones rushed towards her as if to attack. But a swing of her bonnet drove them away, and she laughed. The geese retreated to the sides of the road, out of the way of the swaying object. Meanwhile one of the drovers ahead of them stopped, leaned on his long stick, and, chewing on a blade of grass, watched their efforts with astonishment.
Robert Darcy spotted the drover. He was a boy of about sixteen with an intelligent look in his eyes. “Is there no way to get the geese off the road?” he asked.
The drover shook his head. “They’ll be stopping every minute to eat the grass if we did that. It’s only by sticking to the road that we can keep ’em moving.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had been a little ahead, came back to join them. “We have accomplished very little,” he remarked. “We will just have to hope they leave the road soon.” He turned to the drover, who was still chewing at the same blade of grass. “Are you taking them far?”
The lad took the grass from his mouth. “Nottingham,” he said, briefly.
Colonel Fitzwilliam guffawed. “Surely you do not mean Nottingham!” he said. “That is thirty miles away!”
The drover nodded, and replied that of course he meant Nottingham. Where else would they be going, when it was time for the great fair? The gentleman had surely heard of it.
Colonel Fitzwilliam clearly had not. “It’s the biggest fair in England!” said another of the drovers, who had come to see what the uproar at the back was about. “Some of the drovers have come from as far as Norfolk.”
Caroline, by now overcome with curiosity, enquired about the disease that had blackened the geese’s feet.
The two lads roared with laughter at her question and slapped each other on the shoulders, amazed at her ignorance. Finally, one of them, realizing that she was waiting for a reply, explained to her, very patiently, as if she was slow-witted, that the feet of the geese had been covered in tar so they could walk the distance. Realising she was still confused, he added kindly that it was like putting shoes on them, as it helped protect their feet.
Mr Darcy eyed the long trail of waddling geese that stretched as far forward as the eye could see. “How many geese do you suppose there are?”
The lad with the grass blade shrugged. “One of the drovers can tell you exactly—Mr Stacey, or Mr Manton, since they’re the ones who do the reckoning, but I heard Mr Manton say there were upwards of ten thousand.”
Louisa, who was in the carriage behind them, was calling for Caroline.
“For heaven’s sake, come back in, Caroline. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but that is no place for a lady,” she said.
“Your sister has the right of it, Miss Bingley,” said Mr Darcy. “We can’t clear away ten thousand geese with our hats.”
“There is nothing we can do,” said the colonel to Louisa as he entered the carriage. “But one of the lads has told me they plan to stop at a drover’s inn a few miles ahead, to feed the geese and have a drink, so the geese will be off the road and penned in. I am afraid, however, we will have to change our plans. We cannot possibly take the road through Nottingham. We will have to continue on the Great North Road and travel to Matlock on one of the crossroads.”
“As long as I can stay the night at Stamford,” said Louisa, “I do not greatly care what road we take tomorrow.”
This was easier said than done. When they reached Stamford, they found it bustling with activity, with carts, wagons, and carriages everywhere, as well as cattle and sheep. At the George they were met with the news that there was no accommodation to be had anywhere within ten miles, with the situation growing worse the closer they drew to Nottingham. Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr Darcy looked quite grim at the news.
“It seems the whole world is heading to Nottingham,” said Mr Darcy. “And to top it all, there is to be a cockfight at the inn, so a crowd of gentlemen who are not going to the market are here today.”
“We could drive further north,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But it is by no means certain that we will find a place to spend the night if we do.”
Louisa, who disliked crowds excessively, was becoming quite flustered. She remarked crossly that she could not very well be ex
pected to spend the night in the carriage.
“There is another possibility,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, hesitantly, “but I cannot be certain it will work either. Some friends of mine have a small estate not too far from here. The Loughs. You may have heard of them. I shall hire a horse and ride over to request their hospitality. I will go alone, since it is faster, especially if the road is crowded. If you are willing to wait here, I will make enquiries.”
Caroline expressed her earnest thanks. “You will quite tire yourself out, riding there and back, especially after we have travelled for so long.”
“It will be worth it if we find ourselves with a roof above our heads, and you and Mrs Hurst are saved from sleeping in the carriage,” he replied, with a smile. “Besides, they do not live very far away.”
Louisa, too, thanked him prettily, but when he left, she expressed her doubt that he would find the Loughs at home. “For it would be a happy chance indeed if they were,” she said. “Our luck does not seem to be holding.”
Caroline thought it best not to answer.
“I hope he returns soon,” added Louisa, peevishly, “for if the Loughs are not prepared to receive us, we will be forced to drive on until we find a place to lodge. It will be quite dark by then, and I am heartily tired of sharing the road with cattle, geese, and all the vagrants and troublemakers in Lincolnshire.”
Louisa eyed a gaudily dressed young woman who had stopped a well dressed gentleman. Caroline, following her sister’s glance, leaned forward to see what had caught her interest. “This is a very unsavoury place to wait,” said Louisa, drawing the curtain quickly. “We ought to have gone with Colonel Fitzwilliam. We are losing precious time here.”
“Come, Louisa,” said Caroline. “You are not improving the situation by complaining, for we can do nothing now but wait. I for one,” said Caroline, “am grateful to Colonel Fitzwilliam for exerting so much effort on our behalf. I am sure he will return as soon as he can. But I must admit that my throat feels rather parched, and a light nuncheon, if it could be found, would do very well.”
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