He assured her that he would.
“I wonder if you would…pull on your boots?”
His countenance bore a quizzical expression.
“My boots?” he repeated.
“Yes, your tall boots.”
“Now?”
She nodded her head emphatically. Looking a little bewildered, he did not question her more and went back to his dressing room. It was but when he closed the door that a flicker of understanding overspread his face.
He reopened the door, stuck his head around the corner and asked in reassurance he had heard her correctly, “My boots alone?”
“Perhaps those breeches you wore today, as well.”
When he came to her clad but in his breeches and boots, she was looking out the door of the balcony onto the moonlit lawn. However, when she felt his presence, she turned to him and ran her hands across his bare chest, an invitation he would not ignore.
If this perpendicular embrace had not the heat of the one previous, no hesitation was brooked. Moreover, if their passion was birthed standing up, it did not expire that way, for this time their bed bade them come. The night might not have been particularly young, but there were many hours until dawn. And boots did give better traction.
When they had been gratified, Elizabeth rose and returned to the balcony door. The air was cold, hence he came up behind her, putting his arms around and beneath hers. Both gazed out at the moonlight.
Nestling his face against her hair, he asked, “Are you actually going to call that mare ‘Boots’?”
“Certainly.”
“’Tis a better name for a cat.”
“I like it for my horse.”
“I am not certain my countenance will not betray me each time I hear you say it.”
“Why, Mr. Darcy, whatever do you mean?…”
When the moon drifted behind a cloud, the stone of the balcony reflected an odd glow. Elizabeth looked at it curiously, but before she could ask Darcy what it meant, he startled her by abruptly pushing her away and heading for the door.
He bellowed, “Make haste! Rouse Fitzwilliam! The stables are on fire!”
Fortunately, he had on his boots and breeches and needed but to grab a jacket as he raced for the stairs. Elizabeth ran the length of the corridor to Fitzwilliam’s room and pounded both fists against his door. The shouted word, “Fire!” rendered him both awake and sober. Running back to their room, she grabbed Darcy’s long coat, and, unable to find her shoes at all this time, gave up the search and ran back to the stairs just behind Fitzwilliam.
When they reached the esplanade the sharp rocks slowed her bare feet, hence, Fitzwilliam immediately out-distanced her. By the time she got to the first barn, flames were already licking at the roof from the hayloft. Swirling smoke and cinders filled the air. A dozen people had converged upon the site, the distant sound of neighing, frightened horses accentuating the shouts and confusion.
The immediate plan was to get the horses out before the ceiling caved, but that could not be initiated until the barrels blocking the main door were rolled away.
Darcy and Fitzwilliam alone dared enter the burning building to open stall doors for the horses nearest, slapping them upon the rump to encourage them out. The barn had filled with smoke, but no fire was yet in sight inside and the horses pounded out, greeting Elizabeth’s tardy appearance. She had to leap aside lest she be trampled. When the loft burnt through, lumber and burning hay fell to the floor with a hissing crash, thereby alighting new fire along the floor betwixt Darcy and Fitzwilliam. When Elizabeth was able to enter, she could see but Fitzwilliam for the smoke.
He called out that the fire lay between Darcy and their exit.
Running back to the throng of people who had already initiated a water brigade, Elizabeth screamed to the men they must open the doors at the other end of the building. Several ran for them, Elizabeth in pursuit, the tail of Darcy’s coat dragging upon the ground behind her. The weight of the coat and the stones upon her bare feet allowed Fitzwilliam to overtake her lead. By the time she got to the doors, the barrels that blocked them had already been rolled away.
When the doors were thrown back, they were greeted by a spewing cloud of smoke and five more freed horses galloping by. Not seeing Darcy, Elizabeth attempted to run in, but Fitzwilliam grabbed her arms and held her back. Hardly impeded, she hastily yanked her arms from the sleeves of the coat to free herself and started into the smoke again, screaming her husband’s name.
Fitzwilliam knew well if Darcy survived but to learn that he had allowed Elizabeth to enter the flaming stable, he would never be forgiven. Hence, he ran and caught her again, this time by her night-gown, and held her fiercely to him. Impatiently, he shouted to her if she would just stay he could go, but, in hysteria, the reasonableness of this was lost upon her. She was still struggling thusly when Darcy emerged from the smoke. He had a rag over Boots’ eyes, the singular way he could get the terrified mare through the fire. Smoke curled up from his figure and, thinking it was his hair, Elizabeth ran to him. As it was just his jacket that smouldered, she and Fitzwilliam both beat it out, Elizabeth with her bare hands, Fitzwilliam using the coat Elizabeth had escaped.
It was but when she clutched herself to him in relief that Darcy realised she was there.
“Elizabeth! What are you doing out here? You should have stayed! Fitzwilliam, how could you have allowed her to come?”
Wrenching the greatcoat from his cousin’s hands, Darcy wrapped Elizabeth in it. Fitzwilliam gifted him with a look of confounded exasperation. Thereupon, with a shake of the head, Darcy withdrew the reproach, both understanding the difficulty of thwarting Elizabeth. (If she was chagrined at being the culprit in this vexation, contrition did not visit her until later.)
The large stable in irreversible ruin, they re-routed the bucket brigade to wet down the roofs of the other buildings. Blessedly, dawn brought a soft shower of rain. It smothered the smouldering timbers, and the family sought refuge in the house.
Sitting in smut-stained faces around the informality of the big wooden kitchen table, they took assessment. It appeared just three horses were lost, one, the horse that Reed had beaten. Those three and Elizabeth’s horse had been deliberately tied in their stalls. Darcy had but time to untie Boots. Such were the circumstances, all were convinced the fire had been set intentionally. Moreover, no one doubted that it was at Reed’s hand. Elizabeth found it difficult to conceive of a heart so hard, even in a horse-beater. Could any man do such an inhuman thing? Certainly, someone had done it. She had to admit one thing to herself. In the face of the facts, although she might not be as naïve as was Jane, unquestionably, she would have to readjust her notion as to just what some individuals were capable of.
The certainty of Reed’s guilt could not be proved, for eventual interviews with the servants and grooms could not place him upon the estate after he was dismissed. Nevertheless, when the sheriff set out to question Reed that next day, he would find no trace of him. That would be further reason to believe him the arsonist. However, in the early hours after the fire, all could see that nothing could be accomplished just then and returned upstairs to beg at least a few hours rest. Darcy and Elizabeth fell into the deep, black sleep of exhaustion.
If Darcy and Elizabeth found easy sleep, Fitzwilliam did not. He lay there for some time, tossing restlessly. Initially, he told himself his insomnia stemmed from extreme fatigue, the excitement of the fire, or a combination of the two.
Fitzwilliam had witnessed, although he knew Darcy did not, Reed’s look as he directed it upon Elizabeth. Fitzwilliam had taken a step forward in her defence at such an ominous provocation, but in light of the man’s banishment from Pemberley by Darcy, he had held his counterstroke to that single step. He did not then report to Darcy Reed’s perceived insult, if not outright threat, to Elizabeth. For at the time, his cousin was labouriously trying to reclaim his thoroughly ruptured temper. Nor did Fitzwilliam think it wise to bring up such a minor affront in the li
ght of the contemptuous crime perpetuated upon the stables.
It was a vile end to what had begun as a delightful diversion.
Fitzwilliam had happily accompanied Darcy upon his search for the perfect horse for his wife. As it happened, he held no little conceit of the fact of how well he knew horseflesh. His own horses numbered twelve, and he was happy to lend his animals and advise those favoured among his fellow officers. It was the single judgement Fitzwilliam would not find modesty to disclaim. He knew horses. It was perhaps a family trait, for Darcy’s eye was thus discerning as well. Old Mr. Darcy did not have this virtue, for he thought if a horse had a high stepping gait and a nice coat it made him as much a horse as a man might want to draw his coach. Darcy’s mother was the horse fancier of that couple. She was a prodigious rider and could recite the bloodlines of any horse in their stable.
Hence, it was reasonable that her brother, Fitzwilliam’s father, had harboured the same love. Darcy inherited it from his mother, Fitzwilliam from his father. When Darcy went on a quest for a horse for Elizabeth, he trusted his own horse judgement, but did hesitate not at all to have Fitzwilliam’s opinion as well. Betwixt the two of them, it would be impossible not to obtain the finest horse with which to gift Darcy’s wife.
The dusky horse they chose was named Dulcinea. Fitzwilliam and Darcy thought that a coy enough name and in no need of changing. They asked Elizabeth’s opinion but as a courtesy. That she named her new horse Boots had seemed rather odd to Fitzwilliam, expecting, if not something more sophisticated, at least a little more…more…horsy. Initially, Darcy had seemed puzzled by her choice, thereupon simply embarrassed that his wife had named her exceedingly well-bred horse something so “precious.”
It was quite unlike her nature. That was one of the little quirks of Elizabeth’s that Fitzwilliam had found endearing. She was so compleatly acerbic, witty, and arch, then, in turn, could do something so unfathomable as name her horse after its fetlocks.
Thus, when he closed his eyes seeking sleep, Fitzwilliam did not think of the horses, the fire, and the pandemonium, or even of Darcy nearly being killed. The single thing that unsettled him was more of a sensation than a conscious thought. And that wonderment was how it had felt when, clad but in her night-gown, he had held Elizabeth to him.
He dozed fitfully. In time, he awoke and sat upon the side of the bed, relinquishing any ambition to sleep. In his soldierly way, he endeavoured to embark upon the troubling employment of analysing the shades of his own mind.
Elizabeth was pretty and charming. What was there not to admire? Any man who possessed a heartbeat would look upon her with favour. Nor, he reasoned, was it improper to look upon Elizabeth with fondness, for she was Darcy’s wife. Fitzwilliam considered that his unsettled feeling perchance told him it had been too long since he had been favoured with the attentions of a woman. Perhaps, when he returned to London, he would rectify the situation. That decision made, he laid back and closed his eyes, thinking of that woman, any woman. Yet, when her image came to him, her face was not anonymous. It was Elizabeth’s.
Fitzwilliam sorely wished he had not been at the fire at the stable, for he would then not have held her. Nor would he have had to face that he was very much in love.
John Christie fell into a deep and abiding sleep each night. The work, although tedious and steady, had a rewarding symmetry. He lugged about heavy feed buckets and filled the mangers so the horses could have their oats. Those same horses he turned out onto the pasture for their exercise, then scooped up their dung and flung it onto the manure wagon to be cast upon the new crop. Order and rule.
That such a peaceable world existed, and that he had managed to insinuate himself in it, was an unending astonishment. Edward Hardin chuckled at the zealous diligence with which he undertook each and every chore. But then, Edward Hardin had never once been to London, nor seen the lodgings they had once kept on Buck’s Row.
Hitherto, the horses John Christie had tended were tired and often ill-used, frightfully few offering any glimpse of past distinction. Inevitably, horses left overnight at an inn were either hired or recruited from a plough. They were nags, no denying that. Yet, the barmaid’s boy indulged these disreputable animals with furtive currying and purloined sugar. It fell to reason that if he managed to dispense kindness to the inglorious, the fine horses at Pemberley were in respectful hands.
That was reasonable, but not the whole truth. The simple fact was that he had always taken affection, and bestowed it, where it was found.
As beauty of temperament and confirmation were not an impediment to fondness, the horses at Pemberley were not slighted. On the contrary, horses at the inn were not there long enough for John to build a true attachment. At Pemberley, he came to know them each by name. And if they did not know his name, they knew his presence. A gratifying orchestration of nickering began whenever he entered the barn. This was most pleasing, for it was a family of sorts. Something that he missed.
Was he called upon to name it, his Family Equus would have to include Edward Hardin who had taken to calling him, not John nor Christie, but “Johnny, me lad.” The man was a little deaf, hence he always sounded a bit rankled when he doled out orders.
Yet he began every one, “Johnny, me lad…”
John Christie did understand there was a hierarchy at Pemberley—not hereditary, yet an oligarchy, nevertheless. The line of rule was rarely transgressed. John knew he answered to Edward Hardin, who answered to Mr. Rhymes. Mr. Rhymes answered to Mr. Darcy, and evidently, Mr. Darcy answered but to God.
It was fitting. John’s life had been subjected to little but the bedlam and discord of Whitechapel, but also to the general chaos of his mother’s love life. It was reassuring to know exactly where one stood. That one stood at the end of the line was not pertinent. At least there was a line in which to subsist. Order and rule.
He had even managed to elude Tom Reed.
Edward Hardin despised the man (no greater obligation of regard could be asked) and had complained to Mr. Rhymes about Reed abusing the horses. Why Reed was even at Pemberley, no one seemed to know. Reed was hired in London; his single recommendation had come from his brother, Frank. All the other footmen and grooms disliked him, even though, as do most men who are bullies, Reed seldom confronted other men. He turned his roughest hand toward the weaker: animals, women, and boys.
The single blight upon his tenure had come at Reed’s hands, but John knew, ultimately, that it was his own fault. For he had the poor judgement to honour one of Reed’s orders. That day of the hunt, Reed had told John to bring the shortest horse in the barn for that sweating, pear-shaped gourd of a vicar. And he had done it. He had delivered that innocent little chestnut pony unto the hands of that buffle-headed meacocke, Collins.
Of course, the vicar did end up the worse for wear.
Reed laughed uproariously at each retelling. John was convinced that the pony mistook his part in the whole debacle, for thenceforward, he looked at John maliciously every time he passed his stall. It was just another in the long line of Reed’s wicked deeds.
The confrontation with Mr. Darcy was unexpected. It was not, however, unwarranted or unwelcome. Hitherto, Reed had been clever enough to hide his malevolence from those of higher rank behind a somewhat smirking amiability. Almost everyone who witnessed the public disclosure of his cruelty savoured it. (Frank Reed may have savoured it, too, one can but conjecture.) Regardless, John loathed that the horse that he beat had to suffer to expose him.
John liked that horse in particular. He was an Irish Draught called Farley, a bit long in the tooth, yet still spry. He was the horse of choice for the housekeeper upon her infrequent trips to Lambton. She liked him, not in spite of, but because he was plodding and slow. The old woman likened herself to that horse. When Mr. Hardin claimed he was getting too stiff, she reproached him.
“No, we are both old, yet we can get on with the work.”
Normally quite placid, Farley always jumped about nervously when Reed
approached. Having been given the employment of driving Mrs. Reynolds to Lambton that day, Reed was in his usual ill-humour. Like most of the other servants, he feared her. Yet, unlike them, he despised her as well. His hate exceeded his fear by half. She bade him sit up straight and not mutter curses under his breath, rapping him across the knuckles with a switch (one that she carried when he drove her just for that purpose) upon an expletive. Hence, when the horse that reminded Mrs. Reynolds of herself would not behave, Reed’s pugnacious temperament exploded.
For fate to allow Mr. Darcy to hear the welter was not just propitious, for the horses it was providential. Indeed, had John not been so ungoverned as to drop the lead rope to Mrs. Darcy’s new horse and follow, he might have missed the entire rumpus. Witnessing Reed’s comeuppance at the stinging end of a carriage whip and by the hand of none other than Mr. Darcy was the single event for which John would have risked his employment.
John did not read, but he had heard of books that portrayed fearless figures performing heroic deeds. When Reed suffered the bastinado, John was convinced that was what he was witnessing. Weaponless, the valiant Mr. Darcy saved the horse and turned Reed out. Out of Pemberley he fled, tail betwixt his legs, like the feisting cur he was. Mr. Darcy was a noble warrior. He was just. He was courageous and he had the most beautiful and kind lady at his side. It was difficult not to become giddy with admiration of the man as well as the deed.
The entire valorous episode had lasted less than a minute. Reed was struck and banished. Quick as that. Struck and banished. Reed was gone and with his departure, John breathed a considerable sigh of relief. Yet, it amazed him how such a momentous event to him seemed not to alter anything else. Another man harnessed another horse to the gig in Farley’s place. Mrs. Reynolds came and another man drove her to Lambton. Everyone dispersed. Poor, shuddering Farley was led back to his own stall. John returned Mrs. Darcy’s new horse as well, whistling as he did.
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