North by Northanger

by Mr. ; Mrs. Darcy Mystery; Carrie Bebris

  “I have not completely lost my wits,” Elizabeth said. “Lady Catherine was so adamant about her right to the statuette that I have little doubt she could justify, at least to herself, invading something so insignificant as my privacy. If she considered it beneath her to filch the letter directly, she would not scruple to delegate the task to her maid.”

  Darcy yet appeared doubtful. “Where did you last see the letter?”

  “I moved it to the escritoire in here.” She had wanted the letter more easily accessible while continuing to sort through Lady Anne’s other correspondence.

  He glanced at the desk. “Do you normally lock the fall front?”

  “I thought the fact that this is my private dressing room was security enough. Apparently not.”

  The appearance of Mrs. Reynolds curtailed their conversation. “Sir, you had asked to be informed the moment Dr. Severn arrived. Do you wish him to attend Mrs. Darcy immediately?”

  “No.” “Yes.” Elizabeth and Darcy replied simultaneously.

  “There is no emergency,” Elizabeth said to Darcy, “and he has traveled a great distance.” With little cause, she refrained from adding.

  “For the sole purpose of treating you.” At her glare, Darcy relented. “I shall go receive the doctor and ask him to attend you in here as soon as he is comfortably settled.”

  After Darcy and the servant departed, Elizabeth’s gaze swept the room once more. If Lady Catherine had not taken the letter, where had it gone? She had looked everywhere for it—half the horizontal surfaces in the room held stacks of papers she had sorted through, and several of Lady Anne’s trunks stood open with more papers piled around them. Had she merely misplaced the letter, would she not have found it?

  Further seeking would have to wait. In her determination to find the missing letter, she had not only left papers strewn about, but also had sent away the housemaid when she’d arrived to tidy the apartment for the day. If Dr. Severn were going to examine her in the dressing room, she needed to put it back in order. And she suspected Darcy would encourage the physician to consider himself “comfortably settled” in short time. She rang the servants’ bell.

  The new maid, Jenny, arrived quickly. In the time she had been at Pemberley, she had already impressed Elizabeth with her competence and conscientiousness. Whenever Elizabeth had need of a housemaid, she answered the summons with alacrity, and she performed her duties in a thorough but efficient manner.

  Elizabeth organized the papers while Jenny straightened the chamber. She had managed to sort through two more trunks since the harvest feast, and had determined that they held no correspondence related to either the ivory or Lady Anne’s friendship with Mrs. Tilney. In fact, these trunks could return to the attic, leaving the dressing room less crowded.

  She heard Mrs. Reynolds pass and went into the hall to stop her. The housekeeper promised to send a pair of footmen immediately to relieve Elizabeth of the chests.

  No sooner were the trunks removed and Jenny’s tasks completed than Darcy reappeared with the physician. With few preliminaries, Dr. Severn set his medical bag on a table and unpacked several instruments from it. She had never seen some of the items before and could only speculate as to their various functions. Given their appearance, she had no wish to satisfy her curiosity through personal acquaintance with them.

  “Mr. Darcy tells me you are experiencing incidents of bleeding.”

  “Merely a brief show from my nose.”

  He glanced at Darcy with annoyance. “From her nose? When you stated she was bleeding, I thought you meant something more urgent. I traveled here immediately upon seeing one patient through forty hours of travail, and left two more ready to be brought to bed any day.”

  “In the matter of my wife’s health, I would sooner err on the side of caution.”

  “While caution may be warranted, I suggest that in the future you supply more particulars when summoning me.” He motioned Elizabeth to the chair nearest him. “How frequent are these episodes?” he asked Darcy.

  She would have preferred to remain where she was—far away from the devices still arrayed on the table—but moved to the seat he had indicated.

  “It was a single incident.”

  “I see.” He shot another impatient glance at Darcy, then made a show of padding his fingertips along the bone of her nose. “Did she suffer a bump?”

  “No, her nose began to bleed spontaneously.”

  “Where was she at the time? Near a smoking fire or some other irritant?”

  Though Lady Catherine had wrinkled her own nose throughout the evening of exposure to common humanity, Elizabeth doubted anything in the air that night had contributed to the nosebleed. “I was walking across a crowded hall. It was the night of Pemberley’s harvest feast.”

  Her voice could have come from the chimney, for all that the doctor acknowledged her.

  “Did she engage in dancing or other strenuous activity at the feast, or in preparation for it?” He lifted her wrist.

  “She danced the opening set, yes.”

  “A staid minuet,” Elizabeth interjected.

  “Did my wife overexert herself at the celebration?”

  “Shush.” Dr. Severn continued monitoring her pulse.

  Elizabeth had never before witnessed someone shush her husband. She had never known anyone who might have dared. Darcy himself appeared astounded but held himself in check.

  The physician dropped her wrist. “I suspect that on the night in question she overstimulated her heart and veins through heedlessly vigorous motion.”

  She did not believe she had been recklessly active. Nor had Mrs. Godwin, who had directly observed her that night, implied that any part of her own conduct had been to blame. “I understand nosebleeds are common among women in my condition.”

  “Perhaps among some women, but not my patients,” he declared. “Clearly, any woman who suffers such incidents cannot properly restrain her behavior.”

  To her mind, Mrs. Godwin’s explanation had made much more sense. “Does not an expectant mother’s heart produce extra blood?”

  Her question met a look of derision. “Are you a physician now? Someone must have suggested that to you.”

  “The local midwife.”

  He turned to Darcy “She consulted a midwife? I advised you to call a medical man if needed.”

  “Mrs. Darcy did not consult her,” Darcy said. “She happened upon my wife during the episode.”

  “And you believe the conjecture of some old woman? Very well, Mrs. Darcy. If you think an excessive quantity of blood caused an overflow, I can apply leeches to draw off the surplus.”

  Elizabeth shuddered. “I do not consider that necessary.”

  “Nor do I. If you will lend me pen and paper, I shall write down a receipt for an unguent to apply to your nose. Your maid can easily prepare it.”

  Darcy went to the escritoire for the writing materials. When he opened the drop front, a faint chuckle escaped him. Elizabeth glanced at him curiously

  “The letter you have been seeking today lies right here.”

  “Impossible. I must have looked there half a dozen times, at least.”

  He held it up. “Evidence of your latest lapse.” A look of anxiety crossed his countenance. “Dr. Severn, my wife has become increasingly absentminded of late. Do you consider that cause for concern?”

  “It is nothing we need trouble the doctor about,” Elizabeth said.

  The physician studied her with something that passed for attention. “She loses items regularly?”

  “I would not say ‘regularly’ ” she protested. “And I did not lose—”

  “Between the spontaneous bleeding and the mental distraction, it sounds as if her humors are entirely out of balance,” the doctor said to Darcy as he packed up his instruments of torture. “Curb her activity henceforth. No strenuous exertion—nothing more demanding than a leisurely walk.”

  “But I have engaged in my usual pursuits since the night of the
harvest feast, with no repeat occurrences. The mental lapses are just trifles—”

  “Mrs. Darcy, I have delivered hundreds of children. To how many have you given birth?”

  She held her tongue but could not help glaring at the physician. Darcy, she could not even look at; she felt for all the world that he had betrayed her.

  “You and your husband have brought me considerable distance to solicit my advice, away from other patients who are grateful for it. Accept it or not, as you choose, but if you are unwilling to follow my orders, do not summon me again. My time and expertise are too valuable to be wasted.”

  Dr. Severn left the room, stating his intention to pass just one night at Pemberley before returning to Bath. The short duration of his stay suited Elizabeth perfectly. Perhaps at dinnertime she would plead “unbalanced humors” and dine in her apartment rather than subject herself to further contact with the man. Sharing a meal with him and Lady Catherine at once would surely prove detrimental to her mental state, not to mention her digestion.

  Still unable to turn her gaze upon Darcy, she went to the escritoire. The innocent-looking letter lay there, mocking her.

  “It was at the top of those papers on the left,” Darcy said.

  She glanced at the papers, neatly stacked in one of the desk’s many compartments—all of which she had thoroughly searched. How could she have missed it?

  Darcy came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She stiffened.

  “Elizabeth—”

  “Nothing is out of balance.”

  He was silent a moment. “Everything is out of balance,” he said. “The business at Northanger yet weighs upon us. My aunt’s continued presence makes our home a place of conflict instead of comfort. And now there is tension between us.”

  She picked up the letter. She knew he had not meant to discredit her with Dr. Severn, had not intended to injure her feelings. It was his doubt that most wounded her, for it echoed her own. She had been so certain the letter had gone missing, yet there it was, right where she had left it. Could she no longer trust her own perceptions?

  “If my anxiety for you is also out of balance, I beg your forgiveness,” he said. “But when I see my clever wife forgetting simple matters, I worry. When I find her hands smeared with her own blood, I worry. Every day seems to bring a new change in you, and it is difficult to stand by idly and watch.”

  She turned round to face him. “It is difficult to experience firsthand. Sometimes I feel as if I no longer know myself. That is why I need your confidence, the security that when I tell you something, I will be believed—” She held up the traitorous letter. “Even if I am later disproved.”

  “I shall try. I can promise that much.”

  “And I shall try to follow Dr. Severn’s orders. That should put at least some of your apprehensions to rest.” She studied his face. He seemed to have aged in the past two months, and she knew that nervousness over her condition constituted but part of the cause. Until their legal troubles were resolved, Darcy would not know a moment’s peace. Neither would she. “I wish our concerns related to the Northanger crisis were equally easy to counter.”

  “I wish I could do more to address them from here.”

  “Have you received any recent news from Mr. Tilney or Mr. Harper?”

  “Mr. Tilney has completed his interviews with the servants, but they yielded little. The butler reports that Captain Tilney—the real one—examined all of his mother’s remaining effects on his last visit home, but why or what he sought, no one knows. A few of the grounds staff believe they saw the imposters, but from a distance. They could offer no description beyond ours, only that a man and woman arrived the night before we did and departed shortly after we left. The woman, they thought they had seen at Northanger before, but they could not be sure. Mr. Tilney is now making discreet enquiries to determine whether any of the neighbors might recognize her description.”

  “What of your own efforts?”

  “I have been unable to think of anyone in our acquaintance who would be moved to such villainy against us. Mr. Harper reports that word of the matter does not seem to have reached London yet, so a deliberate campaign to discredit me appears an unlikely motive. He has, by the by, engaged a barrister to speak for us in court.”

  “Do you think we shall indeed stand trial?”

  “Not before I have exhausted every possible lead and resource.” He released an exasperated breath. “Though I could investigate this matter much more efficiently were I not trying to do so from here.”

  “Why do you not go? Surely Lady Catherine understands the importance of such a journey and would accompany you.”

  “I have broached the matter with her. She insists that as she stood surety for both of us, we both must remain under her direct supervision. You cannot travel; Dr. Severn has just ordered you to refrain from anything so arduous. And even if you could, I want you at Pemberley where you are safe. We will learn what we can from here.” He gestured toward the remaining trunks of Lady Anne’s correspondence. “Have you come upon anything related to Mrs. Tilney?”

  “Not yet, but I remain hopeful. I have not yet sorted through all your mother’s papers, though now that Dr. Severn has restricted my activity I suppose I shall have little to do but examine the remainder.”

  He winced. “I am sorry for that.”

  “And I am almost ready to forgive you for it.”

  In fact, she already had. With Dr. Severn and Lady Catherine determined to undermine her confidence, she needed Darcy on her side.

  “What can I do to make amends?” he asked.

  “I shall have to think of something,” she said lightly. “Whatever I settle upon, however, will cost you far less than you deserve.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because, my dear Mr. Darcy, I suspect you are now married to the one woman in England who will never appreciate diamonds.”

  Twenty-two

  “Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female.”

  —Henry Tilney, Northanger Abbey

  N ow that Elizabeth and Darcy knew what they sought, a general hunt for Lady Anne’s missing heirloom commenced. A statuette so small could hide in plain sight in a house as large as Pemberley, so they enlisted the aid of the servants. By the end of December, every room had been explored. The ivory, unfortunately, was not found. Lady Catherine took great interest in the proceedings and developed a penchant for happening into particular rooms as they were being inspected, but her hopes of a serendipitous discovery went as unfulfilled as those of her hosts.

  Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s diligent perusal of Lady Anne’s correspondence was rewarded with a gradual increase of floor space in her apartment. One by one, the trunks returned to the attic as their contents were deemed irrelevant to her present needs. When all had gone back to storage, she asked Mrs. Reynolds about Lady Anne’s other effects.

  “Oh, there are plenty of them, ma’am. But do you want the remaining letters? There are two more trunks in the attic, you will recall. You had said to leave them there while the others were occupying your dressing room.”

  Elizabeth had completely forgotten about them—like so many other things of late. “Yes, please have them brought down.”

  After reading so many letters written to Lady Anne, she felt as if she knew Darcy’s mother better than she knew her own. In the details of Anne’s daily existence, in the notes of congratulation, commiseration, and condolence, the story of her life took shape. Elizabeth discovered a woman who, for all her life of privilege, was in essence not so very unlike herself. She had gone into her marriage with the same sense of certitude, the same expectation of serving as a helpmate to a partner she esteemed, the same commitment to taking seriously the duties associated with privilege. Yes, there were also great differences between them—from childhood, Lady Anne had moved in circles Elizabeth had only just entered, and had negotiated that world with the assurance of a native. But in her private
life she had been, quite simply, a woman, with the same hopes and fears and dreams and desires and hurts and joys that cross class and time.

  Though the trunks had contained no clues about Anne’s friendship with Mrs. Tilney or the ivory statuette, for Elizabeth—and for Darcy and Georgiana, who had helped her intermittently—they held treasure of their own: a connection to a mother who had been taken from her family too soon.

  The two remaining chests arrived. Elizabeth approached the first with the expectation of another afternoon spent with voices from the past sharing twenty-year-old gossip from London and news of the neighborhood. She opened the lid, withdrew a handful of letters, and settled before the fire to read.

  No sooner had she unfolded the first letter, however, than she gasped. And then immediately summoned a servant to find Darcy. This chest did not hold the same “treasure” as the others.

  This chest held gold.

  Northanger Abbey

  3 May 1784

  Dear Mrs. Darcy,

  We received with interest your letter regarding the statuette that has come into your possession and its possible association with Northanger Abbey. While we can offer no particulars about the specific item you described, General Tilney and I are happy to share our knowledge of the abbey’s history in hopes that it might prove useful to your research.

  Northanger Abbey has been the home of my husband’s family for over two hundred years. It was built in the thirteenth century as a convent dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and paintings of the original building depict it as a magnificent structure. Though a relatively small religious house when compared to such abbeys as those of Glastonbury and Bath, it enjoyed the patronage of some of England’s wealthiest families and counted among its sisters many of noble lineage. For two centuries the nuns lived and worshipped in peace. Upon the Dissolution of monasteries, King Henry the Eighth sold Northanger Abbey and its lands to Sir Edmund Tilney, who converted it to a private home. It has since passed through many generations of the Tilney family, falling to my husband a decade ago. While a portion of the original building yet stands, much of the ancient structure had deteriorated by the time General Tilney’s father took possession. He began extensive repairs and modifications that my husband continues.