North by Northanger

by Mr. ; Mrs. Darcy Mystery; Carrie Bebris

  “What else have you taken?”

  “N-Nothing, sir. Nothing I kept. I always returned the letters and such after they were finished looking at them.”

  So Jenny was responsible for all the misplaced correspondence. Elizabeth would be relieved to know their son had not deprived her of her wits after all.

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Stanford.”

  That much he had surmised. But who was the third conspirator, the one who had posed as Frederick Tilney? “Does anyone else work for or with them?”

  “I do not know all their business, sir. I only do what they tell me.”

  “How did you come to work for them?”

  “My father owned an inn at Newcastle—the Boar’s Head. I used to help with the serving—two of my sisters still do, working for the new owner, but he couldn’t afford to keep all of us. Anyway, Mr. Wickham dines there frequently, and so did Mrs. Stanford’s captain. One night Mr. Wickham and Captain Tilney got to talking, like gentlemen do after they’ve first got to drinking. Mr. Wickham mentions that he grew up at a place called Pemberley and brags about his connections to the Darcy family. The captain says he has heard of Pemberley and the Darcys from his father, and asks all sorts of questions about the late mistress and some statuettes she might have had. I kept my mouth shut and the tankards full, but Mr. Wickham, he can’t be in a room without having his eyes on three girls at once and he noticed me listening.

  “Well, then my father died and our money ran out, and after the captain’s accident Mr. Wickham comes to me and asks do I remember that conversation, and I say yes. He says he can get me a position at Pemberley if I’m willing to help with some business the captain left unfinished. I ask what kind of business and he says the statuettes are hidden someplace at Pemberley and you and Mrs. Darcy are looking for them but if we find them first I shan’t ever have to worry about money again. I say that sounds like stealing and he says the ivories really belonged to Captain Tilney, who wanted to give them to his lady except he got killed first. Nell was sick and the two littlest ones had no shoes and our landlord was at the door every day looking for his rent, so I agreed. Mr. Wickham brought me here and got me a position as a housemaid, just like he said.”

  Darcy would speak to Mrs. Reynolds later to learn how Jenny had come to be hired. The housekeeper knew Wickham was not to be trusted, so some intermediary sympathetic to the former steward’s son must have brought Jenny to her attention.

  “What instructions did you receive?”

  “To use my access as a household servant to learn all I could about the ivories.”

  “In other words, you were to spy on Mrs. Darcy and me.”

  She dropped her gaze. “Yes, sir. Whenever I had news, I sent word to Mr. Wickham or Mrs. Stanford, and one of them would meet me. About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Stanford came to Lambton and has been there ever since. Mr. Wickham is there now, too.”

  Captain Tilney’s mistress had probably come directly after Darcy had seen her in Newcastle, his visit having inadvertently alerted her to developments in his and Elizabeth’s own investigations. Under different circumstances, Darcy might have appreciated the irony of Mrs. Stanford being at Pemberley whilst he traveled the country searching for her.

  “Where do they go now?”

  “I do not know for certain, sir, but I think Northanger Abbey. When nothing turned up in the marigold beds last night after all of Mr. Wickham’s digging, they said something about Mrs. Tilney’s garden.”

  Wickham had violated the flower beds. He had suspected as much. “What can you tell me about the quilt in the nursery?”

  She looked up quickly. Guilt flashed across her features. “I feel terrible about that, sir. Truly I do! It was such a pretty quilt. But after I told them what Mrs. Darcy said, about it maybe holding a clue, and then finding nothing in the garden with the marigolds, they insisted I see whether something was sewn inside. I didn’t want to rip it apart, but they were terribly ugly about it. They said ‘in for a penny, in for a pound,’ and that I was already involved so deeply in their scheme that they had only to snitch to you and it would be Botany Bay for me.” Her chin trembled again. “Please, sir—you won’t send me to gaol, will you?”

  Darcy, having experienced firsthand the horrors of gaol, could not lightly subject anybody to such an ordeal. Yet Jenny’s offenses, particularly the theft of his mother’s statuette, were grave.

  “I shall have to give the matter further consideration. In the meantime, I will place you in the custody of Mr. Clarke.” The steward would ensure Jenny was closely watched until Darcy could devote attention to her fate.

  Just now, there was another woman at Pemberley whose welfare concerned him far more.

  Thirty-seven

  “I dare say we could do very well without you; but you men think yourselves of such consequence.”

  —Isabella Thorpe, Northanger Abbey

  M rs. Bennet waylaid Darcy en route to the bedchamber.

  “Oh, Mr. Darcy, is it not exciting? Lizzy is brought to bed! I knew she was too fat to last another fortnight! But I do not believe my nerves can bear the waiting. Thank heaven the doctor is come—though he would not let me stay in the birthing room. Something about hearing himself think.”

  The news of Dr. Severn’s arrival was most welcome. Darcy had not wanted to leave Elizabeth entirely in Mrs. Godwin’s care while he dealt with Jenny, but he’d had no choice. Now the physician could take command.

  He found the bedchamber scene much altered from what it had been when he departed. Tension greeted him at the door. Elizabeth was out of bed, leaning on Mrs. Godwin and Lucy for support. Dr. Severn stood beside them, pointing toward the bed and ordering her into it.

  “Is aught amiss?” Darcy asked.

  “I came in the room and found Mrs. Darcy walking around, of all ridiculous notions,” Dr. Severn said. “And this midwife encouraging her.”

  “I was uncomfortable in the bed,” Elizabeth explained.

  “Of course you are uncomfortable. You are giving birth, not hosting a ball. Now do as I tell you. Get back into bed and stay in your place.”

  “Indeed, Doctor,” said Mrs. Godwin, “I do not see the harm in allowing Mrs. Darcy to—”

  “Now that I am come, Mrs. Darcy has no further need of your learned advice. You may leave now.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Godwin can assist you,” Elizabeth said.

  He glanced at both women disdainfully. “I do not require, nor desire, the assistance of an ignorant old woman. I have overseen hundreds of births.”

  “So have I,” Mrs. Godwin said quietly. “And most benefit from additional sets of hands.”

  “Mrs. Darcy’s maid and the other servants can perform any mundane tasks required.”

  Elizabeth looked at Dr. Severn with irritation. “But do you not think an experienced—”

  “Get back in bed.”

  The physician clearly was not having the calming effect on Elizabeth—or himself, for that matter—that Darcy had intended when he’d engaged Dr. Severn last autumn. Indeed, the man’s arrogance and conceit instead undermined Darcy’s trust in his expertise. Increasing the distress of one’s patient hardly seemed beneficial to anybody.

  “Elizabeth, perhaps now that you have had your stretch, you might return to the bed,” Darcy suggested, attempting to mollify both doctor and patient.

  She cast him a look that said Et tu, Darcy? but acquiesced. While Dr. Severn glowered at the midwife, Darcy and Mrs. Godwin helped Elizabeth back into bed. Darcy noticed that she had secured the scrap of cloth from the statuette around her wrist.

  “I found Jenny and questioned her thoroughly,” he said. “She asserts that she added nothing to your tea, and I am inclined to believe her.”

  Relief crossed his wife’s countenance, though plenty of distress remained. “Did she surrender the ivory?”

  “Unfortunately, she had just passed it to Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Stanford when I discovered her, and I
could not question her and pursue them at once. But we shall retrieve it, I promise you.”

  Another pain took hold of Elizabeth. A soft whimper escaped her. The pain was expected, but that fact did not make it any easier for Darcy to witness.

  “Mrs. Darcy, will you cease that moaning?” Dr. Severn snapped. “It is most irritating, not to mention terribly unbecoming in a lady of your station.”

  “But I—” She gasped for breath between words. “Hurt.”

  “You and every other woman in travail. What did you expect? Women are supposed to endure pain while giving birth. It is the natural way of things.” He turned his back and began withdrawing his array of torture devices from his black bag. “Demonstrate some selfcontrol, or we are in for a long night of it.”

  Elizabeth looked as if she were about to cry. She gripped Darcy’s hand so tightly he thought his fingers would break. Did the doctor have no human compassion?

  Mrs. Godwin took her other hand and rubbed the small of her back. “This one is almost over. Take a deep breath and release it slowly, as we did before. There now—it has passed. With the next pain, we shall count together again to distract you, all right?”

  The midwife’s words soothed Elizabeth, and she nodded. The afflicted expression left her face, replaced by one of trust and calm determination.

  “You shall do nothing of the sort,” Dr. Severn declared. “That ridiculous counting will drive me to distraction. Mrs. Godwin, I said you may leave. You as well, Mr. Darcy. The birthing chamber is no place for a man.”

  Darcy was beginning to think the same thing. At least, in regard to one man in particular.

  “Dr. Severn, my wife’s mother is downstairs in the yellow drawing room. I suspect you will find her in want of a tonic for her nerves. Kindly attend to her—and remain there unless Mrs. Godwin summons you.”

  “I do not understand you, sir.”

  “Then I shall speak more plainly. I am consigning my wife to Mrs. Godwin’s care. You will assist her if she has need of you.”

  “I assist her? You cannot be serious!”

  “Indeed, I am.”

  “I am a doctor—one of the most sought after in London. I received my training from the Royal College of Physicians. I will not be ordered about by some country midwife.”

  “I respect your training, Doctor. It is the reason I hired you. But your manner is adding to my wife’s distress.”

  “So I am to take direction from a woman? I will not suffer such insult.” He shoved his equipment back into his bag. “Mr. Darcy, I bid you good day. May your wife survive it.”

  Another pain seized Elizabeth, but the absence of Dr. Severn seemed to make this one easier for her to bear. When it had passed, she thanked him for banishing the physician. He was uneasy about the doctor’s medical expertise walking out the door, but the departure of the man himself had also removed considerable anxiety from the room.

  Mrs. Godwin helped Elizabeth find a more comfortable position in anticipation of her next pain. Then she turned to Darcy. “I have things well in hand here, sir, and your wife needs to focus on the work she has ahead. Bid her farewell for now.”

  He looked into Elizabeth’s face. The last thing he wanted to do was leave her. He kissed her deeply, then continued to hold one hand to her cheek. He tried not to let the spectre of his mother’s fate haunt him.

  “You will see me again,” she said.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you? Would you like your mother with you after all?”

  “I think perhaps I would.”

  “Lydia?”

  She managed a laugh. “No. But if you would send for Jane?”

  He should have thought of that himself. “Of course.”

  “And—” She hesitated.

  “Name it, Elizabeth. If it is within my power, it is yours.”

  “It probably is not. But . . .” Beloved eyes, intense with the commencement of another pain, beseeched him. “I believe I would feel better if I had your mother’s ivory.”

  The ivory that was even now speeding away. He could hardly bring himself to leave the room, let alone Pemberley. What if the unthinkable happened while he was gone?

  Yet if he departed immediately and rode hell-for-leather, he might manage to overtake the fleeing carriage. He would be performing some useful function instead of impatiently pacing the gallery like a caged tiger. And if there were any truth in the family legends at all, he would be doing something to protect his wife and son through the danger of bringing him into the world.

  Several servants entered, carrying in supplies. He turned to one of them. “Run to the stables as quickly as you can. Tell the groom to saddle Mercury.”

  Thirty-eight

  “Do but look at my horse; did you ever see an animal so made for speed in your life?”

  —John Thorpe, Northanger Abbey

  D arcy urged his mount across the Derbyshire landscape, bleak and forlorn in the winter moonlight. Surely the villains’ carriage could not be much farther ahead. He had stopped at Lambton to exchange Mercury for a fresh horse and enquire after the conspirators, and learned that they had just completed a stop of their own. They had paused to retrieve their luggage, and been further delayed by a quarrel amongst themselves as the trunks were loaded. Apparently, Wickham and Mrs. Stanford had been in favor of transferring to a post chaise, so as to benefit from the superior speed offered by a skilled postilion guiding rested animals, but their driver would not hear of it. He had insisted his horses could outstrip any post horses, that despite the short bait and additional encumbrance of luggage they should maintain a pace of fifteen miles per hour all the way to Gloucestershire, and that nothing ruins horses so much as rest.

  Darcy was happy to let their driver attempt to prove his point as he gained on them with every mile. He now watched for the carriage to come into view. What he would do when he at last overtook it, he had not quite worked out yet, but somehow he would come away from the encounter with Elizabeth’s ivory in hand.

  He reached the top of a rise and at last spotted a vehicle ahead. In the darkness, he could not at this distance identify it decisively as theirs, but the moon illuminated the road brightly enough that he could see it was no yellow bounder and carried no postboys. The carriage weaved across the road and back as it sped along, its driver apparently having trouble controlling the horses. He felt confident of its being the vehicle he pursued.

  It approached a bend in the road. From his vantage point, Darcy could see a post chariot traveling from the opposite direction. This carriage seemed to be headed into the curve at a more sensible speed, under the control of a competent postilion. And thank goodness, for as the conspirators’ chaise reached the bend, it overturned, and the oncoming chariot narrowly averted becoming part of the accident.

  The undamaged vehicle stopped. The postboy sprang toward the wreckage; his passenger emerged just as Darcy himself reached the chariot. He was surprised to recognize the traveler.

  “Mr. Tilney!”

  “Mr. Darcy! I did not expect to see you until I reached Pemberley.”

  In all the distraction of the day’s events, Darcy had utterly forgotten that this was the date upon which Henry Tilney was to have commenced his visit.

  “I am in pursuit of our imposters. I believe them to be in that carriage.”

  “Oh, dear. Let us hope they have survived so as not to deprive the courts the pleasure of hanging them.”

  They soon determined that the villains indeed lived to lie another day. Somehow, the two passengers managed to escape serious injury, though Mr. Wickham complained of an injured ankle. Darcy could not say he felt the slightest bit of pity watching him grimace as he dragged himself out of the wreckage. As soon as he emerged, Darcy demanded the ivory from him. Having no choice, Wickham relinquished it.

  “Mr. Tilney, it gives me no pleasure to introduce you to Mr. George Wickham, to whom I have the misfortune of being related by marriage.”

  “Fitz, you wound me.”


  “Address me in that manner again and I shall force you to walk home.”

  The other passenger had accepted the postilion’s aid and leaned on his arm for support.

  “This woman is, I believe, Mrs. Stanford,” Darcy said, “also known as Dorothy the housekeeper. Mrs. Stanford, I understand you were acquainted with Mr. Tilney’s late brother.”

  “Why—” Mr. Tilney peered at her intensely. And chuckled. “Isabella Thorpe!”

  “Mr. Tilney!” She released the postboy and staggered to Henry with as much charm as one who has just been overturned in a carriage can muster. “How good it is to see you after all this time! I declare, it has been an age! How is your wife, my dear friend Catherine? I long to see her. Thank heavens you happened along when you did. I am sure you are wondering what Mr. Darcy can possibly be talking about. This is all the most frightful misunderstanding.”

  Darcy glanced enquiringly at Mr. Tilney. “I gather you have already met?”

  “Let us say that Mrs. Stanford’s interest in my family—and in Frederick in particular—considerably predates her marriage to the colonel. I see the years have altered you little, Mrs. Stanford. You are what you always were.”

  The accident had loosed several locks of her hair. She tucked one of these behind her ear and smiled coyly. “You flatter me, Mr. Tilney.”

  “Do I? That was not my intent.” He turned to Darcy. “Is Mr. Wickham the man who posed as my brother, then?”

  “No, merely a conspirator in the plot. I have not yet identified who impersonated the captain.”

  The driver of the overturned carriage had been thrown from the vehicle. He lay several yards distant, where the postilion found him.

  “What the devil?” exclaimed a familiar voice. “Sneak up on a fellow in the dark, will you? Damn, but my wrist hurts!”

  “I believe that is our imposter,” said Darcy.

  With the aid of Tilney’s servant, the hapless driver stumbled toward their party. He was indeed the height and build of the false captain who had met them at Northanger. He appeared far less mysterious, however, with two eyes. “Devil take that curve! A hairpin turn if I ever saw one. A dozen coaches must roll on it each day. If I lived within a hundred miles of here, I would rebuild the road myself. I say—Tilney!”