North by Northanger

by Mr. ; Mrs. Darcy Mystery; Carrie Bebris

  “Mr. Thorpe.” Henry turned to Darcy. “Mr. Darcy, meet Mr. John Thorpe, Mrs. Stanford’s brother.”

  Mr. Thorpe was found to have suffered a sprained wrist, which he complained about to the point where one would think he had broken his arm. At least the injury relieved him of the danger of driving any vehicle through the treacherous curve again. That fact did not, however, prevent him from rattling on about its hazards. “The road positively bends in half. A death trap! Absolutely perilous!”

  “Mr. Thorpe,” Henry said, “if you must air your vocabulary, I would prefer you use it to explain the night you entertained the Darcys at Northanger Abbey. As my brother.”

  “Upon my soul, that was a jolly night, was it not, Mr. Darcy? Isabella always could design a wickedly clever scheme. The look on your faces when I first walked in the room—it was capital! Never had such an amusing evening in my life. So glad Captain Tilney issued the invitation before he died—I was happy to step in when he could not keep the engagement.”

  “To what end?” Darcy asked.

  “To learn about those ivories the captain promised Belle, that’s what.”

  “I somehow doubt my brother promised Mrs. Stanford anything of the sort.”

  “I am certain that he meant to give them to me,” Isabella said. “Frederick had contemplated contacting the Darcys from the time he learned of Mr. Wickham’s connection to the family. When Wickham heard from his wife that they were looking for some sort of treasure at Pemberley, I said, ‘See? The Darcys know something about those ivories after all. If they find them, you should ask for them back.’ He laughed and said, ‘You would like that, would you not?’ So I know he wanted me to have them.” She sighed dramatically. “Since poor Frederick did not live long enough to give them to me himself, completing his unfinished business was the least I could do for him.”

  “You mean for yourself,” Mr. Tilney said.

  “Oh, Belle said she would share them,” Mr. Thorpe said. “Once the captain died, she fretted that you would misunderstand Frederick’s intentions, so we had to find them for ourselves. You are a cagey fellow, Mr. Darcy! Could not get much information from you directly, or find a thing in your trunks while you were at dinner, but Belle heard enough through the servants’ doors. Shame you had to go and spoil everything by leaving our party before Wickham had the maid installed at Pemberley. He and Belle had a fix for that, though. What did you think of the cane? An exceedingly faithful copy, was it not?”

  “It was.” Darcy looked at Wickham. “I understand a Mr. George Darcy commissioned it.”

  Wickham grinned smugly. “Mr. George Darcy purchased a great many things that season. I never imagined at the time how useful that particular item would prove.”

  “But the diamonds were my inspiration,” Isabella said boastfully. “They were the very thing to prevent your returning home too soon. The letter to the constable was mine, as well. Did it not work beautifully?”

  “You always were a practiced letter writer,” Mr. Tilney said.

  “Just as well you did leave early, though,” said Mr. Thorpe. “That plaguesome old butler returned before we were expecting him and we had to brush off.”

  Darcy could scarcely believe his ears. They had plunged him into a morass of dire legal difficulties simply to delay his return home for a few days? Moreover, they appeared utterly insensible to the consequences of their actions. “Do you comprehend that I faced hanging for the crime of which I stood accused?”

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Mr. Thorpe. “You are a gentleman. What is the law to you? It will not give a gentleman trouble.”

  “We shall see whether you still believe that come the morrow.”

  “Mrs. Stanford,” said Mr. Tilney, “if you wanted something by which to remember my brother, why did you not simply take the diamonds for yourself while you were at Northanger Abbey? You could have dispensed with the hunt for the statuettes altogether.”

  “The ivories held more value—sentimental value.” Isabella adopted an innocent expression. “Besides, if I had kept those diamonds, that would be stealing. The statuettes, in addition to having been promised to me, were just lying around somewhere waiting to be found. We would have been rescuing them, really.”

  Darcy yet held his mother’s statuette in his hand. “As you rescued this one?”

  “I cannot imagine why that servant girl thrust that statue at us. Of course that one is yours. There must have been some misunderstanding.”

  Much as he wanted to interrogate the party further, Darcy was anxious to return home. He was also in serious doubt as to whether any of the accomplices had anything useful to say. He and Mr. Tilney determined that they would all proceed to the inn at Lambton, where they could send for the apothecary and the constable. The conspirators rode in Mr. Tilney’s post chariot while Darcy followed on horseback.

  By the time everybody emerged from Mr. Tilney’s carriage at the inn, the party had apparently become engaged in a quarrel over who was to blame for their having been caught.

  “We would not have overturned if you had not insisted upon driving.”

  “It was not my driving, it was the deuced road!”

  “Had we traveled post, Mr. Darcy would not have overtaken us.”

  “You are the one who insisted we stop at Lambton to retrieve our belongings. . . .”

  Darcy was rather glad for his own solitary journey to the inn. Henry Tilney appeared the way Darcy felt after an hour spent with his mother-in-law.

  The conspirators entered the inn. After asking a servant to send for the constable, Mr. Tilney shook his head in bemusement and looked at Darcy. “One wonders how three such shallow, selfish people managed to devise a plot of such serious consequence.”

  “One wonders how the three of them managed to cooperate long enough to execute it.”

  “It must relieve you to apprehend them and settle the matter of the diamonds. Now they will stand trial in Gloucestershire instead of you.”

  “I am indeed glad for it, but I confess to distraction. When I left Pemberley to pursue them, Mrs. Darcy had just been brought to childbed.”

  Henry’s face lit with genuine delight. “That is capital news. May I congratulate you on a son, or on a daughter?”

  “I do not yet know.”

  “Good heavens, Mr. Darcy! You should be at home, not chasing ruffians about the countryside. Why did you not say something sooner?”

  “I did not want to leave you alone with our merry trio.”

  “I have matters well in hand, and shall come to Pemberley in a few days with a report, if you like. But for now I bid you adieu. Get thee to your wife, my friend.”

  Thirty-nine

  How well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused over his face, became him.

  —Pride and Prejudice

  H e arrived too late.

  The moment he entered the house, Darcy sensed that something within it had changed. Elizabeth’s trial had ended. Though he had won her prize back for her, returned with the ivory in hand, he had not reached her in time.

  And she had come through her travail just fine.

  His heart nearly stopped—and his breathing did—upon seeing her again. And upon beholding his child for the first time.

  ’Twas the darkest hour of night when he passed into the bedchamber. No sign remained of the struggle this room had witnessed just hours earlier. All in the household, save Mrs. Godwin and a nurse attending mother and child, had gone to bed. He was spared any noisy effusions of Mrs. Bennet or blunt declarations from Lydia and could behold his wife in quiet as she lightly dozed, a tiny bundle at her side.

  “They are both well,” Mrs. Godwin assured him. “It was an easy birth—if birth can ever be called easy.”

  “Have I a son or daughter?”

  “I shall let her tell you.”

  “I do not wish to wake her.”

  “She wants to see you.”

  Mrs. Godwin and the nurse left them in privacy. He approached t
he bed, beside which a single candle burned. Elizabeth’s arm encircled the baby, wrapped so snugly in a small blanket that he could see only the child’s head—closed eyes, wrinkled cheeks, an impossibly tiny nose, tufts of dark downy hair. Carefully, afraid he would somehow break the delicate form, he lifted his child from the bed and into his arms.

  So light. So fragile. So utterly dependent.

  At the removal of the infant, Elizabeth’s maternal instincts awakened, and so did she. Her lips formed a smile, and her eyes held a content, if sleepy, expression.

  “I see you have met your daughter.”

  A daughter. The most wondrous word in the English language.

  “You smile—your ordeal was not so terrible that you resent me as its cause?”

  “I can think of more pleasant ways to spend an evening, but none that yield so great a reward.”

  “I have something for you.” Shifting his daughter to one arm, he produced the ivory. “I am sorry I did not return with it in time.”

  She accepted the statuette from him. “I am sorry I sent you on such a desperate errand when you no doubt would have preferred to remain here.”

  “As the alternative was waiting with Lydia, I was glad for the occupation. And glad to have rescued the Madonna from the three villains who kidnapped her, before they had an opportunity to sell or damage the ivory.”

  “Though it would have been a comfort to have your mother’s treasure with me during the birth, I found strength in other sources. A skilled midwife. My own determination. Your devotion. Even this.” She traced a finger over the scrap of fabric yet secured to her wrist. “If I could not have the statuette itself, at least I could keep its mantle close to me.” She removed the cloth now and wrapped the ivory back within it. “I also had my mother, do not forget. For a short time, at least.”

  “That did not last?”

  “She did not last. Just as I was about to suggest she return to my father and Lydia, she fretted herself into a fainting fit.”

  He could not suppress a laugh. “Forgive me. Is she all right?”

  “Oh, yes. I believe her loss of consciousness to have been beneficial to all parties. By the time she awoke, all was over, and her effusions could communicate entirely felicitous content.”

  “I am glad she proved of some use to you. I imagine a woman would generally want her mother present during her travail, when possible.”

  “This may sound odd, but I also seemed to feel your mother’s presence. Perhaps it is all the reading of her letters and journal, and knowing I labored in the same room as she, that fixed her so strongly in my thoughts. But I sensed that somehow she, too, supported me during my trial. At times, I even believed I detected the scent of lilies.”

  “Were my mother alive, she most certainly would have wanted to be here.”

  They both gazed at their daughter. He thought he saw his mother in the line of her chin, his wife in the shape of her brow. He wished the small eyes would open so he could ascertain whose resemblance they bore, but their child already demonstrated a will of her own by remaining quite determinedly asleep.

  “You were so certain I carried a boy—and I, that I carried a girl—that we never settled upon a name for either,” Elizabeth said. “What shall it be? Who shall she be?”

  “I am still partial toward Elizabeth.”

  “Nay. She should not have to share her name with another member of the household, even her mother.” His wife stroked their daughter’s brow. “At least, not a living one.” She looked up at him. “Perhaps Anne?”

  Her desire to honor his mother pleased him. But having witnessed Elizabeth’s struggle to establish her own identity at Pemberley, he hesitated to place this tiny being so directly in her grandmother’s shadow, to invite a lifetime of comparison before the child even opened her eyes on the world. “Jane?”

  Elizabeth contemplated a moment, then shook her head. “She does not look like a Jane.” She sighed. “How do parents ever choose?”

  Mrs. Godwin returned to check on Elizabeth one final time before retiring. A chamber had been prepared for the midwife, and she instructed Elizabeth to send for her if she required anything during what remained of the night. Darcy doubted he himself would sleep a moment.

  “Mrs. Godwin,” he said. “Were you present when Georgiana received her name?”

  She smiled sadly and nodded. “Your parents were talking quietly, and I was trying to grant them privacy while making your mother as comfortable as I could. She knew she was dying; they both did. She was exhausted by her ordeal, he by anxiety and grief. He declared he would name their daughter Anne, that Pemberley must have an Anne or he could not bear to live here any longer.

  “She said no, let us join our two names, as we joined Fitzwilliam and Darcy to name our son. Let us call our daughter Georgiana, and may our children embody our union. May they grow, and thrive, and show the world what is possible when love conquers all.”

  The glimpse of his parents’ final moments together prompted him to take Elizabeth’s hand and bring it to his lips. “Thank you for our daughter,” he whispered fiercely.

  As Mrs. Godwin left, she reminded him that their daughter still had no name.

  “Much as I appreciate my parents’ practice of combining their two, I am not quite enamored of Fitzabeth,” he said.

  Elizabeth caressed their daughter’s cheek. “I have something else in mind.”

  Forty

  It was doomed to be a day of trial.

  —Northanger Abbey

  L ady Catherine entered Elizabeth’s bedchamber as if it were her own.

  “You summoned me?”

  Anticipating another volatile confrontation, Elizabeth had considered postponing this conversation until she had regained more strength. Her travail was but a day past, and she still experienced pain and fatigue from bringing her daughter into the world. But some pleasures should not be deferred, and the result of the communication she was about to make would be worth any unpleasantness arising from its delivery.

  She glanced at the cradle, where her daughter was sleeping off the exhausting experience of having been born, and sat up as straight as possible in her bed. “I have the happiness of informing you that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Tilney apprehended the real thieves of the Northanger diamonds last night. While we appreciate your generous service these several months, we are no longer in need of a legal chaperone. You may return to Rosings.”

  Darcy’s aunt appeared as satisfied by the news as Elizabeth. “I had myself decided that the custody arrangement had become insupportable, and was determined to devise a means by which Mr. Melbourne would release us from it. I only hope my own affairs have not suffered neglect while I sacrificed so much time and attention to yours.”

  Elizabeth reflected that she and Darcy would have been perfectly content with a smaller sacrifice on her ladyship’s part, but graciously thanked Darcy’s aunt for her kindness.

  Lady Catherine scoffed. “It was not kindness. It was duty.”

  “Cannot duty be performed with kindness?”

  Her ladyship did not immediately reply. Her gaze had fallen on the Madonna and Child statuette, which rested on the table beside Elizabeth’s bed. “Sometimes in the performance of duty, one is forced to be unkind.” She looked at Elizabeth. “My sister never realized that in withholding that ivory, I was saving her from herself. I could not allow those around her to know she believed in Popish nonsense.”

  Elizabeth struggled to comprehend her. “Lady Anne was a Catholic?”

  “Never! Do not even utter such a thing. But our mother came from a family that secretly held on to the Catholic faith long after the Reformation, and a few of those beliefs passed through the generations. I would not have society thinking our family maintained any connection to its Catholic past.”

  “What difference would it have made? Catholics are no longer persecuted in England.”

  “It made a difference to me.”

  Elizabeth absorbed this revelation with
disgust. Darcy’s mother had suffered so that his aunt could prevent a scandal that would have existed only in her own head. Lady Catherine was so obsessed with the concept of family honor that she had lost all understanding of what honor meant.

  The baby stirred. Elizabeth slowly swung her legs to one side of the bed and slid her feet to the floor. She crossed to her daughter and lifted her into her arms. Lady Catherine, meanwhile, took no apparent interest in the child.

  “I think perhaps it would be best if you departed tomorrow morning,” Elizabeth said.

  “I shall depart this afternoon, as soon as my trunks are packed and my carriage readied.” She moved toward the table with the statuette.

  Elizabeth stepped in her way “The ivory shall remain here.”

  “You dare to keep it for yourself?”

  “I do not keep it for myself. I keep it for Lady Anne.”

  “You? The former Elizabeth Bennet—daughter of nobody and sister of scandal? Who are you that you believe yourself entitled to claim anything on Lady Anne’s behalf?”

  Elizabeth straightened her back, lifted her chin, and unflinchingly met Lady Catherine’s imperious gaze.

  “I am mistress of Pemberley.”

  Darcy shifted in his seat and did his best to ignore the stuffiness of the crowded courtroom. County assizes normally attracted large numbers of spectators, the trials offering merely one of many entertainments within the festival-like atmosphere that surrounded them. Twice a year, His Majesty’s subjects indulged in days of public balls, private parties, and—oh, yes, the administration of law.

  It seemed that all Gloucestershire had turned out this spring. After each day’s elaborate procession—the judge in his great white wig and scarlet robe, accompanied by trumpeters and sheriff’s men in full dress—down the city’s main street, more men, women, and children than Darcy would have believed possible packed into the hall. The legal proceedings provided the best theatre most of the audience would see all year. Or, at least, until the next assizes. And like any theatrical, the grisly accounts of murder and dire pronouncements of death sentences would be followed by dinner and dancing.