The Trials: A Pride and Prejudice Story

by Timothy Underwood

  “Do you intend to accuse me of theft?”

  “Tell the whole story, or I shall drag you to Rosings and have you tried for its theft. I think I can prove you were in the neighborhood, and Pamela will quite happily confirm that you gave her the hairpin. You know the penalty for such a theft.”

  “This is not how your father would have liked you to treat me.”

  “Did Lady Catherine give it to you as part of your bargain?”

  Wickham laughed. He turned to Lutecia who gyrated on the chair she sat on. “Never get old. It makes women foolish when a handsome man pays any attention to them. I can prove that she signed over to me a large sum of money yesterday. That will be good evidence that she also gave me the hairpin. Pamela did wear the piece in front of Lady Catherine?”

  Chancey smiled. “Darcy says she did. The bat was quite put out about it.”

  “There is no humor in this.” Darcy clapped his hands to gain their attention. “She faces hanging if my aunt’s vindictiveness is not stopped. I will have you promise to testify for her.”

  “Darcy—”

  “I have every reason to despise you and to find ways to hurt you. Richard is at Rosings — and he is eager to see you as well. Do you really wish me for an enemy?”

  “Frankly, I do not care. You’ve too much squeamishness to kill me, and I doubt there is much beyond that you shall do which will hurt me.”

  “I will have you tried for the theft of the hairpin if you cannot prove that Lady Catherine gave it to you. I think the jury will believe you stole it, especially with the long list of other crimes I can lay against you.”

  Wickham rolled his eyes. “I must have a carrot. I’ll not play your game just with a stick.”

  “Hmmm.” Chancey was eyeballing Lutecia. “Do you care at all for this girl Darcy came all this way to help? You were close enough to her for her to accept such a gift.”

  “I wish Miss Pamela the best. But the enmity of Lady Catherine.” Wickham shivered theatrically. “She has no squeamishness. Besides she paid me a great deal. Should not an honorable man, such as myself, abide by that agreement?”

  “So you really would not act simply to prevent the girl from hanging.”

  Wickham shrugged. “It seems unlikely that it shall come to that. Pamela is a quite pretty girl. It is no surprise Darcy has chosen to be her champion. She was the sort who will be grateful.”

  With raised eyebrows, Chancey looked at Darcy.

  He hoped Elizabeth would be grateful. “I have not the slightest interest in the maid, except as a fellow human being.”

  “An attractive female human being.” Wickham grinned at Darcy. Darcy thought about punching him again.

  Chancey sprawled out in an unoccupied armchair. “This is rather cold.”

  “If she was dimwitted enough to actually wear such a piece in front of Lady Catherine, she quite deserves her fate.”

  Chancey shook his head now, forcing his eyes away from Lutecia, who pouted at losing her audience. “I cannot agree with that. She is very young, and she should be given a chance to learn. Besides, even if she deserves such a fate for stupidity, one does not want the pretty girls to hang.”

  Wickham and Chancey looked at each other.

  Chancey smiled widely. “I think we can understand each other. Do give Darcy the papers proving you received the money from Lady Catherine, and promise that if he needs you to, you will testify. I shall owe you a favor, and some measure of friendship—”

  “Friendship! With him?” Darcy exclaimed.

  “Yes, friendship. On my part. Darcy only owes you a favor.”

  “A favor? Precisely what sort of favor?”

  “Now Wickham, I see the sort of man you are. Presently you have a great deal of money. But that will not last; you’ll lose it or spend it in some manner. If you were to get money from us now, that would have no benefit for you. But if you are owed a favor by an earl and by the master of Pemberley, someday, when you have spent all the ready you have on hand at present, it may have value.”

  Wickham tapped his finger against the side of his cheeks and then said to the prostitutes, “Girls, what do you think?”

  The shyer one replied, “Oh yes. You should do it. This Lady Catherine will not live forever.”

  The one with the naked hips said, “You can’t leave that poor girl to hang for your joke.”

  Wickham stood up and shook Chancey’s hand. “Then I am at your service.”

  Chancey grinned and asked, “Do you still have any compunctions about violating your agreement with Lady Catherine?”

  “Lady Catherine? Zounds, no! She is… Fitzy, she is your aunt, so I should not speak plainly about her in front of you, due to the deep affection you hold for her. Family feeling and all. But I will say it: She has a touch — just a slight touch mind you — of arrogance. It quite puts me out to indulge her in anything. Also she has this obsession with telling people what to do — you do as well, Fitzy.”

  Chancey grinned. “Are you saying that even honorless, thieving adventurers cannot stand Lady Catherine’s love of advice giving? I had thought it was only me and Miss Darcy.”

  Wickham laughed. “You are quite a good man. I was always fond of Miss Darcy, and I am glad for her sake that she has met someone worthy of her. Today, I am glad my scheme fell apart. I would have wasted her entire fortune, and not been better off for it.”

  “I am pleased you failed.”

  “You cannot fault a man for trying.”

  “I certainly can, and I do.”

  Wickham laughed.

  Darcy found it a little disturbing that his future brother-in-law and Wickham seemed to get along together as well as a pair of frisky kittens.

  Wickham dived into a bag he had on the side of the bed in the corner of the room. He tossed underclothes, wrapped up parcels of food, and a dozen packs of playing cards out. At last he exclaimed, “Aha! Here they are!” He held up a packet wrapped in tan paper. “The receipts from Lady Catherine’s bank, and the letters in her hand instructing me to be paid for services rendered.”

  Darcy carefully looked through the letters. “I also need a signed statement from you.”

  “Yes. Yes.” The writing desk provided by the inn had stationery in it, and a quill and ink. After a minute, Wickham signed a note with a flourish. “Here. Here.” He waved the sheet in the air to dry the ink, and then stuffed it into Darcy’s hand. “That is enough for now.” Wickham grabbed the shyer girl and pulled her for a kiss. “I have other plans.”

  Darcy had what he needed. Perhaps this would not be enough to convince Hawdry to release Pamela without waiting for a grand jury to assess the evidence, but he could try. He also would be able to threaten Lady Catherine with Wickham’s words.

  Rather than remaining to annoy the increasingly amorous Wickham who was fondling the girl’s breasts without paying any attention to Darcy, Darcy left the room.

  As they walked down the stairs, Chancey said, “What a delightful man. He is completely unapologetic about his defects, and quite happy to own them as well. Why ever did you let him go?”

  Darcy stared at Chancey for a long minute, attempting to assess whether the younger man was serious. “Just don’t lend him anything you wish to see returned.”

  “The deuce! I’m not stupid.”

  “If I’d known about your poor taste in friends…”

  “He’d make a terrible friend, but he is a fine entertaining acquaintance. Really, why did you let him go?”

  “He was not nearly so unapologetic when I knew him. It seems even George Wickham has changed, though not for the better — do not let his charm make you forget this entire matter involves him being party to blackmail and playing a prank which has placed a young woman on trial for grand larceny.”

  Chancey waved his long white hands to the side, dismissing that whole notion. “‘Tis that gnawing rabbit of your aunt. I am quite serious that if Lady Catty told me to breathe, I might choke just to spite her — your friend Wic
kham merely acted on the feeling Lady Catherine gives to us all.”

  Darcy grinned wildly at the image of Lady Catherine as a big rabbit with disturbingly long protuberant teeth. He liked the image. “I know the precise feeling you speak of. That need to defy her had been growing in me for the past weeks and now…now I shall tell her that she might die and I would not attend the funeral.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “No, honey. No, you can’t go play. We need to stay here.”

  “Buuuut…please. Normally I can play now.”

  Elizabeth sighed. It was well into the afternoon. Soon dinner would be served. She normally gave Emma an hour to run about outside. But today she was nervous. Lady Catherine had scared her. She was too angry. Elizabeth did not want to let Emma out of her sight, or let Lady Catherine catch them doing anything to which she might object.

  “This is not a good day.”

  Elizabeth had not let Emma leave the nursery once all day. They had sat here without movement or exercise. Despite the open windows and the slight breeze, the room was stifling.

  “Why noooooot. I just want to go outside!”

  “You know what Lady Catherine is doing to Pamela. You like Pamela.”

  “They won’t hang Pamela. Mr. Darcy will save her.”

  “I believe in him too.”

  “He will come back and everything will be all right. Can I go outside? I really want to go outside.”

  Elizabeth remembered him asking her again to marry him. It would never be all right for Emma and her. Tears began to pop into Elizabeth’s eyes and she frustratedly wiped them away. “Just sit and read. You need to study.”

  A heavy set of footsteps sounded in the hallway, and Elizabeth caught her breath, fearing it was Lady Catherine. She heard the tapping of a cane. It was Lady Catherine. The woman walked past the door without stopping.

  Elizabeth let out a long breath, her heart beat terribly fast. She was aware how fragile Emma’s position was. What would Lady Catherine do to Emma when she learned that Darcy would not marry Anne? How would Emma react when she learned that Darcy could not save them all?

  Lady Catherine would certainly physically strike Emma again. Elizabeth knew she would need to be able to stand aside and watch it happen again. Emma had not been touched since Darcy challenged Lady Catherine after she slapped Emma in the drawing room. Elizabeth was not sure she could silently watch her darling child be slapped or spanked again by that monster.

  But if she did anything she would lose her position, and then Emma would be alone.

  Emma looked out the window again. “Pleeease, Miss Lizzy. I just want to run outside.”

  “Go back to your seat and read.”

  “I won’t study just because Lady Catherine wants me to.”

  “Then study for yourself. Goodness — Emma, you will be a gentlewoman one day. Act like it!”

  Emma looked at her with wide eyes.

  Elizabeth had a rage driven by the stress and the anxiety she’d felt every time she heard steps in the hallway next to them. The grief of refusing Darcy for Emma’s sake was also in her body. “Just behave like a good girl for one day!”

  Emma began to cry, and Elizabeth felt sick. She sat down next to Emma and embraced her. “I’m sorry. So terribly sorry. I’m scared. I’ve never been more scared. I don’t know what will happen.”

  When Emma saw that Elizabeth was crying herself, she hugged her back.

  Elizabeth stood up, taking Emma’s hand. “Promise not to run out, and if we meet Lady Catherine, look down and agree with everything she says. Let’s go to the kitchen and see if there is anything there for you.”

  They looked both directions before hurrying into an entrance to the servant’s stairway hidden behind a painting. Elizabeth felt such an odd combination of terror and rage towards Lady Catherine.

  She had chosen to try to kill a young woman out of spite.

  What would Lady Catherine do to Emma, or even to Elizabeth herself, if they stayed near her? But there was no escape. Lady Catherine was the only person who held a legal tie to Emma. Elizabeth needed to stay. Elizabeth cared more for the little girl than anyone else in her life. Including herself. Including Darcy.

  The smooth feel of his lips. The memory set her heart thumping again. Kissing him had been an entirely impulsive gesture, but she could not repent. Elizabeth wanted to cry again.

  Darcy’s face in the moonlight streaming through the open windows. His deep goodness and kindness to her, and to Emma. His kindness to Pamela, who he must disapprove of. He was the best, best man she knew.

  They quietly ran down the stairs and entered the kitchen. Mrs. Shore was there, slicing long strips of meat from a haunch of beef that would be rolled together to form a roast.

  Elizabeth exclaimed in surprise, “I thought you had left — it would be natural.”

  The woman glared at Elizabeth before she returned to sawing her knife through the thick muscles of the dead cow. “I considered it. I did. Don’t doubt it. But it don’t do Pamela no good for me to lose such a good place.”

  “No, it does not…”

  “You ain’t left either.” Emma reached towards the jar with the biscuits. Mrs. Shore slapped the girl’s hand away. “Not today.”

  Emma looked at her with her wide hurt eyes. And then the woman turned away with a huff. “Just take it. You’re only half a gentlewoman anyways. They’ll never accept you. Not being illegitimate.”

  The girl nodded, clearly not caring about the content of Mrs. Shore’s speech. When Mrs. Shore let her grab a biscuit she smiled and prettily said, “Thank you.”

  Mrs. Shore ill-naturedly grunted and returned to her work of removing the meat from the bone. “You did not quit either, Miss Bennet. And you were friendly with my niece. Nobody left. People don’t. It’s the way things are.”

  “I must stay for Emma.”

  Mrs. Shore rolled her eyes. “Don’t matter none to me what your excuse is.”

  Emma started chattering with a girl her age who was the younger daughter of one of the servants. Lady Catherine would be angry if she saw Emma associating with someone who was not of an appropriate class, but Elizabeth hated to drag her away from a momentary bit of companionship on such a difficult day.

  It would be safer to go back to the nursery.

  Elizabeth hunted for words to let them part in a friendly manner. Mrs. Shore’s anger gnawed at Elizabeth. She’d felt that guilt since Lady Catherine ordered her to move away from Pamela and she did.

  “It rubs me dry.” Mrs. Shore put the knife down for a moment and carried the strips she’d gained from carving one side the haunch to the second worktable so they would be out of her way as she finished carving the meat. “That a woman like that can murder — at least try, that nephew of hers says he’ll get Pamela off—”

  Mrs. Shore picked the knife up again and with a squishy sound resettled the haunch of meat. “She can try to murder my brother’s daughter. And no one can do anything to punish her for it. The law! Ha!”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Mr. Wood knew Pamela since she was a girl. He held her there. Tied my little niece to a chair. Like a common street ruffian. And then they dragged her to the gaol. Johnny and Joe guarded her, like she was some dangerous man instead of a sweet girl.”

  “What could they have done?”

  “Something! I am damned tired of that excuse.”

  She sawed the knife right through the bone with a grating sound, and then ripped it free. With a growl she looked up at Elizabeth, who flinched away. Mrs. Shore set her knife against the raw meat and began cutting the next strip.

  “Them French had the whole notion right. They did something.” There was extra bloody viciousness in her expert motions with the long carving knife. One after another pieces of meat plopped neatly to the side. “They just killed the whole lot of them. Everyone who didn’t flee fast enough—” Mrs. Shore gestured across her throat with the knife, making droplets of blood spray over the counter. “
Maybe we should do that here.”

  Elizabeth would not shed a tear should Lady Catherine die, but to say she ought to be killed — especially with the turmoil of the past years. Those were dangerous words.

  Mrs. Shore realized that too. She snarled at Elizabeth. “That’s enough dilly dacking. I have my work — get out of here, Miss Bennet. Get out.”

  Emma followed Elizabeth into the garden next to the kitchen.

  Elizabeth breathed deeply several times before she could continue on her way.

  Emma asked curiously, “Why was Mrs. Shore angry at you?”

  Elizabeth had the guilt too. She had stepped away from Pamela too.

  A sudden fear jolted Elizabeth’s body. What if Mrs. Shore had returned to kill Lady Catherine. To do something.

  The sharp motions of that knife. The blade pulled across Lady Catherine’s throat, leaving that bleeding, gaping wound. Blood. Blood.

  Mrs. Shore might be on the verge of anything.

  She needed to protect Mrs. Shore from her own anger. The woman needed to be away from Rosings long enough for her mind to calm and her good sense to return.

  Elizabeth could not go to any of the people who might force Mrs. Shore to leave. It would be insane to approach the butler or the housekeeper, or even worse Hawdry or Lady Catherine herself. What Mrs. Shore had said could be interpreted as sedition, conspiracy, and treason. It implied a threat to the life of even the king himself — since one of those who had been dealt with by the French was their king.

  In the past years, since the end of the war threw so many out of work, there had been discontent on the streets. The government took a severe view of such things. Mrs. Shore’s words alone would place her in gaol if someone like Lady Catherine wished to see it.

  Even had Darcy been here, Elizabeth would have hesitated to tell him the details of this conversation. She trusted him in everything, but he took his duties seriously, and she was not entirely sure how he would interpret them in this case.

  Elizabeth struck on the answer: She had met Pamela’s father a few times at market, and his cottage was a mere half mile away and situated right next to the deer park. If she came to him and found the right words to express her concerns, he may be able to work upon his sister.