The Intrigue at Highbury

by Carrie Bebris

  “I am not so certain, but nor am I wont to reject the flattery of a lady. Emma, read the remainder again and let us see whether our guests can solve the whole.”

  Emma would much rather have quit the exercise altogether, but could contrive no graceful means by which to discontinue it. Wishing to keep the charade’s incriminating second stanza out of sight, lest anybody in addition to Mrs. Darcy become aware of its existence, she did not reopen the note but instead relied upon her memory. “I believe it was, ‘My second used with ciphers on a slate, will undo sums, and reduce some, I’d say.’ ”

  Mr. Dixon pondered the clue with brows drawn together. Frank, in contrast, exhibited the open countenance of one who has either determined the answer or was content to let somebody else discover it. He shot her a conspiratorial glance that seemed to say, “Let us see how long this takes the others,” and then set about finishing his cake.

  “ ‘Ciphers on a slate . . . ’ ” Mr. Woodhouse muttered. “I never cared for arithmetic as a boy. ‘Ten plus fifty,’ ‘sixty less ten.’ I had not the patience for it.”

  “But you have given us the answer, sir,” said Mrs. Darcy.

  Mr. Woodhouse was all disbelief. “Have I?”

  “The word is ‘less’—subtraction undoes sums.” Mrs. Darcy smiled. “And if one begins with ‘some’ quantity and reduces it, there is less.”

  “Indeed! Imagine that—I struck upon it without my even realizing. Emma, had you worked it out? Oh, of course you had. Well, no matter. So the second half is ‘less.’ That gives us—” His cheerfulness diminished. “Why, that makes the full solution ‘hopeless.’ What sort of melancholy riddle is that?”

  A mean-spirited one, writ by a person of small mind and smaller intellect, Emma wanted to say. But instead she fixed a bright smile upon her countenance. “No one ever said a charade must be cheerful, Papa.”

  “But who would compose such a sad verse?”

  All save Emma looked at Frank, who of anyone in Highbury had the greatest cause for doleful thoughts. Having just raised his teacup to his lips, he drained it and returned it to its saucer.

  “I have not the least idea,” he said.

  “Nor I,” Emma said quickly, wanting more than anything to move the discourse along to some other subject. Fortunately, a servant entered to remove the tea things and deliver the message that Mr. Knightley now awaited Mr. Churchill in the study.

  It was not without some little trepidation on Frank’s behalf that she watched him go. She knew Mr. Knightley harbored suspicion toward Frank Churchill, and doubted that the length of time her husband had been shut up with Mr. Perry and Mr. Darcy since the apothecary’s return from London presaged an amiable meeting for Frank.

  His departure produced the welcome effect of breaking up the rest of their party. Mr. Dixon excused himself with the stated intention of writing a letter, and Mr. Woodhouse retired to his own chamber for a nap before dinner. Emma soon found herself alone with Mrs. Darcy, who looked as if she wanted to enquire about the charade but hesitated to ask.

  Emma spared her further awkwardness and handed her the paper. “Go ahead—open it.” She desired Mrs. Darcy’s opinion on it anyway. Though confident of the solution, she sought confirmation.

  Mrs. Darcy scanned the remaining stanza. “A hopeless lass, a hopeless cause . . .” She raised her gaze to meet Emma’s.

  “Can that refer to anyone save Miss Bates?” Emma asked.

  “Not knowing your entire acquaintance, I cannot say for certain, but from what I have observed, I suppose this could apply to Miss Bates.”

  “I am sure of it, and its author.”

  “Mrs. Elton?”

  “Who else but she would be spiteful enough to write such a message, ill-bred enough to send it, and cowardly enough to do so anonymously?”

  “Despite having met her only briefly, I have little doubt of Mrs. Elton’s spite, breeding, or nerve. I do, however, wonder that she possesses the cleverness.”

  “She never would have thought to compose a charade were we not just discussing them with Harriet. But after that conversation, and my later circumventing her machinations with Mr. Simon, she no doubt resolved to prove herself superior. In the writing itself, she might have had help from her husband. He wrote a charade for Harriet’s book that was not half bad.” The solution to that riddle, written when Mr. Elton was a bachelor, had been “courtship,” and Emma had realized too late that it had been an attempt to woo her. The clergyman yet harbored resentment toward Emma for having rejected him. “His pride and disdain toward me matches his wife’s, and creating a puzzle meant to mock me would gratify his vanity. Whether he knows that she sent it is another matter.”

  “Do you intend to respond?”

  “Not directly. However certain I may be that this came from Mrs. Elton, I cannot prove my suspicions, nor will I give her the satisfaction of knowing how it vexes me. But that petty, disagreeable little upstart will eventually receive a response.”

  “In what form?”

  “The most satisfying of all. In sending this, she has thrown down a challenge. A challenge I shall win.”

  Nineteen

  “Do you think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?”

  —Mr. Knightley to Emma Woodhouse, Emma

  Darcy rose from his seat and moved to an unobtrusive position near one of the study windows, hoping to diminish the effect of his presence on the imminent interview. Were he in Frank Churchill’s position, he would be reluctant to discuss family matters in the company of a stranger. Not all gentlemen, however, conducted themselves as guardedly as did Darcy, and his previous, albeit limited, intercourse with Mr. Churchill engendered hope that the young man would prove to be among those less circumspect than himself.

  Upon entering, Mr. Churchill returned Mr. Knightley’s greeting in a genial manner, and extended the same to Mr. Perry and Darcy.

  “So this is where the gentlemen are hiding.” Mr. Churchill took the chair Darcy had vacated and settled against its back. “I almost feel as if we should invite Mr. Dixon to join us—I abandoned the poor fellow trammeled in talk of draperies and charades. He did seem rather loquacious himself on the subjects, though, so perhaps he is happier left with the ladies.”

  “Better he than I,” Mr. Knightley said.

  Frank grinned. “The conversation was most enlightening, actually. I learned that my bride already conspires to spend my money on new furnishings. Perhaps you had rather be in the drawing room after all, to ensure yours does not do the same.”

  “Mrs. Churchill decided to reappoint Enscombe without first seeing the extant furnishings for herself?”

  “Oh, no—it is not our home she refurbishes. Her generosity is on behalf of her aunt and grandmother, which of course puts it entirely out of my power to object to the scheme. So she and Thomas Dixon will have their way about it.”

  “Mr. Dixon?” Mr. Knightley asked. “What has he to do with the matter?”

  Frank shrugged. “As I said, he is quite keen on the enterprise, to the point of having designated himself the executor of it. And as you said, better he than I.”

  His buoyancy diminished as he turned toward Mr. Perry. “I came on a more serious errand. Have you done with my uncle’s remains? You must understand my desire to proceed with funeral arrangements.”

  “Indeed, I have,” the apothecary said. “The undertaker may collect the body at his first opportunity.”

  “Thank you. I shall so advise him.”

  “I hope,” Mr. Knightley said, “that, having died so suddenly, Mr. Churchill can rest easy and not be troubled by unfinished business. No gentleman wants to depart this earth without his affairs in order.”

  “My uncle had no concerns on that count. He was ever attentive to matters of business.”

  “Even in the months following your aunt’s death? Sometimes men lose interest in such details while mourning.”

  “Fortunately, m
y uncle did not have many pressing issues these several months past; those few that arose were handled quite capably by Mr. MacAllister.”

  “Was he in frequent communication with his solicitor?”

  “As often as was necessary.”

  “I understand he recently requested a meeting with Mr. MacAllister, but died before it could take place. Have you any idea what he wished to discuss?”

  “I have no knowledge of any such request, let alone what might have inspired it.” Frank’s mood darkened. “I might ask, Mr. Knightley, how you came to learn of it.”

  “It was I who told Mr. Knightley,” Mr. Perry said. “Mr. MacAllister mentioned it when I officially notified him of his client’s death.”

  “I expect my uncle simply wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to confer with his solicitor a final time in person before retiring to Enscombe for the winter.” Frank leaned back once more, but one hand yet firmly held the chair arm. “I told you, he was a man who kept his affairs in order.” Though the words were delivered smoothly, his tone held a defensive edge.

  Darcy, who had to this point refrained from inserting himself into the conversation, now stepped closer to the window and gazed at the darkening landscape. “I imagine he looked forward to returning to the quiet of Yorkshire. Were I grieving, I would find more solace in the peace of Pemberley than in the bustle of London.” He turned toward Frank. “Though I suppose he had many friends in both places to console him.”

  “He had not been keeping much company since my aunt’s death, only his most intimate circle. He did, however, happily anticipate the companionship of his longtime neighbors at Enscombe.”

  “Old friends are a blessing at such times. I have seen widowers so fear loneliness that they rush into poorly considered second marriages to avoid the silence.”

  “I would never speak ill of the dead, but I will venture to say that after decades spent with my aunt, my uncle was not altogether averse to experiencing silence for a while.”

  Darcy studied Frank Churchill as closely as he dared, trying to make him out. Had the nephew, for self-serving purposes, ultimately fulfilled the uncle’s wish?

  There was, after all, no silence like a grave.

  Dinner at Hartfield this evening would be limited to Emma and Mr. Knightley, her father, and the Darcys. Thomas Dixon had received an invitation to dine with the Eltons.

  Emma was vexed.

  Her displeasure derived not from dissatisfaction with the Darcys’ society, but from her own having been snubbed. Mrs. Elton’s hospitality toward Thomas Dixon had been extended as part of an impromptu dinner party, ostensibly a “small, quiet affair” held to console the newlywed Churchills in their time of unexpected sorrow. The guest list comprised the Randalls set—Frank and Jane, the Dixons, the Westons—as well as several of Highbury’s better families. The Knightleys were conspicuously excluded.

  Any number of excuses had indirectly found their way to Emma’s ears: the Eltons’ table could accommodate only so many; a larger party would appear unseemly in light of the Churchills’ state of mourning; the Eltons did not want to intrude on the Knightleys’ time with the Darcys. None of these justifications, however, diminished Emma’s conviction of their—most particularly, herself—having been deliberately and publically slighted.

  Mr. Knightley found her vexation bemusing. “I should think you would feel relief at having been spared the ordeal of an evening spent at the Eltons’ mercy,” he said as he led her down to Hartfield’s dining room. “Or did Mrs. Elton injure your vanity by depriving you of the opportunity to decline her invitation?”

  Under other conditions, her husband’s suggestion might have struck too close to the mark, but tonight more than her vanity was in jeopardy. Since receiving the spiteful charade, Emma feared that Mrs. Elton had somehow divined Emma’s ambitions of a match between Thomas Dixon and Miss Bates, and that the vicar’s wife had contrived tonight’s dinner party entirely to sabotage the scheme. It had not escaped Emma’s notice that the Bates ladies were also uninvited. She loathed to contemplate what mischief that vulgar little woman attempted even now, with the unsuspecting Thomas Dixon under her roof, and Emma unable to intervene.

  “Nonsense,” she said, avoiding his gaze. “The Eltons’ guest list holds no interest for me.”

  The Eltons’ dinner party, however, held great interest for Mr. Woodhouse, who could not seem to stop talking about it throughout their own meal. Every lull in conversation, he filled with speculation over whether poor Miss Fairfax or poor Miss Taylor that were, presently suffered the same menu of roast pork that had been inflicted upon him the one time he had supped at Mrs. Elton’s table. His apprehensions continued after their own party finished their dinner and withdrew to the drawing room. Though of the opinion that merely dining at the vicarage was disagreeable to one’s digestion, Emma forbore voicing it. Instead, she reminded her father that Mrs. Weston—capable, sensible Mrs. Weston—was among the company, and would doubtless act to preserve her new daughter’s well-being if necessary.

  “Mr. Thomas Dixon, too,” Mrs. Darcy ventured. “He seems a most attentive friend to Mrs. Churchill.”

  “Yes, Papa—Mr. Dixon is quite solicitous regarding Mrs. Churchill. He . . .”

  Her words trailed off as a jumble of unpleasant thoughts entered her mind. Thomas Dixon was clearly on familiar terms with Jane Churchill, an intimacy that a twelvemonth ago might have inspired speculation on Emma’s part. After all, before Emma ever met the Dixons, she had formed suspicions of an improper attachment between Jane and the younger Mr. Dixon, now Miss Campbell’s husband. Had she indeed stumbled upon something—but presumed the wrong Mr. Dixon?

  Emma blushed to recall her previous error, now compounded by the inclusion of Thomas Dixon in her wild conjecture. The gentleman was old enough to be Jane’s uncle.

  Just as Mr. Knightley was old enough to be hers.

  No! Surely there had never been anything but platonic regard between Jane Fairfax and Thomas Dixon. And if there had been something more, it had ended with Jane’s marriage. Emma would not demean her own intellect with such ignoble speculation again.

  “He what, my dear?” Her father’s voice drew her back to the conversation. “You were speaking of Mr. Dixon.”

  “He is a good man,” she declared. “No one ought ever think otherwise.”

  Mrs. Darcy looked at her oddly. “Of course he is. I did not mean to suggest—”

  “Heavens, Papa—look at the hour! I have been neglectful. It is well past your customary time to retire.”

  “So it is. But I have not yet had my basin of gruel. Mrs. Darcy, perhaps you will join me? Nothing is so wholesome as gruel for keeping the headache away, and no one prepares it better than Serle—very thin. Emma, order up a basin for Mrs. Darcy.”

  Emma rescued her guest with the gentle suggestion that, the evening spent, perhaps her father would prefer to take his gruel in his chamber.

  “You are perfectly right, Emma. I shall do just that. It is not healthy to sit up until all hours. Promise me you will retire soon yourself. You, as well, Mrs. Darcy—nothing brings on the headache more quickly than staying up too late.”

  As Mr. Knightley helped Emma escort her father upstairs, Mr. Woodhouse opined anew upon the evils of roast pork and the goodness of gruel, interspersing his culinary lecture with convictions of Hartfield’s being the best possible place for Mrs. Darcy to recover her health. If, somewhere between the staircase and his chamber, he finally found another subject of discourse, Emma could not have said. She but half attended, her concentration given over to a subject of greater import.

  Arranging Thomas Dixon’s future happiness with Miss Bates.

  Left with her husband while their hosts saw Mr. Woodhouse settled, Elizabeth pondered how her words about Mr. Dixon could have been construed by Mrs. Knightley as anything but complimentary. She had said nothing derogatory, only praised his attentiveness to Jane Churchill.

  “You are pensive this evening.”<
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  Elizabeth glanced at Darcy, who sat in a nearby chair, and realized he had been studying her. She shook off her abstraction. “I was thinking about another man.”

  “That is exceedingly unfortunate. I had hoped to avoid calling anybody out during this trip.”

  “You might forbear yet. Though the gentleman in question has proven himself most solicitous, he has provided no cause demanding a contest of honor on my account.”

  “Then Mr. Woodhouse must be the object of your reverie, for nobody has been more solicitous towards you than he. Confess—you regret having declined his offer of gruel.”

  “Indeed, I was wishing I had encouraged him to order a basin for you.”

  “Then allow me to lift that burden from your conscience. I do not feel deprived, I assure you.”

  “Are you quite certain? At Mr. Woodhouse’s order, his indispensible Serle could prepare it extra thin for you.”

  An appalled look was his only reply.

  Elizabeth laughed. Gruel was fine nourishment for infants and invalids, but elsewise her enthusiasm for it ran closer to Darcy’s than to Mr. Woodhouse’s.

  A set of children’s alphabets on the table beside her caught her gaze. She had first noticed it this afternoon; Emma had explained that the Knightleys’ nephews and nieces often played with the box of letters while staying at Hartfield, and it had not yet been put away following their recent visit. She now removed a handful of tiles from the box. D, M, N, R. The letters had been drawn by a fine hand. She placed them one by one on the table.

  “Actually, it was Thomas Dixon who preoccupied me.” She wished she could arrange her thoughts as easily as one could sort alphabet tiles into words. But they, too, defied order: there was not a vowel among the random few she had chosen.

  “Mr. Dixon has been particularly attentive towards you?”

  She did not need to look at her husband to know he frowned. She could hear the displeasure in his voice. “No, towards Jane Churchill.”