Elizabeth studied Caroline in silence, the fatigue of a long, sleepless night settling upon her. She could think of little beyond crawling into a warm, dry bed with her husband and sleeping for two days straight. “We need not decide anything in this moment. Let us ponder the situation when our minds are clearer and we know more particulars of the fire.”
It was an evasive answer to a serious question, but she could spare no further energy on the Parrishes and their problems. Not until she beheld Darcy safe once more.
Surely the blaze was under control by now. Where was he?
Eighteen
“I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine.”
Jane to Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 24
Despite weariness that seeped down to his bones, Darcy strode to the carriage house with rapid steps. The flames were out, the house saved, the servants organized, the landlord summoned. He now sought a few precious minutes with Elizabeth before sending her and the others off to the sanctuary of Longbourn while he continued to oversee details of the fire’s aftermath. He wished he could have relocated the party sooner, but no one could be spared to drive them, and the weather and darkness had rendered the roads too hazardous to attempt travel anyway. Even now, in full but dreary daylight, the memory of yesterday’s carriage accident made him hesitant to let Elizabeth undertake even the short distance without him.
“The landlord will be furious, I suppose?” Randolph kept pace with Darcy’s long strides. Once Caroline Parrish had been found, the professor had appeared at Darcy’s side, offering to help in any way necessary and working ceaselessly until the last ember died.
“I have met Mr. Morris only once, but he seems a reasonable man. Accidents happen.” So did intentionally set blazes, but Darcy was keeping those suspicions to himself. When Bingley’s chamber had at last been cleared of both smoke and people, he had sifted through the ashes and found no evidence of arson. Yet he could not overlook Lawrence Kendall’s earlier threat against Bingley, or Elizabeth witnessing him riffling through Bingley’s records. How far would he go to destroy proof of his larceny?
They reached the carriage house. Elizabeth, who had been standing outside watching the mansion, came to him quickly the moment her eyes lighted upon him. Her sweet face held an expression of relief that surely matched his own. Professor Randolph tactfully continued into the building, granting them a relatively private reunion.
He indulged in the overwhelming urge to pull her close. The touch of her temple against his cheek, her body pressed to his, chased away the shadows of anxiety still hovering from the long night. “I know you are all right, but tell me anyway.”
“I am perfectly well now that you are here. What about you?”
“The same.” Conscious of the myriad details still demanding his attention, he reluctantly released her. “I have just spoken to our driver. He will conduct you, Jane, and Bingley to your parents’ house as soon as Mr. Jones considers them fit to travel. How are they?”
“Sleeping now in our coach. Not very peacefully—coughing a lot. But on the whole unharmed by the fire, thank goodness. And thanks to you.”
“It is you they have to thank. You discovered the fire in time.” A few minutes more and the couple certainly would have perished—the blaze had already spread from the hearth to the foot of their bed when he’d entered their chamber.
“How bad is the damage?”
“The master suite and the room adjacent—the Parrishes’ chamber—are lost. Furniture, clothing, everything. The floor joists are holding at present but need replacement as soon as possible. The flames burned through the ceiling and into Mr. Kendall’s room above. They did not, however, reach his trunk, which appears to have never been unpacked. Our chamber and the rest of the rooms on the first and second floors of that wing suffered extensive smoke damage. Everything needs cleaning and airing.”
Though much work lay ahead to repair and restore Netherfield, they had been very fortunate. Fire constituted a great house’s worst enemy; it all too often consumed entire mansions. Darcy lived in constant dread of one overtaking Pemberley. He chased the horrible thought from his mind by attempting to wipe a smudge from Elizabeth’s brow, but wound up adding more soot from his fingers. His own appearance must be frightful. “Are the Hursts and Mr. Kendall here as well?”
“Resting in their respective carriages.”
“I imagine Kendall is eager to depart for his own home. If you do not think it too great an imposition on your family, the Hursts and Parrishes should accompany you to your parents’ house. I realize your mother and Bingley’s sisters hardly seek out each other’s company, but under the circumstances I think they will be more comfortable at Longbourn until Netherfield is set back in order.”
“You mean they will be out of the way. I don’t know whom I pity more—them or my mother. I, however, won’t be there to observe the sport, because I intend to stay right here with you.”
She could not be dissuaded, and he had to confess that his efforts to sway her resolve were halfhearted at best.
The family party departed for Longbourn in time to arrive for a late breakfast. Bingley accompanied them only to see Jane safely delivered into her mother’s care and the papers Darcy had rescued last night consigned to Mr. Bennet for safekeeping. He then returned to Netherfield. Though he trusted Darcy to handle matters, he said he did not want to impose on their friendship by letting him shoulder the full burden of overseeing all the work involved in cleaning up the mansion and restoring household operations. His health, he asserted, was much improved over the day before.
Professor Randolph accompanied the Parrishes to Longbourn. Since Caroline’s apparent suicide attempt, he had been meeting with her daily. He recorded his observations and had already posted two letters to his colleague in America, but given the distance, no one expected a response from Dr. Lancaster anytime soon.
Mr. Kendall remained at Netherfield, claiming that the sky continued too threatening to trust the roads all the way to London. Though it did appear that the storm had only suspended, not ended, Darcy suspected Kendall’s true purpose was to perform further snooping while the household was in an advantageous state of chaos.
He caught the businessman twice loitering outside Bingley’s former chamber. The first time Kendall scurried away without comment in an unconvincing pretense that he’d just been passing by, but on the second occasion Darcy’s sudden emergence from the chamber took him by surprise. Kendall stood so close to the door that Darcy wondered if he’d had his ear pressed against it. “Might I assist you in some matter?”
“I would like to examine the extent of damage within.”
“Why?”
“My chamber sits directly above. I wish to assure myself that the floor won’t collapse beneath me when I go up there to retrieve my things.”
Darcy’s first impulse was to deny the request, but he quickly reconsidered. Perhaps Kendall’s conduct inside would betray a familiarity with the room that he should not possess. He pushed the door fully open. “By all means.”
Kendall shouldered his way past Darcy and headed straight toward the hearth. Flames had weakened the thick oak floor beams around it, but to Darcy’s disappointment, they held under Kendall’s weight.
“Have you learned the fire’s cause?” Kendall scanned the room, taking in each piece of furniture. His gaze rested longest on the scorched splinters of a Chippendale chair and what appeared to be the ashy remains of a dress.
“No,” Darcy lied. The proximity of the gown to the hearth led him to believe a stray spark had ignited the muslin as it lay draped on the chair, but he saw no reason to share that information with Kendall.
“Well, often these things go undetermined.” He studied the bedstead, which had been almost completely consumed by flames after Darcy rescued the sleeping couple from it. “Looks like Bingley was lucky to get out of here alive.”
“His wife, also.”
Kendal
l’s attention turned to a blackened portable writing desk Bingley had given Jane as a wedding gift. Darcy had given a matching one to Elizabeth so that the sisters, who would be geographically separated by their marriages, could remain close through frequent correspondence.
“Mmm? Oh, yes, Mrs. Bingley. Their marriage is off to a dramatic start, isn’t it? As is the Parrishes’, from what I hear.”
Darcy’s tolerance was approaching its limit. “Have you completed your inspection? The servants await my instructions for restoring this room.”
Kendall glanced at the ceiling for the first time since entering the chamber. “I’m satisfied that I won’t be dropping in unexpectedly.”
Darcy suspected, however, that an intentional visit was planned. Though Bingley’s papers were securely stashed at Longbourn, he nevertheless charged his own valet with the task of keeping an eye on the businessman.
The day passed in a blur of activity. That evening, Bingley returned to Longbourn to be with Jane. Darcy and Elizabeth would have spent the night at Longbourn as well, to free Netherfield’s overworked staff from attending to their needs, but he didn’t dare leave Kendall unsupervised. He and Elizabeth, therefore, retired to a new chamber in another part of the house, near Kendall.
She had already bathed when he entered, and sat before the fireplace drying her hair. The smell of rosewater was a welcome change from the odor of smoke and burned wood that had filled his nostrils all day.
“I had fresh water drawn for you.” She rose to greet him with a kiss. “And Lucy brought up a cold supper for us.” She gestured toward a small table set for two.
He glanced at the tub, looking forward to washing away the grime of the past twenty-four hours. “Where is Lucy now?”
“Asleep in her room, I hope. I told her to get some rest. Your man is off keeping watch over Mr. Kendall. So if you need assistance with your bath, I’m afraid it will have to come from me.” She cast him a playfully wicked smile. “Do you want to bathe or dine first?”
“If you are assisting me with my bath, I think we had better dine first.”
After quickly washing his hands and face in the water basin, he fell to the meal like a starving man. It wasn’t much—cold roast beef, bread and butter, vegetables—but he hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he started eating. Elizabeth, too, eagerly approached her food. She had spent the day as busily employed as he, overseeing the near-legion of servants sent from throughout the neighborhood to help with cleanup efforts. She’d proven herself a capable commander, organizing her troops into an efficient workforce that had accomplished more in one day than Darcy ever thought possible. He had observed her with pride; her skillful handling of the crisis showed she would make a fine mistress of Pemberley. Not that he had ever doubted her.
Halfway through their supper, she became pensive. “I have been wanting to ask if you determined what caused the fire.”
He released a frustrated breath. Despite his suspicions, he’d found nothing to link Kendall to the blaze.
“Poor luck and a stray spark, I’m afraid.” He withdrew a handful of silver buttons from his pocket and set them on the table. “I found these and some charred scraps of fabric near the fireplace, amid the remains of a chair. The buttons are from one of your sister’s dresses, are they not?”
“They are. I remember her sewing them on it herself.” She frowned. “But I can’t think what that dress would have been doing draped on a chair. She hasn’t worn it since we arrived from London.”
“Perhaps her maid set it out for the morning?”
“Perhaps.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“When I last checked on Jane, shortly before Bingley joined her, there were no clothes lying about the room. I find it unlikely that her maid would risk disturbing the couple to set out clothes Jane might not even wear the next day, depending on her state of recovery.”
“It’s easy enough to ask her when she returns with Jane.”
“We should. There are also other members of this household whose movements last night invite further consideration.”
“Do you speak of Mr. Kendall?” Maybe his wife knew something that could substantiate his suspicions.
“He’s one of them. When I roused everyone to warn them about the fire, he was fully dressed—from cravat to boots! Whatever was he doing completely attired at half-past four in the morning?”
“Did he offer any explanation?”
“He claims he fell asleep in his clothes, but every instinct says he’s lying. Do you not agree?”
“I do find it an unlikely coincidence that he would fall asleep in his clothes two hours before he has to rise and flee a burning house in the middle of the night,” Darcy said. “Particularly after making threats against Bingley earlier in the day and skulking about after the rest of the household has retired. But there is no proof that he entered their room. Jane and Bingley recall nothing.”
“Nevertheless, I have a bad feeling about him.”
“Kendall has that effect on most people.”
“He has that look in his eyes—that same hardness of expression I saw in the cutpurse who accosted Caroline Parrish. Cold calculation, divorced from all principle or proper feeling.”
“One cannot, however, convict him on impressions alone.”
“He has to be up to something. Why else is he still here? We all went through a harrowing ordeal last night. Netherfield is not a comfortable place to be at present—the servants are preoccupied with cleaning and repairing the damage, the house still smells of smoke, his host is not even in residence. Good heavens, we have family connections inducing us to stay, and I’m eager to return to my own home.”
“We desired that before the fire. But for a series of accidents, we would be at Pemberley now.”
She pushed the food around on her plate, her appetite apparently having waned. “The situation was easier when I could just resent Caroline’s bad luck. But with all that happened to Jane and Bingley yesterday, it now seems the universe is scheming against the Bingley family in general.” Her fork stopped suddenly. “Or someone else is.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Darcy, I dreamed about the carriage accident last night. Repeatedly.”
It troubled him to see the lines of care that marked her face since the carriage accident. He wished he could somehow shield her, take the burden of worry for her sister entirely upon his own shoulders. “I am not surprised. It was a disturbing sight.”
“No—I didn’t dream about us discovering it. I saw it happening. I kept seeing a bolt or something fall to the ground, and then the wheel flying off. Are you quite sure it came loose by itself?”
“Not having inspected the coach before it left, I cannot tell you anything with certainty. But the vehicle could have been left vulnerable by negligent maintenance.”
“Or sabotage.”
“You suspect the accident was no accident?”
“It’s possible, is it not?”
He considered a moment. Possible, yes. But probable? “Who would do such a thing? Who would have anything to gain?”
“Mr. Kendall. You told me he threatened Bingley yesterday with court action. If Bingley had perished in the mishap, could not Kendall file his claim against the estate? He then goes to Chancery with his false accounting records, and without Bingley there to refute them—”
“But Kendall did not arrive here until after we all departed for Longbourn.”
“So it appeared. But we know the man prowled around Netherfield House for no good purpose last night. Could he not have done the same in Netherfield’s outbuildings the night before, then timed his ‘arrival’ after seeing us all depart?”
He conceded the plausibility. Kendall could well have been in the area long before they would have been aware of him. Darcy already believed him capable of starting a fire to destroy the audit evidence and make good on his threat. Had he tampered with Bingley’s carriage?
It was Darcy’s expe
rience that while many men might bluster out dire warnings, especially in the heat of an argument, most of them possessed enough conscience to stay on the decent side of the line between threat and action. Only a small number possessed the black state of mind and heart that enables one to commit wickedness against fellow human beings to advance one’s own interests. Fortunately, Darcy had encountered few of them in his personal dealings—his rakehell brother-in-law Wickham was one of them—but they seemed to share a common pattern of behavior. They began with minor transgressions and escalated their misdeeds, each one making the next acceptable in their own minds until they arrive at a destination so foreign to civilized men that their broken moral compass can no longer lead them home.
Kendall, in his affairs with the Bingleys, had marked just such a course. Greed to larceny, larceny to extortion . . . extortion to attempted murder was not too great a leap. “If Kendall is capable of having set the fire,” Darcy said, “he is capable of causing the carriage accident.”
Their supper over, she rose and gathered their dishes back onto the tray. “You know . . . this would not mark the first time a Kendall was in the vicinity of a Bingley family misadventure involving horses.”
“You believe the two episodes are related?”
“I didn’t until just now. Think about it, though—we said from the start how curious it was that Caroline’s riding incident lacked an obvious cause, and odd that Juliet Kendall invited her out to ride in the first place. The two had been estranged for a long time, and now Miss Kendall is frightfully angry at Caroline for ‘stealing’ Mr. Parrish from her.”
“The servants said Miss Kendall never went near Mrs. Parrish’s mare.”
“It just seems rather convenient that the Kendalls have been in proximity of a good many recent Bingley catastrophes.”
“I will grant you that. But I saw them nowhere in view when Mrs. Parrish was strolling down Bow Street, nor do I think Miss Kendall broke into the townhouse in a jealous pique to stab her with a carving knife.”
Pride and Prescience Page 15
