A Very Austen Valentine

by Robin Helm

  After the service, Darcy waited in the churchyard to see Miss Bennet and Miss Milson. They were busy conversing with a very old woman and the small child that was with her. Darcy was struck by the kindness Miss Bennet was showing, listening attentively to the old woman, smiling at her, and leaning down to say something to the small boy. Surely a spy would not show the warmth and interest in these people that she was showing if she were only here for espionage.

  Or perhaps it was that she had a good heart underneath her devotion to a bad cause. After all, if her father was French, naturally she would feel some loyalty to his people. Perhaps her heart was in the right place and she was just improperly informed, and had a mis-trained conscience. Either way, she could not be an out-and-out villainess. It was a relief to let go of that apprehension, anyway. Before he had even thought through what he was going to say, he approached the group of women.

  Miss Bennet smiled when she saw him coming, and his heart beat faster. He was careful to pay attention to the old woman, whom he was introduced to as Mrs. Kenley, and her great-grandson, Peter. The little fellow was only two or three years old, and as full of energy as his elderly relative was feeble.

  Mrs. Kenley had been ill, Darcy discovered from the conversation, and it seemed that both Miss Bennet and Miss Milsom had been to visit her and take her food in the past week. She was just thanking them for their care, and telling them how much Peter had enjoyed the apple tart, when Miss Bennet cast her eye around the churchyard and said, “Where is Peter?”

  The four adults looked around to see if they could find him, but he did not appear.

  “I do hope he hasn’t run off to look at those donkeys again,” said Mrs. Kenley.

  “The donkeys in the field near the old powder mill?” asked Millie.

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Kenley. “We were walking by there yesterday and he was entranced by them. He was imitating a donkey’s bray all last evening. He wanted to go again today to see them. I do hope he hasn’t gone off by himself—he has no fear, that child.”

  “No, there he is!” said Darcy, “hiding behind that gravestone.”

  “You don’t mean to say you walked all the way to the powder mill yesterday!” said Millie. “It’s nearly a mile, and you are not strong yet!”

  “I did regret it,” admitted Mrs. Kenley. “But Peter had been confined to our small cottage all week, and he needed the fresh air, and a chance to exercise his little legs.” She sighed. “I thought, when Amelia died, that I would like to have her little one about me—couldn’t bear the thought of him going to the poorhouse, or that big orphanage in Southend. But I’m more tired than I used to be, and I worry that it may be too much for my strength. Ah, well,” she brightened up, “I have good friends and more help than I deserve. We’ll make out all right.” She raised her voice and called to Peter, who shook his head at her and gave her a dimpled grin.

  “I’ll get him,” said Elizabeth, and made her way over to the little boy. She grasped his hand firmly and led him back to his great-grandmother, who thanked her.

  “We’d best be getting home,” said the old woman. “I walk slowly these days.”

  “May I give you my arm to lean on?” asked Darcy.

  “I ought to demure,” said Mrs. Kenley, “But I will take your arm, and thank you. Come along, Peter.” Peter was all too ready to run down the road ahead of them, so Darcy took Peter by one hand and gave his other arm to Mrs. Kenley. He nodded goodbye to Elizabeth and Millie, and they went their way down the road. It was almost half a mile to the Kenley home. Their progress was slow, but for once Darcy felt no impatience. It was good for him, he thought, to be of some real use to someone, and not delegate the duty of helping to a servant. The wind had turned sharper in the past few hours, and he was glad when they finally arrived at the house. Peter had other ideas.

  “Donkeys!” he said.

  “No,” said Mrs. Kenley. “We are not going to see the donkeys today.” To Darcy she added, “He needs his dinner and a nap more than anything else right now.”

  Darcy nodded, wishing he knew more what to say to small children.

  “Thank you again, Mr. Williams,” she said, and bid him goodbye.

  ⸟ﻬ⸞ﻬ⸟

  Two days went by in which very little happened. The first things Darcy had directed to be done at the house were for the roof and floors to be repaired, and any broken windows to be replaced. Little could be done in the way of plastering if wind and rain could come inside the house. Darcy spent each day investigating the best sources for timbers, slates, and windows, and in the evening played whist and other card games with the men that gathered at The Sun. He was surprised and gratified to find himself being greeted with smiles and hearty handshakes when he met the fellows around the village during the day, and found himself looking forward to their evening gatherings.

  On Wednesday Mrs. Kenley and Peter came to call on Millie and Elizabeth.

  “Are you quite recovered?” asked Millie when the greetings were over and they were all seated.

  “Oh yes,” said Mrs. Kenley. “Peter needed a walk, and so we came to visit you. It is not so cold as it was yesterday, and I thought we had better get out now before it gets colder again. Come, love, sit down now,” she said to Peter, who was jumping about the room, endangering crockery and furniture. “Are you not tired from our walk?”

  “No!” said Peter. He suffered himself to be led over to a chair, but persisted in kicking his feet against the chair legs and humming loudly to himself.

  “Perhaps he wants more exercise,” said Elizabeth. “I confess, I should not mind a stroll myself. Shall we go for a little walk, Peter?” Peter hopped off his chair and ran to get his coat.

  “Now then,” said Elizabeth when they were bundled up and out the door, “where shall we go, Peter?”

  “Donkeys!” said Peter.

  “Very well.” They walked down the road until they came to the powder mill, and there, on the far side of the field next to it, were several donkeys.

  “Eeee-awww, Eeee-awww,” said Peter, and immediately climbed in through the wooden fence.

  “No!” said Elizabeth, but Peter was already running across the open field toward the animals. There was no help for it; Elizabeth climbed over the fence herself and pursued her small quarry. The donkeys, startled from their grazing by the little boy still bellowing “Eee-awww,” trotted still further into the field. Elizabeth finally caught up with Peter, scooping him up into her arms in spite of his protests. She slowly approached the animals, and was pleased to see that they were docile enough to let Peter pet them. She showed him how to pull up long grasses and hold out handfuls to them.

  So intent was she on her task that she did not notice the fog creeping in silently from behind her. She felt a sudden chill, and within a moment, the world was a dull white. She could not remember a fog so thick. She could hardly see farther than the end of her outstretched arm.

  Peter looked around and whimpered, “Granny?” The donkeys, of course, went on grazing. Elizabeth could hear them tearing mouthfuls of grass, though she could only faintly see their backs.

  I’ll just wait here for a few minutes, she said to herself. Surely the fog will lift a little bit before long. Jane will be amazed when I tell her about this!

  She waited, stroking the nearest donkey and letting Peter pat him, too. The fog, however, remained as it was.

  “Granny?” whimpered Peter again.

  “Yes, let us go back to Granny,” agreed Elizabeth. She strained her eyes to see how far they were from the fence they had come over. There was nothing—just a veil of opaque mist. All she could do was to start walking; eventually she would find the fence. It seemed a long time before she reached the fence. She began to think she must be walking in circles. However, eventually the wooden beams materialized in front of her, and gratefully she climbed back through them.

  It was not as simple as she had thought to walk down the road. She could hardly see her feet, let alone the road. Once she
found herself in tall grass and knew she had left the lane. Slowly and carefully she made her way back to the road, making sure to keep her feet on the bare dirt, instead of the grassy verge. Her progress was agonizingly slow.

  At first she kept Peter walking beside her, but as his whimpers grew into loud cries, she picked him up and carried him on her back, the way she did for her young cousins in Gracechurch Street. His voice was disconcertingly hushed in the fog, and she remembered her father telling her that one of the dangerous things about being lost in the fog is that shouting to attract help is nearly useless; the fog mutes all noises. Once or twice she was able to see a little bit farther in front of her than she had been able to, enough to see a tree or a stone wall, and her hopes rose that the fog was lifting. In a moment, though, the veil came down again, and once more all was white. She knew there must be a house or two along this road—she had passed them on the way to the donkeys—but she was afraid to leave the road to try to find them. There would not be many houses, anyway: powder mills were purposely built away from populated areas, in case of accidental explosions of the gunpowder they were making. She was dreadfully cold.

  Peter’s cries subsided, and although her back was aching, she was afraid to put him down, lest he begin to cry again or run away from her. She had no way of knowing how long she had been walking, but she knew it was long enough that the ladies back at the house would have become worried about her and Peter. Heaven forbid they decide to come and search for us! She could faintly hear the sound of water, and determined to be even more careful, as she did not want to tumble down a bank into the river.

  All at once, the fog became thinner for a moment, and she saw a stone building looming in front of her. Gratefully she hurried toward it and found the door before the fog thickened again. She knocked on the door, but even as she did so, she was aware that this was not a house door. It was larger and rougher, and it fell open a little at her rapping on it.

  “Hello?” she called, opening the door a little more. There was no answer. She pushed the door open fully and went in.

  Looking around, she saw a mostly-empty large room, with pieces of machinery in one corner and large empty vats in the centre.

  It can’t be! she thought. I am back at the powder mill? She must have gotten turned around at some point. She sighed and knelt down to let Peter off her back. When he was on the floor, she looked at him and he yawned. She was too weary to continue back home immediately. She would rest for just a little while before going on. She found some old sacking near a window and spread it out for herself and Peter to sit on. She leaned against the wall and put Peter on her lap.

  ⸟ﻬ⸞ﻬ⸟

  Darcy had planned to go out to the house again that day and see the state of progress. He gave thanks, however, that he had not begun his journey before the fog came. He sat in his room, feeling very idle. He had read the book he had borrowed from Mr. Welbeck twice. There were no accounts to do, and no letters he could write. He had half expected to see his cousin here by now, but there was no sign of him.

  An idea came to him: he could go and visit Miss Milsom and Miss Bennet. Perhaps he could ask their advice about furnishing the orphanage, or about what subjects should be taught to the children—surely Miss Milsom, as a former schoolmistress, should have views on the subject. And Miss Bennet, too, if she were to be a governess.

  The thought of Miss Bennet as a governess, or even a schoolmistress for his orphanage, brought him up short. She ought not to do that. In his mind’s eye, he could see her spending her days in weary toil, all the sparkle and humour in her eyes crushed out by long hours and difficult pupils. She was much better fitted for being mistress of a home. That is, if she was not a spy.

  No, he thought, even if she was. He had seen her true, kind heart when she would have no reason to feign such a thing. She was a good woman at the core, and if only she could be persuaded that her cause was unjust, she would abandon it, he was sure of it. That is, if she was a spy.

  He had to see her. The fog was unbelievably dense, but he knew he could find his way across the street and down the row of houses to where Miss Milsom resided. He did find the house and rapped on the door. It was opened by the maid, whose face fell at the sight of him. He was taken aback by this, but it was all explained when he was shown into the parlour, where Miss Milsom was looking out the window and Mrs. Kenley was sitting by the fire.

  “How do you do, Mr. Williams?” said Millie. “I beg you will forgive us, but we are quite anxious. You see, Miss Bennet took little Peter for a walk nearly two hours ago, and has not returned.”

  As his eyes widened in surprise she added, “I need hardly say that she left well before the fog came.”

  “Have you any idea where they might be?”

  “None, I’m afraid. She was just going to take him out for a little while. We were just discussing what, if anything, could be done.”

  “I will go and search for them,” said Darcy. “They may not be far, but waiting until the fog lifts to return home.”

  “It is a very great imposition,” began Mrs. Kenley, but Darcy replied immediately—

  “Not at all. I too am concerned for their comfort—it is a miserable day, and they must be longing to get back home.”

  The ladies thanked him profusely, and insisted on his taking a lantern. Darcy knew that a lantern in foggy daylight hours would not really be very useful, but he understood their need to do something to help, and he took the lantern with him. It wouldn’t do any harm, anyway.

  He set off down the street, thinking. She must be outside the village, of course, but in which direction should he go? He remembered the donkeys that little Peter was enamoured of; he could well see Elizabeth offering to take him to see them. He would take that road, anyway.

  When he got outside the village, he began to call “Miss Bennet!” every half-minute or so; he knew she probably would not be able to hear him, but unless he actually stumbled over her in the road, he would have no other way of finding her. The fog lifted a little, and he could see a few feet in front of him, but the road was very long, and he was much more anxious than he had liked to show to the ladies. He hadn’t wanted to add to their fears, but he was much more worried about Elizabeth’s safety than her comfort. There was a river somewhere around here, he knew, and if that little imp, Peter, took it into his head to run away from her in the fog, she might stumble down a ditch or into the river or trip and hit her head on a rock…all kinds of menacing possibilities tormented his imagination.

  His search took on all the aspects of unreality. It seemed to him that he had always been walking through a cloud, straining his ears for any noise and hearing only his own muffled footsteps. He kept on calling, a little hopelessly, and forced himself to keep walking.

  At last, after one of his calls, he heard an answering noise come through the fog.

  “Miss Bennet!” he called again, as loudly as he could.

  “Eee-awwww,” came the reply. Well, he had found the donkeys, at least. And now that he stopped walking, he could hear the faint sound of water gurgling in a channel. He called several more times, in case she had lingered anywhere nearby. There was another answering sound, but not a donkey this time. He moved closer to where the sound had come from.

  “Miss Bennet?”

  “Here we are!”

  “Thank God!” he murmured.

  He could hear her more clearly now. He could see a large building, and went toward it. A shape moved in the distance, and then he could see that she was standing in the doorway.

  “Mr. Williams!” she exclaimed, when she could see his face. “However did you find us?”

  “I thought Peter might have wanted to see the donkeys,” he said, “and decided to try this road.”

  “Come in,” said Elizabeth, opening the door wider for him to enter. Darcy’s lantern made a cheerful glow in the large, gloomy space.

  “Where is Peter?”

  Elizabeth pointed to him, curled up on the sacking.
Elizabeth’s shawl and coat were covering him, and Darcy could see her shivering.

  “Here,” said Darcy, taking off his overcoat and putting it around her shoulders. “I’ve been walking and am quite warm.”

  “Thank you,” she said gratefully.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it must be about an hour. The fog came up while we were petting the donkeys, and we walked for what seemed like miles trying to get home. I found myself back here at the mill, so I must have got turned around in my journey. I was too tired to keep going, and thought I would rest here for a while and see if the fog would lift.”

  “That was wise.”

  “I have been afraid the ladies might try to search for us themselves.”

  “I think they were contemplating doing so when I came in. I offered to search for you, saying that I was afraid you would be very uncomfortable, and wish to get home.”

  “That was very sensible of you, to allay their fears by referring to my comfort rather than my safety. At least you were not panicking as you were searching.”

  “You know nothing about it, Miss Bennet. I cannot remember the last time I was so frightened.”

  Elizabeth looked at him in surprise, a question in her eyes.

  “I was terrified that something had happened to you. Both,” he added belatedly.

  Elizabeth heard the ring of truth in his voice and saw the look in his eyes, and her heart began to thump. No matter what else he had lied about, he had been honest when he had said that. I am as silly as Lydia, she thought. To be falling in love with such an unsuitable and untrustworthy man! I suppose it was the romantic moment when I heard his voice and then saw him coming through the mist…

  Darcy was vexed with himself. What on earth had possessed him to say such a thing? He would never have done it but for the fear that he had been gripping him for those endless hours—at least in felt like hours—and the sudden relief that she was after all not injured, or dead.