Pamela Aidan - These Three Remain

He could not stop the laugh that welled up inside him at the lad’s apologetic tone. Did he want to be taken up just for Elizabeth? His heart expanded. This was perfect, much more to his purpose than he could have hoped or planned for.

“Yes, if you please.” He grinned down at the boy and gestured that he should take the lead up the inn’s stairs.

The upper hall was quiet, the public room below not yet belabored with patrons and the inn’s other guests out about their business. The tread of their boots upon the wooden floor rang loud in Darcy’s ears but did not mask the sound of a chair being scraped across the floor behind the Gardiners’ door. Elizabeth! His heart turned over as he came to a halt behind the servant and waited. The sound of light footsteps reached him. His breath caught in his chest. The serving boy reached for the latch and, stepping back, pulled the door open.

Elizabeth’s pale face appeared suddenly, looking up at him with such wild pain and desperation that he started back, speechless at beholding such stark need in her every line.

“I beg your pardon, but I must leave you,” she gasped out. “I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.”

“Good God! What is the matter?” Darcy demanded, the misery in her face eliciting both alarm and every tender feeling he possessed. Find the Gardiners? Impossible for her in this state! “I will not detain you a minute; but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner.” He seized command of the situation as well as he might, ignorant as he was of the particulars. “You are not well enough; you cannot go yourself.” Darcy expected that she would gainsay him and prepared to insist that she not attempt the mission. She did not. Instead, she hesitated and, to his concern, trembled visibly before nodding and, after calling back the servant to entrust him with the task of recalling her aunt and uncle, sank heavily into a chair.

What should he do? Darcy looked down into her pain-filled countenance, the droop of her fine shoulders, and knew that he could not leave her. His hand reached out, every impulse urging him to gather her into his arms and vow to make all things right again, but he was forced to let it drop to his side. He had no right. “Let me call your maid,” he said to her gently instead. At the shake of her head, he pursued a different tack, but in the same tone. “Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one?” Again, she shook her head. Darcy’s feeling of helplessness increased. Perhaps she was too distressed to realize her condition? “You are very ill,” he told her softly.

“No, I thank you.” Elizabeth’s back straightened a little. “There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well, I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn.” Tears that had been stayed by her anxiety now burst forth, rendering her incapable of speech, and left Darcy no further enlightened save that the cause was news from her home. A death in her family seemed the likeliest answer. Had there been some terrible accident? His heart went out to her, desperate to be of some use, some comfort in her throes of sorrow and pain. Again, the desire to hold her, lend her his strength seized him. Good God, how much longer could he stand to see her thus and maintain his place! He lay hold of the back of the chair opposite hers and gripped it so tightly his fingers ached.

“Miss Elizabeth, please…allow me to be of service to you in some manner,” he importuned, but her tears continued and there was nothing more he could say or do but wait.

“I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news.” She finally looked at him, although her words were halting. He leaned toward her, intent on her every syllable. “It cannot be concealed from anyone.” She gasped for breath and then continued. “My younger sister has left all her friends — has eloped; has thrown herself into the power of — of Mr. Wickham.”

His shock could not have been more complete. Wickham! The Devil take him! But how had this happened?

“They are gone off together from Brighton,” Elizabeth continued disjointedly. “You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to —” She gasped again. “She is lost forever.”

Darcy’s mind reeled at her account and its implications, rendering him both enraged and speechless. Had the man no conscience at all? At least with Georgiana there had been the motive of revenge and gain, but what had been his purpose with Lydia Bennet? Elizabeth was entirely correct; she had nothing to tempt him to marriage. Her attractions were youth, heedlessness, and the promise of sensuality. When Wickham had had his use of them, he would abandon her without a thought.

“When I consider that I might have prevented it. I who knew what he was.” Elizabeth bitterly berated herself. “Had I but explained some part of it only — some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now.” She buried her face again in her hands.

Darcy looked down helplessly upon her bowed shoulders. What could he say or do to mitigate the disaster in this turn of events? Little, so very little! “I am grieved, indeed, grieved — shocked,” he whispered. “But is it certain, absolutely certain?”

“Oh yes!” she answered with a wretched laugh. “They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to Scotland.”

Here was something — time and a location! Darcy’s mind began to function more rationally. When and where! “And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?”

“My father is gone to London.” Elizabeth gestured in a hopeless manner. “And Jane has written to beg my uncle’s immediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half an hour. But nothing can be done; I know very well that nothing can be done.” She sighed bitterly. “How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible.”

That might very well be true, Darcy thought to himself, or not!

“When my eyes were open to his real character. Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do!” Elizabeth wrung at her handkerchief, anger displacing her grief. “But I knew not — I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake!”

Elizabeth’s misery pulled at his heart. The sight of her there, weeping, blaming herself for the rash behavior of a sister who had been allowed to run wild and the perfidious treachery of a practiced seducer would have tempted Darcy to fresh anger if his own fault in the affair had not then struck him with punishing force. Her mistake? No, it was his…it was his pride, his care for nothing beyond his family circle that had allowed a blackguard freedom to prey upon young women. And now the wolf had fallen upon another family, the family of the woman he loved so well and to whom he owed so much. The blow threatened to send him back into the emotional tangle that he had felt at the first glimpse of her face and revelation of her news. But no! If he allowed that, he would be of absolutely no use to her. Turning away, he began to walk up and down the room, latching on to every fact Elizabeth had conveyed as a puzzle piece. Where would Wickham have gone to ground in London and who might know? Possible avenues of inquiry recommended themselves. If only Dy were back in Town! Whether Dy was available or no, Wickham’s trail must be picked up with the utmost speed before he tired of Lydia Bennet and disappeared to some other corner of the kingdom.

Darcy turned, then, and observed Elizabeth. She had covered her face with her handkerchief, lost to all but the terrible facts of her family’s disgrace. He had every reason to stay with her in her distress, but no right. He ought to excuse himself, but how was he to do it? He hesitated, then plunged into an awkward apology. “I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing, concern.” Slowly, she straightened and listened with tear-brightened eyes. Please God, he hoped she believed him! “Would to Heaven that anything could be either said or done on my part, that might offer consolation to such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks.” He could see that she was regaining countenance. Her chin lifted ever so slightly at his words. “This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister’s having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley today.”

“Oh yes.” She wiped her eyes and sniffed. “Be…be so kind as to apologize for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible,” she pled. “I know it cannot be long.”

“You have my word,” he promised her, looking down into eyes that now seemed to withdraw from him. “I am sorry, truly sorry that such distress has come upon you and your family.” He paused, wishing there were some better comfort he might give, but none was vouchsafed him. “And there may yet be hope for a happier conclusion than you presently have reason to expect.” She looked at him dubiously but inclined her head. There was no more he could do. He answered with a bow. “Please, convey my compliments to your relations and that I hope you may all return to Pemberley at some happier time,” he offered, and with a last searching look to impress upon her the sincerity of his words, he stepped into the hall and quietly shut the door.

The ride back to Pemberley might have taken a quarter hour or much longer; Darcy could not say. All that he remembered was mounting Seneca at the block outside the inn, and now here he was being jarred into awareness of his surroundings by the clatter of his horse’s hooves upon the cobblestones of his own stable yard. When he took out his pocket watch as a stable lad led his mount away, his eyes opened wide at the story the hands told. An hour! He looked after his horse, his tail swishing slowly as he was led to the grooming post. Truly, Darcy had only Seneca to thank for his eventual arrival home, for the time and scenery that had passed between those two events were completely lost to him. An hour. With any luck the others would still be working their way through Caroline Bingley’s alfresco and leave him to continue uninterrupted the wrestling within his chest that had begun at the first sight of Elizabeth’s stricken face.

What should he do? The question had consumed him during the entire course of his return. What he could do, he had quickly determined. His resources, his connections, his personal knowledge of Wickham’s tastes and habits urged upon him the conviction that it was he who was best placed to find the missing couple or direct others in the recovery of Lydia Bennet. But what he could do was not the decisive factor in what he should do. Here was the sticking point, for to this juncture his success at choosing shoulds had been worse than lamentable. Indeed, his missteps in this area were the origins of the crisis at hand. With a shudder, the guilt of it struck him anew.

More to the point, in a family matter as delicate as this, the hand of a virtual stranger would be most unwelcome. Well did he know the lengths to which a family might go to protect itself. It had to be the object of Elizabeth’s family to involve as few as possible before the final disposition of their daughter was accomplished, whether in honorable marriage, distant seclusion, or eternal disgrace. Further, the Bennet family certainly had no sort of claim upon him that might prompt them to enlist his aid or justify his offering of it. Presumptuous…interfering…unwelcome! Darcy stripped off his gloves and slapped them against his thigh in high irritation with the frustrating but accurate descriptions of any assistance he might offer or action he might take. It seemed that the only acceptable action was complying with Elizabeth’s plea that he say nothing.

Entering his study, he quickly closed the door and threw himself into his chair. A deep frown sharply slanted his brows as he mentally reviewed the situation. Say nothing! Of course, he would comply with her plea when it came to society in general; but his entire being strained against the inaction that propriety demanded. It was all so absurd! He knew how to begin, where to go, whom to enlist. He had the resources to buy any information he might need in pursuit of an acceptable conclusion to this disaster, and he was, without doubt, sufficiently motivated to accomplish it all as well! The memory of Elizabeth’s inconsolable weeping swept through him once more with painful clarity. Oh, he would never forget the encounter! Even now, her helplessness and misery grieved him so acutely that his entire fortune seemed a small price to relieve her suffering.