“Her niece,” Elizabeth confirmed. “Her brother is my father.”
Mrs. Winters set down her pestle with deliberate care. “You’re looking for information about Miss Rose and the baby.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Elizabeth admitted, surprised by the woman’s directness. “Anything you might remember.”
“I remember plenty, Miss Bennet, but I doubt you’d believe half of it.” Mrs. Winters wiped her hands on her apron. “Miss Rose was a lady of strong convictions. She came to me often for remedies—not for herself, mind you, but for tenants’ children or village women in difficult circumstances.”
Another glimpse of my mother’s character,Elizabeth thought with growing warmth.Compassionate and practical, it seems.
“Were you here the night of the fire?” she asked.
Mrs. Winters’ mouth tightened into a thin line. “There was no fire.”
Elizabeth blinked in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me correctly, miss. There was no fire—at least, not one that consumed three bodies as we’ve been led to believe.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. “But the cottage burned to the ground! Everyone saw it.”
“The cottage burned, certainly, but it was empty when the flames took hold.” Mrs. Winters’ voice was cold and certain. “I know because I saw Master John and Miss Rose myself that very night, leaving the estate with valises and the baby wrapped in blankets. They were fleeing, not dying.”
Elizabeth felt as though the floor beneath her feet had suddenly shifted. First, Molly with her talk of two bodies instead of three, and now Mrs. Winters claiming to have seen all three Darcys alive after the fire allegedly started?
“That’s impossible,” Georgiana protested. “Everyone knows they died in the fire.”
“Everyone knows what they were told to know,” Mrs. Winters replied with a sniff. “I’m only telling you what these eyes witnessed. They left that very night, heading for the southern road. Took one of the best carriages.”
“But why would they fake their deaths?” Elizabeth asked, struggling to make sense of this new narrative.
“Fear, miss. Pure fear.” Mrs. Winters lowered her voice. “Master John had discovered something dangerous—something that threatened powerful men. Men like his brother and Benjamin Bingley.”
Again, the connection to the Bingleys. And now an explicit accusation against William Darcy.
“What had he discovered?” she pressed.
“Smuggling on a grand scale. Using the Darcy shipping business as cover for moving contraband—French silks, brandy, tobacco, even weapons.” Mrs. Winters’ eyes darted nervously to the door. “The Pemberley fortune nearly doubled during those years, and not from honest trade.”
“And the bodies found in the cottage?” Georgiana asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Mrs. Winters shrugged. “Convenient corpses are not difficult to find if one has the resources and lack of scruples. Vagrants, perhaps, or unlucky souls from the workhouse. Who would question the identification when the faces were burned beyond recognition?”
The callousness of this suggestion made Elizabeth’s stomach turn, yet she couldn’t dismiss it entirely. The story had a certain dark logic to it.
“And the baby?” Elizabeth asked, her throat suddenly dry. “Little Elizabeth Rose?”
“Taken with them, of course,” Mrs. Winters replied, as if it were obvious. “Though I’ve often wondered if she survived what came after. Being on the run with a child so young…” She shook her head doubtfully.
“Is there anyone else who might have seen them leave?” Elizabeth pressed, grasping for anything to corroborate this extraordinary claim.
“Martha Wickham.” The name fell from Mrs. Winters’ lips like a curse. “She played the part of the grieving nursemaid beautifully. Collapsed in hysterics, she did, claiming all was lost in the flames. A performance worthy of the London stage. But she was seen at the carriage house, carrying their cloaks.”
Elizabeth felt a chill run down her spine. If this account were true, Martha’s current story about saving baby Elizabeth was a complete fabrication. And if her parents escaped, where were they? Had they left her in the basket at Longbourn with the locket and note?
No, she couldn’t believe they would leave her.
“Has anyone heard from them?” Elizabeth asked.
“Never again,” the woman replied stiffly. “Perhaps they went to America. It’s said their trunks were heavy. Burned down the cottage to fake their deaths, I say.”
