Sleep came softly then, like a shawl laid over her shoulders by a tender friend. The wind thinned to a murmur in the elms; the embers fell into a deeper dullness; somewhere in the kitchen perhaps a mouse scratched, and maybe somewhere else a cat turned in its nest and dreamed of hunting. Elizabeth’s last conscious breath left her on a whisper that was almost a prayer, though she would have laughed to call it that.
Tomorrow.
Chapter Twenty-Three
November 20, 1811
Oakham Mount
Elizabeth
Themorningbrokecleanand frosty; a pale sheet of light spread thin over the fields as though the sun had hesitated to commit itself to the day. Elizabeth woke with a sense of purpose she could not entirely ascribe to rest; rather, it seemed the residue of thought carried from the night into daylight—names, initials, sealed doors, a candle on a corridor’s boards. Downstairs the house creaked to life—a maid's faint steps along the passage, the clink of the scuttle, the burr of voices in the rear hall—domestic sounds, ordinary and soothing. They ought to have chased spectres from her mind. They did not.
She dressed simply in a russet walking gown trimmed at the hem with narrow black braid, stout boots, and her warm cloak lined with worn sable that had belonged to her grandmother. She tied her bonnet herself—Sarah had been called to Kitty—and, pausing only to slip a little parcel from cook containing a scone and a wedge of cheese into her cloak pocket, she descended to the breakfast parlour.
Mr. Bennet was there, with his cup and his paper; Jane, serene and rosy, poured out tea; Kitty and Lydia drifted in late, comparing ribbons; Mary diligently buttered a heel of bread while glancing at a small, sober volume. Mr. Collins had been admitted not five minutes before and was bent over with gratitude for the kidney pie Mrs. Bennet urged upon him, extolling its felicities with a tremulous earnestness that made the dish appear the apex of culinary art.
Mrs. Bennet, positively effervescent from a night of dreams and Lydia’s embellished retelling of the fire, greeted Elizabeth with a flutter of hands. “My dear, I did not sleep a wink, thinking of those dreadful sealed rooms. Promise me you will not go poking about the east wing—or anywhere else! Promise!”
“Sealed room?” Mr. Bennet looked up from his paper? “What is this nonsense?”
“I promise to poke only where daylight and prudence attend me,” Elizabeth said lightly, kissing her mother’s cheek. “And I shall explain it to you later, Father, if Mama has not done the honors.”
A footman entered with a square of folded paper on a tray. “For Miss Elizabeth,” he announced.
She recognised the hand before she opened it; that dark, measured script was as declarative as a voice.Miss Elizabeth—if you are inclined to walk this morning, I shall be on Oakham Mount shortly after eleven. I have thought much of last night’s conversation. Your most obedient servant, F. D.
Her heart performed a perfectly ridiculous leap. She folded the note and slid it into her reticule.
“Another of your long walks, Lizzy?” Mr. Bennet inquired, peering over the top edge of the newspaper. He raised a knowing eyebrow, his eyes twinkling with affection and good humor.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, keeping her tone composed. “The air is fine, and I have need of it.”
“I shall accompany you,” Mr. Collins declared with altogether too much satisfaction. “It is not meet that a young lady—”
“Mr. Collins will do nothing of the sort,” Mrs. Bennet interrupted, for once an ally. “He promised to read me theparticulars of Lady Catherine’s greenhouses this morning. You go, Lizzy. Do not be gone above two hours, mind you.” Her mother, too, gave her an all-too knowing glance, and Elizabeth’s cheeks reddened. Mr. Collins did not look pleased, but acquiesced anyway.
Elizabeth expressed suitable gratitude and took a modest breakfast. As she donned her cloak and bonnet, she noted Kitty and Lydia slipping a sealed missive off the salver and into Lydia’s reticule. The girls were performing their task admirably, so it seemed.
Before anyone else thought to impede her, she slipped out by the side door. The day had sharpened: frost glittered on the low meadow grasses; the hedges wore a thin christening of silver. She walked briskly, glad of the cold upon her face, and let the lane carry her between hedgerow and pasture towards Oakham Mount, that low, beloved hill with its crown of beeches from where Hertfordshire undulated out like a quilt.
Elizabeth crested the last rise and found him already there, his dark figure clear against the pale sky. He turned when she came, raised his hat, and for a moment said nothing at all—only looked, as if to verify that the person he expected had truly appeared.
“Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy.”
They walked first without speaking, as was their habit at the beginning of serious conversations. The ground rang faintly beneath their steps, still frosty. From this height, Longbourn’s chimneys were a child’s toys, the lanes drawn with a child’s careful hand. Beyond that, the darker line of woodland marked the border of Netherfield’s land, and somewhere farther yet lay roads that would lead to Town, to the Moores’ other houses, to lives that had never intersected theirs. Some things, however, refused to be distant.
“I have news,” she finally began. Quickly, she retold her aunt’s haunting story from the night before.
“It fits,” Elizabeth said at last, quietly. “MB is Malcolm Bennet. The journals, my aunt’s tale—each supplies what the other lacked.”
Mr. Darcy inclined his head. “I agree. Milton Moore’s grief sharpened his animus, but even resentment can be exact. His dates are consistent, and the details, too.”
“Alfred Moore went in again and again,” she murmured. “To bring out the servants. The mistress.” A small, helpless smile touched her mouth at the detail that had first pierced her. “The last time he did not come out.”
Mr. Darcy’s jaw tightened, as if against a memory of smoke. “And Malcolm Bennet—whether he knocked the candle or left it burning—fled to London, and died there before his father. Your aunt has confirmed it?”
