“And now,” Matlock said, “what was expected has not arrived.”
“Not at all?”
“Not where it was to have gone. Some shipments were delayed. Others diverted. A few were lost to weather. Nothing remarkable in isolation.”
“But enough, together, to strain what remains.”
“Enough to make winter planning uncertain.” Matlock hesitated. “Enough that they no longer trust their assumptions, and they wanted an experienced officer, with knowledge of the local resources, ready to hand.”
Darcy moved toward the window, then stopped short of it. “So, Richard has been asked to go from house to house, as it were, buying grain and meat for England’s soldiers.”
“They have not said so plainly,” Matlock replied, “but that is the substance of it. He has been asked to secure provisions by whatever means prove expedient. To smooth delays. To press local stewards. To make arrangements where arrangements have failed.”
Darcy scowled. “As though diligence might conjure stores that are not there.”
“As though influence might persuade the land to yield,” Matlock said. “He is to do what can be done quickly, without troubling London with causes.”
“And what does he report?”
Matlock unfolded the letter once more. “That some houses comply readily. Others cannot. Not from refusal, but from want. He writes of granaries already drawn down, of contracts fulfilled on paper and empty in fact. Of promises made in good faith that cannot now be kept.”
Darcy considered this. “Everywhere?”
“So far as the reports extend. Not ruin all at once, but sparse across regions that ought to sustain themselves. Stores drawn down faster than expected. Replacement slow, or insufficient, or absent altogether.”
“Then it is not a local failure.”
“No.”
“But neither is it sudden.”
“Not… precisely.” Matlock frowned. “The recognition of it has come rather unhappily, and it seems, by some surprise. But I daresay it has been gathering quietly—slowly enough that it might have been borne, had nothing else gone amiss.”
Darcy nodded. “And they have sent Richard to stave off the reckoning. This is not the first season in which provision has proved thinner than expected. Derbyshire has felt the strain for some months now, and we’d nothing held over from last year, either.”
Matlock inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Yes. My steward wrote to yours in September. At the time, it appeared no more than the ordinary consequence of an unevenyield—nothing to provoke alarm. But now, I understand, matters are somewhat worse than first believed.”
“I had word of the same while I was in Hertfordshire,” Darcy said. “Enough to warrant grave concern. There is little to be had elsewhere, and Pemberley’s stores are the lowest they have been in ages. No one, it seems, has anything to sell. But now, my steward reports having heard rumours to the contrary.”
Matlock sat up straighter. “What rumours, Darcy have you heard?”
“It is no rumour, Uncle. I have seen it with my own eyes, in Hertfordshire.”
His uncle appeared taken aback. “So, it is true? Why, that is but half a day’s ride! How should we all not have known of it? Are you sure, Darcy?”
Darcy paced, staring at the rug. “I did a little investigating, and the local farmers are boasting the best year they have ever had. Cabbages the size of Brutus. Wheat, barley, and potatoes such as they have never seen. Bingley’s garden still had mint overgrowing the lanes in October. Even the rose hedges are still in bloom!”
Matlock’s first response was immediate and instinctive. He turned partway toward the bell-pull, already calculating the distances, the contracts, the speed with which such an opportunity might be secured.
“If there is grain to be had—” He stopped himself and turned. “And… you arequitesure? This is not mere fancy, Darcy. Not some single farm with a particular sort of miracle soil or a fool with a fantastical bent to his storytelling?”
“I made extensive inquiries, sir.”
Matlock considered this, his gaze intent, his thoughts evidently running ahead to questions of supply, transport, and discretion. “If there is indeed provision there, it ought to be secured,” he said. “Quietly, if possible.”
His hand moved again toward the bell, and again he checked himself. “Hertfordshire?” he repeated slowly, as though tasting the name for some quality not at once apparent.
Matlock turned then to face him fully, and in his expression there was a twisting of his countenance—subtle, but unmistakable—from the calculation of stores and routes to something more inward, more wary, as though an older map had been laid atop the newer one in his mind.
