“In the park, about a half of a mile from the house, along the path to Lambton.”
He hoped no one connected to Pemberley had walked to the village and been caught in the storm. “Do we know who it is?” Mr Stevenson shook his head. “Maybe they washed down from farther upstream,” Darcy wondered aloud. “The poor soul might be my tenant, but it is as likely he is from miles away and the body was dislodged during this morning’s storm and swept downstream.”
“I don’t know yet, only that it’s a woman. A boy found her and told the head gardener. I thought you ought to come since she is on your land. Maybe you can identify her.”
That will be a gruesome task if she drowned on Monday.The bodies recovered so far had been bloated, fetid, a dreadful sight. A ten-year-old he recognised as a shepherd’s boy was on the bank keeping watch; his face was white as a sheet, and Darcy sent him home before he saw any more.
He, his gardener, and his steward stood on the bank peering atwhat looked like a bundle of water-soaked clothes. The body was facedown half on the bank and half in the water. The feet were encased in good-quality shoes and together with the material of the pelisse seemed to indicate that the woman had been torn from a relatively wealthy home.
I have seen that purple pelisse: walking through Bakewell at the well dressing fête, descending from the Bingley’s carriage, in the park at Rosings.
Darcy clamped a hand over his own mouth to stop the exclamation from escaping. The woman with brown hair facedown in the swollen stream was Elizabeth. He felt his throat close and the hot sting of tears in his eyes.
“You ought to go down and see if you know her,” Mr Stevenson said quietly, still looking at the body.
Nothing could deaden the fear and shock Darcy felt as his feet refused to walk nearer.
“What is the matter, sir?”
He knew he must be absolutely pale with terror; his stomach was sick in agony. He had never before felt such horror and fright.
When he could not answer, Mr Stevenson turned to the gardener and asked, “Can you bring her up?”
“No!” Darcy cried. “Don’t... do not touch her.” He would be the one to move her; he could not allow a stranger to touch her. “I will do it.”
Oh God, she must have gone walking this morning and been caught in the rain.What had happened? Did she slip on mud and fall in? Had she struck her head and then drowned? He swallowed thickly and forced himself down the slick bank. His heart turned over at the thought of the letters he must write to Bingley, and then to Mr Bennet. It would break their hearts; Mrs Bingley would be distraught.
He was now at the water’s edge, and he forced his knees to bend. She should not have died here, alone.
He clenched and unclenched his fingers before touching her shoulder. He hated the indignity of her lying in the water and the mud, with strangers staring at her as though she was merely an object.
“I am so sorry, Elizabeth,” he whispered.
Darcy exhaled and turned her over; long hair matted with sand andgravel fell away to reveal the agonised face of a woman, her blue eyes stared at nothing. For a moment, he wondered if the water had turned her dark eyes blue, but slowly he comprehended that he was looking at blue eyes, a rounder nose, a small prim mouth.
“Why is she wearing Elizabeth’s clothes?” he said softly.
“What did you say, sir?” Mr Stevenson called.
Darcy bent his head to hide his relief, and the guilt he felt for that shameful relief.Someone’s daughter is still dead.Just because it was not a woman he loved, a woman was still dead, her body still in the cold water. “It is Molly Carew, Mr Carew’s daughter, my sister’s lady.”
As he wiped away the tears from the corner of his eyes, Mr Stevenson and the gardener came down with the litter and Darcy helped to place her on. The gardener was about to pull the sheet over her face when Darcy stopped his hand. “Look,” he said, pointing, and Mr Stevenson leant over. “Her temple is crushed. There is blood in her hair.”
“Did she slip and hit her head, and was knocked unconscious and then drowned?”
Darcy looked back to where they found her, and then farther upstream. “I cannot see where she might have struck her head near the water’s edge.”
They carried her back up to the path, Darcy following behind, deep in thought.Was she dead before she fell into the stream?“Mr Stevenson, will you send a few men to walk the path along the stream as it leads from the house to Lambton? I want them to try to find where Carew fell in or where she hit her head, since she did not hit it here.”
Mr Stevenson agreed and then asked, “Shall we take her to the house, or her father’s? Or to the makeshift deadhouse in Lambton? The other drowned souls did not need an inquest and a verdict, but if she hit her head...”
“Pemberley,” he said with authority. “If her father wants her home then we shall bring her, but I am not arriving on his doorstep with his daughter’s body.” He could not think on a coroner’s inquest now. “Miss Darcy and I—” He cleared his throat.Georgiana will be devastated.“We must tell him first. Can you send a man to the farm where her brother works and tell him to come home to his father?”
“Yes. Shall you go to him directly, sir?”
Darcy felt a wave of exhaustion and nausea hit him, and for a moment he thought the receding terror from standing over what he had thought was Elizabeth’s corpse might make him vomit. He took a deep breath and tried to flex his numb fingers. “Soon. I must... I have to... There is something I must do first, but once it is done, Miss Darcy and I will call on poor Mr Carew.”
Elizabeth had heardfrom many quarters that Miss Darcy played and sang well, and by her own admission she was fond of music, but this was the first time Elizabeth had the opportunity to listen to her without any distractions. Miss Darcy’s performance, both vocal and instrumental, was infinitely superior to her own. Even if she practised as much as Lady Catherine suggested, she would never match Miss Darcy’s skill and natural talent.
