She did not look up, and that was what told him.
A person who had nothing to hide would look up when they heard that a neighbour's pet was missing. A person with a clear conscience would express concern, or surprise, or at least the polite curiosity that society required. Caroline's face was a blank wall, and blank walls were built to hide what was behind them.
He said nothing. He stood up. He left the breakfast room without excusing himself, which was a breach of manners he would normally have avoided, and he went to the servants' hall.
The Netherfield servants knew something. He could see it in the way the footmen avoided his eye and the housemaids found sudden urgent business in other rooms. He was not a man who inspired easy confidences from staff. He was too formal, too distant, too much the master. But he was also a man who paid fair wages and did not raise his voice, and the servants, who talked among themselves with the dispatch of a mail-coach, had their own opinions about what had happened.
He spoke to the butler first. The butler knew nothing, or said he knew nothing, but his expression was the careful expression of a senior servant who did not wish to inform on a member of the family.
He spoke to the cook. The cook had heard a cart in the yard yesterday afternoon. She had thought it was a delivery.
He spoke to Jenkins, his valet. Jenkins, who had been with him for eight years and whose loyalty was to Darcy and not to the household at large, was more forthcoming.
"I overheard something, sir. Yesterday morning. Miss Bingley was speaking with a man at the servants' entrance. A farmer, I believe. From somewhere beyond Meryton. I did not hear the whole of it, but I heard the word 'pig,' and I heard Miss Bingley say that the matter should be handled quietly."
Darcy's hands went still at his sides.
"You are certain."
"I am, sir. I thought it odd at the time. Miss Bingley does not generally converse with farmers."
He left the house. He went to the stable and saddled Caesar himself, because waiting for the groom would have taken minutes he did not have, and minutes mattered because Elizabeth was out there somewhere, exhausted and frightened, and her pig was gone because a woman under this roof had arranged it.
He rode to Longbourn first. The morning was cold and bright, the frost still white on the grass, the sky the hard, clear blue of late November. He rode fast. Caesar was fresh and willing and covered the three miles in twelve minutes.
Hill answered the door. Her face was tight and her eyes were red, and she showed him in without the usual formalities. Jane appeared in the hall a moment later. She was in a morning dress with her hair loosely pinned, and her face was drawn with worry, and she looked at Darcy with a directness that surprised him. Jane Bennet was the gentlest woman in England, but the look she gave him now was sharp with something that went beyond gentleness.
"She has not slept, Mr. Darcy. She has not eaten. She has been walking since yesterday afternoon. She went out again at dawn."
"Where?"
"The roads toward Meryton. The fields to the south. She is checking every farm within three miles."
"I will find the pig," he said, and he meant it with a certainty that came from somewhere deep and immovable, somewhere beneath the reserve and the formality and the years of careful self-control. He meant it the way he meant nothing else he had ever said in his life.
Jane looked at him. Her expression shifted. Some calculation occurred behind her gentle eyes, some assessment of the man standing on her doorstep at half past eight in the morning, unannounced and undone and making promises about a pig.
"Thank you, Mr. Darcy," she said.
He began asking questions around the Longbourn estate. He was methodical and patient and thorough, the way he was when managing the Pemberley accounts or investigating a problem on the estate.
He spoke to the farm workers on the Longbourn estate. He spoke to the boy who delivered milk, who had seen a cart on the Haye Park road yesterday afternoon. He spoke to the woman who brought eggs, who had seen the same cart return empty.
At the house, Hill was tight-lipped and guilty. She had latched the kitchen door herself. When she came back from the pantry, the door was open and the pig was gone and the turnip was untouched. Someone had unlatched the door from inside. Her eyes darted toward the parlour. She said nothing further. She did not need to.
The stable boy had seen more. He had been mucking out the stalls when a cart pulled into the Longbourn yard. A man had gone into the kitchen. He had come out carrying somethingwrapped in a thick sack. It had been making noises. He had put it in his cart and driven away toward the Haye Park road. The boy had thought it odd but had not been asked, and so he had not said.
The trail pointed south. The cart had come from the direction of Haye Park. The farmer's name was Talbot. He had been seen in Meryton three days ago, speaking with a woman in a fashionable pelisse.
Darcy did not need to ask who the woman was.
He returned to Netherfield. The pieces came together. Caroline had arranged the theft from Netherfield. She had spoken to the farmer here, given instructions here, and ensured silence here. The execution had been at Longbourn, but the hand behind it sat across from him at breakfast every morning.
"You did the right thing," he told Jenkins. "If Miss Bingley questions any of the staff about what they have told me, you may refer them to me."
Jenkins nodded. He straightened his cuffs and disappeared into the servants' hall.
Darcy went back to the stable.
