She tried not to think about what Darcy’s face would look like when he finally learnt the whole truth.
Chapter Nineteen
DarcyspoketoLordMatlock that evening, after dinner.
Elizabeth did not know what passed between them, because she was not invited to hear it. Darcy had kissed her forehead before they went down to the yellow drawing room. “I am going to tell my uncle what we learned today,” he said quietly. Elizabeth had nodded, and that had been the end of her involvement. The men withdrew to the study.
It was a long evening. Lady Catherine held forth on the inadequacies of modern education, a subject that required no audience participation and received none. Lady Matlock worked at her embroidery, serenely immune to the monologue. Georgiana played softly. Anne sat beside her, turning pages. Kitty read. Elizabeth sat with her hands folded and her mind entirely elsewhere, wondering what Darcy was saying and how Lord Matlock was receiving it.
She excused herself as early as she reasonably could, pleading a headache that was not entirely invented, and went to her parlour.
George Darcy was waiting for her.
He was pacing. She had never seen him pace in so confined a space; he usually haunted the gallery or the long corridor of the east wing, where his restlessness had room to stretch. In the parlour he was like a caged thing, turning at the bookcase, turning at the window, his agitation so palpable that the candle flames bent as he passed them.
“They are talking,” he said, before she had closed the door. “Fitzwilliam told Matlock everything. Mr Wilson’s testimony. What Mrs Reynolds confirmed. The timing.”
“And?”
“Matlock listened. He did not interrupt. He sat, let Fitzwilliam speak. When Fitzwilliam had finished, Matlock said, ‘I have wondered about this for six years, and I am ashamed that I did nothing.’”
Elizabeth sat down. “He believed him?”
“At once. He said your aunt had spoken to him too, years ago, about a feeling she had. He dismissed it then. He is not dismissing it now.” George stopped pacing and faced her. His expression was fierce, intent, the rigid composure he usually maintained entirely gone. “Elizabeth. They are planning what to do next. They are talking about the physician who signed the death certificate, about Wickham’s movements that week. But they are missing something important. Margaret was here. She was at Pemberley in the days before I died. She saw me agitated. She heard me speak of Wickham. She left before Wickham arrived, but she can place the timeline. She can say that I was disturbed, that I had learned something that changed how I spoke of my godson. And she is Lord Matlock’s wife. Her word carries weight that a tenant farmer’s cannot, however honest Mr Wilson may be.”
“I see.”
“Then tell Darcy. Tell him to bring Margaret into this. She has been waiting six years to be asked, and she will not forgive being excluded now.”
Elizabeth pressed her fingers against her temples. The headache she had claimed was becoming real. “I will speak to him in the morning. I can’t go to the study now; it would look as though I had been listening at doors.”
“You have not been listening at doors. I have been listening at doors, or rather, I was listening in the room. There is a meaningful distinction.”
Despite everything, Elizabeth almost laughed. “I’m not certain that distinction would comfort my husband.”
George resumed his pacing. “There is one other thing. They spoke of writing to the physician, a Dr Grieve in Bakewell. Matlock said he could make enquiries through the College of Physicians. That is sensible, but it will take time, and the longer this takes, the more danger there is that Wickham will hear of it. He has friends. He has contacts. He has always had a talent for discovering things he should not know.”
“Wickham is in Newcastle with Lydia. He has no friends here.”
“Wickham has friends everywhere. That was always his gift. He could walk into a room of strangers and leave with allies.” George’s voice was flat. “I gave him that. I taught him how to be charming, how to speak to people above his station, how to make himself indispensable. Every weapon he has, I put in his hand.”
Elizabeth did not argue with him. It was true, and he knew it, and pity would not help either of them.
“I will speak to Darcy in the morning,” she said again. “About Lady Matlock. And about... there may be another source of information, though I am not yet sure how to approach it.”
“Who?”
“Lady Catherine.”
George went still, staring at her. “Catherine?”
“Anne told me something. On the ride, last week. She said her mother once said that your death happened because you would not listen. It struck Anne as odd, and she remembered it. If Catherine believed you died because you would not take her warnings about Wickham seriously, she may know more than she has ever said. She was angry with you about Wickham, was she not? Before you died?”
“Furious. She told me I was a fool for favouring a steward’s son over my own blood. I told her to mind her own affairs. We quarrelled badly. She left Pemberley and did not return before I died. It was before Wilson came to me, but...” He paused. “Catherine is many things, but she is not stupid. If she suspected Wickham, she would not have forgotten it.”
“Then I need to find out what she knows.”
“Be careful. Catherine does not give up information. She uses it.”
