I need not have worried my company would hear the door or the gentleman’s voice. They were talking loudly and clattering their plates and cutlery as they ate their way through the larder.
“Where's me trollop, eh,” Crupps called out impatiently. “Bring us a tipple, girlie. Ya can sit on me lap and kiss me while ya do.” Again, crude laughter.
Mr. Darcy tossed off his hat and coat and began to propel me toward the kitchen at speed, speaking in a low, grim voice as we went. “Tell them you found a cask of brandy, but you need help with it.”
We were at the mouth of the short, dark, narrow hall that led from the parlor to the kitchen. He pulled his gloves tightly over his knuckles and gave me a nod. I spoke in a loud, animated voice, as though happy to accommodate my guests.
“There is no wine, Mr. Crupps, but I have found a cask of something. I think it is brandy, but I am struggling to pick it up!”
The kitchen door came open almost instantly at this wonderful news. Mr. Darcy whirled me around behind him, and there ensued a series of crashes, roars, cries, and thumps. My only impression was that Mr. Darcy’s shoulders were as wide as the passageway. I cringed, closed my eyes, and put my hands over my ears.
I do not know how much time elapsed—ten seconds, ten minutes. It passed in a terrible, deafening jumble. Suddenly, there was silence, and when I peeked at the scene, I saw the vague outline of arms and legs in a heap on the floor illuminated by the dim light from the kitchen.
Mr. Darcy stepped over the tangle of limbs and went to the front door. I heard a sharp whistle, and then he and several men returned. They brushed past me where I stood immobile and swept the bodies out of the hall by the means of dragging, kicks, and a few more blows.
More silence. My ears rang, and I felt a little faint.
I staggered upstairs and knocked softly on Mrs. Jennings’s bedroom door. “Doreen, all is well. Open up, will you?”
The maid peeked out, and when she was sure it was indeed me standing there, she said, “Are they gone, then?”
We spoke in lowered voices. “Mr. Darcy came and made them leave. Is Mrs. Jennings still sleeping?”
“I am not sure how, but yes, miss.”
“Good. Take Penny and go up to bed. By no means come out of your room unless I come for you. I shall see to things down here.”
I went back down the stairs, vaguely intending to go to the kitchen to clean up, but when I reached the hall, I came to a halt. I stood arrested in the shadowy passage with the echoes of the violence that had just erupted there.
Mr. Darcy was suddenly back in the hall. He loomed over me and spoke loudly. “Are you out of your mind to be letting men like that in this house? Where is your backhouse man?”
“Smith does not sleep here,” I replied faintly.
“Does not—are you in earnest?” he roared. This brought me back from the edge of a swoon, and I raised my voice to answer him.
“Even if he had been here, what good would an old man who cannot bend at the knees do me?” I cried. “I wonder that the world believes even a deaf, blind man of sixty years is worth ten times a healthy woman in her youth, so long as he is aman.”
He continued to bellow. “You choosenowto argue?”
My burst of temper died just as quickly as it had flared. “Mr. Darcy,” I said, my hand rising to my forehead involuntarily and my voice suddenly weak, “If you are finished yelling at me, I believe I should sit down.”
Mr. Darcy then swept me up, and with a strong grip around my waist, he half-carried me to a bench in front of the hearth in the kitchen.
I began to tremble uncontrollably and looked up at him, bewildered. “I-I do not know what has come over me,” I said, my teeth chattering.
He stood quite close and looked at me critically. “You have had a shock. Do you have brandy?”
“N-No.”
“Wine, then—anything?”
“They drank all our porter,” I said, as a sob threatened to crawl up my throat.
“Where is the tea?” he asked as he hung the kettle on the hob. “And the sugar. Something sweet may help.”
With a shaking finger I pointed toward the cupboard, and thinking to regain some semblance of my former self, I said, “Do you indeed know how to make tea, Mr. Darcy?”
My teasing might have been more effective had I not spoken in a pitiful half-whisper. The gentleman seemed not to notice.
