Page 11 of Conundrums & Coincidences

Turning then to the housekeeper, he said, “Please be so kind as to show me to my room now, Mrs Vincent. And I apologise for keeping you waiting.”

At the writing table in his assigned bedchamber, Darcy contemplated the words written upon the piece of paper he had unfolded the instant he entered the room.

Three-fourths of a cross and a circle complete,

Two semicircles and a perpendicular meet,

A triangle standing on two feet,

Two semicircles and a circle complete.

Crossing out his initial attempt at a solution, he put pencil to paper and tried again. In which direction are the blasted semicircles supposed to face? Where, exactly, should the vertical line be placed? And how should all this be arranged on the page?

His mind was preoccupied by that other conundrum, the one with intelligence, sparkling wit, incomparable mettle, fine eyes, pretty smile, and a strong sense of right and wrong.

The tip of the pencil snapped when, from an open window, her sweet voice floated on the breeze, all the way into his soul.

He rose to close the window. Instead, he lingered there watching Miss Rigby and Mr Hadley smiling at something Elizabeth said while they strolled, arm in arm, through the gardens.

Darcy turned away from the sight and sound of her. He vowed he would be polite, and he would show her that he had changed for the better. But he would not allow himself to be ruled again by anything other than rationality—not by his heart and certainly not by physics. Elizabeth may have all the pull of gravity, but I shall not fall for her again.

In an attempt to expunge the woman from his thoughts, he went for a brisk walk along woodland paths beyond the park. An hour or so later, while returning to the house, he noticed the occasional small cloud of smoke rising from the shrubbery. Concerned about fire, he investigated and discovered Peter Fordham sitting on a bench and puffing contentedly on a meerschaum pipe. Darcy nodded and greeted the man as he passed.

Although Darcy neither smoked a pipe nor used snuff, he found the wafting aroma rather pleasing, with its components of sweet honey, fresh orange, and smooth vanilla. The fragrance teased his nose and prodded his brain. Eureka!

At dinner, Mr Monroe called for everyone’s attention. “I congratulate one of you for having solved, in a trice, their first puzzle.”

“Oh, well done, I say!” cried Mr Hadley. Almost immediately upon that utterance, his face grew red, and he gave a little laugh. “Well, obviously, the clever person is not me.”

Mr Monroe rolled his eyes before continuing. “The solution has been verified by me, and the beneficiary is already working on their second. I trust that I shall not be divulging any secrets when I say that the poser they solved was an anagram.”

The puzzle Darcy had solved was not one of that sort, and he had not yet gone looking for a place where ‘tobacco’ might be found. The butler’s pantry was forbidden and Mr Fordham’s bedchamber not a possibility either.

Miss Armstrong enjoyed spirits. Might she also have indulged in sot weed? Darcy had heard that snuff cured headaches and that Queen Charlotte was fond of it. As soon as possible, he would search for snuff boxes.

But which of the beneficiaries had solved, in a trice, their first poser and was working on their second? A glance round the table gave Darcy no clue as to which of his rivals was in the lead, but he knew it was not Mr Hadley and assumed it was not Miss Kensett.

So, either Mr Fordham or she of formidable intelligence and quick understanding.

7

RIDDLE ME THIS

On Friday, bathed in mellow morning sunshine, Elizabeth strode across Oakwood’s lawns, the dewy grass dampening her hems and darkening her half-boots.

Now and then she caught snatches of male voices floating upon the breeze, and she spotted gardeners clipping the hedges. She paid them little notice, for her mind was otherwise engaged.

After solving her first conundrum—an anagram—the previous day, Elizabeth had been in a sanguine turn of mind. The letters in ‘moon starer’ quite readily had been rearranged to read ‘astronomer’. Following that success, it had taken but a moment for her to find a book by Galileo Galilei upon a shelf in the library. Thumbing through its pages, she had discovered her next poser tucked between copper-engravings of lunar phases.

That next morning, though, as she walked farther away from the house, she was a little less confident in her ability. Frowning at the paper in her hand, she muttered, “The leaves of an oak tree are green in summer.” Elizabeth peered about the grounds at the many deciduous trees in full leaf. Oakwood has more oaks than Miss Kensett has waspish aspersions to utter.

The night before, while the three ladies had sat chatting in the parlour waiting for the gentlemen to finish their ports and whatnot, Miss Kensett had turned to her and said, “You remind me of someone, Miss Bennet. There is something terribly familiar about your looks, your attire, and those country manners of yours.” Tapping her fan upon her chin, she had paused as though in deep rumination. Finally, she had cried out, “Oh, I have it now! You put me in mind of dear Edith, my poor little maid whom I had to leave behind in Maidenhead. I believe she, too, comes from Herefordshire.”

Before Elizabeth could make any sort of rejoinder, Miss Rigby had spoken. “Then you are most fortunate, Miss Kensett, to have in your service such a comely, well-dressed, genteel lady. But I must correct you, dear. Despite the two counties being only one letter removed from one another, Herefordshire and Hertfordshire actually are two separate places, and Miss Bennet is from the latter.” The chaperon had then set aside her embroidery and clasped her hands together upon her lap. “Now, madam, I understand from Mr Monroe that your father is a prosperous bellows maker…”

Smiling in remembrance, Elizabeth thought it rather convenient to have a chaperon who also happened to be one’s champion. At Longbourn, the only person who ever spoke up on her behalf or acted in support of her was her dearest sister, Jane.

Stopping near the shrubbery, she inhaled the sweet fragrance of pale pink dog-roses. On the other side of the hedge, gravel crunched beneath heavy footsteps.