The Matters at Mansfield: (Or, the Crawford Affair) (Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) (19 page)

Twenty-eight

“
It raises my spleen more than any thing, to have the pretence of being asked, of being given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as to oblige one to do the very thing—whatever it be!
”

—
Tom Bertram,
Mansfield Park

A
nne walked slowly but confidently round the common with Elizabeth, her recovery all but complete. The two of them had sought a few minutes’ exercise before the journey to Buckinghamshire. The coach with Neville’s remains had already departed; his lordship’s carriage was presently being prepared and would depart soon.

Uncertain when to anticipate her husband’s return, Elizabeth had sent word to him at their London townhouse, and also left a note for him with Mr. Gower, explaining her removal to Buckinghamshire. She hoped it would not be long before he could meet her there. Or better still, before they could go home altogether. She missed Lily-Anne exceedingly. She was glad, however, that her child was safe at Pemberley, and not with her in Mansfield amid death and mayhem. She prayed Darcy had met with success on his errand so that the investigation he felt honor-bound to assist could come to a close.

Elizabeth had thought that getting Anne out of the inn for a while would do her good, and the prescription appeared to be having the desired effect. Not only was the exercise strengthening her body, but the distance from Lady Catherine was strengthening her spirit. Elizabeth regretted that they must now turn their steps back toward the inn.

“I expect the viscount is anxious to reach Hawthorn Manor.” Anne’s voice held little enthusiasm.

“You seem not quite eager to go there yourself.”

“An alliance with a feebleminded, elderly man is hardly the marriage most women dream about,” she said. “But then, neither is discovering that one’s dashing young husband is married to someone else.”

“You do not have to marry Lord Sennex, you know.”

An unseasonably cool breeze marshaled the air, an early reminder of the coming autumn. Anne shivered and crossed her arms. “I signed the betrothal agreement last night. I could not defy my mother a second time, and I have no superior prospects on the horizon.”

“Do not you?”

Anne looked at her sharply. “I am doubtful as to your meaning.”

“I am doubtful of it myself. But I did notice how your gaze followed a certain mutual acquaintance of ours when he left for Mansfield Park this morning to learn whether Sir Thomas had returned from Birmingham.”

She hesitated. “Nothing more than friendship shall ever come from that quarter.”

Apparently, Anne was unaware of the offer Colonel Fitzwilliam had made. “And if it did?”

A soft smile, meant only for herself, played upon her lips for the shortest of moments before fading. “It is impossible.”

“It is impossible only if you wed someone else.” Elizabeth stopped walking and faced her. “Do not make a decision about marriage to Lord Sennex based on what Colonel Fitzwilliam might feel, or what your mother wants, or what Society will say. Just know that, should you decide that you cannot honor your betrothal to the viscount while also honoring your responsibility to yourself and your own happiness, you will not find yourself friendless. In fact, I will stand directly beside you if you wish.”

Anne broke off eye contact and looked at the ground some distance away. “May I ask you something terribly . . . delicate?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know you were with child?”

Elizabeth studied her. A flush started at Anne’s neck and crept up to her cheeks. “Is this why you feel unable to resist the marriage to Lord Sennex?”

Anne raised her eyes and nodded.

Elizabeth responded frankly, and asked Anne some equally frank questions in return. She wished Mrs. Godwin, her midwife, were in Mansfield to consult, but she was able to offer Anne some reassurance: Though only time would reveal her state with certainty, none of what Anne told her corresponded to her own experience.

They had nearly reached the inn, and Anne looked toward the waiting carriage. The viscount, his cane in one hand, his chess case in the other, wandered about the courtyard. The once-proud figure was nearly swallowed by the loose folds of his greatcoat. He created an almost endearing image—but endearing in a grandfatherly, not matrimonial, way.

Anne turned to Elizabeth. “Will you come stand by me now?”

Darcy returned to Number 89 Fleet Street precisely on time. Yesterday, the younger H. W. Mortimer had identified the pistol as having been made a score or more years ago, and asked for a day to review his father’s older records. Darcy hoped the gunsmith had found what he sought. He was anxious to finish his errand and commence his journey north. He was also anxious to regain possession of the pistol, which he had felt uneasy leaving behind. If there were anybody in London, however, with whom he was comfortable leaving the weapon, it was the family of artisans who had crafted it.

Mr. Mortimer greeted him warmly. “I found the record. Though I was but a boy when my father made this set, I thought I remembered it, for it was an unusual one, but I wanted to be certain.” He showed Darcy the description. “My father made this pistol thirty years ago as part of a quad set of duelers—two primary pistols, and two second-sized pistols, all in a single case. This pistol is one of the smaller; the larger guns have eight-inch barrels. All four bear the rifling you enquired about, and all four have a rook image engraved into their locks, hammers, and escutcheons. The description also notes a rook on the case lid.”

“On the case lid?” Darcy repeated.

“Indeed—there is a small illustration.” The renowned gunsmith showed the record to Darcy, then pointed to the name of the purchaser. But he need not have bothered.

Darcy already knew.

“Lord Sennex?”

The viscount broke off from his reverie and offered them a gentle smile. “Mrs. Crawford! Mrs. Darcy! Are you ready to depart?”

“I hoped we might have a word with you first,” Anne said. “A private word?”

“Of course.” He drew his brows together. “But will we not have ample opportunity for conversation in the carriage?”

“I beg your indulgence. Shall we step over here?”

They moved to an area on one side of the inn where a tall hedge shielded them from the view of employees and passers-by. Elizabeth offered to carry the chess set for him, so that he might better handle his cane, but he politely declined.

“Now, what have you to say, my dear lady?”

Anne glanced at Elizabeth and took a deep breath. “I am afraid, my lord, that I cannot marry you.”

Lord Sennex blinked. “I do not understand.”

“I cannot marry you. I believe that a marriage between us, particularly one entered into in such a hasty manner, can only lead to unhappiness. I beg your forgiveness . . .”

“But—” He looked like a confused child. “We have an agreement. I saw you sign it yester eve—I am certain I did.”

“I did, my lord. And, again, I am deeply sorry. But I must break our engagement.”

Lord Sennex stared at her in befuddlement. “I must have misheard you.”

“No, my lord—”

“Yes, yes—that must be the case. For I have something, you see, something certain to change your mind—” He allowed his cane to fall to the ground so that he could reach into an inner fold of his greatcoat. “Ah, yes—here it is.” He withdrew his hand.

It held a pistol, which he cocked and aimed at Anne.

“Now, my dear . . . would you care to reconsider?”

Twenty-nine

“
A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe.
”

—
Elizabeth,
Pride and Prejudice

D
arcy did not notice the approaching sunset as he rode into Mansfield. His mind was too preoccupied with the need to lay eyes on Elizabeth. Once he ascertained her whereabouts and safety, he would go to Mansfield Park to tell Sir Thomas that Lord Sennex was their man.

A gnawing fear had seized him the entire distance from London to Buckinghamshire. He had received her note, informing him of her travel plans, just before leaving town, and had prayed that the viscount’s murderous inclinations did not include ladies.

When he had arrived at Hawthorn Manor and been told that the viscount’s carriage had never appeared as expected, and when a stop at Riveton had also yielded no Elizabeth or Anne, the fear turned to dread. All the way to Mansfield village, he hoped that their travel plans had merely been delayed, that he would walk into the Ox and Bull to find Elizabeth and Anne at supper in the dining room. Instead, he discovered only Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“Please tell me that Elizabeth and Anne are still here.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam regarded Darcy with a mixture of surprise and alarm. “They are not—they went to Buckinghamshire this morning. Why do you appear here in such a state of apprehension?”

“I have just come from Hawthorn Manor. The viscount and his carriage never arrived. I rode straight there from London—after Mr. Mortimer told me that Lord Sennex owns a quad set of dueling pistols with rook engravings and French rifling.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam leapt to his feet. “They departed some ten hours ago. He could have taken them anywhere.”

Elizabeth studied Lord Sennex as the carriage jostled its way north, still stunned that she had so utterly underestimated the crafty old man. Upon drawing his pistol, he had rapidly proved himself in full possession of his faculties.

“Perhaps, Mrs. Crawford, you simply prefer your weddings over the anvil?” he had said. “Very well. Anything to accommodate my bride.”

Walking easily without the discarded cane, he had commanded the two shocked ladies into his carriage under threat of harm if they called attention to themselves. His manservant, a tall, dark, wiry fellow, waited within, his forbidding countenance an effective mute to any impulse they might have felt to cry out.

Once outside the village proper, he had informed the postilion of their new destination. Then he had handed his pistol to his servant and opened the chess case—or what Elizabeth had presumed to be the case for his chess set. It instead was a large gun case with molded compartments for four pistols—two large and two small—and various items Elizabeth took for loading equipment and other accessories. The two small pistol compartments were empty. One of those pistols was now in the servant’s hand.

The other was in Darcy’s—so far distant that he might as well be in Antigua.

Lord Sennex removed one of the larger pistols. Noting Elizabeth’s observation, he spoke. “Yes, it is loaded, if you are wondering. They all are—Mr. Lautus might have been an incompetent fool, but it was good of him to leave my second set of loading materials behind in his room at the inn. Else I would have had no bullets for the smaller pistol, and it is such a convenient size for carrying on one’s person.”

Elizabeth found his refined manner more menacing than would have been open threats.

“I suppose I should be equally grateful to that odious Mrs. Norris for discarding the pistol while I happened to be nearby,” he continued, “though how she came by it after Lautus managed to get himself killed, I still have not determined.”

He closed the case and set it on the seat between him and the servant. “It is a long journey to Scotland, so we might as well all be acquainted.” He gestured toward the servant. “This is Antonio. He will help me keep an eye on you. Antonio, this is Mrs. Darcy and my fiancée, Mrs. Crawford. Or, I suppose I should call you Miss de Bourgh, should I not, since your marriage to Mr. Crawford was of questionable status?”

“I did not realize your lordship was aware of that fact. I thought my mother managed to keep the particulars from you.”

“One has only to listen to the right conversations to learn all manner of interesting information. And nobody pays attention to senile old men.”

“Is that why you perpetrated the charade?” Elizabeth asked. “To spy upon people?”

“Not at all, my dear lady. The pretense began for Neville’s benefit. He did not, however, appreciate it.” The viscount’s expression hardened. “My son did not appreciate much.”

Elizabeth could hear the barely restrained hostility beneath his words. “You appeared to be mourning him deeply these two days past.”

“I have been mourning the man he could have been. Ought to have been.” He regarded the pistol in his hand. “Neville was the greatest disappointment of my life. Dying was the most honorable thing he ever did.”

Elizabeth had not been particularly impressed by Mr. Sennex, but the depth of the viscount’s acrimony surprised her. “That is a harsh thing to say about your only son.”

“He was not my son.”

Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam questioned everyone, searched everywhere. Those who had witnessed Elizabeth and Anne depart saw only that they had climbed into the carriage willingly. Lady Catherine had been vexed that Anne went without taking proper leave of her mother, but had attributed the neglect to pique over her engagement to the viscount. The note Elizabeth had left for Darcy offered no clues.

Darcy’s heart pressed against his rib cage as he and Colonel Fitzwilliam entered the viscount’s chamber. He had begun to doubt their finding any indication of where Lord Sennex might have taken Elizabeth and Anne.

“What chafes my conscience the most is that I saw the deuced pistol case,” Darcy said. “Right there, in the wardrobe, while we questioned him. I saw the rook—the chessman—on its lid and took it for a game case.”

“Why would you have thought anything else? Quad sets are so rare that we certainly were not seeking a gun case of that size—perhaps two smaller ones, if anything—and he had a chessboard set up on this table. I am certain the double entendre of the ‘rook’ was intentional. The viscount has always preferred the challenge of intellectual games to the sports his son favored.” He frowned and ran his hand over the table upon which the chessboard had rested. Fine black particles clung to his fingers.

“Priming powder. He loaded the pistols in here.”

At Elizabeth’s startled reaction, Lord Sennex clarified. “Do not mistake my meaning—Neville was of my blood. I do not cast aspersions upon my late wife. But he had no understanding of the legacy he inherited along with his name, and the responsibility that comes along with it. He did not take care to protect his reputation or our fortune. He squandered both through gaming and intemperate living, and never considered the consequences. Nor did he develop a gentleman’s control over his temper.

“For years I followed behind him, tidying his messes as best I could, trying to salvage our family’s dignity and prevent him from spending us into bankruptcy or humiliating us out of good society. But my efforts had the opposite effect—he came to take me for granted along with everything else, and assumed that whatever scrape he got himself into, his father the viscount would repair the damage. I wondered if by my own actions I had inadvertently encouraged his irresponsibility.

“And so my ruse began. I pretended to fail, both in mind and body, in hopes that my perceived decline would bring about greater consciousness of duty on his part. But it only worsened his conduct. In his mind, my frailty removed me as an obstacle to his selfish pursuits. Any words I spoke about honoring one’s birthright he dismissed as the ramblings of an old man.”

“And this is the man I would have wed?” Anne said. “He sounds no better than Mr. Crawford. I cannot believe my mother initiated the match.”

The viscount chuckled, a hollow sound, devoid of mirth. “Your mother only thinks she initiated the match. By the time she arrived at Riveton, anxious to preserve her daughter from spinsterhood, Neville had depleted our estate. We needed a rapid infusion of funds, and marriage to an heiress was the ideal solution. When she began calling upon every family in the neighborhood with an unattached son, I was ready. She thought she was taking advantage of my weakness, but without even realizing it, she advanced my scheme. We both would have emerged from the church doors satisfied, were it not for Mr. Crawford’s interference.”

The venom in his voice as he pronounced the name “Crawford” was potent. He gripped his pistol so tightly that Elizabeth thought he would bruise his leg with the butt cap.

“Was it you who hired Mr. Lautus to kill Henry Crawford?” she asked.

The viscount emitted a derisive noise. “Certainly not. Hired assassins are for cravens. Mr. Crawford’s elopement with Neville’s betrothed insulted my son’s honor, and he was eager for revenge. Their dispute should have been settled in a gentlemanly manner—civilized, prearranged combat—a dignified contest such as the ones I fought in my own youth. I told Neville as much, and lent him these pistols, which had served me so well.

“But Neville was lazy and cowardly, and did not want to face Mr. Crawford himself. Without my knowledge, he hired Mr. Lautus—where he found such a character, I do not know. He instructed the buffoon to stage a duel of sorts, and equipped him with two of my pistols.
My
pistols! The very weapons I had used to defend our family honor in years past were given to a stranger to make a mockery of a sacred gentlemen’s rite.

“When I learned the truth, I was furious. My senile ruse prevented me from giving full vent to my anger, but my son had disappointed me. In a way that could not be forgiven.”

Having nowhere else to seek hints of the viscount’s destination, Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam searched the courtyard and perimeter of the inn. The ostler had said he saw Lord Sennex and the two ladies approach the carriage from one side, near a large hedge. A look about produced the viscount’s cane lying forgotten on the ground.

Darcy examined it closely. It was an ordinary cane—no blades on the end or hidden compartments at the top. What was extraordinary about it was that they should find it at all.

“I do not believe I have seen the viscount walk without aid these several years, at least,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “I wonder how he is getting around without it.”

“Quite well, if I might say so,” declared a young voice on the other side of the hedge. Nat Gower came around. “I saw him walk with the ladies from here to the carriage, and he appeared to have no trouble.”

“Did you see him drop the cane?” Darcy asked.

“No, sir. I was on the other side of the hedge. Mrs. Darcy had asked me to keep a lookout for the viscount so he wouldn’t wander off, so whenever he went outside I stuck close but stayed where he wouldn’t notice me.”

Faint hope began to flicker inside Darcy. Perhaps this boy had observed something no one else had. “Did you hear anything he said to Mrs. Darcy or Mrs. Crawford?”

“I didn’t follow Lord Sennex when he first came over here with the ladies—I figured if Mrs. Darcy was with him, all was well, and I didn’t want to eavesdrop. But they were out of my sight for a while, and I got to worrying that maybe they had parted and the viscount had wandered off some other way. So I came closer. Didn’t hear much—the viscount said something about weddings and anvils and accommodating his bride—and then they started walking so I ducked out of sight.”

Darcy gave the boy a shilling. “If you remember anything else, come tell me.”

“I will, sir!”

As the boy ran off, Darcy looked at Colonel Fitzwilliam. His cousin read his thoughts.

“Weddings and anvils,” the colonel said. “Do you think they are bound for Scotland?”

“It is a long journey. If we are wrong, we lose days chasing false hope.” Darcy did not want to contemplate how much worse the situation would be if they raced all the way to Gretna Green only to discover they had erred. “We cannot even be certain they head for Gretna—the viscount could take them to any Scottish village.”

“We could divide. One of us could stay here.”

“And do what?”

“Feel impotent and torment himself over what might be occurring two hundred fifty miles away.”

His cousin’s response elicited a grim half-smile from Darcy. It was in neither of their natures to remain idle while others acted. “The viscount has a case full of pistols. I think we should both go. And given their advance start, we cannot afford another moment’s delay.”

Darcy did not know what they would find, or what would unfold, when they reached their destination. But based on previous experience, of one thing he was convinced.

Nothing good came of elopements to Scotland.

“I have reached a decision,” Anne announced as she and Elizabeth reentered the carriage after another all-too-brief stop. She spoke in a low voice so as not to be overheard by Antonio, who followed behind, his pistol ever-present but concealed from spectators. “If we survive this, I shall happily spend the rest of my life as a spinster.”

They would survive this. In that, Elizabeth was determined. “No more elopements? I cannot imagine why. This one has been so agreeable that I begin to regret my own mundane nuptials at Longbourn.”

This had been the most grueling journey of Elizabeth’s life. Anxious to reach Scotland before any pursuers caught up with them, and equally anxious lest an opportunity present itself for his abductees to escape, the viscount had traveled through the night and all the next day with only the most abbreviated of stops to change horses. They were even denied meals at the posting inns; to prevent any conversation with employees or other guests, the viscount bought only portable food such as bread and cheese that could be consumed in the carriage. After more than four-and-twenty hours of cramped seating and ceaseless jostling, every muscle of Elizabeth’s body ached.