Pride and Prescience Page 11

  “This, you call evidence?” Darcy folded his letter. “I call it coincidence. Certainly not the result of some old druid’s spell.”

  “Not a spell, necessarily. While it’s possible that the druids themselves laid a curse, it also may be that the Romans incurred the wrath of higher powers to whom the grove had been consecrated.”

  A prickling sensation danced across the back of Elizabeth’s neck. She couldn’t decide whether Randolph was the most insightful or most insane person she’d ever met. “It does seem odd that so many people succumbed to fever, over so many years, in the same place.”

  “Not at all,” Darcy said. “People die of fever all the time. Next the professor will tell us that the Black Death was caused by someone picking flowers in a faerie glen.” He passed wax over the candle flame until it softened, and sealed his note. “With all due respect to you and your studies, Randolph, I remain unconvinced.”

  Randolph half-smiled. “Most people do. ’Tis my lot in life, it seems, to stand accused of tilting at windmills.”

  Parrish, who’d been following the discussion closely, cast a look of apology at his friend. “I’m afraid I have to side with Mr. Darcy. Much as I enjoy a good story, tales of spells and spirits are really just flights of fancy.” He handed Elizabeth’s book back to her.

  She accepted the volume in puzzlement. Of all the people in the room, she’d expected Parrish to come to Randolph’s defense. “I thought you were a patron of the professor’s work?”

  “I am. Magic so permeates life in New Orleans, from slave vodun to high society séances, that one can’t help but take at least a passing interest in it. But Randolph’s studies appeal to me for their entertainment value, not for any practical purpose. I don’t believe the artifacts themselves hold any power. Rather, I’m intrigued by their histories. I support his work for the same reason I buy Mrs. Radcliffe’s books—amusement.”

  Poor Professor Randolph—surrounded by skepticism from all quarters! Elizabeth quite felt for the man. She regretted having told Darcy earlier this evening about her encounter with Randolph in the conservatory, sure that the conversation she’d repeated had further prejudiced her husband against the archeologist.

  Randolph fished in his waistcoat pocket and withdrew his pocketwatch. The star symbol on the outside caught the firelight as he clicked it open to consult the time. Remembering the runes inscribed within, Elizabeth longed to ask him about them further. But she held her tongue, not wishing to expose him to additional ridicule from their present company.

  Bingley also seemed to take compassion on the professor. “Darcy, I wouldn’t cling to my cynicism so stubbornly for all the world,” he declared. “In fact, I’ve half a mind to ask Randolph here to inspect my new estate for evidence of curses and charms before I commit to its purchase.”

  “If he actually discovers any, then I will have him to Pemberley for the same.”

  Twelve

  “You either chuse this method of passing the evening because you are in each other’s confidence and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking.”

  Darcy to Elizabeth and Miss Bingley,

  Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11

  Elizabeth stared at the oak beams above her head, willing herself to fall asleep before the clock struck another hour. Slumber eluded her tonight, though she could not identify why. Darcy, his arm wrapped around her possessively, dozed beside her, oblivious to the insomnia that plagued her.

  The sound of footsteps in the hall caught her ears. ’Twas late for even servants to be about. The light steps passed her door, then seemed to backtrack and pass again. Curious, she disentangled herself from Darcy’s embrace and slipped on her dressing gown. She padded to the door, eased it open, and peeked out.

  Caroline Parrish paced the hall. She was oddly dressed—wearing nightclothes, but with the addition of shoes and a spencer. Insensible to Elizabeth’s observation, she approached her own door, stopped short, then retreated toward the central staircase. Three times she repeated the ritual before pity moved Elizabeth to intercede.

  “Mrs. Parrish,” she whispered, stepping into the hall and closing her own door behind her so as not to disturb Darcy. “Are you all right?”

  Caroline halted midstride and regarded Elizabeth uncertainly, as if trying to identify her. Though candles in sconces lent the hall but dim light, the two women stood within a few feet of each other—close enough that Elizabeth could discern several black smudges on Caroline’s nightdress. At that proximity, Elizabeth should have been instantly recognizable to Caroline.

  “Mrs. Parrish? It’s me, Elizabeth Darcy. Do you need something?”

  Caroline simply stared.

  “Mrs. Parrish?”

  Caroline did not even blink. Indeed, she seemed even more dazed than when Elizabeth and Darcy had found her wandering Bow Street. Was she sleepwalking? Perhaps she had become disoriented and was unsure which door was hers.

  “Come.” Elizabeth beckoned. “Let’s return to your chamber.”

  She took Caroline by the hand, noting that her usually well-manicured fingernails were broken and dirty—another sign of the toll her illness had taken upon her. What was happening to this woman? The Caroline Bingley that Elizabeth had known just a week ago would have meticulously maintained even the smallest aspect of her appearance till her dying breath.

  Mrs. Parrish allowed herself to be led like a child to her room. When Elizabeth knocked softly on the door, Caroline grasped her arm tightly. The strength of the grip surprised her.

  “It’s all right,” Elizabeth said. “This is your chamber.”

  The door opened. Mr. Parrish was dressed in his shirtsleeves. “There you—Mrs. Darcy!” The startled gentleman quickly recovered himself. He glanced at his wife, then back to Elizabeth. “Forgive me—I did not expect to find you at my door at so late an hour.”

  “I discovered Mrs. Parrish wandering in the hallway.”

  “Darling, I was just coming to look for you.” Parrish took both Caroline’s hands in his and drew her into the chamber. “Have you been sleepwalking again?”

  Caroline nodded vaguely.

  “She may be yet,” Elizabeth said. “She hasn’t spoken a word to me.”

  “Well, she’s safe now.” Parrish studied his wife a moment, anxiety stealing into his gaze. He then half-closed the door so that Caroline could not overhear them. “I can see that even here at Netherfield I need to keep a closer eye on her. Thank you, Mrs. Darcy.”

  She left the unfortunate couple to themselves and returned to her own bed. Darcy rolled over and spooned against her. “Where did you go?”

  “Mrs. Parrish was sleepwalking again.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I believe so.”

  His arm tightened around her. “You seem to have become her guardian angel.”

  She would have laughed at the irony, were the situation not so serious. Caretaker of Caroline—what had she done to deserve that?

  Grey clouds hung heavy in the sky, cloaking the landscape in shadow. Bare trees, some scantily clad in tattered leaves tenaciously clinging to their branches, stood as forlorn sentinels along the roadside, while brown patches of dead grass poked through a thin blanket of snow like strands of hair straying through a moth-eaten wool cap.

  Elizabeth tucked her lap blanket around her knees and rested her boots atop the hot brick on the carriage floor, grateful for the warmth that crept into her toes. The three-mile ride to her parents’ house seemed long this bleak afternoon, though whether because of her mood or the scenery, she couldn’t say. She leaned back, impatient for their trip to end, depressed that familiar landmarks indicated they’d traveled less than a mile.

  Bingley and Jane had set out earlier to tour Haye Park, leaving her and Darcy to follow in their own coach and meet them at Longbourn. Darcy had proven a quiet companion on the journey, no doubt overwhelmed with delight at the prospect of spending
a full afternoon conversing with her mother. Perhaps she would take pity on him and suggest an after-dinner walk to interrupt the visit. Or perhaps not. She remained a bit vexed with him for last night’s discussion with Professor Randolph.

  Darcy was Darcy—logical to the very center of his being, firmly rooted in reality—and she wouldn’t change him for anything. He’d had to grow up more quickly than she, losing his mother as a boy and his father as a young man barely past his majority. Such a childhood left little time for imaginative play, as he prepared to take on the responsibilities of a great estate and those who depended upon it for their livelihoods. While he respected her mind, he had the advantage of her in education, having studied with private tutors and later taking a degree at Cambridge. As a male, he moved in a world to which she had no access—a world of business and solicitors and politics and law. All of these things made him the man he was, the man she’d chosen to wed. She trusted him to make wise decisions, to know the right answers at times when she did not.

  On most matters.

  But, God bless him, must he always be so very sure of himself? Must the truth as he saw it and The Truth invariably be one and the same?

  “You were unkind to Professor Randolph last night.”

  His face registered surprise at the admonishment. “How so?”

  “You dismissed his work as silly in a roomful of people who are practically strangers to him.”

  “Am I to pretend belief in the ridiculous?”

  “No. But we’re surrounded by ridiculous people. Most of the ton lead ridiculous, useless lives spent in dissipation and selfish pursuits. Just look at some of the people right there in the drawing room with us. Has Mr. Hurst ever exerted himself beyond running trump in a game of whist? He is fortunate to have been born a gentleman, because I don’t think the man could survive if he ever had to support himself. Yet we tolerate him, and others like him, because he has money and social standing. At least Randolph spends his time seeking to understand something beyond himself.”

  “Perhaps I spoke too strongly—I did not mean to make him uncomfortable. However, if his studies are legitimate, he should be able to defend them without considering the debate a personal attack.”

  “Darcy, sometimes your manner lends the air of a personal attack to an observation on the weather. You can be very intimidating, you know, especially to strangers.” Not wishing to upbraid him too severely, she lightened her tone. “Though, of course, you never frightened me.”

  “Does anything?”

  She pondered the question a moment as the carriage turned at a bend in the road. “The thought of someone close to me suffering injury. And you?”

  He was equally reflective. “The same. Or losing my mental faculties, like we fear Mrs. Parrish may be in the way of. I sincerely hope the professor’s efforts prove beneficial in that regard.”

  “See—even you think some part of his knowledge holds merit.”

  He shrugged. “I have more faith in folk medicine than in folklore. If he wishes to perfume her with spearmint, I do not see the harm.” He smiled. “Though I believe Mrs. Parrish prefers French scents.”

  “Enough of Mrs. Parrish. Though I pity her circumstances, I look forward to a day spent free of her.” Beyond her own wish to escape Caroline’s presence for a time, Elizabeth took comfort in the small size of today’s party, as it meant her mother would have only Darcy and Mr. Bingley to whom to expose herself.

  “But you and Mrs. Parrish have become such intimate friends, strolling Netherfield’s halls during the night.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said dryly. “If our acquaintance continues to warm so quickly, we’ll be using Christian names by this afternoon.”

  “Pray, what bosom confidences have you lately exchanged?”

  “She has related to me every particular of Mr. Parrish’s assets.”

  His brows rose. “Indeed? And what have you told her in turn?”

  “That you snore.”

  They passed a few more minutes in light conversation before the coach suddenly slowed. “Sir?” their driver called from without. “I think you’ll want to take a look ahead.”

  Darcy stuck his head out the window to peer down the road. Elizabeth’s heartbeat accelerated as their vehicle came to a halt altogether. “What is it?” she asked.

  He brought his head back in and looked at her. His face had drained of color. “Bingley’s carriage overturned.”

  Thirteen

  “Nothing therefore remained to be done but to . . . throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained.”

  Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 17

  A sickening sensation overwhelmed Elizabeth at the sight of the mangled carriage. Though Darcy commanded her to stay back while he checked inside for Jane and Bingley, her legs shook so badly she could not have approached anyway. She at once couldn’t bear to look, and couldn’t bear not to look, at the splintered wood and twisted metal wrapped around a large tree. So her gaze ricocheted from the barouche to the surrounding terrain as she swallowed bile and took deep breaths of cold air, struggling to block out the smell of blood and the pained screams of writhing horses.

  Their driver grasped her elbow to steady her and suggested she return to their own coach. She refused. “Go assist Mr. Darcy.” Jane and Bingley needed his help more than she did. She hoped.

  “They are not inside.” Darcy quickly cast his gaze around the accident site. “Over there! They must have been thrown from the carriage.”

  Jane and Bingley lay near a copse of tall evergreen trees, the lowest branches having obscured sight of them from the road. They were alive—unconscious and cold, but alive. Elizabeth blinked back tears of relief at the discovery. Bingley’s driver, crushed beneath the wreckage, had not been as fortunate.

  “Jane? Jane?” She grasped her sister’s hand, willing her to awaken.

  Jane stirred. Without opening her eyes, she slowly lifted a palm to her crown. “My head . . .”

  “Hush, dear Jane. It’s all right.” She choked down a sob. “You’re going to be all right.”

  Darcy roused Bingley, who also complained of a headache. Otherwise, though battered and bruised, the couple appeared to have escaped serious injury. Elizabeth and Darcy assisted them into the coach while their driver attended Bingley’s driver and horses. The unfortunate servant he discreetly wrapped in a blanket and secured to the back of the coach. One of the animals suffered two fractured legs and had to be shot; the other three appeared frightened but unharmed once disentangled from their harnesses.

  Jane shivered, prompting Darcy to remove his mantle and drape it over her shoulders. She huddled into it. “I feel as if I’ll never be warm again.”

  “We will get you home as quickly as possible,” Darcy said. “Others can come back and see to the wreckage. Was there anything in the carriage we should retrieve before leaving?”

  “Perhaps Jane’s reticule,” Bingley said.

  Jane shook her head. “It holds nothing that seems of any value to me right now. Let us please just leave this place.”

  “We shall.” Darcy looked out the window. “My driver has almost finished securing your team to our coach.”

  “What of our driver?”

  Darcy hesitated. Bingley had already been told the servant’s fate, but Jane had not. His silence proved answer enough.

  “Poor man.” Jane’s face, already ashen, somehow lost still more color. Elizabeth knew her sister felt responsible for the death simply because it occurred on a journey undertaken for her pleasure. “What a dreadful way to die. I hope he did not suffer.”

  “It appears he died quickly,” Darcy said.

  “He was in our employ only a fortnight. His mother is a widow—he was supporting her. I shall have to write her with the awful news. Charles, we must send her something.”

  “Of course.” Bingley dabbed at a scrape on his forehead.

  Elizabeth approved of the gift; she would have done the same thin
g. But how had the horrible event occurred in the first place? “Can either of you tell us what happened?”

  “I think we lost a wheel,” Bingley replied. “Since Jane and I were within the barouche, we couldn’t see exactly what occurred. The carriage must have hit a rock or something in the road because it suddenly shifted. The disturbance spooked the horses. They took off in a gallop—or as close to one as they could come with the carriage careening behind them. The next thing we knew, we were rolling over.”

  “That’s when we hit the tree,” Jane finished. “And that’s the last I remember.”

  Elizabeth again expressed gratitude that the couple had survived the ordeal relatively unscathed. Darcy echoed her sentiments, then left to speak with their driver.

  “I noticed some wild-looking tracks maybe a hundred yards back, sir,” Elizabeth heard the servant say. “I didn’t see a wheel along the road, but I wasn’t looking for one, either.”

  Her husband’s footsteps retreated and soon faded beneath the sounds of the driver finishing with the horses. Above, grey clouds thickened with the threat of more snow, and an icy gust of wind flapped the coach’s window curtain. Jane coughed and burrowed into the borrowed mantle. Bingley suppressed a shiver, leading Elizabeth to insist he take her lap blanket, which he’d refused previously. They needed to get Jane and Bingley warm and comfortably resting.

  Whatever was Darcy doing out there?

  Darcy followed the erratic wheel tracks to their source, wanting to see for himself the object that had caused Bingley’s carriage to lose a wheel. They proved difficult to discern, despite their aberrant appearance compared to the straighter lines striping the path. Hoofprints and grooves from his own coach, and others that had preceded Bingley’s, obscured the marks, which had not been deep in the cold earth. The light dusting of snow covering the surrounding ground had melted on the highway under the weight of traffic.