North by Northanger m&mdm-3 Page 6

  In such a potentially eerie setting as an ancient, shadow-filled room with a storm raging outside, a shrouded figure with a Cyclopean gaze could well have inspired discomfort in his unprepared guests. And Elizabeth indeed found herself disconcerted by Captain Tilney — but not because he seemed remotely ominous. The Eye, rather than fixing upon one of them with a penetrating stare that sent shudders down the spine, instead shifted rapidly between her and Darcy, never resting on either of them more than a moment. She had difficulty reading the captain’s temperament with his gaze bouncing around so, and his manner — surprisingly animated given the extent of his injuries — contributed to the impression that he was exerting himself overmuch to win their amity. She felt herself and Darcy to be trespassing on the invalid’s recovery by their very presence at Northanger. The poor man ought to be in bed, not forcing himself to fulfill his duties as a host.

  “Your kind hospitality toward us cannot but render us perfectly easy,” Elizabeth assured him. “However, we do not wish to begin our acquaintance by fatiguing you, and entertaining strangers can prove tiring for someone in the best of health. Perhaps Mr. Darcy and I should return, or you can visit us at Pemberley, on a future date, when your strength is restored.”

  “No, no — I care not a whit about fatigue. I could sprint from here to Gloucester if I chose. I do not wish to defer the pleasure of your society, and as I am injured, you must indulge me. Let us have no more talk of leaving. Do you find your quarters satisfactory? Northanger Abbey is an old house, but not too draughty. Been improved to offer modern comforts.”

  The old-fashioned comforts of a fire and adequate time to properly dress for dinner would have constituted sufficient improvements, but given their host’s current state of affliction, Elizabeth no longer considered these matters deserving of mention. “Quite satisfactory,” she said. “We understand our apartment was formerly occupied by your mother?”

  “What’s that? Oh, yes — I suppose it was.” He swallowed more port. “It has been so long, you know. When I arrived yesterday, I thought it rather cork-brained to reserve those rooms from use any longer. The nicest rooms in the house, just sitting empty while everyone else is forced to make do with smaller. Why, dear Mother would not want that at all, I am sure. So I said to — to Dorothy, that the first guests to use them should be the son of her dear friend.”

  “We are honored,” Darcy said. “But are you aware that some of the drawers and cupboards still hold her effects?”

  “Oh, that is nothing. Feel free to use everything in the rooms as your own.”

  His nonchalance took Elizabeth aback. Surely the late Mrs. Tilney would not want strangers handling her possessions without her son having sorted through them first. “Perhaps you wish to remove her personal items, at least, to another location?”

  “No, no. Not if any of them can be of use or interest to you.”

  Elizabeth blinked at his continued indifference. She glanced at Darcy, who appeared similarly dumbfounded by their host.

  “You are most generous, Captain Tilney,” she said. “But I cannot imagine a need of ours that would supersede the sentimental value your mother’s belongings hold for you. And we found—”

  “As I said, use everything as your own. By Jove, this is fine port, is it not, Mr. Darcy? I believe I shall have a second glass. Can I top off yours?” He began to rise, but Darcy stopped him.

  “Allow me.” Darcy refilled their host’s glass but poured no more wine for himself. When he was seated once more, the captain took a long draught and settled more deeply into his own chair.

  “Now, forgive me, Mrs. Darcy, if you feel excluded from the conversation for a few minutes. But there are many questions I wish to ask your husband here—”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth had expected as much. In fact, the conversational turn was about the only part of their visit that had met her expectations.

  The Eye turned upon Darcy and remained fixed for the first time all evening. “So, Mr. Darcy — did you ever meet Mrs. Tilney?”

  “Regrettably, I do not believe I had the honor. How long ago did she pass away?”

  “Oh, twenty years at least.” He took another sip of wine. “When did you lose your mother?” The casualness of his voice made it sound as if Darcy had merely misplaced her.

  “Eighteen years ago this January,” Darcy replied in a much more sober tone.

  “And your letter said Mrs. Tilney never visited Pemberley?”

  “I do not believe so. Unless I was too young to remember.”

  “Did your mother — what was her name — Lady Anne? — ever speak of her?”

  “She would have had little occasion to speak to me about Mrs. Tilney. I was a young boy, more interested in my mother’s nursery tales than in her social acquaintance.”

  The captain sat forward. “Come, now — did she never mention visiting Mrs. Tilney here at Northanger? Point out mementoes she might have received from her?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Well, then, to anyone at Pemberley?”

  “If she did, I have no direct knowledge of her having done so.”

  Even with only one eye showing, the captain’s disappointment was obvious. The curl of his lower lip resembled nothing so much as a pout. “But they corresponded, yes?”

  “One might presume they did. My mother engaged in frequent correspondence with many friends.”

  “Did she save her letters? — Upon my soul, of course she did! Women always keep that sort of thing. There must be a note or two from Mrs. Tilney somewhere at Pemberley. Nay, dozens! I should like very much to see them.”

  Though his glass remained half full, Darcy set it aside. “I am aware of none, but should we discover any, it would be my pleasure to return them to your care.”

  Elizabeth sensed an increase in her husband’s natural reserve. He was, she knew, unaccustomed to answering so many questions about his family, particularly from someone of such slight acquaintance.

  “Captain Tilney,” she said, “did your mother preserve any correspondence herself? Might there be letters from Lady Anne here at Northanger?”

  “Dash it, no. Nothing the old general kept for anybody to find, anyway. Did you ever meet him? Superior billiards player, though I could always best him. By Jove, once when I met him at — oh, but we were speaking of his wife, were we not? Well, one never knows when an old letter might be found. Or what interesting details it might contain about something everybody forgot about ages ago. Only think — a simple note that was nothing but tittle-tattle between friends could reveal some secret nobody else knew. Jolly intriguing things, old letters! I swear, I shall begin saving mine as of this moment just to entertain my heirs after I pop off.”

  Darcy’s expression grew still more shuttered. Elizabeth wondered whether the captain’s comment had inadvertently brought to his mind Lady Anne’s final letter. Her husband had not found it entertaining in the least. It had revealed an extent of suffering on his mother’s part that he would just as soon have never known about so vividly.

  “A letter can communicate more than its author intended,” Darcy said. “Particularly to those who were never meant to read it.”

  “My point precisely!” Captain Tilney drained his wineglass and set it down with so much force that Elizabeth briefly feared for its welfare. “Revelations just waiting to be uncovered!”

  “To what purpose?” Darcy shook his head. “Some things are best left buried in the past.”

  “Some things should never have become buried in the first place, and ought to be brought to light.”

  A flash of lightning cast the room in sudden brilliance. The shadow eclipsing Captain Tilney’s face momentarily receded, exposing the zeal that brightened his lone blue eye. An enormous boom followed. Rain pelted the windows with renewed fury.

  The Eye now shifted back to Elizabeth. “What do you think, Mrs. Darcy? If you stumbled across some intriguing hint of forgotten treasure, would you search for it?”

  Despite
the casual character of his speech, Captain Tilney’s statements held an undercurrent Elizabeth could not define, as if he and they were not quite participating in the same conversation.

  “If I thought it could — and ought to — be found,” she replied warily.

  Darcy’s jaw had acquired the rigid set she had come to recognize as a sure sign of his displeasure. “Forgive me, Captain,” he said, “but my wife and I have endured a long day of travel, and I can see that she is weary. Would you take it amiss if we retired for the evening?”

  The sudden request brought a look of surprise to their host’s face — or, at least, to the Eye — but he recovered himself quickly.

  “So soon? But you have not yet — that is, we were just becoming acquainted. Surely you will stay long enough to share another glass of port, at least? Mrs. Darcy may withdraw if she chooses.”

  Darcy stood. “Unfortunately, I must decline. Our journey fatigued me also.”

  “Well... if you must,” he replied rather petulantly. There was something off-putting about their host. Although Elizabeth pitied the man for his injuries, she did not find him a pleasant individual. “I shall summon Dorothy to escort you.”

  He rose, but turned in the direction opposite the bell. He paused and glanced round the walls until he located it.

  Elizabeth eyed his wineglass and wondered whether the port or his recent accident accounted for his absentmindedness. “Do let me ring it for you.”

  The housekeeper appeared almost before Elizabeth’s hand released the pull. She seemed disconcerted to find the three of them standing, and looked at her employer as if demanding an explanation.

  “The Darcys would like to retire to their apartment now,” the captain said.

  “Already? Have you finished your conversation?”

  “We shall continue tomorrow.”

  Dorothy pursed her lips in the same sort of pout Captain Tilney had displayed earlier. “After I see the Darcys to their chamber, I shall return directly.”

  The housekeeper was silent as she conducted them through the corridors and galleries. They reached their chamber, which remained free of any hint that they had even brought their personal attendants to Northanger. At least someone had started a fire while they were at dinner, so the room had warmed.

  “Our servants?” Darcy enquired again.

  “They will turn up sooner or later. Ring the bell if you require anything.”

  Elizabeth harbored little hope of anyone in the house actually addressing a need of theirs, especially as the housekeeper immediately left them to themselves without another word. She stared at the door through which Dorothy had so speedily departed. “Just when one thinks this place cannot get any stranger—”

  “We meet our host?” Darcy finished.

  She turned. “Him, too.” She shook her head in bewilderment at the whole evening. “One hesitates to criticize a man who has suffered such extensive injuries. But he is not at all what I expected a captain to be.”

  “Nor I.” He removed his coat and tugged at his cravat.

  “For a man of his years and occupation, I thought he would possess a graver manner — particularly after having suffered such serious injury. His speech and appearance formed an odd pairing. I suspect we were more afflicted by his accident than he was. Every time he turned his eye upon me, I felt a bit off balance. I was thankful when you begged leave to retire.”

  “I believed we had both answered enough of his questions for the present.”

  She went to her open trunk to retrieve her nightdress. “He certainly posed a great many of them, though I think most were to be expected. Your mother is the reason he invited us here, after all. Of course he would want to know more about her.” She frowned. “I thought I had seen my nightdress toward the top of this trunk when we were dashing around here earlier.”

  “I saw it there, too.” He draped his coat over the back of a chair and neatly folded the neckcloth.

  She continued rummaging through half-folded stacks of clothing. She had not realized she’d made such a mess of her maid’s packing in her haste to dress for dinner. “The captain is quite an enigma. I wonder what he looks like without the bandages. Oh — here is the nightdress, under my blue sarsenet. I thought that gown was in the other trunk.” She held the nightdress by its shoulders and shook it open. “It was a little unsettling, was it not, that the captain should talk about never knowing when a letter might turn up, and about letters inspiring people to search for forgotten things, when we so recently found that letter of your mother’s urging us to do just that?”

  “That is a matter Captain Tilney need never learn anything about.”

  “Agreed.”

  He regarded her current gown with dismay. “I suppose you require assistance with those buttons again.”

  “Do not complain. They are easier to open than close.”

  He indulged in a wicked grin. “I know.”

  She laughed, pleased by the display of Darcy’s less serious side. It had been little evident since their discovery of Lady Anne’s letter, and she welcomed its return. Perhaps engaging Dr. Severn had helped improve her husband’s humor by easing his anxiety. If so, she considered the change worth tolerating the physician’s haughtiness.

  “Shame on you, Mr. Darcy. We are in an abbey.”

  “A former abbey.”

  She came to him and offered him her back so that he could start on the buttons.

  “All right, a former abbey,” she said. “And one straight out of a horrid novel, I might add. The house is gloomy and dark, and we are not allowed to move about it freely. There seems to be a decided lack of servants — including our own. And for all we know, our host could be a phantom under those layers of bandages.”

  “I doubt a phantom would swear upon his soul quite so often.”

  Just as she finished changing into her nightdress, a thunderclap rent the air. It was another sound, however, that caused her to jump. “Did you hear that?”

  “I expect everyone within twenty miles heard it.”

  “Not the thunder — over there.” She pointed at the wall with the tapestry. She thought she had heard a thump from that quarter following the boom.

  “Perhaps the force of the thunder shook some object.”

  “Are you not going to examine the tapestry?”

  “I thought my investigative responsibility was limited to black veils.”

  “A tapestry is close enough.”

  He crossed the room. The large silk-and-wool tapestry depicted the Annunciation, and appeared old enough that it might have hung at Northanger in the days when the building had indeed been an abbey. Though the centuries had dulled most of the colors, the heavenly light radiating from the virgin and the archangel stood out brightly.

  Darcy caught the edge of the tapestry and pulled it to one side. To their surprise, the fabric parted down the center, revealing a door in the wall behind it. The door’s paneling matched that of the rest of the room, so that when closed — as it now was — it blended into the wall unnoticed. Such doors existed in homes throughout England; Pemberley had dozens.

  “It is an ordinary servants’ door, nothing more.” He opened it to reveal a small, dark landing and narrow stair. “The thunder must have rattled it. You have nothing to fear but your own imagination.” He closed the door and allowed the tapestry to fall back into place. When it hung properly, the center division was indiscernible.

  She let out a long breath and realized she had been more alarmed than she thought. The atmosphere of Northanger Abbey was starting to play havoc with her nerves. She longed to be home, in the comfort of Pemberley, away from strange houses, strange servants, and strange captains.

  “Darcy, despite our having discovered a servant’s door rather than a skeleton, I must confess that I have not felt entirely comfortable at Northanger Abbey since the moment we entered it. There is something not quite right here.”

  “Nothing a competent domestic staff could not address. Though
having now met Captain Tilney, I believe the master himself partially responsible for the lax standards. I suspect he fails to set the proper tone.”

  “Nevertheless, I cannot imagine enduring a full se’nnight of this.”

  “A premature departure would insult our host.”

  “Despite his assurances to the contrary, our presence is an imposition while he recovers.”

  “Even so, we cannot simply leave.”

  “Yes, we can. We can quit Northanger tomorrow morning — our trunks are even packed. Please, Darcy. We have been gone from Pemberley many weeks. I just want to go home.” Away from Captain Tilney, away from Lady Catherine, away from Wickham and Lydia and all the other vexations that had comprised their trip.

  Darcy studied her face a long time before replying. She knew that her request asked him to ignore his sense of propriety, to place her wishes above his natural inclination.

  “Very well,” he said finally. “In truth, now that we have met Captain Tilney, I am not certain I want to cultivate his acquaintance to a high degree. Nonetheless, we must take care to avoid giving offense.”

  She thanked him with an embrace. “We shall invent a plausible excuse.”

  Outside, the wind moaned its protest and rain furiously assaulted the windows. Though morning offered the promise of returning home, it would be a long night.

  “I suppose,” he said, stepping out of her arms, “an early departure reduces the likelihood of our finding a black veil requiring my examination.” He drew closed a set of curtains to shut out the storm.

  “Not necessarily. This room holds numerous draperies, two tablecloths, and a canopy to occupy you before we leave.”

  “Those also fall under my province?”

  “Your sphere includes all hanging fabric.”

  “All?” His eyes dropped to the hem of her nightdress. He released an exaggerated sigh and met her gaze. “With that much responsibility, I could be up half the night investigating.”