North by Northanger

“You always were a practiced letter writer,” Mr. Tilney said.

“Just as well you did leave early, though,” said Mr. Thorpe. “That plaguesome old butler returned before we were expecting him and we had to brush off.”

Darcy could scarcely believe his ears. They had plunged him into a morass of dire legal difficulties simply to delay his return home for a few days? Moreover, they appeared utterly insensible to the consequences of their actions. “Do you comprehend that I faced hanging for the crime of which I stood accused?”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Mr. Thorpe. “You are a gentleman. What is the law to you? It will not give a gentleman trouble.”

“We shall see whether you still believe that come the morrow.”

“Mrs. Stanford,” said Mr. Tilney, “if you wanted something by which to remember my brother, why did you not simply take the diamonds for yourself while you were at Northanger Abbey? You could have dispensed with the hunt for the statuettes altogether.”

“The ivories held more value—sentimental value.” Isabella adopted an innocent expression. “Besides, if I had kept those diamonds, that would be stealing. The statuettes, in addition to having been promised to me, were just lying around somewhere waiting to be found. We would have been rescuing them, really.”

Darcy yet held his mother’s statuette in his hand. “As you rescued this one?”

“I cannot imagine why that servant girl thrust that statue at us. Of course that one is yours. There must have been some misunderstanding.”

Much as he wanted to interrogate the party further, Darcy was anxious to return home. He was also in serious doubt as to whether any of the accomplices had anything useful to say. He and Mr. Tilney determined that they would all proceed to the inn at Lambton, where they could send for the apothecary and the constable. The conspirators rode in Mr. Tilney’s post chariot while Darcy followed on horseback.

By the time everybody emerged from Mr. Tilney’s carriage at the inn, the party had apparently become engaged in a quarrel over who was to blame for their having been caught.

“We would not have overturned if you had not insisted upon driving.”

“It was not my driving, it was the deuced road!”

“Had we traveled post, Mr. Darcy would not have overtaken us.”

“You are the one who insisted we stop at Lambton to retrieve our belongings... ”

Darcy was rather glad for his own solitary journey to the inn. Henry Tilney appeared the way Darcy felt after an hour spent with his mother-in-law.

The conspirators entered the inn. After asking a servant to send for the constable, Mr. Tilney shook his head in bemusement and looked at Darcy. “One wonders how three such shallow, selfish people managed to devise a plot of such serious consequence.”

“One wonders how the three of them managed to cooperate long enough to execute it.”

“It must relieve you to apprehend them and settle the matter of the diamonds. Now they will stand trial in Gloucestershire instead of you.”

“I am indeed glad for it, but I confess to distraction. When I left Pemberley to pursue them, Mrs. Darcy had just been brought to childbed.”

Henry’s face lit with genuine delight. “That is capital news. May I congratulate you on a son, or on a daughter?”

“I do not yet know.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Darcy! You should be at home, not chasing ruffians about the countryside. Why did you not say something sooner?”

“I did not want to leave you alone with our merry trio.”

“I have matters well in hand, and shall come to Pemberley in a few days with a report, if you like. But for now I bid you adieu. Get thee to your wife, my friend.”

Thirty-Nine

How well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused over his face, became him.

— Pride and Prejudice

He arrived too late.

The moment he entered the house, Darcy sensed that something within it had changed. Elizabeth’s trial had ended. Though he had won her prize back for her, returned with the ivory in hand, he had not reached her in time.

And she had come through her travail just fine.

His heart nearly stopped — and his breathing did — upon seeing her again. And upon beholding his child for the first time.

’Twas the darkest hour of night when he passed into the bedchamber. No sign remained of the struggle this room had witnessed just hours earlier. All in the household, save Mrs. Godwin and a nurse attending mother and child, had gone to bed. He was spared any noisy effusions of Mrs. Bennet or blunt declarations from Lydia and could behold his wife in quiet as she lightly dozed, a tiny bundle at her side.

“They are both well,” Mrs. Godwin assured him. “It was an easy birth — if birth can ever be called easy.”

“Have I a son or daughter?”

“I shall let her tell you.”

“I do not wish to wake her.”

“She wants to see you.”

Mrs. Godwin and the nurse left them in privacy. He approached the bed, beside which a single candle burned. Elizabeth’s arm encircled the baby, wrapped so snugly in a small blanket that he could see only the child’s head — closed eyes, wrinkled cheeks, an impossibly tiny nose, tufts of dark downy hair. Carefully, afraid he would somehow break the delicate form, he lifted his child from the bed and into his arms.

So light. So fragile. So utterly dependent.

At the removal of the infant, Elizabeth’s maternal instincts awakened, and so did she. Her lips formed a smile, and her eyes held a content, if sleepy, expression.

“I see you have met your daughter.”

A daughter. The most wondrous word in the English language.

“You smile — your ordeal was not so terrible that you resent me as its cause?”

“I can think of more pleasant ways to spend an evening, but none that yield so great a reward.”

“I have something for you.” Shifting his daughter to one arm, he produced the ivory. “I am sorry I did not return with it in time.”

She accepted the statuette from him. “I am sorry I sent you on such a desperate errand when you no doubt would have preferred to remain here.”

“As the alternative was waiting with Lydia, I was glad for the occupation. And glad to have rescued the Madonna from the three villains who kidnapped her, before they had an opportunity to sell or damage the ivory.”

“Though it would have been a comfort to have your mother’s treasure with me during the birth, I found strength in other sources. A skilled midwife. My own determination. Your devotion. Even this.” She traced a finger over the scrap of fabric yet secured to her wrist. “If I could not have the statuette itself, at least I could keep its mantle close to me.” She removed the cloth now and wrapped the ivory back within it. “I also had my mother, do not forget. For a short time, at least.”

“That did not last?”

“She did not last. Just as I was about to suggest she return to my father and Lydia, she fretted herself into a fainting fit.”