necessitated by Anne’s imminent betrothal. Even so, I had contrived a plan to terminate my obligation to Meg. Had she not traveled here, she would this week have received a letter informing her that John Garrick had died at sea. She would have inherited a sum large enough to attract a decent husband if she chose to remarry, or to maintain her comfortably for the rest of her life if she did not. Anne and I would have lived happily ever after, and no one would have suffered any injury.”
“No one but the grieving widow, the deceived wife, and anyone who values honesty in the world.”
“I can see you are unmoved. Very well. I am grown quite parched from all this talk and am going inside in search of a draught that will quench my thirst and fortify me for the forthcoming interviews with Lady Catherine and Sir Thomas that I anticipate with so much pleasure. You may join me if you like; otherwise, should anyone else materialize to condemn me for a past wrong, tell him to return within a few hours, at which time he may abuse me at his leisure. By then my ears should be able to accommodate fresh rancor.”
Darcy was so thoroughly sick of Mr. Crawford — his smoothness, his excuses — that it was with relief that he watched the door close behind him. He wandered out of the courtyard to the village green, where a stone bench offered a view of the inn’s entrance. From here he could remain alert to Mr. Crawford’s movements while achieving deliverance from the rake’s proximity.
Shortly, Elizabeth emerged. A minute’s scan revealed his position to her, and she joined him on the bench.
“I saw Mr. Crawford as I passed through the dining room. You have done with him?”
“For the present. How is Mrs. — ” He had been about to call his cousin “Mrs. Crawford,” an appellation which now elicited such feelings of abhorrence that he shuddered to pronounce it even in his own mind. “How is Anne?”
“Conscious, though I do not know how long she will maintain that state. The apothecary administered more laudanum. She was quite agitated by today’s revelations, as anyone would expect. Colonel Fitzwilliam remains with her. In his own mind he stands guard against any attempt Mr. Crawford might make to gain admittance, but I believe he also provides Anne a calming influence. His presence when she regained her senses seemed to offer steadiness on a day on which her life has been utterly upended.”
“Where is my aunt?”
“Closeted with Mr. Archer.”
“That conference will likely continue through the evening.” Lady Catherine must be desperate to mitigate the damage Mr. Crawford had wrought upon Anne, and was fortunate that Mr. Archer had arrived when he did. The solicitor was his aunt’s most trusted advisor — or henchman, depending upon one’s perspective. Whatever Lady Catherine bade, Mr. Archer undertook with alacrity. He obviated difficulties and made problems go away. Whether a matter was titanic or trifling, her ladyship had only to say, “Mr. Archer will handle it,” and whatever “it” was, was done.
How even Mr. Archer could meliorate the crisis at hand, however, Darcy could not imagine. As if voicing his thoughts, Elizabeth asked whether the situation could possibly end well for Anne.
They both knew the answer. “Once word of this circulates — and I do not see how exposure can be avoided — Anne is ruined,” he said. “Even should her marriage be ruled valid, the scandal of bigamy, compounded by the elopement, will forever taint it. And if she is in fact not married at all—”
“She never will be, to anybody,” Elizabeth finished. “Her virtue has been compromised. Though it happened through no fault of her own, no respectable gentleman will have her.” It was a sad statement of fact.
“While my allegiance of course rests with Anne,” Elizabeth continued, “I cannot help but also pity Mrs. Garrick. She, too, is an innocent victim of Mr. Crawford’s duplicity. What an awful discovery, to learn that not only might she have been living in a conjugal state with a man to whom she is not truly wed, but that the man himself is entirely a fiction. Even should the court determine that they
“The more I learn about him, the more I believe no one knows the real Mr. Crawford. He is another George Wickham, only with the financial wherewithal to indulge his vanity’s every whim. He is a player of roles, a chameleon, cold-blooded and able to present himself as anything necessary to protect his interests.”
“I wonder whether Mr. Crawford himself knows the real Henry Crawford.”
The coach upon which Meg had arrived prepared to leave. Passengers who had been waiting inside the inn now came out and boarded. It sped away, its team’s hooves thundering.
Darcy and Elizabeth returned to the inn. Darcy had expected to find Mr. Crawford still quenching his thirst, but he was not in the dining room. Mrs. Gower said that he had taken a new chamber for himself and retreated.
As the dining room was nearly empty, they decided to take their own meal while they could enjoy it in relative peace. Afterward, they stopped by Anne’s room.
Colonel Fitzwilliam opened the door. “She is sleeping,” he said quietly. “Though not well.”
“Is there aught we can do for her?” Darcy enquired.
He stepped to one side and reappeared with a valise. “Return this to Mr. Crawford, if you will. I do not want the sight of it to further distress Anne when she wakens.”
They took the bag and knocked at Mr. Crawford’s chamber. After a minute elapsed with no response, Darcy and Elizabeth exchanged uneasy glances.
“Perhaps your aunt summoned him?”
He did not reply, but knocked again more forcefully. There was no sound of movement within. He tested the door and found it locked.
They enlisted the aid of Mrs. Gower and her key ring, but they hardly need have. By the time she opened the door, Darcy knew what he would find.
An empty room.
Could he have been satisfied with the conquest of one amiable woman’s affections… there would have been every probability of success and happiness for him.
A search of the inn turned up no Henry Crawford. Or John Garrick. Or a gentleman by any name who resembled the master of Everingham. The pleasure of his company had not yet been requested by Lady Catherine and Mr. Archer, nor had he attempted to see either of his wives.
The hunt led to the livery, where a young stable hand reported that Mr. Crawford had ridden off about the same time the coach departed.
“Thought for a second I saddled the wrong horse for him, in all the hubbub,” the boy said.
“Was there some crisis?” Darcy asked.
“Oh, no, sir — nothin’ dire. Just a busy few minutes, what with puttin’ the fresh team on the coach, and Mr. Lautus wanting his horse right away, too, and both of ’em being bays, and Mr. Crawford wantin’ his mount brought round the back of the stable for some reason. Plus, Mr. Crawford’s horse weren’t his usual one — the chestnut he used to stable here when he stayed with Dr. Grant — so I had to ask the ostler which horse was his. When it shied from Mr. Crawford I thought maybe I’d got it wrong and the scarred bay belonged to the other man. But Mr. Crawford said no, the animal was his, and it was time he tested it.”
“In other words, he fled,” said Elizabeth when Darcy repeated the conversation to her and the rest of the party that had gathered in the dining room. Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Archer had joined her as soon as she and Darcy enquired whether they knew Mr. Crawford’s whereabouts. By the time they rapped on Meg’s door, they had formed a determined corps. Meg, upon hearing that Mr. Crawford was missing, waited as impatiently as they for news.
“Of course he fled,” said Meg. “He cannot stay in any one place for long.”
“I should never have allowed him to leave my sight.” Darcy’s whole bearing evinced self-reproach.
