The Intrigue at Highbury

that resulted in a heated argument with the lady of the house. The servant I spoke to today certainly remembers it.”

Mr. Deal shifted, turning his body so that he no longer faced Darcy, but Mr. Knightley. He did not, however, look at the magistrate. He stared at the clawed feet of the writing table as he brought up his maimed arm and absently rubbed the stump with his hand. His countenance bore an expression of defeat. And shades of fear.

Mr. Knightley rested his own arms on the table and formed a temple with his fingertips. “Mr. Deal, the servant’s testimony provides sufficient cause to arrest you tonight. If you wish to offer your own explanation of events, or have anything to say on your behalf, now would be the time to do so.”

Mr. Deal opened his mouth to speak, but no words issued forth.

“You had a row with Mrs. Churchill, after which she suddenly died. I doubt you fought over the price of lace,” Darcy said. “The servant told me that he had seen you loitering near the house for a se’nnight previous.”

Mr. Deal’s jaw tightened.

“What business brought you to the house?” Mr. Knightley asked. “How did you know Agnes Churchill?”

Mr. Deal raised his head. The look he gave Mr. Knightley was direct and unapologetic.

“She was my mother.”

Volume the Third in which Highbury becomes acquainted with a murderer

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure.

— Emma

Twenty-Eight

“Oh, Mrs. Churchill… What a blessing, that she never had any children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!”

— Isabella Knightley, Emma

“We are to believe that in her youth, Agnes Churchill secretly bore a child that she kept hidden for decades?” Though Mr. Knightley voiced the question, Darcy was equally incredulous.

“My birth was not a secret, only my life — even to her.”

“Mr. Deal, kindly explain yourself.”

As Mr. Knightley spoke, movement at the door caught Darcy’s attention. Elizabeth silently entered. Her expression indicated that she had something to tell him, but a brief exchange of unspoken communication indicated that it was not exigent. As he did not want to interrupt Mr. Deal or miss what he was about to say, Darcy motioned her to wait quietly. Mr. Deal’s back was to her; he had not seen her enter. Elizabeth’s attendance would not inhibit his admissions. Mr. Knightley gave no sign of disapproval and did not betray her presence.

“I have had, in truth, three mothers,” Mr. Deal said. “Only two, however, deserve the name. Though Agnes Churchill gave me life, she would have stolen it from me just as quickly had the nurse who attended my birth followed her orders. Thankfully, the nurse instead took me far away and gave me to her childless cousin.”

Since entering Highbury, Darcy had not heard one favorable word about Agnes Churchill. Still, he found it difficult to comprehend any mother’s being capable of what Mr. Deal alleged. Or any father. “Were you born out of wedlock?”

“Indeed, no. Edgar Churchill was my father, and my arrival, a little more than a year into their marriage, was entirely legitimate. But I learned this only recently. Growing up, I knew merely that I had been born in London to parents either unable or unwilling to keep a maimed child. I always imagined they were a kind but fortuneless couple with so many other mouths to feed that they could not afford to raise a son whose deformity would forever be a burden.”

“And the woman who did raise you?” Mr. Knightley asked.

“My adoptive parents were hardly wealthy themselves. They owned a modest shop in a village not unlike this one, and it was there that I learned my sums and began to develop the skills of a salesman. They also taught me my letters and manners, for they knew the life of a cripple would not be easy, and they wanted to prepare me as best they could to make my way in the world.”

“How, then, did you come to consort with gypsies?”

Mr. Deal leaned back, settling into both his chair and his story. His manner, however, did not have quite the ease with which he spun his trader’s patter. This time, instead of selling his wares, the peddler had to sell himself, and Darcy and Mr. Knightley were determined not to be taken in.

“When I was nine, scarlet fever claimed both of my parents, along with most of the village. Before she died, my mother told me that my birth name was Churchill, but cautioned me against trying to find my true parents. I would be safer and happier in the village, she said, running the shop with the guidance of a friend she asked to look out for me until I could manage independently. But her friend died, too. The outbreak left the village decimated; parish relief was exhausted, and nobody wanted the trouble of caring for a child not theirs, not whole, and of unknown origins. I sold everything I could not carry, packed my haversack, and left the village determined to somehow find my way to London.

“I had not journeyed a mile when I encountered a kumpania—a caravan — of gypsies moving through the area. They had heard of the contagion that claimed our village and, afraid I carried the fever, warned me to keep my distance. But they had among them a drabarni. In the Romany tongue, that word can mean a seer or a healer; Rawnie Zsofia was both. There are many pretenders to both arts among the gypsies, but if there is one who truly possesses the gifts of prophecy and medicine, it is Rawnie Zsofia. She told her fellow gypsies that they had nothing to fear, that I must join them. She was a young woman then, not yet thirty and unmarried, but already they respected her as if she were an elder.

“She asked me where I traveled. Her black eyes at once fascinated and frightened me — I was certain she could see straight into my mind and heart. I stammered out that I was seeking my mother. ‘You need look no farther,’ she replied. ‘I foresaw that you would come to me. From today, you are my chosen son.’ ” His voice grew thick as he recalled the meeting and repeated her words.

“And so I became a gypsy, with a gypsy life and a gypsy name. Among the Roma, Rawnie Zsofia’s protection was better than royal patronage, and they accepted me without question. My deformity was nothing to a people who had themselves endured centuries of persecution, and they taught me such skills as were within my power to make others overlook my missing hand. It was in this familia that I learned the art of storytelling. And a few other talents.”

What these other talents were, Mr. Deal did not specify. Darcy suspected that a number of them were of questionable legality.

“In turn,” the peddler continued, “I became the caravan’s middleman with the gorgios. My English features and respectable speech enabled me to move freely wherever we traveled, and I soon earned my keep by selling the gypsies’ wares in towns we camped near. As I grew older, the path of my journeys often divided from that of the caravan, sometimes for prolonged periods. But always I returned to my gypsy mother, the woman known to others as Rawnie Zsofia, but to me alone as dai.”