night’s events and what they had in mind.
Fitzwilliam listened in silence, then said, “You are mounting quite an impressive expedition to satisfy one hysterical woman. I daresay the fools have lost themselves in the woodland, or one of them has tripped over a tree root and sprained an ankle. They are probably even now limping to Pemberley or the King’s Arms, but if the coachman also heard shots we had better go armed. I’ll get my pistol and join you in the chaise. If the stretcher is needed you could do with an extra man and a horse would be an encumbrance if we have to go into the depths of the woodland, which seems likely. I will bring my pocket compass. Two grown men getting themselves lost like children is stupid enough, five would be ludicrous.”
He mounted his horse and quickly trotted towards the stables. The colonel had offered no explanation of his absence and Darcy, in the trauma of the evening’s events, had given no thought to him. He reflected that wherever Fitzwilliam had been, his return was inopportune if he were to hold up the enterprise or demand information and explanations which no one could yet supply, but it was true that they could do with an extra man. Bingley would stay to look after the women, and he could, as always, rely on Stoughton and Mrs Reynolds to ensure that all doors and windows were secure and to cope with any inquisitive servants. But there was no undue delay. His cousin was back within a few minutes and he and Alveston lashed the stretcher to the chaise, the three men got in and Pratt mounted the leading horse.
It was then that Elizabeth appeared and ran up to the chaise. “We’re forgetting Bidwell. If there’s any trouble in the woodland, he should be with his family. Perhaps he is already. Has he left to go home yet do you know, Stoughton?”
“No madam. He is still polishing the silver. He was not expecting to go home until Sunday. Some of the indoor staff are still working, madam.”
Before Elizabeth could reply, the colonel got quickly out of the chaise saying, “I’ll fetch him. I know where he will be – in the butler’s pantry,” and he was gone.
Glancing at her husband’s face, Elizabeth saw his frown and knew that he was sharing her surprise. Now that the colonel had arrived it was apparent that he was determined to take control of the enterprise in all its aspects, but she told herself that this was not perhaps surprising; he was, after all, accustomed to assuming command in moments of crisis.
He returned quickly, but without Bidwell, saying, “He was so distressed at leaving his work half-finished that I did not press the matter. As usual on the night before the ball Stoughton has already arranged for him to stay overnight. He will be working all day tomorrow, and his wife will not expect to see him until Sunday. I told him that we would check that all is well at the cottage. I hope I have not exceeded my authority.”
Since the colonel had no authority over the Pemberley servants to be exceeded, there was nothing Elizabeth could say.
At last they moved off, watched from the door by a small group consisting of Elizabeth, Jane, Bingley and the two servants. No one spoke and when, minutes later, Darcy looked back, the great door of Pemberley had been closed and the house stood as if deserted, serene and beautiful in the moonlight.
2
No part of the Pemberley estate was neglected but, unlike the arboretum, the woodland to the north-west neither received nor required much attention. Occasionally a tree would be felled to provide winter fuel or timber for structural repairs to the cottages, and bushes inconveniently close to the path would be cut back or a dead tree chopped down and the trunk hauled away. A narrow lane rutted by the carts delivering provisions to the servants’ entrance led from the gatehouse to the wide courtyard at the rear of Pemberley, beyond which were the stables. From the courtyard, a door to the back of the house led to a passage and the gunroom and steward’s office.
The chaise, burdened with the three passengers, the stretcher and two bags belonging to Wickham and Captain Denny, was slow-moving and all three passengers sat in silence which, in Darcy, was close to an unaccountable lethargy. Suddenly the chaise shook to a stop. Rousing himself, Darcy looked out and felt the first sharp rain stinging his face. It seemed to him that a great fissured cliff face hung over them, bleak and impenetrable which, even as he looked, trembled as if about to fall. Then his mind took hold of reality, the fissures in the rock widened to become a gap between closely planted trees, and he heard Pratt urging the unwilling horses onto the woodland path.
Slowly they moved into loam-smelling darkness. They had been travelling under the eerie light of the full moon which seemed to be sailing before them like some ghostly companion, at one moment lost and then reappearing. After some yards, Fitzwilliam said to Darcy, “We would be better on foot from now on. Pratt may not be precise in memory and we need to keep a close watch for the place where Wickham and Denny entered the woodland and where they may have come out. We can see and hear better outside the chaise.”
They got out of the chaise carrying their lanterns and, as Darcy had expected, the colonel took his place at the front. The ground was softened with fallen leaves so that their footfalls were muted and Darcy could hear little but the creak of the chaise, the harsh breathing of the horses and the rattle of the reins. In places the boughs overhead met to form a dense arched tunnel from which only occasionally he could glimpse the moon, and in this cloistered darkness all he could hear of the wind was a faint rustling of the thin upper twigs, as if they were still the habitation of the chirping birds of spring.
As always when he walked in the woodland, Darcy’s thought turned to his great-grandfather. The charm of the woodland for that long-dead George Darcy must have lain partly in the wood’s diversity, its secret footpaths and unexpected vistas. Here in his remote tree-guarded refuge where the birds and small animals could come unimpeded to his home, he could believe that he and nature were one, breathing the same air, guided by the same spirit. As a boy playing in the woodland, Darcy had always sympathised with his great-grandfather and he had early realised that this seldom-mentioned Darcy, who had abdicated his responsibility to the estate and the house, was an embarrassment to his family. Before shooting his dog, Soldier, and himself, he had left a brief note asking to be buried with the animal, but this impious request had been ignored by the family and George Darcy lay with his forebears in the enclosed family section of the village churchyard, while Soldier had his own woodland grave with a granite headstone carved simply with his name and the date of his death. From childhood Darcy had been aware that his father had feared that there might be some inherited weakness in the family and had early indoctrinated in him the great obligations which would lie on his shoulders once he inherited, responsibilities for both the estate and those who served and depended on it, which no elder son could ever reject.
Colonel Fitzwilliam set a slow pace, swinging his lantern from side to side and occasionally calling a halt so that he could take a closer look at the occluding foliage, searching for any signs that someone had broken through. Darcy, aware that the thought was ungenerous, reflected that the colonel, exercising his prerogative to take charge, was probably enjoying himself. Trudging in front of Alveston, Darcy walked in a bitterness of spirit broken from time to time by surges of anger, like the rush of an incoming tide. Was he never to be free of George Wickham? These were the woods in which the two of them had played as boys. It was a time he could once recall as carefree and happy, but had that boyhood friendship really been genuine? Had the young Wickham even then been harbouring envy, resentment and dislike? Those rough boyish games and mock fights which sometimes left him bruised – had Wickham perhaps been deliberately over-boisterous? The petty, hurtful remarks now rose into his consciousness, beneath which they had lain untroubling for years. How long had Wickham been planning his revenge? The knowledge that his sister had only avoided social disgrace and ignominy because he was rich enough to buy her would-be seducer’s silence was so bitter that he almost groaned aloud. He had tried to put his humiliation out of mind in the happiness of his marriage but now it returned, made stronger by the years of repression, an intolerable burden of shame and self-disgust made more bitter by the knowledge that it was only his money that had induced Wickham to marry Lydia Bennet. It had been a generosity born of his love for Elizabeth, but it had been his marriage to Elizabeth which had brought Wickham into his family and had given him the right to call Darcy brother and made him an uncle to Fitzwilliam and Charles. He might have been able to keep Wickham out of Pemberley but he could never banish him from his mind.
After five minutes they reached the path which led from the road to Woodland Cottage. Trodden regularly over the years, it was narrow but not hard to find. Before Darcy had time to speak, the colonel moved at once towards it, lantern in hand. Handing his firearm to Darcy, he said, “You had better have this. I am not expecting any
