As soon as Lydia, now grown calmer, had been persuaded into bed Jane felt able to leave her in Belton’s care and joined Elizabeth. Together they hurried to the front door to watch the departure of the rescue party. Bingley, Mrs Reynolds and Stoughton were already there, and the five of them stared into the darkness until the chaise had become two distant and wavering lights and Stoughton turned to shut and bolt the door.
Mrs Reynolds turned to Elizabeth, “I will sit with Mrs Wickham until Dr McFee arrives, madam. I expect he will give her something to calm her and make her sleep. I suggest that you and Mrs Bingley go back to the music room to wait; you will be comfortable there and the fire has been made up. Stoughton will stay at the door and keep watch, and he will let you and Mrs Bingley know as soon as the chaise comes into sight. And if Mr Wickham and Captain Denny are discovered on the road, there will be room in the chaise for the whole party, although it will not perhaps be the most comfortable of journeys. I expect the gentlemen will need something hot to eat when they do return, but I doubt, madam, whether Mr Wickham and Captain Denny will wish to stay for refreshments. Once Mr Wickham knows that his wife is safe, he and his friend will surely want to continue their journey. I think Pratt said that they were on their way to the King’s Arms at Lambton.”
This was exactly what Elizabeth wanted to hear, and she wondered whether Mrs Reynolds was being deliberately reassuring. The thought that either Wickham or Captain Denny could have broken or sprained an ankle while struggling through the woodland and would need to be taken in, perhaps even for the night, was a deeply disturbing possibility. Her husband would never refuse shelter to an injured man, but to have Wickham under Pemberley’s roof would be abhorrent to him and could have consequences which she feared to contemplate.
Mrs Reynolds said, “I shall check, madam, and see that all the staff working on the preparation for the ball have now gone to bed. Belton, I know, is happy to stay up in case she is needed, and Bidwell is still working but he is absolutely discreet. No one need be told about this night’s adventure until the morning, and then only as much as is necessary.”
They were beginning to mount the stairs when Stoughton announced that the chaise sent for Dr McFee was returning and Elizabeth waited to receive him and briefly explain what had happened. Dr McFee never entered the house without being given a warm welcome. He was a middle-aged widower whose wife had died young leaving him her considerable fortune, and although he could afford to use his carriage, he preferred to do his rounds on horseback. With his square leather bag strapped to his saddle, he was a familiar figure in the roads and lanes of Lambton and Pemberley. Years of riding in all weathers had coarsened his features but, although he was not considered a handsome man, he had an open and clever face in which authority and benevolence were so united that he seemed destined by nature to be a country doctor. His medical philosophy was that the human body had a natural tendency to heal itself if patients and doctors did not conspire to interfere with its benign processes but, recognising that human nature demands pills and potions, he relied on draughts prepared by himself in which his patients had absolute faith. He had early learned that a patient’s relatives are less trouble if they are kept busy in the sufferer’s interest and had devised concoctions whose efficacy was in proportion to the time taken to prepare them. He was already known to his patient, as Mrs Bingley would call him in if husband, child, visiting friends or servants showed the slightest signs of indisposition and he had become a family friend. It was an immense relief to take him up to Lydia, who greeted him with a new outburst of recrimination and grief but became calmer almost as soon as he drew close to the bed.
Elizabeth and Jane were now free to begin their watch in the music room where the windows gave a clear view of the road to the woodland. Although both she and Jane tried to relax on the sofa, neither could resist walking ceaselessly to the window or moving restlessly about the room. Elizabeth knew they were making the same silent calculations and at last Jane put them into words.
“My dear Elizabeth, we cannot expect them to return very quickly. Let us suppose it takes them as long as fifteen minutes for Pratt to identify the trees where Captain Denny and Mr Wickham disappeared into the wood. They might then have to search for fifteen minutes or longer if the two gentlemen are indeed lost, and we should allow some time for returning to the chaise and making the return journey. And we must remember that one of them will need to call at Woodland Cottage to check that Mrs Bidwell and Louisa are safe. There are so many incidents which could hamper their journey. We must try to be patient; I calculate that it could be an hour before we see the chaise. And, of course, it is possible that Mr Wickham and Captain Denny finally found their way to the road and have decided to walk back to the inn.”
Elizabeth said, “I think they would hardly do that. It would be a long walk and they told Pratt that after Lydia was left at Pemberley they were proceeding to the King’s Arms at Lambton. Besides, they would need their luggage. And surely Wickham would want to ensure that Lydia had arrived here safely. But we can know nothing until the chaise returns. There is every hope that the two will be found on the road and we shall see the chaise soon. In the meantime, we had better get such rest as we can.”
But rest was impossible and they found themselves constantly walking to and from the window. After half an hour they lost hope of a quick return of the rescue party but still stood in a silent agony of apprehension. Above all, remembering the gunshots, they dreaded to see the chaise moving as slowly as a hearse with Darcy and the colonel following on foot with the loaded stretcher. At best it could be carrying Wickham or Denny, not seriously injured but unable to tolerate the jolting of the chaise. Both tried resolutely to put out of their minds the vision of a shrouded body and the appalling task of explaining to a distraught Lydia that her worst fears had been realised and that her husband was dead.
They had been waiting an hour and twenty minutes and, weary with standing, had turned away from the window when Bingley appeared with Dr McFee.
The doctor said, “Mrs Wickham was exhausted both with anxiety and with prolonged weeping and I have given her a sedative. She should soon be sleeping peacefully, I hope for some hours. The maid Belton and Mrs Reynolds are with her. I can make myself comfortable in the library and check on her condition later. There is no need for anyone to attend me.”
Elizabeth thanked him warmly and said that, indeed, that was what she would wish. And when the doctor accompanied by Jane had left the room, she and Bingley went again to the window.
Bingley said, “We should not give up hope that all is well. The shots could have been a poacher after rabbits, or perhaps Denny fired his gun as a warning to someone lurking in the woods. We must not allow our imagination to conjure up images which reason must surely tell us are imaginary. There can be nothing in the woodland to tempt anyone with evil intent towards either Wickham or Denny.”
Elizabeth did not reply. Now even the familiar and well-loved landscape looked alien, the river winding like molten silver under the moon until a sudden gust of wind set it trembling into life. The road stretched in what seemed an eternal emptiness in a phantom landscape, mysterious and eerie, where nothing human could ever live or move. And it was just as Jane returned that, at last, the chaise came into sight, at first no more than a moving shape defined by the faint flicker of the distant lights. Resisting the temptation to dash to the door, they stood intently waiting.
Elizabeth could not keep the despair from her voice. She said, “They are moving slowly. If all were well they would come at speed.”
At that thought she could wait at the window no longer but ran downstairs, Jane and Bingley at her side. Stoughton must have seen the chaise from the ground floor window for the front door was already ajar. He said, “Would it not be wise, madam, to return to the music room? Mr Darcy will bring you the news as soon as they arrive. It is too cold to wait outside and there is nothing any of us can do until the chaise arrives.”
Elizabeth said, “Mrs Bingley and I would prefer to wait at the door, Stoughton.”
“As you wish, madam.”
Together with Bingley they went out into the night and stood waiting. No one spoke until the chaise was a few yards from the door and they saw what they had feared, the shrouded shape on the stretcher. There was a sudden gust of wind, tossing Elizabeth’s hair around her face. She felt herself falling but managed to clutch at Bingley who put a supporting arm round her shoulders. At that moment the wind lifted the corner of the blanket and they saw the scarlet of an officer’s jacket.
Colonel Fitzwilliam spoke directly to Bingley. “You can tell Mrs Wickham that her husband is alive. Alive but unfit to be seen. Captain Denny is dead.”
Bingley said, “Shot?”
It was Darcy who replied. “No, not shot.” He turned to Stoughton, “Fetch the outdoor and indoor keys to the gunroom. Colonel Fitzwilliam and I will carry the body across the north courtyard and lay it on the gunroom table.”
