“Who?”
“Mrs. Wickham’s companion at Hemmings.”
His brow cleared. “Oh, her! I only met her the once, and scarce recollect being given her name.”
“In which case, you know very little of her?”
“Nothing whatsoever, ma’am. Mr. Spottiswoode knows more.”
“Then I shall apply to Mr. Spottiswoode.”
“That would be best, ma’am.”
“You’ve been at Pemberley longer than I have, so you must be aware it’s a hive of gossip. Have you heard any rumors about Miss Maplethorpe?”
“Only that Mr. Spottiswoode was lucky to find her.”
“Thank you, Mr. Skinner. You may go.”
And I have not advanced a friendship there, thought Elizabeth. Why does Fitz esteem him so?
She went in search of Matthew Spottiswoode, an easy business, as he never left his desk unless accompanied by a Darcy. Elizabeth was as fond of him as she was put off by Ned Skinner, and could not credit that he was guilty of any transgression in the matter of the hiring of Lydia’s companion. Only Jane’s peculiar reaction to the woman had spurred her to make enquiries, for Jane was the world’s least suspicious creature. Of course Elizabeth might have gone to Fitz, but he was her last possible resort. They could not meet these days, it seemed, without quarrelling, and, having been so shockingly insulted by Lydia, he would not welcome an older sister’s questions. Lydia was also costing him a great deal of money.
“Matthew,” she said, entering the steward’s office, “tell me what you know about Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe.”
A man in his late fifties, Matthew Spottiswoode had spent his entire life in service to a Darcy of Pemberley. First, Fitz’s father as an under-steward, and then Fitz as an under-steward followed by elevation to the stewardship itself. His education was somewhat lacking, yet eminently suited to his profession, as he was brilliant at arithmetic, wrote a literate letter in a copperplate hand, kept impeccable books, and had the sort of brain that stored away facts which he could trot out at a moment’s notice. He was a happily married man who lived on the estate and had the felicity of seeing all his children in service to Pemberley.
“The lady who is caring for Mrs. Wickham?” Mr. Spottiswoode asked now, having no trouble identifying her.
“The very same. Mr. Skinner sent me to you.”
“Yes, I hired her through the employment agency for ladies in York that I am accustomed to use-Miss Scrimpton’s.” He looked at his mistress shrewdly. “It was a very hasty business, but I was singularly fortunate, Mrs. Darcy. The agency had just that moment accepted Miss Maplethorpe as employable. Since Mr. Darcy was very anxious that Mrs. Wickham be settled at Hemmings immediately, I went through Miss Maplethorpe’s recommendations, and found them so suited to our needs that I did not bother to look farther afield. Miss Scrimpton had no other lady on her lists even remotely suitable.”
“Kindly tell me about her recommendations, Matthew.”
“Well, she had letters from persons such as Sir Peter Oersted, Viscount Hansbury, Mrs. Bassington-Smyth and Lord Summerton. Her two actual employers were first-for many years-the Bedlam on Broadmoor, where she supervised the female inmates and their nurses. A very glowing document! Her second place was in eastern Yorkshire, caring for a relative of the Marquess of Ripon. This patient, a lady, had just died. The persons who gave her personal letters of recommendation had all suffered a relative in the Bedlam.” He coughed apologetically. “You understand, Mrs. Darcy, that those having insane relatives are peculiarly sensitive about the fact. I did not feel it politic to bother them, as their letters were all genuine, I do assure you.”
“I see. Thank you, Matthew.”
Well, that was that. Miss Maplethorpe was cleared of all suspicion. Jane must have imagined the look-or, more likely, Lydia had been insufferably rude to her companion, and not endeared herself.
The noise of merriment from the schoolroom made her smile; she opened its door to find Owen having tea with the girls, and wondered if he had succumbed to the charms of Georgie. But if he had, she decided later, he was concealing it well enough to be called crafty, and she did not think him crafty. The real reason behind the visits, she realised, was pity. Well, something had to be done, no matter what Fitz said! Owen may not be in danger of falling in love, but her girls were so inexperienced that she could not say the same for them. Susie positively melted when Owen looked at her, and Anne was not much better.
Ned Skinner left the house a worried man. What on earth had pushed Elizabeth Darcy to make enquiries about Mirry? Not anything Lydia could have told her, and the job on the bars had been excellent. The workmen had quietly replaced every brick with a hole in it.
The bars would have to remain off, a shame. Mrs. Darcy and Mrs. Bingley would visit Lydia often, and Lydia, Mirry had informed him in a wrathful note brought by courier, was
What could be done about Lydia? As far as Ned was concerned, only one fact mattered: that she was out to ruin Fitz’s public career. She had said it, and she meant it. But it could not be allowed to happen, no matter how drastic the solution might have to be.
Of course Fitz and Spottiswoode were unaware of Mirry’s true identity. Men like Fitz, Ned knew painfully well, were too exalted to understand how some aspects of the world functioned. His own function was to shield Fitz from all things beneath his notice, and when Fitz-in a tearing hurry-not like him at all-decided Lydia had to have a companion, Ned had known how to engineer the choice. A true lady’s companion, Ned knew (though Fitz did not), would never be able to restrain a tartar like Lydia.
The woman Ned had in mind was Miriam Matcham, who ran a brothel in Sheffield that he had known from birth. Though she informed him that she could give him only a few months, she was paid more than her brothel duties earned her in a year. She put him in touch with a man who could forge all manner of documents, and together they invented a history for Mirry. Broadmoor was wild and remote, why shouldn’t it have a Bedlam? And who in Derbyshire would know whether it did, or didn’t?
Now Mrs. Darcy, of all people, was asking questions! Poking her nose where it didn’t belong. As if Lydia herself were not enough of a problem! Cunning as a fox, unscrupulous and immoral, without the steel of a Mirry or the brain of an Elizabeth Darcy.
He went to Hemmings to find out what exactly was going on, a long ride that instinct told him not to break by staying at an inn, though he had not, as yet, put together the pieces of a murderous jigsaw in his mind. He slept for some hours in a field where Jupiter could graze, then went on. And for every mile of the way his mind dwelled on Lydia, how to solve the terrible problem she had become. If she could stop drinking at will, then she was very dangerous, could not be shut up the way Mrs. Bennet had been, in a delicious haze of comfort and cronies. His thoughts continued to skirt around the ultimate alternative, but by the time he reached Hemmings the pieces made an appalling sense, and he was convinced it was the only alternative. Remained but when, and how.
“Oh, Ned, I am so glad to see you!” Miss Maplethorpe cried when he slid into the house through the back door, having left Jupiter in a grove of trees with a loosened girth, a horse blanket against the dewy chills, and sweet grass to tear at.
“Is she, or is she not, permanently drunk?” he asked in the kitchen, with no ears listening.
“As far as I can tell, she’s more often sober than drunk, but she’s an actress would make a fortune on the stage. At the moment she’s sober and strutting around as if she owned this place. But what am I to do if she decides to go for a walk?”
“Go with her, Mirry.”
“And what do I do if she decides to drive into Leek? Or Stoke-on-Trent?”
“Go with her. But that isn’t what you’re asking in truth, is it? You want to know if you can use force.”
“Yes, I do.”
When she deemed his silence overly long, she dug him in the ribs. “Well? Am I to use force, or not?”
“Not. I don’t know what you did to make
“Oh, shit! I
“So much money for too little work, you mean?”
