The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Elizabeth.”

“Is it very bad?”

“The worst. Lydia is dead.”

How peculiar! It had struck him like a thunderbolt, whereas she looked almost unaffected save for her eyes, which widened. “Oh! I must have had some idea of it, because it comes the way an old friend does, an old friend one hasn’t seen for years. I’ve been waiting, but knowing too. I just-felt that all was not right. Ned noticed it this morning.”

“You don’t usually suffer from premonitions.”

“I agree, I don’t. Every time Charlie was ill, I was wrong!” She produced a smile and glued it to her mouth, which felt as if set in stone. “I used to bury him regularly. But he always got better. I used to fancy that he didn’t care for life over-much, but knew that if he died I would die as well, and it was knowing that made him recover.”

“A rather muddled explanation, my dear.”

“I daresay it is. Despair and Charlie were tied together in those days, yet look at him now. He has shed his childhood like an old skin. I am so happy for him-and for you, Fitz.”

Only a few candles burned, making a halo of fiery light around her head and throwing her face into shadow. He screwed up his eyes in an effort to see her clearly, and thought, My sight is going. “I have been unkind to Charlie,” he said, voice not as steady as he wished. “Unkind to you as well, Elizabeth.”

“You are unkindest to yourself, Fitz. Tell me everything that happened-and please, I beg you, don’t spare me. Once George Wickham was dead, it was only a question of time before Lydia died. How she loved him! Of all five of us, she loved best and most. Without him, she had no reason for being.”

“It wasn’t suicide, even in the remotest way. She fell victim to a nest of thieves, though I smell several rats. Suffice it to say that Miss Maplethorpe was an imposter, her manservants her minions, and that they planned to rob Hemmings-furniture, silver, carriage, horses, and jewellery. The things you and Jane gave her when she went to Hemmings. Lydia must have surprised them in the act, and they murdered her. Apparently she was drunk at the time. The doctor said she reeked of wine and spirits. They suffocated her with a pillow, so they may have wanted to make her death seem a natural one. Certainly that is out of the question.”

“Jane took against Miss Maplethorpe,” said Elizabeth. “Jane, who never takes against anyone! The day we saw her, Lydia wasn’t drunk, though pretending to be in front of Miss Maplethorpe. She was full of some tale about bars over the windows, but there were none, nor had there been. I looked closely. The hold on sobriety is frail, I am told, so perhaps, not succeeding in persuading Jane or me about the bars, she went back to her old ways. I don’t know, except that, like you, I smell rats.”

“Elizabeth, there were bars over the windows,” Fitz said, his face horrified. “They were supposed to be removed before Lydia was sent to Hemmings. It had been the home of a madman. Why didn’t Miss Maplethorpe explain?” He took her hands, she thought absently. “I keep asking myself, why Hemmings? How could a nest of thieves plan such a thing when Lydia was moved there in such a hurry? It was less than a week between that dreadful scene in the dining room and her removal to Hemmings! Yet they were ready with the lady’s companion, and their plan-how is that possible?”

“And Lydia was murdered? Fitz, it makes no sense!”

“Perhaps Miss Maplethorpe enlisted with Miss Scrimpton’s agency prepared to take the first opportunity that came her way-at the moment my mind inclines that way, for it does make some sense. The jewels were worth about three thousand pounds, if Jane’s pearls are the ones I believe she gave away. The furniture and silver would not be worth more than a thousand pounds, though the carpets were rather fine-I bought them new for two thousand. The barouche and its pair of matched horses represent the most valuable thing they stole-about four thousand. The pony and trap was negligible.”

“A total of about ten thousand pounds,” said Elizabeth.

“Yes. A good haul, I suppose, even for professional thieves, who will certainly know where to dispose of their loot for the best price. If they lose about a third to the fellow who buys from them, then they have indeed prospered. Miss Maplethorpe will pay her men two hundred pounds apiece, and emerge about five thousand pounds the richer. It may be that she saw far grander pickings, since my name was associated with the position. I don’t know, except that she certainly displayed no patience. Scarcely a day on the agency’s books, and she was on her way to Hemmings.”

He began to stroke the smooth skin of the backs of her hands rhythmically; it calmed and soothed him, and he wondered why they had taken to quarrelling every time they met. A part of the trouble, he knew, was his inability to tolerate her perpetual teasing, the habit she had of making fun of him. In the days when his passion had burned white-hot, he had suffered it, divining that for some reason beyond his understanding she thought it did him good to be teased, tormented, made fun of. But the longer they were married, the harder it had become to bear this capricious flightiness, and finally he had begun to round upon her each time she belittled him. At this moment, however, she was not moved to mock, so it was very pleasant to be with her, feel his blue devils dissipate.

“You have a very powerful mind, Fitz,” she was saying. “Bend it to this conundrum. There must be a better answer! When you find it, we can rest.” She moved her head, the halo dissolved and he saw that her beautiful eyes were filled with tears. “Poor, poor little Lydia! Such a bad business, right from the beginning. Who believes in fifteen-year-old love? We did not, Jane and I. Nor did Papa, though he was too indolent, too indifferent to his duties as a parent to curb her. We judged her elopement moral laxity, but I see now that it was the only way she could keep her George. She loved him with every part of her! And he was such a villain, such a liar. His father did him no service, to raise him alongside you as if the pair of you were equals. His expectations were nonexistent, while you were heir to one of the largest fortunes in England. I remember him from Longbourn days as naпve, grossly under- educated-yes, I know he went to Cambridge, but he learned nothing there, or at his school. Certainly his entire plan was to use his looks and charm to marry money, but at every turn he was foiled. So I suppose with Lydia came a certain measure of security, through our connection to you.”

“You don’t believe that I was instrumental in sending him to his death?” he asked.

“Of course not! He was a soldier by profession and died in battle, so Lydia said.”

“Only three sorts of soldier die in battle, Elizabeth. One is the brave man who dares all. One is the hapless wretch who stands in front of a ball or a bayonet. And one is the lazy cur who finds a secluded spot to sleep the battle away-without first ascertaining whether his spot is in range of the enemy’s artillery.”

“Is the third way how George Wickham died?”

“So I’m told by his superiors. But Lydia will never know that now.” He got up, kissed her hands. “Thank you for your understanding, Elizabeth. Her body is coming to Pemberley. We’ll bury her here.”

“No, it must be Meryton. Jane and I will take her.”

“With Mary still missing? Are you sure?”

“You’re right. Oh, she will hate to be buried here!”

“She can always vent her spleen at me by haunting Pemberley. She’ll have plenty of company.”

A groom from Pemberley located Charlie, Angus and Owen in Chapel-en-le-Frith, a village as old as its Norman name, and situated an easy ride from the cave district, which was why Charlie had chosen it. As the groom caught them before they set out for a day spent underground, they abandoned their plans and rode home.

Apart from forging a strong friendship, Charlie and Angus had a liking for caves in common-a liking that Owen refused to share. As his revulsion was more fear than detestation, he was, the other two informed him frankly, a dashed nuisance, especially when the cave under exploration was more a tunnel than a chamber. So Owen rarely went caving; he preferred to pass his time at Pemberley with the Darcy girls. With them he felt useful; he could ride (astride) with Georgie, function as a candid critic of Susie’s art, help Anne with her Classics, and try to talk Cathy out of some harebrained prank sure to see her sent supperless to bed. As luck would have it, the day they were sent for was a caving day for Owen, who had ridden from Pemberley at dawn and joined his two friends for breakfast. Now they were all returning to Pemberley-what a relief!

All three were mystified by Fitz’s curt summons. The groom knew nothing, and had been ordered not to ride back with them, which suited the trio very well-they could speculate aloud in peace. From which it could be deduced that they did not ride in an abstracted worry, but rather with an eye to any likely hole in a hillside or gorge, of which there were many, though not all proved to be more than a single small room. Angus had devised a system whereby they didn’t make the mistake of exploring the same opening twice; those they had examined bore a bright red rag firmly fixed outside.