Nameless by Julie Cooper

Chapter Eighteen

The discovery of the dead body was really the fault of the fire, but I will admit to a share of the blame. A storm had blown in from the south, bringing no rain but dreadful winds and lightning. I was tempted to watch it rage over the peaks from the upper floor of the cliffside wing, but I knew my husband would not find that as entertaining as I.

Instead, we were enjoying our after-dinner tea with the Bingleys in the library. We had eaten early, as had become our habit; all of us, it seemed now, preferred to retire while the night was still young. Mr Bingley was the restless one that evening, staring out the window even though darkness had just fallen. In spite of Pemberley’s thick-walled embrace, the wind made its presence known inside, shrieking down the chimney. Suddenly he cried out, “I say, the woods are ablaze!”

We all dashed to the window where he stood and sure enough, what appeared to be flames rose in the distance. Mr Darcy cursed.

Georgiana and I were left behind while our husbands tore from the house, and though we watched diligently—even trying other windows for better views—we could not see much of anything. I worried for the trees—how it would hurt my heart if the woods were destroyed! But we saw no sign of the fire worsening or growing larger, and finally the flames disappeared completely. It was hours before they returned, wet, filthy, soot-streaked, and Mr Darcy looking grave.

“It was Thorncroft!” Mr Bingley announced excitedly, evidently energised by the whole experience. “We stopped the forest from catching, though. Would have been a wicked loss of timber, eh?”

“Lightning strike?” I asked.

“So it appears,” Mr Darcy answered.

“Williams had fifty men there, but quick. Darcy had me ditch digging! I will have blisters tomorrow! Thorncroft was lost entirely, it was immediately apparent, but that wicked wind! It was a constant battle against sparks and cinders, but the forest is saved.”

We all retired shortly thereafter. I gave my husband plenty of time to bathe and join me, as he always did. However, it finally became apparent that this evening would be an exception. I thought about leaving him to his brooding, but concluded that he could brood just as well with me as without me, and entered his chambers.

He was not there. I was puzzled for only a moment—and then, somehow, I knew.

I returned to my room for a shawl and candle. Then I made my way through darkened corridors to the nearest stair leading to the cliffside wing. As I suspected, the door to the upper landing was unlocked; a draughty blast of chilled air met me as I entered, nearly extinguishing my candle, the cold pinching at me.

His rooms were empty, but I walked directly through them; I had not truly expected to find him within. The ghosts that haunted him were never to be found in his own spaces. Unsurprisingly, he stood staring out into the blackness from the huge, dramatic windows of the mistress’s chamber. Jagged lightning streaks periodically punctured the night sky, putting on a show through the distorted glass panes, or so it seemed to me. Placing my candlestick on a nearby table, I moved beside him. He did not acknowledge me, which was unusual for him, in private at least. But I was cold, as, I suspected, was he, and stepped in front of him, wrapping my arms around him. After a moment, he returned the embrace, but a vital part of him remained far from me, lost again somewhere in the past.

The only sounds were the muffled shrieks of wind beyond the windows and the chandelier’s prisms tinkling softly within. Patience, I must admit, is not one of my best virtues. I wanted to drag him from that awful room and its awful memories, whatever they might be. I was wondering how it might be accomplished, when I was almost startled to hear him speak. “If lightning struck Thorncroft, it struck the lower storey first,” he said.

“You think the fire was set?”

“It would not surprise me.”

“Perhaps village youths or even tenant sons, out upon a dare on such a night as this one? No one lived there, and it was becoming an eyesore. Such buildings, I believe, are often the victim of awful pranks.”

He did not respond to this. I had grown accustomed to his affection; I hated his aloofness. Holding him was like holding a stone pillar. Stubbornly, I refused to let go.

“A wild night like this one would have amused her endlessly. She was like this terrible wind—unpredictable, randomly attacking and retreating, uncaring of whatever devastation was left in her wake, only pleased for the excitement of it. I felt her there at the fire, her presence as strong as if she were standing at Thorncroft, laughing at the flames. And I walked in here, half expecting to see her propped up in bed upon half a dozen pillows, wanting me to laugh with her.”

I looked up at him. “Did she do that? Expect you to be amused at her…misbehaviour?”

“She had a very charming, attractive manner. When she shared an anecdote, her audience would be fascinated. There was a certain something about her that made one want to listen, to want her to continue talking, to want to be her friend. I was drawn in, too, at first. I liked the thought that my wife would be a sought-after companion, a leader in the first circles. The charm, however, did not last. I was repelled, but I wanted not to be. I wanted the appeal to return. And when it would not, I tried to at least like her still—even if I could not be attracted to her. After I discovered her betrayals, though, it was odd, the way she still wished to exert the same sort of allure upon me, although I no longer trusted her in any sense. Finally, I simply accepted my responsibility towards her as a gentleman and her husband, trying to prevent her from damaging others more vulnerable. I regretted that I could not manage much more than that. But it was as if she were a character in a play. I had been drawn to the character, but once I came to know the actor, I could no longer see her in the role. She resented my view even more than had I repudiated her utterly.”

I did not much care for the odd, distant voice he used, as if he were a sleepwalker and the real Mr Darcy, only a dream.

“I do not think it unusual that you should have been attracted to your first wife. It would have been rather more peculiar if you had not been. And after you had committed to her body and soul, why not continue to search for the face of who you once thought she was? It is not human nature to admit to hopelessness easily.”

He looked down at me for the first time, his eyes glittering in the reflected moonlight. “You are naïve,” he said harshly.

“Perhaps I have not had a good deal of experience,” I said, keeping my voice level with effort. “Would you rather I had more?”

He gave a humourless laugh. “I would rather I had a good deal less. You know so little of me, my dear.” And then he kissed me, but it was not a kiss of affection—it was one of bitterness. Was it her he kissed? Or the Shadow Girl I had once been? Or, worse still, the Maiden Spinster who could not be expected to feel a man’s passion or understand what forces might twist and pervert it?

I tore my lips from his, taking his face none-too-gently within my palms. “Perhaps you have experiences you would rather forget. But you have made all of mine memorable. I need not look further than what we do, how you are when it is only you and me, alone, to understand your character. When no one in the whole world would know—you could do anything. I would not even know how to fight it. But when you touch me, the sensation of it, it is as if you are underneath my own skin, knowing and understanding so much more than I do. The power you have when I am at my most vulnerable and yet, the control you have—of yourself, most of all. Yes, I must be naïve, for I have no words to describe those feelings. How you take me out of myself, pull me apart, send me flying…and somehow, some way, put me back together again before I hit the earth.”

He seemed to return to himself with my words; the past released its grip, and when he kissed me again, it was me he kissed. He picked me up in one strong-armed swoop, making me gasp. In no time we were in his old room, and he tossed me on the bed, making me laugh. He kissed me, everywhere, until I cried out for him with impatience and greed. And when it was over, he did not insist we leave the wing, but rather drew the curtains round us and the blankets over us and fell asleep with his body spooned warmly against mine.

But my last conscious thought before sleep consumed me was a fanciful one: Anne’s ghost would not much like the exorcism of this night; she would try and take her revenge.

And so she did.

* * *

My husband awakened me gently; he had opened the curtains surrounding the bed, but it was still dark—the windows were best for spectacular sunsets, not for dawn’s morning glow.

“Darling, we should move to our rooms, before the servants mount a search for us,” he said.

“Too cold,” I muttered, unhappy with the loss of his body’s heat.

“You may wear my banyan,” he replied, and the thought of him strolling through Pemberley’s corridors in his nightshirt, possibly startling the housemaids into dropping their buckets, tickled me into rising. He gathered my scattered night clothing and I hurriedly dressed—wearing only my own, and thus sparing the sensibilities of the maids. Hand in hand, we made our way downstairs, where he stopped and locked the door. Perhaps he had shed a few of his shadows, but some still claimed him.

We went to our rooms to find that the fires had already been tended; doubtless there would be talk of our absence in the servants’ hall. I did not care, for the room was warm and I was chilled through. Mr Darcy was about to leave me to ring for his man, but I stopped him. “Come back to bed—it is still quite early.”

“I shall never fall back to sleep,” he complained.

“Let Pennywithers sleep for another half an hour,” I said, taking his hand and tugging. I did not say it aloud, but I was not ready to be alone yet. He obliged, though I knew he was anxious to be about his day, and why.

When we were warmly ensconced within my bed, I brought up the subject I knew was pressing upon him. “What will you do about Thorncroft?”

“I shall have to ensure it is taken down completely, and immediately. There is a shell of a building left, quite dangerous.”

“You shall want to do that as quickly as possible, of course. But what do you want in its place?”

He peered at me suspiciously. “I can see you have an idea of what you wish. I will warn you now, I am not fond of the idea of rebuilding it. Or of more silly hermitages dotting the landscape.”

I sat up. “What about…trees?”

“Trees?”

“Of course, I realise it is a lovely piece of ground, but if you do not wish for another cottage, why not return the trees that were cut down to build Thorncroft in the first place? I love the idea of allowing Pemberley Woods to reclaim what was taken from her. Oak, sycamore and maple…to know that generations after we are gone, those trees will stand, fellow sojourners and silent sentinels to our future progeny. We had oaks and sycamores at Longbourn that had stood for more than a hundred years, and I used to think, ‘My great-grandfather touched this very tree and rested beneath its shade, just as I am doing now.”

“I expect that you were admonished often for climbing them,” he said, the corner of his mouth tilting up in an almost-smile.

“I was, sir. I believed myself part bird, as I recall.”

“One might suppose that Pemberley Woods are ample enough, and that it could not know the difference if it were shorted a few, er, fellow sojourners,” he said, though smiling fully.

“Perhaps it would not,” I said. “But I love the thought that it might feel the loss—or the addition.”

He looked at me intently, and then he slowly nodded. “I believe I do, as well,” he said. “I will meet with Williams and arrange the plantings. Perhaps we can relocate some more mature trees as well as seedlings, so it does not look quite so young.”

I am not quite sure why his acceptance of my idea was so exhilarating; I do love trees, of course, and was happy to know that more of them soon would flourish in what had once been a sorry, sad space. But it was the quality of his attention to my wishes, I think, that delighted me the most. Which of course, led to an expression of my appreciation, and, what with one thing and another, we were late down to breakfast, after all.

* * *

I did not much care for the physician attending Mrs de Bourgh. Mr Donavan was a heavy young man in his mid-twenties with a servile conduct I found mildly offensive. Perhaps it was only that he reminded me, in both manner and appearance, of my cousin Mr Collins.

Mrs de Bourgh’s fever sluggishly refused to mend, or so Mr Donavan claimed. I sometimes wondered, however, for Mr Donavan spent a good deal of time with his patient, recommending delicacies from the kitchen for her, which I suspected he ate himself. I would not have been at all surprised if he encouraged her illness simply so he could continue stuffing himself on Pemberley’s excellent fare.

Mr Darcy had disclosed that old Mr Simpson—the doctor who had attended the Darcys for many years—had retired shortly after Anne’s death to live with a son in Hampshire. I regretted Simpson’s loss because of my dislike of Donavan, of course, but I could not help but remember the dress shop assistant’s words about Mr Simpson being in Mr Darcy’s ‘pocket’.

Was there any connexion between his retirement and Anne’s death? I could only feel relief for his absence, if so. Not only did I have no desire to question my husband regarding the means of her death, but I now feared anyone else doing it.

I frequently visited Mrs de Bourgh, and not only to determine whether she was mended enough to be moved. While I did not want to live with her and could not like her, I felt only pity for her aggravated grief. I wished her no ill whether or not she felt the same, feeling it my responsibility to ensure she received excellent care. The visits seldom went well.

I remember being surprised by the austerity of her chambers the first time I entered her small sitting room. In many homes, the higher the floor, the plainer the room, but such was not the case at Pemberley, since the upper floor of this wing had been designed as a setting for the spectacular cliffside views. I had known, of course, that her rooms on this lower floor of the wing would not be as elaborate. Still, they had been hers from the beginning, and while they were only a staircase away from her daughter’s former rooms, there was a world of difference in the décor. It was the furthest thing from lavish—dark and dreary even; the furnishings, while of good quality, unremarkable. Heavy curtains hid the room’s one impressive feature, the view. There were no pictures, not even a miniature of her daughter, and no floral arrangements to brighten it.

I would walk through her sitting room, tapping on her bedchamber door before entering.

Mrs de Bourgh, deathly pale—nothing new there—would be propped up on a number of pillows, a bandage covering half her face. She would take one look at me and begin hissing like a snake disturbed in its nest.

“Have you come to mock my pain? Are my injuries not enough to satisfy you and the spawn of Lucifer you call a husband?” I can hear her voice in my memory still, a croaking sort of growl, weak and spiteful.

Her maid, the nurse, and the doctor would look on avidly, I noticed, no one doing anything to soothe their patient.

“I only wonder how you are feeling,” I would say calmly, “and whether we can do anything else for your comfort.”

“My comfort! As if you care for that! Let us have honesty between us at least! You were hoping to find me at death’s doorstep, were you not? But I shall live through this, simply to spite you both!”

It made me sad, truly, to see that she would blame us for her injuries. She would never recover if she could not accept that she had caused them herself.

But I continued to visit, refusing to allow her to set the terms of my calls, and keeping my eye upon her, if nothing else.

After one such visit, Mr Donavan followed me out. “She is very ill,” he said unnecessarily, standing too close while he spoke in his over-sympathetic, toadying sort of way. “It is likely best if you allow me to apprise you and Mr Darcy of her needs—I will certainly inform you when she is well enough for visitors again. But I encourage you not to take her words too much to heart.”

I raised a brow. “I promise, I would not readily accept the word of anyone so feeble of mind as to throw herself through a window,” I said acerbically. “I only hope you would not, either.”

But, as it turned out, he did not heed my advice. When a dead body was found buried in a shallow grave near where Thorncroft once stood, and when that body was identified as Miss Caroline Bingley, he repeated every poisonous word she’d uttered, and to anyone who would listen. And there were many, many words, and many, many listeners, indeed.