Nameless by Julie Cooper
Chapter Thirty-One
Mrs Reynolds and I had made a plan for the showing; her workers would only labour in rooms we would not open while we took villagers through the wing. While much had been removed, certainly not every room had been stripped bare. There were some paintings—which Mrs Reynolds could speak of—and several of the smaller chambers and Georgiana’s former rooms were intact. Of course, the pièce de résistance would be the majestic views from the master’s terrace.
Somewhat to my surprise, the tour was very enjoyable. Mrs Reynolds, as usual, was a nearly endless repository of information, sharing amusing and informational anecdotes about Darcy forebears and Pemberley’s history. While it was a bit noisy, as the sound of workmen removing panelling echoed throughout the wing, no one seemed to mind. The tour of the upstairs ended on the terrace. The day was much warmer than any previous, and the view of sky and valley was as magnificent as it ever was. As they peered over the low balustrade, I heard gasps of awe or fear.
“I don’t blame them for moving the whole blessed wing away from this cliff,” muttered Miss Bickford, backing away several steps.
After all had looked their fill, we trooped down the stairs and into the ballroom, the one room on the lower floor that had not, as yet, been touched. A footman, Bertie, lowered one of the three chandeliers so they could look closely at its crystal perfections. Then Mrs Reynolds demonstrated the lever system that opened the windows, and explained how, in the new ballroom, they would be floor length and open as doors out onto a courtyard. As she closed them, Bertie displayed Mr Wyatt’s drawing so that everyone could see how the new Pemberley exterior would appear.
We were all gathered around Bertie when I was startled by the sound of slow, loud clapping. I turned.
Mr Wickham stood behind us, a mocking smile upon his face.
“You!” I cried. “What are you doing here?”
“My dear! So inhospitable a greeting for your old friend?”
Bertie, the dear lad, did not hesitate. Dropping the drawings, he launched himself at Mr Wickham.
Unfortunately, Wickham was no stranger to brawling. Without missing a beat, he delivered a solid punch to the poor young footman that laid him out cold.
I started forward.
“Oh, not so fast, pretty girl.” From his pocket, he withdrew a pistol and trained it directly on me.
The villagers cried out and Mrs Reynolds gasped. “Are you mad?” I asked, trying to herd the crowd behind me. “You cannot possibly hurt us all with that, but you will see a noose!”
“Mad? You could say that,” he replied, not quite so nonchalantly as in his initial greeting. “I have no interest in hurting them, but you will come with me. Your husband will learn that his wealth cannot help him in this. Perhaps he has not paid for murdering Anne, but pay, he shall.”
I stepped forward. Old Mr Davis put a shaky hand upon my arm, but I firmly shook my head at him and he subsided. “As well you know, Mr Darcy murdered no one. Frankly, he believes you did it,” I said, my voice imbued with a calm I could not feel. “You have known him since he was a boy, when you needled him for refusing to join in your wild exploits. You carried on an affair for years with his wife, and he did nothing except deny you welcome at Pemberley. You stand before us, training a pistol upon an innocent woman. Of the two of you, who is most likely to be a murderer?” I cared not that these were confidences, secrets that everyone hoped would die with Anne. I would say anything if it might stop this man from violence.
“He did! He must have killed her!”
“Why would he?” I said caustically. “You must know he did not love her, that any affection he once had died with her disloyalty. He simply could not care enough to feel such passion.”
“He wanted a child. She said he did, more than anything. She refused to give him one, and he killed her for it!”
I rolled my eyes. “If he was so desperate to be a parent, then why, pray tell, did he choose a woman of eight-and-twenty as his next bride? His sister is his heir, and he is content that she should remain so, should we never have progeny.”
“Because he is a bloody fool! Perhaps she was to give him an heir—but a by-blow! Perhaps even mine! How he would despise the bloodlines of Pemberley to be thus polluted!”
I sighed. “Mr Darcy is many things, but never a fool. Of course he knew he would have no true heirs from her. It would be impossible, for the obvious reason that he would not touch her. Provision was made for any natural children she might bear, which his solicitors can verify, with Georgiana remaining his heir to Pemberley. Simply because he did not repudiate her publicly, do you think he had not thought of this? That he made no plans?”
“She sent me a note!” he cried, and for the first time I thought I heard real anguish. “She begged me to come to her, but I was drunk, and did not read it until too late. Too late! Why did she send for me? What need had she? I loved her! I would have saved her!” The pistol lowered an inch as he seemed to deflate. Tears streamed down his cheeks.
“Imbecile!”
From the rear of the ballroom stood a man, hat pulled low over his face. After thus announcing his presence, however, his next actions were strange: he pulled a spill from the jar on the hearth and lit a taper; its light did nothing to reveal his shadowed features.
Wickham was not startled by the stranger’s presence. “It’s no good,” he tossed back over his shoulder. “She is right. Darcy hasn’t the pluck; he is too chicken-hearted. It makes no sense.”
“It is not for you to decide,” the stranger hissed. “Take her and we go.”
“I only want answers, not her,” Wickham said. “If I thought she would give them to me, I would. If I thought Darcy would trade answers for her, I would. But he never does do anything he does not want to do, or say anything he does not want to say. Perhaps Cavendish can get answers from him, or perhaps she tells the truth, and he knows nothing. We are wasting our time. Let us leave now.”
“No!” the stranger growled. “You have not done as you promised. She leaves with us.”
With the exception of a gasp or two, the villagers had maintained a silence during the entire fantastical conversation. But Miss Bickford had clearly had enough. “We are all leaving,” she called. “Everyone, come with me.” She began walking to the opposite side of the ballroom towards the main entrance and its two large double doors.
I quickly saw the sense of her actions, and herded everyone with me, giving Wickham and the stranger my back. After all, if Wickham shot—which he seemed disinclined to do—he could hardly shoot all of us. For whatever reason, I felt the real threat came from the stranger.
Oddly enough, we reached the door without incident, even with two of the villagers dragging poor Bertie. I hastened to throw it open—to no avail. We immediately looked to Mrs Reynolds. She withdrew her ring of keys, and with only slightly shaking hands selected the correct one and inserted it, pulling the door at the same moment. The key turned, but nothing happened. Mr Davis leaned in, putting his weight into it, but the door remained shut. I ran to the two other servant’s doors that were semi-hidden within the panelling. Neither would open.
From the other end of the ballroom, the stranger began laughing, a peculiar, echoing laughter. That was when I knew, and spun to face our captor.
“Mrs de Bourgh. How lovely of you to join us. It is an unusual costume, however, for a masquerade.”
She tossed aside the beaver; her hair was scraped back into its usual harsh bun, and she wore the clothing of a middling sort of gentleman. Without the voluminous folds of her black mourning fabric, I saw that the weight she’d lost was to good effect—she appeared muscular, strong. There was, as Nurse Rook had long and often claimed, absolutely nothing of weakness, of illness, in her. She held the candle up close to her scarred face; I knew the action was to frighten us, because she did indeed look horrible, though I felt only pity. But Mrs Dale screamed.
“People see what they wish to see, what they think to see,” she said, smiling a ghastly smile. “A little face powder, a bit of paint, a cane and a weak voice—it is easy enough. Those doors will not open. And now, you shall come with me. Wickham, take her.”
Wickham stood uncertainly.
“Do it,” she urged. “Remember your poor, beautiful Anne.” She pulled the draperies aside, and there stood the three portraits of Anne, propped against the wall. She must have known Mr Darcy would try to send them away. Had Wickham helped her, removing them from the cart and placing them in here, the least-used room of the house, at her bequest? I gave a shudder, imagining him lurking at night within our home.
“Look at that creature! Look at what has replaced our dear Anne! Is this to be endured? But it must not, shall not be. Anne would never submit to any person’s whims. Do it for her!”
And so, with renewed determination, he came for me. Everyone froze in place, uncertain of his pistol. Fortunately, he seemed to almost forget it was in his hand—striding towards me confidently, as if I would obediently, submissively toddle off with him.
“You have forgotten something,” I said, as he neared. He smiled, the same old winning smile, as though we were at the Netherfield ball, and he was claiming that dance I had once hoped for, so long ago.
“What is that, dear lady?” he asked, reaching for me, not bothering at all with the aggressive stance he’d taken against poor Bertie.
“I am Elizabeth Bennet Darcy, and no Lydia,” I replied, and, exactly as Mr Tilney had taught, I punched him in the soft cartilage of his nose. He shrieked, blood spurting, and drew back his fist, but old Mr Davis and even Miss Bickford fell upon him, and he was soon unconscious upon the floor, the pistol in Mr Davis’s possession.
“It is over now,” I said to Mrs de Bourgh when I looked to her again.
“He was an idiot,” she snapped. “I am not. You will come with me now, or else.”
The question ‘Or else, what?’ was to be unnecessary. For she held her candle dangerously close to the draperies nearest her.
Quickly, I calculated. Somehow, what with all the strange workmen about, they had managed to secure all doors except the one we had entered by—which she now guarded. Draperies lined the entire wall behind her; the fire would catch and quickly spread. The windows were tightly shut, so there was no hope that someone outdoors would notice the smoke; rather, it would be the choking death of all, maybe even before the flames could burn us. But would she allow Anne’s portraits to be destroyed in the conflagration?Yes, I realised. She would do anything.
“Why do you do this?” I cried with unaffected astonishment. “I swear to you, Mr Darcy had nothing to do with your daughter’s death!”
I expected her to rant or rave or hurl accusations at my husband’s name, but she did not. Instead, she laughed again, a bitter, reproachful sound. “Of course he did not. He is too weak, too cowardly. Do you think it was easy?” she scolded. “Poor, sweet, courageous Anne, so beautiful, so broken, from a leap only she would have dared. ‘Mama, please,’ she begged me. ‘Do not let me live this way. I cannot! I will not! You must finish it, as he would not!’ Do not you see? If he had only done as she begged, I would not have had to. But he left it to me. Always the most difficult jobs, left only to me.”
A chilling sensation crept along my spine as realisation struck. “And Caroline Bingley?” I asked. “Was that a ‘difficult job’ left to you?”
“Hardly difficult,” she scoffed. “She threatened my daughter. It was not to be borne. As you do, now. I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose, and I will not be dissuaded from it. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
“How,” I asked, desperate to keep her talking, “could I possibly be a threat to Anne? She is dead.”
“You,” she said coldly, “are the worst threat of all. I know how to act. One of you idiots, remove Wickham’s cravat, instantly, and tie her wrists and arms together. Do it!”
“She is mad,” I murmured quietly. “Just do as she says.”
“Mrs Darcy, you cannot go to her! You mustn’t! She is a murderess!” whispered Miss Bickford as she made a show of—very slowly—unknotting the cravat. Wickham groaned as she removed it, but did not waken.
“Hurry!” de Bourgh screamed. “Do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede!” From her pocket, she removed a pot of something; expertly removing the lid—while not letting go of the taper—she dashed its contents upon the draperies and portraits nearest the door she guarded. I had no doubt it was a kind of terebinthine oil or something equally flammable. She had planned this.
“Do it,” I urged.
Reluctantly, Miss Bickford obeyed, wrapping my arms together—in front of me, rather than behind me—and as slowly and loosely as she could. But it was a lengthy piece of cloth, and there was no way to secure it without creating far too much of a binding.
I met Mr Davis’s eyes as he implored me without words to take the pistol; however, there was no way to do so without de Bourgh noticing. The frightening old woman waved her candle ever nearer the draperies, heedless of the danger to herself, but there were gasps from the villagers. The fear of fire was so ingrained, I doubted I could rally them in an attempt to overpower her; besides, she would set her blaze long before we could reach her.
I did not have a great deal of hope—whether she lit the draperies and shoved me out the door, locking them inside, or even simply set me afire to watch me burn…I could hardly stop her. I had little doubt but that she planned to burn the place regardless—she had been much too free with the truth to let anyone live, if she could prevent it. But if challenged, she could simply set the fire immediately. It seemed to me best to play for time.
“Stay here, all of you!” I demanded. I looked at Mr Davis. “Use that pistol to try and shoot the door bolt once I am taken. Perhaps it will open. Or perhaps someone will hear the report.” The pistol looked old and I had no idea if it was even loaded. Mr Davis cursed and someone else whimpered, but Mrs Dale dropped to her knees and began to pray. Miss Bickford bravely started forward regardless, but I gave Mrs Reynolds a look, part pleading, part insistent, and she put her hand upon her arm to stop her.
“Don’t interfere! She has her plan, can’t you see?” the housekeeper implored, and she stilled.
Plan? I had no such thing. Only the design to walk as slowly as I dared, and hope that the distance was great enough, that it took time enough, for some brilliant, miraculous intervention to present itself. She would not wish to give up her one means of control until I was close enough for her to keep it; as long as I inched forward, she would not light the drapes, though she goaded and shouted insults. “Do not imagine you can escape me! You only delay the inevitable! I will carry my point!”
I was very much afraid she would. And then I was only eight feet from her. Seven. Six. Five…
With a deafening crash the door nearest the villagers opened, and I whirled to see Mr Darcy—followed closely by Mr Williams—thunder in with a half-dozen others, knocking over poor old Mr Davis in the process. Mrs de Bourgh did not hesitate. She held the candle directly to the portraits. Whatever she had poured upon them caught instantly, and the velvet did the rest, the flames crawling up the drapes and leaping towards the ceiling faster than anything I ever imagined. I turned to run but she grabbed me with nearly inhuman strength, throwing me into the nearest portrait, trying to hold me close enough for any fabric upon me to catch—as if into Anne’s fiery embrace.
But the scent of the oil she’d splashed was strong upon her, and in her attempts to shove my kicking, flailing, struggling person into the flames, she ignited. Still, she did not give up—even when her hair lit—only trying to use herself as a brimstone match to set me aflame. And then Mr Darcy was there, snatching me away from her, though my skirt and the cravat bindings had begun to burn, rolling away with me, over and over, to extinguish any flames. The ballroom was rapidly filling with smoke; he scooped me up and ran with me towards the open door.
Through watering eyes, I caught my final glimpse of Mrs de Bourgh. She made no move, not to escape the blaze, not to quench the flames encircling and encompassing her, not to cry out or reach for the door behind her.
She had lost, and she let herself burn.
* * *
“Oh, my darling. My darling Elizabeth. I am so sorry, so sorry,” my husband said, over and over again.
He had run with me to a raised hill, far beyond the flames and smoke; I was dazed and coughing, but gradually, as the fresh air infused my lungs, began to make sense of my escape.
“You came,” I rasped, for my throat felt sore as if I’d been screaming—although I was fairly certain I had held them in. “Please do not apologise. You came for me. I am safe.”
“’Tis all my fault,” he said, soothing my hair away from my face. “I cannot express—”
“It was not,” I said, a little more strongly. “No one could have guessed she would be so diabolical.”
But he held me tightly to him, murmuring words of affection and guilt. “You have not understood, you could not know. I brought this upon you, I did. Oh, my dearest, loveliest Elizabeth.” A single tear tracked down his soot-stained cheeks.
Once I could not have fathomed this proud man in tears, but that was before I knew how soft and kind his heart. “No, no,” I whispered, trying to put my hands up to press against his cheeks. But they were still bound.
With a muttered curse, he began tearing away at the filthy, singed cravat tying my arms together. It had protected them, for the most part, but I began to feel the effects of my close encounter with fire. My skirt, of a high-quality wool, had resisted burning through; however, a few small burns upon my upper arms stung a bit—nothing too serious, I was certain, but I could not prevent my hiss of pain.
“Oh, my love,” he said, anguished, as he saw the angry red marks. “My dearest love.”
At that moment, we were joined by a troupe of men from the estate, led by Mr Williams, as well as Mrs Reynolds—who thankfully appeared utterly untouched by smoke or soot or flame. Mr Darcy did not appear to notice them. I stroked his cheek and looked into his eyes.
“I am well, I promise. Please, go and rescue the rest of the house for me. Ensure all are safe and the fire does not spread. I have plans…remember?”
“I will take good care of her, sir,” Mrs Reynolds promised.
“Take her to my home,” Mr Williams offered. “It is close, but well away from the house and quite safe.”
“That will do very nicely,” I agreed. “And look, here is Miss Bickford and her party coming to meet us. Let us all go to Mr Williams’s home, where we will be out of the way, while you and the others do the more dangerous labour of stopping the spread of the flames.”
After a last agonised look at me, Mr Darcy took the men away with him to lead the fight against the fire. For a moment, we all stood together on that grassy hillock, watching the bustle of activity swarming the cliffside.
“They will try and choke it out,” Mrs Reynolds said knowledgably, calmly. “Fire needs air to breathe. But Pemberley also has the latest in fire engines, to better apply water.”
“Bertie…is he safe?”
“Oh, yes, mistress. They brought him ’round quickly and nothing would do for him but that he immediately join the men fighting the fire.”
I closed my eyes in relief, but other worries beset me. “What if she applied her oil earlier, to other draperies? We do not know how long she was there, lurking, or what they have done with the doctor or the coachman. Obviously, she was not ill, and has not been for some time.”
“Ah, but we have had footmen stationed beyond her room’s door these last weeks, and Nurse Rook was not the type to fall asleep while attending her patient. I do not think the old lady decided to harm Pemberley until she learned of the renovation, and by then, she was too closely watched. I do not believe she has been here for hours, even. There were too many about, and few places to hide. Now, mistress, let us go to Mr Williams’s cottage. His housekeeper, Mrs Pruitt, will have something for those burns. Or shall we ask for a litter to carry you?”
At last, I heard it—the trembling in her voice. Cool, steady Mrs Reynolds was unmistakeably overwrought.
“I can walk without difficulty,” I assured her as the party of villagers joined us—sans Mr Davis, who had stayed to help the other men. The women were chattering excitedly and, I was happy to say, more as if it had all been an adventure than any true ordeal. But then, I have always felt that these women, most of whom worked dawn to dusk in their trades, were far more resilient than many hothouse flowers amongst the ton.
“Mrs Darcy, you were heroic!” Miss Bickford exclaimed, to the enthusiastic agreement of her compatriots. “Such madness! You saved us, gaining time for our rescuers to discover our plight. We could not have imagined a better champion!”
“That she is,” Mrs Reynolds agreed. “However, the master will not be pleased if we keep her standing out here in the sun whilst she is injured.”
The ladies immediately expressed their compassionate concern. While guests in my home, they had been assaulted and abused and subjected to great danger, and yet there was nothing of blame or outrage. It touched me deeply.
“I am so happy you are all safe. Now tell me: what have they done with Mr Wickham?”
As we walked towards Mr Williams’s home, they told me of how the steward had personally dragged Wickham out of the burning ballroom, ordering him roped and bound over for justice. The scoundrel would sit in a gaol cell until the quarter-day, when he would be answering the magistrate’s enquiries, rather than Mr Darcy.
And because they deserved to know the rest of the story, when they questioned what Mrs de Bourgh had meant by her words regarding Anne’s ‘leap’, and of what she had ‘had to do’ because Mr Darcy would not, I explained most of it—at least the part about Anne’s pretended suicidal drop off the terrace whilst angry at her husband, her foolhardy attempt to climb back up again, and the subsequent fall that had broken her. “She would, most likely have died regardless,” I said. “She could not have lived long if her back was broken, I do not believe.”
“So she begged Mr Darcy to finish the job?” Miss Bickford, ever bold, demanded.
“Mr Darcy could not commit such an act,” I said. “As it was a festival day, with few servants about, Mr Darcy ran to the stables himself to have Mr Simpson fetched. When he returned with a litter and assistance, she was at the bottom of the cliff, already dead. Until today, we had no clue as to how she’d fallen the rest of the way.” I saw no need to mention Mr Williams’s presence.
Everyone was silent in contemplation, understanding, finally, the choices Mr Darcy had faced. To declare his wife a suicide, denying her a proper burial for what was, after all, an accident? To seek out another responsible for what had been meant, most likely, as a merciful act?
“It was a terrible thing,” Miss Bickford said. “I would believe the old lady was driven mad with the guilt of it, but I heard her words. She as much as admitted to killing poor Miss Bingley, and without an ounce of regret. I cannot pretend to mourn her.”
I was silent as we walked into the embracing warmth of Mr William’s well-situated cottage. I accepted that we would never truly know who had killed Miss Bingley. Doubtlessly Mrs de Bourgh would have taken responsibility for the murder, whether or not it had been herself or Anne who accomplished it; I was certain the plan to have the Kroffords depart suddenly and suspiciously and thus obscure her disappearance was purely Mrs de Bourgh’s idea. In my heart, I will always believe Anne the most likely perpetrator of an impulsive murder—as demonstrated by the shallow grave too close to the house and my knowledge of the two impetuous, temperamental, and spoilt women involved. Only Anne would have used Mr Darcy’s blade and flaunted it, whereas the more devious Mrs de Bourgh, to my mind, might have preferred to carefully replace the blade in its accustomed spot as if it had never been removed. But this was all conjecture—for all I knew, they dug the grave together.
In all the ways that mattered, however, it was unimportant. In life they had acted as one; even if Anne were the murderess, her mother had hidden the truth and protected her from any consequences. They were two halves of a whole, and without Anne, Mrs de Bourgh was only half a person. I firmly believed her guilty of setting the Thorncroft fire, thinking to destroy whatever evidence might have been inside it of Anne’s terrible life. She had come to Pemberley intending to die today; she had only hoped to bring me with her, and leave Mr Darcy without home or wife—alone, as she had been.