Carrie Bebris - The Matters at Mansfield

Colonel Fitzwilliam opened the door. “She is sleeping,” he said quietly. “Though not well.”

“Is there aught we can do for her?” Darcy enquired.

He stepped to one side and reappeared with a valise. “Return this to Mr. Crawford, if you will. I do not want the sight of it to further distress Anne when she wakens.”

They took the bag and knocked at Mr. Crawford’s chamber. After a minute elapsed with no response, Darcy and Elizabeth exchanged uneasy glances.

“Perhaps your aunt summoned him?”

He did not reply, but knocked again more forcefully. There was no sound of movement within. He tested the door and found it locked.

They enlisted the aid of Mrs. Gower and her key ring, but they hardly need have. By the time she opened the door, Darcy knew what he would find.

An empty room.

A search of the inn turned up no Henry Crawford. Or John Garrick. Or a gentleman by any name who resembled the master of Everingham. The pleasure of his company had not yet been requested by Lady Catherine and Mr. Archer, nor had he attempted to see either of his wives.

The hunt led to the livery, where a young stable hand reported that Mr. Crawford had ridden off about the same time the coach departed.

“Thought for a second I saddled the wrong horse for him, in all the hubbub,” the boy said.

“Was there some crisis?” Darcy asked.

“Oh, no, sir — nothin’ dire. Just a busy few minutes, what with puttin’ the fresh team on the coach, and Mr. Lautus wanting his horse right away, too, and both of ’em being bays, and Mr. Crawford wantin’ his mount brought round the back of the stable for some reason. Plus, Mr. Crawford’s horse weren’t his usual one — the chestnut he used to stable here when he stayed with Dr. Grant — so I had to ask the ostler which horse was his. When it shied from Mr. Crawford I thought maybe I’d got it wrong and the scarred bay belonged to the other man. But Mr. Crawford said no, the animal was his, and it was time he tested it.”

“In other words, he fled,” said Elizabeth when Darcy repeated the conversation to her and the rest of the party that had gathered in the dining room. Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Archer had joined her as soon as she and Darcy enquired whether they knew Mr. Crawford’s whereabouts. By the time they rapped on Meg’s door, they had formed a determined corps. Meg, upon hearing that Mr. Crawford was missing, waited as impatiently as they for news.

“Of course he fled,” said Meg. “He cannot stay in any one place for long.”

“I should never have allowed him to leave my sight.” Darcy’s whole bearing evinced self-reproach.

“No, you should not have,” Lady Catherine declared.

Elizabeth wished Darcy would not assume the entire blame for Mr. Crawford’s disappearance. The man himself bore responsibility. “Darcy is too honorable a gentleman to have predicted that another would so degrade himself as to flee rather than face the consequences of his actions.”

“Mr. Crawford is a despicable coward,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam.

“A coward,” said Mr. Archer, “and an accused felon who faces hanging if convicted.”

The colonel made a sound of disgust. “Let him face me on a field of honor, and I will save the courts their trouble.”

This was a side of the colonel unfamiliar to Elizabeth. “You would duel with Anne’s husband?”

“No one knows whose husband he is at present, not that he is a prize any woman should covet. A pistol shot would decide the matter cleanly. Both his wives would be free of him.”

“I would rather win that satisfaction myself,” muttered Meg.

Despite Mr. Crawford’s head start, the men resolved to ride out in search of him. With only a few hours’ daylight remaining, they left directly and took separate paths.

Meg was agitated as she watched them depart. As they crested the hill out of the village, she headed toward the stable. “I’m going, too.”

Lady Catherine snorted in derision. “I hardly believe that necessary.”

“I think it is,” she said.

“Can you even ride?”

“If someone will hire me a horse. It seems I can no longer rely on my husband to assume my debts.”

Elizabeth attempted to dissuade her. No woman ought ride about unfamiliar countryside on a strange horse unaccompanied, particularly as dusk approached. She could meet rough terrain, or even rougher highwaymen. What if she encountered a wild animal, or a band of gypsies?

“I can take care of myself,” Meg assured her. “With my husband gone for months at a time, I have had to learn. What I cannot do, is sit idle.”

As Elizabeth silently debated the wisdom of hiring a mount for Meg, Lady Catherine declared she would do so. The offer stunned Elizabeth.

“Thank you, ma’am!” Meg exclaimed. She patted Lady Catherine’s arm. “I will be quite safe. Don’t you worry.”

“I am not at all concerned for your safety.”

As Meg rode off, Elizabeth turned to Darcy’s aunt. “You have been surprisingly generous toward Anne’s rival.”

“It is not generosity; it is an investment.”

Elizabeth raised a brow.

“Should Mrs. Garrick actually find Mr. Crawford, she does me a service.” Lady Catherine produced a handkerchief and wiped her arm where Meg had touched it.

“And if misfortune finds her first, that does me a service.”

Meg was the first to make her way back to the inn, entering the courtyard at dusk. Elizabeth observed her arrival from the window of her chamber and met her as she reached the top of the stairs. “Did you find any sign of him?”

Meg shook her head. The wind and exercise had loosened her hair, and a large red lock hung down one side of her face. “I expect he is halfway to wherever he’s going by now.”

“Have you any notion where that might be?”

“A day ago I would have said the sea. Now I wish him at the bottom of it.” She pushed the hair behind her ear, revealing a long, fresh gash on the back of her hand.

“Mrs. Garrick, are you all right?”

“I cannot answer to that name anymore. Call me Meg. As for my hand, it’s merely scratched. I passed a stray hedge branch too closely.”

“Surely it hurts. The apothecary is presently with Mrs. Crawford. Perhaps he can provide a salve to ease the sting.”

“Don’t trouble him. I can manage.”

“It is no trouble.” Elizabeth moved to rap on Anne’s door, but Meg stayed her hand.

“Please don’t.” Anxiety creased her expression. “I haven’t any money to pay for such things. I spent all I had just getting here in hopes of finding John, and he is not coming back.”

“The men have not yet returned. They may find him.”

“Even if they do, a scratch is the least of my troubles.”

She withdrew to her own room. Elizabeth stood staring at her closed door for several minutes, debating whether to make a gift of the salve or let the matter drop. Meg was right: Her difficulties far exceeded anything an ointment could heal. Deceived by the person she should most have been able to trust, she now found herself alone in a strange village with no friends and no funds — precarious circumstances indeed.

Precarious enough to make a person desperate.

Darcy returned after the grey light of dusk had faded to black.

The moment he entered their chamber, Elizabeth knew that his hunt had proven futile. His countenance — nay, his entire demeanor — declared the news more loudly than could any town crier. He sagged into a chair, rested his head against its back, and closed his eyes.