Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“Plot? How do you know of any plot?”

“Mrs. Darcy seems to have had a feeling that all was not well at Hemmings, Fitz. This morning she asked me to go there and see that all was well. By the time I got there, the local doctor and constable had arrived. I was able to fill in the gaps in their knowledge of events. What happened we will never quite know, but we think that the original plan was for a simple robbery. The best of the furniture is gone, the carpets, the silverware, the barouche and its horses, the pony and trap, and, we think, some jewellery. As to how-the local doctor says she was suffocated with a pillow by one man, while another sat on her chest.”

Fitz had slumped; he made a retching sound. Ned poured a big glass of port, and handed it to him. Finally, his own glass filled again, he sat down. “Drink it, Fitz, please, else it will have to be cognac.” Watching Fitz drink, he saw a little colour return to his face, and sat back, relieved. Fitz would do now. “Did Mrs. Wickham own any jewels?” he asked.

“It seems so, yes. A sapphire and diamond set Elizabeth never wore, and gave to her when she moved to Hemmings. Poor woman! Oh, poor, poor woman! Apparently Jane gave her a rope of pearls. As Lydia has had no opportunity to pawn them, Miss Maplethorpe must have taken them if they aren’t there.” He got up and began to pace restlessly. “What an awful year this has been! Two of my wife’s sisters gone. One is certainly dead. The other? I must presume her dead too.”

“Not yet, Fitz. One gathers they were very unalike. Mrs. Wickham imprisoned in a bottle, Miss Mary game for anything.” He grinned. “I never knew Miss Mary conscious, but she fought even when unconscious.” He stretched, winced.

“I am a selfish brute, Ned! Eat, and then go home to sleep.”

“Mrs. Wickham returns to Pemberley tomorrow with the Leek doctor. It will be late, but the doctor will see it done.”

“Thank you. You must be sore out of pocket.”

“That does not signify.”

“It does to me. Render an account, please, Ned.”

As soon as Ned had gone, Fitzwilliam Darcy got to his feet and walked to Elizabeth’s rooms. When he scratched softly on her door, she opened it herself and stood back for him to enter, giving him a keen glance.

“I knew it was you. Ned brought bad news, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” He went tiredly to one of a pair of armchairs and sat down, patting the seat of the other. “Sit down, 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.