shall travel north from Hertford on the stage-coach to Grantham, breaking my journey every evening to put up at an inn,” said Mary.
“There is that to be said for it,” said Angus with a nod. “A posting house will afford you overnight comfort as well as good food.”
“Posting house?” Mary snorted. “I can assure you, sir, that I cannot afford to put up at a posting house! I will avail myself of cheaper accommodation.”
He debated whether to argue, and decided against it. “Grantham is surely too far east,” he said instead.
“I am aware of that, but as it is on the Great North Road, I will have several stage-coaches to choose from,” she said. “At Grantham I will go west to Nottingham, thence to Derby, and so to Manchester.”
Just how straitened were her circumstances? he wondered. Her nine thousand, five hundred pounds would not keep her into her old age, that was true, so perhaps her pride forbade her telling him that she knew she would have nothing more from Fitz, in which case, it made sense that she should scrimp on her mission of investigation. Yet why withdraw her money from the Funds?
Then one reason why occurred to him: because once it was deposited in a bank in her name she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was there. To a Mary Bennet, investment in the four-percents was evanescent; her money might vanish in a puff of smoke, victim of another South Sea Bubble. Then a more sinister reason occurred to him: she was afraid that if she left it invested, Fitz might somehow deprive her of it. On their many walks she had talked of him freely, with scant respect and no love. She did not fear him, but she feared his power.
Angus did not fear Fitz or Fitz’s power, but he did fear for Mary. Her indifference to clothes meant that she did not look what she was: a gentlewoman of some substance. Those who travelled on the stage-coach with her, Angus’s racing mind went on, would take her for the most lowly sort of governess, or even a superior abigail. Oh, Mary, Mary! You and your wretched book! Would that I had never dreamed of a nonexistent man named Argus!
What did not occur to him, as she never once mentioned it, was that she expected to pay at least nine thousand pounds to a publisher to put her book into print. So in one way he had been right: the withdrawal of her money from the Funds was done because she feared the power of Fitzwilliam Darcy.
On the tenth day of his sojourn in Hertford, he decided that he could take no more. Better to stew about her fate in London sight unseen than continue to feast his eyes upon her while April’s blossoms fell to the ground. Yet he could not say goodbye, did not dare face her again in case his resolution broke down and he made a declaration of love he knew was not returned. Apostrophising himself as a coward and a curmudgeon, he ordered his chaise for straight after breakfast and drove out of Hertford without telling his love that he was going, or leaving her a note.
The word of his departure flew faster than a bird from the landlord of the Blue Boar to Mr Wilde’s under-clerk and Miss Botolph’s manservant, and thence, equally swiftly, to Mr Wilde and Miss Botolph. Who were on Miss Bennet’s doorstep before the uncomfortably High vicar of St Mark’s sounded the Angelus.
Mary heard their news impassively, though under her composure she was conscious of the sadness she always felt when Charlie’s visits were over. She dealt with Mr Wilde’s overt jubilation in the most dampening way, and assured the pair of them that she had been expecting Mr Sinclair’s departure for some time. When Miss Botolph hinted heavily about disappointed hopes she was ignored; the rest of Hertford’s upper stratum might have been anticipating a joyous Announcement, but Mary had not. To her, Angus was simply a good friend whom she would miss.
“Perhaps he will return,” said Mrs McLeod toward the end of April.
“If he intends to, Sophia, he had better be quick,” said Miss Botolph. “Mary is off on her travels very soon, though I do wish she was less secretive about them. And what is Mr Darcy about, to let her ride in the common stage?”
“Pride,” said Mrs Markham. “A ha’penny to nothing, he has no idea she is journeying to Pemberley, though I note that her things have been packed and sent to Pemberley ahead of her.”
“Is she at all cast down about Mr Sinclair?” asked Lady Appleby; living five miles out at Shelby Manor, she was always the last to know anything.
“Not a scrap cast down. In fact, I would say she is happy,” said Mrs McLeod.
“The field is clear for Robert Wilde,” said Miss Botolph.
Mrs Markham sighed. “She will not have him either.”
“I am going home to Pemberley,” said Charlie ten days into May, “and I would very much like it if you came with me, Owen.”
Dark brows raised, Mr Griffiths looked at his charge in astonishment. “You’ve finished the term, I know, but Pemberley? Your father will be there, and you dislike that.”
“Yes, damn it! However, I cannot stay here.”
“Why not?”
“Mary.”
“Oh, I see. She has commenced her odyssey.”
“Bound to have.”
“But how can being at Pemberley help?”
“Closer to her targets. Besides, Pater will be aware of her every movement, if I know him. She may need a friend at court.”
“Your mama did say that he was displeased at your aunt’s plans, but do you think him likely to confide in you?”
“No.” Charlie hunched his shoulders, his mobile face saying more than mere words could. “No one will deem it odd if I go home early, since I couldn’t get there at Christmas. Pater will ignore my presence, and Mama will be ecstatic. If you’re with me, we can do a bit of prowling in the direction of Manchester. ’Tis but a day’s ride from Pemberley. We can pretend to walk the moors, or see the sights of Cumberland. There are reasons aplenty for absenting ourselves from Pemberley for days at a time.”
The lad was fretting, anyone could see that, though how he thought he could pull the wool over his father’s eyes escaped Owen’s understanding. On the single occasion when he had met Mr Darcy, Owen had found himself torn between a strong detestation and a conviction that this was a man only fools would go up against. Of course the relationship between father and son was different from all others, but he could not help feeling that Charlie would do better to stay away. To be underfoot if Mr Darcy chose to apply discipline to his sister-in-law would make matters much worse; a year of listening to Charlie — a regular chatterbox when his head was not in a book — had apprised Owen of a lot that Charlie had not intended to communicate. And ever since Miss Mary Bennet’s letter, the correspondence between him and his mother had been profuse, each writing back to the other the moment a new letter arrived. Mr Darcy was extremely vexed; Mr Darcy had decided not to accompany Uncle Charles to the West Indies; Mr Darcy had delivered a crushing speech in the House against addle-pated do-gooders; Mr Darcy had suffered an attack of the migraine that felled him for a week; Mr Darcy suddenly switched from sherry to whisky before dinner; Mr Darcy had cruelly slapped dear little Cathy for playing a prank; and so on, and so forth.
These reports of affairs at Pemberley (and in London) had only served to
