Mr. Darcy's Great Escape (22 page)

“Would you prefer Bingley holding your hand right now instead of your wife?”

“
No
,” he was aware enough to respond. “But… you know that's not the point.”

“I know. But you're safe; everyone is safe.” Safety, of course, being somewhat relative. She kissed him and let him drift off again, as he clearly wanted to do. She would have been content to just sit there and watch him breathe, reminding her that he was, despite his state, very much alive and out of harm's way, but there was a knock on the door. “Come.”

It was Caroline. “How is he?”

“We spoke. He seemed a bit annoyed we didn't send Mr. Bingley in our place.”

“How is that not surprising?” Caroline said. “Daniel woke, but only for a few moments.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He asked me to look at his hand and give a description. I'm not sure he really knew where he was, but he was
still
trying to be a doctor.” Usually, at this point, Caroline would look annoyed, in her half-jesting, half-indignant sort of way, and roll her eyes. Instead, she just looked tired. Her hair wasn't properly put up. She sat down on the bed next to Elizabeth. “I told him not to go and do something stupid, like get captured by a baron and tortured for information he didn't have. And now—” but her tears prevented her from speaking further.

Elizabeth placed a hand on her back. “But he's alive. And it's only his hand.”

“He can't lose his hand! He's a surgeon!” Caroline cried. “Of all the stupid things for him to do—he had to go after that insolent brother of his! Who's smarter than all of us, for staying out of this!”

Elizabeth did not try to talk her out of it. As Darcy slept on behind them, Elizabeth let her sister-in-law cry until she was spent. It took a very long time.

***

It was getting late when Grégoire returned with Dr. Schauss, who spoke German and some French. The priority was with Dr. Maddox, who was finally roused with smelling salts and a good quantity of juice as his wife explained everything to the doctor.

Dr. Schauss removed the bandages and inspected the hand. “It's infected.”

“That I know.”

The doctor cut away more infected flesh and cleaned the wound properly, then gave Dr. Maddox some laudanum for the pain, and Dr. Maddox, who could not sit up on his own, leaned entirely on Caroline. “I'm so sorry,” he said in his first real words to her.

“You? Sorry? It's that idiot brother of yours who should be sorry,” she said, but her usual veneer was cracking. She considered herself fortunate that he could not see her tears. “When I get my hands on him—”

“As noble as he may have been,” he mumbled, “I'm inclined to agree with your sentiments.”

***

The first person to arrive in the morning was actually the barber, and Elizabeth Darcy and Caroline Maddox finally could be positively sure that they
had
recovered their husbands and not some random prisoners. Since Dr. Maddox could see no solid shapes with his pain medication, he could not object and got a much closer trim to his bangs than he normally kept, as well as a shave. The barber was thoroughly confused by what Dr. Maddox said to him when he learned of his cut by feeling the top of his head, that he ran out of the room and attended to Darcy. He then proceeded to form the sideburns in the German style, which incensed Darcy to no end, and the poor barber had to deal with two angry customers and two apologetic wives before running off with his payment.

“You look fine,” Elizabeth assured him, though she was holding back her laughter as she said it. But in fact, upon closer inspection, he did not look fine. A messy beard and overgrown hair had only disguised how sunken his features were. “My darling,” she whispered, and he gave a token kiss on her cheek before collapsing back in bed. “My hairy, mangy darling.”

Risky Business

The birthday celebrations of Frederick and Emily Maddox were not muted—there was no way for them to be, with so many children and so few adults to handle them. It was a physical impossibility. Only the age and height factors kept Frederick from lording his presents over Geoffrey but didn't stop him from pestering Charles III into some jealousy, while Georgie turned her nose up at Eliza's fascination with Emily's new doll, and Anne and Edmund ran around with their newfound mobility. With Sarah being passed around, it was almost forgotten how many adults were absent. With the ruckus, only Jane, who had taken Sarah aside to try to calm her crying after having her ears poked by her elder sister, heard the knocking at the door. She quickly passed Sarah Darcy to Mrs. Hurst and disappeared to see to the caller.

Bingley presided over the ceremonies, held in his townhouse, with amusement and delight at the horde of children before him. When Edmund was close to knocking over the writing stand, he picked him up and held his year-and-a-half-old son in his arms. Trying to put any worries out of his mind, he only looked up when he heard a gasp.

Jane stood in the entrance to the sitting room, holding an opened letter in her arms. Her eyes were already red and her face wet with tears. There was a silence that came over all of the adults to the point where the children even picked up on the changed mood and quieted down. Finally she recovered from her shock and said with a weak smile, “They've been recovered. Elizabeth and Caroline have found them.”

Bingley kissed his younger son and set him on the floor, running to embrace his wife. Slowly, after many cheers and assurances to the children—now not halfhearted—the story came out as Jane summarized the letter in Elizabeth's handwriting, but signed by her, Caroline, and Lord Matlock. “After leaving Berlin they found Grégoire in Munich, where he was hiding from the soldiers in the basement of his monastery. From there they traveled by wagon into Austria, and ransomed Mr. Darcy and Dr. Maddox from the count. Mr. Brian Maddox has still not been located—no one knows where he is—but they are all recovered.” Her voice broke several times, and she had to pause to recover herself from such raw joy. “Lizzy writes from Frankfurt, where the doctor had to have his hand mended, but he will be all right. She sent this letter to Darcy's man in Berlin, to make sure it would reach us. By now they should be on the coast, trying to acquire passage to England! Charles, they are coming home!”

Congratulations went around so many times that even Mr. and Mrs. Hurst were all misty-eyed, and the children were ecstatic to the point where they quickly exhausted themselves, which was very helpful for getting the younger ones into their cradles for their afternoon naps. (“I've never seen them go to sleep so easily,” said Darcy's nurse.) Only Georgie and Geoffrey stayed up longer, playing with Frederick's toys with the real intention of hearing the others talk more frankly. They even attempted to hide behind the settee and be forgotten, but were quickly discovered by the ever-watchful Jane, who immediately sent them upstairs. Celebratory drinks were passed around, and toasts to everyone's health were made, especially those traveling home at last. Jane excused herself to pen a quick note to Anne about her husband, and Georgiana about her brother and sister, while Bingley read the letter for himself. Jane had omitted things in her general reading. There was more to the story of the retrieval of Darcy and Dr. Maddox, but the tale would want to be told properly when they returned, as it was long and complicated, and involved a great deal of trickery and use of superstition on their part. He knew Darcy well enough to know that Darcy would have written the letter himself if he was up to it, but no ailment was described. Grégoire was coming to England for the rest of the war and bringing with him some kind of reliquary for safekeeping, of all things.
At least one person of the two was found
, he thought to himself.

Dinner was a happier affair than they had anticipated. Dr. Maddox had missed his children's birthdays, but he would be there for the next ones, and that was all that mattered now. But even joy brought a certain exhaustion, after many toasts (perhaps a few too many), the four of them retired.

“Perhaps we should send a note to open up their houses,” Jane said as she reread the letter in bed while Bingley settled down beside her, feeling a bit lightheaded from so many celebrations with libation. “Or is it too soon? She said they would write again from the coast, if they could.” In the letter, it named the town they were traveling to, but their plans were not fixed because of the war. “Should we try to arrange a ship ourselves? It would be much easier from this side of the channel.”

“It would be,” he said. “I honestly… am overwhelmed.” He leaned over and kissed his wife. “It is as if a weight has been lifted from me. I will confess to you now that I do not want to ever have to be the steward of Pemberley.”

“And Rosings.”

“Oh God, yes. Or would it just pass to the Fitzwilliams?” He frowned and then smiled again. “Well, it hardly matters now. All will be right.”

But Bingley did not fall asleep. He was still awake when he heard the bell ring. He did not require his manservant to rouse him, appearing instead in the hallway, throwing a robe over his shoulders, “What is it?”

“A Mr. Kensington sent an express, sir. Nothing to get alarmed about.” Meanwhile, a servant dashed up the stairs and bowed, handing his master the letter, which Bingley tore open.

“Charles?” Jane's voice called from the bedchamber, “What is it?”

“It's nothing,” he said, reentering the bedchamber. “There's just a fire down at the docks. My manager decided to post me about it.” He set the note aside. “It's not near the warehouse. Not that there's anything in it to burn, but still—I'm going to go down and have a look.”

“A look!” Jane said. “Charles, you just told me the docks are burning, and you want to go watch?”

“It won't be dangerous. He says it's in a different area. He just wanted me to know.” He leaned over and kissed her. “I will be safe, I promise.”

“Take someone, will you?”

“Of course.” He smiled reassuringly. “I'll be back before you know it.” And with that, he stepped into his dressing room to be dressed by his man.

But Jane did know how much time had passed before she heard a knock at the door, because she spent it tossing and turning, listening for sounds, and then staring at the clock as the hours ticked by. When she did hear the bell, she did not wait to be summoned. She threw on her robe, rushed down the stairs, and opened the door herself.

The man who greeted her was
not
her husband.

***

East London was not very safe—it was rioting. This, however, was hardly an unusual occurrence, especially in these strained economic times. The chief concern of the authorities was to make sure the fires did not spread elsewhere; what the poor did amongst themselves was another matter entirely.

Bingley's carriage pulled up to the warehouse. He had been there often enough in recent weeks; he knew it to be mainly empty, full of wooden storage boxes that would serve as excellent tinder after a particularly dry autumn. If it did catch, he would lose the building and probably the business, even if it were not much to lose.

He sighed, opening the front door. The fires were on the docks proper, some distance away, so he was not immediately concerned. What he
was
concerned about were the workers in the warehouse who faced him as he entered. He knew almost all of them by face and some of them by name—they were the men who had no work and no pay. Most concerning was the fact that one of them, a Mr. Graves (the sort of man who hardly deserved the proper title of “Mister”), was pointing a pistol at the head of Mr. Kensington.

“They made me write it,” the old man whispered.

“Let him go,” Bingley said in the most authoritative voice he had, which, all things considered, was not very authoritative.

To his great surprise, the man holding him down—a Mr. Goodman, Bingley vaguely remembered—released him and Kensington ran out the back. The gun was then turned on Bingley as the door was shut behind him.

“Look,” he said, clutching his walking stick with full knowledge that it would hardly help him when facing an armed gang in poor lantern light, “I know the company is in dire straits right now because of the embargo—”

One of the men at his side grabbed him and pushed him against the wall.

“
We're
in dire straits,” Graves said, drawing a knife as he approached him. “Yer sittin' in your posh house, lookin' over books, while we're starvin.' How many courses did ya eat tonight, Mr. Bingley?”

He cleared his throat. “This company is my family's greatest concern. My father—”

“We don't care about your father, Mr. Bingley,” said Graves, pointing the knife at his throat. “Or your mother, or your grandfather, or anyone else you care ta mention.”

Unfortunately, he was beginning to grasp what they
did
care about. Or at least, the lengths they were going to go through to get it.

“
Yametekure!
” (Hold it right there!)

They all turned away from Bingley without lowering their weapons to see the figure—figures—emerging from the darkness of the inner warehouse. The man before them was dressed in bizarre silk clothing, but more noticeable was his gigantic hat, which must have been made of some kind of stalk, which was triangular, with holes in the front for his vision, as it covered most of his face. He had one hand tucked into the folds of his robe, the other easily resting on the hilt of two long swords, or one very long sword and another shorter one.

“This is private property,” he said in cold but perfectly comprehensible English. “Show your permit or get out!”

“Who're you?” Goodman said, readying his own weapon as the man stepped into the torchlight.

“I will repeat myself once,” said the stranger, one finger over the hilt of his blades. “Stop threatening this man and get out!”

“Do what he says,” said the woman emerging by his side, wearing a robe and speaking in accented English. Her hair was tied up and covered by a white cloth.

“You and what army, lady?” Graves spat.

“I see you cannot be reasoned with.” The stranger turned to a box, onto which emerged a man, hunched over like a bird on stilt shoes. “Mugin.
Iidesuka
?” (Are you ready?)

“
Sehi
.” (Sure.)

Goodman, facing a shadowed and confusing spectacle, decided to take the initiative and raised his bat to the man in the hat. Goodman was larger and fatter, and the man dropped to one knee, drawing his sword enough so that the butt of the hilt slammed right into Goodman's stomach. Goodman stumbled back and dropped like a sack of grain. The young man who had held Bingley up against the wall for Graves now rushed the warrior but was stopped by a clog shoe to the head, tossed with enough force to knock him aside long enough for the second stranger to leap down and kick out his legs before retrieving his lost shoe. He drew his long, curved blade. “
Ikoo! Tatakau!!
” (Come on! Hit me!) he said to Mr. Graves, who now realized he was facing two men armed with long swords, looking quite ready to swing them, the blade in his hand. Beside him, another thug emerged from the shadows with a gun.

“He's got a—” but before Bingley could say “pistol,” Graves grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, holding a knife up to his throat. Bingley felt a greater pain when his head hit the wall than from the knife against his throat, and for a moment his world was a burst of colors before his eyes, then returned to a fuzzy version of the man in front of him.

The young thug did not have time to fire his pistol, though; as he gripped his neck in pain, out shot a spray of blood. Neither of the attackers had moved; he dropped to his knees, the flicker of an edged coin highlighted in the torchlight. The woman, previously ignored, stepped forward with a stack of them, tossing one up and down in her palm menacingly at another member of the mob.

“Don't yeh dare,” Graves said, his threat on Bingley's person obvious enough. The proximity of the knife to Bingley's throat was dangerous. He was afraid to swallow.

“Threaten my brother-in-law again,” said the first man, lifting his hat so they could meet eyes, “and there's no way you'll get out of here alive. In fact, there's little chance of that as it is.”

Graves's response was to toss Bingley at the trio that had disabled his gang in seconds. At least, that was the last thing Bingley remembered before he hit the ground.

***

“Mr. Bingley?” the voice repeated. “Oh, I think he's coming around.”

“Me-ester Binguri,” said the man with a heavy foreign accent.

“Will he be all right?” said the female voice. Different accent, much better English. European?

“I don't know. I'm not the doctor.”

“
Kareshini osake o iidaroo
.” (He looks like he needs a drink.)

“He probably needs a doctor, Mugin.”

That voice—undeniably recognizable—was right. Bingley was in some pain from being assaulted and then shoved unceremoniously to the ground. At least his throat hadn't been seriously cut. He opened his eyes to the spectators, not quite sure of his perspective, but felt as though he was against an uneven brick wall. Above him, Town's night sky, buildings to his left and right, from what he could see over the ledge, smaller than he remembered. Wait, was he on a roof? Was that where they were hiding? He noticed the man on stilts was sitting, huffing, like he had overdone himself, perhaps by carrying him. He was foreign, strange—but the light was poor.

“Welcome back to the world of the living, Mr. Bingley.”