The Elizabeth Papers (16 page)

Chapter 24

We buried Lydia in the village churchyard. Although ladies do not usually attend funerals, on this occasion I did. We were far from home, and matters were far from regular. I wished to attend my sister’s burial, and Fitzwilliam did nothing to dissuade me. The sky was grey, and the wind howled mercilessly around us. The words of the liturgy were spoken, but I hardly heard them. After the thing was concluded, his warm hand helped me back into the carriage. As we pulled away from the lychgate, I turned back and saw my sister’s burial place vanishing to a pinprick on the horizon.

“Fitzwilliam?”

He turned to me and smiled kindly.

“I believe I should like to go home.”

“Then you shall.”

Again, a physician was summoned from Dublin, and he pronounced that, provided that she be kept warm, Victoria would be safe to travel to Derbyshire some weeks hence. Hannah attended to the packing of our belongings, and Mr. Darcy’s local steward believed that he had found a new tenant for the property. I visited Mrs. Reidy at home to thank her for her services to my sister, but in a bid to fight the melancholy that threatened to consume me, I did not revisit the chamber in which she had died. I had written to Jane with a story that Lydia had died of a local fever. It shamed me to write lies to her, but there it was. She was tasked with telling Mama and Papa and Mary and poor Kitty, a challenge I did not envy. It had always been my plan to inform Jane of the truth in person at some private moment, but Fitzwilliam was not in favour of this. On our last day at Rosschapel, he and I sat in the drawing room, the late afternoon sun spilling through the leaded windows, a sleeping Victoria in my arms, and he took up the subject.

“If you wish to tell your sister, Elizabeth, then you must, but I would urge you to think on it. Jane will have to tell Bingley. The more people who know, the greater danger there is that one day some unreliable person will discover the truth.”

My mind flew to Caroline Bingley chattering away in Jane’s wake, feathers bobbing, lurid colours flashing, her eyes primed for the misfortunes of others.

“The truth is that I now regret having told Galbraith. It never occurred to me that we would be returning home without Lydia. I thought that we would need his help with legalities, but now that we have lost our sister, nothing shall be necessary. Fortunately, he is completely trustworthy, and if I instruct him to destroy my letters on the subject, then I know he shall do so. Although it is not necessary for him to know, I do not believe it shall pose a problem.”

“Do you suppose Jane a problem, sir?”

“No, of course not. I do not mean that. It is not that I do not trust Jane. I do trust her. It is more that I think the smallest number of people possible should know this truth. We have to think of Victoria. Think of the impact on her were this to be known.”

He looked at her tiny form, and a shadow of softness played across his face. She shifted slightly in my arms, and a corner of her blanket fell away.

“Do you think she is warm enough? Shall I call for another shawl?”

“She is fine, Fitzwilliam. But if you wish to hold her yourself to verify this, I shall not betray your secret.”

He smiled, knowing a tease, and offered his arms into which I gently transferred Victoria.

“I hope you can accept her, Fitzwilliam, as if she were your daughter…”

“It is not a matter of hoping, Elizabeth. There is nothing for which to hope. I do accept her. I accept her, and I love her. Let us resolve that Victoria is my daughter and yours and say no more about it?”

He looked at me searchingly, and his thumb absently stroked Victoria’s plump cheek. I spoke not, and he continued.

“No doubt in the next few days, we will need to discuss matters. We need to agree on how we shall present this when we return to Pemberley. There is the question of dealing with your family and the children. There is also the fact that you have been greatly injured in your feelings. You have lost a sister and gained a child, and you shall need to speak of it if you are to survive the cruelty of the thing. But may I suggest that those discussions being had, we say nothing further, even to each other? If we live it, then it shall become the truth. If we talk of these events beyond the time that it is necessary, then we run all manner of risks. We risk being overheard or raising the suspicions of others. We risk our own feelings. You are one for turning matters over, Elizabeth, but sometimes, it is as well to be silent. Live as if Victoria is your child and mine, and she shall be.”

I reached over and kissed him.

***

September 27, 1821, Dublin, Ireland

The inn at which we are spending our last night in Ireland is half in darkness even with all the candles lit, and the ceilings are so low as to whisper above my head. In the early morning, we shall board the boat to Holyhead and be gone. Hannah is presently in her room with Victoria and the Irish wet nurse we have with us. I hear my dear maid through the wall, sorting and shuffling, no doubt ensuring that all the right things are in the right trunks for the English part of our journey home. It is a journey that cannot be too soon completed. My letters to Mrs. Reynolds and Nanny and Georgiana shall have arrived before us, and my heart sings to think that within days my eyes shall rest on their recipients.

Our rooms here were the best available, but they are rather dark, and noises creep up from below on all sides. I hear the sound of men’s voices in the bar, and a dog barks without. The clunking of the great gates opening and a horse’s hooves upon the uneven ground of the unmade road outside echo in my ears. I pull my shawl tighter about me and wonder where my husband is and when he shall return. He said he had business in the bar, but I cannot think what it is at this hour when we are to stay in this land for a matter of mere hours. I shiver, close my book that I have long ceased to read, and just as I am about to snuff out the candle, I hear his familiar gait approach. His appearance in the light of the door makes me start forward in our bed.

“Do not disturb yourself, Elizabeth.”

“Is all well, sir? You have been below stairs a long while.”

He sat on my side of the bed and brushed my arms with his warm hands.

“I am sorry to be so long, but I hope it shall not be wasted time. I have been speaking to an associate of the captain and believe that I have secured us the best cabin for tomorrow’s sailing. I am afraid that I cannot predict the weather, but if it is bad, we shall have all the comfort the boat can provide. I know you did not enjoy the sea journey here. Now of course, we also have to think of Victoria.”

I pictured my restrained husband in the raucous bar below, bargaining with Irish sailors for a better berth, and I wanted to fold him up in my arms. I held his hand, and our fingers knitted together.

“Thank you. You are too kind to us.”

“No, I am not. There is no kindness that you do not earn every moment.”

He looked up, and a light in his eyes sparked. The air of the room shifted, and suddenly, something new and familiar was at large. His hand went to my shawl, a mauve affair from Mama, and deftly, he removed it, never taking his eyes from mine. The soft side of his thumb moved over my cheeks and eyelids, and my pulse quickened in a beat. I heard a roar of laughter from the bar below and the muffled sounds of tankards crashing down on wood as his lips found mine in the semi-darkness. He moved to me, and his hands moved down my cotton-clad body in a motion I knew well. He pulled at my nightgown.

“May I?”

When I was a younger woman, learning his touch, I had nodded and shuffled about to allow this custom. As a young bride, I believe I closed my eyes. But now, in my middle years and having seen life break forth and expire, I fixed him with a stare to match his own and spoke clearly. “Yes.” My gown removed, he beheld me in the flickering light against the thin pillows and unfamiliar bed linen.

“Beautiful.”

I could not but laugh at this.

“Why do you laugh, Elizabeth?”

“Because I love to laugh, and…well, because it is humorous to hear such a word on your lips upon beholding such a sight.”

“Humorous?”

“Yes. Once, it was true maybe. But you could not possibly think such a thing now, Mr. Darcy. I am not a girl of one and twenty.”

“You are not. You are much more.”

“That, I know too well! Much more in terms of years traversed!”

“I did not mean that.”

“I have had children. I am far from perfect. I do not expect you to pretend, Fitzwilliam.”

“I am not pretending. Every part of you is as I would have it. The changes wrought by the years, they are nothing to me.”

With this, his lean body crashed against me, and I felt his lips press upon mine—upon all the parts of my person. Candlelight caught the silvery threads in his hair, and my fingers pressed into the flesh of his arms, his back, his shoulders, his face. The mark of them shall always be there, known only to us. When he said my name, tears sprang from my eyes. Was this relief or grief delayed? Was it the unvarnished joy of loving and being loved in return? To know him so well and still to be touched by him in darkness and light is surely the greatest fortune of all.

Chapter 25

Pemberley, 19 September 2014

Charlie read the last sentence aloud, closed the book, and looked up from his seat by the dressing table. Elizabeth’s journals were piled up beside him, dusty and a little worn but essentially well preserved. Evie lay back on the bed, barefoot and in her jeans and T-shirt, trying to digest the words. The black of the night pressed on the windows like thick soup, and she had no idea of the time. He had not read it all; there was so much. He had focussed on the dates around the time that Victoria was conceived and then born. Now that she knew the truth of her descent, she felt unaccountably shocked by it. Charlie’s voice broke through the muddy silence.

“So you were right…about Elizabeth, I mean.”

She was silent for a moment and rolled over onto her side to face him across the room.

“I was right that she was faithful. But she wasn’t my fifth great grandmother—her sister Lydia was. And my fifth great grandfather was a complete unknown. So, it is true that I am not a Darcy at all. Not even a poor and distantly related one.”

She smiled, and he smiled back.

“It’s okay, Evie, because we have it now. No one need ever know.”

“Except you and me.”

Charlie inhaled and looked down at his feet before raising his gaze to meet hers.

“Your secret’s safe with me. Surely, you know you that by now?”

She did know. She focussed on his shadowy figure sitting across the room and felt a slight dizziness.
“The unvarnished joy of loving and being loved in return
.
”
Evie let those words turn around her mind. She sat up on the bed and stretched. The air in the room was crisper than before, and they looked at each other in silence. From somewhere, a question cracked open. It ricocheted around in the space between them like a firecracker. What was this thing, and where had it come from?
“Still to be touched by him in darkness and light
.
”
A voice inside Evie spoke, and she felt bold—bolder than she ever recalled. Knowing that she had to act quickly or not act at all, she stood, walked across the floor, and stopped in front of him. Charlie looked from her bare toes on the carpet to her blonde hair falling across her face, and moved, seemingly on instinct. He stood up and, wrapping his arms around her, kissed her lips. It amazed Evie that she did not feel shyness or embarrassment or any of the other creatures of loneliness and insecurity with which she was so familiar. She did not. She reached her hands up to his stubbly face and kissed him back. His hands roamed around her body from the edge of her breasts, along her slim waist, and around her bottom, and she was on fire. Hurriedly and intertwined, they stumbled towards the high bed where he sat her on the edge and fixed her with a searching, almost unbelieving stare.

“Yes?”

With one movement and without taking her eyes from his face, she peeled up the bottom of her T-shirt and swept it over her head. He observed her perched on the edge of the bed in her bra and jeans, cheeks flushed, hair ruffled by his hands, and she knew she had made herself plain enough. He pushed her back against the covers and the excess of pillows, and in the dim light of Elizabeth’s bedroom, he slipped off the rest of her clothes and then his own. The feeling of his naked body above hers and the sound of his voice in her ear electrified her. Afterwards, they lay facing each other in the massive bed, his hand resting on the side of her tummy.

“If I knew it was going to have that effect, I would have read aloud to you before.”

She smiled at this and stroked his bare chest.

“You do have a lovely voice.”

“Thank you. You have a lovely everything.”

She rolled to him and played with the curls in his hair, her breasts squashed against the side of his body. They regarded one another in silence for a moment before she spoke again.

“Now, you are not allowed to avoid answering my questions when you are actually in bed with me.”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Really. So, I want to know about you. You know everything about me.”

He began to kiss her neck and mumbled, “Not enough.”

“Stop deflecting me. You do know everything. You mapped out things about me before I even knew your name. You know who my great, great, great, great, great grandparents weren’t. You’ve been to my house. You’ve met Clemmie. You’ve even seen me naked, and there aren’t many people in the world who’ve seen me naked.”

“You’ve seen me naked too, Evie.”

“I know, and that”—she paused to kiss his cheek—“was its own reward. But, I still think you owe me some information.”

“What information do you want?” he asked, stroking her hair. The gentle pressure of his hand soothed her. She knew that he was distracting her, avoiding discussion, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“Just—you know—who you are, what you’re about. That kind of thing. How on earth you managed to end up doing what you do.”

“Sounds a bit deep. Can’t we just enjoy each other?”

“I don’t even know how old you are. When is your birthday?” She paused for a moment. “What happened to your dad?”

He rolled onto his back and swept his hair back from his forehead with his hand.

“Now that really is deep. You sure you want to know now?”

She rested her arm across his chest. “Yes.”

“Okay. Well, I’m thirty-four. My birthday was the eighth of June.”

“Hmm.” She planted a soft kiss on his chest.

“My dad was a vicar in an inner-city parish in Hackney. He was an amazing guy. He was kind and intelligent and forgiving, and he always saw the best in people. He was willing to help people the world turned their backs on. He didn’t want wealth. He didn’t want glory.”

“He sounds pretty saintly.”

“He
was
pretty saintly. He even forgave me for not being as good as he was.”

“Did he get ill?”

“No. He died when a young drug addict he had been trying to help stabbed him outside his church and left him for dead.”

There was a moment of silence before Evie found the presence of mind to speak.

“Oh.” It sounded inadequate to her ear. “How old were you?”

“Eighteen. Mum had had to give up work a couple of years before because of her legs. It turned out that Dad’s church pension wasn’t enough to keep a dormouse. And we couldn’t stay in the vicarage without a vicar. So…”

She waited, but he said nothing.

“So…?”

“So, I had met this guy who ran a private detective agency. He seemed to do pretty well, and he had given me some holiday work. He had more work than he could cope with, so he offered me a job. I couldn’t see any other way out, so I took it. I rented a flat for Mum and me to live in. I told Cambridge I wouldn’t be coming. I got down to work. No job was too hard for me; no hours were too long. I just worked. It went well. I earned enough to keep us afloat, and then when I started my own business, the money really started rolling in. I bought my flat and a little house in Berkshire for my mum to be near her sisters. I took on staff. I rented an office. The problem with money is that it makes you need more of the same.”

“You don’t sound like you love it.”

“I don’t love it.” He looked at her hard, and in the dim light, she tried to read his face, as he seemed able to read hers. “Now,” he said, pulling her closer, “don’t you think you have had enough confessions out of me for one day?”

She pulled her head back and looked at him questioningly.

“Do you mean what you said to me in the drawing room? Yesterday.”

***

Charlie tightened his grip on her warm body and hoped. It did not escape him that she had said nothing of how she felt about him. He wanted to ask what it all meant, but he didn’t dare. Would they get in the car in a few hours’ time and pretend this had never happened? Would he ever even see her again after he dropped her back in Fulham? The thought of her absence made him ache.

“Do you want to know whether I like you back?”

He smiled at the disarming frankness of the question. “Erm. Yes. But only if it’s the right answer.”

Evie blinked at this and put her finger to his lips. “Well…put it this way: I don’t just jump into bed with men willy-nilly.”

He laughed quietly, assuming there was a compliment buried in there somewhere. “I hope you didn’t do it just out of curiosity.”

Evie looked at him strangely and steadily. She started to speak and then did not. In the still of the early morning with the first hints of light creeping against the windows, she sat up and straddled him. Was this her reply? He thought that he would never forget the sight and the feel of her, the happiness in her face, or the bone-shaking, soul-splitting joy of her body collapsing against him afterwards. He understood her suggestion—that she had not slept with many men. He guessed the years since her parents died had not exactly been party time, and although she was beautiful, exquisitely so, she was also shy and reserved. He could tell that there hadn’t been many before him. But for all that, there was nothing lacking. By some unknown creature of instinct or intuition, she knew exactly what to do with him.

At some unremembered moment, they must have fallen asleep because, some hours later, Charlie found himself blinking into the daylight and stretching his hand out for her, only to find an empty space. He sat up, stretching, to see her scampering around the room, dressed and stuffing things into her leather holdall. She crouched down and retrieved her knickers from behind the dressing table where he had thrown them.

“Good morning,” he said, and she spun around, holdall in one hand, screwed up knickers in the other.

“Good morning.”

“You’re up early.”

“Not really, it’s nine o’clock.”

James and Honoria ate their breakfast early, and the breakfast things would have been cleared away at some time after eight. They had told their hosts that they would be leaving early, so their non-appearance at breakfast had probably raised eyebrows. Evie looked agitated, and he thought she must be worried about this.

“I’ll go and get dressed, and we’ll get breakfast at that pub in Lambton. How about that?”

She zipped up her bag and placed it at the end of the bed.

“I think you should definitely go and get dressed, but before we leave, there’s something we need to do.”

“Of course, we’ll say goodbye to the Darcys.”

“No, I mean something else. I decided during the night after…when you were sleeping.”

“What, Evie?” He hooked his fingers in the belt rings of her jeans and pulled her gently towards him.

“I’m going to put Elizabeth’s diaries back in the chapel. I’m not taking them. I’m going to put them back where Hannah hid them and leave them there.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I mean it.”

“But you would be leaving them for someone else to find. Those books are what we came here for, and they’re a smoking gun, Evie. It’s all there. Victoria Darcy was not the daughter of Fitzwilliam Darcy. It is in black and white in his wife’s own hand. It’s enough to see you and Clemmie disinherited from the Darcy Trust. If you take them, you don’t have to worry about it. You can get on with your life without looking over your shoulder.”

“But it’s stealing, Charlie. They’re not mine, and I’m not taking them. It’s Elizabeth’s story, and it belongs here even if nobody knows about it.”

He took one hand away from her jeans and raked his fingers through his hair. His mind was racing to catch up with the sheer boldness of it: to come all this way and go through so much, and then to simply turn away from the prize when she actually held it in her hands. It made him dizzy.

“It’s a risk.”

“I know. My risk.”

There was a steeliness and a certainty in her eyes that reminded him of his dad. She was the kind of person who would do what was right rather than what was best for her, and once she was decided, there would be no moving her. He knew it was pointless to try to budge her, and somewhere inside him, he knew that she was right as well. He wrapped his arms around her middle and kissed her head.

“Okay. I’m going to shower and get dressed, and then I’ll knock for you, and we’ll go down to the chapel together, okay?”

She smiled broadly and playfully.

“Okay. Thank you for not arguing.”

Charlie sneaked across the corridor and into his own bedroom. Looking at the made bed, untouched, he thought of how much had changed in the night. He knew that, if the worst came to the worst, he would look after her, and if the price of her love was the uncertainty of leaving Elizabeth’s diary behind, then it was worth paying. As he showered, dressed, and threw his things into his case, he decided that, if they could get the books back into the box and close it securely, there was no real reason to think that anyone would ever find them. They had been there for a hundred and sixty years without disturbance, and even if Cressida came here, she would never think to look there. He reassured himself with these thoughts and collected Evie, and together they made their way downstairs to the chapel.

Charlie flicked on the lights and, once inside, slid on his back underneath the pew with Evie kneeling beside him holding the books in her arms like a baby. There was a layer of dust on the floor, and the evidence of what they had done crept about her. It made her all the more certain that she had made the right decision.

“Are you okay? Do you have enough light? I have a torch on my phone…”

She started fumbling in her pocket, but the truth was that Charlie could see perfectly fine.

“No, I don’t really need it. I just need to get this catch back in place…” He squinted as he concentrated on the antique fastening, and Evie’s heart began to race. She clenched and unclenched her fists and looked around at the yawning emptiness of the chapel before she felt Charlie’s hand on her knee.

“Hey, don’t worry. I will only be a minute. If you like, wait outside or go and find the Darcys. I’ll catch you up when I’m done.”

“No, no. I want to stay.”

With that, she forced a smile, and he knew he had to speed up. Somehow, by luck or judgment, he managed it. One by one, he squeezed the small leather-bound books full of secrets back into the box, firmly closed the lid, and fastened it. It occurred to him that Hannah had probably been in just as much of a hurry when she had done the job originally in 1853. He prayed that his handiwork would last as long, and as he sat up, he kissed the girl in front of him because he just couldn’t resist. It happened so rapidly that it confused all of them. He moved away from her soft face, and over her honey blonde-shrouded shoulder, his eyes rested on another—Honoria Darcy—framed in the doorway. Her face was somehow abashed, and she folded her arms under her bust defensively. Charlie stilled, and his expression must have said it all because Evie spun around and gasped as Honoria spoke.

“You won’t find many original Clerkenman’s down there, Mr. Hayward.”

***

Sometime later, James Darcy moved a pen on his desk and looked up at them.

“Now, I am going to give you time to speak, but I should tell you right away that I am going to need a very good reason not to telephone the police. My wife tells me that she found you rummaging around in the chapel where you have apparently discovered a number of documents belonging to me which you were in the process of removing.”

“Mr. Darcy, I—”

“You will allow me to finish, Mr. Haywood. I have had a brief look at these books, and they appear to be the reminiscences of a relation of mine. I had no idea that they existed or that they were secreted in the way that they were. I cannot imagine what they have to do with either of you, but then I get the impression that I am not in possession of the full facts. It may not surprise you to learn that I am of the old school and not confident with modern technology. However, Mrs. Darcy has spoken on the telephone to our son who has discovered by way of the internet that you, sir, far from being an art historian, are in fact a private detective of some flavour. I do not even begin to address the untruths you spun in order to gain access to my home. What the role of this young lady is, I know not. But it will not surprise you to be told that I am far from happy. And so, I have the disadvantage of limited information which you shall remedy for me now.”

“Mr. Darcy, firstly, I should say that everything I am about to say is my responsibility and mine alone. Miss—”

“Pemberton. My name is Evie Pemberton.”