Page 25 of The Blackmail of Mr. Darcy
“It is so good to see you, Richard. And thank you so much for taking the time to come out to us!”
“It is a deuced easy jaunt here, compared to Pemberley, Darce! Now, tell me what it is all about.”
“I will, but let us grab a table and get something good to chew on before I give you something bad to chew on.”
Darcy and Richard ordered some ale and selected a back-corner table; a pock-marked serving maid brought theirtankards and promised to be out soon with some roasted duck and a steak-and-kidney pie.
Darcy thanked the maid and waited until she had walked away before he began to talk. He watched his cousin’s face darken as he told about Miss Bingley’s oral threats, and Richard swore when he described finding the brief note signed “W.”
“Wait,” Richard said, “who is the Bennet chit?”
Darcy blushed, and Richard’s eyebrows shot up. He rubbed his hands together and said, “Oh, ho, Darce. You met a woman you would blush about? Forget about this Miss Bingley stuff, and tell me all about Miss Bennet!”
“Richard,” Darcy said with a tone that was half scolding and half pleading, “I did meet a beautiful and intelligent gentlewoman, and I do like her, but I must prioritise protecting Georgiana, and right now that means trying to figure out how to counteract Miss Bingley.”
“But, will I get to meet this Miss Bennet at Netherfield?” Richard asked.
“The eldest, Miss Jane Bennet, is recovering from a cold at Netherfield, and the woman that I—that I am being warned off of is her younger sister, Miss Elizabeth. And, yes, she is also at Netherfield, nursing her sister. She has become a good friend of Georgiana’s. Miss Jane Bennet, too, is becoming Georgie’s friend, to some extent; but Georgiana is much closer to my—uh—to Miss Elizabeth.”
“Very, very nice!” Richard said. “Now I shall ask you some questions.”
Richard managed in just a few minutes to canvass all the topics Darcy had privately wondered about, all the questions Elizabeth had asked, every detail of how and when the note was delivered—including the terrible handwriting and cheap paper—and even all about the kitchen fire, although Richard agreed the fire was unlikely to have been a part of a blackmailer’s plot.
Darcy did not want to include Elizabeth’s speculations about Miss Bingley watching him fence and being either infatuated by him, or deranged, or both; but as shy as he felt about saying such things, he felt he had to include them in case they were of importance to their strategy.
The meal was long over, and the men drank one more round of ales before Richard rubbed his face and began to talk. “You know that I get weekly reports on Wickham’s movements in Cornwall, and I go there at least once a month to see him myself—and to scare the daylights out of him—basically, to keep him in line. I am confident that he has not travelled even as far as Exeter because we have such constant reporting of his physical whereabouts.”
Darcy nodded and said, “I cannot even imagine how Wickham could help Miss Bingley in any way. It seems to me that this is not a situation of conspiracy. It should be fairly simple, Richard; we just have to figure out where to bury the body.”
The last bit was whispered, and it harkened back to their long-ago play of being pirates. They were always pretending to steal ships, bury treasure, and have epic sword fights with rival bands of pirates, and at least once per day, someone would say something about needing to be sure where all the treasure was buried, so they did not accidentally disrupt a hiding place when burying the body of an enemy pirate.
“God, we were such vicious little children, were we not, Darcy?” Richard asked.
“You know it was mostly Wickham who brought all that cutthroat nonsense into our pirate play,” Darcy said. “But, seriously, Miss Elizabeth had two ideas to try to thwart Miss Bingley without violence.” He explained her ideas to Richard, relayed what they had already begun to do, and outlined the possible dangers he saw in attempting to bait a blackmailer withmisinformation about anyone. “It could come back to hurt thatanyone,” he said firmly.
“Except maybe my mother,” Richard said, his eyes lighting up with possibilities.
“Wait, we cannot drag Aunt Helen into this mess. We would face horrific reprisals if we spread rumours about her, especially untrue rumours! And she would be correct to punish us.”
Richard waved off Darcy’s concerns. “I will write to her; she is capable of standing up to a thousand Miss Bingleys. And she is a person who lives by her schedule. We admit to one another that she did something disreputable on a certain date and time—and there will be a hundred witnesses that she was nowhere near there. We warn one another that she is going to do something improper at another place, at another time, and there will be a completely different group of people swearing that it was a lie as well. No, you need not fear for my mother, although you might wonder if this is too cruel a consequence to Miss Bingley.”
“Miss Bingley can choose not to gossip,” Darcy suggested. “If she ruins herself, so be it.”
“Anyway, Miss Bingley is showing her own stupidity,” Richard said. “If she knew you at all, she would know that you would never submit to the demands of a blackmailer.”
“Definitely not,” Darcy said, “although, to be honest, when it is just subtle threats and unclear demands, I did not precisely submit to the vague demands, but I also did not stand up against them. So far, with things so unclear, it has been like trying to fight against morning mist….”
“Well," Richard said, “you received the note two mornings ago, correct? Since that time, how often have you seen or talked to Miss Elizabeth?”
Darcy ran a distracted hand through his hair. He started to relate to Richard his various interactions with Elizabeth, and eventually Richard waved his hand and said, “Well, that is quiteenough. My point is that Miss Bingley slides a note under your bedroom door really early in the morning, warning you to stay away from your sweetheart, and then you proceed to continue on as before, talking to your sweetheart whenever you can.”
Darcy started to protest the use of the wordsyour sweetheart, but Richard spoke over him: “It gives her a message, loud and clear: Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy will not bend a knee to a blackmailer!”
“She must be mad if she really thinks that anyone at all would marry her if she threatens their loved ones.”
Richard tapped his lips with one finger. “She likely ismad, actually. Some people assume that anyone who is not right in the head must be ranting and wielding a bloody knife and running around in their undress. But in war…. Well, I do not much want to get into it, but I assure you that there are many forms of madness, and some people who believe daft things or have ridiculous goals act quite normally most of the time.”
Darcy considered that and nodded.
