Page 18 of The Blackmail of Mr. Darcy
Georgiana gasped. She looked scared; Elizabeth looked puzzled.
“Miss Bingley seems to be warning you against a friendship with me!” Elizabeth said. “And Georgiana told me yesterday—was it only yesterday?—that Miss Bingley directly told her thatsheshould not be friends with me. Why am I involved in this at all? Why is Caroline Bingley involving me in her threats and scoldings?”
Heat rose to Darcy’s cheeks, and he felt her eyes flick to his face with even more bewilderment. Then he saw the beginnings of a theory forming as Elizabeth’s eyes showed a new awareness. She blushed, and her mouth opened a bit in a surprised “O”—and of course she looked even lovelier than usual.
Georgiana looked between them, and when she opened her mouth to say something, Darcy had an impulse to try to stop her. But the words were already out, quivering in the crisp fall air: “Because my brother likes you.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “That cannot be true. I have it on good authority that I am not handsome enough to tempt him even just to dance.”
Darcy dipped his head in shame. He wished he could thrust his head into a bucket of icy water, although he supposed any bucket would do. He said, “My apologies for my untrue and utterly ungentlemanly words, Miss Elizabeth. I said them while contemplating Miss Bingley’s vague threats that seemed toindicate that I had better not show interest in a Hertfordshire woman, or else. That anxiety is one of several reasons why I felt poorly that night, but it is absolutely no excuse for those irrational and unkind words.”
Georgiana looked between the two of them. “I apologise, too, for speaking out of turn. Although what I said was at least honest.”
“Georgie, please desist!” Darcy pleaded. He turned to Elizabeth and said, “Miss Elizabeth, I have come at this question several times now, for as long as I have been here at Netherfield, and I am of a mind that Miss Bingley has somehow learnt about Ramsgate, which I gather you now know, as well?” Miss Elizabeth and Georgiana both nodded, and Darcy continued, “I believe that Miss Bingley hopes to achieve with threats to my sister’s reputation what she has not been able to achieve in the last several years: that she will be able to bend me to her will and force me to propose to her.”
His sister cried out, “Noooo! You can never do that, Brother! That would be awful—and for a lifetime!”
He responded, “Do not worry, Poppet. I will never marry Miss Bingley. Also…I have no proof at all that she knows about and is threatening to divulge information about Ramsgate. The only shred of evidence that points that direction is the use of the letter ‘W’ as the signature of the note. That is not much to go on.”
As always, Elizabeth’s face was lively, her eyes were sparkling, her entire body seemed to be engaged with the discussion. She said, “Miss Bingley has not revealed much, yet, but let us look at this from another angle. Let us consider how she could have learnt about this incident. How many people know of it?”
“Only five people. Well, now, including you, Miss Elizabeth, only six people. Georgiana and Wickham, of course, myself and Mrs. Younge, and my cousin Richard—who is Georgie’s otherguardian.” He turned back to his sister to confirm, “You have not told anyone else anything about it, correct?”
“I have not.”
“Not even a part of the story?” Elizabeth asked. “Here are some examples: Did you tell anyone at all that you went to Ramsgate with your companion? Did you tell anyone at all that you met your father’s godson recently? Did you tell anyone that you thought you fell in love, but then later realised that it was not truly love?” Georgiana shook her head firmly, but Elizabeth persisted, “If you told a bit of the story to one friend and then another bit of the story to another, someone who eavesdrops quite frequently might be able to put the stories together and come up with the whole.”
“Honestly, Elizabeth, until you I have barely talked to anyone, about anything. I swear to both of you that I did not say anything about it, nor even to say that I have been to Ramsgate.”
Darcy was happy to see Elizabeth take his sister’s hand and squeeze it in support. “We believe you,” Elizabeth said. She turned to him and asked, “You likely told multiple people about part of it. For example, you must have warned the butler and housekeeper at your estate about not allowing Mr. Wickham into your home.”
Darcy nodded and said, “All of my servants and tenants—from coachmen to laundry maids, from stewards to stablehands—have been warned about him by name, and shown a likeness my father had commissioned. But those warnings were first made when he became irrationally angry upon hearing that he only received four thousand pounds from my father, on his death, and Wickham left my presence making threats. That was several years before Ramsgate, and various servants are responsible for reminding people of the general threat, what he looks like, and so forth. None of those people—not even my highly trustworthy valet—have been told about Ramsgate.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Good,” she replied. “But unlike Georgiana, you have had to talk about the incident, because you told your cousin about it. You need to consider how many times you discussed it, where you were each of those times, and if it is at all conceivable that Miss Bingley could have listened in on any of those discussions.”
Darcy had thought about this before, and had decided that she could not have learnt about Ramsgate from overhearing him and Richard. But that analysis had been done on the night of the assembly. With his travel-induced headache and all the noise of the gathering, he might not have been in top form that night. He took the time to think it through again:
His initial narrative of the attempted elopement had been in Richard’s private sitting room at his parents’ estate, Matlock. Caroline Bingley had never in her life been in that house; he well remembered his aunt, the Countess of Matlock, scolding him for his friendship with Bingley, citing the stench of trade as the objection.
He and Richard had long determined not to write a word of the incident in any letter, and they had set up a code phrase in case they needed to exchange information; whoever wanted to set up a meeting would write “I need to discuss the copper investment.” They both had investments in copper, giving the phrase verisimilitude, but they had never in their lives needed to discuss such, so it was a good code phrase.
As to further discussions in person…there had been two. The first was in Darcy House, in London…. Not only was it held in his study, which had very adequate sound proofing, it had been held during a time when the entire Bingley family was in Scarborough. The second discussion occurred at Pemberley, and the Bingleys had been visiting. He had not considered it possible that they could have been overheard, but now he rethought the idea.
Richard had brought up Wickham when they were outside. They had been alone, on a terrace, but it was possible that someone could have overheard from the orangery or from the planted area near the veranda. They had decided to move the conversation into his study, for fear of being overheard. Like his study at Darcy House, Pemberley’s study was soundproof.
But….
“You thought of something,” Elizabeth said, and Darcy turned to her, his eyes wide.
“It is remotely possible that Miss Bingley could have utilised the secret passage that runs from the study at Pemberley to the library. I showed it off to Bingley years ago, the first time he visited; he had heard that some manors have secret chambers, priest holes, and hidden passages, and he asked if Pemberley had any such features. I told him it did, and he looked so like a puppy dog, all eagerness and longing eyes, that I showed the secret passage to him. Honestly, I am shocked at the notion that he might show it to anyone else, but it is a possible way in which Miss Bingley could have overheard a discussion I had about Ramsgate with Richard. We were alone in what has been long established as a soundproof room, with the window closed and the door locked. However, if she entered the secret passageway from the library side, she possibly could have listened at the secret door, which from the study looks like a wall panel.”
Elizabeth nodded, “Then I think we should proceed as if she does know everything spoken during that particular discussion, and that she means to use her knowledge as leverage.”
Darcy felt his lips quirk in a smile, and he tamped down the inclination. But he loved the fact that Elizabeth had used the word “we,” as if the three of them had formed an anti-Miss-Bingley team. He still had no idea how to, as she put it, “proceed” to fight against his blackmailer.
“First,” Elizabeth said, “is there not some way that you can ask for Mr. Bingley’s help in working to control his sister’s less-than-savory intentions?”
Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting the beginnings of a headache. “I am more likely to give Bingley up as a friend, I fear, than I am to successfully win his help against Miss Bingley’s machinations. He has good intentions, but he is weak in taking action. I dare not even take him into confidence about Ramsgate; I am almost certain that his sister could wheedle out of him every detail I might relate, even if I demanded utmost secrecy.”
