Page 37 of The Blackmail of Mr. Darcy
“Caroline, what have you done?”
“It is more whatyouhavenotdone, Charles. I have waited for years for you to help me become Mrs. Darcy. I have asked you to aid me countless times. Naturally, since you refused to help me, I had to do something myself!”
Darcy asked, “So you overheard my cousin and I discussing Wickham’s attempt to elope with my sister?”
Miss Bingley nodded.
“And you—” Darcy hesitated, trying to figure out how his friend’s sister had managed to contact Wickham. He hazarded a guess: “You hired an investigator to find a man named Wickham who was the son of a former steward of Pemberley.”
Miss Bingley stayed silent, sitting very still. Darcy decided to use flattery to attempt to cajole the truth from her lips. He said, “You have been very determined, and very clever.”
She looked positively radiant, and Darcy felt nauseated in the face of her happiness. He despised deception, and yet it seemed he must rely on it to get the truth from the only living person who knew it.
The woman before him preened as she said, “Yes, Ihadto be determined, as it was not easy to discover Mr. Wickham’s location. I had to put out a lot of money and hire a second investigator before I finally found him. Then I wrote to Mr. Wickham, and he wanted money as well.”
Thinking hard, Darcy said, “Then Wickham told you to threaten to tell about Ramsgate if….” He deliberately dangled the unfinished sentence before her.
Now that she had started to talk, Miss Bingley seemed inclined to continue. “Well, I thought I would start off by ensuring that you did not turn your attentions away from me and to any of the countrified misses here….” She scowled, likely remembering that she had not succeeded, but of course Darcy was offended that she had phrased it as if he hadeveroffered his “attentions” toher.
But he could not allow his annoyance to impede their need for information. He led her to further confess by uttering another unfinished assumption: “And Wickham suggested putting notes under my door. He shrewdly explained how to disguise your hand?—”
As he had hoped, ascribing intelligence to Wickham rather than Miss Bingley caused her to interrupt with her own claim, “He thought it would be a good idea to leave notes, and to use the initial ‘W’ as a signature, to make you aware that your sister’s shame was not so secret, but it wasmewho was the shrewd one. I figured out that I could write the notes with my left hand, and that I could use bad spelling as well to make it seem that the writer was some mysterious, unknown person.”
Darcy was circumspect enough to withhold the fact that even his valet correctly guessed that Miss Bingley had penned the note—and that it took him mere seconds to do so.
Bingley’s voice was taut when he asked his sister, again, “How is it that Wickham came to our home?”
“Well, he had a plan. I was to obtain all the keys for the ladies’ rooms. Then I was to lock the ladies into their chambers, while the men of the household were out, and then I was to alert him when that was done. He would then come and get a key.”
“And…?” Bingley allowed several seconds to pass before he asked, “And what was he going to do with the key? And whose key—you are acting as if you only gave him one. What was the rest of the plan, Caroline?”
“I do not know!” she wailed. Her voice was so high that Darcy shuddered from the pitch alone.
“He asked you to give him the location of and the key to Miss Bennet’s room?” Darcy asked, sceptical. Why would Wickham specify that particular lady?
Miss Bingley remained silent but blushed. Darcy leapt to an assumption that seemed much more likely: “It was supposed to be Georgiana’s room, was it not?”
Miss Bingley would not answer nor even look at him. But her lack of protest seemed to him to be a confirmation.
“How is it that all the women were in their own rooms?” Darcy asked.
Miss Bingley maintained her silence, and he decided that flattery had worked before…so he added, “Are you too modest to tell me yet another of your clever ideas? I cannot imagine how you managed….”
“I suggested that we go to the stables, to see a new foal, and that we should dress more warmly. Then, while the ladies were changing, I locked them in. Of course Miss Bennet is always in bed, pretending to be ill, so it was no trouble lockingherin!”
“Very clever,” Darcy murmured, and he saw Miss Bingley preen again.
Bingley sighed deeply. He asked Darcy if he had any more questions, and of course he did: “How did you alert Wickham once we were hunting and you had locked the ladies in their rooms? Was that another clever scheme?”
“Oh, well, that was not so very clever. Mr. Wickham assured me that he would be staying at the White Horse in Meryton, and I should send a note by messenger when all was ready.”
“Who did you send with the message?” Bingley asked.
“Haroldson,” Miss Bingley replied. “I just told him to give the message, addressed to Mr. Smith, to the bartender, and Mr. Wickham was on the lookout for the messenger and knew to give the name Smith. That part was easy. Mr. Wickham came up with the plan, but I could have done as well, I just know it.”
Darcy inspected the papers scattered on the floor, picked up the two that were the notes he had received, and said to Bingley, “I believe that is all I can think of at the moment.”
Bingley stepped out to locate a footman, and he gave orders that Miss Bingley remain bound firmly, even when using a chamberpot. “Her maid will attend to her, and I want footmen posted at each door. She is not to leave this room until further notice.”
