Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (9 page)

 I laughed despite myself.  “I collected newts as a child!  Except that I stored mine in the kitchen in our biggest soup tureen.  And nearly frightened our cook into fits when she tried to use it to make oxtail stew.”

Mr. Dalton laughed, too.  And then he sobered and said, “How is your sister?  She is no worse, I hope?”

Now that the danger seemed to have passed, a little of the clenched feeling inside me had eased.  And yet I felt abruptly almost like indulging in a fit of crying myself.  Which was ridiculous. 

“I believe my sister is out of danger—for now.  It does not seem as though the child will be coming tonight.”

That was when I realised (belatedly) that if it is indelicate to refer to childbirth even amongst family, it is hideously improper to speak of it to a young unmarried man—and a clergyman, at that.

Mr. Dalton at least did not look particularly scandalised.  Though I suppose when one considers that on the three occasions we have met, I have insulted him—snapped at him—asked him to carry my hugely pregnant sister—and finally made him a present of an irate and howling child, he must surely by this time have given up on anything like adherence to the conventions from me.

He said, “I am very glad to hear it.  But in that case … may I offer to see you home, Miss Bennet?  I still have my carriage here.”

I hesitated.  It was much later than I had realised; I heard the clock in the downstairs hall chiming half past three in the morning.  I had meant to stay with Jane all through the night, but if she was asleep, now, and had no more need of me, it was a tempting offer to be allowed to spend the rest of the night in my own bed at Aunt Gardiner’s.

“Let me speak with Georgiana,” I said at last.  “I ought in any case to give her the latest news of Jane.”

I thought Georgiana must still be downstairs; she would have told me if she and Edward had retired for bed.  When I reached the downstairs, I saw that the library door was halfway open and that there was a light inside.  I tiptoed closer and, looking in, saw Georgiana and Edward sitting together on the rug before the hearth.

Georgiana wore a nightdress and pale green silk dressing gown, and she was sitting with her knees drawn up, leaning back against Edward’s chest.  Edward had his arms looped around her waist, and his chin rested on her dark hair.

As I stood frozen in the doorway, Georgiana turned her head to look up at Edward and said something, the words too low for me to hear.  Edward brushed the hair back from her forehead with such tenderness in the gesture that I felt a hollow ache spring up under my breastbone.

It is not that I envy Georgiana her husband.  I truly do not.  Even if he had not been engaged to Georgiana from the time I first met him, I do not think I should have ever fallen in love with Edward Fitzwilliam.  It is just—

Never mind.  What I wrote before about there being very small, sour comfort in self-pity does not appear to have grown any the less true. 

Whatever Edward said in response made Georgiana smile and tilt her head up so that she could touch her lips to Edward’s.  And then she caught sight of me in the doorway and scrambled to her feet, her cheeks flushing.  “Kitty!  I am sorry.”  She cast a conscious look at Edward.  “We did not want to go to sleep—because of Jane—and I did not hear you come down, and—”  She stopped and took a breath.  “How is Jane?  Is there any change?”

I told them that Jane had fallen asleep and seemed to be out of danger.  Edward said that he would go and tell his coachman to go to bed—he had asked him to stay awake in case there was need to send for a midwife.  And I told Georgiana that Mr. Dalton had offered to drive me home.  “If you do not mind my leaving you with Jane, of course,” I added.

“Of course not!  You are by all means free to go—you must be exhausted,” Georgiana said.  “Though come to that, Edward could drive you home.”

“No!  I mean, no, that’s quite all right.  Mr. Dalton said it was on his way in any case.”  As a matter of fact, he had said no such thing, but he had offered to drive me back home to Gracechurch Street.  And it did not seem as though heaping one more inconvenience on Mr. Dalton—after the debt I owed him already—could possibly make much difference.

Not when I would marginally prefer to chew broken glass than endure a carriage ride alone with Georgiana’s husband.  Recalling all the while that the
last
time I had any sort of conversation with him, he was telling Georgiana to escort me to my room as though I were a child in disgrace—which to be fair to Edward, I suppose I more or less was.

“That is all right then,” Georgiana said, sounding relieved.  And then she seemed to hesitate, biting her lip.  “Kitty, there is—there is something I feel I ought to speak to you about,” she said at last.

“Oh?”

And then Georgiana’s next words struck me like a blow to the stomach.  “I wanted to give you warning that Lord Henry Carmichael is here in town for the winter.”

I gaped at her, trying to get my breath back.  It felt like some sort of dark magic, as though I had conjured up her words just by force of the memory I had been recalling.

Georgiana leaned forward, putting a hand on my arm and said, “I am so sorry!  I would not have brought it up.  Especially now, when you must be so worried about Jane.  But he was here—actually at the house—tonight.  Not that I invited him, of course,” she added swiftly.  “He came with a party of friends who
were
invited.  But I wanted to give you warning, in case you happen to run across him.  If he was here tonight, there is surely a chance that he may be at some other gathering you attend.”

I finally managed to draw a full breath.   And when I could trust my voice enough to speak I said, “Thank you.  But I do not think I need worry.  He did not remember or recognise me last summer in Brussels.  There is surely even less chance of his recalling our … acquaintance now.”

Which is perfectly true.  And besides, London is a vast city.  I managed to avoid meeting with Lord Carmichael at last night’s ball; if Georgiana had not told me, I should never have known he was there at all.  There is surely little chance of my meeting with him, even if he is in town.

I was too tired this morning to write down the rest of the story—the account of my carriage ride back to Cheapside with Mr. Dalton.

No, that is a lie.  I
was
tired.  But it was more that I did not want to write it down.  All the more reason, I suppose, why I should force myself to do so.

After I had taken leave of Georgiana, I found Mr. Dalton waiting outside with his carriage, which was a curricle drawn by a pair of perfectly matched sandy bay horses.  Miranda Pettigrew cannot have been lying about his having his own private income.

  He handed me up into the carriage first, then swung himself into the driver’s seat.  We started off, rolling down the quiet, darkened street.  But he must have caught me staring at the team of bays—because he glanced sideways at me, smiled, and said, “Would you like to take the reins for a while, Miss Bennet?”

I had not thought I was being as obvious as that.  But I love horses.  When I was small, I used to run away from lessons with our governess every chance I got and slip away to the home farm on my father’s estate.  Once when I was eight or nine and had been scolded for something—I cannot even remember for what now—I determined to run away entirely and go to live in the stables.  When I was not back by nightfall, there was a tremendous hunt.  Eventually one of my father’s stablehands found me curled up asleep in the hay inside the stall belonging to my father’s big gelding Blackie.  Everyone said it was a miracle I had not been trampled—but that had simply never occurred to me.  Blackie and I had a sympathetic understanding, as far as I was concerned.

At any rate, it has been ages since I was able to ride or drive.  I struggled—very briefly, I admit—with temptation and then said, “I should love to.  Thank you.”

We changed places, and I took up the reins.  It was perfectly glorious!  I loved my father’s horses, but they were plodding, gentle old geldings.  Nothing like Mr. Dalton’s team.  His bays are light and fast and seemed to respond instantly to my slightest tug on the reins.

We were flying along—too fast, I suppose, but the streets were almost entirely empty of traffic—when I happened to glance sideways at Mr. Dalton.  And found him watching me, with the strangest expression on his face.  Part smile, part something I could not identify—and had as it turned out, no chance to do so.  At that moment, the very instant when my attention was momentarily turned, a stray dog came bounding out of the mouth of an alley we were passing by, yapping and snarling about the horses’ heels.

The horses reared back, whinnying—and then bolted, bucking and lunging forward so violently that I lost hold of the reins—and was nearly thrown out of the curricle altogether.  I ought to have been terrified, but in the moment, there simply was not time.  I clutched at the side of the seat, fully expecting that in another heartbeat the panicked horses would succeed in overturning the carriage entirely, and Mr. Dalton and I would both be killed.

And then I saw Mr. Dalton struggle to his feet against the curricle’s pitch and sway, brace his hands on the dashboard—and vault forwards onto the nearest horse’s back.

At first the animal continued to buck and plunge, trying to throw him off.  But he clung on, holding to the bay’s bridle, and at length the horse quieted, slowed, and finally stopped, sides heaving.   I suppose the horses’ initial panic must have worn off, because the other bay allowed itself to be dragged to a halt, as well.

Mr. Dalton slid down from the horse’s back and stood, talking to the bay in a low, soothing voice as he held tight to its bridle, forcing it into stillness.

But the second bay—the one Mr. Dalton had not ridden—was still stepping nervously and tossing its head.  At any moment it might bolt again, and make the other horse panic, as well.

I slid down from the driver’s seat and cautiously moved towards it.  The animal’s muscles were still trembling and its ears were flat back.  It flinched when I touched its muzzle, whinnying again.

“Good boy.”  I spoke softly—as I would have to baby Susanna.  “Did the big nasty dog frighten you, my love?  It’s all right.  It’s gone now.”

The horse exhaled a gusty breath—and then it lowered its head, nuzzling my fingers.  “Good boy,” I said again.  I slid my hand up to rub the bay’s neck in slow circles.   And then looked up to see Mr. Dalton staring at me across the other bay’s head.

We were passing through a street of mostly warehouses and factories, and the only light came from the carriage lamps.  They cast only a small, flickering glow.  But it was light enough for me to see that Mr. Dalton’s lips had compressed into a thin line and that a muscle was ticking at the side of his jaw.

“Are you out of your mind?”  He did at least manage to keep his voice low, for the benefit of the still-frightened horses.  But I could see that it took considerable effort.  “Did it occur to you that getting down from the carriage to approach a panicked horse might be an excellent way to get yourself killed?”

As I say, I had had no time to feel frightened during the actual danger.  But by then reaction had set in, leaving me feeling clammy-skinned and slightly queasy.  “It
occurred
to me,” I hissed back, managing likewise to keep my voice to a near-whisper, “that you could only try to calm one horse at a time, and that if this one bolted again while you were settling his fellow, you would be trampled to death.  Besides all of which,” I added, glaring at him, “I scarcely think that anyone who attempts a stunt as insane as your leap from the carriage just now is qualified to speak to anyone else about being out of her mind!”

Mr. Dalton only stared at me with another of those unreadable expressions.  Though in this case, I assumed he was probably asking himself why he had
bothered
to halt the horses and so stop me from being thrown out of the carriage and killed.

I forced myself to draw another steadying breath—because he had more or less saved my life, after all, and just for once, I was
determined
not to be left with my skin crawling with mortification every time I recalled what I had said to the man.

I exhaled and said, in quieter tones, “What I meant to say was, Thank you.  That was an incredibly brave if completely foolhardy thing to do.”

Which
still
did not come out as precisely conciliatory.  I was beginning to wonder whether I had been placed under some sort of malicious spell—like the princess in the fairy tale whose lips dripped with slugs and spiders every time she opened her mouth to talk.  Except in my case, it was insults that seemed to fly out of their own accord whenever I opened my mouth—or at least, whenever I was speaking to Mr. Dalton.

But then Mr. Dalton’s lips started to twitch at the edges, and he laughed, extending his hand.  “Miss Bennet, may I propose we declare a pax?”

Which meant ‘peace’—I do have enough Latin to know that much.

His horse had truly calmed now and was thoughtfully lipping the collar of Mr. Dalton’s coat—and my bay stood quiet, as well.  I smiled and accepted the hand he offered.  “Pax,” I agreed.

We shook, Mr. Dalton checked the horses’ bridles to make sure that nothing had come loose during the adventure, and then we returned to our seats in the curricle.

We did not speak as we drove through the city streets towards Gracechurch Street.  It was so strange as to seem almost unreal—at one moment I was confidently expecting to die, the next we were rolling onwards, past farmers’ carts of eggs and cheeses and vegetable marrows already on their way to the early-morning markets.

But at last I said, “Mr. Dalton, may I ask you a question?  You are a clergyman, are you not?”

He glanced at me sideways, his brows slightly quirked up.  “Is that your question?  Because I believe I can confidently answer yes.”

“Very well, I suppose I ought to have said, May I ask you
two
questions?”  My smile faded, though, as I looked down at my hands.  “What I wish to know is
how
are you a clergyman?  I mean—”  I realised how nonsensical the question sounded, so I rushed on, “I mean how do you believe enough to be a … a man of God and make the church your profession?   We were nearly killed just now—and my sister could easily have died tonight, and her baby too.  I suppose you could say that she did
not
die, and we were
not
killed.  But horrible things do happen—everywhere, every day.”  I have seen them myself.  Though I did not add that part aloud.  “So how is it that God—who is supposed to be loving and forgiving and all those other things that clerics always mention in their Sunday sermons—lets them?”