One Thread Pulled: The Dance With Mr. Darcy (66 page)

“There is more to this business than what the gossips may have to say, and it is time that you heard the whole of it, sister. I beg you to sit, for you may require such support before I am finished with what you are about to hear. You must prepare yourself for something very dreadful.” Charles looked at his sister meaningfully, and she realized for the first time that his mood had been somber from the moment of their entry. She sat in a chair, and her husband followed suit.

“I wish you to think back to when our eldest sister, Annabelle, was about the same age as Caroline is now.” Bingley said.

“Do not speak of her!” Louisa cried. “I cannot bear it!”

“You were very fond of her, I know,” Bingley conceded gently, “but if we do not wish the same fate for Caroline, we must open our eyes, Louisa.”

“It cannot be—Caroline is not at all like Annabelle!” Louisa began to cry.

“You think she is not, but Annabelle was the light of all of our lives before...,” Charles trailed off and looked away from his sister, softly adding, “... before she was not.”

Mr. Hurst, who rarely paid any attention to anything, was paying rapt attention to
 
this
 
conversation. “Who, pray tell, is Annabelle, and what happened to her?” He finally asked.

“Annabelle is our eldest sister.” Louisa muttered through her tears. “She is in Bedlam.”

“What?” Mr. Hurst burst out loudly. “And what has Annabelle to do with Caroline?”

“Annabelle was very beautiful, very accomplished.” Charles began, “She was all that our parents wanted for us all to be. She did not have a friend such as Mr. Darcy to introduce her into London society as we did, but eventually, she caught the eye of a wealthy, landed gentleman from Shropshire, and they married.”

“Why have I never heard of her?” Mr. Hurst huffed. “I have a sister and brother that I have never met?”

Charles nodded the affirmative to Mr. Hurst before he continued. “She greatly desired to be in London for her first season as a married woman, and her new husband obliged her by renting a townhouse in a fashionable neighborhood. At first, all was well.” Bingley sat down behind the desk, his posture erect as he continued relating the tale. “Annabelle was well received—not in the first circles, mind you, but in her own level of society, quite well. Unforeseen disaster happened, however, when another man—a powerful duke—met her at a dinner and liked her appearance and manner. Even though she was a married woman, he took her as a lover.”

Louisa gasped and buried her face in her hands. “Do not speak of it aloud!”

“Louisa, silence is what started it.” Bingley replied to his sister. “Although she was not married to him, she began to fancy herself as the duke's wife. He ensured that Annabelle—and her husband—were invited to the finest parties and balls of the first circles of society. If her husband knew of Annabelle's infidelity, he did not so speak, and this went on for over a year. The doctors said it was the pressure created by this double life that was the beginning.”

“The beginning?” Hurst held onto the arms of his chair with white knuckles.

“The beginning of her decline. Annabelle began to suspect that all in the household were spies, sent to watch her by her husband. She also began to claim herself a duchess and insisted upon being addressed as such. She seemed to be of the strong belief that she was surrounded by others who were of the same status, and she regularly conversed with unseen persons, whom she claimed that
 
she
 
could see perfectly well. At first, her husband pandered, but one day she tried to kill him with a knife, declaring that her invisible friends had told her that if she did not kill him first, he would undoubtedly kill her. He sent her to Bedlam, and he returned to Shropshire with their baby daughter—not even knowing if he is the child's father or if it was the duke who sired her. We have not seen or heard from him since, but Louisa and I have been to visit Annabelle in the Bethlem Hospital several times. Caroline would never go.”

Mr. Hurst sat in shock as his wife quietly wept next to him.

Mr. Bingley picked up the letter from Mr. Darcy and read excerpts of it to his sister and brother-in-law. It detailed observations made by Colonel Fitzwilliam about Caroline's behavior. Darcy expressed his primary motive in writing the letter as a concern for the safety of Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, whom Caroline had made veiled threats against when in company with the colonel. Bingley then spoke to his relations of the decanter of elderberry wine that Caroline had heavily laced with laudanum—sufficient, he had been informed by Mr. Jones that morning, to cause a person to stop breathing with only a few sips of the wine.

“Oh, Charles, you will not make her go to Bedlam!” Louisa cried, “Not Caroline!”

“Of course not, but she cannot stay here with us either. If the pressures of society are what caused Annabelle's mind to descend into chaos, then could it be the same with Caroline? The preparations for the ball, Lady Catherine confronting her most cruelly, my admiration of and offer of marriage to Miss Bennet, Mr. Darcy's admiration of Miss Elizabeth—could these events be the foundation of descent into madness for our sister Caroline?”

“Mr. Darcy admires Eliza Bennet? Are you certain?” Louisa repeated. “Caroline has told me daily that he is to offer for her at any moment! She has her heart set upon being the mistress of Pemberley! She complained about how deluded Anne de Bourgh was in her belief that Darcy would marry her.”

“It is Caroline who suffers delusions,” Bingley read from the letter in his most Darcy-like tone. “Caroline believes that I am in love with her and have designs to make her my wife, which belief is not grounded in reality.”

“I knew it!” Mr. Hurst exclaimed, looking at his wife, “I knew your sister was crazy!”

“Her attachment to Mr. Darcy does not make her mad, Charles.” Louisa defended.

“Read the letter, Louisa, and then tell me what you think.” Charles handed the letter across the desk to his sister.

After her perusal of the letter, and acknowledging that she recognized much of the behavior described in it, even Louisa was finally convinced that all was not well with Caroline.

Her siblings could not bring themselves to consider Bedlam as an alternative, and so, together, they determined that they must hire a nurse experienced in the care of such persons and send Caroline away to the seaside where she could recuperate, and, hopefully regain her clarity of mind. Recovery, they had been assured by the doctors caring for Annabelle, was possible with time and adequate care. The Isle of Wight in Hampshire was settled on, for both its natural beauty and the requirement of nautical transport to come or go. Caroline would be easier to contain, they reasoned, on an island, and they resolved that once Caroline was settled there, they would remove Annabelle from Bedlam also and send her to join Caroline at the shores of the sea, where hopefully, both would regain their senses in the peace and serenity of nature.

~*~

Pratt and Smythe were well pleased with themselves, having attained the information to take them onto the next part of their quest, and they were, perhaps, not paying adequate attention to their surroundings as they made their way down Hart street to return to Drury Lane where Mrs. Younge was reputed to be in residence. This inattention proved to be unfortunate.

“Well, boys, it appears as if you have been out to play,” Sir Vincent Parker spoke loudly at them from behind.

The cousins turned to face the Bow Street officer, and Colonel Fitzwilliam extended his hand with a sheepish grin. “Indeed we have, sir, and enjoyed ourselves immensely. I am Mr. Smythe, and my friend here, is Mr. Pratt.”

“I am certain you are both aware,
 
Mr. Smythe
, that it is a crime in London to disguise yourself and impersonate another man.” Sir Vincent said with a wry smile as he shook the colonel's extended hand.

“We impersonate no other man, sir—our impersonations are fiction; hence, we are innocent of any crime,” the colonel said cheerfully. “Perhaps you should now drag us off to your office at Bow Street, however, so that our innocence may remain a secret.”

“I should rather follow you to the home of Mrs. Younge. If what I overheard is to be believed, you are on your way there at this moment.” Sir Vincent nodded knowingly at them, his eyebrows raised. “We have been seeking her out for some time now, and if we succeed in apprehending her, I believe we may come to an understanding regarding your innocence of fraud in appearing thus.”

“You bargain, sir, as though you presume us guilty.” Colonel Fitzwilliam laughed heartily. “You misunderstood our errand, however. We do intend to locate Mrs. Younge at the earliest possible moment, but for now we seek the four scoundrels who were last seen with Wickham—that is what we are about.”

Sir Vincent looked at the colonel through narrowed eyes. “I do not believe you, but I will play your game. Of whom do you speak,
 
Mr. Smythe
?”

The colonel indicated that they should walk, and then he looked around to see if anyone was paying untoward attention to them before he spoke in hushed tones to Sir Vincent. “They are the ones who carried him away after he fought the Frenchmen at The Cooper's Arms. They seemed to expect to collect some reward from Mr. Darcy for delivering Mr. Wickham to him.”

“How very opportune that they should profit from the man's misfortune,” Sir Vincent replied, “How came they by this expectation?”

“The man's misfortune?” Darcy snorted in disgust. “I daresay Wickham put himself in that circumstance by his own hand. He was challenged over gaming debts, sir, and this was not the first time his creditors have come to claim their pound of flesh when he did not pay.”

“As for the reward,
 
Mr. Pratt
—did Mr. Darcy in fact offer one?” Sir Vincent asked with a frown.

“In fact, he did not.” Darcy replied.

“Do you know their names?” The officer inquired.

“We do.” Darcy replied. “They are all called Mr. Morris, as they are four brothers—Thomas, Samuel, Jonathan and Edmund.”

“Morris, you say? I know these blokes—there are not enough brains between them to produce a single rational thought!” Sir Vincent muttered. “They get themselves into trouble at Bow Street from time to time, but never something so serious as murder....”

“Do you perchance know where they live?” Colonel Fitzwilliam pressed him.

“That I do.” Sir Vincent nodded and turning down a side street, began to make his way rapidly. He waved his hand in the air indicating that they should follow; so Darcy and the colonel hurried to catch up with him. They walked together at a brisk pace, in silence, for a quarter of an hour before arriving at the ramshackle residence of the Morris family.

Mrs. Morris, upon seeing the Bow Street officer approaching, had stepped through the doorway, wiping her hands on her apron as she approached the three men. Nearly as soon as he saw her, Sir Vincent called a greeting, and when their paths met, he said, “Mrs. Morris, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Smythe and Mr. Pratt. They are here as agents of Mr. Darcy, who has discovered that it was your sons who delivered Mr. Wickham to his door last night.” He turned to face his companions. “Gentlemen, this is Mrs. Morris.”

Mrs. Morris quickly got a gleam in her eye and called over her shoulder to the house for her sons to come out. They were brawny, large men, easily as tall as Darcy and Fitzwilliam, although much dirtier, as though they had not seen a tub since the onset of winter. When her progeny had assembled, their mother turned back to Sir Vincent and requested that he repeat what he had said about the reward.

“I said nothing of a reward, madam.” Sir Vincent replied. “I merely said that my companions, Mr. Smythe and Mr. Pratt are here as agents of Mr. Darcy.”

There ensued some general grumbling amongst the Morris brothers, about trickery and being cheated, and they postured aggressively, as though they might assault their guests with no provocation beyond the perceived deceit.

“Ah, stow it!” Mrs. Morris finally yelled at her sons, who did. She was now in a temper and, hands on hips, she demanded that Sir Vincent tell them what his business there was, or leave.

“Mrs. Morris, perhaps you did not know. I am sorry to tell you this, but Mr. Wickham expired shortly after your sons abandoned him at the doors of Darcy House.” Sir Vincent said smoothly. “We are here to investigate his
 
murder
.”