North by Northanger

Twenty-Nine

The old shopkeeper took the cane from Darcy. He held it in the light and examined it from grip to tip with the familiar touch of a craftsman. His fingers ran down its length until they reached the imperfection in the grain.

“Yes, this is my work. Made it — oh, must be ten, twelve years ago? I remember this little flaw. The gentleman who bought the walking stick hesitated over the purchase — said it was a gift for someone very dear to him and he wanted perfection. I explained that the beauty of wood lies in its variances.” He chuckled. “Like people.”

Darcy accepted the walking stick back. The detour to Bath had proven worthwhile if only to hear the paraphrase of his father’s words about him. But he hoped to obtain more valuable information. “Have you made a similar cane recently? One with a hidden compartment?”

The shopkeeper regarded Darcy warily.

“My interest is in the purchaser, not the creator,” Darcy said.

“Some years back, another gentleman came in here. Said he admired a walking stick bought here and was determined to have one just like it. Described this one perfectly. Then he asked if I could fashion his with a hollow center. He claimed it was for brandy.”

“If he commissioned the walking stick, he must have left his name.”

“He did. Let me see. It was Derby — no, Darcy. George Darcy.”

“You must be mistaken. That was my father’s name.” Darcy held forward his own cane once more. “The man who purchased this walking stick.”

The shopkeeper drew his brows together. “I am fairly certain. I do not receive many orders for canes with such compartments. I can check my ledger if you wish.”

Darcy wished very much, indeed. The shopkeeper disappeared into his back room and returned a few minutes later with his record book. He paged through it, traveling back through the years—1810, 1809, 1808... Darcy shifted his walking stick from hand to hand as he waited impatiently for the old man to locate the entry.

“Ah, here it is.” The craftsman at last pointed to a line. “George Darcy, just as I recalled. Ordered the cane on the fourteenth of June, eighteen hundred four.”

His father had still been alive then. “Was it the same gentleman who bought this walking stick?”

“No, a young man. University lad, I assumed, what with the brandy compartment and all.”

“Can you describe him?”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “I cannot recall his features clearly. Mind you, ten years have passed.”

Even without a description, an unpleasant suspicion of the gentleman’s identity formed in Darcy’s mind. Darcy had been at university himself at the time. Any one of his Cambridge acquaintances could have seen and admired his walking stick. A few of them might have thought it clever to own a cane with a hidden brandy compartment.

But only one would be so bold as to use the name George Darcy.