North by Northanger

Thirty-Eight

Darcy urged his mount across the Derbyshire landscape, bleak and forlorn in the winter moonlight. Surely the villains’ carriage could not be much farther ahead. He had stopped at Lambton to exchange Mercury for a fresh horse and enquire after the conspirators, and learned that they had just completed a stop of their own. They had paused to retrieve their luggage, and been further delayed by a quarrel amongst themselves as the trunks were loaded. Apparently, Wickham and Mrs. Stanford had been in favor of transferring to a post chaise, so as to benefit from the superior speed offered by a skilled postilion guiding rested animals, but their driver would not hear of it. He had insisted his horses could outstrip any post horses, that despite the short bait and additional encumbrance of luggage they should maintain a pace of fifteen miles per hour all the way to Gloucestershire, and that nothing ruins horses so much as rest.

Darcy was happy to let their driver attempt to prove his point as he gained on them with every mile. He now watched for the carriage to come into view. What he would do when he at last overtook it, he had not quite worked out yet, but somehow he would come away from the encounter with Elizabeth’s ivory in hand.

He reached the top of a rise and at last spotted a vehicle ahead. In the darkness, he could not at this distance identify it decisively as theirs, but the moon illuminated the road brightly enough that he could see it was no yellow bounder and carried no postboys. The carriage weaved across the road and back as it sped along, its driver apparently having trouble controlling the horses. He felt confident of its being the vehicle he pursued.

It approached a bend in the road. From his vantage point, Darcy could see a post chariot traveling from the opposite direction. This carriage seemed to be headed into the curve at a more sensible speed, under the control of a competent postilion. And thank goodness, for as the conspirators’ chaise reached the bend, it overturned, and the oncoming chariot narrowly averted becoming part of the accident.

The undamaged vehicle stopped. The postboy sprang toward the wreckage; his passenger emerged just as Darcy himself reached the chariot. He was surprised to recognize the traveler.

“Mr. Tilney!”

“Mr. Darcy! I did not expect to see you until I reached Pemberley.”

In all the distraction of the day’s events, Darcy had utterly forgotten that this was the date upon which Henry Tilney was to have commenced his visit.

“I am in pursuit of our imposters. I believe them to be in that carriage.”

“Oh, dear. Let us hope they have survived so as not to deprive the courts the pleasure of hanging them.”

They soon determined that the villains indeed lived to lie another day. Somehow, the two passengers managed to escape serious injury, though Mr. Wickham complained of an injured ankle. Darcy could not say he felt the slightest bit of pity watching him grimace as he dragged himself out of the wreckage. As soon as he emerged, Darcy demanded the ivory from him. Having no choice, Wickham relinquished it.

“Mr. Tilney, it gives me no pleasure to introduce you to Mr. George Wickham, to whom I have the misfortune of being related by marriage.”

“Fitz, you wound me.”

“Address me in that manner again and I shall force you to walk home.”

The other passenger had accepted the postilion’s aid and leaned on his arm for support.

“This woman is, I believe, Mrs. Stanford,” Darcy said, “also known as Dorothy the housekeeper. Mrs. Stanford, I understand you were acquainted with Mr. Tilney’s late brother.”

“Why—” Mr. Tilney peered at her intensely. And chuckled. “Isabella Thorpe!”

“Mr. Tilney!” She released the postboy and staggered to Henry with as much charm as one who has just been overturned in a carriage can muster. “How good it is to see you after all this time! I declare, it has been an age! How is your wife, my dear friend Catherine? I long to see her. Thank heavens you happened along when you did. I am sure you are wondering what Mr. Darcy can possibly be talking about. This is all the most frightful misunderstanding.”

Darcy glanced enquiringly at Mr. Tilney. “I gather you have already met?”

“Let us say that Mrs. Stanford’s interest in my family — and in Frederick in particular — considerably predates her marriage to the colonel. I see the years have altered you little, Mrs. Stanford. You are what you always were.”

The accident had loosed several locks of her hair. She tucked one of these behind her ear and smiled coyly. “You flatter me, Mr. Tilney.”

“Do I? That was not my intent.” He turned to Darcy. “Is Mr. Wickham the man who posed as my brother, then?”

“No, merely a conspirator in the plot. I have not yet identified who impersonated the captain.”

The driver of the overturned carriage had been thrown from the vehicle. He lay several yards distant, where the postilion found him.

“What the devil?” exclaimed a familiar voice. “Sneak up on a fellow in the dark, will you? Damn, but my wrist hurts!”

“I believe that is our imposter,” said Darcy.

With the aid of Tilney’s servant, the hapless driver stumbled toward their party. He was indeed the height and build of the false captain who had met them at Northanger. He appeared far less mysterious, however, with two eyes. “Devil take that curve! A hairpin turn if I ever saw one. A dozen coaches must roll on it each day. If I lived within a hundred miles of here, I would rebuild the road myself. I say — Tilney!”

“Mr. Thorpe.” Henry turned to Darcy. “Mr. Darcy, meet Mr. John Thorpe, Mrs. Stanford’s brother.”

Mr. Thorpe was found to have suffered a sprained wrist, which he complained about to the point where one would think he had broken his arm. At least the injury relieved him of the danger of driving any vehicle through the treacherous curve again. That fact did not, however, prevent him from rattling on about its hazards. “The road positively bends in half. A death trap! Absolutely perilous!”

“Mr. Thorpe,” Henry said, “if you must air your vocabulary, I would prefer you use it to explain the night you entertained the Darcys at Northanger Abbey. As my brother.”

“Upon my soul, that was a jolly night, was it not, Mr. Darcy? Isabella always could design a wickedly clever scheme. The look on your faces when I first walked in the room — it was capital! Never had such an amusing evening in my life. So glad Captain Tilney issued the invitation before he died — I was happy to step in when he could not keep the engagement.”

“To what end?” Darcy asked.

“To learn about those ivories the captain promised Belle, that’s what.”

“I somehow doubt my brother promised Mrs. Stanford anything of the sort.”

“I am certain that he meant to give them to me,” Isabella said. “Frederick had contemplated contacting the Darcys from the time he learned of Mr. Wickham’s connection to the family. When Wickham heard from his wife that they were looking for some sort of treasure at Pemberley, I said, ‘See? The Darcys know something about those ivories after all. If they find them, you should ask for them back.’ He laughed and said, ‘You would like that, would you not?’ So I know he wanted me to have them.” She sighed dramatically. “Since poor Frederick did not live long enough to give them to me himself, completing his unfinished business was the least I could do for him.”

“You mean for yourself,” Mr. Tilney said.

“Oh, Belle said she would share them,” Mr. Thorpe said. “Once the captain died, she fretted that you would misunderstand Frederick’s intentions, so we had to find them for ourselves. You are a cagey fellow, Mr. Darcy! Could not get much information from you directly, or find a thing in your trunks while you were at dinner, but Belle heard enough through the servants’ doors. Shame you had to go and spoil everything by leaving our party before Wickham had the maid installed at Pemberley. He and Belle had a fix for that, though. What did you think of the cane? An exceedingly faithful copy, was it not?”

“It was.” Darcy looked at Wickham. “I understand a Mr. George Darcy commissioned it.”

Wickham grinned smugly. “Mr. George Darcy purchased a great many things that season. I never imagined at the time how useful that particular item would prove.”

“But the diamonds were my inspiration,” Isabella said boastfully. “They were the very thing to prevent your returning home too soon. The letter to the constable was mine, as well. Did it not work beautifully?”

“You always were a practiced letter writer,” Mr. Tilney said.

“Just as well you did leave early, though,” said Mr. Thorpe. “That plaguesome old butler returned before we were expecting him and we had to brush off.”

Darcy could scarcely believe his ears. They had plunged him into a morass of dire legal difficulties simply to delay his return home for a few days? Moreover, they appeared utterly insensible to the consequences of their actions. “Do you comprehend that I faced hanging for the crime of which I stood accused?”

“Fiddlesticks!” said Mr. Thorpe. “You are a gentleman. What is the law to you? It will not give a gentleman trouble.”

“We shall see whether you still believe that come the morrow.”

“Mrs. Stanford,” said Mr. Tilney, “if you wanted something by which to remember my brother, why did you not simply take the diamonds for yourself while you were at Northanger Abbey? You could have dispensed with the hunt for the statuettes altogether.”

“The ivories held more value—sentimental value.” Isabella adopted an innocent expression. “Besides, if I had kept those diamonds, that would be stealing. The statuettes, in addition to having been promised to me, were just lying around somewhere waiting to be found. We would have been rescuing them, really.”

Darcy yet held his mother’s statuette in his hand. “As you rescued this one?”

“I cannot imagine why that servant girl thrust that statue at us. Of course that one is yours. There must have been some misunderstanding.”

Much as he wanted to interrogate the party further, Darcy was anxious to return home. He was also in serious doubt as to whether any of the accomplices had anything useful to say. He and Mr. Tilney determined that they would all proceed to the inn at Lambton, where they could send for the apothecary and the constable. The conspirators rode in Mr. Tilney’s post chariot while Darcy followed on horseback.

By the time everybody emerged from Mr. Tilney’s carriage at the inn, the party had apparently become engaged in a quarrel over who was to blame for their having been caught.

“We would not have overturned if you had not insisted upon driving.”

“It was not my driving, it was the deuced road!”

“Had we traveled post, Mr. Darcy would not have overtaken us.”

“You are the one who insisted we stop at Lambton to retrieve our belongings... ”

Darcy was rather glad for his own solitary journey to the inn. Henry Tilney appeared the way Darcy felt after an hour spent with his mother-in-law.

The conspirators entered the inn. After asking a servant to send for the constable, Mr. Tilney shook his head in bemusement and looked at Darcy. “One wonders how three such shallow, selfish people managed to devise a plot of such serious consequence.”

“One wonders how the three of them managed to cooperate long enough to execute it.”

“It must relieve you to apprehend them and settle the matter of the diamonds. Now they will stand trial in Gloucestershire instead of you.”

“I am indeed glad for it, but I confess to distraction. When I left Pemberley to pursue them, Mrs. Darcy had just been brought to childbed.”

Henry’s face lit with genuine delight. “That is capital news. May I congratulate you on a son, or on a daughter?”

“I do not yet know.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Darcy! You should be at home, not chasing ruffians about the countryside. Why did you not say something sooner?”

“I did not want to leave you alone with our merry trio.”

“I have matters well in hand, and shall come to Pemberley in a few days with a report, if you like. But for now I bid you adieu. Get thee to your wife, my friend.”