“Anne,” Lady Catherine said, and in that single word were equal parts disbelief and warning, “I hope you understand the seriousness of what you are suggesting.”
“I do, Mama,” Anne replied, with a steadiness that made the softness of her voice more striking rather than less. “I understand it better, perhaps, because I have long been expected not to speak of it. Mrs. Jenkinson was persuaded to leave with extraordinary haste, and Mrs. Younge arrived almost immediately afterwards. Since then, Rosings has been altered in ways that have little to do with comfort and much to do with convenience. Small things disappeared first—silver cutlery, candlesticks, pieces easily misplaced if one prefers not to look too closely. Later, objects from Hunsford were said to be missing as well, though the alterations there provided an excellent excuse for confusion.”
Mrs. Younge, who had thus far preserved the discretion of a woman determined to be overlooked, coloured visibly, and the change did not escape Lady Catherine’s notice. Mr. Collins gave such a look of moral suffering that Elizabeth thought he might genuinely expire from the impropriety of the occasion. Wickham, however, stood very still, and it was in that stillness that danger became most visible.
Lady Catherine’s voice, when she next spoke, had lost all ornament and become merely commanding.
“Why have I heard none of this before?”
“Because,” Anne answered, and there was no bitterness in it now, only truth too long delayed, “contradiction has never beenencouraged in this house, and because comfort is often preferred to disturbance, even when disturbance would be safer. I did not wish to accuse without certainty, and certainty was made difficult.”
She paused only a moment, then continued with the same calm exactness.
“One of the maids believed she saw Mrs. Younge carrying laundry through the hall at an hour and in a manner that made little sense, though such duties are not hers. It was suspected that some of the missing silver and the candlesticks might have been concealed that way and taken first to her own room. Nothing was found there when Mrs. Fairfax and two maids quietly looked during her absence. But there remained one room in which no servant was permitted to enter, and which, for reasons of privacy, was treated as exempt from ordinary attendance.”
No one in the parlour required the name to be spoken. Lady Catherine’s eyes moved, slowly and with gathering severity, toward Wickham.
“My room,” he said at last, with a smile too carefully composed to be easy, “if we are now to abandon implication for direct accusation. I confess I had not imagined that the privilege of privacy would be considered so criminal an indulgence.”
“It is not privacy that troubles me,” Anne said, turning her eyes upon him at last, and there was in her gaze something colder than anger. “It is exemption. Every room in this house has been searched in quiet except yours, vicar. Every explanation ends at your door and refuses to proceed further.”
Mr. Darcy stepped nearer to the table, and the force of his composure was now more formidable than open anger could have been.
“There is, however, a very simple way of ending uncertainty,” he said. “If Mr. Wickham objects only to suspicion, let certainty replace it. Let the inventories be brought. Let the household accounts of Hunsford and Rosings be examined properly. And let the one room which has thus far remained beyond ordinary scrutiny cease to enjoy so singular a privilege.”
Mr. Collins made a small choking sound, as though the phrase itself had endangered the sanctity of a clerical residence.
Lady Catherine ignored him completely. Her pride had now passed beyond embarrassment and entered that colder region where insult becomes intolerable because it threatens dignity rather than comfort.
“You mean,” she said slowly, never taking her eyes from Wickham, “that while I have been defending my household from gossip, disorder, and supposed inconvenience, there may have been reason to defend it from within.”
Mr. Bennet, who had wisely judged silence the most useful contribution for several minutes, inclined his head with grave civility.
“We mean only, madam, that inventories were invented precisely because trust, though admirable, has never been considered a sufficient system of accounting.”
Lady Catherine drew herself to her full height.
“Very well,” she said. “Mrs. Fairfax shall be sent for immediately. The inventories will be brought, and Mr. Wickham’s room will be opened before witnesses. I will not bemade ridiculous in my own house by ambiguity, and if innocence is so confidently claimed, it ought not to fear a key.”
The decision, once pronounced by Lady Catherine, altered the entire temper of Rosings more completely than any raised voice could have done. Servants moved with that peculiar silence which belongs to the knowledge that something irretrievable is taking place within a respectable house. Mrs. Fairfax was sent for immediately; two footmen were also summoned; and though Mr. Collins made one faint attempt to suggest that such proceedings might perhaps be postponed until morning, Lady Catherine silenced him with a look which made postponement appear nearly criminal.
Mr. Bennet, with the prudence of a man who knew exactly when his usefulness had ended, remained in the parlour with Elizabeth, Anne, and the rest, observing only that he had always preferred other people’s scandals at a reasonable distance, where one might enjoy their consequences without being required to climb their stairs.
Mr. Darcy, however, had no such privilege. This was his burden now, and he accepted it with the severe composure of a man to whom anger had become purpose.
Wickham accompanied them upstairs with the outward ease of one unjustly inconvenienced, though the effort of maintaining it had begun to show itself in the unnatural precision of every gesture. He did not protest loudly; loudness would have been vulgar and, worse, revealing. Instead, he carried himself with the injured dignity of a gentleman forced to submit to insult for the comfort of those too weak to trust him. It was a performance of considerable skill, and under easier circumstances it might even have succeeded.
Lady Catherine ascended first, not because she moved quickly, but because indignation gave her rank a momentum no one thought of resisting. Mrs. Fairfax followed, pale but steady, holding the ring of household keys with a gravity almost ceremonial. Darcy walked beside Wickham, not touching him, not speaking, yet making escape feel both impractical and absurd. The two footmen came last, their expressions carefully blank, as though loyalty to the house required blindness until commanded otherwise.
At the door of Wickham’s chamber, all movement stopped. Lady Catherine turned.
“The key, Mr. Wickham.”
The clergyman for the first time allowed silence to answer before words did. His face retained civility, but civility had hardened into something nearer defiance.
“I repeat, your ladyship, that I consider this proceeding unnecessary and deeply improper. A gentleman’s private chamber is not a stable cupboard to be opened because servants are imaginative and relatives suspicious. I submit only because your peace appears to demand it, not because justice does.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes flashed.
