Mr. Darcy remained strangely aloof, and Elizabeth was equally uncomfortable, though she found herself wishing that she had remained in solitude with him, for they had been merry enough together then. He was not half so easy as they all passed each other jumbled words across the table.
Emma and Mr. Willoughby were chiefly engaged in arranging increasingly ludicrous names for the child they intended to adopt together, and Elizabeth gleefully encouraged their absurdity with a few suggestions of her own. “Craigstopher surely conveys unsurpassable dignity, I am sure.”
“It is rubbish, Lizzy, but I rather like Elizabella!”
“Fredward sounds like quite the scholar,” Mr. Willoughby agreed, trying to keep a straight face. “Ralphthaniel is the appellation of a military man; nobody could deny it.”
As the newly betrothed couple carried on together in high humor, Elizabeth slid a jumbled selection of letters to Mr. Darcy: GIBRNOOD. He rearranged them to spellbroodingand gave a snort of bitter laughter.
He slid a few letters toward her: VYEN.Envy.
Elizabeth looked up at him with query in her eyes, and gave him the letter Y.
With another rueful, breathy laugh, he scanned the letters for a few minutes as if unsure how to explain himself. Finally he gave her a large stack of them. BTEROHTLA.
Elizabeth took a minute longer in making out this puzzle, but when she spelled outbetrothal,she shook her head at him. Did he think she envied Emma’s engagement, and that was why she had questioned it? He, too, expressed his own concerns about it. She could not make him out at all.
AHPYP. Mr. Darcy swiftly arranged her next communication, and placed a hand on his heart as he smiled at her. She breathed a sigh of relief at this, though she was not entirely sure she followed this strange conversation they were having.
He sent her two words. The first, PSEKA, and the second, VPIRAETYL, she worked on until it yielded the answer:speak privately.
There was little chance of that at present, but she did wish to understand his meaning, and she silently slid the letters YES back to him.
At long last, they heard voices in the corridor, and all four of them ran to the door and cried out; their liberation was at hand, for the sound of Cathy’s laughter was unmistakable.
“Lizzy? Emma? Let me in, let me in!”
“Let us out, let us out!” Elizabeth shouted back at her. “You have the keys, you goose!”
“Oh, right!” There was a jangling sound as Cathy fumbled for the keys, and located the correct one to unlock the door. On the other side of it, Cathy, Harriet, Mr. Tilney, Sir Edward, and Lady Allen all bombarded them with questions and concern.
“Have you been locked up all this time?”
“We were so worried about you!”
“Did you find the key to the drawbridge?”
“And not even a fire in the room!”
“Butwholocked you away?”
This last query they were able to answer as Elizabeth and her companions relished their freedom and joined their friends in the corridor. “We believe we know who did this, and we will tell you in privacy, but first we must locate Mrs. Clay. We believe she may be in some danger.”
They all acted with alacrity, for they were very near to the servants’ passage, and they made their way to the kitchens to ask after Mrs. Clay. They were not half way down the corridor when they heard screaming, and they all began to run.
Chapter Thirteen
Elizabeth and Cathy reached the kitchen first; they stopped abruptly at the sight of Mrs. Clay sprawled out across the kitchen floor. The cook had fainted into the arms of Sir Edward’s valet, who was amongst the servants to take on extra work at the castle. Elizabeth’s maid Sarah was there, too, and she wrung her hands in her apron before approaching Elizabeth.
“Miss Bennet, it was awful! We all just came back from dinner in the servants’ hall, and we were preparing to help Mrs. Penny with dinner for you folks. We supposed you would take trays in your rooms after last night, and when Mrs. Penny opened the pantry where the trays and big serving dishes are kept, Mrs. Clay just sort of came tumbling out of it!”
“Good God!” Mr. Darcy appeared at Elizabeth’s side and moved to shield her from the sight. “Is she…?”
“Aye, she’s dead,” wailed Mrs. Penny. “Poor woman! She were kind to us; I cannot think who’d harm her.”
“Did nobody see anything?” Cathy peeked around Mr. Tilney, who was also attempting to spare her the sight of the body.
“We were more than an hour at the table; all the valets and ladies’ maids being newly acquainted, and of course all the dreadful goings on, we had much to talk of,” Sarah said.
