Page 29 of Such Low Connections

“Dear Georgiana, how lovely it will be to see her again,” Mrs Hurst said with a rather fixed smile. “We are always so happy to receive her at Grosvenor Square. You will tell her that, won’t you?”

Darcy nodded impassively. He understood perfectly; Mrs Hurst meant to hint that she and her sister would not be calling at Darcy House. He wondered whether they would be at home to Georgiana if he accompanied her on a call in Grosvenor Square.

The thought of this made his lips turn up in a sardonic smile that he hid in his coffee cup. In the recent past, it would have been hard to keep Bingley’s sisters out of Darcy House. He had been so long and so unwillingly pursued by Miss Bingley that it should have been pure relief to him now to find that the chase was abandoned.

Instead, relief was tempered by a niggling indignation that Caroline Bingley had judged him unworthy, based on rumour and falsehoods about his birth. The irony of the whole business was not lost on Darcy, and his smile lingered, although with some bitterness.

“Would you write to the Bennets for me, Caroline?” asked Bingley. “You are so much better at these things than me. Explain that I have urgent business in London and must absent myself from their supper. I would hate for Miss Bennet to think… well, make sure they know I will call on them as soon as I return.”

“Certainly, Charles,” Caroline Bingley answered, her expression sweetness itself. “I shall write directly after breakfast and explain everything to them. Have no fear.”

∞∞∞

“Well, here I am, Mr Moreton, at your offices in London as requested,” Darcy said pointedly as he followed his agent up the stairs to the first floor, where the senior partners had their rooms. “I am still none the wiser, however, as to the reasons for your urgent summons.”

“It was not something I could explain in writing, Mr Darcy,” Mr Moreton excused himself, his expression unsettled as he opened a door for his client and then followed him through. “You will see why.”

There were already two men in the meeting room on the other side of the door. One was Mr Deringham, the elderly Darcy family lawyer who had worked for Darcy’s father before him. The other was a colourless man of indeterminate age whose clothing, demeanour and bundle of papers marked him out as another member of the legal tribe, although unknown to Darcy.

“Mr Deringham, you obviously know. This is Mr Pinnock, of Pinnock and Sons, another firm of London solicitors. Perhaps you have heard of them?”

Having shaken hands with both lawyers, Darcy took his seat and returned his attention to his unusually anxious agent.

“I have not heard of Pinnock and Sons and nor do I know why Mr Pinnock should be here with us,” Darcy told his agent, peeling off his gloves and scarf. “It is time to explain matters fully without further delay, Mr Moreton.”

“Very well,” Moreton agreed with a resigned sigh. “A few days ago, I was notified that Mr Pinnock had received certain documents from a client which were relevant to you, Mr Darcy. Having inspected these papers, it was immediately clear that you would need to see them for yourself, in order to confirm whether they were genuine and instruct me on how to act.”

“What kind of documents?” put in Darcy immediately, frowning both at the mystery and the way that Moreton seemed to be dancing around it.

In response to Darcy’s question, Mr Pinnock extracted three letters from his file and pushed them across the table.

“This is only a small sample of the letters our client holds,” he said, his voice colourless and monotone.

Looking quickly at the notes, Darcy was astonished to see his father’s handwriting. Turning them over, he inspected the seals and then looked at the signatures. All appeared to be genuine.

“They seem to be letters from my father, but where did they come from?” Darcy demanded, his temper distinctly ruffled. “Who is your client, Mr Pinnock?”

“I am not at liberty to divulge that information,” returned the expressionless solicitor.

“I think you should read them, Mr Darcy,” advised old Mr Deringham. “Then we can talk properly about the wider implications.”

Taking a deep breath, Darcy forced himself to read the missives, which turned out to be nothing more than love-letters written by old Mr Darcy to his wife, Darcy’s mother, before their marriage. While intimate and warm, there was nothing salacious or unusual in their lines. The majority of the pages were given over to simple expressions of affection and anticipation of a wedding date twelve months in the future.

“What does your client want?” Darcy asked Mr Pinnock when he had finished reading. “This is a very poor kind of blackmail if it is money he seeks, and I will give him short shrift. Did he steal these letters? What kind of clients do you take, Mr Pinnock?”

“Mr Darcy,” Moreton interrupted, stopping him before he could berate the solicitor in earnest. “Look at the dates on the letters and in their contents. Look at them closely.”

Impatiently, Darcy did as Moreton directed, laying the three letters side by side and not initially seeing anything of interest. When realisation hit, however, it did so with the force of a thunderclap.

The wedding date spoken of by his father with such ardent anticipation was a full year after Darcy’s own birth.

Chapter 11

“What is to be done with the beef? That is what I would like to know,” harrumphed Mrs Bennet for the dozenth time that afternoon. “I should never have purchased such a large joint if Mr Bingley and his party had not been expected for Friday supper.”

“Mrs Hill says it will keep well enough hanging in the shed in this weather,” Elizabeth reminded her mother with a sigh. “It means only that we shall have enough meat for next week as well as this, and need not order a joint for Sunday.”

“What do you know of housekeeping, Miss Lizzy?” Mrs Bennet dismissed her. “It is not so simple as you seem to think to have one’s plans thrown up in the air like this, with so little consideration. Do not think either that I have forgiven you for refusing Mr Collins and sending him off in high dudgeon. When I think that I could have been ordering wedding clothes and linens, oh! It is such a trial to my poor nerves!”