Page 2 of Conundrums & Coincidences

As they were about to cross the street, a terrible commotion arose to their left. Shouts of warning rang out. People fled hither and thither. Horses slipped on cobblestones, hoofs clattering. Women screamed. Handcarts overturned, spilling their goods. Out of the melee, a huge, mounted horse—ears back, eyes wild, nostrils flared—bolted in Elizabeth and her aunt’s direction.

The panicked rider seemed helpless to control the frenzied creature’s headlong course as it galloped straight for a beggarly old woman in the middle of the street. Bystanders hollered at her to move, but she seemed paralysed, staring slack-jawed at the advancing black menace.

Without a thought for her own safety, Elizabeth darted out onto the cobbles and into the horse’s path. She grasped the woman’s coarse sleeve and, just in the nick of time, gently but forcefully pulled her from harm’s way.

Over her shoulder, Elizabeth shouted to the inexperienced rider. “Use your reins!” Although no skilled horsewoman herself, she had learnt to ride under her father’s tutelage. Furthermore, she possessed more than her fair share of common sense. “Turn his head to the side! Stop forward movement!”

Leaving the shaken, trembling woman in her aunt’s care, Elizabeth approached the horse and rider. “Easy now. Just keep turning him in small circles until he behaves.”

“I am so terribly, terribly sorry!” cried the young man while carrying out Elizabeth’s instructions. “Bailey has an excess of energy to burn this morning, and I should not have brought him to such an unfamiliar, busy place. All these people, the loud noises, and other horses have frightened him.”

Once Bailey had calmed, the young man dismounted, tied his horse to a tethering ring, and joined the three women. His face was an alarming shade of red, and as he doffed his hat, Elizabeth saw a shock of copper-coloured hair and hazel eyes.

He bowed low to the elderly woman. “I most humbly beg your pardon, madam. Are you well? Have Bailey and I caused you any harm?” He fumbled about in a breast pocket. “Ah. Here is my card. My name is David Hadley. May I have the pleasure of knowing all your names?”

Mrs Gardiner provided her information as well as Elizabeth’s.

“I am Miss Phoebe Armstrong from Buckinghamshire,” said the elderly woman. “And you and that beast of yours, sir, are a danger not only to others but to yourself. However, thanks to this brave young miss”—she patted Elizabeth’s arm—“I am unscathed.”

After breathing a sigh of relief, Mr Hadley said he was comforted to hear it. “But please tell me how I may make amends for giving you such an awful scare.”

Miss Armstrong assured him there was no need for reparation. Still, he insisted on doing her a kindness at the very least, so she gave him her direction. “If ever you find yourself passing through Buckinghamshire, stop and visit me at Oakwood Manor.” With a catch in her voice, she added, “I have no one, you see.”

Bowing over her hand, Mr Hadley said he was from Eton Wick and had an older brother living there at Eastmeadow Park. He promised to call on her whenever he was in her vicinity. Then, tipping his hat, he took leave of them all.

“Now, dearie,” Miss Armstrong said to Elizabeth, “may I please have your direction? Once my hands stop shaking, I should like to convey my gratitude to you in writing.”

While providing Longbourn’s information, Elizabeth took particular notice of the woman’s appearance. Of medium height and thin and sallow, Miss Armstrong was garbed in a black bonnet and a grey woollen cloak held together with rope, both items showing signs of considerable wear. Conversely, above pattens, her shoes sported shiny golden buckles, and she carried a gold-headed cane.

A year and a half later, her father’s voice roused Elizabeth from her thoughts. “You were wool-gathering again, my dear. What would you like me to do about this letter? Shall I reply to the attorney with a polite refusal?”

“No.” Elizabeth passed the papers to him. “Let us go to town and hear what Mr Monroe has to say. But please do not wait until the eleventh hour to reply to him.”

“Very well. The epistolary debt is on my side, so I forthwith shall reply to this drafter of documents. Never let it be said I am a negligent or dilatory correspondent.” Rising, Mr Bennet leant over to kiss the top of Elizabeth’s head. “My little Lizzy, a beneficiary.”

“Do not excite yourself, Papa. Miss Armstrong was little more than a beggar-woman…albeit one with golden buckles upon her shoes.”

“Well, child, with any luck, those buckles might be bequeathed to you. Let us hope the benefaction will, at least, reimburse me the sixpence it cost to receive this letter.”

Once seated at his desk, her father flung aside the missive and opened Critique of Pure Reason. “For the time being,” he said from behind the book, “do not breathe a word of this to my wife. No need to add fuel to the flame. Our own curiosity may burn, but were your mother to learn of the possibility of a windfall, she would go up in smoke.”

2

ELEVENFOLD

Sitting in his carriage on a busy London street, Fitzwilliam Darcy tossed aside the newspaper and, for the second time, consulted his watch. Growing impatient, he drummed his fingers on his thigh. How he despised idleness and being left alone with his thoughts. Only you, Elizabeth, with so few words, could have caused such agony.

His appointment was arranged for eleven o’clock that morning, and, coincidentally, eleven minutes remained before he should sally forth. Were he the superstitious sort, eleven might be his unlucky number. Not that he remembered the incident, but at eleven months of age the young master had nearly succumbed to the measles.

When he was but eleven years of age, his beloved mother had breathed her last. Eleven years later, his father had died. In July of the year eleven, Darcy had installed his sister, Georgiana, at No 11 Chapel Place in Ramsgate. He should have known better. Her stay there nearly ended in a scandalous disaster.

Then, just five weeks past, on the eleventh of April—after the woman Darcy loved had scathingly refused his offer of marriage—he had left Rosings Park a mortified, bitter, and heartbroken man.

He had not been expecting it. He had thought she and he had come to an understanding and that everything had been going swimmingly. Every detail of how their life together would unfold had been carefully planned. But those castles he had built in the air had fallen to the ground and shattered like glass on stone.

Following that disappointment, he had fled to Pemberley and had intended to remain there for most, if not all, of the summer. Curiosity, not avarice, about Miss Armstrong’s bequest had lured him away from his estate. Wishing he was in Derbyshire still, Darcy consulted his timepiece for the third time before tucking it back into his fob pocket. Listlessly, he watched passersby on the street without really seeing them until…

“By Jove!” Lurching forwards, he craned his neck for a better view down Chancery Lane. Is that? He thought he had seen her and her father entering a carriage farther down the street. But seeing Miss Elizabeth Bennet was nothing extraordinary; he saw her wherever he went.