A/N: Well, the reviews are – interesting. Never seen anything quite like it, but I'm not going to speak very much about them until the end, except to say I'm enjoying reading them. Lots of really very strong opinions, lots of plot bunnies. If you wanted to get started as a writer, you could mine the plot bunnies from the reviews and get a dozen stories.
There are lots of wrong guesses about 11:37, and two right guesses, but it's from readers I can't reply to. By random chance it seems to sort of match up with a Bible verse, but that's not it, just an interesting coincidence.
I will mention that some of the things that are not essential to the storyline are deliberately boiled down to just about nothing. This story is already 150k words, or 22% longer than Canon (at 122k), and I'm at least 10-20 chapters from finishing Red, let alone the poor neglected Green. Fitzwilliam's rescue got cut down to almost nothing because that is a different story, and not integral to this one (although I may expand it in Green – you never know). Same with LC's screaming fit. We're now in the post-Hunsford phase but remember that Canon Darcy did not instantly reform his character five minutes after Elizabeth tore his hide off. To quote the master:
"When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy. "I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit."
He has a ways to go yet.
Shall we see what's in Lizzy's Room?
Wade
RED
Jennings opened the door to the mistress' suite, and all four walked in to look around.
Darcy gasped in surprise. "This looks just as hideous as my mother left it. I thought Mrs. Darcy would redecorate it – not just my Mrs. Darcy but anyone with taste. I cannot imagine someone sleeping in it without nightmares."
Jennings chuckled grimly. "I believe this is another message for us, sir – and not a subtle one, I fear."
"Explain, please," Darcy asked, feeling like he was missing an important piece of the puzzle.
Reynolds said, "She did hate the room on first sight. She had us swap all the furniture from that room down the hall your sister redecorated into here. I asked her when she planned to redecorate in earnest, but she said she never would, that she was perfectly satisfied. I tried not to read too much into it, but assumed it just meant she wanted to get her bearings before choosing how she wanted it to look permanently, or possibly she wanted to wait for your return so she knew what her limits were – or …"
When she trailed off, Darcy looked carefully. "… or what, Mrs. Reynolds?"
The housekeeper let out a great sigh. "… or if she would even be living here. I am not convinced she considered it a foregone conclusion," while staring at the floor.
Darcy ducked his head in even further in shame and embarrassment, and truly felt the crushing weight of the humiliation for his own actions. He tried to imagine what his wife had felt but was not about to pretend he could understand it. Was it ten times what he was feeling? One hundred? He would never know, but he owed it to his wife – and himself – to try his best.
Needing to do something positive rather than wallowing in guilt, he looked around and asked, "So what happened?"
"She clearly moved everything back, sir," replied Mrs. Reynolds softly, then she spent a moment looking around the room, and continued, "as far as I can tell, she put everything back exactly where it was the night she arrived."
Jennings added, "She must have used Noah and Molly to do the move on the last day. That is the only way she could get it done without me being aware. I would have heard if she used any more footmen, and it seems like she may have done it in the middle of the night as well. The three of them could do it in two or three hours easily, and Mrs. Darcy was not a wilting flower, afraid of hard work."
Darcy looked around. "So, a message to me – and as you said, about as subtle as a razor-sharp axe."
"Yes, sir."
Darcy looked around the bedroom and saw some piles of something on the dressing table. Calling the others over to join him, he hurried across the room and examined them carefully.
Knight said, "These first is obviously another message," and pointed to the pile on the left, which consisted of two £10 bank notes laying neatly atop each other, and a small handful of coins.
"If I am not mistaken, these are the two exact notes I gave Mrs. Darcy for her first two quarter's allowance. They both have a grease stain I got at the blacksmiths. The coins add up to the exact amount, I gave her to prorate for her first eight days of marriage in December. It is all of her pin money since her marriage, down to the penny."
Darcy clenched his teeth. "I am in a mood to take all responsibility on myself, Knight, but in a less forgiving mood, I would say that was badly done – very badly. I instructed you to pay her what I decided, but I do not remember suggesting you humiliate her."
Knight looked at the ground. "I have been kicking myself for that for months myself, Mr. Darcy. She came here as both a vulnerable young woman and the mistress, and I did not respect that. I can offer no excuse. I will tender my resignation."
"You will do no such thing!" Darcy snapped, then slightly more reasonably, he continued, "We all had our part in this debacle, and we will all have our part in the remedy. The lion's share of the blame is mine, and so must the remedy be, but I will expect all of you to try to help find her. I cannot be distracted looking for a new steward just now, and you have a right to your own repentance, I suppose."
Knight nodded, still not entirely sure that his position was secure, but the master was right. They all had a part to play and the most important thing was finding Mrs. Darcy before the trail became too cold.
While Darcy and the steward had been talking, Darcy's valet entered the room. "Welcome home, sir. I see you have received the message."
"Thank you, Bates. Traveling without you was quite possibly the biggest mistake of my life, although I suspect Fitzwilliam profited from my delayed action."
"I shall be certain to travel with you the next time you embark on such a foolhardy mission, sir."
Darcy chuckled, happy to have his old valet back. Bates had never been intimidated by much, and though he never stepped even a quarter inch out of propriety among others, he had known all the inhabitants of the room for many years and knew what he could get away with.
Darcy chuckled. "You say this is a message. You saw the room before"
"Yes, sir. I – ah – assisted Mrs. Darcy here when –"
Darcy chuckled. "You need not say it. I heard about the brandy."
"Very good, sir. Mrs. Reynolds wisely locked the door when Mrs. Darcy did not return, but there are four doors into the suite. I came in from the master's suite to look around."
"What did you see?"
Bates pointed to the piles on the dresser. "That last item, the lady's purse, belongs to Mrs. Darcy, obviously. I found it in your things after you shipped out for France and returned it to her."
Darcy stared at the purse for several minutes, then asked, "How in the world did I end up with that?"
"You do not remember, sir?"
"Typhus wreaked havoc with my memory. For a while, I did not even know my own name, but most of it has come back – I think …" but then he stared off in space for some time, and finally said, "… most, but not all, and I am never quite certain where something is missing. The doctor thinks I have recovered all I am likely to, but he also readily admitted that they do not know for certain."
"I have never had Typhus, sir, but I forget things all the time. I do not recommend blaming every lapse of memory on your illness. It promotes indolence of thought."
Bates knew he had stepped well over the line, but he also saw that Darcy could easily fall into the bad habit of gloom and despair given half a chance, and preferred that he not do so. The valet was well past pension age, had plenty of money, a warm fire and, as Mrs. Darcy surmised, mischievous grandchildren waiting for him, so he was not worried about his position. He considered it his duty to help Mr. Darcy, whether the gentleman was inclined towards the help or not.
Darcy, found the advice useful, as he could see that his old valet had a wisdom that should be appreciated, so he sat down for a good few minutes to think about the problem, while his companions worked on the mystery of the other two piles of coins. Both piles were not an enormous amount of money, but they were obviously a message in the form of a puzzle, because each had some amount of money calculated to the farthing.
After a couple of minutes, he smacked his forehead with his palm. "Idiot!"
That got everyone's attention, and he said, "Mr. Bennet gave me that purse at my wedding, and bade me give it to my wife," then he smacked his head again and frowned, saying, "one simple job, and I could not even do that."
Bates said, "She left it here for you. Shall we see what, if anything, is in it?"
Darcy opened the purse, but found it entirely empty, so he said, "I suppose the meaning of the purse will become clear later?"
Bates said, "If I may surmise, sir …"
"Please, do."
"… The message seems clear enough to me. She is telling you to talk to her father if you want to know what was in it."
Darcy chewed on that thought for a moment. "I believe you are right Bates. She is also saying to 'listen to Bates', as she must have known you would tell me that. Did you see her after that initial encounter?"
"No, I did not. Now I wish I had returned. I think I could have helped her."
"Do not chastise yourself, Bates. You cannot solve all of my problems for me."
Mrs. Reynolds said, "Mr. Knight and I believe we have solved the mystery of the last two piles, sir."
"Go on."
Pointing to one pile of coins, she said, "I just showed Mrs. Darcy the accounts for the first of June. As far as I can tell, she took the total cost of the food for the estate for the last six months and divided it by the total number of servants, plus one."
Unable to follow, Darcy asked, "Explain, please."
Knight said, "She paid for her own food, sir. The other pile is the wages for the maid and the footman she took with her, going back to January, as far as I can make out."
Darcy sighed. "You were right, it is a message, and not a subtle one. I assume she took her trunk and nothing else."
"It would appear so."
"The message was that she was taking nothing from this estate or its master," and then he fell back into a chair in despair.
Unfortunately, it was one of his mother's chairs that matched an identical chair at Rosings, so it nearly broke his back when he fell into it, so he had to laboriously climb back up, and pace around the room in anger and frustration for several minutes just to get his equilibrium.
Finally, he turned to his companions. "How in the world did she manage it? Was that purse loaded with money?"
Bates looked guilty. "I may be able to surmise, sir. The purse had no notes. I obviously did not look inside, but when I carried the purse, I felt what I took to be a handwritten note. It was cut unevenly, and not the right size to be a banknote. The purse had coins that I would estimate to be about £20 to £40 based on their weight. I would be surprised if it was enough to travel far while paying travel and lodging expenses for two servants."
"Do not assume too much. They both seem loyal to her, so they may not be taking their wages."
Bates looked at the stacks of coins. "Sir, the two stacks there make nearly £20. If the money in her purse was all she had, most of it would still be there on the vanity. She must have some other source of funds."
Darcy scrunched in thought for a moment, but then admitted that Bates was correct.
"So, she had no apparent source of money, no income, and as far as we know, no way to get anywhere very far away, or live once she got there, correct?"
Everyone nodded in confusion, thoroughly unable to think of how it would all work out.
Darcy stood up straighter, thinking it was about time to quit whining about his dismal position. "We all know perfectly well that nothing valuable was stolen from the house, obviously, so how did she do it? If we can work that out, maybe we can use that to find her. I think it is time to start talking to the people who knew her."
"Discreetly!" warned Mrs. Reynolds. "We have kept her departure a closely guarded secret. Of course, everyone knows she is not here, but nobody outside this room knows she is gone, or the fact that we have no idea where she is, and if or when she will return."
"Yes," Darcy agreed. "the circle is tight, and we need to keep it that way. Once she is found, her absence can be easily explained with some fiction – if I can get her to return, that is. If she is not found – well, I am not prepared to contemplate that possibility, but I will have to sooner or later."
Mrs. Reynolds frowned, and Darcy said, "Do not give me that look. You know I cannot and would not force her to return, but I want my wife back. I know I must earn the privilege, and I do know it is an uphill battle, but I cannot enjoin the battle unless we find her."
All his companions nodded in agreement.
Darcy thought for a few minutes, and finally said, "I will start with Bartlet and Longman. Knight, you poke around in Lambton and the outside staff, but do it with the utmost discretion. I do not want news of her departure leaking if it is unnecessary, but err on the side of finding her, not preserving our reputations. Locating her is paramount, and this would not be the first Darcy scandal, nor likely will it be the last. We will weather it."
"Yes, sir."
Darcy looked at the clock. "I have time to talk to Bartlet before dinner. I believe I will emulate Mrs. Darcy for the duration, Mrs. Reynolds. I will take a tray when I return."
She frowned. "That is easy enough, sir. We are accustomed to it, but are you sure it is for the best?"
"I am not sure of anything, Mrs. Reynolds."
"A wise attitude, sir."
Darcy looked pensive, then finally just shook his head, and went to get a horse for the ride into Lambton. He thought he may as well ride Omega and try to understand what his wife saw in the beast.
