Mrs. Collins and her best friend

Oh, Lizzie!" Charlotte" exclaimed as her friend stepped down from the coach, assisted by two coachmen. "I am so glad you sensed the urgency of my 'vague suggestion' that you make post-haste to come. I could not be open lest I rouse my husband's anger at me for interfering in the Lady Catherine de Bourgh's initiatives."

"Well, you certainly were cryptic, but I have known you for so many years and never found you frivolous even when we were playing the most silly of our girlhood games." She took the valise from one of the coachmen and told them to make arrangements for a short stay in the town, sending her word where they were situated so she could let them know when the return journey would take place. The she followed Charlotte into the house. As they entered, she glanced into the garden and was not surprised to see Charlotte's husband on his knees, digging and loosening soil around some fine rose bushes. He was so absorbed he did not seem to have noticed the arrival and departure of the large coach that had just brought his wife's friend for a short stay. Charlotte had told her that between the gardening and his books, they managed to hardly ever see each other except at occasional meals. The arrangement suited her fine!

Inside their cozy sitting room, Charlotte rang for tea and refreshments. Their talk was all of small matters until the tea was served and the servant girls had departed. Both women leaned forward, each eager to share her tidings. Lizzie was excited to tell her best friend (aside from Jane, her sister) the news that was burgeoning within her, but Charlotte's first words put a stop to her eagerness. "There's been a murder," her friend said in hushed tones. Lizzie was shocked by this least expected revelation. "Was it someone we know?" she asked with a feeling of dread… half expecting to hear of someone in the de Bourgh household. "No it was a sixteen year old farm girl who worked the scullery for Lady Catherine."

That was the last thing that Lizzie expected to hear… a scullery maid she had never heard of! "I am saddened for her loss, and her family's," she said, sympathetically, "but I'm not sure why that news should have brought me from Pemberley with such urgency. Charlotte nodded her head. "I understand your confusion, but look at this drawing I have made." She reached down to a portfolio that leaned against her chair and drew out several drawings. Lizzie had always admired her friend's talent as an artist and valued greatly the many drawings Charlotte had done of her and her sisters over the years of their growth. The subject of these drawings puzzled her, however. "If I am not mistaken," she said with some confusion, "these are drawings of buttons?" Her friend nodded. "Just one button, but drawn from every angle. It was clutched in the murdered girl's hand, as though pulled off the coat of her assailant."

Lizzie peered closer at the drawing featuring the top of the button. "That is a pattern on the button, although faint?" she asked. "Yes," Charlotte responded and handed her another drawing of the same perspective, but here the pattern was sharper. "I made the design clearer than it actually appears on the button where it is very faint." Lizzie gasped in astonishment. "I know this pattern," she said in confusion. "It is the emblem of House Pemberley. One sees it there everywhere … on dishes, platters, books… everywhere."

"When Lady Catherine identified it as such, I knew I must send for you at once. Someone has murdered an innocent girl and planted evidence to point at your husband, Fitzwilliam Darcy." Lizzie sat back for a moment in thought. Instinctively, her mind went to one name… George Wickham! The perfect revenge for his years of anger at his supposed mistreatment by his boyhood friend and companion; now the imagined cause of all his troubles… including being forced to marry Lydia, her silly sister! But to murder an innocent girl, could even Wickham be so wicked? It seemed so. She studied the drawings again. Some detail struck her. "Is this accurate, Charlotte? Exactly as the button is? Can I examine it for myself?"

"That is the other part of the problem. My husband immediately showed the button to Lady Catherine when we could not make out the markings. She knew it as Pemberley's seal at once and seized it to show to a magistrate to urge the arrest of your husband for murder." Lizzie recoiled in horror. "Could even she sink so low?" she murmured. "With the greatest joy, I can assure you," her friend answered, dryly.

Lizzie gestured once more at the drawings. "You assure me these are accurate, and done at the time of your discovery of the button?" she asked her friend, thoughtfully. "Absolutely," Charlotte told her. "And you would swear to this in a court of law before a magistrate and jury?" Lizzie persisted.
"Of course, her friend assured her. "Why do you think it to be of such importance?"

"Because there is a detail her that reveals the sinister plot at the heart of this matter. You said the button was torn from the coat of the attacker, but if that were the case, what is missing in you drawings?"

Charlotte looked at her in confusion. "You were always smarter than me, Lizzie," she said. "You will have to share with me your idea." "If something is torn from cloth, there must be threads dangling from it and bits of the cloth it was sewn on to, surely."

Charlotte's face lit up with comprehension. "Ah, you are correct, you clever thing. There are no loose threads and I remember now the bottom of the button showed clearly it was cut off… not torn off!"

"Yes," Lizzie said, triumphantly. "It is clearly placed in the victim's hand to implicate and incriminate my husband!"

"We should go at once to the Lady Catherine and point this out to her so she will let the matter drop," Charlotte said, firmly. Lizzie looked at her friend as though she was mad. "That will never happen," she assured her. "This button must appear to the Lady Catherine as manna from heaven to the fleeing Hebrew slaves. She has waited for years to revenge herself on her nephew for not marrying her daughter. You have given her the means and she will pursue it till her last breath. It is only a matter of time until a warrant is issued for Darcy's arrest, imprisonment, and inevitable trial."

Lizzy sat for a few moments, turning over the possibilities and the likelihoods in her mind. Logic and her knowledge of the various actors in the drama led to her conclusions. "No, my dear," she said softly. "What I need for you is to sign your name and add the date you did the drawings beneath your signature on each drawing. I will take them with me and turn them over to the Barrister we will engage for Darcy's defense. He will use them at the inevitable trial of my husband for murder." Anotherthought occurred to her. "What was the exact date this atrocity occurred?" she asked. When Charlotte told her, she was surprised to see a smile play over her friend's lips. Lizzie nodded and said, "So… let the games begin.