Mr. Darcy's Great Escape (13 page)

The Code Breaker

Geoffrey Darcy's favorite game was “bother Nurse.” It used to be “bother Father,” but then he would get punished. Sometimes it was “bother Mother,” but she looked so tired these days and had to take care of his great-aunt, who was old and sick and shouted a lot, especially to his mother, which seemed mean of her, so he didn't get to play “bother Mother” a lot now. He could play it, but he didn't want to. Nurse it was.

The easy way was to get up before her and run around in his nightclothes. He could never figure out his other clothes, with all the jackets and vests; it all had to be tucked and buttoned, and it was
so boring
. But if he woke up before Nurse and snuck out before Nurse could see him, he was free until she found him again, and then that game was over, and he had to find another one.

First she tried to lock the nursery door; that worked because the door was heavy, old, and creaked a lot, and made a horrible sound when he tried to pull and push it, waking her up. The window was also too heavy for him, even when he had Anne try to help, but she couldn't lift
anything
.

Today he was lucky. Nurse forgot to put the key away, instead just left it on the high shelf. He climbed the shelves, which was much less noisy when he was not wearing shoes, and got the key as Nurse snored and Anne slept on. Sarah slept with his mother still. He turned the key and he was free! Free until she woke!

It was morning, but very early, because only a few people were around, and they were servants. He liked the servants at Pemberley and Chatton, and he had no reason to not like these, but he didn't know them, and they were so much bigger than he was. He thought it would be safer to stay away for now. Every time he asked Mother how long they were staying in this dusty old house, she said, “Not very long, darling,” but he didn't know how long “not very” was. It seemed to be
very
long, but Mother didn't lie.

It was getting cooler outside so he stayed indoors, going from room to room. He wondered why everyone in the pictures had curly white hair and a ponytail like servants. Why would servants' pictures be on the walls? Maybe Great-Aunt Catherine
really
liked her servants.

Finally, he wandered into the library, which at first Mother had said not to go in to, because it was so very dusty, but then she had it dusted. He still didn't go in much.

The books were not the only things in the library. George was sitting on the stool by the stacks, with a little pile of books next to him and one in his lap. George was a year older than he was and what was so special was that George could
read anything.
That was almost all that Geoffrey knew about George. At first he was so happy when there was someone here who was almost his age and a
boy
, because all the girls didn't want to play with him, and Mother and Cousin Fitzwilliam were too busy. But George wasn't like Charles or Georgie (who wasn't a boy but got a special honor because she was the oldest and the tallest). George didn't play much, talk much, or run around or surprise people. He read. He was not mean. Geoffrey just did not know the word to describe him, but he was not the same as Charles or Georgie.

“George?” Geoffrey asked. He must have heard him or seen him, but George didn't hear or see people when he should have, not because he was stupid. Maybe he just wasn't paying attention.

“Cousin Geoffrey,” George said, looking up, not smiling but not frowning. “What is it?”

Geoffrey smiled. “Do you want to play a game?”

“What kind of game?”

“Well… since I bet Nurse is going to wake, and then she's going to be mad, why don't we hide?”

George looked confused. “Why would we hide?”

“Because if Nurse finds me, she'll make me dress up!”

“So?” George said. Geoffrey noticed that George was fully dressed. “Dress yourself then.”

“But it's hard!” He didn't like the way George rolled his eyes at him. Like Father did sometimes. “All right. Do you still want to play?”

“Fine.” George put the book down. “Where are we going to go?”

“I'll show you!”

He raced along the corridors, finding more and more servants as he went, as the house began to wake. He could hear George keeping up with him because George had shoes on and they made a sound on the wood. Eventually he came to the entrance to the chapel. “I can't open the door unless someone helps me.”

“Why do you want to go in?”

“Because I haven't been.”

This seemed a good enough answer for George. Together they put their weight on the door, and it slowly opened with a loud creeeeak! They were inside the stone chapel of Rosings. The stone was cold on Geoffrey's feet, but he didn't want to look like a sissy in front of George, who was older and taller and could tattle on him for this, so he didn't say anything about it as they wandered around the little pews and the altar.

“Did you hear something?” Geoffrey said.

“What?”

“I heard something, like a bird or something. An animal.”

Both were silent as they looked around, and the mewing became more distinctive. “I found it!” Geoffrey said, running in the direction of one of the walls where there was a stone missing and a little dirt tunnel to the outside, too small for even his foot to fit through. In that hole was a cat—a tiny kitten, gray with white patches. He instantly picked it up.

“Don't!” George said, running up to him.

“Why not?” Geoffrey liked the cat. It was light enough for him to hold and it was fluffy.

“It's dirty! And it might be diseased!”

“So? I'm not a cat. I can't get cat-diseased.”

George said nothing.
Ha!
Geoffrey thought as the cat purred in his arms. “He's hungry.”

“She.”

“What? No, it's a boy.”

“Who says it's a boy? It's a girl.”

“No it isn't!”

“Is!”

“Isn't!”

“How do you know?”

George stuck out his tongue. “Because I'm older and that means I'm smarter!”

“But I found it so I get to say whether it's a boy or a girl!”

“You can't just decide! It is or it isn't! It was born that way.”

Geoffrey looked at the cat, which looked back up at him and mewed, one paw swatting weakly at his shirt. “What are we going to do with it?”

“It's your cat. You found it.”

“I can't have a cat. Father said I could get a dog but not until I'm eight. What if I get a cat now, and then I get a dog, and they fight?”

“You can give it to your sister.”

“Anne won't know what to do with a cat. She'll just treat it like a doll, and she throws her dolls around.” His eyes went wide as he looked at the cat. “I have an idea.”

“Is it going to get us into trouble?”

Geoffrey shrugged. “I suppose. So?”

“We're not supposed to get
in trouble
,” George said in a very harsh voice, which he could do because he was bigger and older and Geoffrey needed him for the prank anyway.

Geoffrey huffed. “Georgie would do it. And she's a
girl
.”

George frowned and held the cat closely to his chest. “What is it?”

***

The Darcys' nurse hummed as she entered the nursery. It was no surprise to find Geoffrey missing, as he was no doubt up and making some sort of trouble somewhere, but if she spent every moment searching for that boy, the other children would be in serious neglect. Anne and Sarah Darcy were still sleeping like the angels that they were; girls weren't troublesome until they were older, except for Georgiana Bingley, but she probably just spent too much time with Master Geoffrey because they were so close in age—two weeks apart—and their parents were so close. She needed a more feminine influence, but that wasn't the nurse's responsibility. The Darcy children were.

Anne Darcy was a late sleeper, and a heavy one, which was good for when she roomed with her sister, who had just started sleeping through the night and away from her mother. The nurse checked on her. “My little angel.” She then turned to the crib for Sarah, an ancient and uncomfortable monstrosity of medieval workmanship that was made better by lots of blanketing beneath the child, who should be screaming in hunger by now. Her nurse reached for the bundle. “Now, now, my sweet—”

Her shriek did wake Anne, who started crying, but it was the only possible response the nurse could have to pulling the bonnet aside to reveal that young Sarah Darcy had transformed herself into a gray kitten.

***

“You are in for a punishment, Master Geoffrey!” his nurse said, cradling the real Sarah, who had been in George's arms in the closet the entire time. Their giggling gave them away, of course. Sarah didn't seem to mind any, as far as Geoffrey could tell, so he didn't see what was wrong. All she did was sleep and cry anyway, and she wasn't doing either at the moment. “And Master George—I am telling your mother this instant! You stay right there!”

George looked pale, but Geoffrey just stifled his laughter until the nurse stormed out of the room. The cat was back in George's arms.

He looked at the cat, then up at George. “Does Cousin Isabel want a cat?”

“I don't know. Nobody ever gave her a cat before.”

“Well, does she like playing with animals?”

George paused. “Yes. But we don't have any cats at Longbourn. We just have the farm animals, and they smell terrible. Grandmother Bennet gets all mad when Isabel comes back in the house and she smells.”

“If we put the cat in a bath, the cat won't smell and then Grandmother Bennet won't mind!”

George smiled. It was so strange to see him smile because he did it so rarely. “You're right! But how are we going to clean the cat?”

“Nurse won't like it,” Geoffrey said. “Nurse doesn't let me put
anything
in the bathtub. But the servants wash clothing in bins. We can just put the cat in the bin and take it out before one of them notices, and then we'll have the cat all fixed up for your sister!”

So they embarked on their great plan. It involved a bucket filled with soapy water and a laundress with her back turned, and then it involved a lot of screaming when she turned back around, and then Nurse found him, and
she
screamed—
again
—and it seemed like everyone was screaming until Mother finally showed up. “What in the—Geoffrey Darcy, what have you done now? You're driving us all to Bedlam! Your nurse barely finished telling me about Sarah—who is not supposed to leave her cradle without an adult's permission—and next thing I know, she's shrieking over some new thing!”

Geoffrey ignored her rant. “We cleaned a cat!” he said, holding up the soapy gray kitten for Mother to see.

“Hey! It wasn't my idea!” George said. “Aunt Darcy, it was his, I swear. He wanted to give it to my sister—”

“—but
George
said that it had to be clean—”

“—and then
Geoffrey
said we should clean it in the tub, but Nurse wouldn't allow it—”

“—and then
George
agreed to—”

Mother held her hand up, holding her shawl up with her other hand. “Enough! Where did you find this cat?”

“In the chapel.”

“Where is its mother? It is just a kitten.”

They looked at each other. They hadn't considered that it might have a mother. “We didn't see any other cats, Mother.”

“Well… if it has been abandoned…” She picked up the cat from Geoffrey, despite how wet and soapy it was; she could hold it easily in one hand, it was so small. “George, did you ask your mother if you could give your sister a cat?”

“She is not awake, Aunt Darcy.”

“But you did
intend
to ask her.”

George stumbled, and Geoffrey quickly said, “Yes, we did, Mother, we
promise
.”

His mother smiled. “Very well. I will discuss this with my sister—while you, Geoffrey, will go
get dressed
.
Now
.”

He had escaped disaster. It was really bad when his mother was angry with him. She didn't seem to be angry with him and she didn't seem to be angry with George. He went inside, and when he was washed and dressed by an angry Nurse (which he saw more often than a happy Nurse), he joined George, and they were told by their mothers that they may present Isabel with a cat, if she wanted it. Oh, and that it was a female cat.

Isabella Wickham, previously oblivious to all of this, practically ran screaming into the room at the sight of the now-clean kitten her aunt was holding, begging to at least hold it, and she was even more excited to learn that it was a gift from her brother and her cousin. She kissed both of them, which Geoffrey thought was quite embarrassing, and was the happiest person there for many days. But Geoffrey was happy too, because George “held him in some regard” as Father would say, which he was sure was adult-speak for “liked him.” Why didn't Father ever say anything simply?

***

The new friendship between Geoffrey Darcy and George Wickham Junior/the Third was one burden removed from Elizabeth's shoulders. Once she had convinced Lydia to let her daughter have the cat by offering up the future expenses of the cat, which was purely conjecture. It made Isabel happy, and it made her son happy. And now her son had someone to play with and distract him from the fact that his father was now officially missing.

It was two months since Darcy's last missive to her, which said he was staying in Berlin. He had not responded to any of hers, all filled with increasing anxiety. She had to consider the possibility that something terrible had happened. Charles proposed via letter to send a man to Berlin to seek them out, and she agreed. His reply told them two things—one, that they were not to be easily found in Berlin; two, more ominously, that the post worked and that was not the problem.