Beginning, Section II
"You cannot be serious, Colonel," I spoke in amazement. He could not be wanting me to join the Army. That was preposterous. "I shall never cut my hair. You cannot be serious."
"That is what you say, but can we trust you?"
"Why would you want to recruit somebody you do not trust?" I countered immediately. He should not say stupid things like that and certainly not to me. I punished people for them straight away.
"I have great hopes for your rehabilitation," he answered. "We shall make a decent girl out of you yet."
Who would like it if she was told such a thing? It implied that I was a bad girl, but I was not -- I was not bad and I was not a girl. "I am a woman," I said with as much dignity as I could muster. I felt I was not being taken seriously and I turned my back to him.
He spun me around, grabbing me by my shoulders. "Caroline..."
"No!" I relished being stubborn.
"Listen to me."
I pretended not to hear him, but I wished he would keep talking. Perhaps I was a bad girl after all.
"If you insist on not listening to me," the Colonel said. "I shall stop speaking."
While it was certainly possible to find some tiny fault with what he said, because he almost certainly would not completely stop speaking, I regretted that I proved all those clichés about women true, because I immediately changed my behaviour. "No, you shall not," I told him imperiously.
"And you claim to be a woman?" he mocked me. He always looked great when he mocked, but I ignored that. "I doubt it and might as well recruit you."
"I will not cut my hair and women are not allowed in the Army."
"You might be a civilian."
"A civilian what? You are not suggesting that I do something that I should get paid for?" I was appalled. What was he thinking? That I did not have any money or connections? It was undesirable to get paid for working.
"It is an honourable profession. I get paid to play colonel," Fitzwilliam replied.
"Very little, I am sure, since you do nothing and for which disreputable sum would you hire me?"
"The reward shall be my company," he answered solemnly.
I guffawed, naturally. "One must be insane to enjoy your company." Little white lies were allowed. He would not be able to swear that he had not told any either.
"I do not think my mother would have let you get away with that remark."
It was really juvenile to bring his mother into the argument. I had enough of juvenile men. First Darcy, now Fitzwilliam. "Please do not behave like your cousin," I begged. "Soon you too will be telling me you want to marry me." Why it is that colonels can make their eyes gleam dangerously? Had I been anyone other than Caroline Bingley, I should have been scared. Now, I merely noticed the fact and stored it in my brain for later reflection.
The Colonel shook his head emphatically. "I do not flatter undeserving ladies and yet...you would be offended if I said I did not want to marry me." He cocked his head sideways inquisitively.
"Why am I undeserving?" I saw his point, somewhere, vaguely, but it was still unpleasant to hear.
"Of me you certainly are."
"Puh. And you of me." Two could play at that game and I could do it better than the Colonel. Yet he had not explained why I was undeserving. I assumed it was only a figure of speech. I was deserving of the very best, for I was rich and pretty and not devoid of understanding.
"You are in no position to choose."
He was wrong there. "I am! Darcy proposed to me," I protested. Had that not given me a choice? "That would definitely mean I was an eligible match."
"You will never be an eligible match unless you keep your mouth shut. No man can interrupt you, let alone get you silent for long enough to propose." Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed to take pleasure in saying that, but he seemed to take pleasure in many things I did not understand.
Darcy had proposed, though. I wondered if his words meant that he did not think Darcy was a man -- perhaps I would agree. Darcy was a boy. But if Darcy was a boy, then the good Colonel here was a baby. "Have you tried?" I challenged him, for I believed he was only raving. One man had succeeded in proposing to me, so the Colonel was lying. What would he do with my challenge? Would two men propose to me in a week if none had done so in twenty-five years? It was quite exciting.
"I do not want to improve your statistics, Caroline," Colonel Fitzwilliam hedged politely. "And I have always cherished the hope that I might make a lady swoon with my proposal. There is little chance of that if you practically hold a knife to my throat."
Conversations would never fall silent between us if he kept saying such things. The man had quite a high opinion of himself. "Swoon?" I gasped. "You think a lady would swoon?" And that they would swoon over him of all people? Audacious!
He had the nerve to wink at me as if he knew something I did not. "Oh yes."
I was about to die. Such confidence! It was unbelievable. "No lady would swoon at a proposal!" I managed. Good God! Ladies could not be as stupid as that. They would accept a proposal calmly and with dignity.
"What do you know about ladies? Have you turned fifteen yet?" Colonel Fitzwilliam suddenly sounded as though he were talking to a child.
I gasped again. "Why do I keep talking to you? You are pathetic! You are stuck at fifteen!"
"Eleven, my dear," he winked again. "The things we do out of boredom. You of all people should understand."
"I...believe our conversation is over," I said stiffly. The man was only out to tease me. How could I ever have dreamt about him? There was not a grain of romance in him, not a single grain.
He let me walk away. He let me walk away! What kind of man was this? He was so frustrating. I kept wanting to be called back so I could refuse, but it did not happen. I could have thrown something, had I been unrefined and coarse.
It had been towards the end of the afternoon when I had last seen Colonel Fitzwilliam. That had been on a Saturday. I had correctly surmised that he would not come to church the following day -- only those officers attended who were too priggish to drink and those who were too careless about their appearance to mind that they looked as though they had breakfasted on a cocktail of raw eggs.
I was well acquainted with the raw-egg cocktail, although I had never tasted it myself. Mr. Hurst frequently applied the remedy after having imbibed the previous night. Not by choice, I might add, but being forced by Louisa with the help of whichever housekeeper managed the house in which we were staying at that time.
Anyway, I doubted that Colonel Fitzwilliam would swallow raw eggs and look like a ghost. If he could give me a tongue-lashing for painting his boots, he would not want his face to look bad.
Then, Sundays being what they were, he did not visit Darcy. "He never comes near me on Sundays," Darcy explained when I fished for it a little. "Always drinks too much on Saturday evening to bear my temper." Which was still invariably distracted. Time had done nothing to change that. If anything, it had become worse, for I strongly suspected him of having gone out during the night.
I should have to wait for gossip on what art had been removed.
The Colonel, during the four days he had been in town, had not yet discovered anything, I believed. At any rate, no gossip of that sort had reached me so far. He must have been dawdling. I had not heard anything of the sofa and the skeleton, yet someone had taken them. My bet was Wickham. Who else?
Suspiciously little had been seen of Wickham ever since the Colonel had been in town. Had he left or was he simply behaving? He could behave, but never for long. Sooner or later he would err. I was willing to tell the Colonel about that, if he did not already know. It was likely that he did, however, because why else had he come here? He was a military man, who could only be after another military man.
I sat up with a start. He had lied to me. I was completely safe from him -- bar the fantasies, but this was not the right moment to go off on tangents. Why had I believed him? I was resolved to ask him about it that night, no matter that it was a Sunday. Nobody would know if I sneaked out of the house -- I did it all the time.
When the night fell and it was dark, I retired as usual. Everyone but Darcy was under the assumption that I slept a lot and that I needed hours to dress, whereas the opposite was true. I could dress very quickly -- faster than Darcy, I dare say, since I had no beard to shave off every morning.
I knew which door to take without being seen by servants and I also knew which path to take to Meryton. The night did not frighten me. Darkness was my friend and I loved the sounds of nocturnal animals.
Arriving in Meryton, which was as deserted as any god-fearing town ought to be on the Sabbath, I tiptoed to the officers' lodgings. By now, I had discovered that he was staying with the rest of them. I had not been able to help myself, but on my way over I had been imagining how he would receive me. It turned out that all my fantasies had been wrong. He was not lying in wait, nor did he faint from shock. He merely said, "nice surprise, Caroline," and offered me a mug of hot cocoa.
After all the caution I had observed in finding his room, I had at least expected a biscuit, but I did not say so. I accepted the cocoa.
"What is on your mind?" he asked me.
I wish he would not sound so understanding and kind. It did things to me that I did not like. "A biscuit," I replied.
He took one from a battered tin. "Here you go, but I doubt that you came all this way to beg for a biscuit. They cannot be starving you at Netherfield."
"You lied to me. You cannot send me to prison."
"No, I cannot." It was spoken very calmly, as if this was not a confession of his dishonesty.
"Then why did you say so?"
"I had no idea you would be so silly as to believe me."
There we sat, staring at each other, undoubtedly trying to gauge how serious we both were. I was very serious, but he probably called that silly. I curled my fingers around the hot mug. "How could I have known?" I asked helplessly. My helplessness mostly referred to the sort of stupid questions my brain forced me to ask. I know how I could have known. I ought to have used my brain, instead of having it distracted by the first handsome man that crossed my path.
"It is common knowledge," said Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Yes, I know! "Not of the sort I have," I protested.
"You of all people should have it. You with your sticky fingers."
I felt my fingers. They were not sticky. Not at all. He laughed and took my hands and then we stared some more. I believed he liked me. "Do you ever get any men stuck on your fingers?" he asked.
"Men?" I was puzzled.
"I suppose that is a no."
"I suppose I do not understand."
"There is no need to."
"I believe there is." I looked at him with what I would describe as an icy glare. It was hard, though, to look upon perfection incarnate with an icy glare. Or was he not perfect? It was hard to tell. One's model depended completely upon whom one liked. Perfection was a subjective thing. Perhaps someone even thought I was the image of perfection, although I doubted it. I came closer than most, but I did not think I reached the top.
"Let us forget the subject. We are not man and woman, but people."
"People," I echoed. I did not see why we suddenly had to be people. He was confusing me.
"Yes, how else could you be here?" He asked. I believed the Colonel was experiencing a case of worries about entertaining a woman in his room on a Sunday night. He was a good man, I decided, all things considered.
"Oh!" I mocked. "Women cannot find their way through the dark unaccompanied, can they? Is that it?"
"We are in a compromising situation," Colonel Fitzwilliam explained patiently.
"I have been in many such situations," I sniffed. "With necklaces." Being caught with those would have been much worse, I thought.
"But you can never hide me around your neck like you would a necklace."
"No," I mused. I wondered if his tone implied that he wanted me to try.
"It might damage your reputation if you tried."
Well, he was silly. Did he not know he was a little too big to hang around my neck? It seemed he insisted on puzzling me. "Then I shall have to marry Darcy after all -- just when he does not want me anymore. Do you not think he is out with Miss Bennet?" I asked.
"He is most definitely out with Miss Bennet," the Colonel agreed. "I do not know what they are up to, but I think you might be right in thinking that he does not want you anymore. Miss Bennet has some mysterious power over him. She has him reciting things to a skeleton."
"I beg your pardon?" I cried and then looked around furtively, fearing that someone had heard my unmistakably feminine voice coming from the Colonel's room.
"I followed them for a while."
"The skeleton? Where is the skeleton?"
"What do you know of the skeleton?" he asked shrewdly.
"Darcy took it. I was there. Was it Miss Bennet who took it away from the square?"
"I did not ask. I only know that they both know where it is." Colonel Fitzwilliam leant back and looked at me, shaking his head. "It is time to give up the pranks, do you not think? You find yourself alone now. He seems to have found another partner."
"That does not alter my character." I could not suddenly become respectable just because Darcy had fallen in love.
"Take another partner."
"Like you, I am sure. You are so morally upright that you probably read edifying texts at night," I said sarcastically. "That bores me."
"Morally upright men do not go sneaking through the night to spy on respectable young ladies."
"Which respectable young lady did you spy on?" That came out a bit more jealously than I had intended. He was not supposed to know how I had been fantasising. Respectable ladies did not fantasise, I was sure.
"Miss Bennet," he answered.
I felt betrayed and my face fell. "Why?" I asked with little enthusiasm. Finally a man who had enough wit and sense of humour to interest me more than a little and he had to be spying on other young ladies. Such was my fate in life, I thought in resignation. But, my God, what was wrong with me that all men deserted me in favour of Elizabeth Bennet?
"Because I suspect her of being in cahoots with Wickham."
I gasped. This relieved and worried me at the same time. Elizabeth?
"Hmm," I said after a while of thinking about a possible connection between Elizabeth and Wickham. "It is true that Miss Bennet is not as innocent and angelic as she appears. She has got a little wicked streak, do you not think?"
"I do not know her well," said the Colonel. He would say that. He was clever enough to realise that I should not like any other answers. "I am basing my suspicions on what I heard and I heard that she likes Wickham, who must by necessity have an accomplice in the area."
"Why?" I interrupted.
"Because he is too stupid to do anything successfully on his own. I should never have got on his trail if he were a clever man," Colonel Fitzwilliam explained patiently. "Now you and Darcy, on the other hand..."
"What about it?" I demanded immediately. Yes, we were clever, but how could he have known about us if we were extremely clever? I wanted to know how much he knew.
"You two are clever, but I am related to Darcy, see."
And I was related to Louisa and Charles, but that did not automatically make them perceptive. "Well?"
"I know him."
"So?" Louisa and Charles knew me as well, perhaps even better than Fitzwilliam knew Darcy, since he was merely a cousin and my siblings were my siblings.
"He cannot hide things from me. You see, I had been wondering about the state of affairs between the two of you and he could never really give me a satisfactory answer. He was vague about marriage and yet he seemed your close friend. It made me wonder, especially because you and he seem closer friends than he and your brother."
"And that struck you as odd...?"
"A little." He rose to his feet. "If you do not object, Miss Bingley, I shall escort you back to Netherfield, because I should like to get some sleep."
"I can go myself."
"I know, but I should not feel comfortable about it." He smiled at me that very charming smile, obviously designed to make me give in. "There might be wild boars around..."
"And lions, tigers, bears..." I agreed sarcastically. "All out to eat me." I had never encountered any wild animals around Netherfield before, nor had I ever heard any stories about them.
"You never know. Please?"
"Please?" I was surprised. He gave me the choice?
"If you do not object, I said. If you object, I shall let you go alone, but I shall not be able to sleep."
"That is blackmail."
"No, it is the truth."
"Colonel," I said, hardening my heart. "Would you please not look as if you mean it? There is no need to be so charming. I can see through charming men. You need not give yourself the trouble."
"But I do mean it," he said with another honest look.
"No!" I meowed. "Have some flaw, please!"
"I do."
"And what might that be? That you are late on occasion?"
"No," he said regretfully. "My flaw is that I am wildly, madly, passionately --"
My eyes widened. He was going to say he was passionately in love with me. I anticipated those words breathlessly.
"-- fond of dark woods," he finished with a wicked gleam. "I have my flaws, my sweet."
"That is as good as any admission of love," I decided. "You are passionately in love with me," I challenged him, feeling rather bold, perhaps too bold.
"If it pleases you to think that, my sweet." He reached for his coat and pulled it on, looking unruffled, but charming. "However, I would never send you away if I were passionately in love with you."
"What would you do?" I was immensely curious.
He advanced towards me, gazed into my eyes and spoke in a half whisper, "I would abduct you to Gretna Green where we would be married to protect society from you and then I would take you to Matlock Hall where I would lock you up in the north tower, as all sensible men do with their insane wives!" I gasped and of course he laughed. "You can be a little goose," he said.
"Why do you not abduct Mrs. Bennet and run off to the theatre with her?" I said cattily. "Your acting skills are beyond compare." I did not like it at all that he could do with me as he pleased. And I liked it even less that he seemed to be trying out how far he could go.
"Indeed they are," he dared to reply very seriously. "If you have not yet noticed that I -- never mind."
He made me pull on my coat and then we walked back to Netherfield, all the while discussing Elizabeth's possible involvement. However, we could not conclude anything, because we knew too little. When we arrived home, the Colonel confessed he had no idea how to return, which amazed me, because men generally do not admit such things. He claimed it was not important, since it had been more important to see me home safely, but I was concerned. I could not allow him to roam the woods until daylight. Impossible. We had a little argument on the front steps.
Apparently we had raised our voices somewhat, because a sleepy servant peered out of the door to see what was going on. "Miss Bingley," he said, evidently surprised.
Never make excuses to a servant for any tricky situation you might find yourself in. They would just have to accept the situation. "Colonel Fitzwilliam thinks he would inconvenience us if he stayed," I told the servant. Servants would not dare to say that something was an inconvenience. I counted on that.
And I was right. "Not at all, Madam. Shall I ring someone to prepare a room?"
"Yes, do that." I followed the servant indoors. "You would not dare to refuse our hospitality," I hissed at the Colonel. "Get those heroic notions out of your head and stop acting like a brave little boy. Go to bed!" I was in charge of myself and the situation once more. This was how I liked it.
"Yes, General," Colonel Fitzwilliam answered.
"And sleep," I ordered him. "Long."
"Oooh! Now I am afraid of you, General. I shall stay in bed until you come and get me," he whispered just before he followed the servant. His nerve was amazing. Did he really think I would come to wake him up in the morning? No! I would send the ugliest servant to do that, to punish him for his mocking words.
Quietly I went up to my own room and undressed. It felt as if I had become involved in a game. Neither of us was serious all the time, but we were never sure of when the other was teasing or not. It was frustrating and exhilarating at once and I rather enjoyed it. This thrill was much better than the thrill I got from sneaking about other people's houses in the dark. Colonel Fitzwilliam was an object I could never quite get my hands on and yet he was constantly luring me. Just thinking about it brought a smile to my lips.
The serious reflection that I could not escape, however, made me wonder if my past was not in the way of a continuation of this game we were playing. After all, you could say we were on opposite sides of the law. But it seemed to me that I had found a new pastime, for as long as he would stay around, that was.
When I woke up the house was deserted, except for a few lagging servants. I inquired where the family had gone and I was very surprised to be told that the entire party had left for London. What about me? I stared at the servant in confusion. Had they forgotten me? How could they have left without me? Had there been an emergency? I could not imagine what sort of emergency. They must have left a note. "Is there -- is there a note for me?" I asked, fearing the worst, because if there had been a note, they would have handed it to me straight away.
"No, Madam."
"No?" I cried, feeling hurt and abandoned. Why had they left so suddenly? Without a note? I did not understand.
"There was only a note for Miss Bennet."
I did not understand that either and I sank down on one of the sofas they were busy covering up with white sheets. Had I suddenly become invisible to them? Had I died overnight and was this some horrible afterlife? The portals of hell? This was not heaven. "Y-Y-You do know who I am?" I asked the servant.
"Yes, Miss Bingley. But we were under the assumption that you had left with the rest of the party," the servant seemed as confused as I was. He was evidently wondering what to do with me and what to do with the sheets now that I turned out to be here still.
What had I done to deserve this desertion, this betrayal? I was completely lost. Suddenly I remembered Colonel Fitzwilliam. "What about Colonel Fitzwilliam? Is he still here?" I asked hopefully.
"Who, Madam?"
"Argh!" I cried and ran up the stairs. I could guess which room they had put him in last night and he was there, still asleep. Thankfully! I had not gone completely crazy. I shook him by the shoulder. "Wake up!" I was too desperate to care what I was doing.
"Uhhh?" he said sleepily.
I did not know where to begin. "They have all left!"
"Who have?"
"Charles, Louisa, Darcy..."
"So you are alone with Mr. Hurst?" he inquired. "Grab your chance, my sweet."
I was not amused. "He left too! They all left without telling me or even thinking about me! Am I still alive? Did I die? Am I invisible?" I began to sound desperate now too.
"I do not think you died," he ventured. "Or maybe I have died with you and we are two ghosts right now."
"Then...what...?" I sat down on the edge of his bed and hid my face against his shoulder in despair, the only fellow human being who was showing some kind of sympathy for my plight and who had not abandoned me. "I do not know what is going on." I sounded like a small child about to cry.
"One thing: you are not a ghost," Colonel Fitzwilliam remarked as he placed one hand on my back. "I cannot move my hand through your body. It meets with resistance."
"I do not understand," I sobbed. "They are covering all the furniture with sheets as if I am no longer here." I felt betrayed. How could they have left without me? Without telling me anything?
"Calm down, my sweet," he said reassuringly. "Allow me to get dressed and then we shall think, all right?"
I finally shed some tears. It was as if they had spent years building up inside me to wait for this particular moment, because all my emotions just burst out of me in a flood of tears. I did not even give him the chance to get dressed, although it must be said that a night shirt is to be preferred over regimentals to lay your head against and so maybe I was not doing something entirely irrational.
I do not know how long it took before he got me back in order, but I felt quite spent. I kept having hiccups and my eyes felt puffy. Having been so concentrated on myself, I had not thought about the Colonel as a person, but only as a source of comfort. I now sat up and eyed his wet night shirt. "Did I do that?" I asked timidly. It had only been tears, but it looked as if someone had emptied a bucket over him in that spot.
"It is all right," he replied, rubbing the spot as if that made it dry.
"What did I do?" I realised. "I should not be here."
"On the contrary. This is exactly where you should be. Tell me -- does anyone care where you are except me? I will not send you away. I do not know what got into their minds, Caroline, but I --"
I did not hear what else he said, but fell back into his arms to cry some more. I was sure I was going to end up all wrinkled and shrivelled if I did not stop and so after a while I squeezed out the last of my tears and breathed deeply. I had to get over this temporary weakness. I really could not go through life being this silly, even though it truly felt as if I was only safe right here. It could not be so. "What shall we do?" I asked.
"Getting dressed properly would be a nice start," said the Colonel. "If you promise me you will do this again, that is. Otherwise you may stay a little bit longer."
I was confused. "What do you mean?"
"You will see when the fog clears your head," he said mysteriously. "Now sit on that chair and turn around while I change out of my night shirt. You had not noticed I was not dressed, did you? I did not think you had. Do not start noticing now, Caroline. Just sit there and look the other way. I would send you out of the room if you had not already felt so abandoned."
I was aware of some of my faults and I knew some could possibly get me into trouble, if you could call it trouble. I usually kept people at a polite distance, but there was one way to win me over that not many people tried or knew about. Most were frightened away by my haughty attitude, I suppose, and gave up trying to befriend me in a more profound way. Thus I did not have many close friends and this state perpetuated itself because of the reputation it gave me of being cold and unfriendly. The rare instances that outsiders saw me behave differently, they called me artificial and affected.
However, I knew my system could not cope with too much kindness from others. I do not know what had caused what; whether this had caused me to be distant or whether my distance had made me more sensitive to kindness. I only knew I did not have a good grip on myself if someone said something nice to me. I only knew I liked them disproportionately, when that was completely unreasonable and I could only be disappointed if it turned out that they were indiscriminately kind to everyone and that I meant nothing to them. It had happened before.
This awareness did not mean that I was capable of guarding myself against it. I could see it happening, even, but I could not do anything about it. It only took someone like Colonel Fitzwilliam a few smiles and gently spoken words of kindness -- not even of love, mind you, just simple kindness he would have extended to any fellow human being who had been abandoned by her family and friends. It only took him a few words and I was gone.
Wham!
He gave me a shoulder to cry on and I wanted his whole body and soul.
He had been kind, so he liked me, but I loved him to death and I was convinced that there was no truer and more loveable soul in the entire world, nor as handsome and gentlemanly as Colonel Fitzwilliam. I was stunned by this overwhelming feeling of love, so stunned that he could do exactly with me what he pleased.
But of course he did not. He merely told me to sit on a chair and look the other way while he dressed, which is a very tough thing to do. I would rather not take my eyes off him and especially not if -- here my train of thought ground to a sudden halt. I was glad I had enough willpower to accomplish that.
Either way, even this action increased my love for him even more, so much that I was about to burst if he did not do anything.
But when he was dressed, he only called me. I upset the chair in my haste to turn around, turning bright red when I put it back again. How was I to start talking about this torment inside me? I did not know where to start and consequently I just gaped.
The clothes he was wearing now fit him even better than the ones he had been wearing that time when I had studied him extensively from the sofa. I told myself to wake up. He was only a human being and he would not be caring about me half as much as I cared about him, although it must be said that even half of those feelings would be enough to make my legs shaky. I was sure I would fall over any second.
"Are you all right, Caroline?" he asked kindly.
I think I had a brief black-out, because I did not remember anything between those words and sitting on the chair again. "I am stupid," I mumbled, trying to fight this feeling. He was an ordinary human with annoying traits. All humans have those. Where were the Colonel's? He did not smell, damn it. He did not have dirty fingernails, damn it. His suit fit, damn it. His voice did not grate on my sensibilities, damn it.
And instead of taking my words as an opening to make fun of me, damn it, he just stared at me kindly and shook his head. He kissed me on my forehead.
All right! We had found a flaw here. I was relieved. I loved him! Colonel Fitzwilliam had no spatial insight. The kiss should have gone lower.
I chided myself inwardly, my eyes widening in shock. Caroline! Caroline! Go rinse your mouth -- head -- girl! Desperately I fixed my eyes on a painting of a ship on a stormy sea. The people on that ship must be so seasick! Where were they going? Why was it sporting a foreign flag?
"Caroline?" Fitzwilliam asked in concern.
"Argh! I was...no!" I glanced at him in despair. "I am in torment," I confessed, wondering what he would do about that.
"I understand...they should not have left you." He squatted before me and took my hands.
This was too much for me. I just let myself fall forward, which was not a bright move to perform on a squatting man, because he was likely to fall backwards onto his behind and he did, taking me with him, not that I objected.
"Caroline?" he asked with a slight frown, lying on the floor with me half over him.
"Are you hurt?" I was stupid. I could have hurt him.
There we were, both extremely anxious about the other's well-being and I could not help but laugh in delight to find him unharmed.
"We had better get up," he said, assisting me. "What if someone found us?"
I gasped, pressing myself against him in fear. Well, it was not so much fear as something I could not define, but women in love are not always honest, not even to themselves. There were no people around to find us and I knew this full well, nor was I the type to become frightened very easily. But sometimes we are allowed to ignore that. "What if they did?" I asked fearfully.
The Colonel, being an excellent man, comforted me. "I shall protect you. Meanwhile, I must go and see about some things."
After this comforting embrace, I really had no justification for being disappointed by this vague answer. I was resolved to feel very martyr-like and bear this deprivation with fortitude so I should enjoy the next occasion even better. I was brave. "Such as?" My voice was very even and did not quiver.
"Our transport."
Men! They were always so practical! I was practical myself, but if I had been the Colonel, I should have postponed being practical for another while, just like I was postponing coming to my senses about this love thing. There was nothing I could do about it, however, and I had to be content with watching him and following him to the stables. As long as he did not leave my sight I was happy with that too. I did not even wonder where he was planning to go.
The Colonel took me into special custody, he claimed. I had no idea what special custody was, but understandably I had no wish to know as long as he took care of me. I merely accepted and he seemed amused by that. "I must keep a close eye on you," he explained. "On no account must you get the opportunity to be tempted by something bright and shiny. I figure that if I keep you with me at all times, you will be so captivated by the buttons on my regimentals that you will not care to look elsewhere and they have been sewed on so well that you will never be able to get them off."
"Do you think I would be captivated by your buttons?" I protested indignantly. As if the buttons on his uniform were his most attractive feature.
"If I polish them regularly, you will." He sounded confident.
"I disagree." I sounded confident too.
The Colonel raised his eyebrows inquiringly. "You do not like my buttons?"
Compared to the rest of him, I certainly did not think they were anything special. "No, I do not."
"Why not?"
Was he offended or was he mocking me? I chose to give him an honest answer. Well, as honest as I could be under the circumstances. "They are only buttons."
"But you like bright things."
I liked him better, but could I say so? "Perhaps I have changed," I spoke gravely. I dearly hoped so, for it seemed awfully stupid to be in love with shiny things like buttons when the person under them was capable of inspiring so much more powerful feelings in me.
"Changed," he repeated. "I would not like that."
It was my turn to be surprised now. "Why not? Do you not want me to become good?" I cringed as I said that, for it implied that I was bad and I did not think I was. Perhaps he would overlook my words.
"Yes, I would like that, but if you are good, do I still have a valid reason to pay close attention to you?" Colonel Fitzwilliam asked. "Do I still get away with devoting so much of my valuable time to you?"
He gazed at me rather penetratingly as he spoke those words. I had always thought such a gaze was a romance novelist's invention, but it turned out to truly exist. Or perhaps Colonel Fitzwilliam had been reading the same kind of novels as I had, in which case gazes might not exist at all in reality, but everyone was just copying them from a book and -- in any case, I was so caught up in my thoughts that I did not answer straight away and he found this strange.
"Do not be shocked," he said.
"Er...I was not shocked."
"But you were silent."
"I can be silent without being shocked."
The Colonel looked as if he doubted that very much. "Then why were you silent?"
I could not go ahead and tell him! Never. I meant, not yet, for surely I had to tell him at some point if I did not want people to send me to a lunatic asylum. I fluttered my eyelids, or rather, tried to do so, not knowing how this went, only having read about it. I do not think it was a successful gesture.
"Have you got something in your eye?" the Colonel asked in a most concerned manner. Given the fact that we were on horses, it was not a strange assumption. There were all kinds of small bugs flying about.
"No, I do not."
"Allow me to take a look," he said and made his horse go towards me. "It might hurt."
"No, really! It is nothing," I protested.
He inspected my eyes and indeed my entire face very thoroughly indeed, but found nothing except a few specks of dust. I did not mind the inspection, because I liked his solicitousness and his hands on my face, but I had to steady myself by holding onto him, for otherwise I would have fallen backwards off the horse -- possibly, but it was best not to take any chances.
"It was nothing," Colonel Fitzwilliam concluded. He sat up straight in his saddle again and looked at me, a little flushed by his inspection. He had been leaning towards me, of course, and it might have been strenuous. "Where were we?"
I wrinkled my nose. "I cannot say that I remember. I believe we were going somewhere, but as yet you have not told me where."
He nodded reflectively. "That is true."
"Will you tell me now?"
"If you promise me you will not ride off."
Why would I? I looked at him uncomprehendingly. "Why?"
"Because I took you in special custody."
"We ought to be glad that our horses progress, even if our conversation does not," I remarked. "We are back to the special custody thing. What happens to people whom you take in special custody?" I rather hoped I was his first.
"That is commonly referred to as Plan S," said the Colonel mysteriously.
"Why Plan S?" I wondered what the S stood for. Perhaps it stood for Special.
"Because the opportunity to carry out Plans A to R never occurred." He laughed at himself.
"What was Plan A?"
"That was to abduct you from London."
"And Plan B?"
"The same, but from a different room in your house."
"Which rooms?" I was curious.
Colonel Fitzwilliam thought for a moment. "Perhaps I should not tell you."
That was the most vexing thing anyone could say. "Perhaps you should." Perhaps I did not want to hear. Perhaps I could guess.
"Perhaps I shall tell you one day," he said. "It is not terribly important, but only terribly ungentlemanlike. It never happened because I did not have a place to take you."
"Where are you taking me now?"
"To my mother, of course," he seemed surprised that I asked. "Really, what had you thought?"
"Jail?" I guessed. I had not known and I had not been able to guess.
"My mother is a jailer." He laughed again. "She and the housekeeper will make you polish so much silver that you will never steal -- pardon me, remove -- anything shiny again."
I was very tired when we arrived at the Colonel's ancestral home. I was even too exhausted to think of it as a huge treasure vault, the way I usually approached large estates. The only thing I felt was gladness at being able to get off the horse, having been on it for something that felt like nearly a week. It could not be that long, because we had not slept anywhere, but my body hurt enough for it.
"So this is Miss Bingley?" asked the Countess, an energetic and plain woman who looked far too young to be the Colonel's mother and if he had not introduced her as such I would have doubted it. That is, had I had enough energy left to doubt anything. I would have believed him if he had told me she was the housekeeper's niece. "The famed one?"
"The tamed one," said Colonel Fitzwilliam.
"The shamed one," I muttered. There were an awful lot of children jumping about and hanging onto the Colonel. They had all come out with the Countess. "Some look like you!" I cried in shock when I noticed the resemblance. They could not be his! He had never said he had a wife, but how else could these little boys look like him? I was horrified. I was in love with a married man. I felt sick and wanted to turn away.
The Countess was more astute than the Colonel and interpreted my horrified expression correctly. "They are Richard's brothers," she said in amusement. Being the Colonel's mother, she would be amused at seeing me horrified. It obviously ran in the family to have a weakness for teasing me.
"Brothers?" I stared at them dumbly. Was I seeing things wrongly, or were these children really very much younger than Colonel Fitzwilliam himself? He was old, was he not? Well, older than I was and I could not possibly have brothers this age.
"I have twelve," Colonel Fitzwilliam grinned. He sounded proud of it too.
"Twelve?" I shouted. Twelve Charleses? One could be proud of that? Admit it to the world with a grin? All Fitzwilliams must be mad.
"And five sisters." He sounded even more proud, probably wishing he had twelve of those as well.
I was not shocked enough to lose my ability to count. "Seventeen," I gaped at the Countess. All Fitzwilliams were mad, indeed. But could the Countess count? Unless I was very much mistaken, there were a few more than seventeen children standing around us. I suppose that after bearing five children one lost count and that counting became a matter of one, two, three, four, five, a lot. Seventeen, eighteen, twenty-three -- it was all the same.
"Only ten are mine," she said sternly. "He is not," she wagged her finger at the Colonel. "Good thing I had nothing to do with that boy until he was ten!"
"Now, Mama...that is not a very nice thing to say," he shot back with a grin.
I was still gaping. In fact, this revelation caused me to gape even more. That was why the Countess looked too young to be the Colonel's mother. But how come she was just as mad to be proud of all those children? Perhaps this Countess had been the previous Countess' sister, to explain why madness ran in the family. I tried to work this relationship out in my head as the Countess called a few of her children to order.
"Mama, I brought Miss Bingley here because she must be redeemed," Colonel Fitzwilliam said earnestly. "You must have her polish lots of silver."
I cringed under the suddenly sharp gaze of the Countess and felt like a very small girl. She looked right through me and I knew she could see that I had just been thinking that she was mad. "I am in special custody," I said in a meek voice.
"Special custody?" the Countess shot a quick look at her stepson. Perhaps the army had made the wrong person a colonel. They should have taken the Countess. "I can use you in a much better way," she said briskly. "Mrs. Howell has been taken ill and someone must teach the children. I have often heard of your many accomplishments, Miss Bingley."
Somehow I did not think the Countess and I would think of the same things if we thought about accomplishments and perhaps she meant this sarcastically. "But I do not know how to teach." And somehow I did not think the Countess cared about that, or perhaps she could not imagine that there were people who could not teach.
"Nonsense. If Richard brought you home, you can teach." Her tone indicated that no discussion about this was possible.
I failed to see the logic in that, but I kept my mouth shut. Teaching sounded better than polishing silver, at any rate. And the children seemed well-behaved. They listened to their mother right away.
I followed Colonel Fitzwilliam inside when he followed his stepmother. In fact, we all followed her like a flock of sheep.
She turned. "George and Randolph are here with their children --" More children! Would I have to teach those as well? "-- and Emma. I was thinking that if I moved Luke with Little George and Little Henry, and Catherine and Susan with Emma, Little Emma with Little Catherine --" More names followed, but she had lost me after the first three. I wondered if there were any more Carolines and if I should be Little Caroline or Big Caroline.
Colonel Fitzwilliam nodded at intervals with a concentrated frown, but I suspected he could not follow it either.
"...but that would not work at all," the Countess concluded with a look of displeasure after at least five minutes. "Do you agree, Richard?"
"Er...yes."
"Little Emma and Little Catherine generally fight and Robert still has a black eye from fighting with Maurice. Now, Alexander and Timothy did not get along at all yesterday, so I am a bit hesitant about putting them together and Henry snores. We cannot put anyone with Henry. Benjamin has the flu and Frances is pregnant --"
I could see this was news to the Colonel, but he did not get the chance to comment on it. I was merely relieved that he did apparently not have anything to do with this Frances' pregnancy. I was still not sure of him. There were obviously so many things he had never told me. I knew, of course, that his father was the Earl of Matlock and that he was Darcy's cousin, but all of this -- I looked around me -- had been kept a secret from us in London. I began to see why. It would be impossible to travel with thirty children.
"-- and so you know what you have to do, Richard," the Countess finished after she had elaborated on even more impossible combinations of people. "Let us wash up for dinner, children," she called.
I was curious if the Colonel was included in that invitation, but he remained standing beside me. "Do you not need to wash up?" I asked.
"I do not need my mother for that anymore," he answered.
"Can you do it yourself?" I said stupidly.
He looked at me as though he was going to say something naughty, but then he only laughed. Then I was really certain it had been something naughty.
"What was all that about putting people with other people?" I suspected that the house was too full to have empty guestrooms.
"I think my mother has run out of space," he suggested cautiously. The mischievous look was gone. "We generally share rooms in this house. Are you used to that?"
"I am not used to sharing with children," I said doubtfully. But I was in special custody, so I supposed I should put up with any inconveniences. It was that or prison. "But I shall accept whatever little brat you force me to share with. Just do not pick the worst one on purpose. That is all I ask." I pulled a martyr-like face and felt extremely good about it.
"I am afraid I have no choice but to make you share with the worst of them," he said gravely, but his eyes sparkled. What awaited me now? Some little monster, I was sure.
My face fell. "Who is sure to be up and about at an ungodly hour..." Then suddenly I got a wonderful idea, but I had to ascertain something first. I did not want to share his room if there was already someone else there. "Where shall you be sleeping?"
"In my room."
"Do you generally share it with people?" I hedged.
The Colonel shook his head.
"I think," I said, trying to sound resigned and not pleased that he did not have a secret wife here. "That even sharing with you might be better than sharing with the worst of the little brats." And now he should invite me.
"I am the worst of the little brats," he said in some surprise.
I did not want him to compare himself to his siblings as if they held some competition. No, I wanted him to suggest that he was occupying a room all by himself and that he might have some room for me. Was the idiot going to force me to say why? I felt embarrassed. He probably thought that he was only walking around with his prisoner and I was sure he did not feel any more than friendship. If Darcy had kissed me without loving me, then the Colonel must be hating me. I did not want to confess my love to someone who was indifferent at best. I looked at the floor.
"Let me carry your things upstairs," he said and lifted it.
I followed him silently, desperately thinking I had to speak up before he dumped me with some obnoxious child.
Colonel Fitzwilliam led me to a small room, containing a real bed and something that looked like a bed, but which was not. For one, it was much narrower and much lower, and yet it was made with blankets and a pillow as if someone was going to sleep there. I did not understand its purpose.
"Here we are," he announced cheerfully.
I still did not understand. "What is that?" I pointed at the bed-like thing.
"It is a camp bed."
Whatever it was called, I did not think I was going to sleep on it and I looked at him. Surely he would understand my look. It spoke volumes.
"This is our bedroom."
I could not follow this transition, but a thought occurred to me. "Does your mother know?" I asked. What if she did not?
"Yes," he said, as if it was perfectly normal.
I wanted to get back to the matter of the camp bed, or whatever it was. That had to be sorted out first, before we did anything else. "That thing does not look comfortable," I said, having guessed that one of us -- no, he -- would be sleeping on it.
"I shall be glad to swap if you feel sorry for me."
I did feel sorry for him and I looked at him. Surely he was far too big to sleep in such a small bed? "Do you fit in the bed?"
He lay down on it to show me. "As you see."
"It must be uncomfortable." I did not want him to feel uncomfortable.
"We military men are used to this kind of hardships," said Colonel Fitzwilliam seriously. "Which is why I carry the burden of sharing with you. I am certain other people would find you a difficult roommate."
I was torn between indignation and curiosity. "Why?"
"Because you are."
"And you, the military man, are the only one who can handle me?" I asked in a sarcastic voice.
"Yes," was his simple answer.
I rather liked that.
"Oooh, you like that," he teased, wretched man. "Now, we are going down to dinner now. I shall introduce you as Caroline, because I know half of my relatives will not know whether they ought to remember you anyway. Presenting them with the fact -- you -- makes matters easier. They will just assume that you are someone they forgot about and whom they should have remembered. Their guilt will keep them from asking any questions."
"I do not know what they will think of me if you introduce me as Caroline," I said doubtfully. "That I am your wife or had you already got one?"
"I did not," he said gravely. "And I doubt that any of my family will think that you are my wife."
"They will think I am some kind of fallen woman!" I looked appalled. How could I face them? I did not know exactly what fallen women had done, but they were bad in any case.
"Fallen right into my arms," the Colonel said stoically. He put his arms around me, which reassured me a great deal. "Just shut up and act governess-like."
"I do not think I can. I think this is terribly improper and --"
"Yes, so do I," he agreed. "Nevertheless, I put you before propriety and I shall give you hugs whenever you seem in need."
"Why? You were always an impeccable gentleman."
"What? Is that praise coming from your mouth?" he laughed. "Impeccable gentlemen cater to the ladies' needs." He listened attentively to sounds coming from below. "Hurry. We must go downstairs if we do not want my mother to get angry."
I took the arm he offered me and we went downstairs. Two servants showed us into a very large dining room, large enough to contain all the inhabitants of the nearest five villages. There were two large tables with a dazzling number of people seated at them. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed to have his own place at the table and next to his chair there was another empty one. They had counted on me.
I sat down quickly, only then daring to glance at the faces of the people in my vicinity. I assumed the older man at the head of the table was the Earl and the rest were probably his children.
"A speech, I say," said the Earl as soon as I had sat down and the murmurs had been quieted by a few taps with his knife against his glass.
"I shall do it," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, rising from his chair already.
"No! We want to stay awake until dessert, Richard. Your friend next to you, perhaps. We have never heard her speak before. Perhaps we have not even seen her before either, but there are more people at this table who look strangely unfamiliar to me, although your mother has assured me they were indeed my progeny with different hairstyles."
I did not like this. He was going to make me stand up and speak to this entire room who would undoubtedly snicker as much as me as they did at their father? If they did not even respect him, what would they be doing to me?
I stood up and bit my lip when the Earl gave me an impatient nod. "Good evening," I began and then realised this was not eccentric enough to please this strange family. I could not come up with anything eccentric and fell silent.
The Earl tapped his glass again. "Thank you, Mrs. Fitzwilliam."
I had to correct him. "Bingley." Why did everyone seem to think I had married the Colonel? Why were they not alerted to the fact that this was an impossibility because they had not attended our wedding? Or did all Fitzwilliams elope?
"You insist on informality. So do we. Far too many Fitzwilliams, Ladies, Misters and Misses. Good, good." He rubbed his hands. "We did not have one of those yet. I do not like it much if one of the children brings home a name we already have, such as Emma."
I looked at him in bewilderment. He appeared to be under the assumption that Bingley was my first name, at least that is what I gathered. Bingley Fitzwilliam. Fortunately I could tell from a few laughs around me that others understood Bingley to be my last name. Perhaps they could correct the Earl. I was too awed to do it myself.
"It is customary for our guests to explain how they ended up here, Bingley."
"O-O-On a horse." I could hear some snorts here and there. It made me more nervous than the most difficult burglary I had been involved in.
"How very unusual. And which member of my family did you accompany?"
"I came with Colonel Fitzwilliam. But you probably have several," I could not help adding doubtfully, glancing at the many faces around the table.
"Thank God we do not!" said the Earl.
The Colonel stood up as well and I sat down immediately, happy to have some else be the centre of attention. "Papa, I must tell you Miss Bingley is in my custody. She committed the grave offence of damaging the property of an officer in His Majesty's army."
His father gave me a very grave stare. "Excellent, Richard," he said and nodded his approval. I did not know what there was to approve of and so I looked doubtful again. To my surprise the Earl tapped his glass again and said "free speaking," after which everyone began to talk and shout all at once. It was a great shock to my ears.
Someone down at the other end of the table was apparently shouting at the Colonel, for he was shouting back. "Caroline!" At first I thought he was shouting at me, but he was not looking at me. I tried to figure out who or what, but I did not know where to look for which voice. I felt a little lost amid all the chattering.
"Can I have your gown when you do not want it anymore?" asked the girl next to me. I was rather stunned by her question.
"I heard you are our new governess," said the boy across the table before I could come up with a reply.
"You had better be a good boy," Colonel Fitzwilliam told him.
"As good as you, Uncle Richard?" the boy grinned.
"Better!"
"That is easy!"
I listened to their playful exchange for a while and realised the children would be a handful to teach. They were not exceptionally well-behaved or quiet, but rather noisy and impertinent. Compared to them, the Colonel was exemplary.
After dinner I was taken away by the Colonel to a large study where he placed me on one side of a cluttered desk. He sat down on the other side, taking a fresh sheet of paper and a pen. "We shall now draw up a contract," he announced, disappointing me. I had hoped for a private chat.
"A contract? I do not want to draw up contracts," I protested. He began to write and I attempted to read upside down. "What are you writing?"
"On the seventeenth of October, I, Caroline Bingley, declare..." he read up.
"I do not want to declare anything." I only wanted to declare things that had sprouted from my own imagination and not from his.
He crossed something out. "On the seventeenth of October, I, Richard Fitzwilliam, declare..."
"What will you declare?"
He scribbled on and read it out as he wrote. "...that I have taken Miss Caroline Bingley in special custody for a trial period of twenty-five years and --"
I uttered a loud and inarticulate sound. "Twenty-five years?"
"Damaging His Majesty the King's property, that is, an officer's boots, is a capital offence," he explained to me. "I am being generous, please take note of that."
The vexing thing was that he sounded extremely serious and that I did not know the usual punishment for damaging the King's property. It might very well be twenty-five years. I had to take his word for it, no matter how much I distrusted it.
"-- during this period of time she will not attempt to remove any works of art or shiny objects, or her detention will be prolonged by five years per offence," he wrote on. "In these twenty-five years she will see to the educational needs of the Fitzwilliam family, with a special emphasis on the instruction of morals, through which it is hoped she will learn some herself."
"Do they need to be educated for that long?" I wondered. "Surely at some point they will be too old." I thought I was pointing out a great stupidity in the plan.
"Fitzwilliams are never too old to learn," said the Colonel. "If only because we keep making new ones. We are one of the most productive families in the neighbourhood. Be prepared." He wrote some more and then handed me the sheet. "Would you please sign your agreement at the bottom?"
"I am sure I do not agree," I said, holding the sheet at arm's length as if it disgusted me.
He gave me a patient, but weary look. "I did not ask you to agree. I asked you to sign your agreement. It is not quite the same. Now sign, or I shall do something very horrible to you."
I read over the contract.
On the seventeenth of October 18__, I, Richard Fitzwilliam, declare that I have taken Miss Caroline Bingley in special custody for a trial period of twenty-five years and during this period of time she will not attempt to remove any works of art or shiny objects, or her detention will be prolonged by five years per offence. In these twenty-five years she will see to the educational needs of the Fitzwilliam family, with a special emphasis on the instruction of morals, through which it is hoped she will learn some herself. She may not converse with Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, except under close supervision of me, Richard Fitzwilliam, or my mother, Lady Matlock. Furthermore, she must promise to stay as far away from said Mr. Darcy as possible.
Having written this with the best of intentions, I remain,R. Fitzwilliam
I, Miss Caroline Bingley, have read this contract and I by signing on this line I solemnly vow to adhere to it:
__________
I wondered if it was politic to tell the Colonel I would steal in order to prolong my detention. Perhaps he would not understand and look upon me as if I was mad, which I undoubtedly was. I signed the contract. "There," I said. "This binds me to you forever."
"Will you not mend your ways?" he asked. "I plan to release you eventually."
"After twenty-five years!" I cried. "That is forever, as far as I am concerned."
"I have lived longer than twenty-five years already," said Colonel Fitzwilliam as if this time would pass without us noticing. As if we would wake up one day and realise twenty-five years had passed. I thought not.
"I have not!" To me it was an eternity.
He laughed at me. I do not know why. Then he got up. "I shall show you the schoolroom where you will be spending your days teaching little Fitzwilliams."
He showed me a pleasant and light room, quite spacious and full of tables. There were some bookcases against the walls, separated by low cabinets with flowers and plants on them. I liked the room. It was nothing like our old nursery at home. I looked around myself and felt I might be able to spend more than a few hours here. It was only too bad that I should be keeping children occupied.
"Do you like it?" Colonel Fitzwilliam asked.
"It is tolerable," I replied. Without the children it would do very well.
He laughed at me again. "I knew you would like it. In the morning you shall begin with the little ones and after midday you shall teach the bigger ones."
"All by myself?" For someone who had never exchanged a word with a child ever since I had considered myself to be grown up, this was quite daunting. It had been a long while, for I had been considering myself an adult for nearly all my life.
"Perhaps," he said mysteriously. "That all depends on how nice you are."
"What if I am very nice?"
"I might assist you."
"You!" I could not help but exclaim.
"I can stitch extremely well, as you well know," he said seriously. "Better than you can, dear Caroline."
"I got stuck in a bad dream," I moaned and sank down on one of the chairs, resting my head on my arms. "This cannot be true."
"Strange girls call for strange measures."
"I do not know what you mean by that."
"You are bored. I found you something that will not bore you. I grant you that I used some unconventional methods, but would you say you were a conventional woman?" He sat down next to me.
I thought about it. I would agree that I was not conventional and perhaps this position he had got me would keep me so busy I had no time to feel bored. I was willing to go along with any of his plans. However, I did have my reservations and insecurities. "I might be very bad at teaching."
"You will only be doing it for a few days," he smiled. "Did you really think my mother would let you loose on her children? She wants what is best for them. I do not mean to say you are not good, but you have no experience. The Countess is a very sensible woman and immensely practical. She was born on a farm. She knows fancy ladies do not know anything useful."
I felt quite insulted by Lady Matlock's opinion of me, knowing that I was probably one of those fancy ladies she appeared to despise. "I cannot milk a cow, but I know French!" I exclaimed indignantly. And in my position, the latter knowledge was far more valuable. I did not live on a farm. "She probably does not even know French herself!" I wondered how the Colonel would react to this insult on his mother.
"I suppose not, but she would say her children and her servants speak English," Colonel Fitzwilliam said in amusement. "So why does she need French?"
He did not seem to care that I said that about his mother and that puzzled me. "It is a sign of sophistication!" French was important. Or not? I was in doubt now. Perhaps country Countesses would indeed be better off without a knowledge of French. Any Frenchmen coming here ought to speak English anyway.
"Like stealing, my dear?"
I coloured. "I was only bored!" I began to dislike his frequent references to what I now saw as my past. I did not want to do it ever again, no matter how bored I was.
"I told my mother about you," he confessed. "She said it was a pity you had to waste your talents like that."
"My talents?" It seemed to me that the Countess had not seen me long enough to know I had any talents. "Do I have talents? How does she know about them?" I knew most of my talents, but I was not averse to hearing him enumerate them.
Here the Colonel looked a little uncertain. "Er...I might have told her about some and the rest she will have deduced herself."
I looked away reflectively. "You mentioned me to your mother, did you? Do you want to marry me?" That could be the only reason men mentioned women to their mothers. I had never heard of anything else. It was an interesting thought. Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Perhaps it would not be so bad. I did love him because he had been nice to me.
"Only if you are a good girl from now on."
I could see his conscience would not let him marry a law-breaking woman. My conscience...well, did I even have one? I examined my feelings. It would seem I had a conscience too, somewhere. "I am sorry," I said to prove this.
"About what?"
"About my past."
He smiled at that. "Your past!" He did like it that I called it the past.
With his gold cufflinks safely in my pocket, I was walking around the house when the General arrived home. When I had put them in my pocket I had counted on his habit of feeling all my pockets for contraband. He was wont to do this when he got home. Unconsciously I felt the pocket I had stored them in, but to my great distress I felt nothing. My eyes widened in shock. Had they fallen out? That could not be! They had to be in there and they had to be found, now!
There was definitely an eerie quality about the man, for he could see and know things that no other people could. Nobody else would know why I backed off when I realised why he was approaching me, but he knew -- instantly.
"Allow me," he said courteously. "You might break your nails." It might be because I never backed off that he suspected something. I am not really sure. The fact was that he came after me with a really suspicious expression on his face.
I dare say I was as quick on my feet as he was, all due to the nasty Fitzwilliam habit of uttering cries of agony from below if I was upstairs and the other way around. Nobody had ever died in our house, but they all pretended to on a daily basis. Twenty-five years ago I had already seen that Colonel Fitzwilliam should have gone to the stage and this talent for the theatrical had turned out to be a family trait. Digressing for a brief moment, I suppose it would have been wiser not to allow him to have any children, but there are more things in my past that I regret -- sometimes.
In a house you can only go up and up and up and then there is the roof, so I got stuck in the attic. I was stupid enough to let myself be trapped in a corner.
He stood before me with his arms crossed, knowing I could not escape. "Tsk, tsk, tsk!"
"Get it over with!" I snapped.
"I thought you knew me better than that," he answered. "Is Darcy in town?"
"I have no idea."
"It was always Darcy who put you up to these aberrations."
I am sure his opinion of me was too prejudiced. "Not always."
"Yet you have been quite good ever since I removed you from Darcy's sphere of influence and he steadily went downhill. What does that tell you?"
"That I ought to sing your praise, General?" I said sarcastically. I knew things had not gone as well with Darcy, but I did not think that was because he no longer kept my company. Fortunately Darcy had grown up eventually and things had gone slightly better.
"Indeed. So why are you running from me? You have never run from me, not even twenty-five years ago. You were drawn to me only to abuse me. You must be hiding something."
"I thought I was," I blurted out. "But I lost it. If you do not find anything, know that something should have been there."
He sat down on a discarded sofa and mulled over this information. After a few minutes he spoke again. "May I ask where you got this something from?"
"One of your drawers," I said meekly.
"I see," he said mysteriously, but I did not see anything. He got up and approached me. "I shall check, if you do not mind." He checked all my pockets one by one. "I must be extra thorough today," he said when he even checked the linings. I did not mind that he took his time and some liberties along with it.
"Apparently you lost it," he announced after he had ascertained I was carrying nothing on my body that should not be there. "Maybe you should check my pockets?"
I stared at him. "Check yours?"
"I may not be as good as I appear," he said with a twinkle.
"Oh! You are not, definitely!" I cried. For all my wickedness, in twenty-five years it had never occurred to me to do the same to him, so I hesitated. "But -- but -- oh well." I began to feel in all of his pockets and in one of them I found some objects that made me frown. I turned them around between my fingers. "Where did you get these?" They looked an awful lot like his own cufflinks.
"I found them, but go on."
"No, no, no! I am done. Tell me where you found these. They are supposed to be in my pocket."
"There must be a hole in your pocket, because I found them outside in the street, right in front of the house. I can put two and two together, so I knew what you were up to. But go on. You were doing so well."
Indeed I had been, until I had come across the cufflinks. I continued in the same manner until I discovered my own necklace in another pocket. My hand flew to my neck and he laughed. "You do not have two of them!"
"Where did you get this?" I cried.
"You are so easily distracted! Put it back on and I will show you."
I did as he asked and he showed me how. I did not feel a thing -- of him removing my necklace, I mean. I shall not mention the other thing. "Indeed!" I exclaimed. "But why?"
"For another twenty-five years?"