Page 24 of Searching for Elizabeth (A Pride and Prejudice Variation)

—late morning—

Fitzwilliam Darcy pushed down the panic he felt, seeing Elizabeth’s cottage door standing open. Whatever the situation, he was determined to think clearly, act swiftly, and secure her safety and happiness.

He carefully surveyed the forest surroundings. Seeing no movement and hearing nothing other than a few rustlings that indicated very small animals, he carefully entered the cottage.

His heart hammered in his chest, but he breathed deeply, willing himself to look for clues as to what had occurred. Elizabeth’s trunk was open, and a petticoat with a ragged, ripped hem had been tossed onto her cot. One chair was overturned, and a book and broken cup lay on the floor. The little food cupboard looked almost bare. Worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that there were papers strewn about. His eyes flit over the papers and realized that all of the sheets he could see were blank. It did not seem to be her poetry or other writings that had been so carelessly handled.

He was about to leave when he saw one paper that was not blank, at least not entirely. It lay partially under the chair, next to the broken cup, and he saw that tea had spilled onto it, including dregs of tea leaves. And “M”

was written in the dregs, he thought. It looked as if a slender finger had written the letter. He turned away again, eager to search for Elizabeth, but a thought occurred to him, a thought that caused him to approach the cup and paper. He noticed that the cup was still just a bit warm, which meant that the disaster recorded here in mussed papers and torn petticoats had happened only a short time ago. But the idea he’d had, which had caused him to turn back for a moment more of inspection, was that the letter could well be a “W.”

Wickham!

If Elizabeth had been attacked and kidnapped, and she was trying to leave him a clue, the letter “M”

meant nothing to him; he was immediately certain that she had tried to warn him that Wickham was the blackguard that had her.

Darcy left, thinking hard. He locked the door with the padlock, unwilling to allow wild animals or even well-intentioned searchers to further trespass on Elizabeth’s belongings. He studied the area around the cottage, looking for footprints or other indications of what direction Wickham had taken Elizabeth. It took a full minute, but Darcy finally spied a tiny shred of paper. Remembering the paper mess inside the cottage, Darcy wondered if this bit of paper had been dropped here intentionally by his Elizabeth. He looked further, found two more teeny fragments of paper, and he became certain that this was, indeed, Elizabeth’s attempt to mark her trail. Tom Thumb used pebbles; of course his authoress-love would use paper.

After seeing the direction indicated by three bits of paper, Darcy full-out ran to his mount and galloped to the nearest tenant farm. He was delighted to see a familiar face—Bernie Millcroft!—and he swiftly alerted him to Elizabeth’s danger. He begged Bernie to do two things as swiftly as he could: first, he should alert his father or some other adult to the need for searchers to look for a militiaman, who may or may not be wearing his red regimentals, and Elizabeth, on foot or more likely horseback.

Second, Bernie should ride for Longbourn and tell Mr. Edward Gardiner that Elizabeth had been kidnapped, likely by George Wickham. He emphasized that, if Mr. Gardiner was not available, he should either track him down or wait for him.

“Do not rely on Miss Lizzy’s father,”

Darcy told the young man.

“Tell Mr. Bennet about the kidnapping, of course, but do not rely on him to take action!”

Darcy then rode back to pick up the trail indicated by scraps of paper, and soon by hoofprints. It appeared that Wickham was using a path used, he would guess, by deer rather than horses. The paper trail markers were quite infrequent, but he kept finding them every so often. He was now relying more on the fresh hoofprints.

But when the deer trail crossed a larger trail, Darcy could not discern which hoofprints were the ones he had been following. He carefully surveyed the ground and finally spotted another shred of white paper.

Thank god for Elizabeth’s intelligence! Darcy pushed aside his anxiety about his beloved’s wellbeing, because worry would not help his search. Instead, he focused on what Wickham might be thinking and what Elizabeth might try to do to help rescuers find her.

One thing was clear, he thought: Wickham would not attempt to kill or badly injure Elizabeth. He was certainly motivated by desire to seduce comely virgins—and Darcy’s gut clenched—but he was even more motivated by greed. He would ideally want to keep Elizabeth alive and well, and perhaps untouched, so that Darcy would pay a ransom. He felt sure that somehow Wickham had discovered his interest in Elizabeth, and that was why he was targeting her. If only Forster had moved more decisively, or more quickly, against the snake!

What would Elizabeth do, now, if they were on a wider trail? Of course, he kept his eyes out, still, for scraps of paper, but he had no idea how much paper she could possibly have, so he tried to think what else she might resort to.

Suddenly he noticed a place where the dirt of the trail was much more disturbed than it had been elsewhere. He dismounted and studied the hoofprints, footprints, and what looked to be a drag mark.

Heart in his throat, Darcy felt certain that the horse he had been following had run away. There were enough hoofprints to indicate multiple horses, but the freshest looking prints suddenly switched from shallower imprints, closer together, to widely spaced deep prints, as if the horse had begun to gallop.

But what had happened to cause the change of pace?

He led his own horse and carefully followed the drag mark. Unfortunately, he quickly got to a place where scrubby looking grass hid any indication of something or someone being dragged.

Darcy quelled his urge to sob. His eyes carefully studied the area, and he willed himself to see it as Wickham and Elizabeth would have, not very long ago (he hoped). He suddenly saw a slight movement.

Moving as quietly as possible, Darcy tied his horse’s reins to a nearby tree and walked toward the spot where he had seen movement.

There was much more movement, and he almost leapt to the spot when he saw that it was definitely Elizabeth. She was trussed up with white cloth binding her wrists, ankles, and mouth. Darcy reached her in a moment and started working on the knots, gag first, then wrists and ankles. He was holding her in his lap, rubbing the reddened constriction marks, babbling how dearly he loved her, and pressing kisses to her forehead. But Elizabeth’s shockingly calm voice halted his own. She asked, “Is Mr. Wickham dead?”

“Where is he? I do not—”

Darcy suddenly spied the heap of brown clothing twelve feet away, among some boulders, and he asked, nodding his head to the unmoving heap, “Is that him?”

Elizabeth followed the direction of his nod and gasped, “Oh! Yes! I think so.”

Darcy carefully stood up from where he had been holding her, and he walked over to what he almost immediately saw was Wickham’s corpse. His head was lying at a weird angle to his body and in a pool of blood. He studied him for a few more moments, but there was no question that the miscreant was no more.

“Yes, love. He is dead.”

Darcy knew he had to communicate with Elizabeth’s relations and the search party he had set in motion; he had to tell them that Elizabeth was safe and Wickham dead, so he scooped her up and carried her to his horse, then all three moved to the trail. Darcy thought for a second, checked his empty saddlebags, then decided on what to leave to mark the spot: he took off his waistcoat and tied it securely to a tree branch that hung slightly over the trail, about seven feet above the ground.

“Dearest one,”

he said to Elizabeth, “may I take you to Longbourn? I have so much to ask you and to tell you, but we must let people know that you are well.”

“Yes, please take me…to that house. And later you can take me home.”

Darcy mounted his horse, boosted Elizabeth to sit in front of him, and replied to her request, “As you wish.”