While Mr. Knightley held a special parish meeting that night to calm the ma.s.ses, the Darcys remained at Hartfield to help calm Mr. Woodhouse.

Darcy believed that Mr. Knightley got the better part of that bargain.

Though until today Mrs. Knightley had managed to keep news of the gypsies' return from her father, this afternoon he had overheard the boy sent to inform the magistrate, and from that moment forward could think of little else. Mrs. Knightley did her best to soothe his apprehension for the safety of his family-and the poultry-but the event of Mr. Knightley's leaving the house that evening created in the old gentleman such uneasiness that only Darcy's offer to stay behind mitigated his agitation. Mr. Woodhouse was then in fear for Mr. Knightley's safety, and that of James the coachman, and all his neighbors venturing out after dark to the meeting, and it was all the three of them-Mrs. Knightley, Darcy, and Elizabeth-could do to divert him.

Elizabeth even joined him in another basin of gruel.

This last finally a.s.suaged his anxiety enough that Mrs. Knightley persuaded him to retire for the evening. With solemn promises to inform him of any developments, including her husband's safe return to Hartfield, Mrs. Knightley accompanied her father to see him comfortably settled in his chamber.

Left in the drawing room-and to themselves for the first time all day-Darcy and Elizabeth could at last freely discuss the day's events.

"Do you believe our chances of recovering our belongings have improved or diminished now that we have located Miss Jones?" Elizabeth asked.

He hesitated to share his honest opinion, for it was not optimistic. "I should be very surprised if we ever see the christening set again. The ring, I have entirely given up as lost."

She nodded in resignation. "I, too."

"Do you believe that she was held by the gypsies against her will?"

Elizabeth pondered his query for a longer time than he had required for hers. "That is a difficult question," she finally said. "As a victim of her ruse, I am disposed to doubt every word she utters. Yet as a woman, I do not want to disserve her if her story is indeed true."

"You said that Miss Jones was less cooperative before Mr. Knightley and I arrived. Did she reveal anything to you that I do not already know?"

"Only that I should avoid serpents." She offered no further explanation, only an enigmatic smile.

He toyed with the idea of affecting disinterest; with anyone else he would resist on principle alone such deliberate baiting. But Elizabeth was not anybody else. Nor was he wont to resist her. "Does Highbury suffer some sort of snake problem?"

"Miss Jones read my tea leaves and claimed that a cl.u.s.ter of them formed a snake, apparently a potent sign of ill luck."

"We are now resorting to prognostication to guide our enquiry?"

"It was not my idea, but hers."

"Then it is most fortuitous that you happened upon Miss Jones just in time for her to warn us of impending doom. And what did you make of the serpent?"

"I saw a clump of wet tea leaves and a fortune-teller who is herself our bad luck."

Darcy went to a decanter on the side table and poured two gla.s.ses of wine. He handed one to Elizabeth. "Was your call at the vicarage any more successful?"

"Potentially. It seems the housekeeper hired two local girls to help in the kitchen on the night of the Eltons' dinner party. Mrs. Knightley and I were on our way to speak to them when we encountered Miss Jones, and I must confess that I forgot our errand entirely once I saw her."

"We can seek them out tomorrow. My visit with Mr. Knightley to the post office proved as futile as predicted. We had to rouse Mr. Fletcher from a sound sleep when we entered, and he has no memory of either letter's being left there. Is Mrs. Knightley yet convinced that Mrs. Elton auth.o.r.ed the riddles?"

"More than ever. Mrs. Elton admitted to sending the first, though I believe Mr. Elton wrote most of it. As to the second, however, she claimed ignorance. I must confess that after today, I understand Mrs. Knightley's inclination to attribute any unpleasantness to the vicar's wife. Mrs. Elton is more boastful and vulturous than the bunch of crows we observed fighting over carrion as we departed."

Her choice of words amused him. "Bunch of crows?"

"You would criticize me for linguistic imprecision after I just endured gruel?" She paused. "Very well-flock of crows. Though three seems rather small to const.i.tute a flock. And doubtless there is some more colorful word than 'flock' to describe crows. Something akin to a 'gaggle' of geese, or a 'parliament' of fowls."

"I believe that there is, but I cannot recall the term."

"The way they were cawing and vaunting their triumph, I might use our mysterious riddler's 'gathering of braggarts.' The village children found them quite a spectacle."

Darcy sipped his wine, his thoughts idly skipping upon other names for groups of birds, terms he used when shooting. A nide of pheasants, a bevy of quail, a covey of partridges. He had never hunted crows, though anyone who had ever heard the wretched cries of the troublesome creatures might be tempted to cut them short. A group of crows in great agitation sounded like they were screaming b.l.o.o.d.y- Murder.

Twenty-five.

"This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing."

-Emma Woodhouse, Emma A murder of crows."

Elizabeth, who had been about to sip her wine, lowered her gla.s.s. "I beg your pardon?"

"A gathering of crows is called a 'murder,' " Darcy said.

"Indeed? Well, now-that is a rather ominous term." She took a drink from her gla.s.s after all.

"It is an old word. I cannot now recall where I read it."

"I think I prefer 'gathering of braggarts.' "

He was silent a moment, brows drawn together. "If a braggart is one who crows-"

She set aside her winegla.s.s. " 'Perhaps an unkind individual witnessed the murder of an elevated religious house'? Oh! But should that not read 'at'-the murder at Donwell Abbey? The abbey was not murdered; Edgar Churchill was."

"Maybe it is not the abbey."

She recalled Miss Jones's flippant dismissal of his question regarding the Churchills. "The village church, then? It sits on a hill."

Darcy was silent, his countenance drawn into the expression that always overcame it when he was deep in contemplation. His gaze seemed to light on various objects in the room, but Elizabeth knew he saw none of them.

"Suppose Churchill himself is the elevated religious house?"

Her eyes widened. "His name! Of course-a church on a hill. 'Perhaps an unkind individual witnessed the murder of Churchill.' Now we are progressing!" She was so delighted by the breakthrough that she repeated the sentence. "Oh!-but who is the individual? It all keeps coming back to that, does it not? Somebody saw more than he-or she-has revealed. But is it that fact-the withholding of information-which makes the individual unkind? Or is he an unkind person in general?"

The return of Mr. Knightley from the parish meeting temporarily suspended their discussion. Upon entering the room, he sensed their excitement. "What occurred in my absence?"

"We believe we have solved part of the riddle," Darcy said.

"Does it shed light on the Churchill matter?"

They shared their partial solution. Mr. Knightley was at once galvanized. "A murder of crows. . . . I never could have provided the word myself, but now that you say it, I remember having heard the term before."

"Perhaps now that we have worked out part of the riddle, you might supply the ident.i.ty of the unkind individual, since you know the villagers better than we," Elizabeth suggested.

"The more I think upon it, the less I believe the first portion of the message simply refers to a disagreeable resident of Highbury," Darcy said. "As the message's second and third parts required deeper penetration to divine 'murder' and 'Churchill,' doubtless the first part holds hidden import as well. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about words and language-a professor or philologist-could make better sense of it."

"Are you acquainted with any such persons?" Mr. Knightley asked.

"Not directly. But I would wager we all know someone who is."

"I trust it is an individual who understands the need for discretion?"

"Without question," Darcy said, and Elizabeth knew precisely whom he had in mind. "Lord Chatfield."

Though of ordinary English origins, Miss Loretta Jones was the most exotic creature in the village's collective memory to take up residence in Highbury. The young woman and her tale offered a combination of beauty, tragedy, and mystique that trumped even Hiram Deal's charm. When word spread that the former gypsy captive had set herself up as a fortune-teller to earn her way back home, men, women, and children flocked to have their palms or tea leaves read-and to have a look at Miss Jones.

To her own happy fortune, having taken up residence with Mrs. Todd lent Miss Jones a degree of respectability. The honest widow held a solid reputation within the village, and many took it as a sign of endors.e.m.e.nt that Loretta now enjoyed her hospitality. Mrs. Todd, everyone agreed, would not allow just anybody into her home. Though in their minds, some harbored dark doubts about the extent of misuse a pretty, unprotected young woman might have suffered at the gypsies' hands, no one dared ask her about it directly. They accepted her outward show of wide-eyed innocence as hope that she had somehow maintained it in truth, and her entrepreneurial efforts as proof that her innate quickness had not left her entirely defenseless.

In short, the good folk of Highbury saw in Loretta Jones the same thing Loretta saw in their palms and teacups-precisely what they wanted to see.

"A ring! That means a wedding." Miss Jones looked up from the teacup into which she had been peering. The young woman seated at the table with her blushed but could not suppress a smile.

"When?"

"Before too long, I should think. Within a twelvemonth."

"A whole year?" The woman cast a disappointed glance across the common room of the Crown Inn, where Loretta conducted her augury. The soothsaying trade had proved too brisk for Mrs. Todd's cottage to accommodate it, so she had commandeered a corner of the public house as her workplace. As her prophecy-seeking clients consumed not only tea, but considerable quant.i.ties of other food and drink while awaiting their few minutes of forecasting, it was an arrangement that proved as beneficial to the proprietors of the Crown as to Miss Jones.

Elizabeth followed the woman's gaze. A group of farmhands, one of them quite handsome, occupied a table in the opposite corner. The fellow stole a surrept.i.tious glance at Loretta's client, but self-consciously shifted when he realized he was himself an object of observation.

Loretta noticed the young man, too.

"I said within a twelvemonth," the seer added quickly. "It could happen sooner." She studied the leaves again. "In fact, the ring lies so close to the rim of your cup that I daresay it will happen much sooner."

The woman's shy smile returned.

Darcy, his back to the table of young men, listened to Loretta's divination with obvious disdain. "I fail to comprehend how anyone can place credence in such patent balderdash." He spoke in a low voice that reached Elizabeth's ears alone.

"You doubt Miss Jones's prediction?"

"Should it come to pa.s.s, the event will have been entirely coincidental. Meanwhile, she has given herself a year in which to get herself gone before anyone can accuse her of false prophecy."

Elizabeth watched the undeclared lovers again not quite make eye contact as the girl gathered her shawl and rose to leave. "Miss Jones might possess more insight than you credit her with."

"Surely you do not think she possesses the ability to read signs of future events?" Darcy asked.

"Oh, I believe she is quite adept at reading signs. Just not necessarily in teacups."

Darcy shook his head and took a draught of the beer he had been nursing since they took their seats. It was spruce beer, something she had never seen him drink before they came to Highbury. She nodded toward the tankard.

"How is it?"

"Not as good as Mr. Knightley's." He consulted his pocket watch. "I wonder what delays his wife. Were not she and Mr. Dixon to meet us here five minutes ago?"

Elizabeth smiled. Mrs. Knightley and Thomas Dixon were calling upon Miss Bates. Was that not explanation enough for their tardiness? "I expect they are too engaged in conversation to break away."

The opening of the door caught her attention. The new arrivals were not Mrs. Knightley and Mr. Dixon, however, but the Eltons. The couple acknowledged the Darcys with a nod before going to Miss Jones, over whom they made a great show of solicitude.

Miss Jones a.s.sured them of her health, her comfort in the accommodations at Mrs. Todd's house, and her contentment as Highbury's newest, if temporary, resident.

"You poor creature-my heart weeps for you," Mrs. Elton said. "From the moment Mr. E. shared your story with me, I have been able to think of nothing else. I told him this morning that I simply cannot rest until I have done something to improve your situation. Of what use are all my resources, I asked, if I do not employ them in this unfortunate girl's aid?"

"You are kindness itself, Mrs. Elton," Miss Jones said. "What did you have in mind?"

"In mind?" Mrs. Elton blinked several times. "Why, I-I have numerous ideas. I simply have not settled on one yet."

"I shall be grateful for any attention from so fine a lady." She gestured toward the empty seat across from her. "Perhaps in exchange I could read your fortune."

"Oh, gracious! I could not possibly-the vicar's wife-whatever would people say? I would be the talk of the village."

"There is no harm in it. And not only would you honor me by the privilege, but also do me a great favor, for as the vicar's wife surely you set the example of fashion in Highbury. Once it was known that you allowed me to read your tea leaves-purely for entertainment, of course-there would be those as would come every morning to have me look into their cups to see what the day might bring."

"Well, I-it is true that people look to me as a model of taste and propriety. Is that not true, my caro sposo?" Her husband directly affirmed her status as the arbiter of style in Highbury.

She glanced at the empty teacup still on the table beside Loretta. Mrs. Elton's face revealed longing that had nothing to do with thirst.

"I am thinking, Mr. E., that if I submitted-only this once-strictly for amus.e.m.e.nt, of course-that no one could find fault with me. It would be merely an innocent diversion. And my patronage would benefit poor Miss Jones and her efforts to return home."

"Oh, do allow her, Mr. Elton," Loretta said.

Mr. Elton gave his consent, Mrs. Elton sat down, and tea was ordered.

As it arrived, Mrs. Knightley and Mr. Dixon entered. The room seemed to brighten immediately, though whether from Thomas Dixon's warm greeting to the Eltons or the high polish of his top hat, leather boots, and silver-handled walking stick, Elizabeth could not decide.

Mrs. Knightley's greeting to the Eltons was cooler but gracious. She gestured towards the tea. "Are you having your fortune read?"

"Why, yes! Mr. E. and Miss Jones simply insisted. It is all in sport, of course. Perhaps when we have done, you would like a turn?"

"Not today."

"I should think you would enjoy the entertainment. It would be a change of pace from the word games that have lately occupied you." Mrs. Elton forced a smile. "Have you identified the author of that other puzzle you said arrived in the post?"

"No, not yet."