Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Chapter 15

Ensconced in the hunting lodge, away from the world, Elizabeth was happier than she had been since her wedding day. She and Darcy took refuge from the problems facing them and wandered through the gardens in the early morning when the dew was on the grass and the air was fresh and clear. They delighted in the flowers which, although less vigorous than they had been earlier in the season, were still putting forth their blooms. They talked of many things, of their childhoods and their families, and like other newlyweds, they talked of their hopes and dreams. All subjects save one they discussed, and that subject, for the time being, they avoided.

Over the hot noontide hours they retreated indoors and sat on the shady veranda, eating olives and other tasty delicacies. Then, when the heat began to dissipate, they wandered further afield, smelling the sweet scent of herbs, and walked by the side of streams or strolled in the shade of the Lombardy poplars which stood like sentinels on guard in the fields.

‘We will take a picnic with us tomorrow. There is a place I want to show you,’ said Darcy.

They set off before the heat of the day and wandered down a country lane and onto a track which led to a cliff top overlooking the ocean. There was a small copse of trees, their spreading branches forming an umbrella of shade. Dappled light danced over the ground as the wind stirred the leaves, creating ever-changing patterns on the grassy floor beneath it. Nearby a stream trickled over rocks, the sound of it cooling and refreshing.

Darcy spread out the rug and they sat down, unpacking good, homely fare: bread, cheese, and cold meats, with small cakes, bunches of grapes, and glasses of sweet wine. They ate leisurely, enjoying the view and the novelty of eating in the open. When they had finished, Elizabeth lay back with her head in Darcy’s lap and he stroked her hair and kissed her with soft, gentle kisses, and they talked of their plans for Pemberley.

‘When we return to England, I would like to have your portrait painted. I have been thinking about it for a long time, ever since the time you walked to Netherfield when Jane was ill. It was Caroline who suggested the idea, although she did so to ridicule me. She was aware that I was interested in you, and she wanted to tease me out of my preference. After telling me to hang a portrait of your aunt and uncle Phillips in the gallery next to my great uncle the judge, she said that I must not attempt to have your portrait painted for what painter could do justice to your eyes? I had offended her by saying that your eyes were very fine,’ he explained.

Elizabeth smiled at the compliment and, as her eyes looked lovelier than ever, Darcy was prompted to kiss her again.

‘Ever since then I have been thinking how well your portrait would look at Pemberley. I mean to hang it in the hall,’ said Darcy.

‘No,’ said Elizabeth, ‘not in the hall. It must go next to your portrait in the gallery, the one I saw when I visited Pemberley with my aunt and uncle for the first time. The artist had caught your likeness very well. There was a smile about your lips, and I remembered I had seen the same smile on your face when you had looked at me. It made me regret all my foolish prejudices, which had made it so difficult for me to like you and to see your worth, and had instead encouraged me to cling to my first impression of you.’

‘Which was not very favourable.’

‘No. Nor was your first impression favourable of me.’

‘How could I not have seen your beauty?’ he asked. ‘I look at you now and I see you in all your loveliness and I can barely stop myself from…’

He fell silent as he approached dangerous ground.

‘We must have a family gathering at Christmas,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘Yes,’ Elizabeth agreed. ‘We must invite Mama and Papa and the girls, and Jane and Bingley, and Charlotte and Mr Collins.’

Darcy stopped stroking Lizzy’s hair as she mentioned the Collinses.

‘Must we have them?’ he asked.

‘Not if you don’t want to, but I would like to have them, or at least, I would like to have Charlotte.’

‘She might prefer to go to Lucas Lodge to visit her family,’ said Darcy with hope in his voice.

‘That is true, but I think I must ask her, all the same. I cannot admire her for marrying Mr Collins; indeed, I am very disappointed in her taste and her judgement, but she was right when she said that we were not alike, and I have no right to judge her for her decision. Although I perhaps cannot feel such perfect friendship for her as I once did, she is still my friend and I would like to see her again.’

‘Then invite her,’ said Darcy. ‘Your Aunt and Uncle Gardiner must come, of course. Without them we might never have met again.’

‘If we hadn’t come to Pemberley, would you have been content to leave things as they were?’ asked Elizabeth, turning to look at him. ‘Would you have gone your way and left me to go mine?’

‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I couldn’t forget you, no matter how hard I tried, and no matter how great the barriers between us. I think I would have gone to Netherfield again with Bingley whatever had occurred. I knew I had to tell him about Jane, that she had been in London and that I had kept it from him, and once I told him, I knew he would go back to Netherfield. I am sure I would not have been able to resist seeing you again and so I would have gone too.’

‘And everything would have been the same.’

‘Yes, it would. We were destined to be together, you and I, Lizzy.’

‘Yes, I think so too. Although—’

‘Yes?’

‘I did wonder why it took you so long to propose. You came to Longbourn again with Bingley but then you did not speak to me for weeks. Was it because of your curse?’ she asked.

‘Yes, it was. I kept telling myself that it was impossible, but in the end, I loved you too much to live without you. I had tried to forget you and failed, and the more I knew of you, the more I knew I had to be with you.’

‘Did you not think I would notice that you never grew old?’ she asked. ‘Or were you going to say that your family was naturally blessed with long life?’ she added mischievously.

He laughed.

‘I knew you would notice eventually, but I thought I would have perhaps fifteen years with you before you became suspicious. That is more than five thousand days, over a hundred thousand hours, greater than two million minutes, and every one of them precious. But it was selfish of me.’

‘Not at all. I am flattered you wanted me so much,’ she said happily.

He kissed her softly on the lips.

‘Then I cannot regret it,’ he said. ‘I cannot regret anything, because everything in my life has led to this perfect moment with you.’

They lay there in companionable silence until the sun went behind a cloud, then they gathered up the picnic things and they returned arm in arm to the hunting lodge. Elizabeth played the piano. It was an old instrument and out of tune, but she found the familiar activity pleasurable and Darcy liked to listen to her.

Afterwards they settled down to write letters, Elizabeth to Jane, and Darcy to Georgiana. But as Elizabeth took up her quill she remembered something she had forgotten and turned to him in consternation.

‘When I was in the Prince’s carriage, I wrote a letter to Jane and threw it out of the window in the hope that one of the local people would see that it was sent. It said that I was being abducted and begged Jane to ask my father to enquire after me.’

‘Only you could have thought of such a thing at such a time!’ said Darcy with admiration.

‘If the letter arrives, my family will worry,’ said Elizabeth in some perturbation of spirits.

‘I will send the servants to look for it at once. Where was it?’

Elizabeth told him as well as she could.

‘If it has already been posted…?’ she began.

‘We will worry about that later. But for now, we will see if it can be found.’

He walked across the room to the fireplace and pulled the blue bell rope that hung next to it. The familiar jangling noise reached them from far off and soon one of the lodge servants appeared, quiet and respectful.

‘Mrs Darcy dropped a letter in the forest,’ Darcy said, giving the man directions. ‘Find it, if it is to be found. If not, make enquiries in the village. Bring it to me as soon as it has been discovered.’

‘Yes, Old One,’ he said with a bow, and departed.

‘Old One?’ said Elizabeth, her eyes widening. She put down her quill in surprise. ‘Then they know you for what you are?’

‘Yes, they do.’

‘But they don’t mind,’ said Lizzy wonderingly.

‘No,’ said Darcy. He walked over to the desk and took a seat beside her, sitting down on the battered but comfortable chair. ‘I did them a service once, long ago, when I saved the life of the head man of their village. He was travelling between two villages, arranging a marriage, when he was set upon and attacked by bandits. I drove them off and then saw him safely back to his village. He thanked me for my actions and invited me to make a home here, and when I accepted, he set his people to serve me. For many years I lived here and protected the village from attack. The hills and forests hereabouts are mostly safe now, but they were riddled with bandits at the time.’

‘There is so much about you I don’t know,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You are not the man I thought you were.’

‘I wish I was. I would like nothing better than to take you to Pemberley and for us to live out our lives as you wanted, as you expected… as you had every right to expect.’

The mood had become more sombre. The subject they had so carefully avoided had risen despite their best efforts to keep it down and now it would not be denied.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Elizabeth, looking at him sadly.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I only know that I want us to be together.’

‘You no longer want me to go away?’

‘No, I could not bear it if you did. But you, what do you want? Do you still want to come home to Pemberley?’ His voice was controlled but she could hear the emotion underneath. ‘I will release you from our marriage if that is your wish. You did not know what you were marrying in the church all those months ago in Meryton.’

‘The church,’ said Elizabeth, remembering. ‘How were you able to enter it? And how are you able to wear the cross I gave you?’

‘It is not my weakness,’ he said. ‘Every vampyre family has a different weakness. For some, it is garlic, for my uncle the Count, it is that he has no reflection. My family’s weakness is that we cannot be out of doors during sunrise or sunset. At those times of day, we become translucent and so we cannot pass amongst humans unnoticed, and if we remain out of doors at those times for too often, then a part of our solidity fades, never to return. And so, as it is not my weakness, I can enter a church and wear a cross, though it chafes me. But you have not answered my question. Do you want to be free of the marriage? A way can be found for a man of my wealth.’

There was something so vulnerable about him as he looked at her that she reached out her hand to him and he took it fervently.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We are meant to be together. I would like us to return to Pemberley, as we planned. But can we truly live there? Won’t your neighbours in Derbyshire notice you never age?’

‘I have ways of disguising it. Just before my neighbours begin to notice that something is amiss I leave Pemberley, and a few months later, it is given out that I have met with an accident or succumbed to an illness. Later still, I return to Pemberley as the new heir, sometimes apparently the nephew of my previous self, or the cousin. This time I was the son.’

‘Did no one wonder why they had never seen you as a child?’

‘One of my Fitzwilliam cousins had a little boy of the right age and so he visited me from time. The servants and neighbours accepted him as Master Darcy, who had been born abroad and whose mother had sadly died in childbirth. His frequent absences were explained by extended visits to relatives, attendance at school, and then at university.’

‘Did no one notice you were the same man?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘The similarity has always been put down to a family resemblance and nothing more, particularly as the prevailing fashions have helped me to disguise my appearance. It has been usual for men to wear wigs until very recently, and a man in a dark wig that tumbles to his waist in a mass of curls will always look different to a man in a short powdered wig. And recently the fashion has been for no wig at all.’

‘I suppose a similar ruse is used to hide Georgiana’s agelessness?’ asked Elizabeth. ‘How difficult your life must have been,’ she said in sympathy.

‘It was not the greatest of my difficulties,’ he remarked. He glanced at her sheet of paper, which was as yet empty. ‘Will you tell Jane?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. I have always confided in her about everything, but this… I cannot decide. Does Bingley know?’

‘No.’

‘Will you tell him?’

‘Perhaps, in time, if you tell Jane.’

‘For now, I think I will not mention it. I will tell her that we have been travelling round Europe, but that we mean to be home soon, and leave anything else for another time.’

The blissful interlude could not last. They both knew they would have to face the world again and when the weather changed, with rain falling outside the window, they knew the time had come.

‘Annie said that you sent the retinue back to Venice,’ said Elizabeth as she looked out at the rain.

‘Yes,’ said Darcy. ‘It seemed the safest place for them at the time.’

‘Will we return to Venice on our way back home?’

‘No. We will travel home by sea, I think. It will be easier than going across the mountains so late in the year. Are you ready to go back to England?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, I think I am,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I would like to be at home for Christmas.’

And once back at Pemberley, she thought, she and Darcy would have to find a way to live, a way to bear the torment of his terrible curse.

‘Then I will start making the arrangements. I will have to leave you for a few hours; I must go to the bank in Rome and that is not a task I can give to anyone else, but I will be back as soon as I am able.’

He left the room and Elizabeth heard him giving instructions for his horse to be saddled.

The rain did not last for long, and Elizabeth decided to make the most of her last few days in Italy by walking on the beach. It was very different to the beaches in England. When she had visited the seaside with her family many years before, there had been a cold wind blowing and the other holidaymakers had gritted their teeth, determined to enjoy themselves. They had changed their clothes in bathing machines drawn up on the sand and then dipped themselves in the cold sea. Here there was no cold wind and the sea was warm. There were no bathing machines nor any sign of human endeavour, only the sand, the sea and the cliffs, and above them the sky.

The waves were small and playful, running in and rolling out with a swishing sound that mingled with the cry of the seagulls which wheeled overhead.

On a sudden impulse, she sat down and took off her shoes and stockings, then holding up her skirt she walked down to the water. The sand was hot and she hopped from foot to foot, sinking into the fine grains which enveloped her small white toes as she landed until she reached the firmer sand. It was dark and wet and better able to support her weight, and behind her she left perfect imprints of her well-shaped feet.

Her eyes wandered lazily over the pleasant landscape and followed a carriage that bowled along the wide road on top of the cliff. But when it stopped and turned down the narrow road that led down to the beach she began to feel apprehensive. She ran across the beach to take shelter in the lee of the cliffs and quickly dried her feet on her handkerchief then slipped them into her shoes. The noise of the carriage was growing louder, its wheels rasping and its horses whinnying, with every now and then an oath from the coachman as the way became more difficult for him to negotiate.

Then the noise stopped and she heard the sound of the carriage doors opening. She heard a voice she recognised and was startled to realise that it belonged to Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

‘Miss Bennet!’

Any attempt at concealment was useless. Lady Catherine had already seen her and so Elizabeth moved out of the shelter of the cliffs and faced Lady Catherine who, with Anne, was picking her way across the sand.

‘Miss Bennet! Where is my nephew? I must speak to him at once. It is a matter of great urgency. I have been to the lodge, but his servants were obstinate and they refused to tell me where he could be found.’

She was dressed, again, in black, as she had been in the Alps. Beside her, Anne was dressed in drab green, her pelisse hanging heavily around her thin form. They looked incongruous in such clothes on the beach.

‘He has gone out riding,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Do not prevaricate with me,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Where is he?’

‘That I cannot say.’

‘You can say at least when you expect him back,’ returned Lady Catherine

‘Indeed I cannot,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Headstrong, obstinate girl!’ said Lady Catherine in an angry tone. ‘You must tell me at once.’

‘You have been betrayed,’ said Anne, doing with a few quiet words what her mother could not do with her angry tirade, and winning Elizabeth’s attention. ‘By Wickham.’

‘Wickham!’ exclaimed Elizabeth in astonishment.

‘Yes. George Wickham. We have just come from Paris. Mama had a fancy to stay there for a while after we left you in the Alps and we met George there.’

‘He was in his cups,’ said Lady Catherine, determined to have her share of the conversation.

‘And he was frightened,’ said Anne.

‘With good reason,’ declared her mother.

‘If Darcy finds out what he has done—’ said Anne.

‘Wickham seems born to be a thorn in his side,’ said Lady Catherine to Anne. ‘First attempting to elope with Georgiana, then running away with Miss Bennet’s sister, and now this.’

‘This is the worst of all,’ said Anne.

Lady Catherine nodded in agreement.

‘He has betrayed you to an ancient evil,’ she said to Elizabeth, ‘a thing old beyond imagining, a monster, a—’

‘Vampyre?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘You know?’ said Lady Catherine in surprise.

‘Yes, I do. But I did not know that Wickham had anything to do with it,’ said Elizabeth with a frown.

‘He quickly tired of your sister and left her in England whilst he resumed his debaucheries in Paris,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘He indulged in drink and women and cards, and in sympathetic company he bemoaned his fate. But one was listening who should not have been there, who should have been dead. He heard Wickham saying that he had married Darcy’s sister-in-law and knew then that Darcy must have married. The Ancient believes in the old ways, that every vampyre bride should be his on her wedding night, and he is determined to have you. He has a friend, a prince, who means to invite you to his villa. If you value your sanity, do not go.’

‘Your warning comes too late,’ said Elizabeth. ‘We have already been, and the Ancient has already tried to claim me.’

‘Impossible!’ said Lady Catherine. ‘If he had found you, you would never have escaped.’

‘But I did escape, with Darcy’s help.’

‘Darcy? But then that must mean…’ she said, giving Elizabeth a shrewd glance.

‘Yes, I know about Darcy,’ said Elizabeth boldly.

‘And you have not fled in disgust or despair?’ asked Lady Catherine in surprise.

‘As you see, I am still here.’

‘You surprise me. You have more courage than I thought,’ she said with grudging admiration. ‘But it will do you no good. You will succumb to fear or loathing in the end. When a mortal loves a vampyre, it is always the way.’

‘No, Mama,’ said Anne. ‘Papa never did.’

‘Your Papa was the exception,’ said Lady Catherine. Her expression softened. ‘He was exceptional in every way.’

‘I believe that Elizabeth is exceptional, too,’ said Anne, turning appraising eyes on Elizabeth.

‘She is nothing out of the ordinary,’ said Lady Catherine with a dismissive wave of her hand.

‘She captured Darcy, and that is something no one else has ever been able to do,’ said Anne.

Lady Catherine looked at Anne and said, ‘There may be something in what you say. But no matter, it is not important now. What matters is that you claim Darcy saved you from the Ancient. And yet that should not be. Now that the Ancient has reclaimed so much of his former strength, no one can withstand him.’

‘It was not easy,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But when he picked Darcy up by the throat, his hand began to burn. I believe it was because it closed round the cross.’

‘A cross could not hurt him,’ said Lady Catherine contemptuously. ‘A vampyre can only be hurt by something older than itself, and the Ancient was old when Christ was young. Besides, why would Darcy be wearing a cross? He would never wear such a thing.’

‘Because I gave it to him,’ said Elizabeth.

‘Because you…?’ asked Lady Catherine, stunned. Then, to Elizabeth’s astonishment, she smiled. ‘So that is how Darcy managed to defeat the Ancient. I was wrong about you, Miss Bennet—no, I will not call you by that name, I will call you by your true name, Mrs Darcy. You were meant to be together, I see that now, as Sir Lewis was meant to be with me. Instead of giving you my curse, I will give you my blessing.’ She lifted her veil and leant forward to kiss Elizabeth on the cheek. ‘He was not burnt by the cross, he was burnt by your gift: he was burnt by—’

She was suddenly, without warning, knocked back with great force and Elizabeth, startled, saw that Darcy now stood between her and Lady Catherine. He had returned from his errand and, seeing Lady Catherine’s pose, he had moved with supernatural speed to defend Elizabeth.

‘Did she hurt you?’ he asked, taking Elizabeth’s face in his hands and looking at her in concern. ‘Did she touch you? Did she bite you?’

‘No,’ Elizabeth said, reassuring him. ‘You don’t understand. She was not threatening me. She came to warn me about the Ancient, but when she knew you had defeated him, she wished us well. She sees now we cannot be parted.’

He looked astonished and then smiled.

‘I hoped she would see it eventually. She loved a mortal; she knows what it is like to be unable to give up a loved one.’

He turned to help Lady Catherine to her feet, but she was no longer there.

Although he had given her the lightest of taps, the strength of it had hurled her across the beach and into the cliff. But such a blow, whilst it would have been capable of killing a mortal, had done no harm to Lady Catherine. Elizabeth saw her picking herself up and heading for the path that led from the beach, with Anne behind her, leaving an indentation in the cliff. So powerful had the blow been that it had driven her veil into the rock where it remained, blowing in the breeze.

‘We came to understand one another a little,’ said Elizabeth, watching Lady Catherine go. ‘She did not have time to finish her sentence, but I know what she was going to say. The Ancient one was defeated by my gift to you, by something older than himself: by love.’

Darcy’s face softened and he leant forward and kissed Lizzy tenderly.

‘I cannot bear it any longer,’ she said, her hand caressing his face. ‘I want to be with you, whatever the cost. Take me, I beg of you, let us be together as man and wife, come what may.’

‘You don’t know what you are saying,’ he said, his voice shaking with the effort of controlling the huge tide of passion she could feel churning within him. ‘There are torments to face if you turn. You will never age, but you will have to watch all those around you grow old and die. You will be cut off from life, a part of it and yet not a part of it, forever cast out.’

‘I don’t care,’ she whispered. ‘I will bear any fate to be your wife.’

He looked deep into her eyes to make sure that she meant what she said, and then he lifted her from her feet and carried her across the beach and up to the lodge, where he took the steps two at a time and kicked open the door before carrying her over the threshold.

As he crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs a shadow detached itself from the corner and one of the servants stepped forwards.

‘There is someone to see you,’ he said.

‘Not now,’ said Darcy, without breaking his stride.

‘Yes, now,’ came a voice from the shadows.

‘It is the head man of our village, Nicolei,’ said the servant.

An old, bent man stepped forwards. He was leaning on the arm of a younger man.

‘It can wait until morning,’ said Darcy, already beginning to mount the stairs.

‘No, Old One, it cannot wait,’ said Nicolei, looking at Elizabeth and then back to Darcy. ‘It must be now, before you do anything you regret. There is a way to relieve you of your burden. There is a way to break the curse.’