Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

Chapter 16

There was silence in the hall. From outside came the rustle of leaves and the cry of a sea bird, loud in the unnatural stillness. Then Darcy let Elizabeth slip from his arms and onto her feet, and taking her by the hand, he led her into the sitting room, with Nicolei following close behind. Darcy strode over to the fireplace and Elizabeth stood beside him, their arms around each others’ waists, whilst Nicolei made his way slowly into the room. The young man helped him into a chair and he sat down with great difficulty.

‘You say you know a way to return me to my human self,’ said Darcy uncertainly when Nicolei was seated.

‘That is right,’ said Nicolei.

He spoke in Italian, but Elizabeth was by now so familiar with the language she needed no translation.

‘I have never heard of such a thing,’ said Darcy.

‘And yet it is so,’ said Nicolei, looking at him reverently. ‘The knowledge has been passed down from head man to head man in our village for many generations.’

‘You have never told me about this before,’ said Darcy with a frown.

The old man rested his folded hands on the top of his stick.

‘I did not know you wanted it, Old One. You are magnificent, a creature of the night, undead, undying. You soar aloft on mighty wings. You are a protector of the weak, a harbinger of both good and ill, a bringer of vengeance, a dealer of swift and sure justice. You scatter your enemies like straw before the wind. Never did I think you would want to give up such greatness. The centuries to you are as the seasons are to your children, for that is what we are in your shadow, nothing but children, weak and blind and pitiful. The land and the sea and the sky are all your home. You travel great distances before we can take a step. Your senses are more keen, more brilliant than ours: you see the ant at his labours, you hear the click of his jaws, you smell the sea when you are on the mountain top, you taste the pollen on the breeze.

‘Do we say to the wind, do you wish not to blow? Do we say to the thunder, would you rather be silent? No. We never think of these things.’

‘And yet you think of them now,’ said Darcy.

‘Yes,’ he said, nodding slowly, ‘that is so. My family, those you have here to serve you, heard you talking when you ate with your so beautiful wife. They knew you had found love and that you were a different man to the one they had known. They saw that your marvellousness was now, to you, a curse, and they were troubled. They take a pride in serving you, it is their way of repaying you for the service you do for them, but that service on both sides has always been willing. Now it is not so. And so they came to me, to ask me what was to be done, and I bid them bring me here so that I might tell you of that which you must know.’

The fire was leaping brightly in the grate. The atmosphere was peaceful. The furniture was faded but wholesome, and the sunlight was beaming benignly through the windows.

How strange it is, thought Elizabeth, that everything should be so peaceful when such dark secrets are being laid bare.

‘Can you truly offer me a way to be rid of the vampyric part of me?’ asked Darcy, still disbelieving but with a note of hope in his voice.

‘I can, if that is what you desire. But think long on this, Old One, I beg of you.’

‘I have thought of little else this past year. I have wanted and wished for this thing but I thought it could never be.’

Nicolei nodded.

‘If that is so, I will help you. My wish is to serve you, and if this is the service you desire, then I will give it, willingly.’

‘How is it to be accomplished?’ asked Darcy, looking down at him intently.

‘I can do no more than point you on the first part of your journey,’ Nicolei said. ‘The answers you seek are to be found in a chamber beneath the ground. It is so old that a Roman temple has been built on top of it, and the temple itself is of a venerable age. But before you set your foot on this path, beware, for there is great danger. Once it was tried in my forebear’s time many centuries ago. I do not know what happened to the vampyre who tried it, only that he never returned.’

‘There is danger in everything,’ said Darcy. ‘There is danger in living, and an enterprise such as this one does not come lightly; there is always a price to pay. But I am willing to pay it. Where is this temple?’

‘That I do not know. I know only that it is set on a cliff in a green hollow, with the sea in front and a greater cliff behind and a tree growing above it. I know of three temples close by but none of them are like this. They have the sea, or the cliffs, or the hollow, but not all three, and I know of no temple with a tree close at hand.’

‘And yet it is familiar, what you describe,’ said Darcy thoughtfully. ‘I think I have seen this place, some ten miles to the northwest of here.’

Nicolei frowned, as though trying to recall the place of which Darcy spoke. Then his brow smoothed and he nodded, but he said, ‘I know the place you speak of, but it is not a Roman temple; it is the ruin of a monastery.’

‘But beneath it there is a temple,’ said Darcy. ‘I found it when playing there once as a boy. I fell through the floor of the monastery when exploring the cellars and found myself in a strange place ringed about with columns and statues. It was very old and I am sure it was a temple. The statues seemed to be of the Roman gods.’

‘This, then, might be the place,’ said Nicolei cautiously. ‘If so, the chamber you seek will be there somewhere underneath.’

‘Then I must go there. I saw no way down at the time, but there may be one, hidden,’ said Darcy, taking his arm from around Elizabeth’s waist.

‘I will go with you,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Darcy. ‘You heard Nicolei; it will be dangerous.’ When she was about to protest, he said, ‘You cannot come with me. There is more than just my desire to protect you at work here, there is fate, too. Remember the castle, Lizzy. Remember the axe. Remember when it fell from the wall, and the meaning of the portent, that you would cause my death. You cannot come with me, my love. I must go alone.’

Elizabeth thought back to the days at the Count’s castle. How long ago they seemed. She remembered the axe falling and landing closer to Darcy than to herself, and Annie telling her about the talk in the servants’ hall, saying that the axe falling meant that she was to cause Darcy’s death.

‘But that was idle superstition,’ she said, though her voice was uncertain. ‘You said so yourself.’ She saw his expression change and realised, ‘You said it to comfort me.’

‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted.

‘Then you believe the portent.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘but I would rather not put it to the test.’

‘And yet you do not really know what the portent means,’ said Nicolei unexpectedly. ‘Portents are wonderful things, but they do not speak to us openly; they speak to us in mysterious ways.’

He looked from Elizabeth to Darcy thoughtfully.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Elizabeth.

‘I mean that a portent, if it is true, will come to pass whatever steps are taken to avoid it. And if it is not true, then it will not affect the future, whatever is done.’ He turned to Darcy. ‘If your wife is to cause your death, how do you know that she will cause it by going with you? Might she not cause it by staying away?’

Elizabeth and Darcy looked at each other intently and then Elizabeth said, ‘I am coming with you,’ and this time Darcy did not argue. But still his face was troubled.

‘And I too,’ said Nicolei, ‘with my son, Georgio, to help me, I will come with you. My fate is bound up with yours, Old One. This, I believe, is my destiny.’

Darcy was reluctant but at last he agreed, “Though you will have to travel in the cart which brought you here as I have no carriage at the lodge,’ Darcy told him.

‘I understand,’ he said.

Darcy went over to the bell. When it was answered, he gave instructions for the cart to be readied and the horses to pull it. Elizabeth added her own instructions for some quilts to be put in the cart to soften it and some blankets added for warmth.

Then, turning to Nicolei, Darcy said, ‘You have had a long journey to get here. When was the last time you had anything to eat?’

‘Many hours ago,’ said the old man.

‘Then you must have something now, and Georgio must have something too before we go.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nicolei.

He rose to his feet with the help of his son, and Georgio helped him from the room. He turned at the door and said, ‘We will be ready as soon as the horses are harnessed.’

When he had gone, Darcy turned to Elizabeth and said, ‘Fetch your cloak, my love. We will be travelling for some time and the wind is cold.’

Elizabeth nodded but then said suddenly, ‘Are you sure this is what you really want?’ She looked at him searchingly. ‘Nicolei was right. I had not thought of it before, but you have great wonders in your life. If you rid yourself of the curse, you will rid yourself of them, too. You will no longer see and hear and feel things so richly or keenly or deeply, and you will lose your immortality. You will no longer be ageless. You will grow old and die.’

He took her face in his hands and said, ‘I would gladly swap eternity for one moment with you.’

She gave a long, shuddering sigh, and then he kissed her, a slow lingering kiss, a honeyed meeting of mouths and hearts and spirits, and when he let her go she knew there was no turning back.

She stepped unwillingly out of his arms and went upstairs to fetch her cloak. As she did so, she caught sight of her writing table. She hesitated and then sat down and began writing quickly, in an uneven hand.

My dearest Jane,

I have written you many letters during the course of my honeymoon, expecting them all to be sent, and yet none of them were ever posted. This letter I write hoping it will never leave my writing desk, unless I throw it into the fire at last, but I am going into danger and I mean to give my maid instructions to post this letter if I do not return.

Oh, Jane! If I could only tell you half the things that have happened to me since leaving Longbourn. There have been many difficult and frightening things in my life, but there has been much of great beauty, too: the dread and aweful majesty of the Alps as Darcy and I rode over their snow-capped heights; the peaceful tranquillity of Piedmont; the great river Brenta with its weeping willows trailing their branches in the water; Venice rising like a dream from the lagoon, basking in the morning sunlight, ageless and timeless and serene. And the people: Philippe with his gallantry and Gustav with his irrepressible good humour, and Sophia with her ancient dresses and her love for her city. And her memories: the rise of the merchant princes; the building of the palaces; the creation of the sculptures; the paintings and the poetry; the journeys of the great explorers; the triumphs of Marco Polo with whom she spoke and danced. Yes, Jane, she knew him, and she still sings and dances, though he has long since turned to dust. She is a custodian of all things past, she and others like her, and my dear Darcy is a custodian too—a custodian, a guardian, and a protector: one of the timeless ones. My dearest Darcy is a vampyre. And yet he intends to rid himself of his curse and his blessing for me.

He is going on a dark and dangerous path and I am going with him. How long we will be away I do not know, nor if we will ever return. But I love him with all my heart and where he goes, I go. Think of me often if you never see me again, and call one of your children after me! Not your firstborn; she must be Jane like her mother, but the second, unless it is a boy and then Elizabeth will not do!

Oh, Jane, how good it is to talk to you, even though you are so far away. Even in a dark and dangerous time, I feel lighter of spirit just thinking of you.

I must go. I hear the horses below. But I could not leave without letting you know the truth of my life. If I return, I might never tell you. But if I die in some underground chamber then it will comfort me to think that you will know the truth, you who have always known everything about me, and that you will know the truth about my dearest Darcy, too.

And now, my dearest, most beloved sister,

Adieu.

She called for Annie and gave her the letter, which she had sealed and on which she had written Jane’s direction.

‘Annie, I must speak to you about a matter of great importance. Mr Darcy and I are going on a journey and there may be danger ahead. If we do not return within a week, I want you to post this letter to my sister. Post it with your own hand, Annie. Let no one else touch it.’

‘I will, Ma’am, I promise you,’ said Annie, taking the letter.

‘In the meantime, you must stay here and look after the lodge whilst we are away. If neither I nor Mr Darcy return, then you must take passage to England. There is money in the drawer of my dressing table and you are to have it all. Mr Darcy’s valet will go with you, and he will know how to make the arrangements. Go to my uncle in Gracechurch Street, you will find his direction in my writing desk, and he will help you.’

‘But what am I to tell him?’ asked Annie in concern.

‘Tell him…’ Elizabeth paused. ‘…tell him that we went on a journey and that we did not return. Tell him that the area was infested with bandits and that we must have met with an accident or violence in the hills.’ The sound of horses’ hooves and the wheels of a cart came up from below. ‘And now I must go.’

She put on her pelisse and cloak, changed into sturdy boots, and pulled on a pair of gloves, and then she ran downstairs. She went into the sitting room where she found Darcy.

He was dressed in outdoor clothes. His caped greatcoat was thrown over his tailcoat and breeches, and he wore riding boots on his feet. He was looking down at something he held in his hand and there was a look of unexpected pleasure on his face, his handsome features arranged in a smile.

On hearing her enter the room, he held his hand out to her and she saw that it contained a letter. Her heart jumped as she recognised it and she smiled all over her face. It was the letter she had written to Jane whilst she was being driven off in the Prince’s carriage.

‘The servants found it just where you threw it,’ said Darcy.

‘Thank goodness! Now Jane will not be burdened with those troubles, at least.’

‘No, those troubles are over,’ said Darcy.

‘It is a good omen!’ she said. ‘I thought I would never escape that perilous situation and yet I did, and if such a hopeless situation turned out so well, could not another less hopeless situation turn out well also?’

‘Indeed it could, it can, and it will!’ said Darcy. ‘Elizabeth, we were meant to be together. We will rid ourselves of this burden and we will be what we were always meant to be.’

She took his hands and her eyes danced.

‘Just think, before long, we may be walking together in the grounds at Pemberley, or visiting Jane and Bingley at Netherfield and walking in the lanes thereabouts, the four of us together, happy and safe, with a blossoming future to look forward to instead of one full of fear and dread.’

‘Then let us be on our way,’ he said.

They went outside to find that Nicolei was already in the back of the cart, whilst his son, Georgio, was sitting on the box ready to drive it. Darcy’s horse stood close by.

‘Will you ride with me?’ he asked Elizabeth.

Elizabeth gladly mounted in front of him, feeling safe with him at her back despite the horse’s restiveness, and they set off for the ruin.