A Touch of Night (7 page)

* * * *

Sir William was pleased to finally be petitioned for the hand of his eldest daughter. His face wreathed in smiles he indicated a chair for Collins to sit upon, while he poured them each a large glass of brandy from a cut glass decanter.

"So, you want to marry our Charlotte?" he asked.

Collins snuggled into the chair, sipped his drink, and stared blankly back at Sir William. "Oook," he said.

"Capital, capital!" cried Sir William jovially. "I had thought you meant to have one of your cousins, but I am pleased as punch you chose our own sweet Charlotte instead. Lomgbourn will be yours one day. It will be nice to have our girl situated so close to home. Very nice indeed."

"Oook," said Collins smugly.

"I can see that we are of one mind," said Sir William, nodding sagely. "Welcome to the family, my boy. Capital, capital."

* * * *

The next morning, Elizabeth was pleased to see that though her mother plagued Mr. Collins to renew his addresses to her second child, he adamantly refused. He then proceeded to make himself scarce for the rest of the day. Elizabeth was glad. She did not want her last few hours with Jane spoiled by another scene with Mr. Collins.

She sat in the parlor holding Jane's hand until their uncle's man arrived with the carriage to take Jane to London.

"Elizabeth..." Jane said. "Don't worry about me. I'll live quietly in London. I will be safe with our aunt and uncle."

"I know you will, dear," Elizabeth said, reaching for the valise and handing it to Jane. "I know you will. And it will ease my mind to know you safe and sound."

"Yes," Jane said, but her voice sounded distant.

"What is it dear," Elizabeth said, studiously avoiding asking if it was Mr. Bingley.

"Oh, Elizabeth, I must say I'll always... It's just that I... I prefer him to every other man I've ever known."

"Oh, Jane," Elizabeth said, and hugged her tightly. "It will all turn out for the best, you'll see."

Elizabeth stood upon the gravel sweep long after the carriage had gone. What was she to do now that she no longer had Jane to protect? How would she keep her thoughts from returning to that terrible scene she had witnessed at the Netherfield ball? She was about to return to the house when Lydia and Kitty came running up the drive, giggling even more boisterously than usual.

"Oh, Elizabeth, you will never guess what has happened!" cried Lydia.

"We have just now seen Maria Lucas," said Kitty.

"Charlotte is to be married!" cried Lydia.

"I wanted to tell," pouted Kitty, as she stomped her foot.

"To Mr. Collins!" cried Lydia.

Mr. Collins? It cannot be!" said Elizabeth.

"Did you think that because you did not want him no one else would?" asked Lydia. "Though, truth be told, I cannot understand what Charlotte sees in that ugly, mottled thing."

"And his whiskers!" tittered Kitty. "Oh, shh! Here she comes now to tell you."

Elizabeth did her best to keep her composure while talking to her friend. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Charlotte's feelings and alienate her, but the thought of Charlotte married to a
were-ape
was almost too much to bear. Not only was Mr. Collins boring and unattractive in his human form, his lack of control over his animal form was both disagreeable and dangerous.

But Charlotte claimed to be happy with her engagement, and she knew that her friend had different expectations from marriage than she had herself. She knew she ought to, but she could not bring herself to tell Charlotte what she had discovered about Mr. Collins. It would ruin her happiness and make her a laughingstock in the neighborhood. Besides, with the
were
-hunters in town, it could be dangerous for Mr. Collins. And she didn't want his life on her hands.

* * * *

Far away in his London townhouse, Mr. Darcy brooded by the sitting room window. Behind him, Georgiana, his sixteen year old sister, played, softly. He'd been glad enough to see Georgiana again. Georgiana was still wounded from the events with Sevrin and more in need of his steadying arm and shoulder than Darcy had expected.

They were now alone, the Bingleys having left after dinner. But how quiet and hapless Bingley had looked at dinner. Darcy very much feared that his attachment to the Bennet girl had been real and one of those from which one hardly recovered, or never completely. With Bingley's gentle nature, he was likely to fall in melancholy. The fact that Miss Bingley had babbled on no stop with more vitriol than sense hadn't made dinner any easier.

He became aware the piano had stopped behind him, a second before Georgiana put her hand on his shoulder.

"You are very quiet, brother."

Darcy sighed. "I suppose," he said. "I'm still mourning for..." He wouldn't say Sevrin's name.

Georgiana sighed. "We all are. But I seem to detect something else, some fresh grief."

Darcy managed a quick, flashing smile. How perceptive Georgiana was, for her age. "Not grief, dear. Not exactly." With his larger hand, he patted her hand on his shoulder. "Not unless one can grieve for a future that could never be."

Georgiana looked attentively at him, her dark blue eyes serious. "It is a girl, then? Like... Mr. Bingley?"

Darcy looked over his shoulder at Georgiana. "What know you of Bingley's girl?"

"Nothing, except that Miss Bingley was very spiteful about some nobody who tried to attach him. Was it the same girl you cared for?"

Darcy laughed at the thought of his being interested in Jane Bennet. "Nothing so simple, no. It was... another girl. With eyes like the midnight sky. She..." He shook his head. "To be honest, I don't even know why she fascinates me."

He looked out at the sky, lit by reflections of lights from the great city of London. And realized in his mind he was calculating how long it would take the dragon to fly to Hertfordshire and fly outside Elizabeth Bennet's window, looking into her bedchamber. But his rational self knew this was lunacy. He would have to be content with his memory of her, sleeping, her face beautiful and hopeful in repose. Like a fairy princess waiting the kiss of a charmed knight.

Unfortunately, he was more cursed than charmed. And the kiss would never happen.

* * * *

Georgiana Darcy walked down the long hallways of the Darcy townhouse, frowning. It could be supposed, she thought, that after the recent and horrible events taking place in London, she would dread the city and the very sight of the townhouse. But it wasn't that way. Instead, their town home held what was to her the precious memory of her lost fiance.

Here, she and Sevrin had sat. There, he had held her hand for the first time, shortly after speaking to her brother of their attachment. There, he'd asked her to be his wife.

She remembered all her dreams of a life with him. Such a gentle man, Sevrin was with a blond mane of hair which, in human form, recalled his gentle lionine self.

The memories were bitter, but sweeter than pretending that Sevrin had never existed and struggling not to think of him at all.

When she went to Pemberley, she fancied, the she wouldn't find thoughts of him in every corner, in every window seat, at every turn of a winding hallway. Sitting at the piano forte, playing, wouldn't conjure up images of Sevrin's long, sensitive fingers turning the page.

The memory would fade a little, she thought, and then when she returned to the townhouse once more, it would be faded like cloth left in the sun. And then she wouldn't be able to remember him when she wanted to. She would know him no more. It would count as a double loss to let his memories fade so.

Oh, she knew she couldn't hold on forever to those memories of Sevrin -- all she had left. But she also knew that if she left for Pemberley, or even for Ramsgate, a move her brother would not only consent to, but possibly heartily endorse, she would have to stop her great work here. And that she could not do.

She felt within the dainty reticule hanging from her wrist for the letter connected to the matter that was keeping her here. It was addressed to her, from Mr. E. O. Malven, the personal valet of Lord Wilding.

She knew that if it were found she was corresponding with a gentleman to whom she was not betrothed, she would have sunk herself beneath reproach. And yet, it would not worry her brother nearly as much as it would to discover the truth hiding behind that seemingly culpable correspondence. And poor Darcy was worried enough.

What was it about this lady with eyes like midnight sky? No other woman had ever made that much impression on her staid brother.

Chapter Seven

As the parsonage at Hunsford came into view, Elizabeth heaved a sigh of relief. It was not that the journey had been too long and tiring, after all, what was fifty miles of good road? It was her company. Sir William was a kind neighbor, but he did ramble on. He had spent the previous evening with Colonel Forster of the Royal
Were
-Hunters, and his head was full of anecdotes the colonel had related to him, which he felt bound to relay to his traveling companions.

Maria Lucas listened, spellbound, to her father, her eyes growing huger and huger as he told of the many vicious
weres
that the colonel claimed to have captured single-handedly. Every so often she would give a little squeal, half fear, half pleasure, and exclaim, "What a very brave man the colonel is!" or, "Such terrible beasts!"

Elizabeth had to bite her tongue so as not to jump to the defense of
werekind
. She realized that showing too much partiality might make her suspect as well, but it was a great struggle. She did, however, say in a most restrained manner. "We must not forget that they are people too, and deserve our compassion."

Maria just stared at her, a shocked look upon her face.

"To be sure, to be sure," said Sir William. "'Tis very sad. Would that it was detectable at birth and then we could do away with them before they embarked upon such lives of misery. Like drowning unwanted kittens."

"Oh no! Drown kittens!" cried Maria Lucas.

Her father patted her hand for she looked as though she would burst out in tears.

Elizabeth stared out of the window, her lips pressed together so that she would not voice the thoughts that pounded at her head. The very idea of Jane, dearest sweetest Jane, being put into a sack as an infant and tossed into the river was too terrible to bear with equanimity.

It was then that the yellow stone walls of the parsonage came into view from behind a stand of elms, and Sir William's thoughts were diverted to his daughter Charlotte and her new husband.

"A fine looking home indeed!" he cried. "But of course it is, for Lady Catherine is a most generous landlady, I believe, and takes a prodigious interest in all things great and small, so my son Collins tells me."

Elizabeth could not get out of the carriage quickly enough, when it stopped at the parsonage gate. She threw herself into Charlotte's arms, realizing just how much she had missed her dear friend. Her cousin held his hand out to her and she allowed him to grasp hers in a brotherly manner, noting how well manicured his nails now were, and how the fine orange hairs upon the back of his hand had been closely trimmed. They were all ushered into the parlor while Collins pointed out all the most interesting aspects of the house.

"These rosebushes were planted just here, at Lady Catherine's suggestion, there being just the right amount of sun in this corner. And here, you see, our doorknocker has been raised a full three inches, for Lady Catherine noticed that it was much too low. This carpeting in the hallway was chosen because, as Lady Catherine most kindly pointed out, brown and green will not need to be cleaned as often as lighter colors."

He had much more to say even than that. Lady Catherine had advised them on everything from the distribution of the household furniture to the placing of shelves in the closets. Elizabeth knew she would find such involvement officious, but Charlotte seemed to accept it with complaisance. She also appeared to be content in her marriage, something Elizabeth would never have expected. But Elizabeth could see that it was all due to Charlotte's good management. She even had her husband looking more presentable than he ever had, heretofore.

Elizabeth pondered whether Charlotte had discovered that her husband shifted from human to orangutan at the drop of a hat. She could not imagine how such a phenomenon could slip her friend's notice, but she was afraid to ask.

The next day she had the dubious pleasure of meeting with Lady Catherine herself. They were invited to come to Rosings after dinner to spend the evening with the ladies. Lady Catherine was a little, bird-like woman, but she made up for her small stature with her overbearing presence.

Her daughter, Miss Anne de Bourgh, was a sickly girl who sat wrapped in a shawl and spoke to no one but her attendant, Mrs. Jenkinson.

"My daughter should have been presented at St. James, were she not such a frail invalid," said Lady Catherine.

Mr. Collins spouted some fatuous nonsense, likening Miss Anne to the rarest of jewels, and Sir William mentioned, timidly, his having been knighted there.

"And you," said Lady Catherine to Elizabeth. "Have you had a London season?"

"No, ma'am. With five daughters my father could not go to the expense."

"You have four sisters? Are all of them out? And none married?"

"They are."

"Singular. I do not know what your mother is thinking allowing the youngest to be out before the eldest have married."

"I believe she is thinking to marry us all off as quickly as she might."

"And yet you are unmarried and you must be a full one and twenty!"

"I am not yet one and twenty," said Elizabeth.

"She seems to be very behind hand with the job."

Elizabeth only nodded, not seeing fit to respond to such incivility.

"I understand there is a problem in your neighborhood with a proliferation of lycanthropes. A terrible situation. I was telling Mrs. Collins she is well away from there. Here in Kent you will find we have dealt severely with such blasphemous creatures. We see to it that our peasants breed true."

"I thought that people in all walks of life suffer from the affliction. There are
weres
even in the peerage," said Elizabeth.

"Nonsense!" cried Lady Catherine. "It is all due to common blood! If any peers have been caught as
weres
, then they were born through some indiscretion between the lady of the house and a stable hand or gardener. Good breeding cannot be discounted. There is something very base about a person who changes into an animal."

Elizabeth watched as Mr. Collins nodded in agreement, while scratching himself behind his ear, and emitting one or two affirmative 'ooks'.

"You see, my parson agrees with me," said Lady Catherine. "I have ensured that he is well versed at how these hereditary traits manifest themselves in the lower classes amongst his flock. With my training he has become forever vigilant in winnowing the wheat from the chaff."

Elizabeth felt a chill go down her spine at the thought that some innocent peasant might be turned in to the RWH due to Lady Catherine's over-zealousness. "Are mistakes ever made?" she ventured to ask.

Lady Catherine looked down her nose at Elizabeth as if to say, 'I never make mistakes,' but she instead said, "You are very inquisitive for such a young person. You will find it easier to get along in society if you take your lead from your betters rather than attempting to form your own ill-informed opinions."

Done with Elizabeth, Lady Catherine turned to Charlotte and said, "My nephews will be coming to spend Easter at Rosings as usual. They are so attentive of me, and of Anne. Especially Mr. Darcy. You know that he and Anne are intended for each other. A perfect match -- two young people of the purest breeding and two grand estates."

Elizabeth's annoyance at being dismissed so insultingly by Lady Catherine was replaced by her shock in discovering that she would soon be in the company of Mr. Darcy. She wondered how she could ever face him after having seen him naked in the conservatory of Netherfield, in a very compromising situation with Mr. Bingley. She remembered his sleek body rising up from the rhubarb and blushed at the perverseness of her nature that such a vision should come to her when it was the last thing that she desired to remember.