Chapter 9

Nine

M r Darcy began an incredible narrative, beginning with the story as he said he knew it, with his father and a lady called Miss Juliet Gage. "This is what Jessabelle Wickham, now Mrs Younge, has told me, but in truth, I doubt much of it."

He was vague with some of the details, no doubt in deference to her ladylike sensibilities, but Elizabeth thought she understood the gist of it. The elder Mr Darcy had had a scandalous liaison with Miss Juliet Gage and from that a child was conceived. "Miss Parham was a lady in London who was expecting his addresses, it seems, and when he told her of Miss Gage's delicate condition, she was appalled and refused him."

Elizabeth knew not how to reply to that. "But remained angry with him, it seems?"

"Angry enough to take to the cunning arts. One cannot say what, if anything, would have happened had not Jessabelle come along with her own grudge to share. "

The tale, at its heart, was a tale of female fury: Miss Parham, who was humiliated; Lady Anne, who unknowingly harboured a child at Pemberley that might have been her husband's bastard; and Jessabelle, who was cast out, left to the mercies of an unloving couple for sins that were not her own.

"And your mother never had any idea?"

"My mother was more clever than that. For whatever she knew or did not know as a young bride, I am sure she discerned the truth at some point."

"Is it certain that Jessabelle is your father's child?"

"No," Mr Darcy said in a voice so stern it startled Elizabeth. "In fact, I think it quite unlikely. Her mother had many gentlemen whom she…befriended. Mr Wickham himself was counted among their number. I do not know if she understood that, but regardless, Jessabelle always despised me—the heir, who received all that she thought ought to be her due."

"She would not have inherited Pemberley, would she?" Elizabeth asked.

"No, but she would have been raised in a loving home, doted upon, treated far better. Evidently, I was responsible when she was banished. She and my cousin were…well, doing things that people of fifteen sometimes do when left alone away from their elders."

"Kissing games?" Elizabeth frowned. "Hardly a hanging offence."

"My mother and aunts wished her gone and seized onto it as reason enough. I was the one to run to my mother and father and tell them what was happening, and before she could defend herself, she was sent away. So she considered it a fitting punishment to see me cast away. And it has been punishment indeed. Those who once loved me are resigned to my death and the fear of Pemberley's curse keeps them from coming here."

"Ah," Elizabeth said, her mind racing. "So there are, in fact, two curses. The curse on Pemberley as well as the curse on you."

"Because of my actions that day in the garden, when Jessabelle kissed my cousin and was subsequently banished, I have been likewise banished. I am condemned to stare out of the painting, unable to be heard or seen or known, watching as all I hold dear is laid to ruin. Pemberley is condemned to be a desolated wasteland. This, I believe, is retribution against my father as well as Mr Wickham, vengeance on the land and legacy that both men loved above all."

"To what end? Does she wish for revenge? To see you hurt? To see you dead? I cannot think curses such as this are even real, not in a modern day such as ours."

"One can hardly protest the validity of black magic when both Pemberley and I—and now you, too, it seems—live daily with the result of her schemes. You see before you a picture of a man, in all senses of the word. I do not eat, I do not drink. I cannot sleep. I know neither night nor day; all is sameness to me. What Jessabelle wants of me, I do not know."

"It sounds positively horrid," Elizabeth said, even as she felt the pang of anxiety, worried she had consigned herself to a like fate.

"It is Hell, populated by demons of my father's making. "

For as much as she had initially disliked him, Elizabeth's heart was stirred on his behalf. It seemed utterly dreadful, this life he had lived for what she knew must have been years. To endure such tedium, such sameness, and such solitude! A curse indeed!

At once, the true meaning of her dilemma was made clear to her, and she nearly laughed. "You say there is neither night nor day? No hunger, no thirst?"

He shook his head, looking bemused by her sudden levity.

"And night never falls? It is always the same time of day?"

"Here, in this limbo I inhabit, there is but one time, and it is no time." He walked slowly within the constraints of their shared space, his steps silent. Softly, he quoted Cowper, "‘The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have passed away'." He sighed heavily. "I fear I am eternally living my darkest day."

Relief swept through her as she understood what had happened. Perhaps I have swooned and hit my head when I fell. Maybe I am still in my bed at the inn, dreaming all of this. Had she read something of this sort before? Somehow integrated it into her dreams? It would not be the first time such a thing had happened to her.

Save for the fact that if it was all a dream it was, without a doubt, the most stirring dream she had ever dreamt. And she did not immediately recollect reading anything of the sort of late. The happy notion, that she had fallen unconscious, suddenly seemed too much for which to hope.

"But you must know how long I have been here," he said suddenly. "What is the date? When did you come here?"

"Twelve," she admitted to him. "July of the year twelve."

He inhaled sharply, the shock of it clear, and his face looked a trifle paler.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

"I have been here since eighteen hundred and six."

Elizabeth tried but failed to suppress a gasp. "Six years!"

"I cannot tell you how much I regret that you have joined me in it."

Am I to be similarly doomed? Pain assailed her as she thought of it, time creeping by at a maddeningly slow pace while all around her those whom she knew and loved—nay, even those she did not know or even hated—lived full lives replete with laughter and weeping, talking and silence. Babies would be born, would grow into apple-cheeked children who ran and played and became young gentleman and ladies. Then, they would marry and have babies, and the seasons would march on, until all who she knew were old and grey and left the earth behind them, left her behind, hanging on a wall staring at all she should have known.

Her fear flamed into anger for a moment. For what crime was she so punished? She had done nothing more than look at a painting, seeking the truth therein. For that she must perish? She gasped with the misery of it, wishing she could cry out her anguish.

"I am so very sorry," Mr Darcy said, his face still impassive. "I tried to shout out, to warn you but I could not stop it. The tide of malice swells powerfully and is nigh on impossible to resist."

She drew a breath, silent for several moments as she regained her equanimity. "I suppose I must at least be glad that in my misery I am not alone, not as you have been these many years."

He turned his face downward. "I would never wish this fate on anyone, but I would be lying if I did not admit I am glad to have someone with me now." He paused a moment, then added, "Do know though that if there is any way, any way at all, that I might secure your freedom, it will be done without a moment of hesitation."

It was good of him to say so. Elizabeth studied him. He was a handsome man, with deep brown eyes, a curled, similarly dark forelock dangling over his right eye. There was goodness within him that shone out to her, despite the flatness of his appearance.

"Thank you," she said softly. "That is selfless indeed."

"I was once such a selfish being, thinking only of myself and so meanly of any who were outside of my circle. It is an uncommon pleasure to be called selfless. One of many things which have altered in my character since first this happened. If nothing else, I must be grateful for the gift in this, which is the many hours I am given to devote to self-reflection."

"Tell me another of your alterations then," she said, trying to effect some of her usual spirits. Though she could not yet be resigned to her lot, she was determined to bring some semblance of cheer to this grim circumstance.

"I have never before had a talent which some people possess of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation or appear interested in their concerns, and it was a bit daunting for me to make the attempt. Now, however, I quite long for any society that is not my own." After a minute he added, "I never much enjoyed parties and balls, but now I would welcome one gladly."

"You are fond of dancing then?"

"I suppose the activity has grown more interesting to me. Anything becomes more enticing when it is forbidden or made somehow impossible."

"That is true."

Conversation halted a moment. Elizabeth decided she must move, and traced a small, slow path on the edge of their place. As she walked she began to hum a happy tune, a Scottish reel she had been learning to play on the pianoforte before her travels commenced.

"Such a tune puts me of a mind to dance a reel," Mr Darcy said.

"What?"

"Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?"

She turned, giving him a small smile. "Shall we hold a ball then, sir? With only two dancers?"

"I think if we apply but a bit of cleverness to it, we shall do very well."

"As you wish then," she agreed and they began. Steps and forms required alteration, and they made their changes with careful forethought. At times they argued vehemently over how it must be, but other times they simply moved, finding themselves laughing and breathless as they hopped and jumped and skipped. Elizabeth grew weary from humming their music, and Mr Darcy had to take over, the song becoming deep and faintly ponderous.

It was a strange way to dance. She could not feel his hand holding hers, but when she looked down, she saw them united. Once or twice he bumped into her or she into him and felt nothing of it. Nevertheless, they did the best they could.

"What a curious reel this is!" Elizabeth exclaimed when they had been at it some time. Their reel had gone well beyond the steps either of them had ever learnt, forming a new dance altogether, yet it brought them some laughter and passed the time, and in that it was useful.

"I heard a saying once," Mr Darcy said, leaning back against the wall. "To be fond of dancing is a certain step towards falling in love. For myself, I have never before enjoyed the activity so much as I do now."

Falling in love. The notion made her feel like she ought to blush, but she knew not if she did. Although they had been together only briefly, Elizabeth thought Mr Darcy was just the sort of man with whom she could fall in love. He was witty, clever, kind, caring…a bit serious, yes, but that was precisely why he should marry someone lively. Someone like her.

Marriage! She scoffed at herself if only in her mind. Entrapped by a witch's curse and you think of matrimony? Silly .

"I am enjoying myself too," she managed to say. "It is a ball unlike any other I have ever attended but nevertheless it has been…pleasant."

She stepped close to him just then, and before she knew it, found herself stepping on his foot. Elizabeth was light and a great deal smaller than was Mr Darcy, yet he exclaimed loudly when it happened. He stared at her, seeming more astonished than was warranted.

"Forgive me," she said with a smile. "To think how well we danced together and then I stamp on your foot while we are standing still."

"N-no, it is not that. That is not why I cried out." Mr Darcy stared down at the foot she had stepped on. "I felt it. I felt the pressure of your foot on mine. Did you feel it as well? My foot under yours?"

Elizabeth searched her mind for the remembrance of it. "Yes, I believe I might have done."

"I have done all I could to see if I remained as a man in flesh." He shook his head, his eyes still trained on his feet. "Nothing. I have tried, intentionally, to provoke any sort of feeling in my body but to no use. I have been, for all purposes, dead to the world. Yet, now I feel it, the tread of your foot on mine."

He raised his eyes to her. "I cannot think what it might mean."