Chapter 8

Eight

W hile the lady studied him, so too did Darcy study her.

She was not the first lady to be drawn into a closer examination of the painting, but she was the first to regard it so intently. At first, he was displeased by her frank appraisal, but as she remarked on the true loveliness of Pemberley, he began instead to see her beauty. Her figure was light and pleasing, and her face, though not handsome in the classical sense, looked witty and kind. The more he watched her, the more he found to admire in her.

He found himself wishing to call out to her, but what purpose could that serve? Utterances from a painting could only frighten her and drive her away. He shook his head, choosing instead to continue his contemplation of her loveliness which seemed to enthral him more and more with each passing moment.

He knew no one could hear him but he spoke aloud regardless. "As I cannot have true discourse with you, pretty lady, I will merely stay here meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow."

I must return to the Gardiners. No doubt they are worried sick.

With a last light touch of the gilt frame, Elizabeth turned to walk back the same way in which she had entered. Just as she did, she heard whispered words in masculine tones behind her. "A pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman."

A jolt went through her as she turned back. The hall remained as empty as it had been previously. Her voice wavered a little as she called, "Who is there?"

Outside, the winds began to howl, and somewhere a loose shutter or window screeched and banged. For several long minutes, Elizabeth stood motionless, listening in the weighted, ominous silence that accompanies the beginning of a storm. Even the creatures who nested in the other rooms had ceased in their activity, no doubt having hied away to whatever burrows or warrens they inhabited.

Walking slowly back in the direction of the painting, she called out a second time, "Is anyone there?"

She heard then a particular gust of wind that almost sounded like a human voice. "That is what you heard, you silly goose," she admonished herself with a relieved nod. "Nothing but a trick of the wind."

Then her eyes fell back on the painting again. She had noted before that the gentleman had a serious air about him, but a second look led her to conclude he appeared to be more sad than staid. Sorrow was etched in the painted lines of his countenance as he gazed out at her.

"A handsome man and a charming home," she told him. "Why are you so sad? Where are you, sir?"

She studied him and the house a bit more. She had not noticed it before, but now she espied a young lady in the painting as well. A lovely young woman, off to the side, so much so that she was very nearly off the canvas. She appeared to be about Lydia's age, with a figure that was womanly and well formed. She was elegantly dressed but stood in an attitude which suggested either diffidence or despair.

"And who are you, my dear?" Elizabeth asked. "The lady of the house perhaps? You are a handsome girl, a bit shy but no doubt charming."

She then sensed, rather than heard, movement. Startled, she whirled about. "Aunt? Uncle?" She waited a moment, listening. There was no answer.

She turned back to the painting, informing it, "I shall not grow frightened of silly noises and a bit of thunder and rain. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me."

She smiled then, but it quickly faded. She would have sworn that the man in the painting was in the third window from the left of the house. Now he was in the middle which was the fifth window from the left. He also appeared farther away, and was blurrier now as well. She could hardly make out his face, much less determine the expression on it, no matter how much she squinted and peered at it.

Inspiration struck. "My opera glass," she announced with delight. "I shall put it to good use after all."

Her reticule hung from her wrist, and she removed the opera glass from within. She held the device up to her eyes, tilting her head and trying to make out more of the man's expression. Alas, it was still dreadfully blurry, perhaps even more so. "Almost as if he were moving," she said with a laugh at her own whimsy.

From the side of the hall, she retrieved a chair, one that was belching out its stuffing, and tugged it towards the painting, climbing up on it in hopes of seeing better. Leaning forwards, she rested one hand lightly on the painting and aimed her glass so that she could see the man's countenance more clearly.

She had thought before that he looked sad but now it seemed more like...panic? Why would the artist have painted the subject in the midst of panic? She leant in farther, her glass touching the canvas as she tried to get better lighting, to see the gentleman more clearly.

Elizabeth screamed as suddenly everything seemed to give way. The chair beneath her feet tilted crazily, and she pitched forwards, the glass pressing painfully into one eye. Then she heard the chair topple to the ground, and she was falling, just as a loud crack of thunder from outside announced the arrival of the storm in full measure. The thunder blended with the sound of a man's voice, shouting at her, "Get out now!"

But it was too late for her to get out. She had no recourse; she was wholly in.

The man's voice was a dull roar in Elizabeth's ears as her aching head struggled mightily to make sense of what had befallen her. She hurt all over, and motes of light danced before her eyes, clouding her vision as she forced herself into a seated position. The man stood over her, merciless in his chastisement, continuing to scold her for having done…something. Likely, she had broken the chair, although what that could signify when all the house was in such a state, she hardly knew.

"Foolish, foolish girl! You do not know what you have done, the folly in which you have so heedlessly embroiled yourself and with such enthusiasm! Know you not where you are?"

She squinted up at him. His face was a thundercloud, scowling at her fiercely, but he was undoubtedly the handsome man from the painting, now in the flesh. "It is you," she managed to croak out. "The man from the painting."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes," he snapped. "The man from the painting, once known as Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy. And now you, my dear girl, have the privilege of being known as the lady in the painting, once known as the silly creature who heeded not the advisements of those superior to her."

"I am not in the habit of forming my plans in accordance with the senseless superstitions of villagers. My aunt spent her girlhood in Derbyshire, and we wanted to see the grand Pemberley. Would that we had not gratified such wishes, for it is a dreadful place! I am sure she would much rather have retained just the memory of it as once it was."

"Yes, I know it is dreadful," he retorted. "I am hardly unaware of that."

Elizabeth decided to get to her feet and struggled upwards. At the last moment, Mr Darcy offered his hand, but she ignored it. "Unaware of it? Responsible for it, I daresay."

"You give your opinion very decidedly." He turned his back on her, pacing a few steps away. When he spoke again, his words seemed to be primarily for his own ears, though she could hear him well enough. "What sort of girl is this, left alone to roam freely about someone else's home? To indulge in her own curiosity with such brazenness and temerity?"

He turned back round to glare at her. "Do you not know the danger into which you have placed yourself? Who is accompanying you? Who has charge over you?"

Vexation straightened Elizabeth's spine. She could not like this man's frank appraisal of her character, nor the implied slight to her family. It was true, they did not watch over her as they sometimes should, but it was nothing to him! How could he speak so when one only needed to look about to see how grievously he had failed his family!

"You need not worry for me," she said stiffly. "I shall absent myself shortly. Likely, you are desiring my absence as much as I have come to desire yours."

"Absent yourself?" He laughed, which enraged her even more. "Where do you think you can go? "

"Back to my family, who by the bye, are likely quite worried for me and permitted me only minutes away from their chaperonage to explore. I do own to excessive curiosity as a failing, but I am not entirely unfettered, as you seem to think."

He cast a glance heavenward. "You really do not understand this, do you? You cannot get out. You cannot leave. I have tried for a long time. I do not even know how long. Escape is impossible."

Was this man mad? Elizabeth paused and looked about her. "Are you trying to tell me that we are trapped in a painting?"

"Yes!" he said vigorously. "That is precisely what I am saying."

"That is absurd and impossible in every way."

"Yet, here am I for I know not how long."

In a rush, she said, "Well, I simply cannot remain here alone with you. I am not married and must think of my reputation."

He barked out a laugh that was vexatious to say the least. "Your reputation?"

"Yes! My reputation!"

"I promise you, you have far greater concerns than reputation right now. Listen to me, and try to understand what I am saying. We are trapped. We cannot get out of this painting. We are part of the painting ourselves."

She looked about the room where they both stood. It was a pretty parlour, elegant and nicely furnished, and far superior to the wreckage of the rest of Pemberley. One wall boasted a door .

"Then what," she asked, gesturing towards it, "do you think that is?"

"I know what it looks like," he told her, "and I also know what it is not."

It was such a stupid answer it did not warrant reply. This man was arrogant and vexatious, and she had no wish to spend another moment in his company. "I shall bid you good day then," she said through gritted teeth, and with that, she went off. He said something as she left, but she paid him no heed.

Opening the door, she found herself in a lovely library. She stood a moment, taking in the large, comfortable looking sofas and the vast quantity of books, even as another part of her recognised that something was simply…off about it. Too flat .

She roamed edges of the room noticing no change in light, nor in texture. There was no shadow, no full sun, no dimness—all was lit equally well. Another door led her to a different parlour, in which she arrived to the same conclusion. She went into room after room, finding the same flat quality in each, a two dimensional representation of what she supposed Pemberley used to be.

The understanding came upon her at once—he had meant it when he said that now she was in the painting. Startled by the knowledge, she moved to sit on a small chaise and rest herself while she considered it. Alas, she could not actually sit. It was not a chaise that she saw but the image of a chaise. The world had been reduced to height and width but no depth.

Growing panicked, Elizabeth began to go through the rooms, trying to touch or feel or move, but no matter where she travelled, the result was the same. Faster and faster she went, seeking she knew not what, for the end result was always the same: she had been relegated to a world where all was beauty and light but nothing was real.

Mr Darcy was infuriating throughout her ordeal. She would pass him on her travels from this room to that, and each time he stood in a posture of haughty amusement, looking down his nose at her as one might smile at a favoured dog who chased its tail.

Suddenly, she recalled the letter opener in her reticule. She had been teasing her aunt when she said she would bring it with her for safety, but as it was, it would be very useful. Ha! I am enclosed in canvas, and canvas is subject to sharp objects. See here if I shall extricate myself!

The letter opener remained in the room where she had first found herself, and she went to retrieve it, praying Mr Darcy had not taken it. He had not; it remained in the exact place it had fallen.

Snatching it up, she spent a moment in contemplation—what would be her first cut? She decided she cared not, bending her arm so that the opener was poised for a long strike from beside her ear into her freedom. She stabbed violently…to no avail.

The letter opener, it would seem, had likewise become not an actual opener, but an image of one, an ineffective scrap of canvas which did naught but bend and falter when pressed against anything else. Her terror rose within her as she frantically tried to cut something, anything, walls, chairs, even herself, leading to nothing. For the first moment of this ordeal, Elizabeth felt true fear.

"This has to be a dream," she said. "A mad, insensible dream. People cannot be trapped in a painting!"

Yet, the work of the last moments seemed to indicate that they could and she had. What if she could not get out? How would she return home?

For a few minutes, she permitted her fears to own her. She envisioned the dear faces of her sisters, her father, all her friends in Meryton…the Gardiners! Oh, her poor aunt and uncle, what must they be thinking by now?

"Foolish, foolish girl!" she cried out. "Only think of what sorrow you have caused!" The tears stung her eyes but could not fall. She raised her hand to her face; it was rough, and had the texture of canvas.

She screamed and began to frantically poke and scratch at herself seeking anything, any sort of sensation. She had none. Her skin had become as canvas, rough and dull and unable to feel anything of pleasure or of pain. She felt within her the welling of tears, the fullness in one's throat that can only be relieved through a sob, but it would not burst forth. She cried out, anguished, "Oh, I long to weep!"

Mr Darcy appeared, summoned by the sound of her scream. "You cannot cry," he informed her. "Even your loudest screams are muted if they are heard at all. In fact, I count it a blessing that we can hear one another's voices."

She wiped her face again, though no tears nor wetness were present. "Yes, well, you will need to do more than censure me before I count it a blessing to hear your voice," she told him. "What is this about? You speak in truth, I daresay, and we are somehow entrapped in a painting. But how? Why?"

"The how of it all I cannot say," he said. "As for the why , I am afraid it is entirely my own doing. Would you like to hear about it?"

"I suppose you might as well tell me. What else have I to occupy my time?"

"Very good," he said. After a short pause, he added, "Before I begin this strange tale, I must acknowledge—you have me at a disadvantage."

"How so?"

"You know my name, and I do not know yours."

"It is not my habit to introduce myself to strange gentleman although in cases such as these, we may be forgiven for disregarding the conventions of society." She offered a stiff sort of curtsey. "Miss Elizabeth Bennet, of Longbourn in Hertfordshire."

"Longbourn?" He appeared to be thinking. "I cannot say I have ever heard of any Bennets or Longbourn. You are a gentleman's daughter, then?"

She rolled her eyes or felt like she did. "You would deny my society if I was not?"

"No," he said. "I am only asking."

"Suppose I meant that I was a servant of Longbourn? The daughter of the steward perhaps?"

He frowned, flinching at that. He was as she supposed, haughty and arrogant due to his position, despite the fact that he had abused it abominably. She sighed, thinking that time would draw long indeed if he were to persist in such condescending ways.

"I would be surprised indeed to learn that the servants of Longbourn from Hertfordshire could find themselves in Derbyshire on holiday."

"That is true enough. In any case, my father is a gentleman, so you may assure yourself, sir, that you have not wasted your time in speaking to one who is not worthy of it. You are a gentleman, I am a gentleman's daughter."

"I see," he said contemplatively. "And your father…is he a good man? Is he honourable and just?"

Elizabeth thought for a moment. "Yes, I believe that he is. He is not always exceedingly attentive to his duty, but he does no harm to those in his care."

Mr Darcy nodded. After a moment's pause, he said, "Come to the window. Do you see that building?"

Elizabeth did as bid, noting that dusk had begun to gather in the outer world. There was, at a distance, a ramshackle cottage. The roof had collapsed and the timbers appeared burnt. There were stringy, mean-looking vines which overgrew many sections of it. "I see it, yes."

"That was once the house of Pemberley's steward, Mr Robert Wickham. The tale of the curse that is upon me does not begin there, but it was certainly stirred up within its walls."