Chapter Seven
I dare say we have all forgotten my promise that this would be a novel that included most unusual circumstances.
With all of these discussions of marriages, adultery, greedy parents, and the raving death from fever in childbirth of a woman known to suffocate cats merely out of dislike for a ten-year-old girl — things ordinary, but unpleasant, except for the last which is rather unusual — you have likely forgotten my promise to tell you a strange tale. In remembering those sweet days of my first months in Pemberley, a time of great happiness and nostalgia for me, I have half forgotten what would be the sequel.
But now I shall regale you with a significant incident that occurred shortly after Mr. Darcy had delivered to me the tale of his wife's crimes, and the uncertainty in Cathy's parentage.
I wish I could tell you that Mr. Darcy was after my appeal to his good nature an entirely changed man in his treatment of his daughter — she had no other parent to whom he could give that burden, certainly none alive, so she must be his daughter.
He did make more of an effort to play with her, and to praise her, and to speak to her more than was necessary for him to perceive how the course of her education continued.
But… I now understood, though it pained me, that he could not find real love for the child. I thought less of Mr. Darcy for that failure, and I felt absurdly and ridiculously dejected to see it — as though I had hoped that my influence upon him would entirely change emotions that were deep set and rationally based.
One night about two weeks later, when I had fallen asleep… a windy night, a storm thundered outside. The lightning cracked above us. And all occurring in an old manor house where portions of the building dated back three centuries.
Quite the proper setting for such events.
I heard, as if in my dreams, that booming laugh. But instead of echoing down from the tower into the lower reaches of the house, it seemed to come from outside my door. From within my room.
I thought I dreamt.
It was as if a malevolent presence had entered my room, and caused me to shiver in terror. I heard, as though in my bones, through the echoes of my dreams, that booming laugh, as though it were in my own room, or as though the sound of the laugh echoed through the keyhole of my door.
I startled awake.
No one was there. I was alone.
The night was eerie and quiet. Then a strong gust of wind buffeted the windows, rattling them, startling me. My heart raced, stuttered.
And then quiet, again.
Something was wrong.
I felt deep in my soul that something was amiss, as if a supernatural force was present with me — a good spirit, ordering me to arise.
I did so.
And when I stood up, my heart leapt to my throat in terror.
My door stood ajar.
No doubt, my calming, ordinary minded mind reassured me, no doubt you did not close the latch wholly, and the changing pressure of air due to the wind pushed it open, and it was this which jerked you awake.
A calming supposition, had I believed it.
But my heart still raced, my throat still clenched, and my stomach was solid as a lump of rocks.
I cautiously moved, stepping on my tiptoes, out of fear of making a noise which would alert… alert I knew not who. I stepped out into the hallway, the family rooms were near me. I walked quietly, in the eerily lit hallway, just a hint of the moonlight reaching from the windows in the gallery. I began to fear a more prosaic fate, that I'd wake the family or other servants, when I stubbed my toe against something and cried out, or knocked over an unseen piece of statuary.
I moved cautiously on my toes, feeling rather silly.
But that sensation that something was amiss remained with me.
My heart yet raced.
And then I smelled it.
Smoke.
The door… in my rush of terror I could not recognize whose door… the door stood ajar. Like my own had.
I heard, from the distance, from her tower, Grace Poole's booming laugh once more; it had a different tone, malevolent and satisfied. And it chilled me more than the night cold or the fear chilled me. I was awake now.
I pushed the door open.
It was Mr. Darcy's door, and the draperies around his bed were alight. He moaned and turned to and fro, caught in the grip of a tormenting dream. In the flickering light, as the flames leapt over the drapes, I saw him. The image burned deep into my mind, part of the view occluded by the robe he wore to bed, but his well-formed chest, that of an active man and showing some hair, was visible, and upon his head the dark locks fell in each direction.
I did not pause to admire, consumed by fear for him.
"Mr. Darcy!" I exclaimed, "Mr. Darcy!" I ran up to the side of the bed, but flinched back from the burning drapes.
He did not stir, though the danger grew moment by moment, as the fire became hotter, and the sheets upon the bed began to catch fire.
I tried to shake him and pull him from the dangerous bed, ignoring the heat that reddened my own arms. But he did not do more than moan and make a slurred grunt to be left alone. I pushed him again, and again, adrenaline fueling my terror, but to no avail. I did not have the strength to pull him, a large, tall and well-muscled man from his bed. I cast my eyes about desperately, looking for any inspiration of how to rouse him and save him from this danger.
Terror energized my limbs.
The ewer and basin of water for the night sat against the wall, and I grabbed and picked them up, one after another, tossing them onto the burning drapes. They did service in dampening the flames, but the more significant goodness was that the cold water splashed upon him woke Mr. Darcy, as he thrashed about in bed, suddenly shouting about being drowned, as I launched the second container onto the flames.
Startling awake, Darcy realized the danger, and with quick movements as though he was ever ready to be attacked, even in his bed, he pulled the curtains down from around the bed, ripping the fine silk, and he bashed them repeatedly against the floor, until they were extinguished.
The whole, from my entering his room, to the extinguishing of the fire cannot have taken an entire minute of time.
Even now, even now in my memory it seems like it had been an endless period. That night yet feels like a vast space of time, as though it had taken an hour, or a day, rather than just a minute.
Upon the fire being out, the two of us stood together in the dark, so close that I fancied I could feel a vibration in the air emanating from his body to my own. Mr. Darcy drenched in his dripping robe. "Miss Bennet, Miss Bennet, by Jove, is that you, Miss Bennet? What happened! Who is here — is anyone present besides you?"
"I will get a candle — but you must get up. Someone… I believe someone lit your curtains aflame."
"The deuce? Lit my curtains aflame! — wait. A minute so I can change into drier clothing. Aha, there, my gown. Now go and fetch the candle. Quick about it, Miss Bennet. Quick about it."
I ran to the gallery where there was a solitary candle on the shelf that was kept burning all through the night, in case a member of the family wished to root about in the dark. I fetched it and returned to Mr. Darcy's room.
He immediately took the flickering light from my hand and held it high, so he could survey his bed, blackened and scorched, the floor covered in water.
"Well. Well, well." He clucked his tongue. "Who did this? How could it have happened?"
I told him what I knew, about the laugh I heard, about waking being certain something was amiss, smelling the smoke, and rushing in, and the difficulty I had waking him, and how I had used the ewer of water to attempt to silence the fire. I became slowly aware as I spoke that I stood in his room, the room of a man who I could not help but find attractive and fascinating, and that I stood with him in my nightgown, while he stood in a dressing gown.
In the dim candlelight I could see again that tuft of hair around his chest, and the muscled calves of his legs.
Mr. Darcy listened to me gravely, his face though showed much more of worry than of surprise.
When I finished he did not say anything for a long moment. "I shall take the candle with me — shall you be sufficiently at peace with no light?"
I nodded.
"Remain here. Use my cloak by the mantelpiece to cover yourself so you remain warm. I shall return quickly, after assuring myself that Georgiana and Catherine are well and determining matters."
I now had a new fear. "Surely they could not — but their doors are closed."
"Yes. Yes." He sighed. "I shall still make sure — remain here, Miss Bennet. You shall be safer, I judge, than in your own room."
"Is there yet danger?" I asked, my heart skipping beats.
"I do not know, I suspect not."
And with that Mr. Darcy left, stepping softly, using the balls of his bare feet to keep from making noise. I trembled as I waited, and I thought quite seriously of ignoring his order, and going myself to see if Cathy was well. Surely though Mrs. Poole could not have any desire to hurt her or Georgiana. And after this, I was certain Mr. Darcy must dismiss her, and that would be the end of the booming laugh.
It seemed a long time that I awaited there, and I shivered as the minutes ticked past.
Mr. Darcy could have died if I had not followed my impulse and risen from the bed. He would have been burned horribly.
I sat in total darkness, straining for any sound, and above all for a repetition of that horrid booming laugh. The nighttime hooting of an owl made me flinch and shiver.
But there was no repetition of the laugh.
Then right as I stood, unable to keep myself still any longer in this fear, and intending to follow him, though I did not know where he had gone, I heard footsteps returning.
My heart leapt to my throat, and my eyes wildly sought around, seeing nothing in the deep darkness. I wondered if I could find the poker if I sought for it blindly, and what I might do with it if I did find it.
But as the light of the candle entered the room I could see it was Mr. Darcy.
He was pale and of a gloomy countenance.
"Are they well? Georgiana and Cathy."
Darcy nodded and he settled his candle down on a dresser. "They are undisturbed. I have determined everything. Much as I had expected."
"What happened?"
Darcy made no reply to me; rather he stood there, his arms folded over his chest, studying the burned sheets of the bed. I thought I saw flickering in the light again that look, a look which had been with him more seldom of late, that look of a man trapped by forces beyond what he could hope to contain.
But then he smiled thinly, and the look was gone.
"So tell me again, everything you saw. There was no person you saw when you entered my room?"
"No, sir — though I did notice the candle upon the ground that had been used to light the bed."
"Yes. But no person? You said you heard an odd laugh perhaps, a laugh whilst you slept in your room."
"And my door was open."
"Your door was open!" At this Mr. Darcy's expression became grave and serious again.
"Perhaps the wind blew it open — but no… That is not probable."
"Hardly. And you heard that strange laugh. You have heard the laugh before, I dare say."
"Yes, sir, it is Grace Poole's laugh. She lives in the great tower. An odd person."
"Ha! You have said it. A most odd and strange person. Well, well. Grace Poole. Yes, you have guessed it. Now, I must beg you, Miss Bennet, to say nothing of this to anyone beyond yourself — no one at all. I will explain to everyone else a version of what happened that shall satisfy them. You must return to bed now. It is late. In only a few hours the servants will wake."
"Yes." I swallowed, wondering again at this mystery. "Why do you not tell everyone what happened?"
He laughed again, bitterly and full of unhappiness. "A question I oft ask myself. But then it is not a matter whose details I can divulge to you either — I dare say I do not wish to. Good night, Miss Bennet."
"Good night, Mr. Darcy." I turned to walk from the room.
"Wait! Wait! Not so fast. Do not quit me so quickly."
"No?"
I turned to him. His eyes were shadowed by the candlelight, but they glistened with an even warmer feeling than before.
He took my hand and pressed it against his naked breast. "Miss Bennet. Miss Bennet, my life. You have saved my life. You must let me… my heart is full; I cannot speak on all I wish. But you saved my life, and from an excruciating death."
"I am sure you would have woken on your own."
"Hardly likely, not without terrible burns. Perhaps the whole house would have come down with it. You saved my life," he repeated looking at me with that tender gaze. "I… I owe you everything."
"No debt, Mr. Darcy, no debt. We are friends. We are dear friends, and between friends there is no debt."
"Perhaps… I must do something… I am glad. I am glad in my heart to owe you such a debt. Were it any other, anyone but you, Elizabeth, I would hate to be indebted. But when it is you… I felt it the first time I saw you, upon that road, I glanced at your face, and my heart swore to me you would one day do me a great favor."
"And you have done me a great favor, Mr. Darcy, but you must let me go."
I felt the impropriety of every further second which I stayed longer in his room, both of us in a state of undress. Situations such as this were the sort of things that young girls were warned of. His hands were so warm, and his voice so soft, and I could not wish to be absent from him. Not when he had just called me by my Christian name.
"Must I let you go? Miss Bennet… Elizabeth — I can no longer think of you by that distancing name. That impersonal formalism. 'Miss Bennet' — you have saved my life. Elizabeth. And I… And perhaps…" Though his eyes were still on me, still caressing my face, though his hands still warmly held my own, when he continued I thought that he spoke to another, to one who was not me at all. He whispered softly, "Perhaps, perhaps she might also save my soul."
"What… what can you ever mean?" I breathed out. My heart raced, fast as it had when I smelled the smoke, but there was something euphoric in the way my stomach flipped and trembled.
His lips were pale and red in the candle's light.
He held my hands lightly, and my gaze firmly, and for a wild crazed second I imagined he might kiss me.
But when he warmly bent his head, he kissed me upon the forehead, not the lips. He released my hands, but kissed one of them as well. "To bed, Elizabeth. To bed, and till the morrow."