Regular gowns were too irritating to her skin, so Elizabeth had taken to wearing a wrapper most of the day over the last week.
“It is coming in nicely, though it is very large.I cannot make out any particular design yet, but there is a rectangular structure here.”She touched the inside edge of Elizabeth’s shoulder blade.“Perhaps it is a building of some kind.Mayhap it is an image of London!”
Elizabeth scowled.“I do not care what it is anymore, I only wish it would stop itching!”
Jane gave her a sympathetic look, then gently pulled the wrapper up over her sister’s back.She took a pair of woolen socks from the drawer and pulled them over her hands, then began rubbing her sister’s skin in circular motions.“Does that help?”
“Oh, thank you, Janie!You are a saint among sisters!”
Elizabeth itched terribly for another month as her mark took shape.What Jane had originally thought to be a cityscape turned out to be an elaborate landscape that spanned the entire left side of Elizabeth’s back, from her shoulder blade down to her hip bone.The farthest edges reached in to her spinal cord and around along her ribs, nearly to her breast.
There was a beautiful forest along her side, in various shades of rich green, with a path running through it leading to a large house in the distance—the rectangular structure Jane had noticed at the top of the mark.The house had a rolling lawn in front and a steep ridge behind it.A stream of rich blue snaked around her rib cage nearly to the front of her body.A fawn drank at its banks and birds flew above near the crease of her arm.A colorful rose garden took up the center of the image and stood between the house and the forest.It was clearly a country estate of some sort, but no one recognized it, and the trees and steep ridge did not resemble the geography of Hertfordshire.
The last piece of the image to come in was low on her back, covering her hip and reaching to her buttock.In the forefront of the image, near her spine, a large oak stood in a clearing by the stream, a swing hanging from a branch.And there, right over the left dimple at the base of her spine, carved into the tree trunk was a crude heart with two sets of initials in it.
She knew ERB stood for Elizabeth Rose Bennet, but FGD was a mystery.
The general itchiness ended after six weeks, but it was a full nine months after her ceremony before the mark was complete.The colors were rich and lush, the textures intricate, the light and shadow masterfully done.The sheer size and scope of the mark was more than a little impressive.Mrs.Phillips said it must be a good sign, that such a mark must mean there was a very great love with a very great man in her future.Or with a groundskeeper, thought Elizabeth saucily, but she did not share her thoughts with her family.
Thankfully the mark was in such a location that she would not be expected to show it to all and sundry as Jane had.It was also easily covered with clothing.She had two gowns that showed the uppermost corner of the image, but it would be easy enough to have all her gowns in the future designed with concealing the mark in mind.
Christ’s College, Cambridge
Fitzwilliam Darcy struggled to pay attention to his tutor.His arm had been burning and itching for two days now, and the pain was more than a little distracting.He had thought it was a bite of some annoying pest, but he could not see a mark and there was no redness.The itch was not isolated to one small location.The entirety of his upper arm, from his elbow up onto his shoulder and wrapped around the back, itched like the dickens.
Finally, the lecture was complete and he made his way back to his rooms.He roomed with a distant cousin on his mother’s side, Reginald Digby, and he called for him as he entered.
“Reggie, what do you think this is?It will not stop burning!”
Reginald looked at Darcy’s upper arm carefully.“I cannot tell.It is red all over from you scratching at it.Best see the apothecary.”
Darcy sighed and huffed his annoyance, but he knew his cousin was right.God forbid he had some horrible infection that needed to be rooted out.Best to get it over with.
The apothecary saw him that very afternoon.The old man took Darcy right up to the window to see the irritation in the light.He turned his arm this way and that, poking at the flesh and pressing the red skin down until it appeared pale again.
“I think I see the problem, young man,” he said in a voice that creaked like old attic stairs.
“What is it?”asked Darcy, his voice laced with worry.
“You are coming into a soul mark.”
Darcy could only stare at him.
The old man looked right back, his eyes made large and owl-like by the spectacles he wore.
“Pardon me?”
“I said your soul mark is coming in.That is why it itches.It is a large one, and quite intricate I believe.That is good,” he said with a conspiratorial smile.“Those often lead to the best matches.”
Then the man winked at him.Winked!At Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.
“I cannot have a soul mark.”
“But you do.”
“I did not have a marking ceremony.”
“You have one just the same.”
