Still, if Harriet was determined to go to London… “I am sure Mr. Darcy would host you at Chathford. You would look very fine coming and going each day.” Harriet shook her head. This was like our last argument, so I tried a fresh approach. “You are a gentleman’s daughter. You must support your claim to that station. There will be plenty of people who take pleasure in degrading you.”
“I feel only affection for Mr. Woodhouse. No insult will take that from me.” She gave me a warm smile. “And they cannot degrade my love for you, Emma. But Mr. Darcy has closed Chathford. I do not think he will reopen it.”
Harriet and Lucy went, chatting comfortably, to find the other ladies. Mr. Knightley and I were left alone to wait. He had dressed with particular care today. Every button and seam of his charcoal calling dress was perfect.
He touched a black ribbon dangling from the mantle. “Pemberley is a house of mourning. You have no such duty. You should return to your life.”
“I would mourn at Hartfield, also.”
Mr. Knightley snorted. “Darcy wanders these halls like a tall, dark mop.”
That image was so perfect that I laughed. “He is only a mop on his bad days. But Georgiana will make him cut his hair.”
“What if life drew you out?” More softly, he said, “What if a proper life were offered to you?”
I imagined him admiring a neighbor’s orchard from his little room in Chelsea. A gentleman musician could use a proper life. But Mr. Knightley faced one barrier in society already. He should not be ridiculed for a wyfe who failed to bind and who stared at loose threads.
The benefit of being known as a selfish and thoughtless creature is that no one suspects you have other motives. I smoothed the black silk of my gown and did not meet his eyes. “There is nothing improper about my life.”
“No, of course not.” He sighed. “You look handsome and well.”
I swallowed against a swell of feelings, but I knew this was best.
50
LOCHBAIRN
MARY
Mary Bennet’s journal,4th day of February, 1813:
My pen catches on the paper, the tip roughened and split. These tracings blotch and skip, betraying the clefts in my thoughts and the hurt in my heart.
Dearest Lizzy. For all your Artemisia bravery, I never thought you could fall. You seemed destined to forge bolts and witticisms until you tottered about, surrounded by irreverent grandchildren and doted upon by all. Not least your younger sister who, shy and envious, never found words to express her adoration.
You and Papa would both mock a house embalmed in mourning. I have not your gift to rouse others from despair, though time slowly serves. But I must rouse myself, for when you sank, fate assigned purpose to me.
The breaking of Fènnù’s mind—called ‘the fracture’ by draca—unleashed more than a mad dragon. Before that day, thirty years before the Christian era, there is no record of foul crawlers, those poisonous vermin called ‘draca bane.’ The influence of their venom upon draca and wyves are hints of their importance. Others lie in Georgiana’s vision of the swelling storm. So, I must breach the shroud of Pemberley and go forth.
I put aside my pen. Nine weeks. Lizzy would laugh at me. Why do you wait?
Pemberley’s edition ofDebrett’s Dracal Lineagewas old, thefrontispiece stamped 1805, but my interest was old as well. I flipped to the page for “Wyves of Surrey.” Emma’s maternal line was prominent; her grandmother bound the 1764 wyvern. But it was the introductory passage, “Lore and Myth,” that my ribbon marked:
As is common, Surrey’s regional folklore revolves around an ancient wyfe attributed with supernatural powers and wisdom. Inevitably, these tales are kin to myths of fairies and demons, but the Surrey mythology is unusual for its mundanity. Rather than miracles, it celebrates a 1557 royal commission by Queen Mary I to investigate a unique magical object—an amulet of dragon scale.
No corroborating record exists in the royal archives, so this most cherished achievement of the ‘the Witch of Woodhouse’ must be gently placed in the book of fable.
I had asked Emma, of course. Was there an heirloom on her father’s side? An amulet or necklace? She shook her head: Nothing.
Fang, scale, and claw. The first was sunk in the unsoundable depths of Pemberley lake. The second had passed through Surrey. I had no hint of the third item, the claw, but if Mary Tudor’s thieving knights found two, why not three?
There was a knock at the open library door. Mrs. Reynolds, visibly disturbed, said, “Miss Bennet. If I may interrupt?”
“Yes?”
“Lord Wellington has called.” Her wrinkled fingers fretted. “I gather he wrote to inform Mr. Darcy that he would visit, but the master neglected to tell me. Mr. Darcy chooses not to see him, and Miss Darcy is out, walking for how long I do not know. Lord Wellington is an old family friend, so I thought… I feelyouare a proper mistress of Pemberley, madam, if you would greet him?”
That tribute from this dedicated woman, so dear to Georgiana, squeezed my heart between childish gratitude and a fear of exposure I could never truly banish.
