Anne laughed softly. “No, neither of my parents. I saw entirely too much of their advice in my waking hours. I see… well… mostly I see Lady Anne.” at which point she blushed furiously, as if she were stealing something precious from her cousin.
“Do not look so concerned. I mostly saw my mother or Lady Matlock, but rarely the last few years. One could argue my mother came to you because she found me a hopeless case.”
Everyone laughed at that.
Jane said, “People do not talk about this sort of thing, mostly because they believe others will think them daft. None of this should leave the carriage.”
Everyone nodded, so Jane continued, “I know my sister Lizzy sees such things when she is distressed, and probably other times I do not know about. It has happened rarely, but there have been instances when she thought three or four people were all yelling at her at once. It is disconcerting—and she would bemostunhappy to learn I shared it.”
“Have you witnessed this?” Darcy asked. “Can you tell when it is happening?”
Jane wondered what he did to awaken Lizzy’s ghosts, because it took quite a lot. “I saw it once, but I shall not describe the scene, as it was unnerving. Her eyes lose focus and stare at the spot where all her visions are speaking instead of the person she is with.”
Darcy blew out a breath. “I have visions as well, though not as disconcerting as that. My mother used to give me good advice regularly, but as I grew older, and frankly less sensible, she appeared less often. I had not seen her for years until—”
Jane started forward in her seat and said quite enthusiastically, “You saw her standing between Ellen and I, did you not?”
Darcy smiled at the memory. “I did. It was wonderful and sad at the same time. It struck me that you two could pass for sisters.”
Anne exclaimed, “Yes! I never put it together, but it makes sense.”
Jane smiled happily. “Well then, Mr Darcy. If I am to be the new vision of your mother, perhaps you should tell me the words she tried to pound into your head. Perhaps we can make a dent.”
Darcy laughed, wondering how so much laughter and heartache could exist in his breast at the same time. “I shall tell you the exact words she said there beside the fallen log.”
He prepared himself, pitched his voice slightly higher for effect, and repeated his mother’s long-ago words: “One of these days, my son, one of these days, some woman is going to pull you off that high horse of yours,”then continued the rest of the speech, culminating in, “I only hope whoever brings about your reckoning will be able to see my real son before ‘tis too late.”
All three women stared, mouths agape, so Darcy resumed his own voice.
“So, you see, it was fate. My mother spent all those years counselling Anne, while waiting for my heart and my mind to accept her word, and then naturally came to see me at the exact moment when I could identify the four horsewomen.”
Nobody spoke for a moment, until finally Ellen said, “You’re one short.”
He gave a grim chuckle. “She is apparently touring the northern counties with her new friends. She may very well pull me all the way from my high horse to my grave.”
Jane, having leaned back against the squabs, came forward to take Mr Darcy’s hands once more. She hesitated, as if expecting a vision of her aunt to chastise her for her utter lack of propriety, or perhaps her mother’s ghost to urge her to greater feats of daring; she was about an inch short of compromise.
Holding his hands, she asked, “Why did she leave, Mr Darcy? What did you say to her?”
Darcy stared down at their clasped hands and grimaced. “I made the worst proposal in the history of the English language. I told her that I admired and loved her, then asked for her hand in marriage after having insulted her abominably.”
Jane gasped, and a slow smile spread across her face. “And how did she react?”
Darcy looked at her intently. “She… well… now that you mention it—”
“Yes, yes. Remember her exact words and manner. It may be important.”
Darcy chuckled, though with little humour. “The words are easy enough. She said not a word. Not. One. Word.She walked from the parlour, donned her bonnet, took up her reticule and pelisse,ranto Hunsford Village, and boarded the first coach.”
Jane gasped, though not in surprise; it was the sudden realisation that everything now made perfect sense. “Go on. That is not all.”
“I did not piece it together until you mentioned her ghosts. For what seemed hours, but was likely a minute or two, she stared fixedly at a spot some five feet to my left and gasped several times.”
Jane nodded. “Too many ghosts… It is odd though… very odd… completely unexpected.”
Darcy squeezed the hands still held in his. “What is odd?”
Jane shook her head to clear it before continuing.
