“What? Oh. She has planned this demonstration to garner my attention; I feel that it would be the worst thing in the world for me to reward her with it. I had best stay back—she doubtless believes I am here, but I shall not confirm it for her.”
“That is probably wise. How did she even accomplish all this? Why did no one stop her?”
“Probably using the excuse that it was all part of the entertainment. If she claimed it with enough confidence and brought enough hired help of her own, people would have believed her. But what is she up to? She does not plan to simply stare down at us, I would wager.”
“I daresay she will have barricaded herself in there—they will not find it easy to extract her,” Elizabeth told him. “Wait…who—whatis that?”
Six men, dressed all in black, had paraded in amongst the children carrying what, at first, appeared to be a prone, unconscious man. Quickly however, Elizabeth amended her first impression; it was not human at all, but a sort of manikin—a stuffed scarecrow garbed in the fine clothing of a gentleman, with a garishly painted pasteboard face.
“The mystery of my stolen clothing, solved,” Darcy growled.
The gathered crowd, plainly believing as Mr Bingley had initially done, that these odd happenings were part of the entertainments, had flocked to the terrace as an audience congregating for a play. Thankfully, there were a great many who had not realised what was happening outside, for the music continued indoors. Darcy and Elizabeth moved down the steps, much nearer the children, but still in the shadows.
At that moment a shrill whistle came from the temple’s tower; as if it were some sort of signal, the children stopped their dancing, and the men in black, their ghastly figure held aloft, stepped closer to the flames. The small figure staring down from the tower threw back the white veil covering its face.
“’Tis Anne all right,” Darcy murmured.
“What is that thing she is holding?” Elizabeth asked, for the woman had drawn some sort of instrument to her lips.
“I think it a hailing trumpet,” Darcy replied, staring up at her intently. “Like they use on ships, to amplify the sound of command even during the great noise of battle.”
As they watched, they saw Bingley, the colonel and the earl exit the lower level of the tower; obviously, they had not been successful in reaching Miss De Bourgh. Mr Bingley dashed off towards the house while the earl and Colonel Fitzwilliam sped off in an opposite direction.
“I suppose she means to have her say, no matter what,” Elizabeth remarked.
“She means to ruin herself before the entire world,” Darcy muttered.
“I do not know about that—you all know it to be her mostly because we were expecting it to be her. Despite the crowd out here, most are still dancing within.” But at that moment, Miss de Bourgh began to speak into her trumpet.
Whatever the instrument’s utility during battle, the sounds that emerged were not all that distinct, shouted from a gothic tower two storeys above the ground. Still, Elizabeth heard her well enough.
“Mourn with me the heart’s futile shame
An innocence, rashly tossed away
By man’s fickle passion spurned?—
Watch it fired, vainly on display.
From love, to smoke and ash and coals it burns
And holds lost joy forever on its flame.”
She gave a cackling, witchy sort of laugh, and the men tossed the effigy into the flames. It must have been smeared with something highly combustible, like pitch, for it burst immediately into a spectacular conflagration.
There were a few gasps. “Die, dreams, die!” shouted the figure in the tower. “Die, Fitzwill?—”
Elizabeth immediately began clapping and cheering, as though this was the entertainment everyone believed. The rest of the ‘audience’ quickly joined in, although there was something of confusion as to what it all meant. Still, it was a jovial crowd, who had partaken liberally from Miss Bingley’s refreshments. And though Miss de Bourgh continued with her terrible poetry, and Elizabeth could make out her name as well as others of the family, it mostly sounded like a disjointed howl through the yelling and cheering—which she and Darcy encouraged every time it seemed to be fading.
Finally, Miss de Bourgh seemed to realise that her demonstration was not amounting to anything romantic or dramatic, either one. With a theatrical gesture, she tossed some papers into the air, where they were, thankfully, consumed by the flames. Plainly abandoning the idea of poetry, she began yelling into the trumpet. “Eliza—” she began, but her shouts tore into incoherent pieces as the swirling smoke from the fire filled her tower room at last, and the only sounds to emerge were viscous coughs and gasps from above.
43
THE LAST DANCE
Lady Matlock and Miss Bingley appeared at the top of the terrace—Miss Bingley wild-eyed, Lady Matlock with pinched lips. Elizabeth noted Mr Bingley materialising from whence he had disappeared, racing back towards the temple, clutching a ring of keys. Several men carrying pails, the colonel amongst them, hurried towards the bonfire itself; the men responsible for the effigy disappeared into the night. Likewise, the children scattered, tearing off their tunics as they went, probably to be less observable to potential captors.
Darcy turned towards the crowd. “Quite a dazzling poetry reading,” he called in his carrying voice. “Miss Bingley, I congratulate you on your entertaining addition to the supper dance. However, now that it is over, shall we return to the ballroom?”
