Page 76 of Bitten By Mr. Darcy
She still visited her loved ones for a decade, always in the darkness of course, but she was able to see her sisters’ children grow. She was there in the evening after her Papa’s funeral, and then, five years later, at her mother’s, too.
The connection with her life faded out slowly. It was not as if she disappeared from anyone’s lives, it was only that they all grew more preoccupied with their own lives and more accustomed to the absence of Elizabeth.
It was only Jane who knew.
Jane and her husband stayed constant in their lives, coming to visit rather often.
Once, she and Jane had a conversation. It was over ten years after the initial turning. Jane was in her forties at this point, and Elizabeth, though young-looking, could still simply be explained away as well-preserved.
“If I asked you,” said her sister, “would you do it to me?”
Elizabeth was shocked at this. “You would wish it?”
“Answer the question, Lizzy,” said Jane, laughing.
Elizabeth thought about it and then said, “Yes. Of course, yes. I would have you with me always if I could, and if you wished this, I would.”
Jane let out a breath. “Oh.”
“This is not what you wished to hear?” said Elizabeth.
“It’s only that it seems there are so few of you, of vampires,” said Jane. “And it seems to me rather odd. It seems everyone who finds out would be clamoring to be made immortal. What do we all want besides to live forever?”
“True,” said Elizabeth. “But there was a time when I was not sure I wanted it. I could have been made a vampire at twenty years of age and remained fresh-faced for all time. But I delayed and delayed, for it seemed so final, you know? And it was frightening. And I… I don’t know. I think people think they want it, but when it comes down to changing yourself into somethingunnatural, it is difficult to truly do it. My husband was turned without being asked. I think that is the way of it much of the time.”
“Yes, you are right. Even now, even with your offering it to me, something in me shies from it.”
“Your husband would be horrified.”
“Oh, yes, he is quite adamant that your husband is a demon on earth,” said Jane, laughing.
“One that he agrees to visit and to socialize with, of course,” said Elizabeth, laughing also.
“I have pointed out the irony, and he has nothing to say for himself,” said Jane. “But it is not only him. There are my own children. I suppose you wouldn’t also turn them?”
“Well,” said Elizabeth. “When would you wish them turned? And what of their children, and what of—”
“Yes, it becomes unwieldy rather quickly, doesn’t it?” Jane bit down on her lip very hard.
“It does,” agreed Elizabeth.
They never spoke of it again.
Jane died some forty years later. Elizabeth was there, but no one knew who she was. She used another name, calling herself Clara, saying that she was a Bennet cousin, and everyone said she looked just like the Bennets, did she not, and that oh, yes, they did remember meeting her in years passed and how was her mother? It was as her husband had said. People were eager to deceive themselves.
But Jane knew who she was.
“You are missing it, Lizzy,” said Jane to her, her eyes filmy, her face a spiderweb of lines, her hair white. “You are missing all of it.”
“All of what?” said Lizzy.
“Life,” said Jane. “You haven’t lived these last years, you have just existed. You may have more time, but you will never really be alive.”
It cut her.
After Jane was gone, after the body was still and cold and lifeless, after Elizabeth could not attend the funeral, for it was during daylight, she spoke of it to her husband.
“She is bitter, for her time is at an end,” her husband said. “You must pay it no mind.”
