Page 47 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
Mrs. Bennet stayed and fussed at the other staff until they hurried one way or another. Then she dithered, visibly torn between following her daughters and some other purpose. At last, she came to me, her usual, flouncing smiles absent.
“Mr. Darcy, my daughter is not herself. What has happened to dear Lizzy?”
A mother deserved what truth I had. “Elizabeth has survived a trial I do not fully comprehend. It left her… haunted or possessed by memories of past great wyves.” Mrs. Bennet set her lips in a determined line as I continued, “Those women led violent lives, and their memories affect her. I brought her here because I hoped home would help her. And it has.Youhave helped. I thank you.”
“That is what homes are for,” Mrs. Bennet said briskly. She squeezed my arm. “And that is what husbands are for. Bless me, but Mr. Bennet always set me straight when I got in a flutter.”
The baby stirred grumpily in the washerwoman’s arms, and Mrs. Bennet took her. Jemma quieted while Mrs. Bennet adjusted her granddaughter’s knit cap. “The older one gets, the more one understands that young people are what matters. Lizzy’s home is with you, more than a silly old mother or an old, creaking house. You must care for her.”
Yuánchi had said almost the same thing:Save your wyfe. I cannot.
“I swear it,” I answered, and the words lodged in my heart.
Mrs. Bennet smiled, now her customary, bustling self. “I must go help Lizzy dress. Her hair is such a tangle!”
She passed the baby to Charles, who received his daughter with evident skill. Mrs. Bennet trotted up the stairs, and delighted feminine noises erupted. Charles and I exchanged the well-practiced glances of gentlemen captive to ladies on errands. He chose a comfortable chair, balancing Jemma on his knee and preparing for a wait.
The Scottish washerwoman had not curtsied to withdraw. Her fingers pinched nervously in her apron. “Begging your pardon, sir, but might I have a look at the dragon?”
I understood her nervousness. “He is safe to approach.”
“Aye, thank ye, sir,” she said, curtsying and hurrying out with such alacrity I wondered if I had misinterpreted her hesitation.
“The wyvern is prowling, too,” Charles observed good naturedly. “That beast follows Jemma like a puppy. Jane has to scold her to keep her out of the house—her claws slice the rugs to pieces. Everything is confused with Harriet gone. School children lurk in every cupboard, and I am useless at helping with them, as you could guess.”
After the dragons’ battles razed miles of London, Elizabeth had relocated the city school to the safer locale of Netherfield. That did not satisfy the headmistress, who resigned and fled even farther north, so Elizabeth chose Harriet Smith as her replacement. Miss Smith had proved herself efficient and unflappable, skills I had not recognized in the shy girl I first met in London.
However, a headmistress and her school were usually in the same spot.
“Miss Smith is gone?” I asked.
“Only for a week. She hired a teacher to help. I gather she heard from her long-lost mother down in Surrey, but you would have to ask Jane for the details. I cannot untangle all those Woodhouses and Smiths.”
Harriet’s mother. That would be earthshaking for Harriet; she had never known her.
Had Emma known when she departed to Surrey? I thought not. She acknowledged Harriet as her sister, accepting whatever scandal that caused. If Emma had expected to meet the woman who bore an illegitimate child with her father, she would have told us.
“Mrs. Bennet has been a godsend, though,” Charles continued, cradling the baby with one arm and stretching the other. “She takes Jemma every afternoon. You and I are lucky fellows to have such a mother-in-law.”
I found, with some surprise, that I agreed. Then I settled in another chair to wait.
The ladies returned.Lizzy was bathed, travel grime gone, and dressed in a white muslin country frock, the hems decorated with an oak-leaf pattern in green thread. I recognized the dress from an eternity ago when we had strolled through Longbourn’s gardens. Her dark brown hair was up, grown to a thick, less-than-fashionable mass, but utterly beautiful. She had found her boots, the brown leather well broken-in. Other than some peeling sunburn and the rose-colored blemish on her cheek, she looked her old self, although subdued.
The other ladies, though, were more than subdued. They were silent. Kitty cast nervous glances at her sister, then at me, then back.
Something had happened. Nothing dire or dangerous, just… unsettling. The dagger Gramr was visible, strapped to Elizabeth’s thigh, the shape more apparent under white cloth than it had been under Mary’s black gown.
Elizabeth walked directly to me. “We must go.” Perhaps unconsciously, she touched a finger to the blemish on her cheek. This would have been her first glimpse in a looking glass.
I wanted to ask “Go where?” but that seemed wiser without an audience, so I nodded and followed her to the front door.
Mrs. Bennet hugged her hard, then held her out at arm’s length. “You let Mr. Darcy take care of you, you hear me? And do not fly too high. I worry you will fall off.”
“I shall not,” Elizabeth said, and I wondered which statement she had answered. She held Jane, and they exchanged whispered words. Kitty handed her a hand-trimmed spring bonnet and received a wordless embrace in exchange, then Elizabeth returned the bonnet saying apologetically, “The wind.”
Outside, curious locals had gathered a hundred yards distant on the approach to the manor. Yuánchi waited impassively in a grassy area past the front gardens, a sightless god cloaked in mottled scarlet and ebony, his tail wrapped cat-like around his feet.
The Bingleys’ wyvern was perched on a sturdy fence and gleaming bright as a fresh-minted guinea. She launched with one powerful stroke of her wings andglided silently over our heads to land protectively by Mrs. Bennet, who was holding the baby.
