Page 106 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
“I understand now,” I whispered. “You know the end approaches.”
The sky turned fiery with sunset and faded to silver dusk. I went up to my parents’ room.
Papa rubbed the bed beside him with a shaky hand, and I sat close to him.
“I wish to understand what happened in Derbyshire,” I said.
“Perhaps we can explain it to each other,” he said, his dry humor sharp even with a weak voice. “I shall tell my side first. Colonel Forster arrived the day before me and made inquiries about certain friends of Wickham. Gambling acquaintances, to be blunt. Within an hour, he received a remarkable visit from a gentleman.”
“Mr. Darcy,” I said. This much I had guessed.
“Yes. Mr. Darcy spent some time ascertaining the colonel’s purpose and credentials, then revealed he knew the whereabouts of Wickham and Lydia. He had, in fact, already confronted Wickham in very strong terms.”
“Why?” I asked. This was my real question.
My father pondered me for a good half minute, as if the answer hung in my eyes, then continued, “I arrived the next morning and met both Wickham andMr. Darcy. Mr. Darcy and I spent a day and a half together, including a late night where we spoke at length between bouts of negotiation with Wickham. And between my arguments with Lydia, whom I found greatly changed, and not for the better.”
Papa took my hand. “Mr. Darcy, to my surprise, is a man who draws confidences. We spoke earnestly, and I found him principled and of remarkable consequence. Wickham, of course, is his opposite. Wickham had thought up a variety of selfish demands before he would marry Lydia, mostly escaping debts which added to a formidable sum. But the great challenge was his obsession with binding. This, even though it was grotesquely evident that he and Lydia traveled with unfettered intimacy.”
“Then how could they have bound?” Everything I knew said it was impossible.
“You may, because of your proximity, not appreciate how exceptional it was that your mother and I bound a firedrake with so little marriage gold. The Bennet wyves have an extraordinary history of binding, as does your mother’s maternal line. I shared this with Wickham, although I suspect he knew, and that was what drove his interest in our family. But that alone would have been insufficient, had not Mr. Darcy provided his own extraordinary incentive in the form of marriage gold.” Papa licked chapped lips and shook his head in slow disbelief. “I lifted the chest myself, and it was the weight of a good-sized goose. I would hazard there were more than five hundred guineas.”
“Ofmarriage gold?” Five hundred guineas in any form was a large sum. In marriage gold, it was worth twenty times that, and all the value lost after the wedding. And this from a man who, for reasons I did not understand, had renounced marriage gold for himself and his sister. “Why would he do that?”
“I think you know. You have a part in this, Elizabeth. Will you confide in your father?”
There was so much to say. What spilled out was simple. “I care for Mr. Darcy. He told me to leave and never return.” Tears splashed down my cheeks. “We did not quarrel. He… something frightens him.”
My father stroked his thumb once over each cheek, wiping my tears away. “The only thing to frighten a man like Mr. Darcy is fear for those he loves.”
Papa wore a ring to commemorate his wedding, what was called a posy ring, plain gold with verse inscribed inside, although it was a family heirloom and too worn to read. He pulled it off and pressed it into my palm.
“Mr. Darcy loves you, Lizzy. It is plain on his face every time he speaks yourname, which he did at every excuse he could invent. But he is captive to some past torment. We spoke frankly in our long night—” His voice cut off as his fingers clenched, driving the heavy, warm circle of his ring into my skin. He drew a hoarse breath. “My dear Lizzy. Of all my daughters, I have worried most for your happiness. I could not imagine what man could earn your respect as a husband. I have met such a man, if you resolve to have him. I could not part with you to anyone less worthy. Carry this ring as my blessing, if I cannot deliver it otherwise. Now, fetch Jane for me if you can, and my wyfe, and your sisters. And it would be best to call for Mr. Jones, also.”
I ran to find Mary and asked her to help Jane. I found Mamma and Kitty and sent them up. Last, I dashed through the laundry and scullery before I found Mrs. Hill with the gardener and asked her to summon Mr. Jones.
I ran back up the stairs, puffing, and into my parents’ room.
My mother was collapsed on my father’s chest, shaking with silent sobs. Mary and Kitty were curled around her, and Jane standing with grieved, distant calm.
“Papa?” I said uncertainly. His head had fallen back on the pillow, eyes staring sightlessly. I walked a step, and another, and touched my mother’s shoulder. Surrounded by the weeping of my sisters, I felt grief rack my mother’s body.
Outside the manor, a keening cry climbed, ascendant and strange—the inhuman mourning of our drake. And even as the finality of loss ripped my heart, I knew. This was the moment when we would keep or lose Longbourn.
“Mamma,” I said, “you must hold our drake. If he leaves, Longbourn will be taken from us. You must do it now. Or all will be lost.” I hugged her close. I whispered. I cried. She shook and wailed in my arms.
I staggered downstairs, the walls and steps swimming behind tears, and out the front door.
Our firedrake was stretched high on his perch, head lifted to call his mourning song to the darkening sky. His wings spread as I approached, ribbed and huge.
“You must stay,” I begged. “Please.”
His wings arched, gathering air for flight.
I cast my mind to him and struck a crystal wall of resistance. He screeched savagely. Metal shrieked and sparked as the iron perch bent in his claws like a blade of grass in a fist.
“Stay,” I said and pressed my will. The crystal wall was unyielding, cold and defiant, a castle erected to block me.
