Page 74 of Miss Bennet's Dragon
I began by rereading his insulting excuse for interfering between Jane and Mr. Bingley. That always left me vexed, so it was a firm footing from which to proceed.
What came next depended on my mood. Because I was in our garden, I reread the account of Mr. Wickham. I had not read this the first day, and it was remarkable.
When Mr. Darcy inherited, he granted the old Briton villages within Pemberley’s borders autonomy over their affairs. That eliminated the administrative position Mr. Wickham had filled for a year. In compensation, Mr. Darcy gave Mr. Wickham a generous bequest.
Those funds were squandered. Mr. Wickham then demanded more and more money until Mr. Darcy discovered disturbing abuses during Mr. Wickham’s period of authority and cut him off.
But the conclusion was more shocking, and it rang of truth given my own confrontation when I caught Mr. Wickham with Lydia, a few paces from where I now sat:
“Wickham, angry and desperate, then exploited my sister Georgiana’s lifelong affection by persuading her to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse. I am happy that I owe my knowledge of this to herself. Georgiana was unwilling to grieve a brother whom she looked up to as a father. She acknowledged the whole to me before it was too late.
My confrontation with Wickham was intense, and more than once threatened violence. Wickham unquestionably sought both my sister’s fortune and revenge on me. But in the heat of argument, Wickham revealed a worse goal.
Wickham was obsessed with old myths of mystical power drawn from draca. He pursued marriage with Georgiana to achieve this. My father’s estate granted Georgiana a formidable stake of marriage gold—a provision that she and I have since chosen to dissolve. But with that, and because our mother and aunt both bound wyverns, it was assumed Georgiana would have a remarkable binding. And, as Wickham grew up intimately connected to our family, he was aware that Georgiana had other extraordinary abilities.”
At this point, I stopped reading in frustration.Whatextraordinary abilities? Mr. Rabb, the Pemberley gamekeeper, had said Miss Darcy could touch any draca. Was she like me? But my acquaintance with Mr. Darcy was irrevocably ended. I had no way to discover the truth.
And then there was their renunciation of marriage gold. I had no legitimate reason to wonder about this, but I was strongly curious.
I sighed and looked at Jane, who was seated beside me on the bench. “How shall I solve these riddles?”
After much coaxing, I had convinced Jane to come out into the sun. She was sallow-skinned, her eyes sunken and too bright. Her brow and cheekbones cast shadows on her wasted face.
Her eyes rose to meet mine, and she smiled. My breath caught.
“The moon will pull it.” She looked at the empty blue sky. “Oh. Gray. Charles, lost like a silver charm…” The rest was wisps of words. Her long fingers lifted to tangle in her yellow hair. She twisted, winding a strained ball, and began to keen in distress.
“Jane, darling. You must not.” I eased her hand into her lap, and she became quiet again.
“Lizzy?” Mary, holding the journal, had come from the back door. “I wish to speak before you go.”
I touched the bench beside me, and she sat, fiddling with the journal in which she had inserted many dark ribbons.
She opened a page marked with black satin. “This part: ‘Her wæs eac eorðstyrung on lak manegum stowum.’ I have determined it speaks of an earthquake at a lake. Later, it mentions the third lake. So, there is more than one…”
“Mary, you have told me this already.”
“I have?” Mary looked as tired as Jane, although for Mary it was too much worry and too little sleep.
“Yes. I am certain you have found every clue hidden in these pages. All you must do now is care for Jane until I return.” Mary nodded, and I hugged her close. “It will be fine. Wait and see.”
Mary hugged back hard, then grasped my shoulders so we faced each other. She had changed her hair while I was gone, wearing it down so it hung straight from her black bonnet to her shoulders. Once I had gotten over my surprise, I thought it pretty. It surrounded the warm brown of her eyes. But I had not said that to Mary, who likely wished to be shocking.
“Loch bairn,” she said intensely. “I wonder if we have overcomplicated the problem. That could be the name of a lake. Perhaps that is what you seek?”
“A Scottish lake? I fear my aunt and uncle do not intend to go all the way to Scotland.”
“Then go without them.”
“Mary!” I reproached. She raised an eyebrow, unflinching, and I sighed. “If Jane’s situation becomes so dire, I will, although I fear we will end this as social outcasts. But I would need more direction than ‘look in Scotland.’?” I paused. “There is another resource. If things become so dire. Pemberley has a collection of writing on draca.”
“Pemberley? Mr. Darcy’s estate?”
“Yes. He told me of it himself.”
“Derbyshire is north. Could you not visit on this tour?”
I gave a weak smile. “I cannot visit Pemberley.”
