These Dreams: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

by Nicole Clarkston

  Darcy sighed and carefully eased himself to his feet. Wherever the man so eagerly desired to take him, it had to be better than the hold of this ship. He might be in a strange land and without resources or assistance, but beyond that door was light—the craving for which had nearly driven him mad and suffocated him in the darkness. Where there was light, there were people, and where there were people, he might find a friendly face to aid his plight. He grunted and bent his trembling knees to accommodate the faint rolling of the floor beneath his feet, then risked a step.

  He was not permitted to take another on his own. The seaman produced a flour sack, and the man in charge clasped Darcy’s arms behind him. “You must not struggle so, Senhor Darcy,” he admonished as the darkness descended once more. “I do not know when my master will choose to see you, but it will be much better for us both if you can still walk when he does.”

  ~

  Longbourn

  “Lizzy, there is something important I wish to ask you.”

  Jane Bennet had to compete for time with her sister of late. Elizabeth had flung herself into the management of the house, as their mother had been more occupied with wedding plans. Her free time was often spent instructing the unhappy Kitty in the household accounts and in music, for Elizabeth seemed to have determined that one, at least, of her younger sisters should have some claim to recommend her.

  When she was not so employed, she had discovered an intensified passion for walking out, and she would be away for hours together. Upon her return, she was nearly always secreted in a corner with a book, her head dipped behind it as a shield, and her hearing closed off to anyone else in the room. At night, she retired late and slept so poorly that Jane hated disturbing her, even in the privacy of their own bedchamber.

  At last, Jane had found her out by the drawing room window. Their mother had taken the carriage, along with Kitty and Mary, to call on Mrs Philips. Lydia remained, as always, in her room, and their father had locked the door to his library some while earlier. Elizabeth gazed in solitary reflection out the window, but only because her book lay finished beside her and a cold northern wind blew in the bitter months of winter, rendering a long walk impossible. She appeared deaf for a moment, but when Jane repeated her request for an audience, she gave a little start, and turned.

  “Oh, Lizzy!” Jane breathed. Elizabeth’s eyes still shimmered strangely, their soft glow only enhanced by the dark circles beneath them. “You look so weary! Dearest, I wish there were something I could do. Will you not allow me to send for Mr Jones?”

  Elizabeth swallowed forcibly, turning her face back to the window. “There is nothing anyone can do, Jane,” she whispered.

  “But you are not yourself! I know it has been hard for you, with my wedding to plan and Lydia’s… marriage. Most of the usual household affairs have been yours, with Mama occupied. I know what a burden it has been!”

  Elizabeth shook her head vaguely, her eyes still focused on some unseen point out the window. “The additional duties do not trouble me.”

  Jane only chewed her lip in agonised silence. Elizabeth had ever been her soul mate, her confidante, but now, she had better luck conversing with a wall than her own sister. “I wish you might say a kind word to Lydia,” she advised gently. “I know you are angry with her, Lizzy, but perhaps when you see how broken-hearted she is, you might come to feel some pity for her. I think it might ease your own cares just now.”

  Elizabeth made no response, but Jane could see her fine jaw clenching, her nostrils distending, and her eyes hardening. Jane gave up the point as hopeless.

  “Well, anyway,” she sighed, “it is not that of which I wished to speak with you. Lizzy, Charles and I have talked it all over. We would like you to come live at Netherfield with us, once we are settled.”

  Elizabeth turned silent, astounded eyes toward her sister, and Jane rushed to justify the offer. “Charles thinks very highly of you—he credits speaking to you in Derbyshire last August with lending him the courage to propose to me at last. It would really be a very great favour to us, Lizzy, for I do not know how I shall manage such a large house! Caroline shall not remain at Netherfield, for he has determined to provide her with an establishment of her own in London. So, you see, it will be very lonely with just the two of us there, and it would gladden our hearts to have you.”

  “I never heard of newlyweds as violently in love as you feeling lonely. I would be an uncomfortable addition to your home, Jane.”

  “You could never! Lizzy, I cannot marry tomorrow and go away, leaving you as miserable as you have been. I could not dream of it! And Charles… well, to tell the truth….”

  “He cannot wish for his sister-in-law to live with him!” Elizabeth objected. “Your Mr Bingley is kindness itself, but I will not impose upon his generosity.”

  “No, Lizzy, it is not that. He likes having you near, as a friend, do you see. He likes hearing your opinions and enjoys the clever way you speak. He says he finds your presence comforting, for you remind him of Mr Darcy.”

  Elizabeth put her hand to her eyes, her frame beginning to shake and a small sound escaping her.

  “Oh, Lizzy, I am sure he did not mean it quite that way!” Jane fluttered helplessly, still uncertain what way she could have meant, and why it seemed impossible to mention Mr Darcy’s memory without causing Elizabeth to close down entirely. “Why, I know that you and he were never friends, but he was a good man, after all, and I should think you might have been flattered by the comparison. Oh, Lizzy, do say something!”

  Elizabeth’s fingers worked over her eyes, eventually pinching the bridge of her nose before her hand finally dropped from her bowed face. “I do not wish to speak of Mr Darcy, Jane,” she grumbled. She turned then, and her voice grew with the strength of anger spurred by sorrow. “Nor do I wish to speak to Lydia, or—do forgive me—your Mr Bingley, or anyone else who was close to him! I wish to forget that he ever entered our lives!”

  Jane drew back, her lips and cheeks pale. “Lizzy, you cannot mean that! Darling, you must tell me, what is the root of all this resentment toward Mr Darcy? Was he unkind to you when you saw him in Derbyshire? You never did tell me how he first heard of Lydia’s troubles,” she added reproachfully.

  Elizabeth turned back to the window, her arms crossed. Her chin trembled, and she blinked several times in rapid succession. “It does not matter now, Jane. He is dead. Nothing can change that.”

  “Do you know,” Jane murmured gently, sliding an arm about her recalcitrant sister, “I think that if things had turned out differently, you and he might have become friends. Oh, he was a bit prickly on the surface, but given time, I think—oh! Dearest, you are crying!”

  “I am not!” Elizabeth shook her head, cowering behind her hand.

  “You are! Lizzy,” Jane grasped her sister’s shoulders and forced her about. “Why—you were in love with him! I see it now! Oh, how could I have been such a fool?”

  “No, Jane, you are entirely mistaken.” Elizabeth heaved a fresh breath, drying her eyes. “In love with him! Do not be ridiculous. No more dissimilar souls ever walked this earth. Have I never told you how we always set to arguing when we were in Kent?”

  “Yes, and I know how you adore a spirited debate. And he was in love with you, you told me of that once! Oh, Lizzy, to think that he has been so cruelly taken—”

  “Stop it, Jane!” Elizabeth stamped her foot, wringing her handkerchief in a clenched fist. “I was not… not in love, as you say! I only… I came to appreciate his qualities, I suppose. I think it so horribly unfair that his life was cut short. His poor sister!”

  “You and Charles have both told me of her,” Jane agreed sadly. “She must be devastated!”

  “She cannot be otherwise, for she was most prodigiously attached to him. So good to her he was! I am very sorry for her, but also angry when I consider it. To think that it was all the fault of Lydia and Mr Wickham!”

  “Lizzy, now you go too far.
You sound as if you would accuse them of murder!”

  “Not deliberately, perhaps, but their carelessness led directly to…. He would never have gone to such a place if not for… for… oh, Jane!” Elizabeth crumpled the handkerchief uselessly over her face.

  “There, dear.” Jane enveloped her sister in an embrace—the sort where the mourner can lose herself to the ravages of grief, where no shadow of condemnation might follow. Elizabeth shook and trembled, her arms clasped tightly to her own breast, for she had not the courage at first to return the affection. Only when the keening sighs—high and utterly beyond her power to restrain—wavered from her lips did she risk embracing her sister. Jane shushed and soothed, stroking Elizabeth’s hair and instinctively rocking to and fro as she would to comfort a babe.

  “He—he did it for me, Jane!” Elizabeth choked at last, her hot words crying against Jane’s shoulder. “He went there, looking for them… he did it because of me! I shall bear this guilt forever. The fault was theirs, but the motivation was all my own doing. I was so—so stubborn! I was wrong about so many things, accusing him of the worst sort of malice and pride. Would that I had never spoken so harshly to him! He lost his life trying to help Lydia—stupid, stupid girl! —and to prove that he was not the sort of man I had once thought. How could I have been so blind? He was the very best of all, Jane, and I—I flung him away!” Elizabeth gave up all pretense of control. She sought her sister’s arms now, her slim body racked with anguished sobs and gasping breaths.

  “Oh, dear Lizzy!” Jane murmured, awkwardly patting her sister’s back. “I had no idea… little wonder you have had such a frightful time of it these past weeks! I begin to understand now. This is why you speak so little to anyone and why you do not sleep!”

  Elizabeth turned her face away, shrugging off her sister’s arms as she pulled back. “I sleep.”

  “Not well. You toss and turn most of the night. Have you been having nightmares?”

  “No… not exactly. Well, not most of the time.” Elizabeth bit her lip thoughtfully. “I think I had one last night.”

  “I heard you cry out. Do you remember it?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I just remember darkness, feeling cold and alone, as I have nearly every night of late. Then, there was a sudden panic, like a flood of white light, and I awoke.”

  “How dreadful! Lizzy, surely your grief has led you to feel all manner of horrors by night that you will not allow yourself to experience by day. Perhaps if you talked more—”

  “No,” Elizabeth retorted firmly. “I do not wish to speak of it.”

  “But, Lizzy, do you remember how Aunt Gardiner says it can help?”

  “No! I will not waste away my days whimpering and sniveling like some lovelorn kitchen maid! It will change nothing, and I have too much to do. In fact, I ought to be going in to Papa, for we were to look over the household accounts this afternoon.”

  Jane sighed, stepping back as Elizabeth swept around for her book. “Do come talk to me when you are ready, Lizzy.”

  Elizabeth paused, not missing the reluctance in her sister’s tone. She studied Jane’s sincerity for half a second, with eyes almost willing to see and lips nearly prepared to speak, but swiftly her face closed down once more. “I promise, Jane,” she lied.

  5

  Porto, Portugal

  António Moniz de Noronha, the mayor of Porto, rose nervously from behind his desk as the regional governor, Manuel Vasconcelos, was shown into his study. The two men exchanged warm, albeit brisk greetings, and Noronha offered his guest a seat.

  The other had scarcely settled himself when Noronha began without preamble, “He is arrived?”

  “He arrived yesterday on your Sonho do Mar1,” the other confirmed. “A dreadful fuss he sent up. Three men were required to restrain him until he could be properly reassured and shown to his accommodations. Quite a shock he gave them, as I understand he was in a bad way after the long voyage.”

  “Are you certain this has all been necessary? English gentlemen are not unreasonable, and we certainly have enough friends among them that he might have been persuaded to negotiate with us.”

  “And pay for the land a second time! Unthinkable. Remember the promise of justice given by our English associate,” Vasconcelos reminded him. “He has made more enemies than only ourselves—this Darcy fellow is known to be a hard man. Do you truly think that if he had an inkling of that land’s value that he would ever part with it? No, no! And where should men such as we, reduced gentlemen of an impoverished nation, raise the funds such a man would demand? For even a bargain price from one such as Senhor Darcy would be many times more than we could scrape together, and then where would we be left? No capital at all to begin our own enterprise! No, there is no other option before us. We know for a certain fact that the Darcy family are all but criminals in England, perfectly willing to lie, cheat, and murder for a profit.”

  “This partner of yours seems no better! We have a word for a man who helps arrange the abduction of another for his own gain.”

  “That is no concern of ours. Whatever evils befall this Senhor Darcy as a result of his life-long misdeeds are only his just deserts.”

  “How do we know all of this? It is only what you have heard from the other Englishman!”

  “You forget, my friend, that my father attempted to purchase the land from Senhor Darcy’s grandfather soon after King José2 traded it away—the fool!”

  “The king had no choice,” Noronha reasoned. “The old Englishman had granted our king substantial support begin the rebuilding after the Great Earthquake. Some collateral was nothing less than his due.”

  “The loan was repaid,” growled Vasconcelos. “You know this as well as I.”

  “If that ship and chest of gold from the king ever reached England,” Noronha submitted quietly.

  Vasconcelos’ fist crashed down on Noronha’s desk. “That is my father’s and my uncle’s honour you insult, my friend! Allow me to assure you, the old Darcy was repaid.”

  Noronha leaned backward in his chair, relenting. “Forgive me, old friend. I am unafraid to do what must be done to secure our region’s prosperity, particularly with Brasil making strides toward independence. When the war with Napoleon is over and the Prince Regent3 returns from exile, we shall all of us be made beggars in our own land. Our nation is in sore need of this mine, and I feel no misgivings about bringing justice to one who has so deeply wronged us. I only desire to know that we are in the right.”

  “We are decidedly in the right. You needn’t worry your gentle old head about this Englishman. As soon as we have the required deed, we shall send him back to England, and we may begin the mining of the site.”

  “You give me your word that you will set him free?”

  “Why should I not?” Vasconcelos shrugged, then laughed. “Do you know, he has been buried and mourned in England these two months already? It will be amusing, yes, to think of how badly he will serve the one who betrayed him once he learns all? I think I will give him the name in writing myself.”

  Noronha shook his head very faintly, eyes narrowed. “You take too much pleasure in another man’s distress, old friend. I wonder sometimes if you were not born a few centuries too late.”

  “Oh! He may be an English heretic, but I think you will not permit me to harm him. It would not be the courtly thing to do. After all, was not your lovely Maria Amália enamoured with some relation of his at one time?” Vasconcelos raised a brow and a knowing smirk tugged at his mouth. “It seems to me that the name similarity is more than a coincidence, unless all the English christen their children with such pompous eponyms.”

  Noronha’s face changed hues. He shifted in his chair until he nearly lifted to his feet, his eyes stark and blazing. “Amália is a faithful daughter and a true Catholic! She would never disgrace her family so. Any word to the contrary is the vilest of slander! For just over one year she has been an obedient wife to your son, has
she not?”

  Vasconcelos’ eyes glittered with delight. “I cannot answer whether she has been obedient, but Miguel has made no complaint which has reached my ears. There has been no issue as yet, but certainly that blame cannot be laid at the feet of the lady.”

  Noronha was white now, his hands clenched. “We shall never speak of this again!”

  Vasconcelos rose from his seat. “I hope we shall have no occasion to do so,” he agreed.

  Noronha followed his partner to the door, still trembling but willing away his own turmoil somewhat. “Have you informed your men in Braga of the latest developments? We will require them to be ready, surely.”

  “Inform them before we are certain?” Vasconcelos scoffed as he neared the door. “I dare not allow a breath of suspicion yet, and that includes sending word of pending arrangements. No, let us first have the deed in our hands. The moment we do, I shall be the first in a carriage with orders for them, and I daresay we will have men and equipment at our command within the hour.”

  “It cannot be long, surely! Senhor Darcy came of necessity by a circuitous route, but the documents need not do so.”

  “I think you underestimate the legal bother of the English inheritances. Once that has all settled, our contact will be required to conduct a search for the document. It may be filed with an attorney, but it is of such an age that it would not surprise me if it should be locked away in some secret place. Patience, my friend! We are in no danger, and now that Senhor Darcy is under our power, we may afford to wait a little longer.”

  Noronha drew himself up. “Of course. I may depend upon you, certainly, for any further information.”