by Jemma Thorne
“Mrs. Collins and Maria should return in half an hour or so. Would you like to wait? I can offer tea.”
Darcy fingered his damp apparel. “Yes, tea would be welcome. I have no desire to go back out there at the moment.” He followed me to the sitting room.
I wondered at the turn my quiet afternoon had taken. What strange dreamland had I stepped into, to be taken up on a visit by Mr. Darcy? It wasn’t as if the two of us were friendly. In fact, we bordered on despising each other.
And with that thought, I was mired in doubt. What did the two of us have to say to each other? Then I recollected the topic I’d been considering writing to Jane, and off I went. “How suddenly you all left Netherfield last fall, Mr. Darcy! Mr. Bingley must have been quite surprised when the entire party followed after him so quickly. I do hope that Mr. Bingley and his sisters were quite well when you left London?”
He gave a short nod. “Yes, perfectly so. Thank you.”
A brief paused showed I was to receive no further answer. So I said, “I believe I’ve heard that Mr. Bingley has no intention of returning to Netherfield in the near future?”
He seemed exasperated at my choice of topic, but if he would present no other, then he would be stuck with the topic that occupied me at the moment – his influence over his good friend, the man my sister would have married. “We haven’t spoken of it. I do not think he will spend much of his time there in the future. He is at a time of life when engagements increase particularly, and much of it draws him to the city and not your quiet countryside.”
“If he means to be there little,” I pressed, “then it would be better for the neighborhood if he should give it up entirely so another family may move there.”
“I do not doubt he’s thought on the subject, and will give it up as soon as offer of a new inhabitant is made.”
That settled that. Mr. Bingley must really have no intention of returning at all.
The awkward silence stretched. My topic was at an end and I was happy to see him scowl and search for something to fill the air between us. He glanced around. “This seems a very comfortable house. I believe Lady Catherine did a great deal to it before offering it to Mr. Collins.”
What was this we were talking about now? If he had so little to say, why in the world was Mr. Darcy sitting here with me? “I believe she did,” I agreed. “And a more grateful subject could not have benefited from her diligence.”
He cleared his throat, as both of us considered Mr. Collins and his odd attachment to Lady Catherine. “Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife.”
“Charlotte is a dear,” I said. “I am not certain I consider marrying Mr. Collins the most intelligent choice she’s made, but she appears to be quite happy in her choice and easily settled here.”
“It is well she is settled so close to her family.”
“Do you call the distance close? It is nearly fifty miles!”
At that he smiled. “And what is fifty miles of good road between friends?”
“Still, I wouldn’t call the distance an advantage of the match.”
“That is only proof of your own attachment to home. Anything much beyond Longbourn feels very far indeed, does it not?”
The impossible man was laughing at me, and I knew it. I straightened my spine. “The far and the near are relative, I am sure. Circumstances do vary. I am sure many women are happily settled at a further distance from their families. Where there is fortune to make travel easy, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. I am sure my friend would not consider herself near to her family unless there was half the distance separating them.”
As he spoke, Mr. Darcy nudged his chair a bit toward mine, and locked eyes with me. “You certainly can’t have such an over-attachment to home. You can’t have spent all of your time at Longbourn.”
I was taken aback at his change of tone and the closeness of his knee to mine. I glanced down at it, and he suddenly seemed to have a change of heart.
Clearing his throat again, he nudged his chair back and picked up a newspaper to hold it idly. “What do you think of Kent?”
We had spoken on the subject a minute and a half before the door opened and in strode Charlotte and Maria, who looked from one to the other of us and then pretended not to notice the oddity of this visit. After sitting a few more minutes saying little to anyone, Mr. Darcy rose and took his leave.
Charlotte turned to me after he exited. “What is the meaning of this?” Her eyes sparkled. “The man must be in love with you, to have visited so familiarly.”
I sputtered. Love? “Surely you jest. He has about as much affection for me as I have for him.”
“That is not how it appeared. Still…maybe he was wanting something to take him from Rosings, and as you say, he did not know you were here alone.”
Charlotte had better leave it at that. With my belly in a knot that I didn’t understand and couldn’t untangle, I would spend no more of my afternoon reflecting on Mr. Darcy.
* * *
That night, as a form of distraction more than anything else, I opened the books I had borrowed from Lady Leticia. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but as I flipped through the pages I did find a few things that interested me.
Possession: when a spirit or other entity takes control of a human person’s body.
This sounded familiar. To be honest, I had no true understanding of Anne de Bourgh and how I should expect her to behave. But that was just it – she was so inconsistent. And then there was the darkness that I saw surrounding her. So it made sense to me that there was something that was not Anne de Bourgh’s own spirit that was making her behave as she did. Add in Mrs. Jenkinson’s behavior and the odd twists there and I thought I had a perpetrator.
As I perused the different types of spirits that had been encountered in the human world, an entry there caught my eye as well. A wraith was not the spirit of someone formerly human. It was some other energy, which could be twisted and manipulated with skill.
What magnitude of skill were we dealing with in Mrs. Jenkinson? I had no way of knowing.
Clarice’s spirit appeared at my bedside. I was leaning against the pillows with my brow furrowed over my reading. I looked up at her.
“What more does it say about wraiths?”
“Not much.”
“So…an external energy that Mrs. Jenkinson is manipulating? How would she ever have learned to do such a thing?”
“What do we know of her? She could have any history at all.”
Clarice nodded. It was moot to continue in this direction. We didn’t have enough to go on. “Have you read up on animal sacrifice yet?”
She said it as if she was asking if I’d had my morning tea. I shivered. “No. Not sure I have the stomach for it.”
“Oh, come now! Hold your head high, my Lizzy – there aren’t many who could see what you’ve seen and go on seeking more of it.”
With a grimace, I opened another book where I knew I’d seen mention of the ritual sacrifice of animals. I wasn’t sure what help it would be to us, but maybe it could help us understand Mrs. Jenkinson’s motives.
I read aloud, though it didn’t seem Clarice needed me to do so at all. I found the fact that she was constantly there in the background, while I was reading or just thinking, faintly disturbing.
“Some traditions and rituals call for the sacrifice of animals, which are offered to obtain or retain the grace of a particular deity figure. Such traditions exist around the world and at the roots of many branches of religion. Ritual sacrifice can include all or part of the animal or animals, including many instances of the offering of animal blood—” I shuddered and stopped reading aloud.
Clarice cleared her throat. I thought she would tell me to go on, but instead she said. “Let us go for a walk in the morning, dear. I would like to revisit that place where we found Mrs. Jenkinson completing that ceremony.”
Wonderful. Something to look forward to.
&
nbsp; I retired to visions of flapping chickens and Mrs. Jenkinson’s cold stare.
Chapter 5
We kept a close eye out for any sign of Mrs. Jenkinson or Miss de Bourgh as we walked down to the lake the next morning. A gardener trimming hedges was the only person we ran across as we ventured across the park. He smiled kindly at us… Err, me.
“Sometimes I forget…that you’re a spirit, and not actually here walking beside me.”
“I am here walking beside you. I am as real as real can be. But you’re correct, no one else can see me.”
I thought for a minute. The notion filling my head was not one Clarice was going to appreciate. “You know, I am a young woman, with my whole life ahead of me. You do realize, don’t you, that there are parts of that life that I’m not going to want you to witness.”
She tilted her head to the side, acknowledging my words with a small smile. “And you don’t think I’ll give you your privacy?”
I shrugged. “I’m not certain that you can.”
Clarice did not disagree, which worried me. “Whatever you’re worried about, I have already seen its like in my long years on earth. Have no qualms there.”
“Still, you did not need to live those intimate moments knowing someone else was in the room with you.”
“I did not realize that bothered you so. And yet…”
“I know.” There wasn’t much she could do about it. This was her existence now.
We reached the gap between the hedges, at the edge of the lake where the path turned behind the house.
Clarice floated through the gap, and I crept through behind her. I would not have been brave enough to attempt this on my own.
We both considered the small clearing at the lakeside.
“It appears to me that Mrs. Jenkinson has used this place for her ceremonies more than just the one time we witnessed,” Clarice said.
I stooped to evaluate the marks on the shore of the lake. I agreed with her. The spot looked well used. And I could not make out any track other than Mrs. Jenkinson’s slight, narrow heel. “So, if it is this ceremony that is keeping Miss de Bourgh under Mrs. Jenkinson’s control, then it would help to know how often she must make such a sacrifice and when we can expect her to do the ceremony again.”
“How can that help?”
“I have an idea.” Something that I had read a couple of months ago back at Longbourn had just occurred to me. I had no idea whether it was possible to trap an entity that was not a human spirit. But I recalled enough of the process that we could make an attempt to. I would have to do a bit more reading.
I brushed a wayward strand of hair away from my face, and rose. “I have something to look into. We can revisit this tomorrow.”
We rejoined the path by the lake. We had only just done so when I heard a voice that made me jump.
“Miss Elizabeth,” Darcy said.
Oh! That was far too close. What would he have done if he’d seen me returning to the path from that gap between the hedges? “Why Mr. Darcy, how are you this afternoon?”
“I had forgotten that you like to walk in the fresh air as much as I do. I should have remembered after Netherfield,” his voice was friendly, and he smiled at me with his eyes.
Charlotte’s words after his last visit echoed in my mind. He must be in love. He must be in love. He must be in love.
Oh, quit it already, I ordered my foolish brain.
“May I walk with you?”
“If you wish. I was just going to return to Hunsford House. The path is open to the both of us.” I didn’t want him to feel invited. I would rather continue on my own.
But I couldn’t shake him. He seemed to enjoy the company, and walked me straight to Charlotte’s door.
Clarice was nowhere to be found now. I knew it was likely she was observing, in some fashion.
“You seem to be abroad more often than Mrs. Collins and her sister.” It was an obvious comment and barely deserved an answer.
“I cannot while away weeks cooped up inside.”
“Yes,” he agreed, nodding to a gardener as we passed, “Anytime it is not raining it is better to be outdoors.”
“You travel so much, Mr. Darcy. You cannot be home much at all.”
“I am home often enough. I grew up there, and it has changed little over the years. I know the entire place by heart.”
I had hoped he would tell me how long he and Colonel Fitzwilliam planned to stay. I hoped their departure would precede mine by a good few days so that I could settle all this business with Miss de Bourgh and visit with Charlotte without constantly looking over my shoulder.
Even as I thought it, I knew it was unfair. I should not treat him so harshly. My suspicions over him leading Mr. Bingley astray were only suspicions, after all.
* * *
I had been careful to avoid going abroad in the night hours as I often did at home at Longbourn. I did not want to raise the worries of my cousin Mr. Collins and did not want to cause any trouble for Charlotte, who had invited me to stay with them.
Tonight, I made different choices. I had refreshed my memory over a couple of Lady Leticia’s books in the afternoon, and there was work I simply had to have time to accomplish while no one else was about.
With Clarice at my side, I returned to the edge of the lake where we had found Mrs. Jenkinson completing her animal sacrifice. In my reticule, I carried a series of small items that I hoped would be effective defense against Mrs. Jenkinson completing the same spell the next time she attempted it.
First, the handkerchief that I had stolen the last time we dined at Rosings. It belonged to Miss de Bourgh and I hoped it would give us the essence of the thing we were trying to fight. This I laid in the center of Mrs. Jenkinson’s ritual location.
I surrounded the spot with three small quartz crystals that I had been attuning to my will all evening once I determined my course of action.
I was attempting a trap for the wraith. I couldn’t be certain what precisely I was actually creating. Lady Leticia would abhor the risk I was taking. I should know more about what I was trying to accomplish before doing such spellwork, and I knew it. But I had a bad feeling that if I didn’t act soon, Mrs. Jenkinson would somehow figure out that we knew what she was doing and she would attempt to stop us. So here I was, in the chill early spring night, shivering as much in fear of being found as because of the weather.
I had to focus on the task at hand. I could feel Clarice behind me, as if her hands were on my shoulders, giving me strength. I was so grateful for her presence.
As I placed the third crystal into the mud, the faint trace of a triangle flared and then disappeared. “Did you see that?”
“Yes, I did,” Clarice answered jubilantly. “You are becoming quite skilled you know.”
I shook my head. “I have so much to learn…”
Clarice shrugged. “Do you think it will be effective?”
“We can hope. We will not know until Mrs. Jenkinson tries her ritual again.”
“How will we know when she does try?”
I pulled a fourth quartz crystal from my pocket. “Apparently, this crystal will heat up and flare when the trap is activated.”
“Apparently?”
I shook my head at her. “You know that I haven’t done this before, correct?”
“No matter. If nothing happens, we are no worse off than before.”
“What about Anne de Bourgh?”
“She’s the reason we’re doing this, my dear.”
“I must return to the house now. It won’t do for me to speak to you on this walk. I can’t be caught out of bed at this hour, in any case.”
“Understood. I will see you on the morrow, my dear.”
And with that, I was alone with my thoughts.
* * *
Colonel Fitzwilliam stopped by Hunsford house the next morning, looking for company for a walk. Maria and Charlotte were in the midst of hemming a new gown for Maria, and urged us off. I set aside the book
I’d been reading. I’d been grateful for Charlotte’s distraction this morning; she never noticed just what I was reading. My attempt to prepare for the outcome of yesterday’s spell was halting and frustrated. How could I prepare when I hardly understood what I was doing? Maybe I shouldn’t have cast that quartz trap.
But the bad feeling about Miss de Bourgh’s situation had not subsided. I was doing what I must. I was doing what I could.
We walked among the apple trees. The day was fine. I hadn’t noticed all morning. I took a deep breath of spring air scented with blossoms and felt my shoulders relax.
Colonel Fitzwilliam carried the conversation for the first half hour, seeming to understand my quiet mood. By then, the fresh air had done its job and I felt much more cheerful, much more myself.
I found the company of Colonel Fitzwilliam so much more enjoyable than his cousin’s walks. Where conversation with Mr. Darcy and I was always stilted and felt heavy, I could truly laugh with Colonel Fitzwilliam.
It was a poor thing, in my view, that such a man must focus on wedding for position and not companionship. We got along well, but he could never be a match for me. I could never be a match for him.
We’d reached the end of the row of apple trees and pivoted when the conversation turned sour.
“Mrs. Collins said you plan to leave Kent this Saturday?” I asked.
“Yes, assuming Darcy keeps to his plan this time.”
“He does seem to arrange things to his liking, doesn’t he?”
“He has every ability to do so, and he does take advantage of it,” agreed his cousin. “The second son of an Earl, on the other hand… I am not at liberty to arrange things as I would have them.” He gave me a sidelong glance.
I was left wondering if I understood why he brought up the topic. “Is it really so hard, being the second son of an Earl?”
“The difficulty lies not in being the son of an Earl. I know well enough what it is to be. It is the maintenance of such a state as I am accustomed to that concerns me.”