She rolled her eyes. “Fine, I do, okay? I love you! Happy now?”
I pulled her into my arms, feeling her heart racing against mine. We fit together, just so. “You’re damn right I’m happy,” I said, making her laugh.
“Oh, shut up and kiss me.”
I did as I was told. What else could I do?
December
“Are you sure about this?”
Eliza chewed her lip as she watched me placing the menorah on the table. It was the one she’d brought from Buffalo, the one I’d seen the first time I came to her apartment.
“Absolutely, I’m sure,” I said. “Besides, I need the practice.”
In the end, she’d come to New York with me. I think that Maddie and Ezra had been glad to see her move on, being happy, living her life. The promise of frequent visits was made once I’d informed her she could have use of the private plane. We’d already used it once to attend Jane and Charlie’s wedding.
“I’m not going to be your rich goy forever,” I told her. “Once I convert, you can’t call me that anymore.”
She grinned and pushed me down onto the couch, sliding into my lap. She put her arms around my neck and kissed me deeply before saying, “Don’t be stupid. You’ll always be my goy.”
I laughed. “Don’t you have a show to do?” My hands took hold of her hips, fingers flexing and kneading. She shivered and moaned. “You could always be late,” I suggested, nibbling her earlobe.
“You are terrible for getting me in a state before I have to go to work,” she said, pushing away from me. “And don’t forget, we have dinner with Cate tonight.”
Nobody had been more surprised than me when Catherine and Eliza had taken an instant liking to each other. After giving it some thought, it made a certain kind of sense. They were two women who had made a name for themselves doing a man’s job. They understood, to some degree, the others’ struggles. Their bond extended into merciless teasing of me at every opportunity, and I loved it. Everything was different, better than I’d ever thought possible. When I’d told Catherine I was converting, she’d nodded calmly and asked what day she should reserve a table for us at the club to celebrate. Times change, I guess, and we have to change with them. Even Catherine.
Eliza was looking at the Christmas tree in the corner of the room and said, “You know, I’d like to keep this part of you. The Christmas stuff . . . well, it’s pretty fun.”
I smiled and took her hand, pulling her towards the doorway. “Want to know my favorite part?”
“What’s that?”
I pointed up at the lintel, where a bunch of greenery hung by a red ribbon. “The mistletoe.”
Beau North is the author of Longbourn’s Songbird, The Many Lives of Fitzwilliam Darcy, and a contributor to the anthology Then Comes Winter. Beau is a native southerner who now calls Portland, Oregon home with her husband and two cats. She attended the University of South Carolina where she began a lifelong obsession with literature. In her spare time, Beau is the co-host of the podcast Excessively Diverted: Modern Austen Onscreen.
Reason to Hope
Jenetta James
“That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny.”
Mr. Darcy to Miss Elizabeth, Chapter LVIII.
Encounter. 10 October 1943
Darkness had fallen over the base by the time I ventured out and it occurred to me that I had become almost completely nocturnal. I could not fix the time or the place that the transformation had taken place, but it had. My years of living in the light were behind me, and on this particular night, there was barely a sliver of moon to disguise the unalloyed grimness of it. A number of new vehicles were parked in the muddy field like barges and a young flying officer stood outside the mess smoking. He was admiring the Derby, as people always did. Even in the darkness, it managed to gleam. I recalled the sight of my car in other circumstances and then pushed the thought away. As I passed him, we saluted one another in the somnolent manner permitted by darkness and fatigue that only the armed forces knew. My group had been stationed here for forty-eight hours, most of which had been spent making the place serviceable, establishing shortcomings, making do with what was available. The whole of the previous day had been taken up with meetings and a corner of my mind ached to think of the interminable talk, the briefings in cramped rooms, the maps and arrows, the wind biting against the prefabricated wall, the short hours of snatched sleep. Another uncertain turn of the dice and then what might come? I knew not—nor did any man alive.
I gathered pace as the unexpected chill of the evening gnawed my skin, and I wondered how far it was to the town I was told is near. Meryton, it is called, but it could be Timbuktu for all I knew of it. “Meryton, Hertfordshire. Jolly easy for Town!” Air Commodore Arbuthnot had barked at me exactly one week ago, moustache quivering. “Bloody long way from ‘ome, sir,” Smithers, who was a native of the North, had commented when he brought me my tea earlier in the evening. They were both, in their way, correct.
I kept my path along the perimeter fence and then struck out on an unmade track, lined with shadowy trees, swaying in the wind like phantoms. Into my mind, crept the avenue at Pemberley, sun-drenched and richly green, verdant beyond measure. My sister swinging a tennis racket on a cloudless day in August. My cousin Fitzwilliam leading reels in the ballroom, laughing every step. All of it, belonging to another epoch. Such snatches of the past were, by their nature, brief. They came to me routinely, halfway between dream and punishment. I would recall a moment, a flash of time from a bygone age, a wafer-thin remembrance, and then it would be gone as though it had never existed. Knowing that it would be too soon extinguished, I luxuriated in it for a moment. I had resolved to have a decent walk, even alone and in the pitch of the night in an unknown and frankly uninspiring place. Experience had taught me that the outdoors, any outdoors, was a remedy for the occasional visits of my black dog. With this thought, my feet quickened on the mud-caked autumn leaves and I felt myself making real progress, moving farther and farther from the base, into the bleak empty nothingness of what lay beyond.
All at once, the prism of my solitude was broken. A speck of light appeared before me, wobbling somewhat, a moving blur like a vision on radar. It was accompanied, latterly, by the splatter of wheels on mud and the distinct clicking of metal. No sound of an engine, though. I tensed at the approach of what was plainly a bicycle. As it neared, I began to think the light rather bright and soon enough saw the reason. There was, hanging from the handlebars, a torch on full beam. The speck became a ball and my exasperation grew. What sort of bloody idiot cycles around in the blackout with a torch bobbing about like a yo-yo? The skin of my face tightened and I inhaled sharply. I had encountered his sort before. Unthinking, country nobodies for whom any order was beneath them. If he had seen enemy planes screaming over London like angry birds and street after street cratered into the dust, he may feel differently. I could not be silent.
“Stop! Put out that light. What do you think you’re doing?”
Before me, the slow moving, barely visible contraption came to an unsteady halt. I straightened to my full height, knowing it to be unmatched by most men. It had been four years since this sorry business began and every fool knew the rules. Tensing, I anticipated that he would switch the damned thing off as soon as he saw my uniform. The last thing I expected to hear was the female voice that came in reply.
“Minding my own business.”
Rude and selfish. To say nothing of stupid. This was the last thing I needed or deserved and I was not going to let it go by. I stepped back slightly in an effort to see her more easily but failed. The dark figure before me, I noted, didn’t move an inch.
“The blackout is your business. It is everyone’s business. Miss.”
Behind the glare of the light, I could see nothing of her but the vaguest impression. It was from the tone of her voice, and the reality of the situation that I formed wh
at opinion I had. I imagined her standing, straddling the bicycle, feet flat on the wet ground like the roots of a great tree. An urge to see this woman’s face came over me, but the torch was facing away from her. I saw the faintest outline of her fingers as she reached for the offending object and removed it from the handlebars. For the briefest of moments before she turned it off, she shone it in my face. If she had been a man, I would have called her out for it. I refused to close my eyes or squint. I would be damned before she had a reaction out of me. The light clicked off.
“Happy?”
“No. I would be happy if I didn’t think you were going to switch it back on again as soon as we have parted. People die of foolishness. And worse, they die of the foolishness of others.”
“Foolishness? Let’s not be dramatic! No one is going to die because of my torch. It was pointing downwards and this track is covered by trees anyway.”
“The trees are losing their leaves. And the blackout is the blackout, as you well know.”
I could report her, and she knew it. I could ask to see her papers, use the torch to read them, commit name and whereabouts to memory. She would have the ARP on her doorstep by morning, being their usual dreadful selves. But some undefinable thing stopped me. Was it the weariness? Was it the dark? Was it the last vestiges of human sympathy clinging to me like ivy?
My eyes grew used to the complete blackness that assailed us now the torch was off and I strained to see her. She stood about five feet five and wore a dark coat and hat. A cloud of hair, probably dark, appeared under the brim and the fingers that gripped the handlebars were uncommonly slim and ungloved. I could detect no wedding ring, look as I did. Of her face, the darkness gave me almost nothing, but I could hear in her voice that she was young.
Whatever was a young girl doing cycling on a track like this—at this time of night—alone? Her bicycle was, as had become common, painted white and as my vision adjusted, I focused on her legs. It was just as I had assumed: trousers. I had never grown used to women in trousers and I doubted that I ever would.
I was about to nod when she took me by surprise.
“Who are you, sir? You can’t be local or you would never suggest that there should be no torches on the way to Oakham Mount.”
“Group Captain Darcy.”
The moment I said it, I regretted it. Her general demeanour should have told me that she would not be impressed, where others would, by my rank. In any case, it is for me to ask uninvited questions, not answer them. She had won a victory over me, without even trying. All the time, my eyes were becoming accustomed to the inky night and I came to discern the soft curve of her heart-shaped face.
“Really? You are a long way from the air field. You must have walked two miles. Do you need directions home?”
My sense of direction was excellent, even as a boy. Now, I should say, it was faultless. No meandering country track was about to confuse me, dark or light. And I did not require assistance from silly, young women.
“Certainly not.”
“Fine.” With one swift movement, she sat on the saddle and clicked back the pedals, readying to depart. “But just so you know, you are on my family’s land. We are all four square behind the RAF, Group Captain, but do watch out for poachers, won’t you?”
She pushed off with one foot and was gone.
Skirmish
“Come along, Darcy. It’ll do you good!”
Bingley bounded around the mess like an overexcited puppy and I knew from experience that he would not shut up until he got what he wanted. The weeks had dragged by in the racing adrenalin of operations and the crushing fatigue of the time in between. We had become accustomed to the place, nothing more. My friend turned to me, open palmed in appeal and smiled the smile of a man winning the argument. I turned away from him.
The friendship of Charles Bingley, now Squadron Leader Bingley, had taken root around me when I wasn’t looking. He had been a latecomer to school, joining at the age of fifteen when most friendship groups were fixed, my own included. At the time, I had not given any thought to the reason. But now, I suspect that his father only made the money to send him at that stage in his life. He is of the nouveau riche, after all, but he wears it well. We had shared nothing more than a nodding acquaintance but had met again at Cambridge. At length, after a number of unexpected meetings and unplanned events, we had come to regard one another as friends. He had paid me the dubious compliment of introducing me to his sisters, who were his only relations, their parents having died in the thirties. I, in turn, invited him to Pemberley for the vac and later, for weekend parties. Those were the days when there still were weekend parties in country houses. For all that, I cannot say that our friendship was ever as strong as it is now. We signed up on the same morning and trained in the same facility, with the same men, many of them now lost. We have fought together and nearly died together day after day. Presently, he drew on that vast well of shared experience and loyalty to push me, unwilling, into his scheme.
“Alright.” I poured us each a glass, drank, and felt the amber liquid permeating my chest with fire and flame. “It can’t be any worse than our recent visit to the theatre.”
“That’s the spirit.”
He laughed, and well he might. The previous Saturday night had been memorable. Our posting at Meryton has the questionable merit of being extremely close to the country house Bingley’s sisters have taken for the duration of the war. Netherfield Park is a handsome, Palladian creation just a few miles out of the village. It is there that Bingley’s sisters, Caroline and Louisa, have been sitting out the war for the last four years, reminiscing about their former life in Mayfair and bemoaning the “servant crisis.” Many ladies of their inclinations have long since returned to London, but Louisa suffers an overwhelming fear of the bombs, and in the final analysis, that has kept her in situ, together with her sister. I don’t doubt that things have been rather boring for them.
Now that their brother and I are stationed so close, they lose no opportunity to spend time with us. There have been supper parties and badly attended tea dances and cakes and conversation with the local vicar. Last Saturday, we attended the local am-dram performance of Lady Windermere’s Fan. It was Caroline’s scheme, and she had insisted I drive her in the Derby, even though the theatre, such as it was, turned out to be within easy walking distance. She didn’t appear to notice the actors missing their lines and crashing into props or the fact that part of the curtain fell to the stage during the interval. “It’s so nice to get out and about, isn’t it, Darcy? One could almost think it was before the war.” She leaned towards me as she said this and under cover of darkness touched her heavily jewelled fingers against my leg. It is not the first time it has happened. In response, I do as I have always done. I remain silent and make no sudden movements. As soon as she moved her hand away, I moved my leg and we said nothing about it.
It was for this reason that I was ambivalent about another evening out on the town with the Bingley ladies. A letter from my sister in New York sat on my desk awaiting a response, and there were always logs to write and matters to attend to. Sleep to catch up on, even. Bingley, however, would have nothing of it. It was Friday night is music night in Meryton, and I wasn’t being let off the hook.
So, that is how I found myself surrounded by Bingleys and entering the sweaty melee of the modestly appointed town hall that evening. A band stood on a low stage and a balding man knocked out tunes from a shabby upright piano in the corner. During their breaks, a cabal of young people crowded around an old record player. Between the town’s collective vinyl selection and the band, all the most popular hits of the day jangled around our heads. To this, revellers danced, skirts spun, and smoke formed towering shapes in the space above. To hear the shrieks of laughter, one would hardly believe there were a war on at all. If my cousin Fitzwilliam were here, his eyes would light a smile on his face. He’d say, “They know how to have a good time,” and in he would go. For me, something in my characte
r always holds me back. I cannot say what it is or how it operates. Call it melancholy, call it misanthropy. I know my own shortcomings but have never been uneasy with them.
Shortly after arriving, I bought a round of drinks for our party and distributed them. Caroline was put out that they didn’t have vermouth, but I couldn’t quite believe her indignation. I fancy that it was for my benefit, to leave me in no doubt of her sophistication. This is a beer and skittles sort of place, and it astonished me that they could produce a gin and tonic. A number of the men were here dancing with local girls and getting tight. They needed that of course but part of me stayed watchful. A local man did a turn singing “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” and after a drink or two, I danced with both Caroline and Louisa. Bingley, I hardly saw, as he did his usual trick of being absorbed into the crowd of pretty girls and laughing fellows.
I was leaning against the bar, listening to Caroline’s account of the shortcomings of the local population, when a gaggle of women came into the room and stood near to us. They were a rather chaotic lot to look at. There was an older woman, wearing a stole that looked as though it predated the last war, and five young women. The lady, whom I took to be the mother, undid the top button on the blonde girl’s dress and whispered in her ear. That one was rather pretty but she smiled too much. The other girls, all dark haired, were dressed alike. Serviceable dresses, slim bodies, victory rolls curling above made-up faces. They shrieked with laughter and one of them immediately grabbed the hand of a young man standing nearby.
Ever since my encounter with the girl in the dark, I had been imagining her everywhere. No visit to the village or out of the base was complete without her appearing. I had seen her in evening dress, WAAF uniform, married, with child, driving buses, selling food at the market, everywhere. Her face and hair changed each time, because, of course, I had not really seen them. I just knew they were there. I couldn’t account for this series of delusions but had begun to question my own sanity. Was the girl even real? Was she the creation of my own mind, addled by war? These were the questions I had asked myself, time and again. But now, there she was, as unmistakable as my own flesh. Pulling curly brown hair out of the collar on her red dress and laughing in the corner of a dance hall. I knew by the way she held herself, the way her feet planted squarely on the sticky floor. I knew by the slim shoulders, exactly the right height, by the tapering body and now, the laugh, ringing out over the hubbub of Friday night is music night. That was her, sure as anything.
The Darcy Monologues: A romance anthology of Pride and Prejudice short stories in Mr. Darcy's own words Page 36