A Different Sort of Wedding Tour
The Darcy/Bingley wedding tour, prior to the younger sisters’ request to meet in Brighton…
Long habit had honed Elizabeth's ability to wake in an instant at any sign of distress.
So, when a sudden cry came from the other occupied room in the Camden Place townhouse, the covers were thrown off and she was halfway out of bed before she registered Jane's soothing tones.
Beside her, her husband was sitting up, awake and alert, but not alarmed.
"Battle dreams.
My cousin had them often, after returning from his first tour of duty."
In the next room, Bingley's voice was becoming calmer, and Elizabeth tried not to listen.
Instead, she lay back in her husband's arms and tried to relax.
"I wished we were older and more experienced the first time we battled the Malevolence, but sometimes I think it was a blessing."
The experience had shaped her younger sisters with a maturity that they might not have gained otherwise for some years yet.
It had made Jane and Elizabeth wiser in ways they would not have experienced in a small country town.
Elizabeth remembered the visions that the Malevolence had shown her, of women seduced and abandoned, men cheated out of fortunes for a game, and children maimed or worked to an early grave.
The innocent murdered for the crime of being an easy target, and businesses who cared nothing for how their profit was made, as long as the owners became rich.
She had her own nightmares in the weeks and months following that battle, and was glad that her younger sisters seemed not to remember it.
Fitzwilliam nodded slightly, resting his head against hers, "Georgiana was young to her powers, too.
I am glad that she remembered little of the first battles she had to heal us from."
Jane had some talent at healing wounds not of the body, but of mind and spirit.
How much worse would be the wounds of two young men from battles that were physical as much as magical? The Bennet sisters had relied heavily on Jane's gift and Lydia's ability to dance shields, on Kitty's rune stone traps and Mary's encyclopaedic knowledge.
Elizabeth was beginning to realise just how fortunate they had been in each other.
Elizabeth turned her head to kiss her husband's cheek, and then there was little need for further conversation.
The next morning, Elizabeth greeted her sister with a smile.
"Is your maid still complaining about country girls rising with the dawn."
Jane giggled softly.
"I believe I have made it clear that she only needs to bring a tray if Charles's Valet does, since the purpose of breakfast in bed is hard to accomplish alone, and only one tray is inadequate for two people."
Elizabeth burst out laughing.
For all her sweetness, Jane was not one to be idle, and while both couples enjoyed the occasional lazy morning, a lifetime of breakfasting with family was a difficult habit to break.
Filling a plate from the sideboard and listening for footsteps, she lowered her voice.
“How is Charles?”
Jane joined her at the sideboard.
“The Nightmares were worse at Netherfield.
It is filled with reminders of the day he was possessed and tried to kill those he loves.”
Well, that Elizabeth could do something about, though Mama would be unhappy at the idea of Jane moving away.
“When we return to Pemberley, Fitzwilliam and I will see if there are any estates available.
My new brother seems easier in the North.”
The wedding tour had begun in Scarborough, meandering through the Lakes District and down to Lyme and then Bath.
Oddly, Scarborough, where Mr. Bingley had grown up, though his grandfather’s factories had been located in a more inland town, had been almost entirely without incident, barring some restless spirits from one of the many battles that had been fought nearby.
It was not until they began to venture south that Mr. Bingley began attracting supernatural attention again.
Elizabeth had a few theories, but absent speedy communication with Mary and her books, and between one thing and another, she’d had little time to ponder them into a solid thesis.
They ceased the conversation as their husbands joined them.
Jane poured tea for everyone, and Charles smiled at her, the shadows under his eyes receding a little.
“Are you looking forward to seeing the Roman baths, my dear?”
Jane beamed, “Oh, yes, I have heard a great deal about them, but never expected the chance to see them for myself!”
They had been to the Pump Room, which adjourned the Roman Baths, a few times, especially since it was a popular venue for concerts, but Fitzwilliam was no more an enthusiast of crowds of strangers than he had been in Hertfordshire, and they were on their wedding tour, so they rarely lingered after the performance.
This early in the day, the streets were busy, but the tourists and the fashionable set were still waking, so the Baths were not as crowded as they would become later.
That allowed the small party of four the opportunity to explore the old stones without fighting for elbow room.
For all their military might, the Romans had an eye for beauty, too.
There was a masculine-seeming face, wreathed in and partially formed out of oak leaves.
Firmly human faces, likely of Ancient Gods, though without any of the symbols that usually accompanied such portrayals, it was hard to say which was which.
Mr. Bingley made a delighted sound as they came to what might have once been a fountain.
“A Shrine!”
A nymph shrine, or some local minor deity? Elizabeth looked at the stagnant waters of the bathing pool.
“I hope whoever made the shrine managed to release the water spirits before this place fell to ruin.”
A female voice, cold and carrying the unpleasant sensation of being doused in filthy marsh water, answered her.
“In fact, they did not.”
The creature that appeared before them, standing above the waters of the bathing pool, could have been a woman, but her skin was grey and wrinkled, stretched tightly over bone like a famine victim or a bog mummy like the one documented by the Countess of Moria some thirty years ago.
Elizabeth weighed up the chances of being able to transform without being noticed, and didn’t like the odds.
So much for a peaceful morning.
Thank goodness for Jane.
“Good morning.
Is there anything we can do to ease your trouble?”
The nymph paused for a moment, staring at Jane in disbelief.
“You, no. But him…”
To all of their surprise, she pointed at Mr. Bingley.
“You may be a guardian of cold peaks and rugged shores, not my beloved spring, but the will is there.”
Charles bowed to her, “Forgive me madam, but I have no magical power.
I will help however I may, but I do not know what to do.”
The nymph scowled, “Two years ago, my spring dried up when the source found a different channel.
A man came and restored it, but it was not rededicated to me as is proper, and in the past year there has been a taint from the nearby coal pits.”
Charles squinted at faded carvings of Latin inscription.
“This… is this the dedication? I can certainly recite it, but will that be enough?”
The nymph bared her teeth in what, on a less desiccated face, might have been a smile.
Elizabeth glanced at Jane, who shook her head slightly: the nymph had no ill-intent.
“From you, it shall.”
He recited the words, and a brief pulse of magic shimmered across the pool.
It briefly enveloped the nymph, too, who reappeared perhaps a touch too thin, but full-figured, with a full head of dark curling hair.
She smiled briefly at them, then dove down into the waters.
Charles leaned against the wall.
“That went better than I expected it to.”
Fitzwilliam’s eyes were fixed on where the Nymph had vanished.
“Perhaps we should move on to the museum.
An angry deity in their own shrine is not an encounter I wish to have twice.”
Jane, on the other hand, was frowning thoughtfully.
“Vice in moderation can be sibling to Virtue, and any Virtue in excess may become Vice.
The nymph was meant to be a protector, but when the waters dried up, protectiveness became fury.”
Elizabeth was used to her sister’s half-formed thoughts; late night conversations were full of such things.
“You mean to say that you think it not a curse, that Charles attracts trouble, but a blessing gone awry?”
They walked toward the doorway.
Fitzwilliam acting as the rearguard.
“Perhaps not even a blessing, specifically.
Do you recall the nymph calling him a guardian?”
Elizabeth looked over her shoulder at her husband.
“Yes, ‘of cold peaks and rugged shorelines, not my beloved springs’.
What does that… my dear?”
He hesitated.
“There is a great deal of our history that has been lost, and much more that is speculation rather than fact.
There is a long-held theory, but it is not something to discuss in such a public place.”
Jane glanced around.
“There is a tea shop across the street; a ward against eavesdropping will not be noticed there.”
A few minutes later, they were settled at a small corner table, a pot of tea and a platter of bath buns between them, attention riveted to Elizabeth’s husband as he explained.
“There is a long-held theory that being Gifted follows certain bloodlines when it can, and chooses the person most suited when it cannot.
For nearly as long, there has been debate about whether the potential resides in those of such bloodlines who are not Gifted, even if it never activates.”
Elizabeth nodded, “My Great-Great-Aunt Isabella left behind journals.
If you read between the lines, she was the first to battle the Netherfield Malevolence, and she wrote of a ward of the family who eventually married her brother, who inherited Longbourn.”
Charles frowned lightly, "My family only left Scarborough when Grandfather built his factories and my sisters and I were sent away to school.
If we have such a history, I don't know of it."
There was a kind of rootedness that came from a family living on the same land, knowing that one's ancestors were buried in the same land that would eventually hold one's great-grandchildren.
Their time in Scarborough had been peaceful, and it was only when they left that trouble started appearing.
The possibilities were considerable, though Elizabeth would need her books before she could start testing the hypothesis.
Fitzwilliam clapped his friend on the shoulder in an attempt at comfort.
"It is only a theory.
Come, let us have another subject: how are your sisters."
Miss Bingley seemed to have convinced herself that the Possession at Netherfield was merely a very vivid dream, before she left to stay with the Hursts.
Charles and Jane both smiled.
"Louisa wrote that she is engaged to a Baronet.
A new title, but as the second holder, he is in need of a wife with a large dowry, and Caroline claims to be happy as the future Lady Ramsworth."
No doubt she also liked being the highest ranked of her siblings.
Still, if a husband and a title kept her occupied and away from Pemberley, Elizabeth would wish Caroline Bingley all joy of her new life.
Two letters came in the next morning’s post.
One was from Colonel Fitzwilliam, a short note informing them that the Militia was decamping from Meryton and would soon be in Brighton.
The other letter was from their sisters, and rather more detailed.
Elizabeth passed the letter to Jane.
“Brighton is not so very far from Bath, is it?”
Jane hummed distractedly as she read.
“No, and we are starting to draw attention in how frequently we return from outings rumpled.”
Charles winced, and Jane rested a hand on his arm.
“It is no criticism of you, my dear.
Merely something that the Gifted must be aware of, to avoid exposing themselves.”
Elizabeth smiled fondly, “I have lost count of the number of times we had to climb in through assorted windows to avoid Mama seeing the state we were in.
In our younger years, I was often the distraction, since my fondness for climbing trees was well-known.”
Her new brother laughed, “Did you outgrow the habit, or just get better at repairing your appearance before returning home?”
Jane smiled.
“Neither.
We learned to transform earlier, since our normal wear remains in the state it was before the transformation.
I’m surprised it took us so long to think of matching our transformations to what we were wearing that day.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“I am not.
Lydia was always the most fashionable of our sisters, it is fitting that she should think of it.”
Mr. Darcy gave a small smile.
“I shall write to some people I know in Brighton and make the arrangements.
I will miss the quiet, but I confess to missing my sister more.”
Charles smiled.
“I confess to missing my sisters hardly at all, but would welcome seeing yours again.
The Militia is to decamp in a week, shall we send a carriage for the same time?”
They agreed that would be the most suitable method of transportation, and planned to spend their last few days on relaxed walking tours that would let them come close enough to certain areas to sense any stirring darkness, but not start any fights that could not be quickly finished.