Chapter Twenty-two #2
Mr. Darcy groused that the country was a terrible place to find people to drink, and she had to admit that there was something appealing about the anonymity of people leaving taverns, as her husband had pointed out.
She was the most nervous about that. Mr. Darcy had told her that her personality might change after she was turned, and she had fears of becoming ever so bloodthirsty and awful. What if she liked the blood too much? What if she killed someone?
For her husband had told her that accidents happened, especially to new vampires, and she was very worried that she would end a life. She did not know if she could forgive herself such a thing.
However, the first time went easily.
She bit her maid. Mr. Darcy said she could do it once, and he would teach her to charm afterwards. But one could not charm a servant over and over, of course. Once was permissible, however, and it was better to do it in the confines of Pemberley since she was just turned.
She realized at once that it would not be so easy to kill someone. She was sated, as her husband had promised, after a small drink, and that to keep going would be to glut herself, to be greedy in a way that was simply not in her nature.
And then she had been worried about the severing of her bond with her husband, but this turned out not to be much of a worry either, for there were temporary bonds between vampires, borne of blood sharing.
Now, they could bite each other, after all, and she found herself endlessly intrigued with all of the spots on her husband’s body where she could fit her teeth.
She liked to lie in his arms, his body cradling hers like a large spoon, and to pull his hand and wrist to her lips to kiss and take little draws of blood from.
She liked to straddle him, bending down to bite his clavicle, his neck, his stubbled chin.
She liked it when they kissed, for both of them to use their fangs on each other’s tongues and lips.
They drank each other’s blood daily.
The bond did not sever.
So, all was well.
And the years went on after this.
She still visited her loved ones for a decade, always in the darkness of course, but she was able to see her sisters’ children grow. She was there in the evening after her Papa’s funeral, and then, five years later, at her mother’s, too.
The connection with her life faded out slowly. It was not as if she disappeared from anyone’s lives, it was only that they all grew more preoccupied with their own lives and more accustomed to the absence of Elizabeth.
It was only Jane who knew.
Jane and her husband stayed constant in their lives, coming to visit rather often.
Once, she and Jane had a conversation. It was over ten years after the initial turning. Jane was in her forties at this point, and Elizabeth, though young-looking, could still simply be explained away as well-preserved.
“If I asked you,” said her sister, “would you do it to me?”
Elizabeth was shocked at this. “You would wish it?”
“Answer the question, Lizzy,” said Jane, laughing.
Elizabeth thought about it and then said, “Yes. Of course, yes. I would have you with me always if I could, and if you wished this, I would.”
Jane let out a breath. “Oh.”
“This is not what you wished to hear?” said Elizabeth.
“It’s only that it seems there are so few of you, of vampires,” said Jane. “And it seems to me rather odd. It seems everyone who finds out would be clamoring to be made immortal. What do we all want besides to live forever?”
“True,” said Elizabeth. “But there was a time when I was not sure I wanted it. I could have been made a vampire at twenty years of age and remained fresh-faced for all time. But I delayed and delayed, for it seemed so final, you know? And it was frightening. And I… I don’t know.
I think people think they want it, but when it comes down to changing yourself into something unnatural, it is difficult to truly do it.
My husband was turned without being asked.
I think that is the way of it much of the time. ”
“Yes, you are right. Even now, even with your offering it to me, something in me shies from it.”
“Your husband would be horrified.”
“Oh, yes, he is quite adamant that your husband is a demon on earth,” said Jane, laughing.
“One that he agrees to visit and to socialize with, of course,” said Elizabeth, laughing also.
“I have pointed out the irony, and he has nothing to say for himself,” said Jane. “But it is not only him. There are my own children. I suppose you wouldn’t also turn them?”
“Well,” said Elizabeth. “When would you wish them turned? And what of their children, and what of—”
“Yes, it becomes unwieldy rather quickly, doesn’t it?” Jane bit down on her lip very hard.
“It does,” agreed Elizabeth.
They never spoke of it again.
Jane died some forty years later. Elizabeth was there, but no one knew who she was.
She used another name, calling herself Clara, saying that she was a Bennet cousin, and everyone said she looked just like the Bennets, did she not, and that oh, yes, they did remember meeting her in years passed and how was her mother?
It was as her husband had said. People were eager to deceive themselves.
But Jane knew who she was.
“You are missing it, Lizzy,” said Jane to her, her eyes filmy, her face a spiderweb of lines, her hair white. “You are missing all of it.”
“All of what?” said Lizzy.
“Life,” said Jane. “You haven’t lived these last years, you have just existed. You may have more time, but you will never really be alive.”
It cut her.
After Jane was gone, after the body was still and cold and lifeless, after Elizabeth could not attend the funeral, for it was during daylight, she spoke of it to her husband.
“She is bitter, for her time is at an end,” her husband said. “You must pay it no mind.”
But Elizabeth knew it wasn’t only that.
There was truth to it.
She was missing it.
That deathbed, Jane surrounded by her children and grandchildren, (Colonel Fitzwilliam had passed on four years earlier) a whole clan of descendants, all of them speaking of Jane and how she had been there for them, of her pain and her triumphs, of her love and her presence, of how deeply they adored her, how much she had meant to them…
Elizabeth would never have that.
But Jane was correct.
She would have more time.
Would it be a compensation?