Chapter 10 Sparring
SPARRING
Why is a bound draca loyal?
I knew now that my strange episodes and visions were sensing a draca’s thoughts. My memories of the dying roseworm were too vivid to deny. And even while that poor creature was overcome by animal confusion and pain, the strongest emotion was almost human: the shame of a failed loyalty.
Do draca love their wyves and masters?
I think dogs serve a master for love. A dog is raised from a puppy, and he dotes on his master, wagging and wriggling with adoration.
But a bound draca arrives fully grown. They are found the morning after the wedding, often asleep as if binding were entirely mundane.
The wyfe feeds them, and they wander off to amuse themselves until hungry again.
This is not the behavior of a besotted creature.
It is like Charlotte’s view of marriage. Do not learn too much about your companion. Attend your wedding, have breakfast together in the morning, then go about your life.
Why does Charlotte’s practical philosophy make something ache under my breastbone?
I was staring through a tall six-pane window in the Netherfield sitting room. Outside the wavery glass, it was almost sunset.
Mr. Darcy was seated at a gilt-edged writing table, composing a letter. Miss Bingley hovered at his elbow. She was astonishingly overdressed in gathered yellow silk, her hair piled in ringlets.
“Tell your sister I am quite in raptures over her performance of a new sonata,” Miss Bingley said, “and that I think it infinitely superior to Herr Beethoven’s last effort, or I will, once I hear it.”
“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures until I write again?” Mr. Darcy said. “At present, I have not room to do them justice.”
His dry reply reminded me of my father’s wit. I watched his lips compress while he wrote. Perhaps I was beginning to decipher the hidden moods of the man.
The other mystery of the day returned—Mr. Darcy’s rude cut to Mr. Wickham. It was all the more remarkable because Mr. Darcy was undemonstrative, to say the least.
Mr. Darcy’s hints were lost on Miss Bingley. She rattled on until, at last, Mr. Darcy put down his pen and began a scathing response. Miss Bingley nodded along, wide-eyed, coquettish, and oblivious.
Oh. She was in pursuit of Mr. Darcy.
I laughed aloud. It was so obvious. How had I not noticed before? A minor mystery of Miss Bingley was solved. That left only the puzzle of her dislike for me.
At my laugh, Mr. Darcy shot up like an overwound spring had unfolded his long limbs. He strode over to me.
I looked up at his tense frame. Abandoned beside the writing table, Miss Bingley stared openmouthed at his back.
When nothing more happened, I said cautiously, “Yes?”
“In town today, you approached the dead draca,” he said.
This was not a topic I wished to pursue. “I was affected by his death. It was very sad.” That was honest, if unrevealing.
The tension in his frame cranked tighter. “Your companion was unaffected.”
So, this was about Mr. Wickham. I folded my arms. “That is a remarkable insight, as you departed so hastily.”
A muscle tensed along his jaw. “That was a matter of honor.”
My lingering frustration from Mr. Wickham’s unexplained departure returned. “How fortunate, then, that you left me in the company of an honorable officer.”
“You attach high regard to the militia,” Mr. Darcy said angrily.
I stepped closer. We were now face-to-face, abandoning any pretense of social conversation. “They serve our country in time of war.”
“Honor is measured in the man, not the uniform.”
Miss Bingley fluffed to an awkward stop beside Mr. Darcy. “What has the militia to do with anything?”
Mr. Hurst was tilting a glass of port back and forth.
He spoke up. “The militia are a ragged group, but it is an economical method to train soldiers. Still, the way they parade about and bring their own guns is very amateur. It is sufficient for cannon fodder, but not for officers. No gentlemen could tolerate such company.”
I remembered Mr. Wickham’s comment about shouting patriotism while playing cards. “Many gentlemen have volunteered in the militia. And one does not need to be a gentleman, or an officer, to have honor.”
Hastily, Mr. Bingley stepped in. “Miss Bennet, I was very pleased to visit with you and your sister today. It was a joy to see her so improved. I was disappointed that she could not join us for dinner.”
Mr. Bingley disliked argument, and his effort to calm the conversation was so obvious that it was sincere, rather like Mr. Bingley himself. For Jane’s sake, I owed civility to his friends.
“Jane has an appetite now,” I said, forcing a polite tone. “We were able to walk several times around the room. But we will wait till morning before attempting the stairs.”
“She will be down for breakfast then?” Mr. Bingley was so enthused that I expected him to begin toasting bread, even though we just left dinner.
“You have been most accommodating, but our stay is a great imposition. If Jane is well enough, we thought to depart directly in the morning.” I did not mention that I had extracted this promise from Jane. I was eager to escape Netherfield.
Miss Bingley cried, “How wonderful!” even as Mr. Bingley said, “What a shame!” Miss Bingley gave him an angry look, and Mr. Bingley amended, “I mean… I am thrilled your sister is so much better.”
“Miss Eliza Bennet,” Miss Bingley said, but she watched her brother, not me, “I have discovered a pattern to your advocacy. You would educate servants and find honor in common soldiers. It seems you encourage people to rise above their station. Perhaps you are close to someone with such aspirations?”
Her tone was acid—an attack on Jane. But I must be mistaken. Even Miss Bingley would not dare such rudeness in front of her brother and Mr. Darcy. Jane was a gentlewoman, the social equal of Mr. Bingley.
“I cannot imagine to what you refer,” I said coldly.
“Oh, I forgot. It was a conversation we had without you. Charles, do you remember? How an otherwise sweet girl could be ruined by her mother’s scheming for marriage gold?”
Mr. Bingley’s earlobes turned red, a color that spread to his cheeks. Mr. Darcy became as still as ice.
Now I understood her boldness. The too-quick silence of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy was complicit. They had participated before. Raw embarrassment and sheer fury flushed my skin and left me voiceless.
“Mr. Darcy,” she continued gleefully, “you had an observation about a girl who binds draca for prestige. Do you recall it?”
For all my anger with Mr. Darcy, I could not believe a man of good breeding would answer.
His face paled. When he spoke, his voice was a rough whisper. “A woman who binds draca for prestige is intolerable.”
Miss Bingley turned to me, her smile vicious and triumphant.
Mr. Darcy continued, as if his words could not be restrained. “Even if she were… astonishing… she could never be my wyfe.”
Miss Bingley’s smile vanished. She spun and echoed, “Your wyfe?”
Into the silence, Mr. Hurst spoke, his port-addled mind stuck on our prior conversation. “Honor is not required in a common soldier. Wellesley tells them to charge, and they do as ordered. Or they are shot.”
My anger at Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingley, which I could not express without profound embarrassment, now flew at a target—Mr. Hurst, whom I detested as much as any of them.
“Mr. Wellesley succeeds because of his regard for his troops,” I said. “He is renowned for his defensive strategy.”
Mr. Hurst blinked at me around a nose crisscrossed with port-colored veins. “Am I to be told military strategy by a woman?”
“I see no uniforms in this room.” I turned to Mr. Darcy, seeking revenge. “But I forgot. Mr. Darcy had an observation on this. Do you recall it? I shall remind you: ‘Honor is measured in the man, not the uniform.’ I thank you for letting me measure the man.”
“Be careful,” Mr. Hurst said with a snort. “Darcy knows Wellesley.”
“You know Arthur Wellesley?” I said, incredulous, for Mr. Wellesley was England’s greatest field commander and no socialite.
“I have that honor,” Mr. Darcy said. His gaze had been on the floor since he answered Miss Bingley, and he did not look up.
“And you compare military strategy over cards?” I said, so angry that I was having difficulty restraining myself.
“No.” His gaze, at last, met mine. “Not over cards.”
“Darcy, tell her,” came Mr. Hurst’s slurred voice. “Wellesley succeeds by whipping his soldiers to charge. Not through some pretty idea of ‘regard for his troops.’ ”
“I see no need to adjudicate a disagreement when one party obviously has the superior understanding,” Mr. Darcy said.
His dark brown eyes never left mine. Because it was unexpected, it took me a moment to understand that he supported me.
That only left me frustrated, for I would have loved a fresh provocation.
Mr. Hurst mumbled something gratified, assuming himself vindicated. But Mrs. Hurst turned to me.
“Miss Bennet,” Mrs. Hurst said, “the room has become very warm. I was about to step outside. Will you join me?”
I did not trust that she was well intentioned, but I was all too happy to have an excuse to leave.
A maid followed us out the front door into the early evening. Mrs. Hurst stopped a few paces from the stone draca house. The Hursts’ lindworm emerged.
“Stay well back, Miss Eliza,” she said. “It is a powerful beast, quite unlike your little drake with its fluttering wings. Even I hesitate to approach closer than this.”
The maid passed her a bundle, a rabbit still in its fur and trussed with twine. It twitched, and I realized it was alive. And terrified.
Without a word, she tossed the poor animal to the lindworm, who killed it with a snap of her jaws and began to eat. It was quick enough, but an unnecessary and cruel ritual.
“The rabbit is quite overmatched, do you not think?” Mrs. Hurst said. “It should have remained in its little hole, rather than walking through miles of dirt to flaunt its courage.”
It took a moment to believe this was intended to be clever and to intimidate me.
“Unoriginal wit becomes dull,” I said. “I should vary the theme from dirt, to keep an edge. Perhaps… My lindworm is bored, for she—your lindworm is a female, not an ‘it’—for she is accustomed to London’s society, and here she must amuse herself by rending some poor country mouse.
Or… do not the scales on my lindworm shine?
They remind me of Miss Bingley’s golden hair.
The rabbit’s dark fur—what remains of it—is poor by comparison. ”
I sank down on my heels, allowing my skirts to settle to the ground. The lindworm abandoned her meal to come over, and Mrs. Hurst stepped back hurriedly. That could have fueled amusing comments, but I had lost interest in sparring.
If a bound draca does not love its wyfe and master, why stay? This lindworm will devote decades to the Hursts. Is she a servant? A slave? Is it like marriage, enforced, whether happy or miserable, by the conventions of some unfathomable draca society?
The lindworm was sitting on her haunches, pondering me while I pondered her. Wondering, perhaps, why I stayed in this house filled with people whom, for the most part, I disliked.
Draca are not creatures to pet or cuddle, but I touched her head, curious to feel her scales again. They are each as hard as a diamond but form a yielding, smooth surface. And warm to my fingers, though no warmer than a dog or cat.
Mrs. Hurst finally spoke. “Naturally, you would be experienced in caring for animals.”
It was a brave attempt at sarcasm but, I decided, inferior to her sister’s innate skill.
“My family has bound draca for more generations than I can count,” I said, mostly to myself. I was thinking of my father’s journal. My journal.
The Bingleys, of course, had become gentry when their father earned a fortune in trade.
I stood, and the lindworm returned to her meal. “Please convey my regrets. I must retire to care for my sister.”
We departed in the morning, Mr. Darcy and the Bingleys gathering to see us off.
I said farewell to our little maid, of whom I had become quite fond, and she bobbed a curtsy, looking forlorn herself.
The Longbourn coach arrived, and Mr. Bingley attempted to bury Jane beneath four blankets and three pillows and a tray of warm toast until I laughingly dissuaded him.
While Mr. Bingley helped Jane into the coach, I noticed the Hursts’ lindworm lying beneath a shady tree. Her legs were folded and her head alert, reminding me of engravings of the Egyptian Sphinx.
Even with her bound wyfe a few steps away, her attention was fixed on me.
Thank you, I thought, concentrating on the words.
She rose instantly, as if awaiting orders. My vision shivered. I clamped my eyes closed and held a gasped breath. Afterimages of brilliant gold flickered and faded.
The binding of draca is not universally admired. But it is a custom of the powerful aristocracy. So, it is respected.
Widowed wyves who hold draca are rare, and like all women, their rights are circumscribed.
They become targets of rage. Populist preachers denounce them, claiming they hold draca through pagan rites or coarse passion—even witchcraft, absurd as that is in the dawn of the nineteenth century.
Only women of exceptional standing and wealth survive with their reputations intact. Or survive at all.
The condemnation of an unmarried woman who saw visions and communicated with other wyves’ bound draca would be far more fierce. Savage.
Mr. Darcy offered his hand to assist me into the coach, and I took it, only afterward finding that unexpected.