Chapter 44 Obstinate, Headstrong Girl
OBSTINATE, HEADSTRONG GIRL
I woke with the dawn, dressed, and went out to our front garden.
Our drake was on his perch. One foot now had no front claws; the other had one. I bent to examine them and felt his warm nose explore the back of my hair.
I spread his toes. The webbing between them was almost complete.
I straightened and looked into his gleaming black eyes.
“You have been a loyal friend to remain so long. But you must begin your next life while you are strong.” I wiped a wet eye and forced a smile.
“I think we have learned a lot together. At least, I am less foolish than when we began. And you have new memories to carry. Will you become a drake again? Or a tyke? Or is the path always upward, and you are destined to be a wyvern? You are most worthy.”
He fluttered his wings, birdlike, then pressed the crest of his head against my forehead, the tip of his narrow muzzle between my eyebrows. I closed my eyes. He stayed unmoving, the touch firm and warm, like a long kiss.
I heard his wings open. Wind rushed. And he was gone.
I told Barbara, our cook, to expect two more for breakfast.
Mamma came down in good spirits. “Lizzy, dear, have you fed the beast?”
“He is gone, Mamma. But we will be all right.”
“I thought we must keep him. Are you sure?”
“Wait and see.”
Miss Darcy came down next, hesitant in a strange home, and we welcomed her. Mamma, who would have preened and flattered around such an important guest a few months ago, was polite and gracious, if no less scattered than usual.
Kitty and Mary appeared next. Mary, freed of mourning, had dressed in featureless black neck-to-toe with her hair down in a braid. Miss Darcy was in a white muslin frock with her hair twisted up. They made an amusing pair as they chattered about music. Like two keys on a keyboard.
The doorbell chimed, and Sarah proudly announced Mr. and Mrs. Bingley. We all dashed to the door. Jane hugged everyone. She was still a skinny wraith, but her cheeks glowed with health.
“How do you feel?” I asked her.
“I feel awakened from a long fever. Everything sparkles like the world has been scrubbed. And I am starving for breakfast!”
I was grinning like a fool with relief. “We have a good breakfast ready.”
Jane leaned close and whispered, “And we have the most incredible news…”
“I know,” I whispered back.
Amid the babble, I slipped outside.
Jane and Charles’s wyvern was beside our draca house, examining the abandoned perch with evident curiosity.
She was a little larger than Lady Catherine’s wyvern, at least the size of a heavy foxhound.
But instead of bronze, she gleamed resplendent gold in the morning sun. I had never heard of a gold draca.
I closed my eyes. Her mind shone, wise and old. She was aware of me.
I opened my eyes. Her eyes flicked through shades of the rainbow as the sun touched them.
“Are you already our drake, transformed to a wyvern?” I wondered because she was interested in his perch.
child. he will swim for more than a lifetime of man
“ ‘Child’ again? Are you all so old?”
you are so young
“I am happy you have bound with my sister.” Her wings rustled. Best to get to important questions. “I wish to ask, what is the darkness of Pemberley? Draca flee the three lakes. Another wyvern told me to go there to help Jane. But it did not help.”
emptiness is not darkness. deference is not fear. jane is healed. the sisters of the child are revered
“That is a very vague answer, if it is an answer at all. If you are so old, you should have learned to be clear.”
Her jaws opened in the panting laughter of her kind.
Behind me, the manor door burst open and Mamma ran out. She stopped beside me, her trembling fingers over her open mouth. The house emptied into our garden, forming a half-circle of awed faces. The wyvern looked back at her admirers with scintillating eyes and equal interest.
Jane and Charles were hand in hand. “Is she not beautiful?” Jane said to nobody in particular.
Jane and I explained our plan to Mamma and Charles after breakfast.
“Take Longbourn?” Charles was astonished. “We cannot! It is yours.”
“It is very precariously ours,” I answered.
“And not for long. With our drake gone, Longbourn is sure to be claimed. But the entailment is clear. You are bound consort to an heiress. Reside here with your wyvern for seven nights, and you and Jane assume the title.” He was shaking his head.
“You must, or our home will be lost, and likely to someone unfriendly.”
“Lizzy is quite right,” Mamma said. “I have been recently disappointed with the quality of Hertfordshire gentlemen. Even members of the clergy. I am certain some horrible cousin from London would cast us out to starve.”
“If we do this, it will be in name only,” Charles said to her.
“It will remain your home.” He looked at me.
“Your estate.” He added, with a helpless laugh, “I am already quite overwhelmed sorting out Netherfield! Although now I have Jane to help.” He smiled at Jane adoringly, and Jane melted a little with happiness.
I suppressed an eye roll. For all that I loved them both, my tolerance for adoration was being tested this morning. Jane passes the butter and is adored. Charles pours the tea and is adored.
I wandered the house, restless. For two long years as Papa’s health worsened, I had been driven to protect my family. Then there was the desperate fight to save Jane. It was strange to have the two worries that consumed my life vanish overnight.
Mary and Miss Darcy were seated together at the keyboard of our small pianoforte, discussing chords and cadences. Pages of manuscript were laid out. I recognized Mary’s distinctive hand even in notation.
I listened as Mary played fragments of music. It was unfamiliar and modern. This was her composition.
They stopped so Mary could write changes. She looked up at me, smiling. Another happy sister.
“I like it very much,” I told her. She ducked her head to the music and thanked me, her smile pleased behind her swinging braid. “I should like to hear it all.”
“May I play it?” asked Miss Darcy. After a stillness, Mary nodded, then came to stand with me. She was nervous. I watched her eyes on Miss Darcy. That was the audience that worried her, not me.
Miss Darcy began to play. It was not what I would have imagined Mary would write. It had her intensity, but it was incandescent with emotion. Romantic. Longing.
I became lost in the music, and in hearing Miss Darcy perform again. This was different from the roaring Beethoven she had played at Pemberley. This was lyric. Every note sang.
“It is wonderful,” Miss Darcy said softly after the last tones faded.
Mary was staring in astonishment. Perhaps this was the first time Miss Darcy had played for her.
I walked over to look at the music. “There are words.”
“It is an old Greek poem titled ‘I have not had one word from her,’ ” Mary said. “By Sappho.” The name meant nothing to me, but the admission left Mary flushed.
“Well, I have never been interested in those tiresome Greek men,” I said. “You two shall have to explore Sappho on your own.” Now they were both blushing furiously, so I left them to it and wandered on.
In front of the manor, the draca house was empty. I ran my fingers along the iron perch, trying not to feel sad. Our drake was free and starting a new life. Perhaps hundreds of years, cycling endlessly between water and land.
Jane and Charles’s fabulous golden wyvern had also begun a new life, bound to them.
Would I want to bind draca when I married?
“No,” I decided aloud. Even though draca did not chafe at being bound, it bothered me. Once bound, they were trapped. Like Miss Darcy, I felt it was too much like slavery. And for what purpose? Prestige? Our drake may have saved our lives, but most draca were idle fixtures for social display.
Far away, I saw Jane’s wyvern soaring in the sky.
No, it was a different wyvern. The wings were shining bronze, not gold.
I shaded my eyes. An ostentatious iron-barred chaise and six was approaching. The horses were post, changed for speed, but the livery on the carriage was familiar. Lady Catherine de Bourgh, mistress of Rosings, was coming to Longbourn.
Doubtless I should dash inside to assume a ladylike pose, perhaps with embroidery.
Instead, I whacked some dust off my skirts and waited. I could not imagine why she would visit.
The carriage pulled up. The door was thrown open, and Lady Catherine descended with an air even more ungracious than usual.
“Good morning, Lady Catherine,” I said.
She seemed disconcerted to meet me without the pomp of announcement. Her reply was a slight inclination of the head. Then she jabbed her scowling jowls toward the manor. “That would be Longbourn House, I suppose.”
“Yes,” I said, concisely as I did not like her tone.
“You have a decent looking doorknob.” Her gaze followed the swath of ash burned through our front garden. “Your park is very odd.”
“We enjoy it. I am afraid we have breakfasted already. May I offer you tea?”
“You have had a wedding,” Lady Catherine said in an accusing tone.
I was becoming irritated. “We have had two weddings. My youngest sister, several weeks ago, and my eldest, yesterday.”
“Your eldest sister made a very advantageous match.” That was coarse, so I did not answer. Lady Catherine continued with a deeper scowl, “You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason for my journey. Your own heart—your conscience—must tell you why I come.”
“You are mistaken, madam,” I said coolly. “I cannot account for the honor of your visit.”
“I will not be trifled with,” she snapped. “However insincere you may be, my character is celebrated for sincerity and frankness.” She drew a commanding breath. “A report of a most alarming nature has reached me.”
I folded my arms. “I am all attentiveness.”
“I was told that my own nephew Mr. Darcy seeks to give up Pemberley.”