Chapter 48 Beltane Eve #3
He saw me watching and raised his cup in a quiet salute, smiling in the firelight. I smiled back, and my stomach did an unexpected, trembling flip.
What would happen between us after this evening?
My encounters with Mr. Darcy had become driven by my determination to…
to speak the truth. To unravel the tangle of our complicated intersections.
But our tangle had come free on its own.
We had shared secrets and fears and wishes.
I was more intimate with this man, whom I had thought so coldly proper, than anyone but Jane.
I remembered Papa’s words before he died: “Mr. Darcy, to my surprise, is a man who draws confidences.”
Papa’s posy ring hung under my dress, suspended on a thin chain. I touched the cloth and felt it on my breast, close to my heart. The ring my father gave me to carry his blessing.
If there were no more painful truths to spill, what came next?
Two men began a lively tune on reed flutes, music in an unusual mode that made me think of Irish folk tunes.
Couples began to dance. It was unlike any ball I had ever attended.
A man and woman danced the entire song together without changing partners, spinning each other enthusiastically.
When the music ended, they returned to their seats, laughing and holding hands, while the musicians raced into the next.
Aggy and Ellen’s husbands arrived to claim them for a dance. Aggy parked her roseworm on the bench beside me where he curled up, peering at me.
Mr. Darcy and I were now an island of stillness in the rollicking crowd. Lord Wellington and Mr. Digweed were waving their arms in some clashing rendition of an Eton song.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” Mr. Darcy said with sudden decision. “If you are not already engaged, would you honor me with this dance?”
I was so surprised that I answered very ungracefully. “Are you serious?”
“I am.”
“I do not know the steps.”
“Nor do I.” He stood and offered his hand. “Perhaps the cotillion?”
I took his hand and we walked among the dancers.
The cotillion is a dance for four couples in a square.
One spends half the dance with other partners.
It cannot be danced by two people alone.
And yet, we began, crossing the imaginary square hand-in-hand to start the pattern.
When I turned by habit to change partners, Mr. Darcy was there to take my hand and continue.
Around us, couples inked in woad spun past, somehow never colliding as we traced our elegant shapes in the firelight.
I began to smile, then I laughed at the ridiculousness of it.
We met in the center of our imaginary square and took each other’s hands.
“Do you enjoy the cotillion?” I asked—the same words that broke the silence of our first dance—as we stepped to one side, then the other.
“With you, I do,” he replied, and my heart skipped as we turned, then took each other’s hands again.
The song ended at an awkward point of the pattern, standing side-by-side with my right hand in his left.
We turned to each other, then let go. In a way, we had been doing this since that first assembly ball in Meryton—a step closer, and then a retreat.
But closer each time, pressing toward some irrevocable threshold.
Happy shouts rose from the other side of the clearing. Mr. Digweed had donned his horned hat, and a couple was kneeling in front of him while children waved branches of yellow flowers and sang lilting words.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“They are handfasting,” Mr. Darcy answered. “A Beltane betrothal for a year and a day. At the end, the couple chooses to marry or to go their own way without recrimination. Most decide sooner, one way or the other.”
The couple held out their clasped hands. Mr. Digweed began winding a red cord around their wrists in a complex knot.
“The statue of your mother has a red cord in her hand,” I said.
“My mother and father were betrothed at Beltane.”
“Oh.” I swallowed. “That is romantic.”
“My father asked my mother to dance. After they danced, he asked her to marry him.” My heart took flight like a scared rabbit at that, and my pretended courage for speaking my mind vanished with it.
I was staring at my feet when he continued, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were at Rosings, tell me so. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
“My feelings are altered,” I managed. That did not really make the point. I forced my gaze up to meet his, and it became easy to speak. “My feelings are profoundly changed and most favorable.”
Wordlessly, he held out his hand. I took it, thrilling as our palms met again. We walked to where Mr. Digweed stood, chatting with his wyfe while the couple he had betrothed swirled into the dance. He turned to us with a wide grin, then became serious.
“Mr. Darcy,” he said with a formal bow.
Mr. Darcy said in solemn recitation, “On this eve of Beltane, we would tie our hands.” Mr. Digweed’s wyfe drew a surprised breath, her eyes shining. Whispers and nudges spread through the crowd, turning heads and quieting the clearing.
Mr. Digweed’s wise eyes were on me. “Miss Bennet. Honored guest and blessed of Bel. This man would be your betrothed. This is a solemn choice of great import. Knowing this, would you handfast with him?”
“I would,” I said.
A murmur was growing in the crowd, but not due to my words.
Brilliant pinpricks of light were streaking in swooping paths through the forest, mauve and violet and blue like cool sparks among the trees.
These were not the dim flickers of glowworms on a summer evening.
The branches and leaves were illuminated in moving patterns, as if by hundreds of bright candles.
Mr. Digweed raised a red cord in his hand. “Offer your hands, and I shall bind you.” We held out our clasped hands, my right in Mr. Darcy’s left, and Mr. Digweed began to wind the cord in an elaborate pattern that joined our wrists. He said:
“This knot is your solemn troth beneath star and sky, a promise to join your lives like two green shoots that are braided by their summer’s growth. For a year and a day, flourish with one another. Then wed, and your joined love will ripen to eternal heartwood.”
Our hands were now tied in an elaborate figure eight of doubled cord.
Mr. Digweed lifted his hands to the sky.
“Or, without remonstration or reproof, you may unfasten and let the winds lift you like seeds of maple, carrying you apart to land afresh and grow again. By undoing this cord, I declare you free to leave betrothal without harm or broken promise.”
He reached for the knot, but with my free hand, I caught his fingers. “What if the cord is left?”
He cleared his throat. “If the sacred knot remains tied, by our ways, betrothal becomes marriage. Although English law would not—”
Our clasped hands had tightened around each other while he spoke. I was staring into Mr. Darcy’s eyes. I did not care about English law.
I said, “I would keep this knot tied.”
Mr. Darcy’s free hand rose. His fingertips brushed my temple and cheek. “I do not require a year and a day to accept this most profound honor to myself and my family.”
The pinpricks of light in the forest rushed skyward like shooting stars, then swooped and circled into the clearing—needledrac, the same tiny draca that had come to rescue me earlier, but in the thousands, their bodies shining in the night.
They swirled around us, a cyclone of blurring color that lit us like lanterns, then rushed around the clearing, darting among the people as joyous cries rose.
Mr. Digweed’s eyes were wide and joyful. “Bel has blessed you!” he cried. “Behold our May Queen and Oak King. This is the sacred wedding. The union of Earth and Sky!” A cheer rose.
In the noise, Mr. Digweed bent his head close and said, “It is customary, though not required, to exchange rings. Do you, by any chance…”
With my free hand, I drew the chain with my father’s ring over my head. I let go of Mr. Darcy’s fingers to open the chain and remove the ring.
I looked into Mr. Darcy’s eyes. “When my father returned from your rescue of Lydia, he knew we were destined to marry. He gave me his ring as his blessing. He would wish you to wear it.” Mr. Darcy, his eyes brightened, nodded. I placed the ring, still warm from my breast, on his finger.
Mr. Darcy withdrew his pocket watch and pressed a catch that opened the back, revealing a delicate ring of braided hair.
“My sister wove this after our parents’ death.
It is her symbol of our continuing family.
She would wish you to wear it, at least until I can provide something more permanent.
” He gave a wry smile. “I know this because she has expressed great frustration with what she calls my ‘glacially slow courtship’ of a woman she wishes were her sister.” Even as the significance of his offer pulled my heart, I laughed, remembering her unsubtle hint to me.
I offered my left hand, and he slipped the ring on my finger. Emotion flooded me, cool and profound and purifying as ice-cold water.
Mr. Digweed lifted a wooden cup. “Repeat these words: The sweetness of honey for love. The sharpness of spirit for challenges to overcome. Under the night sky, I am wed.” We said the words together.
The cup touched my lips. I drank, mead sparkling on my tongue, then Mr. Darcy drank. My husband drank.
Then we were standing, facing each other, grinning like fools, our tied hands clasped again, and the crowd cheering while blue and violet streaks filled the sky with celebratory corkscrews and twists.
Hands pushed and tugged us across the clearing. Voices shouted “May Queen” and “Oak King.” Branches of yellow blossoms were banged over our heads, raining golden petals.
In the frenzy, Aggy caught my arm, her grin touched with friendly concern, and asked if she should shoo people away.
“This is glorious,” I answered. I had never been so happy.
White cloth was drawn aside. Eager hands pushed us through, and the cloth closed behind us.
We were alone in an improvised tent of linen draped over a frame of willow branches.
Two small oil lamps lit the intimate space.
Amber and gold blossoms were tied in graceful sprays and scattered over the ground, soaking the air with sweetness.
Woolen blankets and cotton quilts lay thick atop a mattress of soft green branches. Our marriage bed.
Outside, the music resumed, and the sounds of revelry retreated.
My right wrist was still tied to Mr. Darcy’s left, and our fingers were twined in their own knot. I took his other hand, looking up at him.
“This is the bed of the May Queen and Oak King.” His tone was stilted, a return of the old, excessively formal Mr. Darcy.
He drew a deep breath. “It is a custom of the Britons. I… I am excruciatingly happy. We will marry again, of course, under English law. Miss Bennet, with the suddenness of this, if you would prefer—”
“I am not Miss Bennet,” I whispered.
His grip on my hands tightened. “Elizabeth.”
“You are getting closer.” The smile on my lips was trembling.
“Mrs. Darcy,” he whispered. “Wyfe.”
I stood on my toes and pressed my lips to his. Our tied hands were clenched tight, but I freed my other hand and buried my fingers in the tousled hair on the back of his neck. His arm caught my waist, pulling me into a kiss that was stunning, and ferocious, and hungry.
I jarred awake. My closed eyes held the shimmering afterimage of a distant silver line. My ears heard the echo of a joyful chord.
Hesitantly—remembering where I was—I opened my eyes. It was dark in our tent, the lamps extinguished. The sole radiance was moonlight illuminating the cloth roof. Outside, there was the creaking of crickets.
I lay curled against Mr. Darcy, our bare skin together, a quilt pulled crookedly over us. The chill of night cooled my exposed neck and shoulders.
The muscles of his shoulder and chest shifted under my cheek. “What was that?” he muttered, his voice blurred with sleep.
“A wyfe has bound,” I said. “By the lake.”
His breathing was already returning to the rhythms of sleep.