CHAPTER TWO
The days following the Meryton assembly settled into a deceptive rhythm at Longbourn. Deceptive, because beneath the surface of ordinary country life, the currents of change ran deeper and swifter.
Mrs Bennet’s considerable energies were now entirely consumed by scheming ever more elaborate ways to further Jane’s acquaintance with Mr Bingley.
Her persuasive talents were deployed with maternal zeal, attempting to nudge fate, opportunity, and her eldest daughter in the desired Netherfield direction.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, found her thoughts frequently, and annoyingly, returning to the towering figure of Mr Darcy. His dismissive pronouncements – “tolerable,” “untamed power,” “a liability” – echoed in her mind with infuriating persistence.
Yet, despite her best efforts to dismiss him as merely a rude, haughty man, she couldn’t entirely dispel the memory of the sheer magnitude of his magical presence. All others now seemed almost childishly inconsequential.
The Blight, too, continued its relentless creep. The great oak at the edge of their property now looked truly sick. Its smaller branches crumbled to dust at the slightest touch, its magical hum replaced by a sickly whisper that was deeply disturbing to Elizabeth’s senses.
Even the usually vibrant energy woven into the market stalls in Meryton — the magic that made the fruit gleam with unnatural freshness and the ribbons shimmer with impossible colours – seemed faded and tired.
A sense of foreboding was settling over Hertfordshire like a shroud, a feeling that even Mrs Bennet’s determined, almost aggressive optimism couldn’t entirely dispel.
Mr Bennet spent more and more time closeted in his library.
It was not merely the leisurely engagement with familiar texts, or solely a desire to absent himself from domestic concerns, that now drew him.
Instead, he applied himself with unwonted diligence to weighty tomes.
The situation had become dire enough to, at the least, inspire Mr Bennet to read about action, albeit not yet enough to rouse to action.
One crisp autumn afternoon, nearly five days after the assembly, the quiet of Longbourn was shattered by an arrival of undeniably ominous importance.
Two imposing coaches, devoid of any heraldic crest or ornamentation, drawn by four perfectly matched horses each, pulled up the gravel drive with an air of authority. The lead coachman, a tall figure swathed from head to toe in dark grey livery, drew the coach to a stop.
“Good heavens above!” exclaimed Mrs Bennet, rushing to the drawing room window, “Who can this be? Such an equipage! So grand! Perhaps Mr Bingley has come to make a late call! Oh, Jane, your hair! Is it tidy? Lizzy, do you think my cap is straight?”
But Elizabeth knew this was no mere social call, for the magic surrounding these arrivals was too potent. It was the unmistakable signature of the Arcane Office.
“Get Papa,” she told Kitty.
“You do it,” said Kitty, sprawled on the couch with her latest embroidery covering her head.
A footman, as stern and grey-clad as the coachman, disembarked from the lead coach and approached the front door. Mr Hill, their aging butler, opened the door with a visible tremor of his hand.
The footman offered no polite preamble. He simply stated, “A summons from the Lord Magister of the Arcane Office, for Mr Bennet of Longbourn, and for Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
A collective gasp went through the assembled Bennet ladies. Mrs Bennet looked as though she might faint, her hand fluttering to her chest. “The Arcane Office? The Lord Magister himself?”
Elizabeth, who typically met every circumstance with ready wit or quick action, now experienced a tumult of bewilderment so complete that it effectively froze her to the spot. What could the Arcane Office possibly want with her? How could her name even be known to them?
It was Kitty, her earlier petulance forgotten, who ran off to fetch their father.
When he came moments later, Mr Bennet’s face was pale, but his voice, when he spoke, was composed.
“It seems, Mrs Bennet,” he said, addressing his overwrought wife, “that we have finally attracted attention from circles far beyond Hertfordshire.” To the impassive footman, he said, “We will attend His Lordship at once.”
There was no choice. There was no possibility of polite demurral or a plea for a more convenient time. The summons was absolute. The Arcane Office’s authority came from the Crown.
Elizabeth felt dread tighten in her stomach, a premonition of something significant, something life-altering, and almost certainly unpleasant.
Her magic, which had been restless and agitated ever since the Meryton assembly, now thrummed within her with a nervous energy, making the teacups on a nearby side table rattle faintly.
She exchanged a worried, silent glance with Jane.
They were not permitted to take their own carriage. Instead, Mr Bennet and Elizabeth were ushered, with a minimum of ceremony, into the first of the black coaches.
As the coach pulled away from Longbourn, Elizabeth caught a last, fleeting glimpse of her mother’s face at the window, Jane’s anxious one pressed close beside her.
Mr Bennet attempted a reassuring smile in her direction, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were shadowed with a worry she had rarely seen in him.
“Well, Lizzy,” he said, his voice a little too bright, a little too forced, “it seems you are destined for greater things than attending country assemblies after all. Though I confess I had always hoped for something a trifle less ominous in its presentation.”
“Papa,” Elizabeth asked, her voice hushed, trying to keep the tremor from it, “what do you truly think this is about?”
He sighed, the weariness in his expression deepening, aging him before her eyes. “I fear I do not know. The Arcane Office does not concern itself with minor local disturbances. It must be for something significant.”
“Then why I am here, Papa? My magic is untrained. A liability, as a certain gentleman recently pronounced it.”
“Perhaps,” Mr Bennet mused, his gaze lost in the blurring landscape rushing past the window, “it is precisely that intuitive quality they seek. Or perhaps they require someone with a natural resonance, someone who can feel the decay of the land more acutely than those whose talents are more rigidly trained by standard doctrine.” He paused, then turned to look at her, a strange, almost fearful light dawning in his eyes.
“Or perhaps — no, it could not be. It is just fanciful tale.” He reached out and briefly squeezed her hand.
“Pray it is not the latter, Lizzy. Some ancient magics, are best left sleeping in the dust of ages.”
“To what fanciful tale do you refer?”
“I should not say…it is an exceedingly unlikely event…” Mr Bennet trailed off uncertainly.
After what felt like an eternity of anxious travel, but was likely no more than an hour, the coach finally slowed. They had not travelled towards London, as Elizabeth had expected, but deeper and deeper into the countryside.
The coach passed through an almost invisible gateway, marked only by two stones that pulsed with a deep light. She felt the intricate, powerful wards of this hidden place wash over them, a complex layering of protections so potent that they made her head ache.
The coach stopped before a forbidding stone manor nestled within a grove of yews.
It was not an Arcane Office building, at least not one Elizabeth recognised from any illustration or description.
This place felt older, imbued with a magic that was deeply rooted in the earth itself.
The stones of its walls seemed to hum with centuries of brooding energy.
Smoke, thick and grey, curled from several chimneys.
They were escorted, still in silence, by two more grey-clad mages into a large hall.
The door closed behind them not with a click, but a heavy, final thud that felt like a sentence being passed.
The hall itself was a cavern of shadow and silence, all the energy in the room seeming to be drawn towards the far end, to a long oak table where three men sat like judges in the firelight.
The only sound was the soft click of her shoes on the floor, a sound that seemed vulnerably human in this place of ancient power.
As they approached the table, her gaze was drawn first to the man in the centre, presiding, a man whose face was etched with unquestionable authority. To his right sat an elderly man with a trimmed white beard. His entire being seemed to crackle with a restless, scholarly energy.
To his left, looking completely out of place in his fashionable, perfectly tailored gentleman’s attire, was Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley.
Elizabeth stopped dead in her tracks. Mr Darcy! What in heaven’s name was he doing here?
He looked as shocked, and as displeased, to see her as she was to see him.
The man in the centre gestured with a ring-adorned hand towards two empty, hard-backed chairs opposite them.
“Mr Bennet. Miss Bennet. Please, be seated. I am Lord Magister Theron. This is Arch-Chancellor Pembroke of the Academy,” he indicated to the elderly man to his right, “and I believe you are already acquainted with Mr Darcy of Pemberley.”
His voice was melodious, pleasant, even, yet held an undeniable undercurrent of command. It was a voice accustomed to instant, unquestioning obedience.
Mr Bennet inclined his head, his expression neutral, though Elizabeth could feel the spike in his paternal anxiety beside her. She curtsied and then sat, her own senses reeling, as her mind struggled to process the confusing reality of their situation.