Chapter 42
ARIA
LIZZY
In the last year, my young and complacent life was transformed by moments of lucid decision. When my father died, I chose to save Longbourn. When Jane was ill, I chose to cure her. When Lydia seized my husband, I chose to fight. Each time, my world shattered, and I answered: No.
Learning of my own illness was different.
Even in little Meryton, lives regularly ended without rhyme or purpose.
A fever spiked. A childbirth was hard. A scratch blackened and swelled.
Why should I be immune to the scythe? If there were purpose to death, I was a sensible choice—either judged for the violence I had unleashed, or simply a fool, a country girl who traipsed through London’s slums as if fresh wealth and good intentions were proof against pestilence.
But when I cradled Darcy in the privacy of our gardens—when I listened to him moan and shout—I realized I must choose again. Not for myself. After all, I would be gone. But other lives continue. So, I decided: I would be strong for my husband.
“Wait here,” Darcy whispered to me when we entered Box Hall, then he rushed to Emma on the terrace.
I knew he would seek her out—to ask her to cure me, or to demand it—but I did not expect him to return so…
eviscerated. Riven to his core. Darcy believed in Emma.
He was her prophet and her champion. His surrender extinguished a secret glimmer of hope I held as well, but it strengthened my choice.
I pulled him to the corner, away from the chattering bodies.
“I am glad that is done. Now you will not be distracted while Mary performs.” When he did not answer, I said firmly, “This is important. You promised we would attend. That means in spirit, not staring through the walls like a blind wraith.”
He breathed deeply several times. “Yes.”
While he collected himself, I surveyed the room and considered the mysteries of illness.
I felt quite good now, other than a buzzing glare around each window.
This followed a pattern that had built in the last few days: a few hours of normalcy, then a surge of symptoms. Each surge was harder, but the timing worked well for this.
Georgiana joined us, happy, excited, and wearing her Chinese gown of red silk and golden, web-footed dragons.
“I have not seen that dress since Jane’s wedding,” I said.
“Mary has been composing like a madwoman. She was gone before I woke, and has hidden in the library all day. I am sure this will be special, so I have dressed to celebrate.”
Mary entered the hall while she spoke, and Georgiana summoned her with a wave. As she arrived, Georgiana announced, “Mary is adapting the third act of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.”
“Not that!” Darcy burst out, so loudly that nearby conversations stopped.
Georgiana made a scolding noise at him, then gave Mary an apologetic smile. “Fitz is worried because the aria is so sad. He is all stony nods in life, but he cries if there is the least drama on stage.”
Mary said seriously to Darcy, “Do not be apprehensive. I have altered the ending.” She was dressed in fastidious black, the most dour of her Mary-ish outfits, although the most dramatic as well. Across her shoulders, a roll of cloth was bunched and tied.
“Is that a costume?” I asked. Mary played the pianoforte endlessly while composing, but I had expected her to remain behind the scenes. She was not a confident performer like Georgiana.
“Belinda,” Mary answered, which meant nothing to me. She passed several pages of handwritten music to Georgiana. “Your part.”
Georgiana took it eagerly, then quieted as she scanned it. “I thought the courtiers would sing. You know I do not perform vocal work. Things… happen when I sing.”
“England is invaded,” Mary answered softly.
“Every life is unsure. I wish to sing with you. This once, while we are all together.” Mary’s gaze touched Darcy and me as well.
When Georgiana hesitantly nodded, Mary said to me, “After the performance, we must speak with Emma also. I have had only an hour to read since London. But those books reveal a greater danger than we knew.”
I was battling a swell of emotion from Mary’s brief speech, but Georgiana removed any need to reply by saying sharply, “London?”
“Later,” Mary repeated. “Where is Emma? We will need her, too.”
“She left,” Darcy said.
The royal family entered, and formal greetings rippled outward.
The old king, pouting and mumbling, settled in a chair between his doctors, but the prince came to us.
“Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Thank you again for your accommodation. Lord Wellington did tell me this extreme secrecy will be brief. I hope we will not long require Pemberley’s unique defenses.
” His smile at me was polite, but curious also.
Lord Wellington doubtless uttered whatever words soothed restless monarchs.
But what would happen once I was gone? Draca bound through their wyfe, so when a wyfe died, the binding ended, and the draca left.
Everything I knew suggested that Yuánchi would leave after my death.
Pemberley would be a poor fortress without its dragon.
Lady Hertford, the prince’s acknowledged mistress, patted the prince’s arm. “Prinny, let them prepare. Miss Darcy must herd all these squawking geese into place.”
“I am sure Miss Bennet will assist,” the prince said. To Mary, he said, “Will I hear your music today?”
“In the last piece, sir.” Her tone was tight, which surprised me. Mary was no royalist, but she had been precise in observing court etiquette. Perhaps she was nervous about performing.
The prince watched her thoughtfully. He seemed intent to make some point.
“I look forward to it. I have been curious since the ball. Wondering what woman could so captivate Miss Darcy.” Mary’s tension was now visible in her clutched fingers.
Darcy, too, stiffened. More softly, the prince added, “Do not be concerned. A royal life fosters sympathies for impossible situations.” He took Lady Hertford’s arm, and they proceeded to chairs beside the king.
Everyone exchanged meaningful looks. Everyone, that is, except me, who was baffled. “What was that?”
“Unexpected,” Mary said, releasing a breath. She squeezed my hand. “I must herd geese.” She vanished into the crowd, saying, “Where is Mr. Knightley?”
We took our seats, and after the confusion necessary for all improvised affairs, the entertainment began with a skit that featured, unexpectedly, the master of protocol.
I had thought him an utterly humorless man, but he portrayed himself perfectly, remaining in character through a farce of tripping court buffoons.
At the end, the court laughed uproariously, and he bowed stiffly. Perhaps he thought it was real.
A song followed, then a pantomime, pleasant in the way amateur performances are, but I did not know the players, so my mind wandered.
Yuánchi, I thought.
I am here. Our binding brightened, west and slightly upward. He was atop one of Pemberley’s hills.
It felt like cowardice to tell him this way, but more delay was cowardly as well. I am sick.
I know.
Somehow, I expected that. Our last connections had been so intimate, so integrated to his sensations, it stood to reason he felt mine as well. Will you leave when I am gone?
I must sleep when a binding ends. I will dream of you.
That was nice, but I was in a practical mood. What that really meant was that we needed to recover the dagger. Or at least free Fènnù from its control. Perhaps Mary had found a clue. Or Lord Wellington might recover it in London. Mary had enclosed a note to him with her letter to Dr. Davenport.
There was another round of applause, then a discreet conference between Mary and Georgiana. I realized that Mr. Knightley’s violin sat untouched on a table. Had he missed his performance? Emma and Harriet were absent as well.
Georgiana took a seat at the pianoforte, adjusting her music, and the audience hushed.
Mary faced us, her voice carrying and strong.
“For our last work, we adapt the lost myth of Dido, Queen of Britannia. The time is long ago. Britannia is at war with the Gauls, but the war goes poorly. Desperate for allies, Queen Dido has agreed to marry Aeneas, a prince of Troy. But Aeneas was ensorcelled and withdrew his engagement. Dido’s heart is broken, and Britannia is doomed. ”
There were intakes of breath from the audience, either due to Mary’s delivery, which was riveting, or because she had dared allude to the war.
“I do not know this myth,” I whispered to Darcy.
“That is because it is wildly altered,” he whispered back. “For one thing, Troy is inconveniently far from Britain.”
Mary finished her introduction with, “I, Belinda, Dido’s loyal maid, have come to comfort her.” Georgiana played a chord, and Mary began to sing.
The keyboard music was an old style, a spare continuo to lead the voice, nothing like Mary’s strikingly modern compositions.
I knew Mary’s singing, of course. Neither of us were gifted vocalists; Mary was more accurate, while I was more sweet—Papa once called Mary’s singing “furry,” which had upset her.
This music, though, somber and slow, fit her beautifully, and she sang with a confidence I had never heard as Belinda beseeched her mistress to put aside unworthy Aeneas and heal her heart.
While she sang, my binding to Yuánchi, a constant in my mind, brightened like a spiderweb catching sun.
The sensation strengthened, and around me, the forces of the draca world began to rotate and fold, like the flow I felt when Georgiana invoked her strength.
But these were structured and purposeful, a dressmaker sewing panels into a gown, not a paintbrush blending watercolors.
The exactness was quintessentially Mary.
Her aura as a great wyfe was real, even though it was strangely dispersed. She had power.
Outside on the terrace, motions caught my eye. Those iridescent small draca had gathered, landing on the rail and tables, heads cocked and listening.
Still playing the keyboard, Georgiana added her voice—the voice of Dido, Queen of Britannia, although oddly costumed in a flame-red Chinese gown.
In all this time, I had only ever heard her sing short phrases, the notes she used to invoke her powers as wyfe of song.
Now, her voice rose in a bell-clear soprano that blended beautifully with Mary’s earthy timbre.
The melody grew more complex as well, and the harmonies more daring.
Georgiana sang a dark refrain:
“Belinda; darkness shades me,
death is now a welcome guest.
When I am laid in earth,
remember me, but ah! forget my fate.”
This heart-wrenching melody I recognized—Dido’s lament, the devastating death song of the queen—but already the music was forging a new path, and the queen did not complete her death song. Instead, the harmonies, resplendent with the shimmering contrasts of Mary’s composition, swelled with hope.
Georgiana sang a wordless counterpoint, her eyes closed as her hands swept the keyboard in a ringing challenge that shivered my skin.
Mary sang again, and the crowd muttered in surprise. Purcell’s sad ending had been discarded. These words were solely Mary’s:
“Beloved Dido, descend not to death.
Forget your faithless prince of Troy.
Behold: Faithful Belinda has a secret.”
She pulled a bow at her shoulder, and the cloth unrolled, a cape decorated with strips of purple and violet silk. The room had become brilliant with sunlight, and the colors shone like fine vestments.
Georgiana played a celebratory resolution. There was no more music. The last page of Mary’s handwritten score was on her music stand. Uncertainly, she looked up at Mary. The story was clearly unfinished.
Mary lifted Georgiana’s hand from the keyboard. “Rise, Queen Dido.” Georgiana stood, her eyes very wide, and Mary took both her hands and sang:
“The Fairy Queen commands me.
Thy engagement must be honored.
I, secret princess of Troy, and a sprite, replace him at the altar,
so Troy’s ships and men shall defend Britannia.”
She fell silent. Their cheeks were flushed, their gazes transfixed. A hundred past hints rushed into my mind—they would have been declarations for a more sensible onlooker—and, finally, I understood Mary’s brave love.
Shocked whispers spread among the courtiers. They quieted as Mary recited, no longer singing:
“Let us not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
Queen, will you take a princess as your bride?”
Georgiana took a shaky breath, but her answer was steady. “Love looks on tempests and is never shaken. I am yours.”
Mary finished in a whisper that filled the silent room:
“What may express my love or my dear merit?
Nothing, sweet girl; yet music as prayers divine.
Thrill my heart that throbs with unwonted fervor,
Chasten mouth and throat with immortal kisses,
Till I yield on maddening heights the very
Breath of my body.”
She kissed Georgiana, a gentle brush of the lips which drew loud gasps from the audience.
Those folded forces of the draca world erupted in an invisible structure mitered of form and melody—twin aspects of these wyves of song. It grew high as the hills and hung, trembling, then careened upon itself and vanished.
On the terrace, the iridescent small draca burst into harmonious song.
As if that were her release, Mary turned to the audience, presented a dazzling actress’s smile, and bowed elaborately, pulling an exceedingly distracted-looking Georgiana into the bow beside her.
That pretense of performance was necessary.
Their entire lives would be performance, an endless fiction.
How unfair, and yet how inspiring that love triumphed regardless.
Their bow was met with silence. The courtiers’ heads swiveled, seeking guidance. Then from the corner, the mad King’s voice croaked querulously, “Britannia is saved, then? That is good.”
The Prince Regent rose from his seat. “Well said, father. A brilliant debut.” He began clapping, and the courtiers burst into applause.
Darcy and I stood as one, but he had my hand tight in his, so we could only add our voices to the approval. With his other hand, he dug a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes.
Georgiana knew her brother well.