Chapter 36 Jim’s Story
The following morning, Elizabeth found Dr. Wynn in the Radcliffs' breakfast room with a cup of coffee and a newspaper before him.
“Dr. Wynn, may I ask you something about Arbor Low?”
He lowered the paper. “You have asked me a great many things about Arbor Low, Elizabeth. I cannot promise I shall know the answer to this one.”
She laughed.
“Yes, sir. Tell me, do you know anyone who claims to have witnessed something there that defied explanation? I do not mean another story handed down through a family. I mean someone who was present when it happened.”
Dr. Wynn considered the question.
“I have come to know you well enough, my dear, to trust you with this story. There is one man.”
Elizabeth waited.
“Jim Fletcher. He lives near Monyash and is eighty years old. I treated him for many years before he became too stubborn to admit when he needed a physician.”
Laughing, she asked, “What happened to him, sir?”
“That depends upon whether you believe him.”
“I should like the opportunity to decide, Dr. Wynn.”
He folded his newspaper. “Then I shall take you to him, my dear, and let him speak for himself.”
* * *
Darcy and Georgiana joined them after breakfast, and the four traveled in the Radcliffs' carriage toward Monyash.
They found Jim Fletcher in a modest stone cottage outside the village. He was thin, with white hair, broad hands, and shoulders bent by age. He recognized Dr. Wynn at once.
“I told you the last time you came that there is nothing wrong with me.”
“And I told you that one day there shall be, and then you will regret having insulted your physician.”
Jim looked beyond him at the others. “You brought company.”
“Mr. Darcy, his sister Miss Darcy, and Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Jim inclined his head. “What brings you here?”
“Arbor Low,” Dr. Wynn said.
Jim's expression closed.
“I have nothing to say about Arbor Low.”
“You told me once that you wished someone would believe you before you died.”
“I was younger then and had not yet acquired wisdom.”
“You were seventy-three.”
Jim grunted.
“Mr. Fletcher, I have spent months studying the old stories and accounts of Arbor Low. I do not know what happened to you, but I promise I will not judge you.”
“You believe in fairies, do you, missy?”
“No, sir, but I have begun to believe that people sometimes call something a fairy story because they have no better explanation for what happened.”
Jim considered Darcy and Georgiana.
“And them?”
Mr. Darcy answered. “We have found enough evidence to know that unexplained events have occurred at Arbor Low.”
Jim studied the three of them before stepping aside.
“You had better come in, then.”
His cottage contained little beyond what was necessary for comfort. Jim took a chair beside the hearth and directed his visitors toward the others.
Dr. Wynn remained near the mantel. “You may as well tell it from the beginning.”
Jim rubbed one hand over his knee.
“It happened in 1748. I was seventeen. My closest friend was Samuel Grange.”
He looked toward the fire.
“Sam's father farmed land outside Monyash. It was not a grand farm, but it had belonged to the family for generations, and everyone expected Sam would farm it after his father. Mr. Grange liked drink too much, and when he drank, he liked cards. Sam spent years dragging him home from taverns before he lost more than the family could afford.”
Jim paused.
“Then on November fifteenth, his father went into Lambton and came home having lost the farm at cards. By morning everyone knew. Sam's mother wept, and his father sat at the kitchen table looking as though he wished the earth would open beneath him.”
Elizabeth thought of Longbourn and understood something of what Samuel Grange must have felt.
“They had a month before they would be forced out. Sam came to me the next day and told me he meant to change what had happened. I thought he meant to find money somehow. Work for it, borrow it, steal it if desperation drove him far enough. Instead, he started talking about Arbor Low.”
Elizabeth leaned forward.
“We learned the stories when we were boys. Everyone did. Never go near the stones at sunset on the twenty-first of December. Strange folk were said to walk there when the veil grew thin. A man might step away from this world and return somewhere he had no business being.”
“You believed those stories?” Georgiana asked.
“We laughed at them. Sam stopped laughing after his father lost the farm.”
Jim settled back in his chair.
“His family had purchased barley seed that spring. His mother kept the receipt. It was dated April sixth, 1748, and Sam remembered the day because he had gone with his father to purchase the seed. The farm was still theirs then.”
Elizabeth glanced at Mr. Darcy.
“Sam wondered whether a thing connected to a particular day might help him reach that day. He had no proof. He had an old tale and a receipt, and that was enough for a desperate boy.”
Elizabeth understood the desperation.
“Every story we knew about Arbor Low named the eve of the winter solstice, so Sam chose December twenty-first. He meant to go to the stones at sunrise and remain until midnight if he had to.”
Jim shook his head.
“I told him he had lost his senses. He said there was no harm in trying. If nothing happened, he would come home cold and disappointed. If something did happen, he wanted someone there who knew what he had attempted.”
“So, you went with him,” Elizabeth said.
“I did.”
Jim rested his hands upon his knees.
“We prepared for the possibility that he might disappear and never return. Sam had already told his family he had considered going to London. If he vanished, I was to tell them he had gone there to seek his fortune. I hated the lie, but it seemed kinder than telling his mother that her son had vanished from a ring of stones because he believed an old fairy tale.”
Jim looked at Elizabeth.
“Sam prepared something else as well. A letter.”
She searched his face, waiting.
“Sam said that if he succeeded, no one would believe what had happened. He made me write that his father had lost the farm at a gambling table and that he intended to go to Arbor Low in the hope of returning to a time before the loss. I wrote that I had accompanied him there to witness the attempt. We both signed it and dated it December twenty-first, 1748.”
“And he took it with him,” Mr. Darcy said.
“The letter and the receipt.”
Jim continued.
“We reached Arbor Low that morning. Sam sat upon the broad stone at the center of the circle, with the receipt and letter in his pocket. I remained near the edge where I could see him. We each brought a basket with food and spent most of the day waiting.”
His face changed.
“Then the sun went down.”
All remained silent, watching his face.
“Sam was sitting where he had been all day. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, the stone was empty.”
Georgiana drew nearer to Elizabeth.
“I called his name and ran through the ditch and onto the henge. By then, the sun had set. At first, I thought he had hidden behind one of the stones to frighten me, though it would not have been like him. I searched everywhere, but he was gone.”
Jim looked down at his hands.
“By full darkness, I had searched the henge and the ground around it. I followed the old track in both directions and called until my throat hurt. There was no blood, no clothing, nothing to tell me where he had gone.”
He remained silent for a moment.
“At last, I returned to the stone, took Sam's basket, and started home carrying it with my own. I remember walking through the dark and thinking that in the morning I would have to face his mother and tell her the lie we had prepared.”
Jim raised his eyes.
“That is the last thing I remember from December.”
Elizabeth did not move.
“My next memory is daylight. One moment I was walking through a winter night carrying two baskets. The next I was on the road outside Bakewell with the sun overhead and nothing in my hands.”
They all stared at him.
“I thought I had fallen or struck my head. Then I saw the flowers. They were growing beside the road. There were buds in the hedges and fresh growth in the fields. The air was warm.”
“It was no longer December,” Mr. Darcy said.
“No.”
Jim looked directly at Elizabeth.
“It was April sixth.”
Elizabeth caught her breath and, her voice breaking, said, “The date upon the receipt.”
Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as the full meaning of it struck her.
“The very day.”
The room had become utterly quiet.
“I continued into Bakewell and found Sam at the shop where he and his father had purchased the barley seed. His father was there, speaking with the clerk, and Sam was standing beside him.”
Georgiana's hand closed around Elizabeth's.
“He was alive, Mr. Fletcher?”
“Alive and looking as bewildered as I felt. When he saw me, he went as pale as death. He pulled me aside where his father could not hear us.”
Jim stared at the wall opposite.
“Sam remembered sitting at Arbor Low in December and watching the sun go down. The next thing he knew, he was standing in the shop beside his father on April sixth. He still had the receipt in his pocket, along with our letter.”
“And he remembered everything that had happened between April and December?” Elizabeth asked.
“Everything. Just as I did.”
Jim looked toward the fire.
“Sam had returned to the day he wanted. I had not gone anywhere with him, but December was gone for me as well. My family believed it was April. Everyone in Bakewell believed it. No one remembered the months Sam and I remembered living through.”
“No one remembered the farm being lost in a wager,” Mr. Darcy said.
“As far as we ever knew.”
Jim rose and crossed to a small wooden chest. He opened it and moved aside a pipe and a pouch of tobacco before lifting several papers and keepsakes from within.
“Sam showed me the letter that day.”
He removed a folded sheet.
“I had written it in December. I remembered every word. But December had not yet happened.”
Elizabeth stared at the paper in his hand.
Jim returned to his chair.
“Sam kept it until shortly before he died. Then he gave it back to me.”
He held it toward Elizabeth.
“You may read it.”
She accepted the paper with care.
The handwriting was uneven but clear.
Samuel Grange's father has lost their farm at a gambling table. On December 21, 1748, I accompanied Samuel to Arbor Low, where he intends to attempt to return to a time before the farm was lost and prevent it from happening.
James Fletcher
Samuel Grange
December 21, 1748
Elizabeth read it twice before passing it to Mr. Darcy.
“This is your handwriting, sir?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Darcy read the letter before handing it to Georgiana.
Jim continued.
“Sam and I agreed that no one else would hear the truth from us. Who would have believed it? We had the letter, and that was proof enough for the two of us.”
Georgiana finished reading and returned the paper to him.
“Did he save the farm?”
“He did.”
Jim's mouth lifted.
“Sam knew the night his father would go to the tavern and lose the farm. When that fateful day in November dawned, he followed his father everywhere. When the older man tried to leave, Sam stopped him.”
Elizabeth rose and went to the old man. Kneeling before him, she caught his gaze, her own urgent with hope.
“How did he do it, sir?”
Mr. Darcy had also drawn near, his expression grave. Georgiana sat rigid, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
“They fought.”
“They fought?”
“Mr. Grange was a strong man, and Sam was seventeen and thin. I was there to help if his father refused to remain at home. My friend begged him not to go. It was a cold night, he told him. He would do better to stay home with his family. But his father would not be restrained, and he struck Sam.
“Sam struck him back. By the end of it, Mr. Grange had a bloody nose and a black eye. I stood before the door so he could not leave. He struck at me as well, but I moved aside, and he hit the door instead.”
Jim paused.
“Sam locked his father’s boots in the barn for good measure.”
Elizabeth laughed, and Mr. Darcy smiled.
“It was not elegant, miss, but the farm survived.”
Jim folded the letter.
“His mother never wept over losing her home. His father never sat at the kitchen table wishing himself dead. There was no reason for Sam to leave for London because the farm was never lost.”
Elizabeth looked at the letter.
Jim returned the paper to the wooden chest.
“Sam lived a good life. His father never returned to the tavern after that night, for Sam saw to that. My friend married, had children, and farmed the same land his father had nearly lost. We spoke of Arbor Low from time to time, but not often. There was nothing to be gained by troubling ourselves over something we could not explain.”
“When did he die?” Elizabeth asked.
“Fifteen years ago. A few weeks before his death, he sent for me and handed me the letter. I told him it belonged to him because he had carried it through whatever happened at Arbor Low.”
Jim closed the chest.
“He said he had no need of proof anymore.”
For a time, no one spoke.
Then Dr. Wynn grinned at the old man.
Jim frowned at him. “What do you find amusing?”
“For years, you complained that no one believed you. I have finally brought you three people who believe every word you have said, and I am rather pleased with myself.”
Jim looked from Elizabeth to Mr. Darcy and Georgiana.
“I can see from your faces that you do believe me.”
“Yes, sir,” Elizabeth said. “What you have told us agrees with the accounts I found during my studies.”
“I believe you, sir,” Mr. Darcy said. “And I thank you for trusting us with your story.”
Jim looked at Georgiana. When he saw her drying her eyes, he nodded in understanding.
“My grandmother used to say that old tales grow with every telling. One man sees something he cannot explain, his son changes a piece of it, and his grandson adds something finer still. After a hundred years, you have fairies, enchanted kings, and men vanishing into hills.”
He rested his hand upon the wooden chest.
“But somewhere beneath all of it, there was the truth, waiting to be discovered.”