Chapter 35 Longbourn
Longbourn
I thought things could get no worse since last I wrote. I was wrong.
For three days I lay abed. Stupid! Lazy! I was feeling self-pity when I ought to have forced myself to my feet. Quindley would box my ears until I went deaf, and I should deserve every ringing blow.
On the third night, I awoke to the now-familiar scent of fire. I opened my eyes. Longbourn, our Longbourn, was engulfed in flames.
“Mary!” my mother was shrieking. “ Mary! ”
Coughing and choking in the smoky air, I made my way to the door, and then screamed. The doorknob was hot. I turned and climbed out onto the windowsill instead.
As I sat on the threshold, I saw, at the edge of our little park, a tall, dark figure. He waved at me, patted a nearby elm tree, then vanished into the shadows.
It was too far to jump to the ground, but the wall was covered in ivy, which, thank God, my father had been too lazy to have cut back.
Scrambling for purchase, I managed to climb down far enough that I could jump onto our stable roof, and then into a groom’s arms. He tried to carry me, but I shoved my way onto my own two feet.
Icy grass lashing my bare feet, I joined the little knot of Longbourners standing numbly in the garden.
My mother was wailing. When she saw me she shrieked and put an arm around me, more for her own support than out of any evident affection.
The fire was fierce, but, thank God, quickly contained. When it was out we walked through the smoldering, blackened ground floor. The fire had destroyed the kitchen and dining room, and greatly damaged the parlor and stairs. The bedrooms were mostly all right.
We found my father in his bed. His body was untouched—it was the smoke that got him. I shall never forget the noise my mother made. Not the dramatic wail you’d expect from her—just a ragged gasp that sounded like she was breaking in two. I turned and found she’d stuffed her fist to her mouth.
“Is he—” she asked.
“He’s gone.”
She came to him, slowly. Took his right hand in hers, as though they were being introduced.
“Bring him back,” she said.
My jaw dropped. “What?”
She turned to me. “Bring him back. Fix him. I know you can. Do you think I am so ignorant of what you and Miss Darcy got up to under my own roof?”
I was still gaping at her. “I-I already did him once. I don’t know—”
“Do it.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking… He won’t be—”
“I do not care.” She seized me by the shoulders. “If you do not do this, we will have nothing. We will be nothing. Is that what you want, Mary? For your mother? For yourself?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I know it is not. None of my daughters has ever wanted so badly to matter as you do.”
“Mamma—”
“Do not ‘Mamma’ me.”
That man out there. I know who he was. This fire—this too is my fault.
“Take his arm,” I said. “Help me get him up the stairs.”
I thought I might not be able to do it with Mamma watching me.
However, I have enough experience now that my hands almost prepared the apparatus on their own.
I have improved its structure to provide more galvanic energy; even without a lightning strike the power was sufficient to make Papa’s body arch off the table.
Once. Twice. Three times. Then he gasped and opened his eyes.
Mamma gave a low moan when she saw his black eyes. “It’s all right, it’s all right,” I babbled. “He just needs medicine.” And as quickly as I could, I poured him a draft of chroma serum.
It took nearly every drop I had to bring him back to himself. Perhaps because it was his second trip through the apparatus, perhaps simply because he has such a contrary personality, but Papa required much more serum than any previous patient.
“What happened?” he said at last. “Where am I?”
“The attic,” I said. “There has been a fire, Papa. Longbourn is badly damaged.”
“Then why the devil have you got me up here?” He tried to stand and staggered.
“ You have been badly damaged.”
“Stuff and nonsense. Out of my way.”
“Mr. Bennet,” said my mother in a quavering voice. “You died.”
“Oh, Lord, woman. Might you delay your hysterics a day or two?”
“It’s true, Papa.”
He stopped and touched his own hand. He flinched at how cold it was. “Oh God,” he moaned.
“I will provide you with medicine,” I said. “No one need know.”
He turned flat eyes to mine. “ You? ”
“I.”
He gave me a long look. I am not sure he had looked at me so closely in all the years since my expulsion from his library. “Well, then,” he said, “you had better get to work making more.”
My throat was so tight I could barely speak. “Yes sir.”
For the next three days, as Papa and Mamma took stock of the damage, that is what I did.
My laboratory was, thankfully, untouched.
I made every drop of serum I could manage.
Everyone thought me a very unnatural daughter, I believe, disappearing to my room at such a terrible time when my father needed all the help he could get and Mamma kept falling into hysterics—but it soon became clear that my father’s need for a large volume of serum was not a one-time issue.
I shall have to spend most of my time henceforth producing more.
I offered to treat and reinsert his ribs, but he flat out refused.
Luckily, he does not seem to mind the shade of the serum as much as Pike did.
The morning after the fire I found a few moments to sneak away to the old elm tree. There was a note stuck in the crook of its branches.
M—
A fire for a fire.
P
Today the servants are packing up such belongings as can be salvaged. Tomorrow, we Bennets leave Longbourn.