Amanda Grange - Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

‘“Here, you can hold Evelina,” the pale girl said to my sister, handing her her doll.

‘I expected the woman to snatch the doll back, for people were terrified of contagion in those times, but she made no move to do so, and when I looked at her I saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘She blinked them back quickly and her manner became brisk.

‘“Do you want me to save your sister?” she asked. “I can save her life if you will it.”

‘“Are you a doctor?” I asked her.

‘“No,” she said. “I am a vampyre.”

‘I thought of all the stories I had heard but I was not afraid. I had seen the way she looked at her daughter. It was the way my mother had looked at Georgiana.

‘“If you save her, will she become a vampyre too?” I asked.

‘“She will. But you must hurry, her time is short. If you leave it too long, I will not be able to save her. No one will.”

‘I turned to my sister.

‘“Georgie,” I said. “This lady can save you, but you will become like her if she does. You will become a vampyre.”

‘Georgiana had heard the stories as well as I had. She looked at the woman apprehensively, then she looked at the girl.

‘“Are you a vampyre?” she asked.

‘“Yes,” said the girl.

‘My sister turned to me and nodded.

‘“Very well,” I said to the woman. “But only if you will turn me too.”

‘She looked at me closely.

‘“You are not showing any signs of the plague,” she said.

‘“Where Georgiana goes, I must follow. I promised my mother I would keep her safe, and I can’t do that if she lives whilst I grow old and die.”

‘“Then my Anne will have two playmates instead of one,” she said, adding thoughtfully, whilst she looked at me, “and in time, perhaps, who knows?”

‘She moved so quickly there was only a blur and then there were puncture marks on my sister’s neck. The woman turned to me, her fangs dripping red and then she was next to me and my neck was pierced.’

‘So that is the meaning of the scars on your neck,’ said Elizabeth in wonder. ‘I saw them when we swam in the lake.’

‘It is. They have never healed—though they are usually hidden beneath my cravat—and they never will.’

Darcy fell silent. His face was shadowed and Elizabeth sat and watched him, his handsome features brooding in the dim light, his eyes mysterious. She thought of all the things he must have seen in his centuries of living: the rise and fall of nations, and the lives and deaths of kings. She thought of him living at Pemberley down the centuries, and she wondered how it was that no one had noticed his long life.

Seeing her watching him, his hand reached out to her across the table and then drew back.

‘I have no right to touch you,’ he said.

‘You have every right. You are my husband.’

‘Still?’

‘Yes, still. I love you, Darcy, nothing can ever change that.’

Her hand closed over his own. He took it gratefully and returned her pressure.

‘But you are not eating,’ he said.

It was true. She had finished her savoury plate of meat and vegetables, and it lay empty before her. He stood up and went over to the wall where he pulled a bell rope then returned to the table.

‘You have not finished your meal,’ she said, looking at his plate.

He hesitated.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you eat? Or do you eat… other things?’ she asked with a shudder.

‘No, never that,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘We have a choice of what we eat. There are those who prey on humans but Georgiana and I have never done so; we slake our thirsts in other ways.’

Something Elizabeth had heard in Venice came back to her. She remembered Sophia saying, ‘The glory, it has passed, the great days, they have gone. There is no place in the world now for our kind, not unless we will take it, and take it with much blood. There are those who will do so, but me, I find I love my fellow man too much and I cannot end his life, not even to restore what has been lost. But without great ruthlessness, glory fades and strength is gone.’

She had thought that Sophia was talking about the fall of Venice and the plotting of a few to overthrow the French with bloodshed, but now she understood.

‘Sophia was a vampyre,’ she said, ‘wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Darcy.

‘And the other people I met in Venice?’

‘Many of them, yes.’

‘So that is why they wanted to hold a costume ball; it reminded them of their own pasts—and their own youth?’

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth thought of the beautiful clothes. They had not been handed down through the generations as she had supposed; they had been kept by their original owners.

‘And that is how you knew the steps to the galliard,’ she said. ‘You had danced it before. And Sophia, like you, chose not to hunt humans.’

‘All my friends, all my vampyre friends, have made the same choice. Only those who choose to turn for evil purposes, or those who are turned by a malignant vampyre against their will, hunt humans,’ he said.

‘Malignant vampyres,’ said Elizabeth with a shudder as she remembered her ordeal. ‘Who was the vampyre in the forest?’

‘As to who he is, no one knows. He is one of the oldest of us, an Ancient, but how he was made we do not know.’

‘Do you think he will find us here?’

‘I hope not. We are well hidden, and he does not know I own this lodge. Besides, he has been hurt. He will go underground now to recover and will likely not emerge for many years.’

‘So long?’

‘To a vampyre, a year is nothing,’ he said.

The door opened and the servants returned. Their soft footfalls were almost silent on the thick carpet as they cleared the plates.

‘Some fruit and cheese,’ said Darcy to them, ‘and anything else you have which might tempt my wife.’

They soon returned with a platter of bread and cheese and several bunches of grapes. They set the food close to Elizabeth and with it a clean plate, moving respectfully all the while. She took one of the grapes, pulling it from the bunch and putting it into her mouth.

‘And the people at Pemberley? Do they know?’ she asked.

‘Some of the servants, yes.’

‘Mrs Reynolds? She said she had known you since you were four years old.’

‘She was our nurse. She was waiting for us when we returned to our estate, where Lady Catherine—for it was she who turned us—took us in her carriage, after she had made us vampyres. The plague had spread there too, and the other servants had fled, but Mrs Reynolds had remained. When she saw us she told us to stay away, thinking she would infect us, but Lady Catherine offered her the same choice she had offered us, and Mrs Reynolds joined us.’

Elizabeth nodded. She took a knife and cut a piece of cheese, eating it with some of the rustic bread and following it with more of the grapes.

‘If you were alive in 1665, then you must be 150 years old,’ said Elizabeth wonderingly. ‘And in all this time you have never married. There has never been a Mrs Darcy?’

‘No, never once,’ he said.

‘Because of the curse,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said simply. ‘Because I never met you.’

He stroked his fingers over the back of her hand and stroked his thumb across her palm, then lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it lovingly.

‘Is there nothing we can do?’ she asked him. ‘No way of changing things? Of undoing what has been done?’

‘No,’ he said with a look of profound sadness. ‘None.’

The servants stirred.

‘Have you finished your meal?’ he asked Elizabeth.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Then let us move into the drawing room and leave the servants to clear.’

‘I wish…’ said Elizabeth, as they did as he had suggested.

‘Yes?’

‘I wish we could forget all this, just for a day or two.’

‘Then we will, for a few days at least,’ he said with a smile. ‘Let us be simply Mr and Mrs Darcy as we were meant to be.’

Ensconced in the hunting lodge, away from the world, Elizabeth was happier than she had been since her wedding day. She and Darcy took refuge from the problems facing them and wandered through the gardens in the early morning when the dew was on the grass and the air was fresh and clear. They delighted in the flowers which, although less vigorous than they had been earlier in the season, were still putting forth their blooms. They talked of many things, of their childhoods and their families, and like other newlyweds, they talked of their hopes and dreams. All subjects save one they discussed, and that subject, for the time being, they avoided.

Over the hot noontide hours they retreated indoors and sat on the shady veranda, eating olives and other tasty delicacies. Then, when the heat began to dissipate, they wandered further afield, smelling the sweet scent of herbs, and walked by the side of streams or strolled in the shade of the Lombardy poplars which stood like sentinels on guard in the fields.

‘We will take a picnic with us tomorrow. There is a place I want to show you,’ said Darcy.

They set off before the heat of the day and wandered down a country lane and onto a track which led to a cliff top overlooking the ocean. There was a small copse of trees, their spreading branches forming an umbrella of shade. Dappled light danced over the ground as the wind stirred the leaves, creating ever-changing patterns on the grassy floor beneath it. Nearby a stream trickled over rocks, the sound of it cooling and refreshing.

Darcy spread out the rug and they sat down, unpacking good, homely fare: bread, cheese, and cold meats, with small cakes, bunches of grapes, and glasses of sweet wine. They ate leisurely, enjoying the view and the novelty of eating in the open. When they had finished, Elizabeth lay back with her head in Darcy’s lap and he stroked her hair and kissed her with soft, gentle kisses, and they talked of their plans for Pemberley.