Mr. Darcy Vampyre (8 page)

Can you believe it? She followed us here.

Are you plagued by Bingley's relatives? Do they pursue you?

I am beginning to think we will never be free of Darcy's family. Perhaps Lady Catherine was right. Perhaps their attitude does matter to me after all.

But no! What am I saying? How can it matter when I have Darcy? For a few short minutes in the lake we were so close, and if it happened once it can happen again. To be sure, he has retreated again, withdrawing into a cold world and gone where I cannot follow, and yet it cannot be for long. He wants me, I know he does, it is only his family and his concerns, perhaps, for my feelings—or what he thinks my feelings must be when everything is so new to me—that keep him aloof.

Writing to you is doing me good. I was despondent at the start of the letter but now things are wearing a rosier aspect. We are going further into the mountains to visit Darcy's uncle, and there, perhaps, we may grow close again. Darcy respects his uncle and wants to seek his advice, about what I am not quite sure. I only hope it sets his mind at rest and leaves him free to follow his heart which I know, Jane, leads to me.

I must go now, but I will write to you again when we reach the castle. For the moment, adieu.

She sanded the letter then put it away in her writing desk to be finished later.

Annie, in the meantime, had been packing her things.

‘Master's orders are that we'll be moving on as soon as we're ready,' she said.

‘Yes,' said Elizabeth. ‘He wants us to reach the castle before dark.'

She dressed in warmer clothes than previously, for she was still cold. She chose a dress with long sleeves and she wore a long pelisse instead of her shorter coat. She dismissed a bonnet which perched on her head and instead chose one that covered her ears. She tied the ribbon under her chin and then she was ready.

Darcy was waiting for her downstairs. The coach was already at the door and she could tell that he was impatient to leave.

Their hosts wished them God speed and then they were off.

Elizabeth was glad to be leaving the inn behind. She could tell that Darcy was on edge and she only hoped that things would improve once they reached the castle.

At the start of their journey Elizabeth was content to look out of the window, where the smiling landscape was bathed in the warm glow of early morning, but by the time midday approached, it was replaced by a wilder view. The mountainside was becoming more craggy and they passed a number of waterfalls which dazzled with their spectacle, their waters flowing down in torrents and throwing clouds of rainbow spume into the air. Alpine plants flourished, clinging to the rocks, and chasms yawned beside the road.

As Elizabeth watched the scenery, Darcy watched her. He had seen the impressive sights many times before, but to Elizabeth they were all fresh and new. As he watched her ever-changing expressions, it revitalised his enjoyment of the scene and reawakened his lost sense of wonder.

There were very few people on the road, but here and there they saw a man carrying a pannier of logs on his back or a woman leading a donkey or occasionally a small child with a basketful of berries.

‘The people hereabouts seem very religious,' said Elizabeth, as a man moved to the side of the road to avoid the coach and crossed himself; a common custom, it seemed.

‘Things are very different here,' Darcy agreed. ‘The people have their own traditions and their own way of doing things.'

Elizabeth, growing tired of mountains and glaciers and waterfalls, let her eyes linger on the women's rustic garb, admiring the colourful skirts with white aprons and their curious cloth head coverings.

‘Will your uncle mind us calling on him without any warning, do you think?' she asked, as they found themselves on a lonely stretch of road once more. ‘Or have you written to him and told him we are coming?'

‘No,' said Darcy. ‘There is no post in these outlying parts and a messenger travelling alone would be subject to attack. But my uncle won't mind. He is always pleased to see me and the castle is so large that he can always accommodate more guests.'

‘Even with our large retinue?'

‘The castle will swallow the retinue,' he said. ‘It could swallow ten such retinues. It is very old and very rambling, and it is large enough to house an entire village if the need arises.'

‘And does it arise?' asked Elizabeth curiously.

‘It certainly has in the past. When the village was attacked by bandits, then everyone would crowd inside the castle, taking their livestock and possessions with them, and they would not come out until the danger had passed.'

‘What is he like, your uncle?' she asked.

‘He is a learned man. Intelligent. Charming,' Darcy said. ‘He is a great thinker and something of a philosopher. He has travelled widely and knows many things. He is amusing and lively on occasion, but more often he sits and listens, or draws out his companions with interesting questions and remarks. He has a fund of wisdom at his disposal but he never seeks to dictate. I think you will like him.'

But will he like me? Elizabeth wondered.

At home, such a thought would not have occurred to her but here it was different. She had no friends or family close by to fill her with confidence and no well-loved places to reassure her. To begin with, that had not mattered, but as she moved further and further away from her own world, she found that she was becoming less sure of herself, and she hoped that her welcome would be a warm one or, at least, not a cold one.

The road began to climb more steeply, and the coach slowed until it was almost at a halt. Elizabeth suggested they get out and walk in order to help the horses, but Darcy would not hear of it.

‘The horses are well conditioned. They have pulled heavier loads up steeper slopes than this,' he said.

‘But there is no need for them to do so here. It will not hurt us to walk. Besides, I would like to take some exercise and feel the wind in my face,' she protested.

‘At another time I would be happy to indulge you,' he replied, placing a restraining hand on hers as she moved to open the door, ‘but we are not in England now.'

She was about to ask him what he meant when she glanced out of the window and saw that two red orbs, which she had taken for berries, suddenly blinked and moved, and she realised with a shock that they were eyes. She looked to right and left and saw that there were more eyes all round them.

‘Are there wolves here?' she asked apprehensively.

‘Wolves—and worse,' he added under his breath.

She sat back in her seat, chastened. Wolves, bears perhaps… She was a long way from Hertfordshire. She was glad of the coach and the safety it offered. It was sturdily built and would withstand an attack by wolves or any other animals which might be lurking close by. She was glad too of the outriders and the pistols they carried—a warning to predators with two legs and a protection against those with four.

She endeavoured to take an interest in the scenery again, but it had lost some of its glamour for, underneath the beauty, danger lurked.

As the coach climbed further the sky began to darken, as if to match her thoughts, turning from blue to indigo. Clouds blew up rapidly and it looked as though it would rain.

‘We are going to have a storm,' said Elizabeth. ‘Are there any inns nearby where we can stop until it passes?'

‘No, there is nothing for miles, but no matter; in another half hour, or hour at most, we should be there.'

There was a distant rumble and the threatened storm began to make itself felt. The sky was suddenly lit from behind, glowing with a lurid brightness before quickly darkening again. Inside the coach, it was becoming hard to see, and matters were made worse when the trees began to thicken as the road went into a forest of dense trees. They cast long shadows, and Elizabeth could barely make out her husband's features, although he was sitting only a few feet away from her.

They emerged at last, but it was scarcely any brighter beyond the trees for the sky was now almost black. Another rumble, closer this time, tore the silence and a few minutes later the rain began to pour. The thunder grew louder as the storm broke overhead, and the sky was rent apart by a jagged spike of lightning which ran down to the ground in a network of brilliant veins. The horses neighed wildly, rearing up and flailing their hooves in the air. The carriage rocked from side to side as the coachman tried to hold them, and Elizabeth took hold of the carriage strap which hung from the ceiling. She clung on as she was bounced and jolted this way and that. She managed to keep her seat until the horses at last quieted, but she did not let go, knowing that another flash of lightning would scare the horses again.

‘How much farther?' she asked.

‘It is not far now,' said Darcy, holding onto the strap which hung on his side of the carriage.

Another flash of lightning lit the sky and revealed an eerie shape on the horizon, a silhouette of spires and turrets that rose from a rocky pinnacle—a castle, but not like those in England, whose solid bulk sat heavily on the ground. It was a confection, a fragile thing, tall and thin and spindly. And then the sky darkened and it was lost to view.

The rain was coming down in earnest, drumming on the roof of the coach, and Elizabeth was glad when the gatehouse came in sight. The coachman held the horses and guided them over the last stretch of road. There was a pause at the gatehouse, and through the wind and the rain, Elizabeth heard a shouted exchange between the coachman and the gatekeeper. Then the windlass creaked and the drawbridge was lowered, its chains clanking in the rain-sodden air before it settled with a dull thud on the reverberating ground.

The coach traversed the drawbridge and Elizabeth glimpsed a steep drop on either side, and then they were through, into the courtyard. Armed men in billowing cloaks with hats pulled down over their eyes were patrolling with large hounds, more wolf than dog, and their free hands rested on their sword hilts.

‘There is no need to be afraid,' said Darcy as Elizabeth shrank back against her seat. ‘This is a wild country and my uncle employs soldiers to protect him from roaming bands of villains.'

‘He employs mercenaries, do you mean?' asked Elizabeth.

‘If you will. Armed men, at any rate, who are in his employ.'

Elizabeth heard the drawbridge being raised behind them, and as it clanked shut on its great chains, she knew a moment of panic, thinking wildly,
We're shut in.

Darcy touched her hand in silent support and the gesture calmed her, and the sight of liveried footmen emerging from the castle dispelled much of her fear. Darcy stepped out of the coach as the footmen unloaded it, and he handed Elizabeth out. The butler appeared, a man past youth but not yet old, with bright eyes that missed nothing as they ran with recognition over Darcy and then ran more watchfully over Elizabeth. He greeted them with a few barely comprehensible words in garbled and heavily accented English, then bowed them towards the steps that led up to the massive oak door. Darcy returned his greeting and then stood aside to allow Elizabeth to precede him through the door.

As she stepped over the threshold, there was a grating sound and one of the axes which was displayed above the door, just inside the hall, came loose of its fastenings and fell to the floor. It missed Darcy by inches and Elizabeth by more than a foot. There was an initial moment of shock, but then they quickly recovered their composure. Not so the butler, however, who cried out in a strange language and rolled his eyes in fear.

It was not an auspicious beginning to their visit. Nor was the walk across the vast, echoing hall, with its dark stone walls and its draught-blown torches and its gloomy wall hangings. But once they were shown into the drawing room things improved. The room was warm with the heat of a log fire, which crackled in an enormous stone fireplace. The carpet was old but not threadbare, and the furniture, though dark and heavy, was of a good quality. Sitting in a chair with his legs stretched out to the fire was a man whom Elizabeth took to be the Count.

The butler announced the Darcys in a foreign tongue and the Count rose, surprised, his look of astonishment quickly giving way to one of welcome. He was somewhat strange of appearance, being unusually tall and very angular, with a finely-boned face, long, delicate fingers, and features which gave him a perpetual look of haughtiness, yet his manner when he greeted Darcy was friendly.

Elizabeth let her eyes roam over the Count's clothes, which were reassuring in their familiarity, for they were the kind worn by country gentlemen in England. He wore a shabby but well-cut coat of russet broadcloth with a ruffled shirt, which had once been white but was now grey with many washings, beneath which he wore russet knee breeches and darned stockings. His black shoes were polished, but they too were shabby. The only thing she could not have seen on some of her more countrified neighbours was his powdered wig, which would have marked him out as old-fashioned, eccentric even, in Hertfordshire.

The two men spoke in a foreign tongue which Elizabeth did not recognise. It seemed to bear some resemblance to French but many of its words were unfamiliar, and she could not understand what was being said. Darcy quickly realised this and reverted to English. The Count, after a moment of surprise, glanced at Elizabeth and then, understanding, spoke in English too, though he spoke it with a heavy accent and a strange intonation.

‘Darcy, this pleasure, it is not expected,' he said, ‘but you are welcome here. Your guest, too, she is welcome.'

He extended his hand and the two men shook hands with a firm grip.

‘Thank you,' said Darcy. ‘I am sorry I could not give you warning, but I did not like to send a messenger on to the castle alone.'

‘The road to the castle, it is not a safe one,' the Count agreed. ‘But what does it matter? My housekeeper, she is always prepared for guests. And this so charming young woman is…?' he asked.

‘Elizabeth,' said Darcy, taking her hand and drawing her forward.

‘Elizabeth,' said the Count, bowing over her hand. ‘A beautiful name for a most beautiful lady. Elizabeth…?'

‘Elizabeth Darcy. My wife,' said Darcy with wary pride.

‘Your wife?' asked the Count, recoiling as though stung.

‘Yes. We were married three weeks ago.'

‘I had not heard,' said the Count, quickly recovering himself, ‘and that, it is not usual;
en général
I hear of things which concern the family very quickly. But we are out of the way here…' he said, looking at Elizabeth curiously before turning his attention back to Darcy. ‘And so, you are married, Fitzwilliam. It is something I thought I would not see.'

‘There is a time for everything,' said Darcy, ‘and my time is now.' He completed the introduction, saying, ‘Elizabeth, this is my uncle, Count Polidori.'

Elizabeth dropped a curtsey and said all that was necessary, but she was not entirely at ease. Though the Count was courteous and charming she sensed an undercurrent of curiosity and something else—not hostility exactly, but something that told her he was not pleased about the marriage. She wondered if he too thought that Darcy should have married Anne.

‘The day, it is not a pleasant one for your journey,' said the Count. ‘Alas, it rains often in the mountains and we have many storms. The darkness, too, it is not agreeable. But no matter, you are here now. My housekeeper, she will show you to your chamber at once. You will want to change your wet clothes, I think. I have already dined, but you must tell me when you would like to eat and my housekeeper, she will prepare a meal—unless you would like better to have something in your room?'

Finding herself suddenly tired, and knowing too that Darcy had something he wished to discuss with the Count, Elizabeth seized on the opportunity to retire to her chamber and said that something on a tray would be welcome.

The Count made her a low bow and rang the bell. It set up a dolorous clanging which echoed from somewhere deep in the bowels of the castle, and Elizabeth wondered how far the housekeeper would have to walk to reach the drawing room. Whilst they waited, the Count continued to ask them about their journey and commiserate with them on the difficulties of such remote travel. The housekeeper arrived at last, a dour woman, small and watchful. She seemingly spoke no English, for the Count addressed her in his own tongue. She inclined her head and then, saying something incomprehensible and yet at the same time so expected that Elizabeth had no difficulty in understanding it, she conducted Elizabeth from the room.