Mr. Darcy Vampyre (9 page)

As the door closed behind her, Elizabeth heard Darcy saying to the Count, ‘I must speak to you on a matter of great importance,' and the Count saying gravely, ‘Yes. I can see it. There is much to discuss.'

What there was to discuss, Elizabeth did not know, but she was beginning to wonder if it had something to do with the marriage settlement. That would explain why Darcy was reluctant to discuss it with her, for he would not want her to feel uncomfortable that her dowry had been so small. Her parents had given up all attempts to save many years before, and what little they had possessed had been used up when they had had to pay Wickham to marry Lydia. Elizabeth knew that Darcy did not care for himself, but for their children… It was customary for the bride's portion to be settled on the children, and it might well be that Darcy needed the Count's advice on how to compensate any future offspring for her own lack of funds. It was also possible that that was partly responsible for the coldness of some of Darcy's family.

She followed the housekeeper across the hall and up a flight of stone steps. They had been worn in the middle where countless feet had trodden over the centuries, and their footsteps echoed with a hollow sound. Then the housekeeper turned along a twisting passageway before going up a spiral staircase and into a turret room.

Annie was already there, unpacking Elizabeth's things. There was a large four-poster bed in the middle of the room, hung with red velvet drapes, and assorted pieces of heavy furniture arranged around it: a washstand, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a writing table, and, pushed under the table, a chair. There was also a dressing table, but it was of a different type to the other furniture, a delicate piece painted in soft blues and pinks, with slender legs tapering into dainty gilded feet. Narrow windows were set vertically into the walls, which were very thick. Beside the window hung heavy velvet drapes which had not yet been drawn. In the grate was a fire. It was as yet a puny thing, having been so recently lit, but the huge logs were starting to kindle, and before long there would be a blaze. Candles were set around the room, showing it to be a perfect circle, and the stone wall above the bed was softened by a tapestry.

The housekeeper murmured something unintelligible then curtsied and was about to withdraw when Elizabeth said, ‘One moment.'

The housekeeper stopped, arrested by the tone of her voice.

‘There is no mirror on the dressing-table,' said Elizabeth, trying to show by a kind of pantomime what she meant. ‘Will you have one sent up please?'

But either the housekeeper did not understand her, or there were no mirrors to be had, for she shook her head emphatically and then withdrew.

‘Well,' said Annie, ‘folks are strange hereabouts and no mistake. First, all the talk in the servants' hall, and now this. No mirror indeed! How do they expect a lady to dress without one?'

‘Never mind,' said Elizabeth, thinking that she would ask the Count on the morrow. ‘She probably did not understand me.' She removed her cloak then asked curiously, ‘What talk in the servants' hall?'

‘Nothing but idle nonsense,' said Annie. ‘Saying as how the axe falling means you're to cause Mr Darcy's death. Saying that it fell once before when the Count and his wife walked through the door and look what happened to her. Will you wear the blue dress or the lemon tonight, Ma'am?'

‘Neither,' said Elizabeth. ‘I will be having something in my room, so there is no need for me to dress for dinner. What do you mean, the axe falling means I will cause Mr Darcy's death?'

‘Well, Ma'am, they say that as the axe fell when you were both walking through the door, and it fell nearer to him than to you, that means you're going to kill him or some such nonsense. They were all shaking their heads and muttering about it when I went into the kitchen. Most of them don't speak a word of English, but Mr Darcy's valet told me what it was all about. Heathenish nonsense, all of it.'

‘I don't think they're heathens,' said Elizabeth absently. ‘On the contrary, they seem to cross themselves a great deal. As we came to the castle, the local people crossed themselves every time the coach passed.'

‘Even so, Ma'am, they're not like the people at home.'

‘No, they are not,' said Elizabeth.

She thought of all her friends and neighbours at home. Their absurdities did not seem so absurd at a distance; instead they felt reassuring. Even the memory of Mr Collins seemed endearing rather than ridiculous.

Annie finished unpacking and then pulled the curtains across the windows. The fire had blazed up and the room was beginning to feel warmer. Elizabeth slipped out of her wet clothes and into a dry woollen dress and then stretched out her hands to the fire. They were very cold, but at last she felt them beginning to thaw.

There was a timid knock at the door and a young maid entered, bearing a tray of something hot and appetising. She stayed as far away from Elizabeth as possible as she crossed the room and put the tray down on the writing table, looking at her with frightened eyes.

‘What did I tell you?' asked Annie in aggrieved accents as the maid hurried out of the room. ‘She's one of the day servants. They're the worst. They won't even stay in the castle overnight; they say they see things, unnatural things.'

Elizabeth walked over to the tray and looked down at the stew.

‘It tastes better than it looks,' Annie said. ‘I had some in the kitchen.'

Elizabeth picked up the spoon that was set beside the bowl and tasted the dish, which was a kind of chicken stew with a distinctive flavour.

‘Peppers, those are the things they put in it to make it taste like that,' said Annie. ‘Better than all that garlic in Paris, this doesn't taste so bad.'

Elizabeth broke off a piece of bread and ate it with the stew. When she had finished, Annie removed the tray and Elizabeth, left alone, wandered round the room. She examined the few books that were placed on a bookcase by the window and gazed at the tapestries, but instead of soothing her before she went to sleep, the contents of the room unsettled her. The books were not like those in the Longbourn library, smelling richly of leather; they were damp and they smelt of mould.

The tapestry too was unsettling. It displayed a bold picture worked in faded reds and emeralds and golds, and it appeared to be some kind of bestiary. It showed a forest populated with strange creatures: wolves of gigantic proportions, their sharp faces dominated by red, glowing eyes; bats with human faces, monstrous in size; satyrs and dragons and basilisks; and in one small corner, a wan-faced woman with flowers in her hair. The monsters reminded her of the pictures in the books of fairy tales she had read as a child. In the safety of Longbourn, they had seemed ridiculous, but here, in the castle, they did not seem so easy to dismiss. The idea of Little Red Riding Hood losing her way in the woods close at hand did not seem an impossibility; nor the idea of the Sleeping Beauty being haunted by a malevolent witch who caused her to sleep in the mouldering castle for a hundred years; nor of men who were beasts and of beasts who were men.

Her one satisfaction was that the tapestry was hung above the bed, so that she would not have to look at it as she lay down to sleep.

She wandered over to her travelling writing desk, which Annie had unpacked, and took out her writing implements. Then she sat down to finish her letter to Jane. She read through what she had written so far, ending with:
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 then continued:

We have arrived at the castle and it is as remote a place as I ever hope to visit. It is also the strangest and I feel very alone. I wish you were here, Jane. I miss your calm sweet temper and your goodness and ability to see the best in everyone. Everything here is strange. We arrived at the castle in a terrible storm. It is in a far-flung part of the mountains and surrounded by woods which are inhabited by wolves. I saw them on the way here, running alongside the coach, their fur grey and their eyes shining red through the foliage. I can hear them howling at the moon as I write. The castle itself is an old building built of stone, dark and gloomy, and it is in a state of disrepair. When we arrived, one of the axes fell off the wall, narrowly missing Darcy and myself. The servants say it means I will cause his death! And yet, although I know it is ridiculous, I can't help feeling afraid. I feel shut in here; indeed, when the drawbridge was raised behind me I felt like a prisoner. Things would not seem half so bad if you were by my side. Together we would laugh at the wolves and the strange portents. But without you, my own dearest Jane, I find myself surprisingly nervous. God forbid I should end up like Mama! Write to me soon and laugh me out of my idiocy. Without any letters from home I feel strangely alone. Tell me of our Aunt and Uncle Gardiner, and the dear children. Remind me that there is a world beyond this one and that order and familiarity and calm and security exist. Tell me too of the delights of London and your beloved Bingley. I hope your fears are less and your joys greater than mine.

Oh, I wish you were here! I need my Jane to talk to, and not just about the castle. I need to talk to you about my marriage, too. Darcy has not come to me again, though the hour is late. I find I am no longer surprised by his absence. Indeed, I find now that I would be surprised if he joined me. This cannot be a good thing. But perhaps I am only thinking this way because I am tired. It has been a long and curious day. I will get some rest. I am sure things will seem better in the morning.

She sanded her letter and put it away, then, snuffing all but one of the candles, she climbed into bed. She arranged the coverlet and extinguished the final candle, then lay down. Sleep came quickly, but it was not a restful sleep, for it was plagued by disturbing dreams.

Elizabeth was glad to rise the following morning. She had spent the night running through the forest pursued by wolves, or losing herself in the castle, or being tormented by other unsettling nightmares, and she was pleased to put them behind her.

She dressed warmly, wrapping her thick shawl around her, and left her room. She found her way down from the turret easily, but then she stood hesitating on the landing, uncertain which way to go. Luckily one of the Count's footmen happened to pass by. He looked at her fearfully, but she did not let him depart before she had made him understand that she wanted to eat and he led her to the dining room. Darcy was already there at breakfast. He rose with a smile on his face and she was instantly calmed. Here was reality. Here was sanity and repose—not in sleep, but in the waking world.

‘Has the Count already eaten?' she asked, as she was served with a kind of thick porridge which looked unappetising but tasted surprisingly good.

‘Yes, he was up before daybreak. He has gone to consult with some of his friends and neighbours on the matter which has been troubling me. They are scattered over thirty miles or so of hard riding terrain, and he will not be back until tonight.'

‘Has he been able to give you any advice?'

‘Not yet, but I hope that an answer will soon be found.'

She waited for the servants to leave the room and then said, ‘I asked you once before if you regretted our marriage and you said you did not. I need to ask you again.' She paused, uncertain how to continue. She wanted to say to him,
Why don't you come to me at night?
But now that the moment had come, she felt tongue-tied and did not know how to broach the subject.

‘No, of course not,' he said with a frown. ‘You have no need to ask me and I am only sorry I have made you feel that way.'

‘Are the problems anything to do with the marriage settlement?' she asked. ‘Is that why you need your uncle's advice?'

‘Not precisely, no,' he said evasively. ‘But matters will soon be cleared up, I hope, and then we can forget it and enjoy the rest of our wedding tour.'

He took her hand and kissed it, and she felt heat radiating out from the place where his lips had touched.

A shaft of sunlight came in through the window and Elizabeth, having finished her porridge, said, ‘Let us go out into the courtyard,' for she glimpsed a small garden, of sorts, through the window and longed to be out of doors.

‘By all means,' he said.

The rain had abated, but despite the gleam of sunshine, the morning was sulky and promised more rain to come.

The garden itself must once have been attractive, but it was now overgrown. It was square in shape, backed by the grey stone walls of the castle, and in its centre was a stagnant pool, choked with weeds. Little light entered the courtyard and even that was sickly and pale, as if the effort to find its way down into the courtyard had depleted it of energy. Weeds sprouted between the paving stones and yellow grasses competed for space with unhealthy looking ferns. A statue of a satyr rose from the tangle of creeping plants which stalked the ground, but it was broken, its pan pipes lying beside it, coated with moss and lichen.

‘What a pity it is so overgrown,' she said. ‘It is protected from the wind, and it might be pleasant to walk here if the garden were cleared.'

‘The castle is old and the upkeep is expensive,' said Darcy, offering her his arm. ‘My uncle doesn't have enough money to attend to everything that needs doing here. His fortunes have suffered a reverse of late and he has had to let some parts of the castle fall into disrepair.' He glanced at her as they began to stroll through the garden. ‘I suppose I do not notice its deficiencies because I am used to them. I have loved the place since I was a boy. But you, I think, do not.'

‘No, I must confess I don't,' she said. ‘It seems very forbidding to me, and it is not just the castle. The language is strange, the gossip…'

‘It is not like you to listen to gossip,' he said.

‘No, I know, but I feel different here, not like myself. I feel shut in, trapped.' She shuddered as she remembered the drawbridge clanging shut and she pulled her shawl more tightly about her. ‘When the drawbridge was raised behind me, I felt as if I were a prisoner.'

‘The drawbridge is to keep people out, not keep them in,' he said, putting his hand over her arm reassuringly. ‘We are in a very remote part of the country and there are lots of bandits hereabouts. They would willingly prey on the castle if its defences weren't secure.'

‘Yes, of course. But it is not just the drawbridge—it is everything. When I looked out of my window this morning, I looked down onto a terrible drop with nothing but jagged rocks below. It is not what I am used to,' she said apologetically.

‘You are used to rolling meadows and winding rivers in a peaceful part of the world,' he agreed, ‘but the castle is in a less hospitable country. It was built as a fortress at a time when fortresses were needed. The rocks keep it safe. They make sure that no one can climb up and assault it from behind. I know it can seem forbidding if you are not used to it, but inside the castle you don't feel afraid?'

‘Not afraid, precisely, but anxious. The windows are small and the castle is gloomy. And the rumours…'

‘Go on.'

‘Oh, they are foolish, of course, but they say in the servant's hall that the axe falling was a portent of your death and that I will cause it. They say that the same fate befell the Count's wife. Is it true?'

He hesitated.

‘After a fashion,' he said. ‘The Count lost his wife, but there was nothing strange about her death. She had been ill for a long time.'

‘And did the axe fall?'

‘Yes, it did, but the castle is very old. Some of the wall fixings had worked themselves loose, that is all.'

‘Of course,' she said, his calm words filling her with relief. ‘I don't know why I took any notice of it. It is just the atmosphere here, it is oppressive.'

‘A pity. I hoped you would like it. But we will not be here much longer. The Count should return this evening and we need only stay a few days. I have a hunting lodge in the area, and I would like to visit it as we are so close by, and we must stay a little while longer for politeness' sake, but by the end of the week, if you are still unhappy, we will go.'

Elizabeth was comforted.

‘Do you really have a hunting lodge here?' she asked. ‘It's a long way from Pemberley.'

‘I own hunting lodges throughout Europe, a relic of the old days. I don't use them anymore, but from time to time, I find a tenant for one or other of them. The Count thinks that one of his friends might like to rent the nearest lodge and so I would like to see if it needs any repairs. Why don't you come with me? We can go tomorrow, and it will give you some relief from the castle.'

‘Oh, yes,' she said. ‘I would like that very much.'

‘Very well, I will go and make the arrangements.'

Whilst he went off to the stables, Elizabeth went inside, finding the drawing room after three attempts. She had seen little of it the night before, and she hoped there might be a pianoforte but there was no instrument. She took a turn around the room, examining the portraits which hung on the walls and coming to rest in front of the fireplace. Above it hung a fine portrait of two gentlemen in seventeenth century dress. They were clothed in the fashions of the time, in satin coats and breeches, and they wore dark, curling wigs which fell to their waists.

She looked at them more closely. It was not easy to see them clearly from her low angle but something about them was familiar. She wondered who they reminded her of and then she realised that it was Darcy and the Count.

‘The paintings are very good, do you not think?' came a voice behind her.

She very nearly jumped.

‘My apologies, I did not mean to startle you,' said the Count, for it was he.

‘I thought you were visiting neighbours,' she said.

‘And so I was, but the riding, it is hard with old bones. I would have said to my servants, “Go! Do this errand for me!” but Darcy, he is a valued nephew of mine and I do not like to send a servant in a matter concerning him. When I arrive, my neighbours, they are good to me, they say, “We will go to the next castle ourselves to spare you the travelling. Your commission, it will be done in half the time and with less jostling to you of your old bones.” And so it goes. One visits another and they each of them travel only a short way to the next castle. I encourage them by saying, “You are welcome to my castle. I have with me a new bride!”' he said with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You had small hospitality yesterday but today it will be not the same. You will like my neighbours, I think. Some of them are family and all of them are friends. They will entertain you and make up for the castle's darkness with their humour and conversation. And they will like you. You are an ornament to my home. It is many years since such loveliness has been inside the castle. You are comfortable here, may I hope? You have everything you need?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

‘If there is anything I can do to make your stay more agreeable you must say, “Count! I will have this!”'

‘There is one thing,' said Elizabeth.

‘Only say its name.'

‘There is no mirror in my room.'

He became as still as a heron. At last his hands moved and he said, ‘Alas! I have no mirrors. I have been a widower for very long, you understand, and a man with no pretensions to beauty, he does not seek to fill his home with these things. Ask anything of me but this.'

‘It doesn't matter,' said Elizabeth hurriedly, hoping she had not wounded him. ‘Thank you, there is nothing else I need.'

‘I am glad of it. The castle, it is ancient and not made for today, it is made for the old times, when my ancestors they needed a fortress from war, but I have made it my home.'

Elizabeth felt uncomfortable for a moment, wondering if he could have heard her comments on the castle's upkeep, but then dismissed the notion as impossible.

As they continued to talk, she felt herself growing more at peace with her surroundings. The Count spoke deprecatingly of the castle, but it was clear he loved it as his home, and Elizabeth began to view it with new eyes.

‘The portraits are good, do you not think?' asked the Count, looking up at the picture she had been examining. ‘Of them, at least, I need not be ashamed. They were painted by a local artist, a man with much talent. That one in particular is a favourite of mine. The artist has caught the fabric well. See the lace!'

‘Who are they?' asked Elizabeth. ‘The men in the portrait?'

‘The first is of my sire, the first Polidori,' he said, pointing to the man on the left. ‘It is from him I inherit the castle. And the one on the right is a Darcy.'

‘Yes, I thought it must be. The family resemblance is striking,' said Elizabeth.

‘
Oui
, though I think that Darcy is slimmer than the man in the portrait. And more handsome,
n'est-ce pas
?'

He dropped into French with the ease of the English aristocracy, and Elizabeth was glad he had not lapsed into his own native tongue, which, although it bore some resemblance to French, was one she did not recognise.

‘When was it painted?' she asked.

‘Over a hundred years ago, in 1686. Times, they were very different then. The castle was full of light and laughter. Much has changed.' He seemed to be lost in a reverie and Elizabeth did not like to disturb him, but at last he roused himself and said, ‘But we cannot live in the past. We must accept what we have in the present, and that is not so bad, with a visit from friends to look forward to. My housekeeper, she will be doing what she can to improve the castle's appearance in honour of my valued guests. If it will not discommode you greatly, will you take your meal at noontide in your room and remain there until we eat at six o'clock? We keep early hours at the castle. I believe, in England, you call them country hours.'

Elizabeth said that it would not discommode her at all and the Count excused himself. She soon followed him from the room, feeling more cheerful than she had done since arriving at the castle.

She found Annie in her room, pressing her evening gowns with a flat iron heated on the fire, and the homely scene further reassured her.

‘It will be lunch on a tray today, Annie,' she said, ‘and then there will be guests for dinner. I will wear my amber silk, I think, with plenty of petticoats. It's very cold away from the fires. And I will have my cashmere shawl.'

‘Will you wear the amber beads or the gold necklace?' Annie asked.

‘The beads, I think,' said Elizabeth, recalling the Count's shabby clothes: she wanted Darcy to be proud of her, but she did not want to look too fine.

‘Very good, Ma'am.'

One of the maids soon arrived with a tray of hot, steaming stew which tasted exactly the same as the previous night's meal, and Elizabeth thought of how shocked her mother would have been at this deficiency in the housekeeping, then fell to musing about the Count's wife. She wondered what the Countess had been like and thought it a tragedy she had died, for she suspected that, if the Countess had still been alive, the castle would have been better looked after, even if the Count's fortunes had dwindled.

After her lunch, Elizabeth finished her letter to Jane, but alas, she knew she could not post it in such an out of the way place and that she would have to wait until they returned to civilisation before she could send it.

There was no dressing room, the bedroom filling all of the turret, but one of the footmen carried a hip bath upstairs and the maids brought jugs of hot water so that Elizabeth could take a bath. It was a delight to soak in the hot, soapy water and soothe away all the aches and pains caused by the jostling of the coach the day before.