Eternal Flame ~ A Pemberley Fairy Tale

Chapter Five

Liz opened her eyes. She was no longer sleeping in her bedroom at Pemberley, but in another very similar in size and shape. Something about the bed was different and the furniture had changed. Now an oriental lacquered armoire stood on the right and a large dressing table sat in front of one of the windows. The walls were different as well; the wallpaper painted with lifelike branches, populated with yellow, green and blue budgerigars nestling among vivid green leaves.

Curiously, there was also a man standing by the window. She could see he was tall, but his features were indistinct. The more she tried to focus on him, the hazier he grew. Despite her lack of success, Liz continued to concentrate on his face because she was too embarrassed to look anywhere else.

One of his hands rested on the glass in front of him, while the other hung by his side. The early morning sunlight traced the curves and planes of his naked body, leaving a warm glow in its wake. Although she couldn’t see his eyes Liz knew he was staring into the distance, watching the sun climb past the horizon.

Then he turned to face her and she felt such a strong swell of emotion in her chest she could barely contain it. It seemed like her heart was trying to claw its way out of her body just to reach him.

The faceless, hazy figure sauntered towards her before pulling back the bedcovers and settling in the space on her left side. Liz could now see what had bothered her about the bed before. The rumpled sheets spread across the whole width, not just on one half, as though he had been with her through the night. She blushed at the thought.

He moved closer, gathering her to him. “What’s wrong, Lizzy?” His voice, deep but gentle, seemed vaguely familiar. He pulled her across him until her head rested on his chest, his right arm holding her against his body.

Liz relaxed, her breath escaping in a sigh. “I think I must be dreaming.” She heard the rumble of sleepy laughter deep beneath his ribs.

“Would you like me to wake you now?”

Her reply was more honest than prudent. “No, thank you.” She lifted her head, straining to see his face. As the distance between them closed, his features sharpened, bringing his noble face into clear view. Liz gasped and she opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word his lips came down upon hers.

For a second she resisted but he swept all thoughts away with the unrestrained hunger of his kiss. Rather than the shock she expected to feel, Liz welcomed the passion, her hand slipping around his neck to pull him closer; her need for him too overwhelming to fight.

A loud bang startled her and Liz sat up, gasping; her eyelids heavy with sleep as she searched her bedroom. The armoire and odd wallpaper had disappeared, replaced by the familiar green and cream brocade. Her hands smoothed across the undisturbed bed covers to her left, but she only relaxed once she’d convinced herself that she was, and always had been, alone. The vision had felt so life-like, more like a memory than a dream. Her heart rattled away in her chest and she breathed deeply to calm herself.

Her copy of Jane Eyre lay open on the floor by the bed, the cover now a little more creased and battered.

Now Liz knew she was safe her conscious mind struggled to grasp the strands of her dream, trying to recall glimpses of it before it drifted away like a spider’s web blown by the wind. As she remembered the familiar face her cheeks grew hot with embarrassment and Liz covered them with her cool hands.

How could she meet William Bingley again with her composure intact when her mind had become so full of him?

* * * * *

When Liz finally arrived in the south parlour for breakfast, she didn’t expect to find the object of her dream waiting for her. She recalled brief images from the vision she’d experienced the night before and felt herself blushing again. Why could she not think about something else? Was her brain so lacking in stimulation that she had to obsess about her host? Did she miss the TV and internet so much that she had to entertain herself with thoughts of William Bingley?

He looked up from his newspaper. “Good morning. I haven’t forgotten that I still owe you a tour around the house. I thought you might want to see some of it before you started work today.”

She smiled, happy to see that his strange mood from the previous afternoon had disappeared. “I'd love to. I’ve spent many hours imagining what it might be like.”

“I hope the reality doesn’t disappoint.”

“It won’t. My imagination isn’t that good.”

Just then Kelly arrived, her trolley laden with enough food to feed a small army. As though trying to set a good example, William worked his way through a full plate of sausages, eggs, beans and bacon. He forbore to comment when she selected her usual smaller portion.

When they’d finished he took her down a familiar corridor which led to the salon. She’d been in the room before, with its gilded ceiling and cream and gold wallpaper, but a second visit could not diminish the impression it had made on her. There were vases and busts on pedestals, old family photographs and paintings dotted around the room. Liz's eyes swept along the longest wall, with its landscapes and formal portraits in gilded frames. Some of them stretched right up to the cornice while even the more modest canvases were still as tall as Liz.

She stopped in front of a family group that took pride of place above the mantelpiece. Her host dated it to 1796. Liz looked up to see a solidly built man wearing a neat white wig and dark, long tailed blue coat. A gold chain draped across his waistcoat and a seal hung from the waist of his stone coloured breeches. His wife, dressed in a pale blue gown, sat by his side looking down adoringly on an infant of indeterminate sex who had been captured learning to crawl on its mother's knee. To the father's left stood a serious looking young boy of ten or eleven years. "Who are these?"

"This is George and Lady Anne Darcy painted by Joseph Wright of Derby. Wright completed the portrait six months before Lady Anne’s death and her husband died about eleven years later. He never recovered from her loss and mourned her constantly during his remaining years."

"That’s a long time to be mourning; almost as long as they had been married." She heard him sigh and regretted uttering her thoughts aloud.

"I think you will find that the length of time you spend with someone bears no relation to how long you mourn." William paused for a moment, examining the painting before returning his attention to the conversation. "The child on Anne Darcy's knee was their daughter Georgiana while the young boy was Fitzwilliam."

A sudden chill caused goose-bumps to bloom on her arms. Liz gave them a brisk rub. "Named after his mother's family, I believe."

"You have been doing your homework."

She shrugged, not wishing to appear immodest. "I’ve spent a few hours at the Family Records Centre. I wanted particularly to find out more about Fitzwilliam Darcy. He always sounded so…oh, I don't know, romantic, I suppose. I've been curious about him ever since I first heard his name, maybe because he was the owner of Pemberley at the time Mr. Bancroft completed his illustrations. I had no problem finding his baptism here in Derbyshire and I even managed to locate his marriage to Elizabeth Bennet, in Hertfordshire of all places. But after that, the only thing I found in the local parish registers was his wife's burial a few years later. Then the family seems to have disappeared. I found no later mention of Georgiana Darcy at all; no marriage and no burial."

"No, you wouldn’t have. Georgiana Darcy travelled overseas and married an American called Thomas Hudson. They settled in Boston, had five children—two boys and three girls—and they both lived to a good age." William turned away from the painting. "Fitzwilliam Darcy left Pemberley to his godson Thomas Bingley."

"Not to one of his sister’s children?"

He shook his head. "They would not have wanted to leave their country of birth and the house had been empty for many years when Thomas finally moved here."

Liz stared into the dark, serious eyes of the young boy in the painting. She wondered what sort of man he had grown into. "Are there any portraits of Fitzwilliam Darcy taken when he was older?"

"There are one or two upstairs, I think." He wandered through into the next room. “Mrs Ellis says she has shown you around the library already.”

“We had a few minutes in here, but I didn’t really get the chance to appreciate it.” She glanced up at the ornamented ceiling, where a panoply of gods looked down from the heavens. “It’s one of the most beautiful libraries I’ve ever seen.”

“I take it you’ve never viewed the library at Chatsworth.”

“No. I’ve never been to Derbyshire before until this week.”

“You must visit some time. It’s a fine house.”

Liz smiled. “And, unlike you, they’ll let anyone in.”

“Yes, it’s quite the family business these days.” William laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the old Dukes are turning in their tombs to see their descendants in trade.”

She ran her fingers lightly across the spines of the books. The library appeared well organised, with books on one subject kept together, until she reached one particular section that seemed less ordered than the rest. Crouching down, she took a closer look.

“Found something of interest?” William asked, dropping to one knee by her side.

“I don't quite know. There are some beautiful books on this shelf, even first editions, but the subjects too diverse. Are they together for any particular reason?”

“No good reason, really. Those books were all purchased at the same auction in 1812, although not, I might add, on the same day. They formerly belonged to the Duke of Roxburgh. Now there was a man in love with the printed word.”

“I remember reading about that auction. Didn’t the sale last for more than a month, because there were so many lots?”

“Ten thousand items sold over forty-two days, including the whole of a very wet May.” He looked down at the titles with a wry smile. “I have no idea why they’ve been left sitting here for so long. I suppose it’s time for them to be relocated to the correct sections.”

“Please don’t move them. Change for the sake of change isn’t always a good thing. This group has an interesting provenance in its own right. Sometimes keeping things as they are can be good too.” 

“Is that the historian in you talking?”

Liz grinned. “Yes, very probably.”

“Very well. They can stay where they are…for now.”

As he led the way out of the library, Liz followed, curious to find out what other stories or tales of past inhabitants would be revealed as she discovered the rest of the house.