Mr and Mrs Darcy 02 Suspense & Sensibility (35 page)

The
wind howled, and a huge thunderclap shook the house. The candles sputtered and
died, but a glow brightened the room. It came from the mirror.

The
glow illuminated Darcy, curling around his contours, blazing every muscle and
sinew. It danced across him, bathing him, caressing him, dancing and wavering
like--

Flames.

A
powerful sensation of evil assailed her with such force that she nearly
collapsed under its magnitude. She let go of the frame and staggered forward,
weaving to the side lo avoid tripping over Mr. Dashwood's body. The mirror
tugged at her hand, inviting--directing--demanding that she look. She need only
turn her head.

She
turned.

Mr
Dashwood. still bearing the image of a child, clawed the glass in silhouette.
The fires of hell were behind him.

She
looked to Darcy. He remained enthralled, transfixed by something she could not
see.

"Mrs.
Darcy, stand back!'' Professor Randolph cried. He spread his feet wide and
began to tilt the mirror.

Thunder
boomed. The room was so hot she could hardly breathe.

Darcy
shifted. Or appeared to. Then she realized he had not moved at all, but had
developed a double profile. The narrow gap between outlines slowly widened, the
fainter one moving toward the glass.

It was Darcy's soul.

Why
did Darcy himself not move? It was time! He must break contact now, or the
false exchange would become true.

The
gap increased. The Mirror of Narcissus summoned, demanding its tithe. But she'd
be damned before she allowed it to take Darcy s soul. That belonged to God. And
to her.

With
a cry, she hurled herself against her husband, knocking him to the floor. She
held him, and her breath, while she wailed in agonizing helplessness to see
whether she also held his spirit. Its outline remained separated from that of
his body for what seemed an eternity until, blessedly, they merged.

Darcy's
gaze, however, found the glass once more and locked upon it.

"Darcy?"
she shouted. "Darcy!"

She
could not command his attention, nor, she discovered, could she physically turn
his face from the glass. "Professor!"
Randolph abandoned his post. He
pushed the mirror upright and rested it against the wall, where it continued to
bathe the room in the glow of hell-fire. He rushed forward and dragged Darcy
out of the mirror's range. She stood and tried to follow.

The
mirror would not permit her.

It
held her in its sight. Invisible claws raked her, rent her, trying to claim her
soul for the one she had denied. She felt a tear, a grasp, as the mirror
prepared to consume her spirit. The flames leapt in anticipation of their
feast.

Still
on the floor. Darcy pushed himself to a sitting position. He moved groggily, as
if awakening from slumber.
She could not
even see his face. With a swift prayer that this would not be her last vision
of him in this lifetime, she steeled herself against the mirror's imminent pull.

She
felt its grip--strong, overpowering, cold for all the heat of its fire.
Then, suddenly, it released her.

The
wails of every soul the Mirror of Narcissus had ever held flooded the air,
centuries of tormented shrieks and cries that had gone unheard in their glass
prison. The flames burned blue, then black. Mr. Dashwood's image had
disappeared, no doubt consumed by the raging inferno.

The
mirror's surface wavered, losing solidity, threatening to send molten glass
oozing across the floor. The wails grew so loud she had to cover her ears or go
mad. As they reached a crescendo, a mighty roar sounded. The mirror shook
violently, Elizabeth feared it would come away from the wall and topple over to
crush her. But it did not.

It
imploded.

Thirty One

"Thank heaven you are what you always were."

-
Marianne
Dashwood to Edward Ferrars,

Sense and Sensibility,
Chapter 35

The
sudden silence was almost more
disturbing than the howls of the damned.

Only
the sound of the rain, falling gently once more, penetrated the stillness. No
one spoke. No one moved. All simply stared at an empty gold frame. The glass
had collapsed in on itself, disappearing into whatever plane of hell it had
occupied and leaving nothing but a tarnished shell behind.

Elizabeth
shuddered--from horror or chill, she knew not. Probably both. The room had
returned to a normal temperature, leaving her cold in her perspiration-drenched
gown. Darcy came to her. He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly
enough to assure her that he was, indeed, her Darcy--
unscarred, if not untouched, by their ordeal. His whispered enquiries and her
murmured responses reassured him of her own wholeness.

Though
the dimness of the room granted them partial privacy they soon grew conscious
of their audience and separated.
Professor Randolph had crossed to
the table, where he was actually taking his time relighting the candelabrum.
When he finished his task, the tapers emitted a gentle glow, comforting in contrast
to the blaze just extinguished.

Randolph
assessed them. "You both appear all right."

"We
are," Darcy confirmed.

"Then
I think we must consider the end result of this enterprise a success, even if
we failed to rescue Mr. Dashwood."

Dread
washed over Elizabeth at the mention of Harry. She glanced at his body, still
lying on the floor. "Is he lost forever?"

"The
mirror is destroyed. I can only assume that his spirit perished along with
it"

She
swallowed a lump in her throat. Sadness settled upon her as she thought of the
lost potential Harry's death represented, how extraordinarily unfair it was,
that he should have the simple pleasures of one life stolen from him, so that
Sir Francis could indulge in the guilty pleasures of a second.

Darcy,
noting her distress, touched her cheek. "Perhaps instead of being
destroyed along with the mirror, his spirit found rest."

She
released a heavy sigh and turned to look at Harry's body once more. "I
shall hold out hope of that."

Viewing
Mr. Dashwood now. she could believe he had, indeed, somehow found rest. He posed
as if in slumber, his limbs having fallen into more natural positions when his
body thawed. He lay on his side, his knees slightly bent, his left arm tucked
under him and his right gently draped. She imagined his chest lightly rising
and lulling in the steady rhythm of sleep.

She
caught her own breath. 'Twas not her imagination.

"Darcy,
Mr. Dashwood is breathing."

Incredulous,
they all gathered round Mr. Dashwood's form.
Elizabeth extended her hand, but
Darcy captured it and instead felt Mr. Dashwood's chest himself.

"His
heart beats, and he is as warm as you or I."

She
pressed Darcy's hand at the news but hesitated to celebrate. She raised her
gaze to Professor Randolph. "Is he Harry--or Sir Francis?"

"Harry."
Mr Dashwood murmured

His
eyes opened. He slowly rolled to his back and blinked trying to focus his gaze
as it shifted among the three of them.

"I'm afraid I've been a neglectful host
today." he said. His voice was feeble, but he sounded more like himself
than he had in weeks. "Do forgive me--I've been away for a while."

The
rain had ceased, and a ray of evening sunlight slanted through the window.
Elizabeth smiled.

"It
is good to have you back. Mr Dashwood."

A
quarter hour saw Harry sufficiently recovered to transfer from the floor to a
chair, and another quarter hour beyond that brought his request to remove from
the chamber altogether.
Though only the mirror's frame remained, the sight of it distressed him far
more than the exertion of changing rooms. His own chamber having also been the
scene of unpleasant memories, Mr. Dashwood chose to relocate to the drawing
room.

They assisted him downstairs, where they
found most of the servants milling around, speculating about what had
transpired above. Elizabeth supposed a little cunosity was the natural result
of all the waiting and roaring they must have heard issuing from the spare
bedchamber. At the sight of Mr. Dashwood--whom they had last seen stone-cold
dead--all gasped, a few crossed themselves, and one maid fainted.

"Mr
Dashwood has recovered from his indisposition." Elizabeth announced.

The
four of them ignored the servants' bewildered gazes and continued to the
drawing room, where they settled Harry in a comfortable chair. Mr Dashwood's
ordeal had left him weak but he showed signs of steady improvement In fact.
Elizabeth thought his visage already looked better than it had when she'd spoken
to Sir Francis. Confident that some nourishment
would further speed his revival, Elizabeth called lor a light supper to be
brought up.

Shall
I also send for something fortifying to drink?" she asked Harry.
"Wine, perhaps?"

Mr.
Dashwood gnmaced. "Tea. I think in recent weeks this body has taken in
quite enough spints, in every sense of the word."

The
tea arrived first. Its delivery required two maids--one to carry the tray, the
other to look busy while casting furtive glances at Mr Dashwood.

"Will
your servants speak of this outside the house?" Darcy said when they
departed.

"They
are not my servants. Sir Francis replaced my staff with his own, and paid them
well to keep silent about anything they might observe. Startling as my apparent
resurrection is, I'm afraid it's not the most shocking thing that has taken
place this house."

Elizabeth
poured tea and placed the first cup in Mr. Dashwood's hands.
Then, still feeling a bit indisposed
herself after her ordeal, she poured a cup of her own and swallowed a sip.
"What did happen?" she
asked. "I know what you revealed to me when I discovered you in the glass
yesterday--" Good heavens, had that been only yesterday? "But all the
rest?"

A
shadow passed across his countenance, and she immediately regretted the query.
"Do not speak of it, if doing so will cause you distress." she hastened
to add.
"No. I--I want you to know."
he said. "I want to assure you whatever indignities you or anybody else
suffered, they were not my doing."

"We
understand you are not to blame."

"Oh--I
accept the blame as my own. It was I who brought the glass here, I who brought
the portrait. Had I not wanted to show off with the former and insult my mother
with the latter, none of this would have happened."

"Until
some other unsuspecting person stumbled upon the objects in the future."
Professor Randolph said "Cursed
artifacts seldom allow themselves to remain in obscurity forever. Had
you not found the glass, your son, or his son, might have become the mirror's
next victim. Let it bring you some measure of peace to know that you have
spared your progeny the misery
you endured."

"All the same. I wish I had invited you
to examine my attic discoveries, as I had promised," he said. "I
almost did solicit your assessment of the glass, but I feared you would think
me mad. Heavens, I thought I was mad--hearing a voice coming from the glass,
seeing a face that was mine and not mine. Sir Francis haunted me awake in the
mirror and asleep in my dreams. Then people started seeing me in places I had
not been, and I wondered if he'd found a way to roam about while I slept. Even when
I was in Devonshire, if I so much as dozed, his spirit wandered London
free."

"And
eventually he grew dissatisfied with that'" Elizabeth asked gently.

"After
more than thirty years of imprisonment, he was like a child on holiday. He
sought pleasure, but his lack of substance limited his enjoyments. He could not
hold cards, consume food or drink, or satisfy his .. . more carnal interests."
A hint of red crept into his cheek, and his teacup became a sudden subject of
rapt attention.

The
arrival of Harry's supper broke the awkwardness, different servants, probably
having won at straws the privilege of ogling Mr Dashwood up close, delivered
the repast. When they had served the food and retreated, Harry continued.

"After
the--after Sir Francis and I exchanged places, he gave free rein to his
hedonistic impulses. You cannot imagine my torment! To have not only lost my
freedom, but to watch helplessly as my relationships, reputation, fortune, and
physical person suffered irreparable damage!"

"You
know the extent of his transgressions?" Darcy asked.
"I probably do not." he
said. "But I know a good many of them. He would gloat to me about his
exploits--found my horror and dismay exceedingly amusing And what went on in my
own bedchamber, where he relished the presence of a captive audience, defies
description. I would turn away, cover my ears, and retreat to the mirror's
farthest recesses."
"Could none of his"--Darcy
cleared his throat--"visitors see you in the glass?" Darcy asked.

"Until
Mrs. Darcy saw me yesierday, none but Sir Francis ever detected me.
Believe me, I tried to draw attention to myself!
Every servant, every woman who entered inspired shouts and frantic waving, but
for naught. Once I thought my aunt Lucy had noticed me. She gazed into the
mirror a terribly long time. but it turned out she was only admiring herself.
The incident unnerved Sir Francis enough, however, that he shipped the mirror
back to Norland the next day."
Elizabeth, who had been refilling
Harry's teacup, paused to regard him closely. "Mrs. Robert Ferrars was in
your--Sir Francis's--bedchamber?"