A Witch Comes to Pemberley – Chapter 1

It is a truth not universally acknowledged—because gentlemen are far too amiable to proclaim their frustration, and ladies too polite to confess their fatigue—that the most pleasant neighborhood will grow oppressive if one’s mother can reach it by footpath. And that is how nine months after their nuptials, Mr. Charles Bingley and his young wife Jane, declined to renew the lease on Netherfield Park in Hertfordshire. What good fortune found them as not a day after the decision was made, an invitation arrived for them and their party for an extended stay at the northern estate of Charles’ mysterious friend, Mr. Darcy.

“Derbyshire, my dear Jane, will suit you precisely,” Mr. Bingley declared as their chaise labored up another green shoulder of hill, his hat tipped back with the confidence of a man who had never doubted a horizon. “There are hills to look at when you are romantic, sheep to count when you are rational, and stones to admire when you are philosophical.”

“Rocks, Charles?” Caroline Bingley adjusted the plume at her bonnet with the air of a commander frowning on his troops. “I had not thought to leave Town abounding in gentlemen merely to cultivate a taste for granite.”

“I believe your brother means the prospect of the rocks, not their composition,” Jane said gently, though her serenity was belied by the hand she pressed—brief as a bird’s wing—to her middle.

Elizabeth shifted to shadow her sister. Secrets rode badly in coaches and worse in drawing rooms.

“The prospect is very fine,” Elizabeth agreed, turning to the window where early autumn unfurled in wine and bronze. The air that slipped through the carriage’s imperfect seals smelled of peat smoke and wet bracken—wilder than anything Hertfordshire had ever offered. “I confess I had not expected such… vastness.”

Caroline’s laugh was a brief, polished thing. “How poetic. I suppose when one has known only modest drawing rooms, even a moor seems worthy of a sonnet.”

“Granite is constant, Miss Bingley,” Elizabeth said, still watching the hills. “The same cannot always be said of gentlemen.”

“Lizzy,” murmured Jane, though her lips twitched.

“Peace, both of you!” Bingley cried, perfectly happy. “We are nearly to the turning—I have it on excellent authority. My map says so and the fellow with the donkey nodded most encouragingly when I asked.”

“The fellow with the donkey did not speak English, Charles.”

“Nodding is universal,” Bingley replied, unperturbed.

The chaise jolted over a rut deep enough to rattle both teeth and dignity. Caroline’s hat, which had been waging its own battle with the Derbyshire wind, finally surrendered; the ostrich plume listed tragically. She made a small, strangled sound and set about repairs with the grim determination.

Elizabeth pressed her lips together and considered the moor with grave attention lest she laugh and reopen the argument.

“The people here are very good,” Bingley continued, warming to his theme. “Simple, honest folk. I have heard Mr. Darcy is much beloved by his tenants—though of course a man of his standing would naturally inspire respect. Still, respect and affection are not the same, and I am told he has earned both.”

At the name Darcy, Elizabeth felt an odd prickle. Since the invitation, both of the Bingleys had imparted effusive praise about the man. She now sat assured that for everything to be true, would be a fancy, and therefore the real Mr. Darcy was destined to disappoint.

“Mr. Darcy was to have come to Netherfield last autumn,” Jane said quietly, “but he remained in Derbyshire.”

“A great loss,” Bingley said, with the vague delicacy of a man who knew better than to pry into another gentleman’s sorrows. “His sister died of fever. He has not been much in society since. I believe we are the first to visit at his request.”

“Miss Darcy was the most accomplished young lady. A virtuoso on the pianoforte.” Caroline said, though her tone lacked sincerity. “Still, it has been the appropriate time and I am relieved he is receiving visitors. And we must lift his burden! It would be most disappointing to have traveled so far only to find the house closed.”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. She neither knew Mr. Darcy nor the late Miss Darcy, and so her only success would be to needle Miss Bingley some more. After days of travel, even she had grown tired of attempting intelligent conversation with the woman.

“He invited us himself,” Bingley said, producing the folded letter he conveniently kept on his person as source of authority for their journey. He did not share with his wife that his friend had generously provided the horses along the way. “See? ‘I should be glad of your party’s company, and the distraction of new faces.’ Very cordial. Very kind.”

Elizabeth accepted the letter when Jane passed it and read the lines with interest. The hand was strong and spare—no false warmth, only a plain invitation and a suggestion of weariness beneath the ink. A man who did not expect to be refused, perhaps, and invited anyway.

“Indeed. Very demure, very mindful,” she mimicked her brother in law, finding the obsession with the man due to his wealth utterly ridiculous.

“There!” Bingley leaned forward and pointed. “Do you see? Beyond that stand of trees—those are Pemberley woods, or I am a Dutchman.”

“You are an Englishman, Charles,” Caroline said. As the letter passed to Caroline, she did not even humor her brother with a trifling look and handed it back to him.

“Exactly!”

The carriage crested the hill, the clouds tore like old linen, and a pale blade of light slid into the valley below.

Pemberley.

The house rose from the land as if it had grown there, its many windows catching and scattering the light. The river looped close, bright as polished steel; the woods drew near on every side—not encroaching, but attending, as courtiers attend a queen.

Elizabeth forgot to breathe.

“Is it not splendid?” Bingley asked, and his pleasure was so genuine that even Caroline forbore to argue.

“It is… breathtaking,” Jane said, and Elizabeth heard in her voice the same quiet awe she felt tightening her own.

“It is immoderate,” Caroline murmured, though whether she meant the house, the hills, or her own ambitions, Elizabeth could not tell.

The chaise descended into the valley. A raven lifted from a thorn bush as they passed, its cry sharp and scolding. High on the eastern ridge, a dark crown of hawthorn trees knotted against the sky. The sight steadied Elizabeth—though why it should, she could not have said.

The road dipped; the wheels splashed through a wash of mud; Bingley leaned out to call encouragement to the coachman and earned a neat spray of brown water across his face and upper coat.

“Charles!” Caroline’s voice could have frozen wine. Jane produced a handkerchief as if by magic.

“It is only mud, Caroline,” Bingley said, dabbing cheerfully. “Mud is very rustic. I am assured rustic is fashionable now.”

Elizabeth met Jane’s eyes; their silent laughter made the road shorter.

They rolled through great iron gates wrought with vines and birds and symbols Elizabeth did not recognize, and up the long drive toward the house. The light slipped back behind the clouds; a fine, cold mist began to drift across the parkland.

A rider appeared on the crest: a tall figure on a dark horse, measured and confident. The rider urged his ride down the slope and swiftly caught up with vehicle. As the carriage slowed, he came forward with the pace of a man who knew his ground and did not expect it to shift beneath him.

“There he is!” Bingley nearly upset his hat. “There is Darcy—punctual as ever.”

Mr. Darcy dismounted and came to hand Jane down with faultless manners and a low, courteous voice. He was younger than Elizabeth had imagined—perhaps thirty—and handsome in a grave, unsmiling way that put her in mind of old portraits: fine bones, dark eyes, a mouth that looked as though it had forgotten warmth.

“Mrs. Bingley. I am honored.”

Jane’s smile could have gentled a wolf. “Mr. Darcy. Thank you for receiving us.”

He turned to Bingley; gravity softened, not much but enough to suggest friendship had worn a small groove in reserve. “Bingley. You are very welcome.”

Caroline descended, her curtsey a masterpiece of calculated grace. “Mr. Darcy. How kind to open Pemberley to us. I hope we do not intrude upon your solitude.”

“You do not intrude, Miss Bingley.” His bow was correct and distant. Caroline’s smile tightened.

Then it was Elizabeth’s turn.

He handed her down with the same care—but when her foot touched the gravel and she looked up to thank him, their eyes met and something shifted. His gaze sharpened. His hand, still holding hers, went briefly still.

Elizabeth felt a shock run through her like a struck bell: one clear note that left her breathless and—unaccountably—afraid.

“Miss Bennet,” he said, quieter now.

“Mr. Darcy.” She withdrew her hand as soon as propriety allowed and stepped back, pulse unsteady. “Thank you.”

He inclined his head but did not look away. For a heartbeat, she had the wild wish that he would say more.

“Lizzy, come,” Jane said gently, and the spell broke.

Darcy turned to greet the others, and the party moved toward the house, where a woman in black stood waiting at the top of the steps, her keys glinting at her waist. Elizabeth estimated from Mr. Darcy’s nod to the woman that in this household, the housekeeper was more than a servant.

Elizabeth glanced back once toward the ridge and its crown of thorn, then stepped over the threshold.

Pemberley had opened its doors.