Chapter Ten

Posted on: 2009-09-04

"Open your eyes, Miss Bennet," Darcy said, and enjoyed the look of satisfaction in those fine organs when she did so, as disappointed as he was that she immediately released her hold on his arm.

"Are we in the right place?" she asked, looking around her.

"It would appear so. May I inquire what it is you are seeking here?" Darcy asked, trying to recall which flowers were on his own list of specimens to be collected.

"I need some roses."

"Then let us go this way," he smiled; he knew that roses were on his list, too. Darcy offered Elizabeth his arm again, and she took it without hesitation, a circumstance that pleased him exceedingly. What did not please him, however, was that he did not know what to say to her. Evidently, developing the ability to flirt did not occur merely because one had resolved to do so. He had to bite his tongue to keep from asking about the health of her family - he could practically hear the derision he would earn by asking her if she had left the Gardiners in good health, though he did wonder what her aunt and uncle would be up to in the Looking Glass World in the middle of the night.

Darcy sighed quietly, half in frustration, and half in contentment. This was precisely the reason he needed to practice. He led Elizabeth down the path, in search of roses and inspiration.

"Oh my! Elephants! Miss Bingley, there are elephants in the stables! Do you think that people here ride elephants instead of horses? Oh, but my cousin rode a horse... of sorts... but I do not see any horses, do you? Oh, I have always longed to see an elephant!" Georgiana had skipped forward like the child she still in some ways remained, clapping her hands in sheer delight. "Have you ever seen anything more wonderful?" she asked, twirling around to take in the entire scene, and finally resting her shining eyes on her taciturn companion.

Caroline had, indeed, seen many things in her life that she considered more wonderful than the enormous, leathery, wrinkly animals that occupied every stall in Pemberley's impressively large stables - if one chooses to define wonderful as delightful, beautiful, and good in every way. If, however, one chooses to use another meaning for the word, that of inspiring wonder, awe, amazement, stupefaction, then Caroline would have been inclined to place the lumbering pachyderms somewhere near the various wonderful denizens of Darcinia, the centaurs, fauns, sphinx, and the like, in terms of wonders she had encountered. She had certainly smelled more wonderful things. Caroline quickly covered her mouth and nose with her hand, wishing again that she had brought a handkerchief with her. It annoyed her that her long-ago governess was right about the necessity to always carry one.

"Come away from there, Georgiana dear," Caroline coughed, using her free hand to reinforce her coaxing with a wave, which the dear girl ignored, inching cautiously, yet excitedly, closer to one of the stalls. Both ladies gave little squeals when the inhabitant of that stall reached over the half door with a sinuous gray trunk, evincing a desire to become acquainted with the young lady almost equal to her desire to examine the extraordinary beast herself. "Do not touch it!" Caroline cried out in horror and disgust, though her revulsion did not impel her forward to protect the other from the contact.

Georgiana halted the hand she had tentatively reached out just short of touching the animal. "Perhaps you are right," she sighed, "But oh... elephants! How shall I ever be content riding a horse after this?"

"A horse is an animal one can at least ride," Caroline said dryly, beginning to regain her usual condescending composure.

"I suppose you are right, we cannot ride these - though people do, I believe, in India. But I would not know how to saddle one, and there do not seem to be any stablehands here at the moment to help us," Georgiana replied most pitifully as she looked about fruitlessly for assistance.

"I would not ride one of those monsters in any case," Caroline sneered.

"Oh, but Miss Bingley, do you not even wonder what it must be like?" Georgiana sighed for the adventure that was not to be hers.

"No."

Eventually, after a great deal of wandering, Darcy was forced to abandon thoughts of what he should and should not say to Elizabeth, and begin to study his surroundings to try to gain his bearings; the paths in the shrubbery were not the same as they were at the real Pemberley, and he did not know which way to go to reach the rose garden. In fact, the shrubbery, bordering neat gravel paths, seemed to be a kind of maze now, illuminated for night rambles by torches placed along the path, while no such arrangement of hedges existed at his home. Darcy was debating with himself whether or not to inform Elizabeth that he did not know the way, when they reached an intersection of paths and another person appeared before them, coming from a different direction. Darcy was pleased that it was someone he recognized, and that he was human as well, though in the combined moonlight and torchlight Darcy would have sworn that the man had something of a greenish cast to his complexion.

"Good evening, Mr. Green," Darcy hailed the new arrival. The elderly man, dressed in laborer's clothes, looked up upon hearing the voice of the master of Pemberley.

"Good evening, Sir."

Darcy could see that Mr. Green was troubled, and were he meeting his head gardener wearing that doleful expression in the gardens of the real Pemberley, during the day, and without a lady whom he was entertaining, he would have inquired what was the matter, as he would have felt concern for any problem that might arise on his estate, as well as for any personal troubles faced by such a longtime member of the estate's staff, but as the problems of a Looking Glass World garden, and a Looking Glass World gardener, were not his province, nor likely to be anything he could offer a useful opinion toward assuaging, he ignored the worried countenance of his loyal retainer in favor of resolving his own dilemma. Still, he had his wits about him enough to attempt to extract the information he needed from Mr. Green without admitting in front of Elizabeth that he was in actuality asking for directions.

"Are the roses still in bloom, Mr. Green?" Darcy asked, though he knew they would be, even if those in his real gardens were somewhat on the wane for the season.

Mr. Green raised his eyes to Darcy's, and with a baleful expression and quavering voice began to speak.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my boy, the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch."

"I beg your pardon?" Darcy was bewildered. "Are the roses being eaten by a... what did you call it? A Jabberwock?"

"Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!" the gardener cried, his sudden animation taking both Darcy and Elizabeth by surprise as he punctuated his shouted warning with several menacing jabs in the air with a trowel, his eyes flashing wildly.

Darcy maintained his masterful composure. "If there are vermin encroaching on the gardens, you may -"

But Darcy was not allowed to continue. Mr. Green leaned in close to him. "Have you your vorpal sword?" he asked, his earnest, worried expression returning.

"My what? I have this," Darcy replied, drawing his sword from its sheath and holding it flat in front of him so that the gardener could see it. The eager expression in Mr. Green's eyes worried him, and he tightened his grip on the hilt.

"Aye, that'll do," Mr. Green nodded.

"Surely these garden pests, these Jubjubs and Jabberwocks and... the like are not so vicious that I must carry a sword to view the roses!" Darcy tried to laugh, but failed in his concern for the sad expression that descended upon Mr. Green's increasingly olive-colored features.

"Tell that to the mome raths," the old man sighed, shaking his head mournfully.

"I see," Darcy said, though he did not see at all. He watched Mr. Green continue to shake his head, muttering something to himself. "And the roses? Perhaps we might view them together, to examine the damage and determine what is to be done?" Darcy mentally congratulated himself on hitting upon a means of having the gardener lead the way to the rose garden without actually having to ask the man where it was.

"There is naught amiss with the roses," Mr. Green seemed to take offense at the suggestion, as if it was an affront to his skills as a gardener to hint that he was unable to defend the precious blooms from the ravages of a frumious Bandersnatch .

"I am glad to hear it. Is... is there anything else concerning you?" Darcy asked tentatively, his natural inclination to want to solve any problem presented to him fighting through his determination not to concern himself with the vagaries of life in the Looking Glass World.

"I thought I saw an elephant, that practiced on a fife*," Mr. Green confided.

"Did you?" Darcy replied, as if such musically diligent pachyderms were common inhabitants in Pemberley's gardens.

"Aye, but when I looked again I found it was a letter from my wife," came the matter-of-fact reply.

"Oh," Darcy said, nonplussed.

"And then," Mr. Green continued, warming to his subject in a way Darcy had frequently seen him do when discussing ornamental borders, "I thought I saw a buffalo upon the chimney piece, but when I looked again I found it was my sister's husband's niece."

"I see," said Darcy, gripping his sword tightly with one hand and reaching for Elizabeth, who had remained silent throughout the entire peculiar exchange, with the other. Grasping her hand, he slowly began to draw her away from the old gardener, who continued to babble on, scarcely seeming aware of their presence anymore, nor noticing their discreet withdrawal down the path.

"I thought I saw a rattlesnake that questioned me in Greek, but when I looked again I found it was the middle of next week!" Mr. Green was singing now, and shuffling his feet in a sort of jig.

Darcy and Elizabeth quickened their pace and soon were able to disappear around a bend.

Georgiana Darcy and Caroline Bingley had passed any number of pleasurable afternoons together, when Caroline was at her most charming and least shrewish, and Georgiana managed to relax in her overbearing presence, but had they been observed walking together in the moonlight that late night at Pemberley, no one would ever have surmised that the two women had ever been of one accord on anything. Caroline was growing increasingly irritated with every step up the hill, cursing the 'rising ground' on which Pemberley was built, and hilly Derbyshire altogether; her temper did not improve when they had crested the hill and began to descend the other side. The damp air and dewy grass made her clothes cling to her most uncomfortably; she could positively feel her hair losing its curl and becoming lank. Her footing was uncertain on the slick grass, and she repeatedly tripped and stumbled on unseen obstacles upon the ground. Meanwhile, the bright moon that made it possible for them to travel without a light cast unnervingly dark shadows under and around each clump of trees, and the occasional rustle or chirp that issued from those dark spaces made her jump and start with heart-pounding alarm. That she no longer feared arrest by outraged centaurs did not mean she felt safe, not by any means. And in the throes of these discomforts, the cheery demeanor of her companion was as one of the myriad pebbles she collected in her shoes as she trudged through the night.

Georgiana, who had been terrified upon her abrupt entry into the unfamiliar world on the other side of the mirror, and had ventured out into it only out of a desperate wish to find the means to return home, was finding the place more and more enchanting with every passing moment. Miss Bingley's irksome presence, made so disagreeable by her foul mood, was ignored, if it could not be entirely forgotten. The meeting with Monsieur Lapin had been a comfort - he had not transformed into anything odd; she had been delighted to see elephants for the first time outside of the pages of books, delighted enough that the disappointment at not being able to ride one quickly diminished. Moreover, Georgiana was enchanted with her new friend Motha, whose playful and yet graceful flight, and quietly crooned moth songs made the trek over the hill, which so discomfited Miss Bingley, a most agreeable excursion to the younger of the pair.

"That was beautiful," Georgiana sighed as the last words of The Ballad of the March Moth drifted away on the night breezes. "I had no idea that moths could sing!" So absorbed in the delights of the Looking Glass World, for which she still had no name, it did not occur to Georgiana that it was only in that place that Lepidoptera were minstrels.

Motha's bashful acknowledgment of her praise was followed by another song, and Georgiana ambled gaily after her pretty, winged friend. The more she thought about it, the more she began to feel that even those things she had found disagreeable about the place were not so unpleasant after all. The disorientation caused by the world having been reversed now seemed an intriguing quirk of nature. The transformation of Mr. and Mrs. Hurst now amused rather than alarmed, and she felt that she would have no objection to joining them for tea if they were to ask again. Her cousin, the Colonel, had frightened her a little when he had threatened Miss Bingley with his sword, but Georgiana knew deep down that her guardian would never harm her - or Miss Bingley. Even the presence of her aunt and the toad people no longer had the power to discompose her - mainly because she had been able to avoid notice by them. Monsieur Lapin's warnings about the Jabberwock now only hinted of his distress at finding his garden had been invaded. All in all, her distress was so entirely done away that she felt no alarm at all when she heard a shrill chattering noise emanating from a tree towards which they were walking. Her excitement only grew when they had drawn near enough to identify the source of the unusual sound. Forgetting her companion's determined dislike of everything they had encountered - even the agreeable ones, like Motha - Georgiana called out to Miss Bingley in her enthusiasm.

"Miss Bingley, it is monkeys! Can you believe it? Here at Pemberley! Have you ever seen anything so -"

"Feckless layabouts. They cannot be relied upon," Caroline sniffed haughtily as she just kept walking past the tree without once looking up at the chattering hoard.

Nonplussed, Georgiana gave a last, long look at the wondrous creatures, and followed after her taciturn companion.

The long minutes of walking - Caroline was convinced they must have already covered several miles of ground - finally were rewarded; Caroline and Georgiana reached what they hoped were the outskirts of Pemberley's gardens; they stood and stared at the row of very tall hedges that seemed to make a boundary around something, which one might logically conclude was the gardens.

"Is this it?" Caroline asked, ostensibly of Motha, though she did not address the moth directly, as she would not stoop to admit their flying guide was of any real assistance to them.

"Yes, the gardens are on the other side of the hedge," Motha helpfully replied.

Having reached their destination, there remained a problem - they could see no opening in the hedge, no entrance to the gardens within. The dense foliage curved ever so subtly away from them in both directions, suggesting an enormous circle, and there were lights coming from somewhere within; they had seen as much as they descended the hill, and even now could see a brightness in the sky above the hedge. They walked for some minutes in search of an opening, or at least a gap large enough to pass through - though Miss Bingley was not so desperate to reach the interior of the gardens that she would condescend to pass through any gap narrower than a doorway. However, she was not called upon to do so, as they did not find so much as a spy-hole in the enclosure; it may just as well have been a stone wall as a structure composed of living greenery. Just as Georgiana was at the point of feeling the situation was hopeless (Caroline had long passed it), Motha, who had continued to flit around them singing her gentle tunes, drew their attention with a delicate 'Ahem.'

Georgiana stopped walking to attend her new friend, and Caroline stopped as well with an impatient 'tsk', though as their search seemed largely pointless, it could be argued that a halt in their progress was no great imposition.

"Is there something wrong, Motha?" Georgiana asked, her voice all concern.

"Did you not wish to go into the gardens?" Motha inquired in undisguised puzzlement.

Caroline answered her with sarcasm that was lost on the moth, "No, we wished to simply wander about on the perimeter all the night long."

"Oh," Motha replied.

Georgiana, appalled at her companion's rudeness, gently admonished her with a quiet, "Miss Bingley!" before smiling an entreaty at their guide. "Yes, we do wish to go inside the gardens, as we still need to find my brother. But we cannot find the way in."

There was a long pause. Had Motha possessed facial features which the two humans might have read, they would have seen her confusion writ there; as it was, they only looked on in expectation, one quite respectfully and hopefully, the other with growing irritation.

"The way in?" Motha finally asked. "But... you just... go in!" Her astonishment at their apparent hesitation was unmistakable.

"How do we just go in, if there is no opening? We cannot simply fly over the hedge," Caroline snapped.

"You just go in," Motha reiterated, and to demonstrate, flew straight through the hedge as if it was nothing but air.

"Oh!" Georgiana said with a little laugh. "I would never have thought to try that!" But it made sense to her, when she considered that they had passed through a solid glass mirror in just the same way to enter whatever strange world they were now in, and so, without another thought, Georgiana walked right through the hedge.

"Georgiana!" Caroline cried out as her companion, whom she considered as something like her charge for the moment - at least, as someone who ought to obey her and follow her lead, though she had not behaved with a great deal of leadership thus far - disappeared from her sight.

"It is easy, Miss Bingley, just walk into the hedge as it there was nothing there!" Georgiana's voice came back to her.

Grumbling about her dignity, Caroline grimaced, closed her eyes, and walked through the seemingly solid mass, not opening her eyes until she bumped into Georgiana on the other side. When she did open them, Caroline was not entirely pleased with what she saw. They were on a gravel path, Motha hovering above Georgiana's head, and on the other side of the path was another wall of hedges.

"I do not find this amusing," Caroline snapped at no one in particular, and then closed her eyes to walk through the inner wall.

It is as well that she had closed her eyes, or Caroline might have suffered a disagreeable poke as she collided with the solid wall of foliage. As it was, she received several nasty scratches on her face and bare arms, and the delicate, expensive muslin of her gown suffered a great many snags on the stiff branches.

"What!" Caroline cried, spitting out a small leaf. She rounded on her companions, and could have sworn that Georgiana's look of concern was a hastily donned mask to cover her amusement.

"Why did you do that?" Motha asked with genuine curiosity.

"Why? To get to the other side! How else are we to find Mr. Darcy?" Caroline shouted, using anger to banish her mortification.

"But you cannot go through a maze by simply walking through the barriers," Motha replied with exasperatingly patient matter-of-factness. "There would be no point to it if you could do that."

"A maze?" Caroline looked around her, and saw to her chagrin that there was an opening in the new hedge, not more than ten feet down the path. "You might have said something. Georgiana, when did your brother have this maze planted?" Caroline was certain that there had not been a maze in Pemberley's gardens when she had last visited, and she had never heard of there being such a structure there, but the hedges were at least ten feet high, if not higher, and could not have been the result of only a few months' growth. "I did not think Mr. Darcy had a taste for such whimsical notions. I do not think a garden is enhanced by such frivolous arrangements."

"There is no maze at Pemberley - though I have always wished for one!" Georgiana answered enthusiastically. "But I really do not think we are at Pemberley any more, Miss Bingley."

"So you have said," Caroline replied condescendingly, even though she knew very well that they were not at Pemberley at all. "But we really cannot waste any more time discussing your theories when we have to find your brother. Can your bug friend lead us to him?"

Motha's feathery antennae bristled visibly at Caroline's words, and Georgiana surmised that to a moth, it must be an insult to be called a bug, though she did not see much point any more in attempting to make Miss Bingley behave with more courtesy towards Motha. Still, she was determined to make up for Miss Bingley's incivility with civility of her own.

"Can you lead us to Fitzwilliam, Motha?"

"I can fly over the maze to see where he is, but I am afraid I do not know the way through the pathways, which is how you will have to go - I always fly over them, so I do not need to know the way through. But I will happily give you what help I am able, Miss Darcy," Motha said in the respectful manner in which Pemberley's servants and tenants always addressed the young lady of the house. Motha even made a little dip in her flight, like a curtsey, and flew off over the tops of the hedges even as Georgiana was thanking her for her assistance.

And uncomfortable silence descended after Motha had disappeared from view; between Georgiana and Caroline there seemed nothing to be said. The former had lost all of her previous respect and awe for her friend, and the latter counted her younger companion among the many annoyances she had faced since she left her room to explore the house. Georgiana attempted to disguise her discomfort by pacing down the path to see where it went through the opening in the inside ring of hedges, and maybe walk a bit around the gradual curve of the path they were on, but Miss Bingley snapped at her not to get lost, and her natural tendency to be obedient, and the sensitivity borne of her unfamiliarity with being spoken to in such a way made her feel abashed, and she returned meekly to stand near her companion. However, as she stood by, waiting for their guide moth to return, she thought of scathing things she might say to Miss Bingley - though of course she never would say any of them - but even having such ungenerous thoughts was rather liberating for a girl raised to be nothing but polite, and she felt a terribly wicked pleasure at imagining being rude.

Eventually Motha returned, and was able to report that she had seen Mr. Darcy elsewhere in the maze, several levels closer to the center, and nearly all the way on the other side.

"He was walking with a young lady," Motha helpfully added, causing both of her listeners to gasp - one with pleasure, and one with, well, the reader may imagine what Caroline felt upon hearing this.

"Who was she?" Georgiana asked in breathless excitement, hoping desperately that it was Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

"I did not know her; I do not think she is from this neighborhood. She was very pretty," Motha said.

"Did she have fine eyes?" Caroline sneered, not expecting, or even wanting an answer.

Motha was not able to gratify her wishes. "Yes she did. Do you know her?"

Georgiana was the one to reply, "Oh, it must be Miss Bennet! It must! Miss Bingley, do you think my brother came here to meet her?"

"Well," Caroline sniffed haughtily, "I have no very great opinion of Miss Eliza Bennet's sense of decorum, but I would expect your brother to have too great a respect for propriety, and a lady's reputation, even if the lady is a hoyden like Miss Eliza Bennet, to meet her in the middle of the night for a stroll in the garden. It would be absolutely scandalous if Mr. Darcy had to marry a nobody like her because he had compromised her reputation."

"Oh!" Georgiana cried, and flushed a deep red. "But if he happened to meet her by chance, I am sure there is no harm in them walking together. Perhaps she was lost in the maze, and he is helping her to find the way out."

"I am convinced it must be so. Now, in order to further protect dear Eliza's reputation, and Mr. Darcy's, I think we ought to join them as soon as possible. Lead the way," Caroline ordered Motha with an imperious wave of her hand, and the two ladies and the moth set about searching the maze for a certain couple.

Darcy and Elizabeth continued on in what Darcy hoped was a companionable silence for some time, Mr. Green's nonsensical song having long faded behind them, before Elizabeth spoke.

"Your gardener's name is Mr. Green?" she asked, and Darcy was surprised to hear mirth in her voice. He looked at her and saw that she was restraining laughter only with great difficulty.

"Yes, yes it is," he responded, not being able to think of a witty rejoinder, though he desperately wished he could, nor see the humor in the name of his employee.

"And is that a reference to the color of his skin, or his occupation? Or are those two things intimately connected? Did he become a gardener because of his naturally green thumb?"

Darcy was finally able to see what amused her, and joined in when she was unable any longer to contain her laughter.

"I am afraid I cannot say," Darcy said when speech was once again possible. "I have never seen him that color. Perhaps he has suffered from some sort of bizarre gardening accident."

This conjecture was greeted by new peals of laughter from his companion, but this time Darcy did not join in, as the humor of the situation was suddenly obscured by the intoxicating realization that he had said something that amused and pleased her, that he had elicited these expressions of merriment, and above all, that Elizabeth Bennet's eyes sparkled like the very stars in the sky when she laughed. He had seen her laugh before, of course, but never from such a close proximity. Darcy's breath caught in his throat at the sight of her, and yet he became conscious that he was grinning like a fool.

Eventually Elizabeth regained her composure. "Is he always like that?"

Darcy hesitated before he replied. The real world Mr. Green was decidedly not like the eccentric specimen they had left singing about his hallucinations. He was kindly, serious, and infinitely patient with young boys whose activities were a danger to the healthy growth of flower beds, as Darcy had reason to know from personal experience. But he had no way of knowing if he should say the same about the Looking Glass Mr. Green, especially to the Looking Glass Elizabeth. And yet, even the Looking Glass Elizabeth seemed to find the gardener's behavior odd.

"Not in my experience."

"He seemed quite mad," Elizabeth stated in her frank way. "And what is a Jabberwock? Is there such a thing?"

"I am afraid I cannot answer that - I have never heard of a Jabberwock, but -" Darcy stopped himself before he said that while he was certain that there were none in his world, he could not vouch for the world where they were currently walking together. "...but I am no expert on gardening."

Darcy glanced at Elizabeth and saw that she was regarding him curiously, as if she could tell that he had been about to say something entirely different. He hastened to reassure her, in case she thought he was hiding something about Jabberwocks. "From my past encounters with Mr. Green, however, I would venture a guess that they must be some kind of beetle. He has always had a great hatred for beetles of any kind."

Elizabeth did not look convinced, but she allowed that subject to rest, and pursued another one, without a trace of her former amusement. "I hate to ask, but you do not think we shall be in danger here, with him wandering the gardens?" They had come to the end of their path and were forced to turn.

"Not as long as I have my 'vorpal sword.'" Darcy grinned as he patted the weapon's hilt. "We shall be quite safe here."

But Darcy had spoken too soon once again, as at that instant, as they rounded the corner, a blood-chilling sight confronted them.

Darcy's hand went back to the hilt of his sword as he heard Elizabeth hiss, "What is he doing here?"

To find Mr. Darcy and the lady whom both Georgiana and Caroline assumed was Elizabeth Bennet was a matter much more easily proposed than accomplished. It was impossible to employ any kind of logic or strategy to the search; Caroline and Georgiana neither knew where they were themselves, nor where to find their quarry. Motha made frequent flights over the tops of the hedges to see where Darcy and Elizabeth had gone, and perhaps suggest a path to take to meet them, but moths, who are known to bump repeatedly into the glass shade of a lamp in a bootless attempt to reach the flame within, are not known for their reasoning ability - as it was, Georgiana had to repeatedly remind Motha not to fly into the flames of the torches. And so, the hunt went on and on, Georgiana and Caroline winding their way through the maze, never knowing if they were even changing their position much. There was a great sameness to the paths, and the hedges, and the torches that lit the walkways they trod. Georgiana thought to look for signs that her brother and his companion had been there, footprints in the gravel, or some such evidence, but when she did not find any, and Caroline laughed at her attempts, she resigned herself to the futility of it. Still, Georgiana was enjoying herself, and determined to suggest to her brother that they should plant a maze at the real Pemberley. She knew that it was as Miss Bingley had said, her brother did not much care for garden features like mazes, but it was not for the reasons Miss Bingley had ascribed to him; Fitzwilliam preferred a more natural landscape, and the shrubbery that did comprise a portion of Pemberley's gardens in the real world was a very small arrangement compared to other grand gardens, like those at Rosings. But Georgiana also knew that her brother would do almost anything to please her. She almost skipped along the path as she thought about it, restraining herself only out of a conviction that ladies of her age did not skip, and that she would surely call upon herself another annoying rebuke from her increasingly surly companion if she did. So, Georgiana restricted her displays of high spirits to lively consultations with Motha about which direction they ought to go whenever they reached a junction or a possible turn. But she could not help smiling as she speculated on whether Miss Bennet would, as her new sister, help her to convince Fitzwilliam to grant her wish for a maze at Pemberley.

Once, when they made a sharp turn into another circle - it was only the curve of the paths that let her know that she was moving farther into the maze, and not back out towards the outer ring - Georgiana heard voices quite nearby, and ran excitedly in the direction from whence they seemed to emanate, but not only did she not find her brother, she temporarily became separated from Miss Bingley as well. She did not much mind having lost Miss Bingley, but she was chagrined that she had not thought to call out to her brother; perhaps if he had heard her voice he would have tried to find her, too. She considered calling out to him anyway, even though she could no longer hear him nearby, but something in her decided against it, and very soon Motha appeared and she found herself reunited with Miss Bingley and being scolded, though with the peculiar kind of condescending affection peculiar to that lady when she was irritated but afraid to show it. Georgiana was convinced that Miss Bingley must have heard Fitzwilliam's voice as well, and was being cautious about expressing her displeasure in case he happened to suddenly appear from around a turn in the path in the middle of her remonstrations. The thought allowed her to smile through the irksome lecture, which, she noted smugly, only added to Miss Bingley's pique.

'I cannot think what has come over me!' Georgiana thought as she and Miss Bingley resumed their search. She could not help but be astonished by her own newfound courage and ease. It was like she had suddenly lost all of her shyness and fear, and could be exactly as natural and comfortable as she had always wanted to be. 'It is like I am no longer myself, but a person whom I have always wished to be. Is it this place? Perhaps I do not wish to go home again!'

(* The gardener's ramblings are from The Mad Gardener's Song by Lewis Carroll)

Posted on: 2009-09-11

Chapter Eleven

The path that Elizabeth and Darcy had been walking in was a narrow one, wide enough for the two of them to walk comfortably side by side, but not wide enough to accommodate a larger party. The path they turned into when they rounded the corner, however, was a great deal wider, several yards across, and was not only already occupied by several persons, but blocked entirely, several yards ahead, by an enormous spider web. The strands of the web, as thick as rope, glistened wetly in the moonlight; one could almost see that they were sticky and treacherous. But even more treacherous was the hideous creature in the middle of the web, an enormous spider, the size of a man. The spider's head was the most loathsome thing about him, for he had the smiling, sinister face of George Wickham.

Darcy quickly looked at Elizabeth to gauge her reaction, but he did not see fear in her countenance as he had expected. He saw only loathing. He was startled when he heard her cry out in anger.

"Lydia! Kitty! Come away from there!" Elizabeth demanded, and Darcy for the first time turned his attention to the other people who were clustered in the path. There were six of them, all women; four were unknown to him, and the others were, indeed, Elizabeth's two silliest sisters. The six women were giggling, and fluttering their eyelashes, as they would alternately advance upon the spider in his web, and retreat with feigned coyness. The two younger Bennets blatantly ignored their sister's remonstrance, as if they had not even heard her, and Darcy was alarmed to see Elizabeth stride purposefully towards them, reaching out her hands as if to grab hold of them and forcibly remove them from the villain's presence. Even more alarming to Darcy was the look on the spider Wickham's face as Elizabeth's movements drew his attention; he smiled even wider, revealing sinister fangs that were dripping with venom. The spider slowly reached out one hairy leg towards the approaching Elizabeth, and Darcy was spurred into action. Only a few long strides were required to close the distance between himself and the vile arachnid, and he drew his sword as he rushed forward.

"Off with his head," Darcy muttered to himself as he swung the weapon, relishing the sound of it slicing through the air, and severing the head of the blackguard, his nemesis, with one swift stroke.

The spider's body tumbled from the web, landing with a thud upside-down upon the gravel, the eight legs twitching spasmodically, the body shuddering for several long moments before it ceased to move. The head rolled away under a bush; Darcy could not bring himself to look at it. The six simpering ladies wailed in dismay, and Darcy turned in time to see them all transform into enormous butterflies, gaudily, garishly colored, with wings trimmed in lace. They fluttered briefly above the path before flitting off into the moonlit night, and soon Darcy and Elizabeth were alone again in the shrubbery. They looked at each other for a long moment in silence.

"That gave you great satisfaction, I would warrant," Elizabeth finally said, with a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and smugness.

"More than you can ever imagine," Darcy replied, extracting a handkerchief from his satchel and wiping green spider's blood from his blade. Afterwards, he did not know what to do with the soiled piece of cloth; finally, not knowing whether the spider's blood might be toxic, and loath to place the stained item in either his pocket or his satchel, where it might ruin the precious ingredients for the antidote, he resigned himself to the loss of his handkerchief and dropped it atop the spider's corpse.

"You seem very skilled with that blade. Have you had occasion to use it before, or is it merely a commonplace gentlemanly accomplishment?" Elizabeth asked coolly, but with a curious glint in her eye.

Darcy hesitated before answering, truthfully, if cryptically, "That is what I am trying to find out."

Elizabeth only nodded in response, a kind of acceptance of his ambiguous answer, which only made Darcy more curious about what she might know or remember.

"Did you know those four other women, the ones who were not your sisters?" Darcy asked.

"Yes, they were ladies from the neighborhood of Meryton, the two Miss Longs, a Miss King, and Mrs. Forster. I think you must have met Mrs. Forster, or at least seen her, when you were in Hertfordshire, and you would have seen the Miss Longs there as well, though I do not imagine you ever had occasion to speak to them. Mrs. Forster is the wife of the colonel of the regiment who were stationed there; she and the colonel were only lately married, but I am certain that she was in attendance at some of the social gatherings where you were also among the company." Elizabeth looked slightly troubled as she explained the identities of the four women he had not recognized - though upon further reflection he realized that one of them had looked vaguely familiar, and was obviously the colonel's wife of whom she had spoken. He felt uneasy himself, realizing that his failure to recognize the lady was an indictment of his behavior in Hertfordshire, and further proof that Elizabeth's recriminations at the time of his disastrous proposal were indeed warranted. He hoped that she was not dwelling on the same subject; it could not do anything to further his cause, even with a Looking Glass Elizabeth. He was a little startled when she spoke again.

"Shall we continue to wander this maze, or should we perhaps try the poetic travel method to make our way to the rose garden more expeditiously?"

"That might perhaps be the best course," Darcy conceded, relieved that he would not have to admit that he did not know where the rose garden was. As Elizabeth moved towards him, he slashed at the spider's web with his sword, clearing the path for he knew not what purpose, though it may have been, if he chose to examine his motives, merely a desire to clear away traces of the Wickham monster's influence on his property. He re-sheathed the sword and Elizabeth grasped his arm again; once more he closed his hand over hers protectively. He asked Elizabeth what rhyme they were to recite.

"In the moonlit garden's glow
Take us where Pemberley's roses grow."

So, clicking their heels three times, they recited the couplet together on her cue, and the next moment they found themselves under a rose covered arbor in Pemberley's rose garden, the air redolent of the fragrant blooms, and gaily lit by multitudes of brightly colored paper lanterns, which swayed merrily in a slight breeze.

Georgiana and Caroline developed a pattern as they worked their way through the winding paths; Georgiana and Motha would discuss the possible turns, and Caroline would sullenly follow wherever Georgiana chose to go. Both had silently acknowledged that their pursuit was almost entirely futile, and that they their only hope was that they might run into Mr. Darcy by chance. If they had found a bench or some other place to sit and rest, one or the other of them might have made the suggestion that they should just stay still in one place in the hopes that their quarry would happen by, but as no such opportunity presented itself, they walked on.

Even Georgiana's enthusiasm for the adventure began to flag when she remembered that not finding her brother meant not finding her way home (which, despite her giddy enjoyment of her sense of freedom there, was where she really did want to be), and that at the very least it would be a good thing to be able to find her way out of the maze so she could go back to the house to wait for him; she had forgotten these details in her excitement over things like talking moths, elephants, and the possible presence of Elizabeth Bennet in her brother's company. But eventually her real concerns returned, and she began to hope that if they did not find her brother, at least they would find someone else who could help them find their way.

Upon taking a turn into a new ring of the maze, Georgiana began to think that these hopes at least were to be fulfilled when she heard a voice around the curve. She called to Miss Bingley to hurry, and walked as briskly as she could without moving out of sight of Motha, who remained between her and the trailing Miss Bingley, and soon she found the source of the voice. It was with tremendous relief that she recognized the friendly face of Mr. Green, who had been the gardener at Pemberley for her entire life.

Mr. Green did not notice her at first, though she stood only a few feet away, because he was looking up at the sky, and he was talking to himself. Georgiana thought her eyes or the light were playing tricks on her because his skin looked like it had a decidedly green tint to it, but when he turned his face and saw her there, there was no mistaking the green hue of his complexion. But even odder than his appearance was what he said to her.

"I thought I saw a Kangaroo that worked a coffee-mill; I looked again and found it was a Vegetable Pill. 'Were I to swallow this,' I said, 'I should be very ill.'"

"Oh!" Georgiana said, flustered, and not sure what to reply, "Do vegetable pills disagree with you? If you are feeling unwell, my brother will not object if you send for the apothecary."

Mr. Green merely looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then responded, "I thought I saw a Coach-and-Four that stood beside my bed: I looked again and found it was a Bear without a Head. 'Poor thing,' I said, 'Poor silly thing! It's waiting to be fed!'"

Again Georgiana knew not what to say, and so this time she said nothing. But Mr. Green did not require an answer, and continued in the same vein, but with increased fervor.

"I thought I saw an Albatross that fluttered round the lamp: I looked again and found it was a Penny-Postage Stamp. 'You'd best be getting home,' I said, 'The nights are very damp!"

At about this time Caroline caught up to them, and, noticing by his clothing that he was a laborer of some kind, and therefore not someone she ought to be addressing personally, she turned to Georgiana with an impatient expectancy.

"Well? Has this person seen Mr. Darcy?"

Before Georgiana could reply that she had not yet been able to ask about her brother's whereabouts, Mr. Green seemed to snap out of a trance.

"Mr. Darcy?" Mr. Green nodded. "I warned him about the Jabberwock, aye, I warned him."

"Then you have seen my brother? Do you know where he has gone?"

"Gone? Gone? Said something about roses, but I do not think he went in that direction. Young fool, thinks of nothing but roses, and love, when he should be thinking about the Jabberwock!" Mr. Green said with surprising vehemence.

Caroline was taken aback by his speaking of his master thusly, and glared at Mr. Green icily. She did not believe that Mr. Darcy had spoken of love to a mere servant.

"Love? Did he say something to you?" Georgiana was all eagerness.

"He yammered on about garden beetles. But at least he had his sword. I daresay he should be able to protect the young lady from the Jabberwock."

"Garden beetles?" This did not sound like Fitzwilliam. Georgiana was finding Mr. Green's conversation difficult to follow. "What is a Jabberwock?"

"What is a Jabberwock? Aye, they all ask, 'what is a Jabberwock?' And then... tragic, as I always tell my missus."

Georgiana was becoming fairly alarmed, but fortunately, Caroline had reached the end of her patience and condescended to address Mr. Green herself in order to end the circular conversation.

"Where is Mr. Darcy?" Caroline demanded imperiously, in the manner that she believed was best for addressing menials.

Mr. Green took offense at her tone; the family at Pemberley did not address their servants that way, and he was used to a bit more respect for his long service and advanced age.

"I know not who you are, Missy, but I am responsible for looking after the gardens at Pemberley, not the master. I done all I could in warning him about the Jabberwock."

Georgiana could see that Miss Bingley's manner would not help them to find her brother. "And I thank you for it, Mr. Green. But do you know which way he went?"

"Not that way, nor that way," Mr. Green pointed in the direction Georgiana and Caroline had come from, and through a gap in the hedge. That left only to continue in the direction they had been traveling.

"And when did you see him?"

"Not long ago, not long ago, not as long as it takes a bandersnatch to eat a borogove."

"Thank you, Mr. Green!" Georgiana did not choose to inquire what bandersnatches and borogoves were. She was too anxious to be on her way to find her brother.

"Glad to be of service, Miss Darcy." Mr. Green tugged at his forelock. "Do beware the Jabberwock."

"I... I will," Georgiana smiled, and hurried down the path towards where her brother had gone. Caroline followed with surprising alacrity; she did not think it seemly to move quickly, but she wished to distance herself from the odd, green man. Mr. Green's voice followed them down the path.

"I thought I saw an Argument that proved I was the Pope: I looked again and found it was a Bar of Mottled Soap. 'A fact so dread,' I faintly said, 'Extinguishes all hope!'"

"Mr. Darcy ought to discharge that man at once, Georgiana dear. He is not only insolent, but, I suspect, quite mad! I would not have a man such as that as my gardener!"

"How fortunate for you that you do not live here, then. Fitzwilliam thinks him a very good gardener," Georgiana smiled sweetly. "I do not think he would ever discharge a loyal employee like Mr. Green."

Caroline's retort died on her lips as the two of them, with Motha fluttering over their heads, rounded a corner, and there before them, for a only a second, they saw Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet standing in the path, arm in arm, with their backs to Georgiana and Caroline. And the very next moment, as Georgiana called out her brother's name, Mr. Darcy and Miss Bennet vanished.

Georgiana gasped, and Caroline cried out in frustration.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Georgiana said.

Chapter Twelve

Darcy thought he had heard someone calling his name just as they made their poetic jump, and looked quizzically at Elizabeth.

"Did you say something?"

"When, just now? I said nothing."

"No, the moment we were leaving the maze. I thought I heard someone call 'Fitzwilliam.'"

"And you thought it was me calling you, Mr. Darcy?" Elizabeth cocked her head at him and favored him with a wry look.

"Well, I... I..." He could not go on with her looking at him with such a merry light in her eyes. He had not thought about it, but she would not have called him 'Fitzwilliam.' He stifled a regretful sigh.

"Perhaps it was one of them," Elizabeth suggested, and Darcy's eyes followed the direction she was pointing.

The rose garden was already occupied.

Georgiana found herself being shoved aside quite rudely as Miss Bingley rushed forward to the spot where only a second before Mr. Darcy had been standing. It was all Georgiana could do, once she had righted herself, to keep from laughing at the frantic way her companion looked at the ground as if the two vanished persons might somehow still be discovered standing there. Suddenly Miss Bingley snapped her gaze up to Georgiana, who quickly schooled her features into a complacent half-smile.

"Where have they gone?" Miss Bingley demanded.

"I think-" Motha began to speak, but Miss Bingley interrupted.

"I was not asking you!" Miss Bingley shouted, and Georgiana could see that Motha was quivering with rage. The lovely moth fluttered down to hover near her friend's ear and whispered for only her to hear.

"I think I heard them say they were going to the rose garden," Motha's voice quavered, and if she had been a person instead of a moth, Georgiana was convinced that tears would have been visible in her eyes. Georgiana turned to face Miss Bingley with sympathetic indignation.

"There is no call for you to be so unkind to Motha, Miss Bingley," Georgiana mimicked her brother's most authoritative tones. "She has just informed me of where my brother and Miss Bennet have gone. I think we should thank her for all of her help this night. We would never have found Fitzwilliam without her!"

"We have not yet found Mr. Darcy, and I was right - she did lead us directly to a giant spider!" Miss Bingley pointed triumphantly to the large object that lay on the ground next to a hedge. Georgiana had noticed it was there, but had not paid it any mind, having more important things to consider. But when Miss Bingley drew her attention to it, Georgiana could see that it was, indeed, a giant spider; however, it was also very obviously a dead spider. The enormous arachnid lay on its back with its eight stiff legs curled above its red and black abdomen; it was lacking a head, and oozing a vile substance from a large wound where that head should have been. It was a hideous object, but strangely fascinating to Georgiana, in a horrifying way. She could not but be relieved that the creature was dead.

For Motha, however, the lifeless thing was as frightening as it would have been in life. She gave a terrified squeak.

"A spider! Oh no! We must fly!" Motha cried, and, despite Georgiana's entreaties and hasty reassurances, the lovely, green moth fluttered up into the sky, and finally disappeared from sight.

Georgiana was saddened and disappointed in the loss of her friend, and even more grieved at poor Motha's terror. Georgiana had always been compassionate about the suffering of others. She turned an accusing glare on Miss Bingley.

"Miss Bingley, how could you be so cruel?"

"What did I do? I did not put a giant spider there." Miss Bingley brushed an imaginary speck from her skirts.

"You pointed it out to poor Motha - you must have realized that as an insect, Motha would find a spider frightening!"

"Are you really so naive, dear Georgiana? She led us right to this place. Why, I believe your brother must have killed the thing, and if he had not, your friend would have led us right into its web." Miss Bingley emphasized her suspicions by flicking a finger at one of the remaining strands hanging off of a bush; it was not a wise gesture, as she then suffered a loss of her cool dignity in flailing her arm about to remove the sticky thread from her hand.

"Motha did NOT lead us directly into the spider's trap! She did not even know her way through the maze!" Georgiana defended her friend.

"Well, then I guess she was not such a great help to us after all," Miss Bingley shrugged, and smiled maliciously.

Georgiana did not dignify this smug rejoinder with a response. She merely swept past Miss Bingley with her innate Darcy dignity, and moved on in search of her brother.

A bevy of ladies, of varying ages and dressed in sumptuous ball gowns in rich colors, were perched upon the benches that ringed the fountain at the center of the Pemberley rose garden. Several of them, oddly, were wearing Roman centurion helmets, and there were large cushions scattered about on the ground. The ladies suddenly burst out laughing uproariously, a melodious sound that created a kind of music when combined with the splashing of the fountain. One of the ladies stepped towards the fountain and dipped her glass into the water, but as she lifted the glass into the air, Darcy could see that it was not water in the glass, it was a sparkling, pink, bubbly liquid - it looked like champagne, in fact, but pink.

"To Lizzy, and her Mr. Darcy!" the woman cried above the sounds of her companions' laughter, and all of the other ladies echoed her toast before drinking from their own glasses and dissolving once against into their chorus of mirth.

"To Mr. Darcy, and his dearest, loveliest Elizabeth!" another lady proposed, and again the toast was echoed, laughed over, and drunk to.

Stunned, Darcy looked down at Elizabeth, and he was delighted to see her blush; she was staring fixedly at something and he followed her gaze with his own. When he saw what she was staring at, it was his turn to blush. The fountain at his Pemberley had a rather innocuous statue of a cupid in the center, pouring water from a horn of plenty. The fountain in the middle of the garden where they now stood was much larger, and featured two human figures in its center, on a platform like a table, over the edges of which water - or whatever the liquid was that was in the fountain - flowed, and the figures were unmistakably himself and Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

It was not merely the fact that he and Elizabeth were depicted in the stone figures that brought Darcy to the blush, however, it was the manner in which they were depicted. His figure was clad in breeches, with his lower legs bare, and a shirt, wide open at the neck, with no cravat, waistcoat, frock coat, or any other proper attire - he looked decidedly rumpled. The stone Darcy was standing, giving the appearance of looking at something off in the distance. The Elizabeth sculpture, by contrast, was seated, her legs crossed, and leaning quite familiarly against the leg of her companion statue, her hand caressing one of his bare legs. She was dressed in a gown of some kind, rather low in the neck, and covered in what appeared to be an overly large, man's frock coat. Her hair was loose down her back, but pulled away from her face, with wisps of curls framing it. The detail of the entire piece was astonishing, such perfect renderings of the subjects that one might have thought that the living beings had been turned to stone in the midst of an intimate moment. Both figures had smiles of contentment carved into their marble faces, and Darcy could not help but think that were he ever to find himself in such a position, he would no doubt be smiling in just such a way. Darcy looked again at Elizabeth, and she nervously licked her lips.

"You are well enough acquainted with me, Mr. Darcy, to know that I am seldom at a loss for words, so you should appreciate the circumstance now, in case you never have another opportunity to witness it again," she said in a low voice, not looking at him, but continuing to stare at the fountain.

Darcy chuckled. "I hope, Miss Bennet, that our association will not be so limited. Do you know those women?"

"No, do not you?"

"No."

"But they are in your rose garden!"

Darcy was at a loss for how to explain this, and was not sorry when their conversation was momentarily interrupted by loud cries, and louder laughter, from the women.

"Where is the book?"

"The book! The book!"

Darcy and Elizabeth exchanged glances. The arbor where they stood was shadowy, compared to the more open areas of the festively illuminated rose garden, but while the women cavorting there had not yet seen them in their concealed nook, it would only be a matter of time before they were discovered by the revelers should they linger.

"Perhaps we had best find what we came here for, and leave before we are detected?" Darcy suggested. Elizabeth nodded her agreement, and he continued, "What do you need here?"

"Might I have one of your roses, Mr. Darcy?"

Darcy plucked a flawless bloom from the vine growing over the arbor under which they stood, and handed it to her. "You must know, surely you must know, Elizabeth, that it is my fervent wish to present the entire garden to you."

Darcy had never seen a woman blush so becomingly as she replied, "You are too kind, sir, but I do not think the entire garden will fit in my reticule. One rose will suffice... for now." She once again removed the bottle from that repository, removed several large petals from the rose, uncorked the bottle, and stuffed the petals inside, swirling the contents as she resealed it.

Darcy chuckled at her arch response; he was not affronted by her words, it was no more than he had expected from her. He was gratified, however, to note that she looked well pleased. It was several moments before he realized what kind of construction might be placed on the last two words of her riposte, 'for now,' and his heart surged with hope. He looked at Elizabeth, keen to read what she was feeling, but she had lowered her gaze. He smiled nonetheless as he plucked another rose, wrapped it in a clean handkerchief, and stowed it in his satchel, aware that he was doing so under the curious scrutiny of Elizabeth. He once again offered her his arm, noticing as he returned his eyes to her face that she had placed the rose, none the worse for having had a few petals removed, in the buttonhole of her coat, perhaps as a token of his affection? It was a pleasant thought.

"Shall we withdraw, Miss Bennet?"

She nodded and placed her hand upon his arm, and together they quietly turned and dissolved back into the comparatively shadowy maze of shrubs, as if by unspoken agreement deciding to wait until they were out of sight of the rose garden and its reveling occupants before making their next leap to a new location in the garden.

"Where do we go next, Miss Bennet?" Darcy deferred to her, hoping she would select somewhere he needed to go as well, but deciding that if she did not, he would accompany her in any case; he did not want to waste any moment when he could be in her company. Darcy was beginning to feel more relaxed after his first successful attempt at flirting, and having learned the poetic transportation method, he had no doubt that he had ample time to help Elizabeth and still fulfill his own mission as well.

"It seems to me that you must have your own reasons for being out in the moonlight wandering your grounds, Mr. Darcy. Do not let me keep you from whatever it is that you need to be doing, I am certain that I can find what I need without assistance," Elizabeth said, and Darcy's heart momentarily sank at the thought that she wished to be free of his company, but something in her expression, and the studied nonchalance with which she offered to release him from her service, while still holding onto his arm, told him that she was hoping he would negative her suggestion and continue to accompany her.

"I am at your disposal, Miss Bennet, for as long as you choose to wander my grounds. After all, there may be a Jabberwock on the prowl, and I would not leave you exposed to the dangers of its notorious jaws and claws."

"You take too much upon yourself, I assure you. Do you think me one of those weak females who swoon at the sight of a garden beetle, or other insect? I tell you, I am not."

"How could I think so when you did not shrink from the appearance of a giant spider?" he teased.

"You see?" she smiled disarmingly at him. "However, I would be glad to make use of your vastly superior knowledge of your lovely grounds, notwithstanding that you neither knew the location of your own gardens, nor were able to find your way through them."

"That will not signify if we travel by your poetic transportation. Simply inform me of what else you require, and I will tell you where we might best find it," Darcy replied with a deep bow to hide his mortification that she had noticed his lack of direction in the maze.

"I need quite a few more flowers... let me see, some violets, but perhaps the garden is not the best place to find those - they are wildflowers," Elizabeth replied with the most becoming frown crinkling her forehead.

Darcy mentally reviewed his own list, remembering that violets were also required for his potion. It struck him as curious that he and Elizabeth seemed to be seeking the same items in his moonlit grounds. The idea presented itself that perhaps she, too, was making an antidote, but then he recalled that she had needed an acorn, which was not on his list, and that she was not, after all, the real Elizabeth Bennet. That last was a fact that he found he must remind himself about repeatedly; she was so much like the real Elizabeth - except that she seemed to like him and welcome his company!

"Do you by any chance know where I might find some violets growing, Mr. Darcy?" Elizabeth pulled him from his reverie.

"In fact, I do, Miss Bennet. There is a particular grove that is positively carpeted with them in one spot. Georgiana has often chosen it as a subject for her drawings - it is quite a beautiful place, and contains a variety of wildflowers. I would very much like to show it to you, though it will not appear to its best advantage at night, even with so much illumination from the moon."

"It sounds the perfect place - if you know how to get there from here," her smile enforcing the playful challenge in her voice.

"It mortifies me to have to admit that I do not know, or at least, I would not guarantee that the grove will be where I might lead you if I went in the direction I thought I should. It would seem that once again your method of travel is our best recourse to insure our successful arrival."

"But the couplet..." Elizabeth displayed an unusual lack of confidence, and the reason was soon clear. "How shall we describe the place we wish to transport to?"

"Ah, but that is easy - the grove has a name. It is called Myrtle's Grove." Darcy chuckled, pleased to find that his assistance, or at least his superior local knowledge, was necessary to her after all.

"But that is not at all easy. What rhymes with grove?"

Darcy's mirth died on his lips. He considered the problem, acutely aware that Elizabeth had enjoyed puncturing his complacency; meanwhile, he was enjoying the teasing grin on her lips. He had a wild idea about erasing that teasing grin with a kiss, but as tempting as the notion was, he was particularly conscious that he must behave towards Elizabeth as a gentleman, not the least because she deserved such as a lady. He had an accusation of an ungentlemanlike manner to atone for, and reluctantly turned his mind to rhyming couplets.

"Grove... well, if we need exact rhymes there is cove, dove, hove, jove..." Darcy methodically made his way through the alphabet, selecting words that would suit, and almost threw out the word 'love' for consideration, even though the sound was not right, though the spelling was. He skipped over it, and continued, "... rove, shrove, stove, trove, wove... ample choices, Miss Bennet." He smiled smugly at her, and his heart gave a funny little lurch to see that she was not affronted by his slightly insolent and yet still, he flattered himself, gentlemanlike manner, but instead seemed pleased, if her answering arch smile was anything by which to judge.

"Quite right, Mr. Darcy, and I am assured of a perfectly nonsensical rhyme using any one of those."

"But did you not once say that you are diverted by nonsense? How did you put it? 'Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies,' I believe were your exact words. Having made such a study of the subject, you should have no difficulty in composing a simple, nonsensical, rhyming couplet."

"When did I ever say such a thing?" Elizabeth was puzzled, and Darcy was delighted to see it.

"Are you now going to deny taking pleasure in observing such diverting flaws in the characters of your fellow human beings?"

"Not at all, it is perfectly true, though perhaps not entirely to my credit. I simply cannot remember ever having said such a thing to you, or even in your hearing."

"But you did, one night at Netherfield. You were, by your own admission, trying to plague me, and attempting to enumerate my faults."

Elizabeth colored deeply, and Darcy was chagrined to see that she felt mortified by his teasing remarks. That was not the effect he had been hoping to achieve.

"You have an unpardonably exact memory, Sir. I cannot think why you have ever consented to speak to me again after the impertinent and downright uncivil things I said to you then."

"Because I found you utterly enchanting, Miss Bennet. No woman had ever spoken to me thus before, but no woman had ever intrigued and... attracted me so much, either."

Darcy would not have thought that a woman could turn more scarlet, but Elizabeth did at that moment, with the delightful improvement that her look of mortification was converted to a look of gratification - and mischief.

"Who would have thought that you would prefer incivility in a woman, especially when you must have always been used to flattery and approbation from every lady you meet. Perhaps I should give Miss Bingley a hint of your true preferences?"

"You would not dare!" Darcy growled, but neither he nor Elizabeth could disguise their laughter. "Now, about that couplet?" Darcy said, taking Elizabeth's hand in his on the pretense of preparing for their next leap, when their chortling had subsided.

"Very well then," Elizabeth said, transferring her hand to Darcy's arm, as she had done for their previous leaps; Darcy would have sworn that his fingers were tingling from the brief contact.

"You wish for some nonsense?" Elizabeth challenged. "How about -"

"We need some violets, by Jove!
Take us now to Myrtle's Grove."

Darcy laughed, but agreed that it would suit, even if it was not truly nonsense, and they repeated the heel clicks and the poem, and in the blink of an eye found themselves in the very grove where they wished to be.

Caroline eventually regretted having offended Georgiana, not because she regretted having slighted an insignificant and irritating insect, but because Georgiana's anger, which to Caroline was both unwarranted and disproportionate to her offense, put her in a pet which caused her to race through the pathways of the maze at an uncomfortably rapid pace for Caroline, and further, to ignore all of Caroline's pleas for a more measured, genteel progress. And without Motha to keep Georgiana in her sights, a function the insect had performed before she flew away, Caroline had no choice but to keep up with her.

She did manage to keep up with her, though she had a stitch in her side, and was short of breath, but Caroline was relieved when Georgiana stopped. Unfortunately, she stopped quite suddenly, and Caroline bumped into her, with painful results as her nose and forehead made contact with the back of Georgiana's head. It did not seem to bother Georgiana overmuch - she only rubbed the back of her head absently as she stared ahead of her. Caroline, on the other hand, had tears in her eyes, and was positive that she was seeing stars.

"What is it?" Caroline asked, more politely than one might have expected, though mostly due to the fact that to have a tirade and berate her companion was beyond her capacity for speech at the moment.

Georgiana did not answer her directly.

"What are you doing?" Georgiana said to some unknown person, and Caroline, whose eyes had cleared a bit, looked around her companion to see a tall, gangly, grey-faced man in academic robes attempting to uproot a wooden post from the ground. Attached to the post was a sign in the shape of an arrow, with the words 'To the roses' written on it in a flowing script in red paint.

"I should think that was patently obvious," the man grunted as he wrestled with the sign, "But as no one seems to understand it, I will explain it to you - there is little point to the academic exercise of a maze if one is merely going to follow signs to the center. Students must solve problems for themselves if they are to learn to think. One ought never to give them an answer they should be able to reason out on their own."

"There are signs that point the way to the rose garden?" Georgiana closed the distance between herself and the intersection of pathways where the man was struggling to remove the marker. The sleeve of his gown caught on the point of the arrow and the sound of tearing fabric accompanied the next jerk of his arm. He stared at his torn sleeve and then kicked the signpost. He howled in pain, hopping on one foot in a circle until his other sleeve caught on the arrow and he fell to the ground, ripping that sleeve as well, and knocking the back of his head against the post. After that he lay still, leaning against the now listing signpost, one of his arms twisted awkwardly above him as the sleeve was still caught on the sign.

Caroline felt an urge to giggle, something she had not felt for years. She sneered at the man instead.

Georgiana, predictably, was more compassionate, and asked the man if he was injured, and needed assistance. For some reason, her shyness around strangers was somewhat lessened by obvious distress in others. As the man sighed and tried to right himself, proclaiming that he was used to frustration in his line of work, Georgiana gave a start.

"Oh! I know you! You came to visit once when I was a girl - you were one of Fitzwilliam's tutors, when he was a boy, before he went to school. Before I was born," Georgiana cried in astonishment.

"Yes," the man struggled to his feet. "It is my unfortunate lot in life to have to teach little boys how to read, and write, and do their sums, and use the globes, and begin their Greek and Latin, and I have to listen to their parents moan about the lack of progress their stupid, little progeny make in any subject, and blame me for their failures, but they will not believe me when I tell them that their sons and heirs are dolts, no, I am only a lowly tutor, and they are the sons of important men, destined for great things! Ha! To gamble away their families' fortunes, in most cases, and drink, and carouse, and... well, you being a young lady, I shall not tell you what else they do, but it is none of it a good reflection on these sons of important men. And me, with my degrees, and all my learning, what do I have? What great things will I accomplish? To keep tutoring stupid, little boys. That is my fate. Prepare them for school, and off they go, and then they send them to university, where they learn nothing but vices, and everything I have ever done was for nothing. I almost would not mind the penurious wages if I could feel that there was any worth in my work, but what worth is there in any of it? There are always little boys, stupid, little boys to teach, who grow up into stupid men. It is a thankless profession, that is what it is. If I could only have one student, just one, who remembered at the end of the day at least some of what he had been told at the beginning of it, I... well, I do not know what I would do! Die from the shock, most like."

The woeful tutor sighed, and leaned his elbows on the sign.

Georgiana frowned in confusion while Caroline looked on in disgust. She really would have to speak to Mr. Darcy about the disreputable people who were wandering in his gardens at night.

"But I thought that Fitzwilliam was a good student," Georgiana protested.

"Young master Darcy. Yes, I remember, he was - that was a very long time ago, I almost forgot. A very serious little boy, master Darcy. He did well, yes he did. He would not need signs to make his way through a maze. He could speak such beautiful Latin! And oh, could that boy recite! Of course, he was so shy, he did not like to do it. And he knew all the kings of England by the time he was six. But I do not claim that it was because of anything I did for him - he was brilliant, that boy. The things I could have taught him... but how was I to devote the proper time to his education when that rascal George Wickham was always putting toads down my neck, and filling the inkwells with mud? I hated that boy," the tutor's voice rose in pitch until it was almost shrill, and his face had grown red, while a vein throbbed in his temple. "I had to go away for a rest after that one went away to school. But Mr. Darcy never would see anything in his godson's vicious tricks. How such an intelligent man could fail to see what was right in front of him, I never understood. But they were all like that about their little dunces. I hope that one ended up in prison, I truly do!"

Caroline noticed that Georgiana's face had turned whiter and whiter as the strange man rambled on. Knowing how Mr. Darcy felt about that Wickham person, it was likely the criticism of her father that distressed the girl, Caroline surmised; no Darcy could bear to see one of their own disparaged. Caroline almost snorted when she thought of the distress that would come to Mr. Darcy if he married that stupid Eliza Bennet. No one in the ton would accept that country nobody as his wife, of that Caroline was sure, and she would do her best to insure it should the terrible event come to pass. But Caroline could not but feel a kind of pride when she heard the old tutor praise Mr. Darcy's prowess as a student; if she had to have a child, she at least wanted one with a good understanding. But she would be sure not to allow her husband to hire his own former tutor for their son. The man was not only mad, but disrespectful of his betters.

Georgiana recovered herself to inquire of the man, "And are there signs that point the way to the rose garden?" Seeing him straighten up in indignation, she hurried on, flustered. "I know that it is not intellectual to follow the signs, but you see, we are looking for someone - for my brother, your former pupil, Fitzwilliam Darcy? I assure you he has always been very careful about my education, which I believe must be owing to the fine foundation in academics he received under your tutelage, and he himself would relish, I am sure, the mental challenge of this maze, if he had not disappeared, but it is imperative that we find him without delay, so if you could point us in the right direction..."

The tutor was not immune to flattery, and as his noble accomplishments were being praised, he began to stand up straighter and could practically be seen to puff with pride. But he deflated with a scowl on his face as soon as Georgiana asked him the way. He resumed his assault on the signpost without a word. Caroline felt it was time for her to intervene, even though it meant addressing a menial person again.

"And who is this, I ask you, Georgiana, to decide in what way we may proceed to the rose garden? He is trespassing on your property, and is attempting to destroy it, even, and you justify yourself to him? That is not the way to deal with such a person. You!" Caroline turned to the man, who had given no outward sign that he was attending to her tirade. "Tell me the way to the rose garden!"

In reply, the old tutor gave a last forceful tug on the signpost, which finally wrenched it free from the ground, and sent dirt flying as he stumbled backwards into a bush with his burden. With the utmost dignity possible, given his clumsy actions and unwieldy prize, the tutor stomped past Caroline, sneering as he looked down his considerable nose at her, and disappeared around a turn in the maze.

"Well, I never! Did you see how rude he was to me?" Caroline sputtered to her companion.

"I think he was less rude to you than you were to him, Miss Bingley. But I wish he had not gone away with the sign." Georgiana sighed, and then laughed. "Oh, but we are not thinking straight! We do not need him, or his sign, to point us in the right way! We will just go in the direction the sign was pointing - if there was one, I am sure there will be more!"

Georgiana breezed through the intersection into the next ring of the maze, and Caroline, feeling foolish that she had not thought of the obvious solution, particularly when the insolent tutor could have witnessed it, followed her more slowly. She heard Georgiana's exclamation of discovery before she saw the reason for it.

"Look Miss Bingley!" Georgiana clapped her hands in childish glee, and she had ample reason, for within the ring that she had just entered, there were copious signs that pointed the way - every few yards stood a new post with an arrow, all with the same red, flowing script denoting the direction to the rose garden.

Having regained her earlier jubilant mood, Georgiana, much to Caroline's irritation, began to skip along the gravel path, patting each sign with her hand as she passed. Caroline was once again forced to rush after her with more haste than grace, though she did make every attempt to keep that something in her manner of walking that she believed denoted her an accomplished lady. The signs directed them to turn occasionally, leading them sometimes inwards towards the center of the maze, and sometimes back out towards the edges, but whether they were being led in the right direction they never paused to consider; it was enough that their footsteps were given a direction other than the aimless wandering they had employed up until that point.

Soon they began to hear a pounding noise, as if someone was striking a wooden object with a metal one, and the farther they followed the arrows, the louder the sound became. Suddenly, rounding a corner, the source of the noise was revealed; a short, round, red-faced man was driving a post into the ground with a huge mallet. At his feet was another of the arrow signs, and a hammer, while nearby there was a small handcart filled with wooden posts and arrows.

Caroline recognized the man at once. "What are you doing here?" she gasped.

The man with the mallet paused in his work and looked up. He was dressed the same as the man who was determinedly undoing his work elsewhere in the maze - in academic robes - and it was no wonder that he should be, as he was from the same noble profession. He was familiar to Caroline from the years he had spent making daily visits to the Bingley household when she was a girl.

"Pointing the way, pointing the way - that is what I do!" the round man cried jovially. "I coax young minds through the mazes of academics, leading them on the right paths, telling them what to think, what to do, how to do it. No one can know the right way to go if they are not taught! Signposts must be provided along the way!"

Caroline had a sudden flash of insight into the reason her brother was always in want of advice on how to manage his affairs. His tutor - she could not remember his name - had never let him think for himself, and now Charles was easily directed by others, like his sisters, and his friend Darcy. Caroline in that moment developed a new appreciation for a man whom she had always considered ridiculous, even when she was a little girl - anyone so completely cheerful and optimistic must be an object of scorn. The deficient education he had provided for her brother had made it possible for her to separate Charles from the terribly unsuitable Jane Bennet. She had always wondered why a man like her brother, who was in no way deficient in understanding, allowed himself to be so easily swayed from his own convictions, and now she had the answer - he had been taught to let others show the way. Caroline almost laughed at her discovery.

Having found the man who was marking the paths was, however, an unfortunate circumstance, as it meant they had reached the end of the marked ways. Caroline had been present in the schoolroom enough times during Charles's lessons to know that a request for information from the man who had so often confused her brother with his circuitous explanations of things would not bring forth a simple set of directions. Thinking about it again, Caroline was surprised that her brother ever managed to acquire any learning at all, for all his tutor's 'showing the way.' However, Caroline was not given a chance to ask. Another voice hailed the man, who had gone back to pounding the stake with a mallet.

"I should have known it was you!"

The voice was familiar, and Caroline groaned when she turned and saw who had emerged from the opening behind her. It was Mr. Darcy's old tutor, the sign thief. He was still carrying the arrow from the sign he had removed, but without the post he had pulled from the ground.

"Ah, come to debate educational philosophy again?" Bingley's tutor smiled at the newcomer. "Still wanting the poor little boys to decipher Latin grammar on their own?"

"I do not debate with fools. And fools are exactly what your students become. The stupid just get stupider when you do not teach them to think. No wonder the whole world is going to Hell in a handcart-" His eyes lit upon the cart full of signs. "...and here it is! I am going to put a stop to this!"

As he made his declaration, Mr. Darcy's tutor shot out his foot and kicked over the cart, tumbling the signs and posts over the gravel. Then he leapt upon the pile and began jumping up and down on the offending objects, flailing his arms about to keep his balance. That however, was something of an exercise in futility. Not being a man accustomed to shows of agility, the unsteadiness of the heap of wood upon which he teetered proved too much for his equilibrium, and it was not long before he found himself a part of the heap himself.

Georgiana giggled; he truly was a comical sight. He did not, however, appreciate her amusement at his expense, which is not to be wondered at, but his reaction was perhaps uncalled for.

"You see!" the enraged tutor shouted at his rival, "This is what comes of mollycoddling the young, and not teaching intellectual discipline! A chit of a girl laughing at the misfortune of her elder. Of course, she is only a girl, one cannot expect much from her understanding. But she has already once asked me to help her find her way - just the kind of lazy, weak-minded specimen that I have been talking about. And you-" he pointed his sign at his complacently smiling counterpart, "...you are the cause of it!"

"Now, now, that is uncalled for, my friend. My students have had as much success as yours. You have no cause for thinking your way is the right way all the time. If you would only consider-"

Georgiana and Caroline exchanged meaningful glances, and without a word to either of the battling academics, they quietly moved away from the developing squabble, intending to disappear around a turn at the earliest possible moment. They removed themselves from the scene none too soon, as the two tutors abandoned rhetoric and turned to physical violence to settle their differences. Mr. Darcy's tutor poked Mr. Bingley's tutor in his ample belly with an arrow, and Mr. Bingley's tutor whomped Mr. Darcy's tutor on the head with another. By the time the ladies had escaped out of view, the two academics were engaged in a clumsy, inept fencing match, using arrow signs as swords.

"Men!" Caroline huffed as they worked to put as much distance between themselves and the battle as possible.

Georgiana giggled again; her brother would have been proud to know how well she had weathered the scolding of his old master. But Georgiana had quickly seen that he was someone who approved of no one, in spite of his praise for her brother, and that his condemnation of her was not something to be taken personally. That he had a high opinion of Fitzwilliam's understanding was no reason to respect the tutor's judgment - anyone would think the same about her brother. And remembering her brother's descriptions of his tutor as a frustrated, bitter, disappointed scholar, she had decided that his opinion was not one that need give her pause. Fitzwilliam was pleased with her achievements at school, and her improvements with her studies since she had left there; she relied always on the opinions of her brother. In that respect she and Miss Bingley could not have been more different.

The signs had, for some time before they encountered the sign poster, been directing them further and further into the inner rings of the maze, which was evident from the tighter and tighter curves of the paths, and by an instance of greater good fortune than they had been experiencing of late, the one turn that they took when they fled the scene of discord was the very last turn into the rose gardens.

The garden appeared to Georgiana exactly as it should have - at first glance. It was very like the rose garden at her real home. Some of the roses may perhaps have been blooming in colors never seen in the real world, but the overall impression was of greater familiarity than she had encountered since passing through the looking glass, and as the garden was laid out in a symmetrical pattern, it did not have the appearance of being backwards, as things had at first seemed when she had walked out of the ballroom. There were two things that struck her as being odd about the scene, and as they were the very same two things that have already been noted in the reactions of Darcy and Elizabeth on their arrival in the rose garden, there is no need to dwell further upon the extraordinary fountain in the center, or the behavior of the ladies who were cavorting among the roses. There was another consideration of greater importance to Georgiana, and it was a very great disappointment to her.

To be specific, her brother was not there.

"Oh Mr. Darcy, this is simply enchanting!" Elizabeth gratified her host by exclaiming when she opened her eyes in Myrtle's Grove.

The grove was really a kind of hollow, or depression, the ground being formed into a kind of large bowl; Darcy and Elizabeth were standing on the bowl's rim, which was ringed with trees which should not have been in bloom in late summer, but were nevertheless covered in tiny flowers that positively glowed in the moonlight. The ground in the hollow was carpeted thickly with grass and wildflowers of a great many varieties, only a few of which Darcy could name with confidence, and which, though they would have shown themselves to greater advantage in the sunlight, had a sort of ghostly appeal by the light of the moon as well. Darcy almost regretted his lantern, as it cast a much less magical illumination on the ground about him, but he knew that it would be needed to identified those blooms that they sought - after the brightly lit garden, with its torches and lanterns, even with the bright moon, the grove was dark and shadowy.

It was not merely the visual that made the grove enchanting, however. The air delivered to them the intoxicating scent of the flowering trees, and a chorus of tree frogs made a sort of music of the night. It was both obvious and pleasing to Darcy that Elizabeth was taking in all of the myriad beauties of the place, and he instantly made a resolve that if she ever agreed to marry him in the real world, he would bring her to that very spot on some moonlit summer night, so that the real Elizabeth could take the same pleasure in the glories of Pemberley that her mirror self was taking at that moment.

Darcy was just about to respond to Elizabeth's raptures when the lady, who had left his side and begun to walk in delighted wonder away from the trees at the edge of the grove where they had arrived, suddenly cried out in dismay and disappeared from sight.

Chapter Thirteen

Posted on: 2009-09-18

"Elizabeth!" Darcy shouted, and lunged in the direction where she had vanished. It is a conceit of many stories of a romantic nature that whenever a lady trips, and there is a gentleman nearby, he always manages, with lightning-quick reflexes, to secure her footing before she comes to any real harm. It is a lovely conceit, but, alas, it is a fiction. In the real world men have not such quick reactions, and the most a lady can hope for is that the gentleman will refrain from laughing at her bruised dignity when she takes a tumble, and offer her assistance in regaining her feet. And although the Looking Glass World has some charming differences from the real world, the improvement of one's reflexes when one visits is not, sadly, one of them, and so Darcy arrived at the verge of the slope entirely too late to prevent Elizabeth from falling when she tripped. Indeed, not realizing what had caused her precipitous disappearance from view, he very nearly followed her in the same fashion by tripping over the same fallen branch hidden among the grass beneath the trees. As it happens, he narrowly avoided such a disaster himself and was only just in time to see Elizabeth's pleasing figure rolling down the hill. Darcy very nearly dove after her, but a curious sound arrested his frantic pursuit, and immediately both charmed him and erased his anxiety on the lady's behalf. For Elizabeth, as she tumbled down the hillside, coming to rest at the bottom of the bowl of the grove, was laughing.

That she should have this remarkable reaction to such an accident was a revelation to Darcy. He tried to picture Miss Bingley, or Mrs. Hurst, or even his sister laughing in such a circumstance, and utterly failed. Even should they escape injury after such a fall, Darcy was certain that the injury to their dignity would mortify them; even Georgiana, who was without the kind of vanity that characterized the Miss Bingleys and Mrs. Hursts of the world - and Darcy certainly knew scores of other women exactly like them - would have been keenly embarrassed to be thus caught in a demonstration of clumsiness, and it would have taken quite a deal of soothing to convince her that no one would think the worse of her for having lost her footing. Darcy expanded his consideration to include his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and her daughter, the sickly Anne, and he was convinced that their reactions would be positively histrionic - Lady Catherine would be angry, and insist on the immediate dismissal of the entire gardening staff for having allowed a branch to lie on the ground where it might trip an unsuspecting pedestrian, and Anne... well, Darcy was not entirely sure how Anne would react, as he seldom saw her react to anything, but he would wager anything that she would not laugh in the bewitching manner of Elizabeth Bennet. No, Darcy knew that no other woman of his acquaintance would have responded thus, and never in all the time that he had known Elizabeth had he loved her more; even though this was the Looking Glass Elizabeth, Darcy was convinced that the real Elizabeth would behave in just the same way.

I would not have you think, however, that as Elizabeth careened down the hill and lay in the damp grass at its foot, Darcy did nothing but stare down at her admiringly and compare her to every other woman of his acquaintance. As he entertained these thoughts, which took less time for him to consider than for this author to relate, he hastened down to her with a speed that put his own safety at risk, even provided as he was with a lantern to light his path. When he reached her he practically threw himself onto the ground beside her in his concern, despite her merriment, that Elizabeth might have been injured in the accident. She quickly dismissed his worries, however, and reassured him that she had suffered no ill effects of her clumsiness.

"Did you never roll down hills as a boy, merely for the enjoyment of it?" Elizabeth asked with a sigh as her laughter subsided enough for her to speak.

"Yes, yes, I did," Darcy smiled, "But you might have turned an ankle when you fell, or hit your head or-"

"I have injured nothing except my pride, Mr. Darcy, and I can readily assure you that it has weathered more grievous assaults before this, and will, I am persuaded, be restored to its customary state of health ere long. But give me your hand, and help me to rise; there are flowers to be gathered, and here we have specimens in abundance - there are not just violets growing here!"

And so Darcy did as Elizabeth requested, and helped her to her feet, whereupon she laughed a little more at the lightheaded feeling she experienced. Darcy, meanwhile, reached out a hand to steady her, and was prepared to catch her as she swayed a bit, still feeling the effects of her dizzying descent. Though relieved on account of her obviously remaining in robust health, he felt the tiniest twinge of regret that there was no need for him to perform such a rescue after all.

"I never used to become quite so dizzy when I did that as a girl. Perhaps that is truly why people give over rolling down slopes when they are grown, though I was always told it was simply something a lady does not do," Elizabeth smiled brightly at Darcy, and he could not help but laugh. "Now," she continued, "for my flowers."

It will not surprise the reader, of course, that Georgiana did not find her brother and his companion in the rose garden; Darcy and Elizabeth had arrived at the gardens in the blink of an eye and remained there for only minutes. Considering how long it had taken the two who followed them to reach the same destination, it is no wonder that they did not find those whom they sought. But for Georgiana, it was a disappointment nonetheless.

Like Darcy and Elizabeth, Georgiana and Caroline took care not to be seen by the ladies in the garden - the thought of asking any of them if Darcy had been there did not even enter their considerations. Keeping to a shadowy path around the perimeter, they edged around the space, staying close to the hedge that formed the inner boundary of the maze, making absolutely certain that Darcy was not anywhere in the rose garden. When they had nearly made a complete circuit, their progress was arrested by an exclamation from one of the strange women who were gathered around the fountain.

"To the comeuppance of Caroline Bingley, that insufferable cow!"

Caroline gasped, and gripped Georgiana's arm so tightly that it was all the poor girl could do to avoid crying out in pain as the rest of the women applauded the toast. Caroline's face flamed as she and Georgiana withdrew once again into the shelter of the hedges with all possible haste.

"I knew I should not have come here! It is all Moira's doing, I know it is! What are they going to do to me?" Caroline whispered frantically. Georgiana noted that her face, formerly red with anger and mortification, had gone ashen.

"The are not going to do anything to you, Miss Bingley - they do not even know you are here. But... who is Moira? Did you know those women?"

"I never saw them before in my life. They are in your garden - do not you know them?"

"No. And I cannot believe that Fitzwilliam would allow strangers to have a, well, a party in the garden at night, but I can think of no other explanation for ladies in ball gowns to be there. It is very strange. But their dresses were lovely, were they not? It would not suit my coloring, but the dark blue one was -"

"Their dresses?" Caroline hissed. "My life is in danger, and you are admiring their dresses?"

"I am sure your life is not in danger. I would think that by comeuppance they merely mean to humiliate you. You cannot fear violence from such elegant ladies, surely. That is one of the reasons I have always been afraid of my coming out - I have heard that a few words from the right person can destroy one utterly."

"That is not much of a comfort to me, Georgiana! And if I know Moira -"

"Who is Moira? I thought you said you did not know those ladies."

"You are missing the point! What if she has found another P.R.O.B.? I am in mortal danger here!"

"Miss Bingley, you are not making any sense. What is a P.R.O.B.? Who is Moira?"

Caroline stilled, and was silent for a few moments; Georgiana could see her deliberate attempts to compose herself.

'I am behaving like a lunatic,' Caroline thought to herself. 'Moira cannot be here, and she has no power here. I do not know what those ladies are about, but I am equal to anything the ton can throw at me. I am not afraid of their comeuppance, and when I am Mrs. Darcy, we shall see who gathers in the rose gardens in the middle of the night.'

Caroline smiled at Georgiana, but it was not a smile that could reassure her young companion; in fact, Georgiana was a little frightened by it. She had seen cats smile like that - just before they killed something.

"I think it is time we took our leave, Georgiana, dear," Caroline said with her usual calm, self-satisfied air.

"Where are we to go now?" Georgiana whispered, mindful that no one in the garden should hear her. "We cannot know where Fitzwilliam has gone from here-"

"If he was ever here at all," Caroline interjected with a sneer.

Georgiana ignored the interruption. "We would probably not be able to find our way there even if we knew where he was, the grounds being so different here than they are at Pemberley. Do you think we should just go back to the house and wait for him on the terrace or in the ballroom? He will have to return some time, will he not?"

"Oh, it is such a long walk..." Caroline had briefly forgotten their purpose in being there in the first place, and their pressing predicament, but having regained her composure, she recalled her situation with displeasure. For Caroline, the thought of having to find her way out of the maze again, only to have to walk all the way back to the house without having found Mr. Darcy, and then having to sit and wait for him while he gallivanted around the grounds in the moonlight with Eliza Bennet, newly proven to be a wanton woman, gave her a headache, not to mention drove her anger ever higher. She was desperate to be rid of Georgiana Darcy's company as well; though her affection for the girl had never been what she proclaimed it to be, she had at least thought the sister of Mr. Darcy a tolerable companion when spending time with her meant spending time with the man himself. But now the younger sibling of the object of her desire was a thorn in Caroline's side. Caroline was ready to jump at any opportunity to end the agonies the night had visited upon her. Unfortunately, no means to such an opportunity came to mind. "And you seem to be forgetting that we are still inside this ridiculous maze, with no idea of the way out - and we can certainly not ask them." Caroline gestured contemptuously towards the rose garden, where the revelers could be heard laughing riotously at something; Caroline fervently hoped it had nothing to do with her.

"I think that is the way out," Georgiana said, pointing to something behind Caroline.

Caroline turned. Not more than ten yards away the path they were in led to a wide avenue sheltered by a vine-covered pergola. It appeared to cut through the hedges, through all the rows of the maze, serving as an exit from the frustrating web of hedges. A wrought iron gateway marked the opening in the hedges, spelling out in iron letters, 'The Way Out.'

"You might have said something," Caroline grumbled, and without further discussion of where they should go, she marched straight towards this newly discovered exit.

"You need wildflowers other than violets?" Darcy queried, hoping that Elizabeth might need some of the same ones he sought, and would be able to confirm the identification of those species he was not overly familiar with. He had, of course, consulted botany books in his library that afternoon in preparation for his excursion, but it could not hurt to ask for a lady's verification. Even as he had pored over the books, he had regretted that there would be no time that afternoon to ask Georgiana to accompany him on a walk, in order to have her point them out to him, or confirm his own identifications. He even, for one brief, irrational moment, considered bringing her along through the looking glass, but such a thing was unthinkable, and Darcy was pleased to have found a substitute tutor. Ladies, after all, know a great deal more about flowers than gentlemen do, and a lady like Elizabeth, who so gloried in the joys of nature, he surmised would likely be rather an expert on the subject of the blooms of the field.

"I do - I need chicory, and dandelion, and..." Elizabeth proceeded to rattle off a list of other plants, some of which Darcy had never heard of, and he hoped fervently, though he could not say why it should matter, that she was not disappointed in her search for any of the specimens she needed. Darcy could not bear that Pemberley should disappoint Elizabeth in even the smallest way.

Darcy shone his lantern upon the ground so that they could each find what they needed, but it soon appeared to him that Elizabeth did not need the light of the lantern to identify the flowers she sought. He was curious about it - did she have an ability to see in the dark? It would make sense, seeing as people in the Looking Glass World were strangely nocturnal. He could not resist asking her about it.

Elizabeth paused before she answered, regarding him thoughtfully.

"The same friend who told me how to transport myself poetically told me of ways to see colors in the dark. It is not that I can see better in the dark - it still looks dark - so much as that I am able to see the colors of things - it is difficult to explain. Would you... would you like to try it?"

Darcy was surprised by the question, and then wary. He wondered who this friend might be who taught her such unusual skills.

"What does it entail?"

"Nothing sinister," Elizabeth smiled at his suspicious demeanor. She removed something from her reticule; it was a handkerchief, and from within the folds of the handkerchief she extracted a flower. "I have only tried one method, but it works well. This is evening primrose. If you brush it against your eyelids, it gives you the ability to see the colors in the dark."

Darcy remained wary after her explanation. The centaur's letter had contained a warning, a caveat about making sure not to allow a certain flower to brush against his eyes, but it had not been evening primrose he was cautioned against. But might this flower not also be harmful? Perhaps not, if Fitzwilliam had not thought to warn him away from it. Curious, though, that brushing flowers against one's eyes was so prevalent in the Looking Glass World. It reminded him of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In fact, when he thought of it, much of the evening had been like a dream, or like something out of Shakespeare's play. He could only hope that there were no fairies about to turn him into an ass.

Elizabeth reached towards him hesitantly. Darcy thought at first that she meant to hand him the flower, but she was reaching towards his face. She was not close enough to him; he stepped a little closer, leaned forward, and closed his eyes.

The feel of the bloom brushing against his eyelids was ticklish, but Darcy liked it. He heard Elizabeth step away from him when she was finished, but he did not open his eyes until she told him to. When he did, the effect was dizzying.

Elizabeth was right, the world was no brighter than before, but Darcy could see the colors of the things around him: the green grass, the multifarious colors of the flowers, Elizabeth's green dress. It was a peculiar sensation, and Darcy did not think he liked it. Elizabeth seemed to read his mind.

"You grow accustomed to it," she said, smiling ruefully. He could see the delicate rose color of her cheeks, and the very tempting shade of her lips...

"Thank you, Miss Bennet," Darcy swallowed uneasily, and they went back to their search.

They talked as they gathered the flowers they needed, about anything and everything, but mostly about Pemberley, and Darcy's childhood there. Elizabeth asked him many questions, and Darcy was amazed at her skill at drawing him out - he told her things he did not think he had ever told anyone before. Not secrets, but things he had never thought to share with anyone. Elizabeth had great powers of conversation, Darcy realized, and it became easier and easier to talk to her. Darcy wished that it could always be so.

Elizabeth commented on his ease.

"I have never seen you so communicative, Mr. Darcy."

Ironically, if unsurprisingly, Darcy did not know how to reply at first.

"I could say that I am taking your advice, and practicing the art of conversation, but I think it is down to you that I feel at ease enough to speak much."

"I thought maybe it was the place - I have heard before that you are most comfortable at your own home."

"It is the company, Miss Bennet. Perhaps I do not know you so well as to say that I am completely at ease in knowing what to say, and how to speak to you, but I have wanted for a long time to know you better, and I hope I am beginning to catch the tone of your conversation, and-"

"You think too much, Mr. Darcy."

Darcy was taken aback by her interruption, and her accusation.

"I have been told so before."

"It is not a fault, sir," Elizabeth added when she saw his somber face. "But I wish you would feel at ease speaking to me."

"I think I do, Miss Bennet. I have always enjoyed our discussions, though you may not have realized it."

"I was always too busy willfully misunderstanding you."

Darcy laughed, and Elizabeth turned away to pursue a flower at a distance from where he stood. It was not a terribly flirtatious badinage, but Darcy felt he had accomplished something. He bent his mind to his list of blooms again with a lighter heart than he had carried in many a month.

The variety of flowers truly was staggering, and Darcy thought perhaps there were even flowers there he had never seen before, not in all of the times he had ridden over his property. Elizabeth asked no questions about the fact that he was collecting specimens as she was, though she appeared to eye his activities with interest. She did instruct him as to some of the species, and he was highly impressed to learn that in some cases she knew not only the common names - and some of the flowers had more than one - but the Latin names, too. She gave him one of her arch smiles, full of mischief, when he complimented her on her knowledge.

"You are too kind, Mr. Darcy. But perhaps I may consider it as an accomplishment? I know it is not enough to elevate me into the ranks of a truly accomplished lady, but I must be allowed to derive merit from what meager skills I do possess."

Darcy was mortified; he recognized her allusion.

"I did not mean to imply a criticism against you when I made those remarks about ladies' accomplishments, Miss Bennet. I was speaking in general terms, and I hope you at least realized that I meant a compliment to you when I added reading to the list of skills required by an accomplished lady."

"That will not do, Mr. Darcy, for I do not read for the improvement of my mind, which is precisely what you specified as a worthy endeavor. I read for enjoyment, and if my mind is improved by what I read, that is only incidental to my pleasure in the activity. And I very much doubt that the novels that are included in my reading add much to my powers of mind, though they do provide me with some humor. No, you shall not be able to claim that you paid me a compliment that day."

"I intended to," Darcy replied, somewhat sulkily, feeling that his attempts at flirting, during both that distant discussion and his present discourse, were equally inept.

"Very well then," the lady obliged him, "I thank you for your compliment. Did you also mean to compliment me when you said I was only tolerable? I suspect not, as you likely were not aware that I could hear you-"

"Elizabeth!" Darcy exclaimed, his mortification become outright horror, such that he did not realize the familiarity with which he addressed her. "That... that was a statement made in error... I... I had not even really looked at you... it was not long before I realized how utterly, completely..."

As Darcy struggled to find something to say to atone for his unkind words that long ago night of the Meryton assembly, he suddenly realized that Elizabeth was not, as he had supposed, fuming with indignation. She was, in fact, chortling, and the more he floundered for words, the more amused she became, until she was once more laughing outright. Though he was in some measure relieved, Darcy was also confused by her reaction, and more than a little disgruntled - not to mention ashamed of his past behavior.

"My unease amuses you," he said testily, and observed her amusement with lips tightly pursed into a frown.

"Forgive me, but it does. I see, Mr. Darcy, that you still do not like to be laughed at."

"I think no one does - do you?" He was indignant.

"I do not mind it when I know I deserve it. I hope then I am able to laugh at myself. And do you not think it a just punishment to you to be laughed at for having been so terribly uncivil, even unkind, that night, insulting a lady you did not even know, and not even taking care to be out of her hearing when you did so? That was very ungentlemanlike of you indeed."

"Teasing and laughter is a punishment you seem fond of. You tried to use the same against me at Netherfield once."

Elizabeth laughed. "Yes, I remember. You foiled me then, though."

"Not entirely. You were laughing at me that night, I know, for my pride and vanity. But at the time, I could not understand why. Now I think I know."

"Ah, but I do not sense that you believe you deserved it, for all that you understand the reasons now. I think for me to laugh at your folly is letting you off very easily after all."

"I did not know that you could hear me when I said those things at the assembly."

"Paltry excuse. You did not care whether I could hear you or not."

Darcy paused, his indignation melting slightly. He could not deny that it was true. "I... I have tried to improve myself, you know. Since... since Hunsford."

"Do not think I have not noticed. But I did not know to what I should attribute this transformation, or whether it could be relied upon as something of permanence," Elizabeth stated without her former raillery. Darcy studied her face in the moonlight and saw something there that made his heart beat faster.

"You may attribute it to a desire to be a better man, once I was made acquainted with the very great shortcomings of my character, as related to me by one whose opinion I hold in very great respect. It is my intention that these... dare I call them improvements? Should be of a permanent nature."

All of their former levity had vanished, and Elizabeth looked at him very seriously indeed.

"I am happy to hear it, sir. I... I hope I have improved in civility as well, though I did laugh at you just now. At least, I think I am now better equipped to sketch your character. Now, shall we continue our search for blooms? I have only one or two more that I need," Elizabeth smiled again.

Darcy's heart sank in spite of her encouraging words. Only one or two more flowers, and then her task, whatever it was, was finished? He did not want her to leave so soon, now that they had reached an accord of sorts - he did not know what it meant, precisely, and would need some time to think on it, but, according to his journal account, he and Elizabeth had held a similar frank discussion in Darcinia, which seemed to do away with much of her dislike at the time. Dislike he had been surprised, then, to find she had felt for him. He had been surprised by it again in Hunsford, thanks to the forgetfulness potion. Yet, in the end of that episode in Darcinia, he had managed to gain her affections, so there was ample cause for hope! Still, Darcy was chagrined to realize he would have to do it all over again with the real Elizabeth in order for it to actually mean anything - and he could not rely on opportunities for heroics; there were no giant shape-shifting serpents for him to battle on her behalf in the real world - but at the very least he knew that he was not ready to relinquish the Looking Glass Elizabeth's company just yet, especially knowing that he still had a great deal to learn about flirting! Darcy shone his lantern upon the ground while Elizabeth bent to see what wildflowers were there, and with studied indifference, he asked her what her intentions were.

"Only one or two more flowers? I have quite a few more things to find this evening, but I suppose you will be returning to Lambton when you have collected all the flowers that you need?"

"Yes, I will return to Lambton when I have completed my search, but I need more than just these last couple of flowers," Elizabeth confirmed, giving him cause for joy once again - momentarily. "But I must say again that I truly would not wish to keep you from your own affairs, Mr. Darcy."

"And I will say again that it is my pleasure to accompany you. Unless you desire to be free of my company? Is it so odious to you still?" Darcy asked the question lightheartedly, bold as it was, but inside he prayed that it was not so, and wondered if she would be frank enough to admit it if it were, and whether he would be able to bear the pain of such an admission from her. He had already surmised that there had been many times before his ill-judged proposal, particularly when they were in Kent, when she had very likely wished to be rid of his company when he had thoughtlessly imposed it upon her, but had been too polite to say so - and he had been too blind to see the signs.

"Oh, no! I hope I did not give that impression! But..." Elizabeth sounded embarrassed, which pleased Darcy.

"But?"

"You clearly have other matters to attend to yourself, and I am conscious that it was exceedingly presumptuous of me to come here tonight. You... you did not have to even acknowledge me, much less treat me with such kindness - and I do not refer to only this evening, but yesterday, when you had just arrived at Pemberley."

"I was happy to see you, on both occasions."

"You would be more than justified if you chose to hate and despise me," Elizabeth's voice held notes of misery, which Darcy hated to hear. "I was cruel to you, and so very foolish in making accusations that -"

"If one can ever be justified in cruelty - and I am not willing to apply such a word to your behavior that day in April - a moment when you have been insulted as you were by my words that day would give such an excuse. And as for your accusations, they were largely justified by my own actions, and those that were not were the result of dishonesty on the part of another, for which you can accept no blame."

"Mr. Darcy, you must at least allow me to apologize for my incivility that evening, and indeed, on many other occasions when we met."

"While I will not say that I was pleased with your incivility at the time, I am now grateful for it; it has, I hope, made me a better man to understand how I deserved it."

"You did not deserve it, and I will no more allow you to accept the blame for that evening than you will allow me."

"Then we must both be blameless," Darcy smiled, though his mind - and heart - were in turmoil.

"I must say, Mr. Darcy, you are beginning to remind me of my sister Jane, and if I am forced to hear much more of this kind of talk, I am very likely to end in believing that I am truly without guilt in the matter after all, but you know it is not sound, sir, you cannot truly believe that, and you said that disguise of every sort was your abhorrence," Elizabeth smiled back, but hers was a sardonic sort of expression.

"You are right, Miss Bennet, but I cannot seem to remember the evening of which we speak with any bitterness towards you, no matter how I might have felt at the moment of being thus addressed by you. My only concern now is to know if I am forgiven for everything I have done to offend you, as I am most sincerely sorry and repentant."

"Everything?" The arch, mischievous Elizabeth had returned.

"As much as you can find it in your heart to forgive," Darcy bowed.

"Very well, you are forgiven, on the condition that you forgive me as well, when your memory returns to you, and you are able to recall what an ogress I behaved to you during the whole of our acquaintance."

"I doubt I ever shall, for with the exception of one evening in April, I was convinced for all the time I knew you in both Hertfordshire and Kent that you were positively enchanting, but I have already told you that. Perhaps this means that I am an ogre, if I can be delighted by an ogress?"

Elizabeth blushed and laughed at the flirtatious Darcy, who knew not from whence such outrageous remarks arose within him, and his heart swelled, even when she teased him in return for embarrassing her with his compliments.

"You have only proved then that I am an ogress, for you were something of an ogre then!"

Darcy was surprised to find that he could laugh at such a barb.

"You are not going to turn into an ogre now, are you?" Elizabeth asked the question with a coy archness, but Darcy thought he could see in her face that she really was concerned, and for a moment was hurt by the implication, until he remembered where they were, and who she was, and what kinds of things he himself had witnessed that night. Transformations must not be out of the common way in the Looking Glass World, and this Elizabeth must be aware of that, something confirmed by her next question. "Or, is there perhaps some other shape you adopt?"

"I will not become an ogre, nor any other kind of beast, Miss Bennet, you have my promise. And you? Will you become a butterfly and flit away from me?"

"I will not be petulant and missish enough to be affronted by the insinuation contained in that suggestion that you see any similarity of character between myself and my two youngest sisters," Elizabeth answered dryly, "And will assure you that I am as you see me, simply Elizabeth Bennet."

"I beg your pardon, madam, I did not mean to imply any such thing, as I have long felt that you are one of the most sensible women of my acquaintance."

"How very kind of you sir, but I fear such outrageous flattery will turn my head - what lady can resist the enticement of being called sensible?"

"Shall I tell you what else I think of you?" Darcy stepped closer to her and lowered his voice in an intimate manner, shocked at his own forwardness, and liking the rush of pleasure he received from her nearness, until he noticed that her expression had turned grave.

"No, I thank you, but I have had enough of gentlemen who attempt to captivate with pretty, empty compliments. I would rather be respected as a rational creature." Elizabeth sighed and sat down on a convenient boulder, the very picture of disillusionment, but then she laughed. "If I did not know better, I would think you are trying to flirt with me, Mr. Darcy."

Darcy was disappointed with her answer, and furious to think of whom she must be remembering with dissatisfaction, even if her dissatisfaction and disillusionment with that person was a blessing and a relief. But it left Darcy with something of a quandary regarding his own plans. If she did not want flirting, how was he to woo her? He had assumed, from observing others, that, his previous laughable attempts at capturing Elizabeth's attention having been entirely unsuccessful, such silly, suggestive banter must be the way to win a lady's heart - and hand. He had certainly observed it often enough in his own social milieu. It had never seemed so to him before, but there must be a reason that men of charm like his cousin and... others always found such favor with ladies - a different, more personal favor than Darcy inspired with his fortune and consequence. Though he had always been aware of it, the difference had never troubled him before now. He knew not how to continue.

"Perhaps I am, Miss Bennet."

Elizabeth was surprised, he could see quite plainly.

"Miss Bennet," Darcy said with all the sincerity of his deep conviction, taking a seat beside her on the boulder, though careful not to assume too much familiarity by sitting too close, as much as he wanted to, "I will offer you no empty compliments; indeed, I do not believe myself to be capable of it. I would have you know that I have always been convinced of your superior understanding."

"In spite of the occasional glaring evidence to the contrary?" Her grin was sardonic.

"No one is without the occasional lapse in judgment."

"Not even you?"

"Not even I, Miss Bennet, as you well know."

"Well, we have long established between us that every person's disposition must have some defect. Mine is making false accusations."

"And mine is disagreeable manners."

Darcy was rewarded for his self-deprecation with a charming laugh from his companion that sent a wave of warmth from the roots of his hair all the way to his toes.

"It will not do, Mr. Darcy, you will have to choose a new defect. I am finding your manners extremely agreeable of late."

"Then does that mean you enjoy my company?" Darcy attempted once again to flirt with her.

"I will not pamper your vanity and say yes, but returning to our earlier subject, I will admit to preferring to have a guide for my search, and appreciate your offer to accompany me as I finish my list. I could not have found this very delightful and bountiful grove on my own! Ah! There now - this is the last blossom I need!"

Elizabeth, whose eyes had continued to scan the ground at their feet in search of wildflowers in the light of the lantern all the while they were speaking, reached for the stem of a bee balm flower, but Darcy noted that she suddenly hesitated before plucking the bloom; she turned her eye towards the sky, and seemed to be waiting for something. Darcy looked up as well, and noted that a small cloud had moved in front of the moon. When it had moved clear of the shining orb, he looked back at Elizabeth, who immediately broke off the stem of the flower and added it to her bottle with all of the others. When the bottle had been re-corked, she shook it vigorously for a few seconds before replacing it in her reticule; in the light of his lantern Darcy could see the contents swirling about each other. Elizabeth looked up and caught his eye, reading his questioning expression, as he was still puzzled by her hesitation in picking the flower.

"I had to wait for the opportune moment," she explained.