Chapter Nineteen

Posted on: 2009-10-15

"Elizabeth!" Darcy shouted as he hastily threw his arms around her and hoisted her up so that her mouth was well clear of the water. She coughed rather violently, and sputtered, and flailed her arms, causing Darcy to hold her even tighter, even as she splashed violently, dousing his head as thoroughly as if she had dunked him under water.

"You are safe, Miss Bennet, I have you now," Darcy tried to soothe her as he cautiously began to move towards shore and shallower water. When he had gone but a few steps he knew that he had reached a depth where Elizabeth could safely stand, and it became clear that Elizabeth knew as well.

"I am quite all right, Mr. Darcy, you may release me - I am perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet," she said crossly, wiping water from her eyes and struggling a bit in his arms, causing him to reluctantly and carefully placed her on her feet on the mucky bottom of the pond, in a place where the water now came up only to her shoulders. He kept his hands on her sides, though, examining her face as she coughed a few more times.

"Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth began in an exasperated tone, "I realize that this was your first attempt at a poetical transport rhyming couplet, but I thought I had explained to you that you need to be specific about where you wish to go!"

"I was specific -" Darcy protested, but Elizabeth cut him off.

"Yes - you specified Pemberley Lake, and here we are - in Pemberley Lake! But where we wanted to be was on the shore!" Turning away from him, Elizabeth struck out for shore herself in a kind of part-walking, part-swimming, part-hopping manner, her arms creating great splashes, that caused Darcy to grin in spite of his mortification - and the fact that her splashes were making him wetter still. He followed quickly behind her as she progressed slowly towards shore, prepared to haul her up again if she slipped under the water due to any accident. Almost as an afterthought, because he had momentarily forgotten it in spite of its importance, Darcy reached for his satchel, and was relieved to find that it was floating on the surface of the water behind him, the strap still safely about his neck. It was, most fortunately, not waterlogged, and he had hopes that the contents would be unharmed. The lantern, too, he still retained, attached to the strap as he had done earlier to free his hands, but the candle, as was to be expected, had gone out.

Darcy and Elizabeth reached the shore without further incident, by which time Elizabeth's ire had cooled enough that she gratefully accepted his assistance in clambering out onto the steep incline of the bank. Once free of the water, Elizabeth moved but a short distance away before throwing herself down on the ground to pant, and cough, and catch her breath. Darcy climbed out after her and sat beside her on the grass, watching her with concern and remorse. He looked around at their surroundings as well, to determine where they were; they were very near the edge of the woods, on the side of the lake nearly opposite the house. It would be a few minutes walk to reach it. Darcy returned his attention to his companion, who was breathing more naturally.

"I am so very sorry, Elizabeth -" Darcy attempted to apologize, but she cut him off once again.

"And you think that the act of nearly drowning me in your lake confers upon you the intimacy of addressing my by my Christian name?" Elizabeth said haughtily, sitting up and glaring at him, but she could not maintain the pretense as his face fell, along with his heart, and she began to laugh so heartily that she collapsed back onto the grass again.

Though he was intensely relieved that she was not truly angry with him, Darcy could not join in her mirth, and waited ruefully for her to have done with her riotous enjoyment of the joke. It took many minutes, but finally Elizabeth exhausted her appreciation of the humor of the situation, and for a few moments lay still, settling her breathing. Then she sat up and looked at Darcy with the most extraordinary expression of contentment on her face.

"I truly am sorry, Miss Bennet," Darcy said.

"Apology accepted, sir, and I thank you for that opportunity to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes; as you know, I dearly love to laugh," she said in response, and then cocked her head to the side, with a thoughtful cast of countenance. "You are very handsome when you are all wet. Not that you are not always handsome, and I am sure you know it, but there is something about you right now..." Elizabeth smiled as she sighed lightly.

Despite not having been in the water over his head, Darcy's hair and face had managed to become thoroughly doused due to Elizabeth's thrashing about, and though Elizabeth had expressed approval of his looks, Darcy felt very self-conscious about his appearance. However vain he might have been about other aspects of his character, Darcy was not vain about his looks, though he was aware that he was generally considered handsome. But something about Elizabeth's frank admiration at that moment, when he was so completely disheveled, made him tongue-tied, and he could not think of what to say in response. He looked at her face, her eyes looking back at him, and her lips turned up in a friendly smile. He was captured by those eyes, those fine eyes that were the first thing that drew him to this woman whom he had at first dismissed as only tolerable, and not handsome enough to tempt him. He must have been mad, for he now found his temptation overpowering. The moments flowed past unnoticed as they stared into each other's eyes, and suddenly, for the second time that night, Darcy became aware of music in the air.

"Sha la la la," sang a chorus of voices.

Elizabeth was as startled as he, and they both turned to look at the lake, from whence the voices arose. There, arrayed in a half circle several feet from the bank were scores of fish, their heads just breaking the surface of the water, their mouths opening and shutting in a comical gaping fashion as they sang. Suddenly another form arose within their hemispherical grouping; it was an otter, and he began to sing as well, the fish providing the musical accompaniment to his song with their sha la la las.

As the otter's song progressed from its rather shocking beginning, the two people sitting on the bank of the lake slowly turned their attention from the aquatic chorus towards each other. The effect of the words, though embarrassing at first, was both hypnotic and seductive, and Darcy found himself inexorably drawn towards his companion, his eyes on her slightly parted lips; had he been able to think at all he would have been pleased and gratified to note that she was leaning towards him with a kind of bashful willingness as well.

Just as the otter reached the end of his final stanza of exhortation, as Darcy had drawn within a breath of her face, and Elizabeth's eyes fluttered closed, a large droplet of water from his still-dripping hair plopped ungracefully onto Elizabeth's nose.

The spell was instantly broken. Elizabeth's eyes flew open, and she jerked back in surprise as if she had received a much harsher blow. Both were suddenly conscious of what they had been about to do, and laughed uneasily in abashment at the ignominious end to the brief period of enchantment. An awkward pause followed, and Darcy and Elizabeth both turned their attention back to the creatures serenading them from the lake, with a dawning awareness that their near kiss had been observed by this audience. The fish were continuing to croon quiet sha la las, but the otter was watching them with a keen attention; when they looked at him, he shook his furry head in disgust, and disappeared beneath the surface of the lake with a tiny splash, the spreading rings in the water the only sign that he had been there at all.

Elizabeth cleared her throat. "I think I must return to the inn."

The defeated look on Miss Bingley's face was disconcerting to Georgiana. It had finally become obvious that they were walking in circles, and the prospect of never finding their way out of the garden, much less finding Mr. Darcy, or returning home, had occurred to Miss Bingley; she had sunk down onto a convenient bench when she had come to that bleak conclusion, and ever since had been staring straight ahead of her with a look of despair that oddly softened her features and made Georgiana pity her.

Georgiana also admired Miss Bingley at the moment, for she was cognizant that in a similar state of dismay she herself would be in tears, and probably shaking with fear. That she was not equally dismayed was a source of puzzlement to her, and she could only attribute her relative calm and acceptance of the situation to the fact that she still felt as if she was at home, and somehow believed that when the sun came up in the morning, she would find herself in her bed. Not that she thought the whole strange adventure was only a dream, but she had slowly begun to feel that there was no danger to her there (perhaps because all of the bad things that had happened, had happened to Miss Bingley), and if her brother was around, even if she could not find him, she could not but feel safe. After all, he was wandering around courting Miss Bennet - what peril could be lurking if her brother was waltzing?

Thus were the two ladies sitting in silence, one despondent, and the other complacent, when a fluffy, white cat came sauntering along the path. Georgiana and Caroline both recognized the cat as Louisa Hurst, or at least, as what Louisa Hurst had changed into when they had met her earlier that night. And if there had been any doubt that it was Caroline's sister in cat form, the transformation of the cat back into a woman would have erased any uncertainty as to her identity.

"Caroline, what are you doing here?" Louisa asked, appalled for some reason that was not the least bit evident to the other two ladies.

"Where should I be?" Caroline snapped at her sister, though the question was not as rhetorical as it might appear.

"Well, if you mean to be disagreeable, you may certainly stay here," Louisa sniffed, and turned to continue along her way, until Georgiana stopped her.

"If you please, Mrs. Hurst, we cannot seem to find our way - we want to return to the house," Georgiana pleaded with the older woman, ignoring Caroline's derisive noises.

"You had better come along to tea, then," Louisa said in the condescending way she was wont to talk to the young sister, not yet out, of Mr. Darcy.

"What, and have tea in the woods? Thank you, no," Caroline turned up her nose at the offer, much to Georgiana's exasperation.

"Tea in the woods? Do I look like a savage to you? I am going to have tea in the green drawing room of Pemberley," Louisa gave her sister a withering glare.

"At Pemberley?" Caroline was instantly on her feet. "By all means, Louisa, we would be happy to join you."

"Yes, I thought you might," Louisa sneered. "I know you would never turn down an opportunity to do anything at Pemberley."

"As if you would," Caroline snapped, though she fell in step beside her sister. Georgiana sighed and followed behind.

"I would never make a fool of myself about it," Louisa riposted. "Speaking of which, I see you have been shopping at Madame Ruban's again."

Caroline had never liked her sister's laugh.

Even though they did not take any turns off of the path they were on, the same path that had led Caroline and Georgiana around in circles for the better part of an hour, when they traversed it with Louisa it did not take them to the same places they had been before, a circumstance that Caroline rather resented. Why should the garden paths make things difficult for her, and not her sister? Louisa had everything easier.

Presently they came to a door; it was standing in the path, and like the Wishing Doors, was not bounded by walls. Caroline was instantly wary, but Louisa merely opened the door and walked through. With a shrug at Caroline, Georgiana followed, nearly getting stuck between the jambs due to the width of her hat brim, and when she discerned that it was safe, beckoned to Caroline to follow. Caroline followed, having the same difficulty with her hat, and when they were all three were through the door, Louisa slammed it shut, causing her two companions to jump.

Caroline looked around. They were no longer in the garden, but neither were they in the green drawing room of Pemberley; they were in the middle of a field of tall grasses. Caroline was just about to point out to her sister that they were supposed to be going to the house, when Louisa opened the door again and walked through. Again Georgiana followed, and beckoned to Caroline to come along. Again Louisa slammed the door when they were all on the other side, and Caroline found that they were in an orchard.

The pattern repeated several more times, with the three ladies visiting a sheep meadow, a pine forest, a rocky hilltop, the banks of a river, and finally, the green drawing room of Pemberley. Or something like it, at least.

"I might have known," Caroline sighed.

Darcy's heart sank. He did not want Elizabeth to leave yet, and having almost treated her in a terribly ungentlemanlike way, he was anxious that she not leave Pemberley and his company until he had a chance to improve her impression of him again; he knew he had been making great strides all evening, and though he was aware that it was meaningless to have made such progress with this image of Elizabeth, and that it would not matter if she was offended by his almost having compromised her with a kiss, he still could not bear for her to leave at that inauspicious moment. He tentatively took her hand, careful not to seem as if he meant to take a liberty, but cognizant that she could not click her heels and transport away from him while they were in contact with each other. Their little detour into the lake had taught him at least that only one of them needed to recite the rhyme for both to be transported if they were in such close physical contact.

"You cannot leave now - you have not finished your list!" Darcy pleaded, with an attempt to not sound like a wheedling child, which he was not confident he had achieved. "Only a few items remain, can you not wait until you have found everything you came here for? It would be a shame if my error made all of your efforts for naught."

Elizabeth sighed deeply and reached for the sodden reticule that rested beside her on the grass. She opened it and pulled out the bottle, which, being tightly stoppered was unaffected, and the extremely soggy paper that had been her neatly written list.

"I am afraid I will have to wait until another time to finish, and hope that the outcome will not be affected. There is no way I can continue to walk around in the cool night air when I am so very wet." Elizabeth added a little emphasis to her resigned speech by wringing out the hem of her coat. Darcy was mortified at having created such an uncomfortable situation for one whom he had such an intense desire to protect.

"Please accept my apologies, Miss Bennet, for my grievous mistake. I... I cannot say enough about how sorry I am - I... I..." Darcy, who lacked the talent to apologize easily in the best of circumstances, was at a particularly painful loss for words. Elizabeth, however, only laughed.

"I am well enough acquainted with you, Mr. Darcy, to know that you have a compelling need to take responsibility for the welfare of others, and while it was your insufficiently thought-out rhyme that landed us in the lake, it was a simple mistake on your part, and easily forgivable. After all, it was only your first attempt, and I made up a few unfortunate rhymes myself when I began - albeit with less disastrous results," Elizabeth favored Darcy with a teasing grin that dissolved all of his worries that she was offended or vexed with him in any way for his disastrous rhyme - or his nearly-ungentlemanlike behavior.

"But if we could acquire dry clothes for you - perhaps you could return to the inn and change your clothes, and return here, to the side of the lake, and we could complete our errands together," Darcy looked at her hopefully, but Elizabeth shook her head.

"It was difficult for me to leave without alarming my aunt and uncle, and I fear there is not time for me to make such a change," Elizabeth gestured towards the moon, whose distance from the horizon had decreased considerably.

Darcy sighed. "If there were but a way for us to dry out quickly - but even if we built a fire..." a thing Darcy did not want to do, not knowing who or what would take notice, "I must concede that you are right. The night is waning. But at least we can acquire one more thing from your list."

Darcy stood and strode to the edge of the lake, his waterlogged boots squelching as he walked. He knelt at the edge, inwardly dreading the reaction of his valet when the state of his clothing was revealed the next morning, and grasped the stems of the cattails that grew at the edge of the water. The lake yielded its bounty easily, and Darcy placed the reeds on the bank beside him. He then pulled a large metal flask from his satchel, removed the lid, and dipped it into the lake, allowing it to fill to the top with lake water before replacing the top tightly and returning the flask to his satchel. Even the water in which the ingredients of his antidote would steep must come from the Looking Glass World. The lake water and the cattails were the final ingredients Darcy needed to complete his curative for forgotten memories. Picking up the cattails, Darcy returned to Elizabeth with the still-dripping reeds, and handed them to her with a mock bow, as if they were some sort of precious offering.

Elizabeth thanked him and retrieved her bottle once more. He loaned her his knife again and she peeled off the outer layers of the roots, and then cut off thin slices, dropping a few into her bottle and giving some to him to wrap in yet another handkerchief and stow in his satchel. As she finished, and was wiping off the blade of the knife before returning it to him, she glanced back at the singing fish who, despite the departure of the otter, had continued their serenade all the while.

"I have heard of a school of fish, but never a chorus," Elizabeth mused.

"That is an incorrect term," came a voice from behind Darcy.

Darcy and Elizabeth both turned at the sound, and encountered the sight of Miss Mary Bennet, a book in her hand, peering at them over the top of a pair of spectacles that were perched on the tip of her nose, glinting in the moonlight. With his night vision Darcy could see distinctly the large lettering written backwards on the cover of the book - or what on the other side of the looking glass would have been the back cover; she was reading something called Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Acrobatica by Sir Figis Newt.

"To call them a school was correct, or you could say a shoal, or a draft or a nest, depending on the species of fish. But not a chorus," Miss Mary intoned.

"Thank you, Mary," Elizabeth smiled at her sister, "I was not aware that you were so well versed in aquaculture."

"I read a great deal more than books of sermons, you know," Miss Mary sniffed indignantly, "and I really do not understand where everyone developed that impression in the first place. As it happens, I am keenly interested in the science of natural philosophy."

"I did not realize," Elizabeth said with a mixture of amusement and politeness. "You always seem so unwilling to go for long walks that it never occurred to me that you had an interest in the study of nature."

"I have weak ankles," Miss Mary returned. "And my interests are not limited to the flora and fauna of our own country - I read about the explorations of natural philosophers who have traveled the world in search of new species. Such as crocodiles - groups of which, you may not know, are called either a bask or a float."

Neither Darcy nor Elizabeth seemed to have anything to say to this, but the look of expectation of an acknowledgment upon Miss Mary's face finally prompted Darcy to reply, "Really, that is very interesting," in his best politely interested tone.

"And a group of flamingos are called a stand or a flamboyance."

"Flamingos?" Darcy asked, unfamiliar with the name.

"Yes - large, pink, wading birds. And a group of frogs is called an army, a colony, or a knot."

"I did not know that," Darcy was beginning to feel the strain of feigning interest, but on no account did he wish to earn the censure of Elizabeth for treating her dull sister with the kind of contempt such a display would evoke from him in his normal social milieu, and anyway, he was trying to reform himself into someone who did not treat others with contempt for such minor offenses as being terribly dull.

"Well, now you do. And a group of cockroaches are called an intrusion, which seems very fitting to me, seeing as they are vermin."

"Of course."

"Now with dogs, there are interesting distinctions. Wild dogs are a pack, but a group of curs are a cowardice, and groups of hounds, as I am sure you know, are known as a cry, a mute or a pack - an interesting contradiction, cry and mute - while puppies, of course, make up a litter. And then there are specific breeds of dogs, like a leash of greyhounds."

"Yes, I was aware of some of those classifications."

"Now groups of cobras, which are a kind of venomous snake found in warmer regions of the world, are called a quiver."

This time, before Darcy could give his polite riposte, Elizabeth, who until that moment had been quietly eyeing her sister with a combination of wonder, amusement, and annoyance, interjected her own slightly less polite rejoinder.

"Thank you, Mary, for sharing your vast knowledge of the nomenclature of animal groupings, but I am afraid we have not the time right now to hear more."

"But you do wish to get dry, do you not?" Miss Mary looked over her spectacles at her sister again, quite sternly this time.

"Naturally," Darcy interjected, not seeing the connection with Mary's peculiar recitations, but eager to grasp at any possibility for keeping Elizabeth with him for any length of time.

"Well, the best way to get dry is the application of dry facts," Miss Mary pronounced, nodding her head so firmly that her spectacles slid down her nose to a precarious position right at the tip. She pushed them up again and resumed her litany. "A group of hedgehogs is called an array-"

"Did someone call me?" interrupted another voice, and Darcy and the two Misses Bennet turned to see who had spoken; it was an enormous hedgehog, roughly the size of a sheep, waddling towards them down the bank.

"Good evening, Sir William," Miss Mary said respectfully, and Darcy peered at the giant, prickly creature and discerned that he did, indeed, resemble Sir William Lucas, the Bennets' affable neighbor in Hertfordshire - if, of course, Sir William were to take the form of a giant hedgehog. "No one called you, sir, I was just mentioning that a group of hedgehogs is called an array. Lizzy and Mr. Darcy, you see, are all wet."

"They are indeed! Capital, capital!" Sir William cried, quite jovially. "What they need is some dry conversation! Have I ever told you about the time I was knighted? It was in the spring of... let me see, that was the year before-" Sir William began to drone on about his recollections of his greatest triumph, oblivious to Miss Mary's attempt to interrupt his monologue.

"I beg your pardon, Sir William, but I find dry facts to be the most efficacious method of dispelling dampness, and in such an extreme case - forgive me for saying so, Lizzy, but you look as if you had been swimming in the lake with Mr. Darcy. Now, I can see that you at least preserved your modesty by remaining fully clothed, but I cannot think that much better, and I cannot approve of such wild behavior. I do not recall if there was a sermon in Fordyce's that strictly addressed the practice of swimming for young ladies, either in the company of a gentleman or otherwise, though I think not, but even in the absence of guidance from that source, I have to say that my instinct tells me it is not a right thing for you to be doing."

"Thank you, Mary," Elizabeth said wryly.

"Well, as your sister, I think it behooves me to help you out of your predicament, and I can only hope that you have not allowed Mr. Darcy any liberties that would increase the shame of our family after the disgraceful behavior of late of both Kitty and Lydia, when the militia were posted in Meryton. I am afraid they did nothing to increase the credit of our family. You must know that I do not indulge in gossip, it being a shameful weakness, but I do hear things. I am afraid that this incident would be much talked of, if anyone knew about it, and I am not confident we can count on Sir William's discretion, and I would not wish for your impropriety to further diminish the reputation of your sisters, myself included, her reputation being the most valuable possession of any young lady." Miss Mary cast a disapproving look at Darcy, and he bristled under her glare, but she did not give him an opening to protest her condemnation of whatever actions she was accusing them of in her mind, nor her offensive comparison between himself and Elizabeth, and the antics of the youngest Misses Bennet with the officers. "Now, where was I? Oh yes, a group of hippopotamuses is called a bloat-"

Sir William's voice carried over, "And of course, it was imperative that I appear in full court dress, and though I always like to support our local merchants in Meryton, having once been one, for such an auspicious event I had need of a London tailor. I went to an establishment recommended to me by-"

"A group of hummingbirds are called a charm, and a group of larks are either an exaltation or an ascension-"

"Lady Lucas, of course, was quite nervous, quite nervous indeed - you know how ladies are, eh Darcy? But I reassured her that she was looking quite well, and in the end, it was me, and not she, who tripped on the stairs going into St. James-"

"...moles are a labor, a company or a movement, while a group of oysters are-"

"...her majesty's right foot! It was indeed a proud moment for me. And when the dancing started-"

"...an escargatoire, a rout, or a walk, which is curious when you think that snails do not walk at all, they... well, I do not know what you would call their mode of movement, but-"

"...the very gentleman whose carriage had driven into the Thames! Well, he was very civil, of course, I find that people of such breeding are-"

"and a group of rhinoceroses is called either a crash or a stubbornness, while a group of spiders are a clutter or a-"

"And then her ladyship asked if I had ever been to Weymouth, for I apparently bore a great likeness to a man who-"

"...a streak, or an ambush-"

Darcy was somewhat overwhelmed by this onslaught, and looked to Elizabeth to see how she was taking it, and predictably, she was, quite clearly, nearly ready to burst with restrained laughter. Her gaily sparkling eyes met his, and of one accord they moved to join arms once again, and began to slowly back away from the two lecturers, who were both now so absorbed in their own orations that Darcy was certain they would be able to effect an undetected retreat into the nearby woods. He had just noticed, as they cautiously withdrew, that his clothes were, in fact, almost completely dry, and turned to mention this to Elizabeth - very quietly, of course - when suddenly, his companion's eyes grew wide in panic and she collapsed backwards on the grass, nearly dragging him down with her, as she was holding his arm at the time. However, her grip was not firm, and her slight weight was not enough to overset him; nor was he quick enough to prevent her from falling - again. When she landed, hers was not the only voice to register dismay at the catastrophe, and after she had frantically flailed about for but a few moments, the second victim of the misadventure was revealed; Elizabeth rolled to the side and Darcy saw the object - creature - that had precipitated her accident, by tripping her as she walked backwards in the darkness.

"Mr. Badger... erm... Bennet!" Darcy exclaimed, even more startled to see the animal form of Elizabeth's father for a second time that night than he had been to see him in such a state in the first place. Was the man - critter - following them?

Darcy's outburst drew the attention of Miss Mary and Sir William, halting, for the moment, their recitations. But only, in Miss Mary's case, for a moment.

"Oh, and a group of badgers, of course, is called a set, but also a cete, a company, or a colony," she said with a certain degree of obvious pride, which gave Darcy the impression that she dearly wished to impress her parent, badger though he may be.

"That will do, child, you have educated us quite enough for now," the badger gruffly interposed, reminding Darcy of the ungracious way in which Mr. Bennet had once curtailed this same daughter's unpleasing musical performance at the Netherfield ball. Darcy had taken that at the time to be just another proof of the poor manners of Elizabeth's family, but now he saw something worse. Miss Mary was crushed by his censure, and Darcy was put in mind of his own sister, and her fragile confidence, and the impending day when she would be called upon to entertain a company with her accomplishments. He hoped she would never be forced to endure such a set down.

"Miss Mary has been assisting us in drying our clothing, Sir, after we, well, we fell in the lake, in a manner of speaking," Darcy quickly explained, earning grateful looks from both Miss Mary and her older sister, the latter bewitching expression causing his heart to thump wildly in his chest so that he felt he must tear his gaze away before all assembled noticed the percussive beat.

"Well, well, you have done nicely, Mary, but where are your silly sisters? Did I not set you to spy... I mean, accompany your sisters?"

"They turned into butterflies again, a group of which is called a flight, a flutter, an adornment, an armada, an assemblage, a baffle, a ballet, a-"

"Mary..." the badger growled, and Miss Mary, assuming a petulant pout that Darcy felt would look more at home on the face of one of her sillier, younger sisters, dropped her book, which landed open on the grass, and in the blink of an eye, shrank and transformed into a tiny, striped caterpillar... with a diminutive pair of glasses that still winked in the moonlight.

"A group of caterpillars is called an army!" the caterpillar cried out defiantly in her tiny voice, and she then wiggled her way into the spine of the book. The badger sighed and gently closed the book, tucking it under his arm. Darcy noted that he was no longer wearing the shabby dressing gown, but a waistcoat and frock coat of a muddy brown color, which Darcy supposed to be a convenient color to wear if one spent one's time in a burrow underground.

"Mary, Mary, always so contrary. She is a late bloomer, I am afraid," the badger said with what sounded like resignation, and perhaps a tiny, infinitesimal scintilla of affection.

"A bookworm," Elizabeth added, a great deal more affection in her tone.

"I see this is a family matter, pay me no mind," Sir William broke in as he turned to waddle away. "I have always liked dear Miss Mary, of course, always so willing to entertain us with her music! But it is Miss Elizabeth, as I always say, who is the jewel of Hertfordshire, is she not, Bennet? Yes indeed, yes indeed! The man who carries her away will be a very lucky man indeed!" And with that, the prickly knight disappeared into some reeds growing beside the lake. Darcy watched him go with a sense that the man... well, hedgehog, was right, that if he ever managed to win Elizabeth's hand, her approval, her affections, he would in truth be a very lucky man. He had never paid much mind to the good-natured ramblings of Hertfordshire society's most genial member, but in this one instance, Darcy could not but agree with him. Jewel indeed.

Anxious to carry off that jewel for at least a little while longer that very night, Darcy turned to her to suggest that, being now fully dry, thanks to the combined extremely effective efforts of Miss Mary Bennet and Sir William Lucas, they might continue their quest, but the badger Bennet was not so willing to allow them to depart.

"I am disappointed in you, Lizzy," Mr. Bennet chortled, convincing Darcy that amusement figured more prominently in the badger's emotions than disappointment. Still, the implication, that Elizabeth had done something improper, awakened Darcy's indignation, and he was on the point of defending her to her father when she turned a withering glance on her furry parent. He should have known she would need no assistance from him in dealing with a disappointed, amused, or otherwise interested Mr. Bennet. In fact, Darcy suspected that he might need to call on her assistance in that regard someday, if his desires for the future were ever to be made manifest.

"I gave you no promise to look after Kitty and Lydia, Papa, but you may thank Mr. Darcy for rescuing them from harm - which they might not have faced if you would only heed my advice and check them once in a while - and sending Mary to chaperon them merely to get Mary out of the way as well does not constitute proper parental supervision," Elizabeth said with what Darcy heard as bitterness, though he did not understand why it should be so.

"Yes, you have made your feelings on the subject clear, my dear, and you will see, no harm will come to them in the end, except perhaps a little bruising of their feelings of self-consequence, which Lydia, at least, would benefit from. But that is not what has disappointed me - to think you, of all people, needed help from Mary, and Sir William Lucas, too, when you should have been able to dry your clothes in no time at all with a judicious application of dry humor! I would not expect much in that way from Mr. Darcy here, but with your dry wit you should be able to create a desert from this lake! What has happened to you, my poor child?" Mr. Bennet's mocking tone belied the lament carried in his last words, but his daughter laughed all the same. Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Darcy realized, had no difficulties in being laughed at. He almost sighed aloud at the thought of all the things he could learn from her if he could only spend enough time with her - a lifetime, perhaps? His own pride, meanwhile, had been slightly stung by Mr. Bennet's assessment of his sense of humor.

"I thank you for your confidence in my abilities," Darcy intoned as dryly as he could manage, earning a chuckle from the badger.

"Well, well, there may be hope for you yet, my boy. Do not you agree, Lizzy? Is there not hope for Mr. Darcy?"

"If you would be so kind, Mr. Darcy, as to overlook, or perhaps excuse my father for his eccentric manners. I would say that he means no offense, but I know that you abhor disguise of every sort. He does mean offense, but as he can only respect those who are able to both recognize the slight, and still see the humor in it, it is his way of determining whether or not someone is worth speaking to."

Rather than upsetting Mr. Bennet, as Darcy half expected Elizabeth's words to do, the queer account of his nature caused Mr. Bennet to laugh heartily and long, in that grating rasp of a sound that passed as a laugh from the badger. The corners of his mouth curled in an absurd grin.

"Ah," the badger Bennet said, as his hilarity subsided, "Parents are not meant to have favorites amongst their children, but I must confess, Darcy, that I do." He carefully used one claw to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye, whether as a result of his laughter or the moment of sentiment was not clear.

"Thank you, Papa," Elizabeth smiled sardonically at her parent, though the harshness was gone from her tone, "Now, if you would excuse us, Mr. Darcy and I have not finished our labors this evening, and as we are completely dry now, due to the combined efforts of Mary and Sir William, we will leave you to your amusement," Elizabeth said archly, and taking the bemused Darcy's arm, firmly led the gentleman away from the badger, whose laughter followed them a long way through the darkness, though he had disappeared down a hole at the base of a tree almost before they had walked away.

"It is curious, do you not think, Miss Bennet, that we have met so many of your family here," Darcy mused aloud as they walked rather briskly away from the slightly embarrassing encounter with the badger - and the others.

"Indeed. I would not have expected it," Elizabeth answered, clearly distracted by other thoughts.

"We have not seen Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, I might have thought to see them," Darcy suggested.

"They were sleeping soundly when I left the inn," Elizabeth supplied.

"I wonder if we shall encounter your mother," Darcy continued, curious, in spite of absolutely dreading the prospect. Of all the members of Elizabeth's family whom he had met in the real world, Mrs. Bennet was the one whose Looking Glass permutation he felt most wary of encountering. As vulgar as she was in the real world, she could be formidably appalling in the Looking Glass World. Though Darcy admitted to himself that he did not know her very well, there were certain aspects of her character that he felt he did not wish to see interpreted in her Looking Glass World incarnation.

"I have met her already," Elizabeth countered curtly, and Darcy, seeing the grim set to her countenance, decided to heed the Bard's wisdom that discretion is the greater part of valor, and not ask her about the meeting.

"You said we were going back to the house!"

"I said we were going to the green drawing room. Your problem, Caroline, is that you never listen." Louisa Hurst sniffed indignantly. "Besides, the green drawing room is part of the house."

"Yes, but at the moment it does not seem to be attached to the house!" Caroline shouted at her sister.

"Perhaps not, but this is where I said I we were going."

Georgiana watched the exchanged between the sisters in discomfort. They did not have the kind of relationship Georgiana had always dreamed about when she imagined having a sister. She never knew what to do when they began to quarrel in front of her. She had not felt so uneasy since she had passed through the looking glass, even with all she had seen and experienced.

A low woof issued from a large sheepdog who sat on a chair by at the side of the room. Georgiana looked at the dog, and nodded, recalled to her duties as hostess in a room that sort of belonged to her home. She cleared her throat, which had become very dry.

"Would you ladies care for some tea?" Georgiana asked her combative guests with a tentative smile.

'Oh, how I wish Fitzwilliam was here!' Georgiana thought to herself as she tried not to sigh under a pair of frosty gazes. 'Or Elizabeth Bennet.'

Chapter Twenty

Posted on: 2009-10-22

"Where are we going now, Miss Bennet?" Darcy asked when they had been walking in silence for several minutes, heading away from the lake, skirting the woods, and moving in the general direction of the house. Darcy had completed his own mission, but did not consider the night's work to be done until he had assisted Elizabeth in completing hers - it was a decision made almost without thought, and he had no notion of returning to his own side of the mirror until he had helped her to achieve similar success.

"I am not sure. I had to get away from there to be able to think. Even though we are dry now, and able to continue, the time is growing short." Elizabeth stopped walking and looked at the declining moon; Darcy stopped as well, and turned to look at her. "The last thing on my list is tea," Elizabeth said.

"Do you need the leaves, or brewed tea?"

"Brewed, although if I can only get leaves, I am sure I can make do."

"Well, it is rather late, but we could go into the house and ring for some..." Darcy acknowledged to himself that it would be an awkward request to make at such an hour, but his staff was trained to follow his orders, and fill his requests, without questioning them. They may not like being awakened in the small hours of the morning to bring tea to a lady guest who was calling at such an unfashionable, not to say scandalous, time, but they were being paid to do it, and they would. Still, Darcy wondered if the staff of the Looking Glass Pemberley would find the request odd at all. "Or, we could transport right to the kitchens... I am sure we could contrive to make it ourselves?" It was a phrased as a statement, but he spoke it as a question. If there was not boiling water on the stove in the kitchen, he was not entirely confident that he would know what to do after all. Elizabeth gave him an amused glance.

"Mr. Darcy, I realize that as a man, you may not be conversant in all the intricacies of running a household, but I assure you, your housekeeper keeps the tea locked up. If you do not have the key, and know where the tea chest is kept, we would most assuredly not be able to go to the kitchens and make it ourselves."

Darcy was chagrined to realize that he should have known that, but quickly moved on to another suggestion. "What if we were to make up a rhyme about going to where there is a cup of tea prepared? I would, of course, leave the composition of the verse up to you."

Elizabeth seemed to be giving the idea considerable thought, and Darcy spent the time, while she pondered the possibilities, studying the beautiful lines of her face. He had never been able to give up the habit of staring at her whenever he had the chance. He wondered why she did not mention the obvious solution, that she could simply procure some tea back at the inn; it was possible, he supposed, that what she really wanted was to prolong the time she spent in his company, and was actually searching for a means to do so. It was comforting, at least, to think so, and thus Darcy did not make the suggestion himself - if she had, strangely, simply not thought to procure her tea at the inn, Darcy was going to say nothing to remind her of how convenient it would be to leave him at that moment.

"No, I am afraid that I would consider that a bit too much of a risk. There is not enough specificity in the plan, and for all we know, we could end up in China. And while we should, if that be the case, be able to make a poetic leap back here, not knowing the situation in which we might land, I am not willing to risk it." Elizabeth heaved a frustrated sigh. "Who would have thought that of all the things on the list, the most difficult to find would be a simple cup of tea!"

"Did someone say something about wanting tea?" came a voice from out of the woods nearby. Darcy and Elizabeth both turned to see from whence it came, and a large, dark shape came lumbering out from among the trees. Darcy heard Elizabeth's gasp as the shape moved enough into the light that it was identifiable as a bear; she moved quickly to his side, placing him between herself and the bear. Darcy felt a surge of pride that she felt he would be able to protect her. But somehow, Darcy did not find the creature threatening.

"Hurst?"

"Of course - were you expecting someone else?" the bear replied in Hurst's unmistakable, languid voice.

Darcy did not know what to say to that - he never knew what to expect in the Looking Glass World, but an ursine Hurst was not at all what he expected nonetheless. And yet, when he took but a moment to consider it, he came to the realization that nothing could be more fitting.

"Oh, I see you have found that Bennet girl you were so flummoxed by last autumn. Yes, you both simply must come join us for tea. Now we will have some amusement. Louisa will be thrilled, and your sister and Miss Bingley were looking for you some hours ago," Hurst drawled lazily, and not a little sneeringly, and Darcy could not help but think that Hurst's manners were even worse as a bear - he had not even so much as said hello to Elizabeth. Even at his worst, Darcy was convinced that he himself could not have been so blatantly dismissive. "Come along, then, I am hungry," the bear said over his shoulder as he turned and plodded back into the woods.

Darcy and Elizabeth looked at each other quizzically, and followed the bear. When the bear Hurst had suggested they come along to tea, they had both expected him to head in the direction of the house, but where else would a bear go for tea but into the woods? Darcy fervently hoped that they would not have to crawl into some kind of cave, or underground den. He wondered if it would be rude, if that turned out to be the case, to simply request that some tea be brought out to them for Elizabeth's elixir. After all, it was not as if he would be able to eat or drink anything anyway. In addition, as they followed the bear deeper and deeper in the woods, Darcy mused on the presence of a bear in a country where they had not been known to live in the wild for hundreds of years, and to further hope that when the bear invited them to tea, and declared himself to be hungry, he was not planning to assuage his hunger by eating them, like in some child's fairy tale. Somehow the thought amused rather than worried, and Darcy chortled to himself.

"What do you find so humorous, sir?" Elizabeth asked him in a low voice.

"It is difficult to explain. Perhaps I should say that I have been struck by the absurdity of our situation."

"Only just now?" Elizabeth asked with a chortle of her own. "Mr. Darcy, you surprise me. I never would have thought you would have such a high tolerance for absurdity."

"Well, I am not a connoisseur of it the way you are. But the accumulation of peculiarities over the course of the night has, you must admit, reached ludicrous proportions."

Before Elizabeth could make a reply to this beyond a chuckle, the bear, who had, despite his shambling gait, and likely due to his eagerness to reach food at the earliest possible moment, pulled a distance ahead of them, turned back and cried peevishly at them, "Dash it all, Darcy, stop flirting with the girl and come on! You know how Louisa gets when there are crumpets to be had! There shall be none left for me!"

Elizabeth snickered as the bear returned to his plodding with a disgusted "Humph!"

"How does Mrs. Hurst get when there are crumpets to be had?" Elizabeth asked with undisguised interest.

Darcy shrugged. "I have never noticed anything untoward in her behavior in the presence of crumpets. I supposed we must hurry if we wish to find out."

"Yes, you must!" shouted the bear from his position ahead of them, causing Elizabeth to laugh outright.

Darcy could not help but admire her at that moment - for about the thousandth time that night. He knew many women who would have been, or at least pretended to be, affronted by Hurst's gruff rudeness, but Elizabeth was not the least bit, as her father had put it earlier, missish. How could he not love a woman who was unfazed by Hurst at his worst?

Nevertheless, Darcy and Elizabeth did make an attempt to hurry along after Hurst, but it was difficult going. Little moonlight was able to penetrate through the forest canopy, only patches here and there, and the night sight given by the evening primrose, which was beginning to wane, particularly after their dousing in the lake, was little help in picking their way through the gloom. As they moved deeper into the forest, there was more underbrush, which plucked at their clothing, while low-hanging branches caught their hair and brushed their faces. Darcy could not restrain his laughter when Elizabeth inadvertently walked into a spider's web - a normal spider, not a giant, Wickham-headed one - and he was able to see the heretofore fearless Elizabeth flailing her arms in a panic to remove the sticky strands, and frantically brushing her clothes to remove any spider that may have lodged in some crease or wrinkle. He could therefore not blame her for laughing even harder at his own gyrations not a moment later when he walked face-first into another web himself.

"I wish I had thought to bring something to re-light my candle if it went out," Darcy said, brandishing his now-useless lantern, extinguished by the dunking in the lake. "To think I remembered to bring extra candles, which have been of great use, but no means of lighting them. Do you think perhaps..."

"Yes?"

"I know this may sound... mad, but if dry facts, and dry humor, and dry conversation were able to dry our clothes, might it be possible to produce a spark of some kind to light the lantern?"

"What kind of spark?" Elizabeth regarded him curiously.

"A spark... of wit, maybe?"

"Well, not from you, I daresay," she teased him, laughing quietly.

Darcy knew, of course, that she was only teasing, carrying on her father the badger's joke from earlier, perhaps, but her words stung him nonetheless. She must have seen the look of hurt on his face, for she smiled up at him apologetically, and reached out to touch his arm, and opened her mouth as if she would speak. At the very instant her fingers made contact with his sleeve, the candle in the lantern burst to life with a bright flame and an audible 'pop.' Darcy looked at the glowing flame, and then at Elizabeth's incredulous expression.

"A spark!" was all he could find words to say, and Elizabeth nodded dumbly in response, her features arranged in a very becoming look of amazement.

Inwardly, Darcy smiled.

Caroline Bingley was in a state of high dudgeon, such as Georgiana Darcy had never seen.

"I will not drink tea out of a dirty cup! Georgiana, this is unacceptable. You must ring for clean cups, and fresh tea - hot, and biscuits that do not already have a bite taken out of each one, and - Louisa, what precisely do you find so amusing? You said there would be tea here, but we find only the disgusting remnants of someone else's refreshments. Will you please stop laughing at once!"

Louisa laughed in a way that reminded Georgiana of a cat hissing, and sneered at her sister.

"

"Gah! You wretched, spiteful... cat!" Caroline shrieked, and swung her hand to slap the merriment off her sister's face, but Louisa was too quick for her; she turned instantly into a cat, shrinking out of the path of Caroline's blow, and while Caroline was still recovering her balance, the cat leaped up and scratched the offending hand.

Caroline, naturally, screamed, and sunk down on the nearest sofa, clutching her injured hand. Louisa had already returned to her human form, if not her human demeanor, and sat in her chair, unconcernedly licking her arm. Georgiana was transfixed by the scene; it was, perhaps, not entirely unexpected for Mrs. Hurst to behave in this outlandish fashion, as everyone in the strange world they were in was a tad peculiar, but it seemed to Georgiana that Miss Bingley had taken leave of her senses quite completely, and she wondered if she should be alarmed, or should fear remaining in the company of such an unbalanced person - not that she seemed to have any other recourse. Wordlessly, Georgiana handed her handkerchief to Miss Bingley to stanch to blood on her hand.

Caroline accepted the offering without grace, and continued her earlier diatribe about the unacceptable refreshments they had been offered, adding further laments about the impossibility of finding Mr. Darcy. Georgiana was inclined to agree with that particular worry.

"And now, to be subjected to mockery and violence from my own sister! It is not to be borne! Georgiana, we must find Mr. Darcy before any further calamity besets us - we shall leave here at once!"

Caroline gathered her remnants of dignity and stalked to the door, the strange door that had taken them all over the estate until it had brought them to the green drawing room for tea, from whence Caroline and Georgiana had hoped to be able to make their way to the ballroom to wait for Mr. Darcy. When Caroline had her hand on the door handle, Georgiana, who had not moved from her seat, stopped her with a question.

"But Miss Bingley, where are we to go?"

Caroline looked briefly to her sister, who continued to groom herself in a feline manner with perfect unconcern for the dilemmas of the other two ladies.

"As it appears my sister refuses to assist us, we shall go through this door as many times as it takes to find ourselves where we wish to be!" Caroline declared dramatically as she yanked the door open. She then strode through, and, forgetting that Georgiana ought to go through with her, slammed the door behind her. There was silence in the room for several seconds before the door opened again and Caroline walked into the room, her face like a storm cloud.

"Did you, or did you not wish for some tea?" Louisa drawled as Caroline stomped inelegantly back to the sofa and threw herself down upon it. Louisa smiled maliciously. "Georgiana, do ring for a fresh repast, there's a good girl. I think some among your guests are becoming peevish from hunger, and I think it very likely that your brother may come to join us as well, if you wait long enough."

Georgiana did not ask on what grounds Mrs. Hurst made such an assumption, and she did as she was asked with a sigh. As she pulled the bellrope, she wondered if it really rang a bell at all, and if so, where? She did not think it would, but she thought it pointless to inquire.

'Fitzwilliam, where are you?' Georgiana silently pleaded as she settled down to wait for whatever might happen next.

With the help of the lantern's light Darcy and Elizabeth were soon able to catch up to Hurst. Darcy was becoming concerned that they would not reach their destination in time; he estimated that there was not much more than an hour left of the moon's course across the sky, and then it would be too late to find Elizabeth's last item. Darcy wished they had thought to attempt the poetic transport to wherever it was they were going, but he did not know if a bear would be able to do it. By his calculation they must have already walked over a mile from where they had entered the forest near the lake; they would probably want to use poetic transport to return after they had found some tea. And then, Elizabeth would leave, but Darcy did not want to think about that.

Just as Darcy was determining that he must question Hurst about where they were going and when they could be expected to arrive, he was able to discern a brightly illuminated area ahead of them in the woods. In no time at all they found themselves in a clearing, with an intriguing apparition before them.

In the middle of the clearing was, in a manner of speaking, one of the drawing rooms of Pemberley; it had no walls, or ceiling, though it had a door, and windows that were suspended in air, and the furniture was arranged exactly the same as it was in his home; the pictures that should have hung on the walls, if the room had any, poised in the air the same as if they had a wall to hang upon. It was a formal parlor, the green parlor where his mother had received guests. It was a long room, and very elegant, but not what one might consider cozy. Darcy and Elizabeth had stopped at the edge of the clearing, but the Hurst bear had continued to lumber towards the door of the room - evidently one must still enter by the door, even though the room had no walls.

Darcy and Elizabeth hesitated still, taking in the scene. There were a number of men in the Darcy livery darting about the clearing, around the room in the center, lunging after tiny, flying objects with butterfly nets.

"Ooh! Bread-and-butterflies!" Hurst growled appreciatively, catching one of the fluttering creatures in his teeth. "What a pity there is no such thing as a bread-and-marmalade fly," the bear sighed, and he proceeded to snap at any of the little, winged morsels that flew too near his mouth as he made his way across the clearing to the room, catching most, and cursing whenever he missed.

Darcy heard Elizabeth utter a startled "Oh!" and turned to see that one of the so-called bread-and-butterflies had landed on her sleeve. He took the opportunity to look closely at it before it flew away, and it did, indeed, look like a butterfly with buttered bread slices for wings. Elizabeth laughed as it fluttered its wings and took flight again.

Darcy and Elizabeth exchanged a look and followed Hurst, though they did not emulate his forage among the insects as they walked. When they were within a few yards if the door, Elizabeth stopped walking suddenly.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Elizabeth said enigmatically, and Darcy noted that she was looking at something in the room before them.

From this nearer vantage point, Darcy noticed that the room did have walls of a sort - the pattern of the wallpaper from the room in question at the real Pemberley, a delicate design of ivy and flowers, hung suspended in the air as if it was painted on walls of transparent glass, but it was not this that had given Elizabeth a premonition of trouble, Darcy conjectured. He could now see that the room was occupied. Sitting upon the various settees and chairs around the tea table in the center were Louisa Hurst, Caroline Bingley, and Darcy's sister, Georgiana. The presence of Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were an unwelcome complication in Darcy's mind, and he did not doubt that their appearance was the cause of Elizabeth's wariness.

Just before they reached the door, a footman whose presence Darcy had not noticed before, Pemberley's servants all being excessively discreet, stepped forward and opened the door for them. Darcy could not resist reaching out to touch the wallpaper as he walked by, and his hand passed right through it, setting the leaves and flowers rustling as if in a gentle breeze before they settled back into their accustomed pattern.

Hurst's arrival had been unremarked by all three ladies, even his wife, who Darcy noted was her normal, human self, sitting idly playing with her rings and bracelets. Darcy's entrance, however, was greeted enthusiastically by two of the three women.

"Fitzwilliam!" Georgiana cried, at the same time that Caroline Bingley practically jumped to her feet, clasping her hands together over her heart.

"Mr. Darcy, how good of you to join us!" she simpered. "You cannot think how we have been longing for your company."

Georgiana and Caroline both approached Darcy where he remained not more than a few feet inside the room, the former with a youthful animation, and the latter with an affectedly graceful glide which was likely a reflection of her version of what it means to have a certain something in one's air and manner of walking. Caroline was looking decidedly disheveled. Now that Darcy could see her up close, what he had taken for a dress in a drab brown when he had seen her in the garden was revealed to be a dress covered in mud up to the knees, and splattered generously with mud everywhere else. Her face was smudged with dirt, and her hair was sticking out oddly in some places, and matted in others - probably due to the enormous hat she had been wearing when he had seen her previously. Darcy almost felt he should give her credit for the grace with which she managed to carry herself while surely knowing she looked a complete disaster.

Georgiana reached her brother first and threw her arms around his neck in a manner that impressed upon him that she was distressed about something - he recognized the frantic look in her eyes as the one she often had when she had been left alone with Caroline Bingley for too long.

"Oh, brother, I am so relieved to have found you!" Georgiana said in an urgent, low voice meant to be heard by none but him. "I cannot get back!" she added, but before she could explain this extraordinary plea, Caroline was upon them.

"We have rung for tea, but it has been a very long time in coming. Of course, there were tea things here when we arrived - piled quite haphazardly on the table, but there were no clean cups! It was simply appalling - to think that your servants could be so lax! Someone did take away the used things when Georgiana rang, but it has been an age since, and we are still waiting for new ones. Dear Georgiana means well, I suppose, but this is what comes of not having a proper mistress of the household - the servants will take advantage and show their laziness. Not that they would ever behave in such a way with you, of course, but to keep your sister and your guests waiting for their refreshments, after all we have been through this evening - well! It is not something I would have allowed while I was running my brother's household, I can tell you that, and that is just the kind of firm management that Pemberley needs, I am sure. But now that you are here, I am sure that no one will dare to neglect us."

Caroline had just placed a hand on Darcy's arm, in an attempt to disentangle him from the embrace of his younger sister and lead him to sit on the sofa where she could sit beside him, when she noticed that someone else had entered the room right behind him.

"Well, and you have brought a guest. Miss Eliza Bennet. I am all astonishment. Walking about the countryside in the middle of the night? I would have thought that sort of thing to be even beyond your usual wild behavior," Caroline sneered, almost as if she could not control her own words.

"But Miss Bingley, that is exactly what we have been doing - have we been so very improper, Fitzwilliam? I mean, I know that we have, but if Miss Bennet has been out walking, too, I cannot think there is anything wrong with it after all. Oh, and I am so pleased to see you again, Miss Bennet, and it is so kind of you to call. Do please join us! Of course, we would not have been out walking, but we were so desperate to find you, Fitzwilliam, to help us find our way back! You can help us, can you not? Can we go now, without waiting for tea?" Georgiana was looking at him with such an earnest, pleading expression, one he had seen ever so many times when she was a small child and wanted something that she was not supposed to have, but this was clearly nothing like those desperate childish whims. She truly seemed in the grip of a keen anxiety. However, as affecting as he found this reminder of his sister's childhood reliance on him, Darcy had still to remain as firm as he had when a six-year-old Georgiana had begged him for her own phaeton - nothing would have induced him to abandon Elizabeth even a moment before he absolutely must, not even to ease his sister's agitation, which appeared groundless - much less to assist Caroline Bingley in any way.

Darcy disengaged himself from both his sister and her companion, and gestured to Elizabeth to take a seat. He was a little mortified by his own ungentlemanlike behavior, having left her behind in his fascination to enter the 'room,' when he should have deferred to her as a lady and let her walk through the door first. Granted, Hurst should also have shown her that courtesy, but he was not inclined to expect very good manners from Hurst, man or bear.

"I am sure we have time to stop a while and visit with Miss Bennet, Georgiana, and I have promised her tea. We would not wish her to think us poor hosts, especially on her first visit to us at... erm... Pemberley," Darcy was not entirely certain that this room in the forest, for all it looked like a room in his home, truly constituted a visit to Pemberley, but at least it was on the grounds - he thought. He took Elizabeth by the elbow and steered her towards the tea table.

All of the party were soon jockeying for seats, and it quickly became clear that not everyone was going to be satisfied with their position. Hurst had bypassed the cozy grouping of seats around the table and headed over to a chair by the fireplace at the other end of the room, and Louisa Hurst, who had still not deigned to acknowledge the newcomers, remained seated in her chair by the table. Darcy maneuvered Elizabeth onto one of the sofas, a seat that Caroline had been attempting to secure for herself, and sat down beside her; Caroline then, with unseemly haste, circled around the table to try to gain the chair on Darcy's other side, but Georgiana was there before her. Frustrated, Caroline moved to sit on the sofa directly across the table from Darcy, reasoning that at least if she was not able to sit beside him, she would sit where he could easily see her, more easily, in fact, than if she were seated beside him, for he would not have to turn his head.

Caroline had to check herself before she sat down, however, for the sofa was not entirely unoccupied - lying upon it were the enormous, ridiculous hats that she and Georgiana had discarded with the help of a pair of scissors from a writing desk almost the moment they had entered the room. In a fit of pique, Caroline picked up Georgiana's hat, with its flowers and bows, and hurled it away from her like a discus. It flew through the air in a rather wobbly fashion, the bright ribbons fluttering gaily, until it made contact with the floating wallpaper and became entangled in the hovering vines for a few moments before teetering the rest of the way through the invisible wall. The ungraceful end to the hat's flight robbed Caroline of some of the satisfaction she had felt upon sending the hideous specimen sailing, and she seized up her own hat and unceremoniously dumped it over the back of the sofa, where it at least made a gratifying thud. Not as gratifying, she reflected, as the thud that Eliza Bennet would make if Caroline were able to shove her over the back of the sofa and take her place beside Mr. Darcy, but for the moment that would have to remain a matter of speculation only.

There was an awkward silence in the room for a few moments when everyone was settled. The door to the room opened, and one of the footmen who had been chasing the bread-and-butterflies entered, his net wriggling with its bounty. He wordlessly walked to the table and released all of the fluttering captives, ostensibly onto a tray that lay on the table, but every single one of the bread-and-butterflies, as soon as they were free of the net, took to the air, and flew right out of the room through the open space where the ceiling should have been. The footman evinced no reaction to the escape of his quarry, merely turning and exiting the room. Darcy, suspecting that there would be more peculiarity to witness from his footmen than bread-and-butterfly hunting, watched as the footman and his net-wielding companions did a curious thing. The footman who had entered the parlor approached one of his fellows, and did not stop walking, but collided with the other man, which caused the two to meld into one. He did the same with the next of the footmen, and the next, until, one by one, all of the footmen had become one man. Not finished with the string of peculiar alterations, the remaining footman turned into a gray pony and trotted off into the forest. After all the absurd happenings he had witnessed that evening in the Looking Glass World, all Darcy thought was, 'Why a pony?'

Darcy then turned his attention to his surroundings within the parlor, indulging his curiosity, when he noticed a strangely elegant English sheepdog curled up asleep on a chair against the wall, a slight distance away from the company. The dog's shaggy hair was pulled neatly away from its eyes and wound in a bun at the back of its head, and a lace cap rested atop the curious canine coiffure. A pair of knitting needles with a long, gray scarf trailing from them rested between its front paws; the ball of wool from this project could be seen peeping out of a neat workbag beside the chair.

"What... I mean, who is that?" he asked, checking himself when it occurred to him that based on his other experiences throughout the night, the sheepdog was probably meant to be a person, and likely someone he knew.

"I think it is Mrs. Annesley!" Georgiana whispered. "When I came in she asked me if I had enjoyed my outing, the way Mrs. Annesley always does. But since then she has not said anything at all, except a few barks, so I cannot be positive. Anyway, I have never seen her like this, but I do not suppose that means anything! And, she is sitting in Mrs. Annesley's favorite chair."

To Darcy all of these seemed like very good evidence that the sheepdog was his sister's companion, and he would have said something to the dog but for the fact that she appeared to be sleeping, and that he had no notion what to say. He looked over at Elizabeth, and saw that she was looking around the room, and not attending to the conversation.

"I believe you said you had rung for tea?" Darcy broke the silence again.

"Yes," Georgiana said, and Caroline was about to begin another tirade about having been kept waiting so long when Hurst's voice erupted from the chair at the far end of the room.

"You do not mean to say that you actually want tea, do you Darcy? I thought that was just a euphemism - I thought that we would indulge in a more gentlemanly drink - leave the insipid stuff to the ladies! I want brandy!"

"You may help yourself, of course, Hurst," Darcy replied dismissively, not actually intending to drink either beverage himself, but the bear heaved himself out of the chair with an enormous ursine sigh as he walked over to the sideboard where the drinks tray was sitting.

"But that is just the trouble - I cannot help myself!" the bear whined in a way that was unique to Hurst when he was in want of some form of food or drink and was prevented from having it. "I cannot open the blasted decanter!"

Darcy could not suppress a chuckle as he rose to his feet to go help the poor beast, and Elizabeth reached out and stayed him with a hand.

"Might I have some brandy as well, Mr. Darcy?"

Darcy was surprised and a little intrigued by the request, but the other ladies gave voice to a greater degree of shock. Georgiana reacted with only a dainty, little gasp, but Mrs. Hurst and Caroline vented all their horror at the vulgar, unladylike desire.

"Brandy!" the two sisters exclaimed together.

"Mr. Darcy, you cannot mean to give a lady brandy - and in front of your sister, too! No true lady would drink strong spirits like that," Caroline remonstrated with a sneer at Elizabeth.

"Indeed!" Mrs. Hurst concurred, in the way she always seconded her sister's disparagement of other people's manners and behavior, while Caroline continued on at length in the same vein.

Darcy ignored their outrage and turned his questioning gaze back to Elizabeth.

"It is not for me to drink, exactly," Elizabeth explained. "I did not mention it before, because I meant to get some at the inn when I returned, but brandy is on my list."

As she said this to Darcy in a low voice, Elizabeth pulled the list and her bottle from her reticule, and the sight of the vessel halted Caroline's diatribe in a hissing gasp.

Chapter Twenty-one

Posted on: 2009-10-29

Caroline's horrific suspicions were confirmed; Mr. Darcy had come through the looking glass and met up with Eliza Bennet in order to concoct an antidote to the forgetfulness potion. The two of them were in league against her, and were going to regain their memories together, and then... well, Caroline could not imagine what would happen then. Would they denounce her? Could they do that? Would anyone believe them? And so what if they did? And, as Caroline had been unable to figure out through her whole night of perambulations, how in the world did either of them even know about any of it? If they truly remembered Darcinia, they would not need the antidote, but if they did not remember...

The entire conundrum was beginning to give Caroline a headache. If only she dared to ask them, either of them, what they knew! But it would be a foolish measure, if only because the best recourse for her if Mr. Darcy and Eliza Bennet were aware or became aware of what had happened in Darcinia, would be to allow them to think she knew nothing about it - it would be foolish to let them know that she still remembered the entire affair! Caroline glared at the bottle that Eliza Bennet had placed on the table in front of herself. There was at least one thing Caroline was entirely sure of - whatever was in that bottle could not be brought back through the looking glass. She would have to smash it, and prevent Mr. Darcy and Eliza from ever concocting a new potion.

Darcy, meanwhile, had gone to the sideboard and retrieved the bottle of brandy. Hurst gave a low moan of disappointment when Darcy did not stop to fill a glass for him, but instead brought the bottle over to where Elizabeth was waiting. He happened to glance at his sister before he handed over the bottle, and registered her horrified expression. He hastily thought of an explanation.

"Elizabeth needs the brandy for medicinal purposes," he reassured Georgiana as Elizabeth removed the stoppers from both bottles and poured just a splash of brandy into her elixir. She resealed both decanters and picked hers up, giving the contents a vigorous shake. Everyone in the room, except for Hurst, who was nosing at the glasses on the sideboard, and the still-slumbering sheepdog, watched as the jumbled contents of the bottle swirled around and around in response to Elizabeth's stirring actions.

"I do not know what there is to make such a fuss about, there is nothing wrong with a good bit of brandy. Louisa takes some medicinally before bed on occasion," Hurst drawled in defense of his favorite beverage, much to the consternation of both his wife and his sister-in-law, who evidently felt that that particular bit of information was something that ought not to have been shared with the present company.

"Mr. Hurst!" that gentleman's wife cried with evident embarrassment and exasperation, while her sister glared at the bear in contempt. The rest of the party very politely declined to express their amusement audibly, though Darcy was forced to return to the sideboard with a greater degree of haste than his dignity generally permitted, and if he poured a more than generous draught of brandy for Hurst when he had reached it, no one would have guessed that it was a measure of his thanks for the amusement.

Darcy, of course, could not partake of any brandy himself, and wished for a moment that he had thought to bring a small flask of it with him from his own world. He ruefully acknowledged that he likewise regretted that he would be unable to consume any of the other refreshments when they arrived; his stomach was threatening at any moment to give voice to its feelings of hunger. He thought of the apples in his satchel, but he could not eat them in front of the others without being rude. He chose to distract himself by taking a turn about the room to examine its appointments, hoping fervently that Miss Bingley would not take a notion to join him.

While at first glance this parlor in the woods appeared identical to the one in his Pemberley, closer study of its accouterments revealed curious discrepancies. The figurine of a shepherdess belonging to his mother that should have rested on the mantel was instead a porcelain miniature of a sheep in a shepherdess's dress. A vase of oriental design that sat upon a side table no longer displayed enameled flowers as its motif, but curiously patterned snakes who were each eating either their own or another snake's tail. On the wall, where there should have been a framed watercolor landscape by Georgiana, depicting a famously beautiful view from one of the estate's higher hills, there was instead a drawing of a rather hideous flying, reptilian creature, something like a dragon, but not like any picture of a dragon Darcy had ever seen. It did not seem to have scales, but a smooth, slimy skin, and rows upon rows of needle-sharp teeth. It was a sickly gray color, with large, bulbous eyes.

It was altogether a most unsettling picture, and Darcy wondered why his Looking-Glass self would have such an ugly thing hanging in his home, but then he got to wondering again if perhaps things were so very strange and unlike his own version of the world simply because his Looking Glass self did not exist for the moment, as his entry into that world had caused that particular specter to vanish, according to what Fitzwilliam the centaur's letter had said. He hoped it was so - he hated to think that the image of Pemberley was so distorted, even if he was unable to see more of the Looking Glass version of his home from his world than was reflected in the mirror. Perhaps the absence of a Looking Glass Darcy allowed the will of those such as his Looking Glass Aunt Catherine to pervert the images to their own visions of what should be. Then again, considering how oddly some of his acquaintances were behaving in their Looking Glass incarnations, who could say whether his mirror self might not have some peculiar habits, or tastes - or form. Without a doubt, this Looking Glass World was an intriguingly peculiar place; all the paradoxes it seemed to spawn made his head spin. He wondered how he would be able to go through the whole rest of his life without thinking about it.

This thought led him to a mirror that hung on the wall over the mantel, and he studied the image with great curiosity. It showed the room exactly as it was, with the exception that none of the people - or other creatures therein - were visible. Perhaps, he speculated, when one looked at the image of one's own surroundings in a mirror in the real world, one was not seeing what one thought. Maybe the tendency to look only at oneself when looking in a mirror hid the differences between the worlds, and there may be myriad small differences that could be seen, if one only cared to look.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Darcy muttered to himself.

Darcy then remembered that Fitzwilliam's letter had warned him to avoid mirrors, and so he stepped away, acknowledging, however, that technically, he would be visible in the mirror from most places in the room. However, as he did not seem to have a reflection in that mirror, and he was certain that no one in his real house would be in the green parlor at that time of the night, he did not feel much concern for any consequences.

From the mirror, Darcy's eyes were drawn to the pattern of the wallpaper that hung in the air, and he noticed that it was moving. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, that the moonlight through the trees and the walls themselves created the effect, but a determined examination led to the conclusion that the vines and flowers were swaying and fluttering in the breeze. Moreover, the pattern was not an exact replica of that in his house, in the same way that other things in the room were slightly altered; the delicate foliage that floated there hosted butterflies, and ladybirds, and bumblebees, and, Darcy was startled to witness, a few fairies! At first he thought that the creatures that fed on the nectar of the flowers were real, even the fairies, which he was willing to believe existed in the Looking Glass World, though he would have denied such a belief in the real Derbyshire, but it soon became obvious that they were but two-dimensional images, the same as the flowers they fed on. He knew not why, but he found himself wishing that the wallpaper in his own home sported similar whimsical images.

Continuing to explore the room, Darcy noticed some books upon a table, certainly not unusual in his house, and picked them up to read the titles, which were, of course, printed backwards on the back covers. The titles themselves were odd: Little Pullet, by Charles Duckens, Alice in Wanderland, by Luna Carroll, Northanger Gabby, by Jane Audible. He reflected that it was a great pity he would never know what the odd books were about, and resisted the urge to sit down with one and begin to read. Knowing that there would be little time to delve into it, he could not see starting one only to spend the rest of his life wondering how the story turned out - nothing could be more frustrating to an interested reader. Darcy briefly considered stowing one of the books in his satchel to return to his own world, but somehow he knew that would not be right, and he abandoned all of the volumes with regret.

Darcy's attention was then drawn to two small pictures hung together on the far side of the room, and crossed quickly to look at them; at his Pemberley they would be watercolor miniatures of his parents when they were young and newly married, and he wished to know what had taken their place in this other world. He was strangely relieved to see that his mother and father retained their beloved, familiar features, and was just beginning to find it strange that they should be unaltered, when the difference in the Looking Glass versions of his parents' portraits was revealed as his mother blinked and smiled, and his father spoke!

"Fitzwilliam, how are you my boy?" came the well-loved voice. "You are looking well! And how is your sister? And Pemberley - I hope it continues to thrive under your care - but of course it must, I know you would never disappoint me. And George - how is my godson? Well, speak up, my boy! Always so quiet this one, was he not, my dear?"

Darcy remembered well how his father, a much more gregarious man than his son had turned out to be, would often ask him a whole string of questions without pausing for a reply to any, and then at the end, evince impatience to hear the answers. But when once he gave his son a chance to speak, he would listen with great interest to every word as if he had never heard of anything more brilliant. Darcy felt a lump in his throat and could not quite form an answer. Fortunately, his mother had something to say, a question of her own.

"Fitzwilliam, my dear, who is that lovely young woman who came in with you?"

Even when he was a small boy, Darcy's mother had always been quick to notice the essential details, like a bulge in his coat pocket that hid a stowaway frog, or a bump on his head that he had hoped was hidden by his unruly hair. And now, she had instantly perceived the importance of Miss Elizabeth Bennet in her son's heart.

"Her name is Miss Elizabeth Bennet," Darcy said in a low voice, hoping that none of the others would hear him talking to a picture, just in case it did seem odd to them, though he realized it should not.

"Hmmm... we do not know her, do we?" his father asked, but his mother had a more compelling question.

"And... is she The One?"

Darcy smiled in remembrance of a talk he had had with his mother when he was very young, about why she had married his father. He had asked her most solemnly, not long after a visit by his Aunt Catherine, during which the supposed engagement between himself and his cousin Anne had been much talked about; at least, Lady Catherine had brought it up many times, mostly in reminders to the young boy that his sickly cousin was to be his wife one day, and in remonstrance that he should pay her more attention. When his aunt had gone, young Darcy had asked his mother if he really had to marry Anne, and when she said no, that he would be allowed to choose his own wife, he had wondered aloud how one made such a choice. She had told him that she liked his father because he was kind, and good, and could make her laugh. Over the years, of course, he had come to be taught different things about how to choose a wife, like the importance of family, and fortune, and connections, but deep within him was the memory of his mother telling him that one day he would meet The One, and when he had asked how he would know who The One was when he met her, she had replied, "You will just know - your heart will tell you." (His father had, of course, added that The One had better be a woman of proper standing, and not a housemaid or the daughter of a shopkeeper, and though he had smiled when he said it, Darcy had understood that his father meant what he said).

It was silly advice, he realized when he was older, the kind of advice you give a child, but it had turned out to be true. The memory of his mother's words had stirred during Elizabeth's stay at Netherfield the previous autumn, and by the time he had decided to propose to her in Kent it had managed to overrule all of the other advice he had received on the subject, in his belief that Elizabeth Bennet was The One. If only he had listened to his heart from the beginning, and not allowed all of those arrogant prejudices to rule him!

Darcy sighed. "Yes, Mother, I believe she is. That is, I hope that some day she will feel that I am good and kind enough to deserve her love, though I am afraid I do not make her laugh much." At least, not until that night, he had not, except when she was laughing at his arrogance with disdain.

"The One, eh?" The elder Mr. Darcy in the picture leaned to the side of his frame, and Darcy realized that he was craning to have a look at Elizabeth, and stepped to the side so as to allow his father a better view.

"Say, she is quite lovely! What fine looking grandchildren we shall have, eh, my darling? But what about those others? Are they... good God! Is that my little Georgiana? I did not recognize her when she came in - she had on that ridiculous hat! I hope she does not go about like that all the time - I know nothing about ladies' fashions, but I cannot believe things have gotten so bad since I have been gone!"

Darcy smiled as he looked back at his younger sister. She had been but a girl of eleven when his father had passed away, and only a toddler in the nursery when his mother had gone before him. Darcy looked at his mother's portrait and could see that she had tears in her eyes.

"I am sure she does not remember me," the beautiful lady in the gilt frame said sadly.

"No, I am sorry, she does not, but I have told her all about you, and she is proud to have grown to look so much like you - everyone tells her how beautiful, and kind, and gentle you were, and how much you doted on her. Shall I... shall I call her over?"

Darcy's mother looked decidedly flustered, but his father did not hesitate.

"Yes, of course, son, you must know, surely you must know how we long to see her! Bring her over to see your mother!"

Darcy smiled at his father's eagerness, so like how he had been in life. He would not shout across the room to his sister, however, and excusing himself to his parents, walked back to the group who were still waiting for the tea to be brought. He began to wonder if it was being brought all the way through the woods from the house to this strange, far outpost, and surmised that it would be quite cold by the time it arrived. He hoped that Elizabeth's potion did not require hot tea in order to be effective.

The party gathered around the tea table was not a merry one, though no one could have expected them to be. At least three among them (for Hurst could not be counted, as he was presently curled up in a ball asleep under the sideboard where the brandy was, his empty glass stuck on his snout and muffling his snores) had been in company before without deriving much pleasure from the experience, and in fact, Miss Bingley's feelings toward Elizabeth had been nothing short of hostile at that time, and seeing her again in Derbyshire, and the circumstances under which they had been thrust together again, did not decrease her hostility one iota.

Georgiana, of course, was aware of Miss Bingley's jealousy of her new friend, but never having heard of the adventures in Darcinia, naturally, she could have no notion of the dangerousness of Miss Bingley's feelings. She was, therefore, rather cowed by the glares Miss Bingley was shooting across the table at the seemingly unconcerned Miss Bennet, and eventually Georgiana was discouraged from pursuing any conversation with the latter by the quelling remarks of the former. It was challenge enough for the shy, reserved Georgiana to think of anything to say to a relative stranger, no matter how interesting that stranger might be - and none could be more interesting to her than Miss Elizabeth Bennet. But each time she managed to ask a question, and Miss Bennet vouchsafed an answer, Miss Bingley would make some contemptuous remark, which would be laughed at by her simpering sister, and the topic would die an early death. Georgiana could tell that Miss Bennet was not intimidated by her putative rival, and she had been beginning to feel that evening that she was gaining some strength against her herself, but somehow in that strangely unfamiliar familiar setting of the drawing room, Miss Bingley appeared to gain power, and Georgiana felt paralyzed under it. Even when Miss Bennet made attempts to draw Georgiana out, attempts which pleased and flattered the younger woman, though they made her feel a trifle self-conscious, Miss Bingley would jump in with her own observations before Georgiana had a chance to speak for herself, and left her feeling helpless and speechless every time. In the end, Miss Bennet seemed to see Georgiana's suffering and very sympathetically ceased her own efforts at conversation, picking up a book instead.

Thus it was a very quiet group that Mr. Darcy found when he approached. He quickly saw his sister's pained and anxious expression, Miss Bennet's quiet annoyance, Miss Bingley's hostile glares, and Mrs. Hurst's wicked satisfaction, and understood how it was. Though acknowledging that it made little difference as these were but the Looking Glass versions of the women, Darcy regretted having left the two he loved in the presence of the sneering sisters, and thought longingly of a day when Miss Bingley would no longer have the power to unsettle either of them. That day, of course, would only be the day he and Elizabeth exchanged vows to have and to hold, from that day forward, which would end Miss Bingley's pretensions to his favor, and give Elizabeth the right to exclude her forever from Pemberley if she so wished - and that would be a power over Miss Bingley, indeed.

In spite of the tension in the room, Darcy smiled at the thought that during their adventure in Darcinia, he and Elizabeth had married. The knowledge of that would cause Miss Bingley a pang, he did not doubt. He wondered briefly if he should make Miss Bingley take a dose of his memory restorative when it was finished, so that she could be punished by the memories of her shame and his defense of Elizabeth against her evil machinations, not to mention their Darcinian wedding, but he decided that anything that might make Miss Bingley more unpleasant to Elizabeth would be a decided disadvantage in his attempt to win the heart and hand of the woman he loved, and so dismissed the suggestion as too dangerous. He was almost ashamed of the vindictive impulse. Moreover, he realized that Miss Bingley would very likely not feel a bit ashamed of her own actions in Darcinia in any case.

Seeing the unease around the tea table, Darcy was happy to have the means to remove Georgiana from the situation for the present, her look of strain rather painful to him, and so he smiled at her and asked her to come and look at the pictures at the other end of the room. Miss Bingley, however, nearly ruined their discreet withdrawal together.

"Oh, is there something special about those pictures over there, Mr. Darcy? I remember from having been here before how impressive your collection of art is, and I would love to learn all about whatever treasures Pemberley holds! Do let me join you!"

Darcy managed to convey to Miss Bingley with a look that she should resume her seat, from which she had risen with alacrity as soon as Mr. Darcy had requested that Georgiana accompany him, bumping the tea table with her leg in the process of standing. Miss Bingley managed to jostle the table again as she sat, and Darcy found her uncharacteristic clumsiness suspicious when her eyes quickly darted to Elizabeth's bottle, which remained on the table, no doubt waiting for the tea to be added before Elizabeth put it away in her reticule. Evidently Miss Bingley knew the nature of the elixir Elizabeth was trying to create, and had some reason for not wanting Elizabeth to complete it. The curiosity to know what the bottle contained was exquisite, and Darcy had to force his attention away from the strange mixture and back to his sister. Smiling down at her, he offered his arm and led her to their parents.

Darcy was intrigued by Georgiana's surprised reaction to the pictures. She appeared to be shocked to discover that they could move and speak. Perhaps such a phenomenon was unusual even for the Looking Glass World? Darcy had no way of knowing, not having explored the inside of his house when he had arrived, but the other pictures in the room, of the strange flying monster, for example, did not have that ability. Surprise aside, Darcy could see that Georgiana was somewhat overpowered by the opportunity to speak to her parents once again, particularly her long-lost mother. He was wavering over whether to stay with her or leave them alone, when his mother, likely knowing that he had a tendency to answer for his younger sister when she was feeling most reticent, asked him to give them some time with Georgiana alone. A look from his sister reassured him that it would be well, and Darcy retreated, more than a little reluctantly, to the tea table.

As he made his way across the carpets, which he now noticed did not have the expected floral pattern, but moving designs of goldfish that wiggled and splashed, and darted away from his feet as he tread upon the plush surface, Darcy's eye was caught by a small table next to the wall that held a chess set. On a whim he picked up the board and carried it to the tea table. Setting it down in front of Elizabeth, just beside her bottle of potion, he asked her, with little hope of a positive response, if she played.

"I do," was the unexpected but welcome reply, and they agreed to pass the time with a game. They chose sides, as Miss Bingley made some acerbic remarks, seconded by her sister, about ladies who played gentlemen's games, and Darcy, who was playing the white pieces, made his opening. It was not long before Elizabeth had captured the first of his pawns, which he had willingly sacrificed to strategy, but before Elizabeth could pick up the conquered token, her knight, which she had moved to the contested square, suddenly began to move of its own accord. It transformed from a carved soapstone horse's head into a small figure of a knight in armor upon a steed, armed with a lance. At the same time, the pawn also began to contort into a new shape, and became a tiny, tunic-clad youth, whom the knight poked rather viciously with the lance. The pawn yelped and scurried off the board where he sat down by Elizabeth's side of the board in a sulky heap before transforming once again into the shape of a pawn. The victorious knight raised his fist in the air in a show of triumph, though there had been very little to the fight, if such it could even be called, and then he, too, transformed back into his carved stone form.

Darcy and Elizabeth looked at each other in astonishment. Clearly, neither had expected this aspect of the game. Caroline Bingley voiced her disgust at the vulgar display, and Darcy forced Elizabeth to stifle a giggle by showing his opinion of Miss Bingley's sentiments by an exaggerated rolling of his eyes. He enjoyed the feeling of camaraderie with Elizabeth, and feared that his delight in being allowed to enjoy her companionship in a way he had been wishing for since April might put him at a disadvantage in the game. He sighed contentedly and made his next move... on the board.

Before they had a chance to see if skirmishes between higher-ranking pieces would be so benign, the game was interrupted by a muffled buzzing sound, followed by the opening of the door. At first it appeared that a tea tray was making its own way into the room, floating on the air, but as it came closer the source of the noise and the tray's means of propulsion were revealed all at once as a swarm of bees that covered the handles and lined the circumference of the tray, and supported it from underneath as well, hundreds of tiny wings furiously vibrating to keep it aloft. Following close behind was another bee, an enormous one, about the size of a man's fist, and its insistent buzzing seemed directed at the rest of the swarm; Darcy knew instinctively that this must be his housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds. He smiled to see her, directing her staff as skillfully and firmly as she ever had in human form. At any rate, the delay in the arrival of the tray was now explained - the bees could not have carried their burden at any great speed.

As the bees maneuvered the tray over the table, Darcy hastily removed the chess board to a side table, narrowly avoiding disaster for the eliminated pawn who rapidly transformed into his human state and leapt after it, only to find himself clinging to the edge, his little legs flailing helplessly, until Elizabeth gently flipped him onto the board where he scurried to the middle and became a pawn again.

The bees' well-choreographed technique of gradually lowering the tray to the table as those underneath withdrew to avoid being crushed, was a sight to behold, especially as Darcy had to restrain himself from lending a helping hand, not seeing a way to grasp the tray without crushing any of the insects or perhaps being stung himself. He was left feeling oddly proud of the staff of his household. Only when they had successfully deposited their burden on the table and gave a curious impression of curtseying in the air did Darcy notice that the bees were not striped in black and yellow, but in the green and gray that were the colors of the Darcy livery, and each wore a little, tiny maid's cap.

When the bees withdrew, Darcy noticed that Caroline Bingley was frozen with terror in her seat. Miss Bingley, he surmised, was afraid of bees. Darcy wished he could feel compassion for her, but all he felt was relief that in her current state she was unable to make disparaging remarks about being her tea being so long in coming, and being brought by insects.

The giant bee that he took for Mrs. Reynolds hovered in front of him for a few moments, buzzing what he assumed was an apology for the delay, and a query as to any further requests; when he assured her it was no trouble, and intimated that nothing else was required, and thanked her by name, she, too, made an aerobatic curtsey and buzzed her way out of the room.

Georgiana came to join the group around the table, and the glow of happiness that lit up her features caused Darcy's heart to leap in his chest when she caught his eye and smiled. And yet, it saddened him a little to know that he could not provide the same comforting experience to his sister in the real world.

Caroline Bingley finally revived from her stupor in time to offer, in her most supercilious tones, to do the honor of pouring out the tea.

"I believe I know how you like it, Mr. Darcy, with cream and two lumps of sugar?"

"I do not like cream," Darcy answered blandly, and Georgiana, in a Darcyishly frosty manner that again did her brother proud, assured her guest that she was perfectly capable of performing the office herself. Darcy could not but notice that he was not the only one among them who had to hide a laugh at Miss Bingley's sour expression in response to their rebuffs, and it only made him love Elizabeth the more to know they, occasionally at least, found humor in the same things.

Darcy, of course, declined taking any refreshment, earning him a puzzled look from his sister, and he noticed that Elizabeth, though looking longingly at the offerings, declined to take anything either, aside from asking for a cup of tea without cream or sugar. She did, however, accept lemon, and when she received her cup by the hand of her very gracious hostess, she carefully poured a small amount of tea into her bottle, and returned the cup to the table without any move to drink it. She gave Darcy a quick look.

"Lemon is optional," Elizabeth explained.

Georgiana, meanwhile, finished distributing cups of tea to the others, including Hurst, who had woken from his nap under the table when the tea tray was brought in, and shuffled over to the table to partake of the food and drink offered. At a loss how to serve him, Georgiana finally decided to make up a plate and cup for him and place them on the floor, to which he offered no objection, but he glanced expectantly at his plate, and then looked somewhat pitifully at Georgiana.

"What about the red herring? I always love a good bit of red herring," Hurst whined, his eyes wandering to a covered dish on the tea tray that, following his eyes, Georgiana was startled to see. She had not noticed it before, and would have sworn that it had not been there at all, but no one else seemed to notice that a new dish had suddenly appeared on the tea tray. Georgiana lifted the cover and saw that it did, indeed, contain a goodly pile of red herring. It did not look appealing to Georgiana as an accompaniment to tea, and no one else seemed to want any, so she set the entire dish on the floor next to the plate she had already prepared for the Hurst bear. He grunted in satisfaction, saying nothing else, and set to devouring the repast immediately. Georgiana was forced to avert her gaze, ursine table manners not being conducive to retaining one's appetite. She brought a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits to Mrs. Annesley, who had likewise awakened, and set them down on the table beside the dog.

When everyone else who wished for refreshments had been served - Mrs. Hurst piling her plate with inordinate numbers of crumpets - Georgiana made herself a cup of tea, and, taking a plate, surveyed the delicacies that were heaped upon the tray. All the usual accompaniments to tea were there, along with a plate of curious cakes. They were little rectangles of varying shapes and sizes, iced in white with one word written on each in black sugar; they were arranged to form a sentence: 'If poetry be the food of love, eat some.'

Curious, and somehow unable to resist the suggestion, Georgiana picked up the little cake with the word 'poetry' on it and took a bite. It was very dry, though it had a sickly sweet, fruity filling. She swallowed it and washed it down with a sip of tea, and immediately began to feel lightheaded. Just at that moment she heard her brother ask Miss Bennet what she had been reading, and, with an inexplicable laugh, Miss Bennet had told him it was a book of poetry she had found on the side table - A Selection of Ornithological Verses by Quilliam Cawper.

Almost as if she could not help it, and feeling as if the words were bubbling up from deep inside her to escape from her mouth, Georgiana surprised herself and the others gathered around the table by announcing very loudly, "I know a poem."

Polite, if bemused murmurs from her companions followed, and again Georgiana felt herself forced to speak. "Would you like to hear it?"

Her audience could not but accept her offer, though they did so with some amazement, and Georgiana felt herself rising to her feet, quite against her will. Mrs. Annesley paused while daintily lapping tea from her cup, and quietly reminded her to breathe deeply and enunciate. Georgiana clasped her trembling hands together in front of her, took a deep breath, and began.

"YOU ARE IN LOVE, BROTHER FITZWILLIAM - a poem by Erato de Amour."

A few gasps followed the announcement of her poem's name, which she had never heard of herself, and then the words poured out of her, more to her own wonderment than anyone else's.

Georgiana concluded this startling recitation with a hiccup, which seemed to bring her out of the sort of trance she had been lying under, and she colored a deep red, and hastily took her seat, unable to raise her eyes to encounter the looks of her audience, who seemed equally nonplussed.

"Very nice, Miss Darcy," Mrs. Annesley said, and promptly nodded off to sleep again.

The Hurst bear chuckled, and Georgiana could have sworn she heard him mutter under his breath, "Thought no one noticed, eh, Darcy?" before shuffling over to the table and seizing the plate of crumpets in his teeth, and then carrying them off to his lair under the drinks table again.

The rest of the listeners applauded politely, and Georgiana risked a quick glance around the table. Miss Bennet was blushing, and concentrating mightily on her hands in her lap. Her brother was looking at Miss Bennet with a peculiar expression on his face, a look his sister had never seen before. Mrs. Hurst had the vacant look on her face that said she had not actually been listening, a look that Georgiana was all too familiar with. Caroline Bingley's aspect, however, was frightening. She had turned an inhuman shade of red, and, to Georgiana's immense shock, actually had steam coming out of her ears. Staring at her wide-eyed, Georgiana was further alarmed to see that Miss Bingley's hair, which appeared to have turned an unnatural shade of orange, was quite literally inflamed.