Carrie Bebris - Pride and Prescience

Forty thousand pounds! — and the remaining Kendall estate not entailed away on some distant male heir, as Longbourn was. Elizabeth could scarcely comprehend the ability to bring that kind of fortune to a marriage. Yet it hadn’t aided Miss Kendall’s courtship with Frederick Parrish; Miss Bingley’s settlement was half that sum, and carried no promise of future inheritance. With such wealth at stake, what had led Parrish to abruptly drop his addresses to Juliet? Had the charms of his “dear Caroline” distracted him entirely from worldly gain? If so, his devotion to Miss Bingley must be great indeed.

The soup course was nearing its end; Elizabeth would soon be obliged to direct her attention toward Professor Randolph. “And what of my husband and me?” she asked Lord Chatfield as the footmen removed their bowls. “What ingredient do we add to your conversational stew?”

“My dear lady, you were invited simply because we enjoy Darcy’s company and wanted to become better acquainted with his wife.”

The fish course was served. Elizabeth tasted the whitebait à la diable, wondered hopefully whether her mother was correct in her conjecture that Darcy employed French cooks at Pemberley, and turned to Professor Randolph. He looked young for a scholar, perhaps three-and-thirty, and in robust health. For some reason Elizabeth always pictured academic men as old and doddering, with mortarboards permanently affixed to their heads.

“I went my whole life without encountering an American, and now you’re the second I’ve met this week,” she said. “I hope we haven’t suffered an invasion while my attention was focused on more domestic matters?”

The archeologist adjusted his spectacles. “No invasion,” he responded, “but the state of war between our countries has certainly made it harder for those of us in England to travel home. British seas are no place to speak with an American accent right now.”

She regretted having spoken so lightly on such a serious matter. “I imagine not,” she said more soberly. “Have you been here long?”

Fortunately, he did not appear to have taken her previous tone amiss. “About a year,” he said. “I’d originally planned to stay only through summer, but that, of course, is when the declaration of war came. So here I remain.”

“I hope your extended visit hasn’t proven too inconvenient. What brought you to England in the first place?”

Randolph withdrew a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiped a smudge off his spectacles. In the drawing room, Elizabeth had noted that his clothes, though not shabby, betrayed signs of wear and were several years out of fashion. But upon closer view, she believed they had never been in fashion — at least, not on this side of the Atlantic. The professor’s costume included an extraordinary number of pockets. It was not unusual for gentlemen to have breast or tail pockets in their coats, or fob pockets in their waistcoats. But in addition to these, Randolph’s loose-fitting trousers appeared to have at least two pockets of their own, and the unusual cut of his waistcoat hinted at another two pockets on his shirtfront. She wondered if all the pockets reflected American style, his own taste, or an overzealous tailor.

“I accompanied a friend who sought a traveling companion.” He replaced both spectacles and handkerchief. “I’ve also been conducting business of my own — seeking a new post and offering a series of lectures related to a display at the British Museum. It contains numerous artifacts from my private collection.”

Elizabeth recalled the gallery she and Darcy had had to themselves the afternoon before. “Just yesterday my husband and I saw a collection of New World antiquities there. Is that the one?”

“Indeed, it is.” His face brightened. “The museum curator told me they might close the display due to lack of interest. I’m delighted that you saw it. Did you find it worthwhile?”

She nodded. “Highly intriguing, particularly the ‘mysterious articles.’ Are those yours, too?”

“Yes. In fact, I specialize in the study of supernatural objects.”

Though she’d found their conversation pleasant to this point, she now regarded him with heightened interest. Perhaps this man could answer some of the questions her quarrel with Darcy had raised. “There are enough such things in the world to make a specialty of analyzing them?”

“Mrs. Darcy, every culture in history has believed in some sort of magic. Rain dances, ghosts, second sight, miracles. How many tales of enchantment and wondrous items appear in your English literature and folklore, let alone throughout the world? I but follow the tradition of Arthur’s knights, searching the earth for holy grails.”

“Do you believe these items truly hold power, or do you study them only as curiosities?”

He sipped a long draught of wine and set the glass down slowly. “In itself, the fact that their creators and owners believed in their power makes them worthy of study,” he said at last. “Familiarity with a culture’s beliefs enables historians to better understand the people as a whole.”

Randolph hadn’t really answered her question. But she hesitated to press the subject, afraid of sounding naïve to the scholar.

He withdrew his pocketwatch to check the hour. The silver timepiece was round and perhaps two and a half inches in diameter. An engraved star adorned the front of the case; a circle connected its five points. As he clicked open the case, she noted some strange characters inscribed inside. They resembled letters, but not from any alphabet she’d ever seen.

“Runes,” he said, noting her curious expression. “Characters from ancient times.”

The watch reminded her of some of the items she’d seen that morning. “Is that one of your archeological finds?”

“No.” He flipped the case shut and returned the watch to his fob pocket. “Nothing so valuable. Merely something I had commissioned for myself.”

She wanted to ask what the runes meant, but sensed he preferred to end the subject. “I confess, I’ve never heard of your pursuit as an academic discipline,” she said instead. “Is it a common field of study?”

“Unfortunately, the universities at which I’ve taught regard my focus as eccentric at best. In fact, one of them even housed me with physicians studying madness instead of with other historians or scientists.” He chuckled. “Perhaps someone thought I needed their services.”

“You’ve taught at more than one university?”

“The strength of my more mundane scholarship persuades institutions to hire me on and finance my expeditions, which turn up more ordinary treasures than mystical items. But in the long term, conservative governing boards are reluctant to grant permanent positions to someone with ‘strange’ interests. So I seem to have fallen into a cycle of joining a new faculty, lecturing for a time, embarking on a university-sponsored expedition, and returning to find that the school wants only the artifacts I’ve unearthed — not me. While here, I’d hoped Oxford or Cambridge might offer me a post, but so far my work has been greeted with the usual skepticism.”

She glanced down the long table to Darcy, who appeared trapped with the duchess in the polite but empty small talk he dreaded. Remembering her husband’s response to the museum display, Elizabeth could hardly be surprised that stately academic institutions placed Randolph’s studies on the fringes of respectability. Yet surely she was not the only person in all England to find his field of study intriguing. “Have you considered soliciting private patronage?”

He nodded. “I find, however, that without the association of a college to lend my work legitimacy, many potential patrons are more interested in speculation than in scientific inquiry. They seek financial gain, not enlightenment, and expect me to unearth some magical treasure that will make them rich. One exception has been Mr. Frederick Parrish, who sponsored my trip to London purely out of friendship.”