Amanda Grange - Mr. Darcy, Vampyre

‘The carriage stopped in front of the house and a woman climbed out. She was splendidly dressed, evidently a woman of rank and fashion, and she was accompanied by a thin and sickly little girl. She was soon lost to view as she walked under the portico and I knew she was entering the house. I was filled with panic. I darted towards the door, meaning to go upstairs and protect Georgiana, but there were voices in the hall and so I hid behind the sofa, hoping the woman would not come into the room. But I was not quick enough and she saw me.

‘“Well, well, what do we have here?” she asked, coming into the room.

‘If I had been alone I would have run, but Georgiana was upstairs and so I could not leave. I stood up and told the woman that I didn’t mean any harm. I said that I had sheltered in the house for a night and that I was moving on.

‘“Are you alone?” she asked me.

‘I said that I was, but my eyes betrayed me and she followed their direction upstairs. Catching hold of my wrist she swept through the hall, up the stairs, and along the landing, taking me with her, whilst the pale girl followed close behind. She had no need to ask where my sister was, for Georgiana’s moans could by now be heard.

‘The woman went into Georgiana’s room and, taking one look at her as she tossed and turned on the bed, saw that her end was near. I expected the woman pull back, but instead she stayed where she was, and she made no move to stop her daughter from going over to Georgiana and holding her hand. Georgiana stopped tossing and turning at once and she opened her eyes and gave a weak smile. There was an instant connection between the two girls.

‘“Here, you can hold Evelina,” the pale girl said to my sister, handing her her doll.

‘I expected the woman to snatch the doll back, for people were terrified of contagion in those times, but she made no move to do so, and when I looked at her I saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘She blinked them back quickly and her manner became brisk.

‘“Do you want me to save your sister?” she asked. “I can save her life if you will it.”

‘“Are you a doctor?” I asked her.

‘“No,” she said. “I am a vampyre.”

‘I thought of all the stories I had heard but I was not afraid. I had seen the way she looked at her daughter. It was the way my mother had looked at Georgiana.

‘“If you save her, will she become a vampyre too?” I asked.

‘“She will. But you must hurry, her time is short. If you leave it too long, I will not be able to save her. No one will.”

‘I turned to my sister.

‘“Georgie,” I said. “This lady can save you, but you will become like her if she does. You will become a vampyre.”

‘Georgiana had heard the stories as well as I had. She looked at the woman apprehensively, then she looked at the girl.

‘“Are you a vampyre?” she asked.

‘“Yes,” said the girl.

‘My sister turned to me and nodded.

‘“Very well,” I said to the woman. “But only if you will turn me too.”

‘She looked at me closely.

‘“You are not showing any signs of the plague,” she said.

‘“Where Georgiana goes, I must follow. I promised my mother I would keep her safe, and I can’t do that if she lives whilst I grow old and die.”

‘“Then my Anne will have two playmates instead of one,” she said, adding thoughtfully, whilst she looked at me, “and in time, perhaps, who knows?”

‘She moved so quickly there was only a blur and then there were puncture marks on my sister’s neck. The woman turned to me, her fangs dripping red and then she was next to me and my neck was pierced.’

‘So that is the meaning of the scars on your neck,’ said Elizabeth in wonder. ‘I saw them when we swam in the lake.’

‘It is. They have never healed—though they are usually hidden beneath my cravat—and they never will.’

Darcy fell silent. His face was shadowed and Elizabeth sat and watched him, his handsome features brooding in the dim light, his eyes mysterious. She thought of all the things he must have seen in his centuries of living: the rise and fall of nations, and the lives and deaths of kings. She thought of him living at Pemberley down the centuries, and she wondered how it was that no one had noticed his long life.

Seeing her watching him, his hand reached out to her across the table and then drew back.

‘I have no right to touch you,’ he said.

‘You have every right. You are my husband.’

‘Still?’

‘Yes, still. I love you, Darcy, nothing can ever change that.’

Her hand closed over his own. He took it gratefully and returned her pressure.

‘But you are not eating,’ he said.

It was true. She had finished her savoury plate of meat and vegetables, and it lay empty before her. He stood up and went over to the wall where he pulled a bell rope then returned to the table.

‘You have not finished your meal,’ she said, looking at his plate.

He hesitated.

‘No,’ he said.

‘Do you eat? Or do you eat… other things?’ she asked with a shudder.

‘No, never that,’ he said, reading her mind. ‘We have a choice of what we eat. There are those who prey on humans but Georgiana and I have never done so; we slake our thirsts in other ways.’

Something Elizabeth had heard in Venice came back to her. She remembered Sophia saying, ‘The glory, it has passed, the great days, they have gone. There is no place in the world now for our kind, not unless we will take it, and take it with much blood. There are those who will do so, but me, I find I love my fellow man too much and I cannot end his life, not even to restore what has been lost. But without great ruthlessness, glory fades and strength is gone.’

She had thought that Sophia was talking about the fall of Venice and the plotting of a few to overthrow the French with bloodshed, but now she understood.

‘Sophia was a vampyre,’ she said, ‘wasn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ said Darcy.

‘And the other people I met in Venice?’

‘Many of them, yes.’

‘So that is why they wanted to hold a costume ball; it reminded them of their own pasts—and their own youth?’

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth thought of the beautiful clothes. They had not been handed down through the generations as she had supposed; they had been kept by their original owners.

‘And that is how you knew the steps to the galliard,’ she said. ‘You had danced it before. And Sophia, like you, chose not to hunt humans.’

‘All my friends, all my vampyre friends, have made the same choice. Only those who choose to turn for evil purposes, or those who are turned by a malignant vampyre against their will, hunt humans,’ he said.

‘Malignant vampyres,’ said Elizabeth with a shudder as she remembered her ordeal. ‘Who was the vampyre in the forest?’

‘As to who he is, no one knows. He is one of the oldest of us, an Ancient, but how he was made we do not know.’

‘Do you think he will find us here?’

‘I hope not. We are well hidden, and he does not know I own this lodge. Besides, he has been hurt. He will go underground now to recover and will likely not emerge for many years.’

‘So long?’

‘To a vampyre, a year is nothing,’ he said.

The door opened and the servants returned. Their soft footfalls were almost silent on the thick carpet as they cleared the plates.

‘Some fruit and cheese,’ said Darcy to them, ‘and anything else you have which might tempt my wife.’

They soon returned with a platter of bread and cheese and several bunches of grapes. They set the food close to Elizabeth and with it a clean plate, moving respectfully all the while. She took one of the grapes, pulling it from the bunch and putting it into her mouth.