by Jemma Thorne
The pendulum began to move, tracing a line that moved outward toward my wrist and back. I strengthened my focus, and the arc expanded. When I faltered, so did the crystal.
“So now you know what to expect with this pendulum. When you encounter oddities, you may ask whatever entities occupy the space simple yes and no questions, and let them answer through the pendulum. Beware your phrasing; spirits don’t always like our questions.”
Jane and I looked at each other. What she was thinking I do not know, but for myself, I was eager to go, to experiment with this new tool. The possibility of communicating with the spirits? I could think of nothing else, now.
Leticia sat again in her chair before the fire. “Now, to the news that has filled every mother in Meryton with unencumbered glee this day. A single gentleman of means will soon be occupying the very place you were intruding upon last night. How are you to account for that?”
I grinned. “The only way is to go again before it is occupied. Soon.”
Jane’s eyes grew wide and she planted her feet as if we would try to move her physically. “I will not.”
“Fine with me,” I answered. I could handle this on my own. “We are already part of the way there. I will go once again to Netherfield after we leave here.”
“Alone?” she demanded. “You are insane.”
Leticia chuckled. “I see little harm to come of it, Jane. And I have the sight, like you. Only mine is not clouded in this case.”
Jane grimaced, which was as good as an admission that her sight was indeed clouded by her concern for me.
“Don’t worry, Jane. All will be well. I will go tonight, and prove that there is no such thing as the Netherfield phantom.”
Leticia smiled a knowing smile, picked up her knitting and resumed rocking in front of her fire.
Chapter 2
For all my bravery with Jane, it was not easy to walk down the small road to Netherfield alone at night. But for the moon I would have been completely without my vision. Even with it the shadows took more than the light revealed.
This road wound around to the mansion’s drive, and I made the spontaneous decision to take a shortcut through a small copse of woods that stood between me and the house—the faster I could get there, the faster I could get home. My feet were already tired, and I had more than three miles left to walk tonight.
Jane had not left me without copious admonitions to guard my own wellbeing beyond any worry over whatever was inside Netherfield.
I remained unconvinced that it was a whatever and was instead focused on the question of whomever.
A loud crack in the woods off to my left startled me and I stopped mid-step. I strained toward the sound as if I could will it to happen again. A smaller crackle in the same vicinity confirmed my suspicion; someone was there.
Someone, I thought with satisfaction. Ghosts didn’t snap branches underfoot.
Biting my lip, for the course of action I was bent on was risky even for me, I moved toward the sound. I took my time, carefully stepping between the branches littering the ground.
Before I’d taken many steps at all I saw a flickering light through the trees. I crept on. The sound of heavy breathing and rhythmic strikes of...something...filtered through the trees from the place I approached.
A movement startled me and I stopped, my heart hammering in my chest.
Two men were outlined in the light up ahead, moving beyond the sparse trees I’d been slowly approaching.
Suddenly I wished for more cover. They probably couldn’t see me. I was a dozen paces from them. They were close to that lamplight and the only illumination around me was moonlight. But a large rock to hide behind would have been welcome.
They were digging. I could tell that much from their movements, and it explained the rhythmic sound I’d noted moments ago.
“Deep enough,” one of them growled, tossing his shovel with a sudden thud. The lamplight faltered and his shadow moved menacingly.
Was he coming for me?
I choked on my scream—I could not make the sound. I could not.
I pressed a hand over my mouth, my racing heart too loud in my own ears. Surely they could hear it even from there.
“Bring the body here,” he said.
The body?
That was all I needed to hear. I took a step back, preparing to flee. My heel came down on a thin branch that I felt under my foot a split second before it cracked with the loudest snap I’d ever heard.
Both of their shadow heads whipped in my direction and the whole night went silent.
I dared not move a muscle. I dared not let the whimper growing in my throat escape its confines.
“You hear that?” said the other man—the one who hadn’t spoken yet.
They both waited for another sound and when it didn’t come the first one said, “A deer or somewhat. Come on now, I’d like some sleep tonight, if you please.”
“If I please? This is your errand Bertram. If I didn’t agree to help you, why, you’d be found out, you would.”
“What do you mean, found out?” The one called Bertram’s tone was cutting. “You want to join him in this hole, John?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the other, meeker one stuttered. But he bent and began to work a large, bound shape toward the spot where they’d been digging.
Toward the grave.
I remained stock still. They finished their work, but it took a bit. The entire time I cursed my own stupidity.
Jane was right. This was one risk I shouldn’t have taken. I would even admit it to her if I made it home with my skin intact.
* * *
I did make it home by the wee hours, after waiting out the murderous duo Bertram and John. Or at least, I was certain Bertram was a murderer. It seemed John might just be an accomplice, coerced into helping Bertram hide the body.
Either way, I was much worse for the wear the next morning, when Jane woke me without any pity at all and dared me with her eyes to make any acknowledgement of my exhaustion so that she could bring out the reason in front of Mother.
I would not, neither for her satisfaction nor to give her a reason to expose us.
A part of Jane wanted to be caught. I did not.
It was early afternoon before I had a chance to speak with Jane outside the hearing of either of our parents. Jane shivered when I told her about the previous night. Straightaway we went to the Netherfield woods, trusting daylight to protect us should the nefarious pair still be about.
“Are you sure this is where you entered the woods?” Jane asked tiredly. “Maybe we’re in the wrong place entirely.”
“There’s only so much to this patch of woods, Jane—it can’t be far.”
But we trudged this way and that way, and all for naught. We couldn’t find an inch disturbed by shovel, much less enough earth to cover a grave.
“Jane, I know what I saw. Two men, and one of them stated very clearly that it was a body they were dealing with.”
Jane assessed the position of the sun without speaking.
“I know. We must return home,” I lamented.
“Even if they were burying a body, Lizzy, it doesn’t help us with what’s going on inside Netherfield Park. I feel nothing in these woods that reminds me of what I felt in that hallway.”
“So you don’t think the two are connected?”
“It’s certainly odd, but we have no way to be certain that they are connected.”
It was a frustrating place to stick, but unavoidable. We had no more chances to investigate Netherfield while the place was unoccupied—Bingley’s servants arrived two days later, followed by the man himself.
Mother was sure to be distracted with such an eligible, and rich, man around. That would suit us well in terms of the anonymity of our activities, but for now it meant preparing to meet and entertain such a man.
It happened we would meet him at the village assembly, and by that day all the women in the neighborhood were employed with similar distractio
ns to ours, and a vigor filled the place that had not been seen in some time.
A vigor with one purpose. It was a race to see some daughter of the village married to Mr. Charles Bingley, and every mother wanted her daughter to be that fortunate girl.
Assemblies were all that a gentleman’s daughter could want of distraction. Rumors would fly soft and bright through the countryside for many a night after as the women of Meryton discussed dancing partners, frequencies of dances, and what everyone had been wearing.
While I had other matters to occupy my mind and the silliness of my younger sisters and mother often drove me to distraction, there was something about a dance that made my heart brighten as it did any girl’s.
On this particular evening the wind blew mightily, and a flustered bunch we were when we entered the hall. But once everyone had given themselves a good smoothing over, and someone had deigned to start the music, the dance began in its usual fervor.
Not two dances into the fete, the party of Mr. Charles Bingley arrived. All the girls worked at looking nonchalant as the party entered, and over the course of the hour the esteemed gentleman and his party were introduced around. While the rumors had stated it would be a party of many, in fact, Mr. Bingley was accompanied only by his two sisters, Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, one brother-in-law called Mr. Hurst, and a glowering friend by the name of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
A new piece of gossip soon made its way around the room, carried by the swirling motion of the dance. It regarded the fortune of Mr. Bingley’s friend, which apparently exceeded Bingley’s own fortune by a good degree.
Bingley was a gentleman in every sense of the word. He took several partners in the dance, and conversed with everyone with a gregarious humor. His party was not as outgoing as he; in fact it looked as if they disdained the evening’s company entirely.
My sisters and I spoke with Mr. Bingley’s sisters—it was my best hope of gaining more information on the inner workings of Netherfield Park.
For her part, Mrs. Hurst found the place charming, if secluded. But I got the sense this was partly due to a comparison of her husband’s income and her brother’s. Her husband seemed quite useless, with an overdeveloped taste for wine.
“You may think it charming, but you are not required to manage the house, Mrs. Hurst. I find it overlarge, with shadowy corners that raise a dread in me that I can’t explain.” Miss Bingley’s words sent a tingle of apprehension through me that raised goose bumps.
“Do you often have such reactions to houses?” I asked.
“Oh, no. I’m no alarmist. I have quite a level head, normally. But something about Netherfield...there is a room in particular that I do not like to enter. Too bad, for it might be thought the best room in the house. None of us lives there, though.” Caroline Bingley shivered. “Let’s talk of something else, shall we?”
The others had nothing interesting to add on the subject. I had an inkling that the room she spoke of was the same second-floor room we’d entered that first night. The one that made Jane dig in her heels and insist on getting as far from Netherfield as possible.
Still, it was just conjecture. I happened to have witnessed a credible, nefarious deed on my last visit to that property. It was far more likely that human activities were behind the rumors of a Netherfield haunting than actual spirits.
Wasn’t it?
And so the evening went, with far too much interest on the part of Meryton’s residents toward Netherfield’s latest inhabitants, and too little interest from that party in any of us. Charles Bingley was the best among them; a good man to be sure.
Mr. Darcy especially had never budged from his gloomy expression, did his best not to speak with a soul, and even turned down the entreaties of his supposed friend.
“Darcy, you mustn’t just stand there all night. Dance. Many a girl in the hall would take your offer happily.”
“I will not. I shudder to think of it.”
“Come now,” Bingley encouraged, obviously used to such tantrums from his friend. I wondered how he could put up with the man at all. But then I looked at his sisters; it seemed poor Bingley was surrounded by rich and wholly uninteresting people. A worse fate she could not imagine.
Jane had danced with Bingley twice—she was the only girl who could claim it. Visions of an invitation to Netherfield swirled in my mind. Maybe hope of solving the mystery there wasn’t lost after all.
I was thinking as much when I felt eyes on me and tuned back in to Bingley’s conversation with brooding Darcy. “The second Bennet daughter dances well—she shall show you the steps, Darcy,” Bingley said with a taunt in his tone.
Darcy did not look at me, but I caught his words. “She may be considered tolerable, but I assure you there is not a woman present handsome enough to draw me to dance.”
My cheeks burned. This Fitzwilliam Darcy dared to call me ugly?
I calmed myself and moved to speak with Mrs. Lucas. Charlotte and Jane were both dancing, Jane casting sidelong glances at Mr. Bingley.
Was my sister infatuated with the man already?
I gave Charles Bingley another look, wondering if this was the man I’d lose my sister’s heart to.
It had to happen eventually.
Chapter 3
The very next day Charlotte Lucas and her mother came to Longbourn to discuss the assembly. The mothers settled in the parlour while we girls rushed upstairs to have our own discussion away from their prying.
We surmised that of all, Jane had the best hope of gaining Mr. Bingley’s affections. And a good thing that would be, because we needed to return to Netherfield soon.
Laughter rang to the rooftop over Mr. Darcy’s treatment of me. Not a one of us cared what the grumpy, proud man thought. That he was such a good friend of Mr. Bingley’s was an unfortunate wrinkle. Not to mention what that selection said about Mr. Bingley’s character.
We needn’t have worried over our welcome at Netherfield. Jane and I went by coach two days later and were warmly received by Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, who were also called Caroline and Louisa, though rarely by me. That visit afforded no opportunity to investigate the upstairs hallway and suspicious room, or the woods that lined one side of the property.
I vowed the next time I came it would be on foot and without watchful chaperones.
Just a few days after that the ladies of Netherfield called on us at Longbourn. Mother’s behavior was ill-advised. She was far too concerned, always, with placing us in view of eligible men.
The state of father’s property was such that without a male heir, it would be turned over to his closest male relative—a young cousin who lived some distance away from Meryton and had never laid eyes on Longbourn. When hope of a Bennet son faded, Mother’s one obsession became finding good marriage matches for her daughters; that way lay her best hope of maintaining an income for herself and her remaining daughters after Mr. Bennet’s eventual demise. Why she was so obsessed with that eventuality was beyond me. Father was in hale enough health; there was no urgency to it.
So, with Mother’s awkward behavior, and the strange recounting of flirtations with officers from Lydia and Kitty, the ladies of Netherfield departed again not too long after they arrived.
Still, it was a visit, and enough to give mother fits of euphoria over the thought of a Jane Bingley. She thought it sure to happen.
As for my sister, she seemed eager enough to see it so. I didn’t know what I thought about it. As she grew closer to the Bingley sisters, I felt her draw away from our usual pursuits. And one of these was occupying more and more of my attention.
No one seemed to have heard of a man called Bertram in the vicinity. I grew weary of attempting to weave questions about him subtly into my conversations, for they never bore fruit. I decided he must be a vagrant who had taken some interest in uninhabited Netherfield.
Despite my feeling that the Netherfield ‘spook’ was in fact this Bertram and his accomplice, I’d been practicing with the pendulum. Who could know whe
n I would have need of such a skill? I’d taken it afield, a short distance from Longbourn, and tested it outside. I’d tested it in the house with my family asleep in their beds.
Of course, if there had been spirits there, we probably would have known of them by now. But these results would be measured against what I eventually found at Netherfield.
I would go back there. Soon.
One evening at Lucas Lodge I attempted it again. After dinner, I slipped away from a rather large gathering that included the recent occupants of Netherfield Park. Charlotte was busy in conversation with Miss Bingley and Jane – who caught my eye as I retreated and gave me a stern look.
I moved toward the stairs. All the folk of the house were entertaining guests in the room I’d just left, so I had no worry of being discovered. At the top of the steps, I took out my pendulum, which I’d stowed in a small velvet reticule embroidered with glass beads. It was the twin to the one I’d made Jane to make up for dragging her about the countryside.
A chill ran through me as my hand connected with the crystal, but I didn’t trust it. I was too excited by the idea of finding something and my emotions were getting the better of me. I took a deep breath and then addressed the hallway.
Are there any spirits here?
I waited, but nothing happened. I focused my mind on the pendulum, but it hung straight and still.
I glanced around. A tingle at the back of my head made me turn slowly to see who was watching me, but no one was there.
Again I tried. Are there any spirits here?
The tingle at the back of my head did not abate and this time the pendulum rocked, and began to circle my palm, before abruptly ceasing its movement. It stilled in a heartbeat and I frowned at it.
I turned around slowly, observing the hallway. I sniffed, but the place smelled of pine and lavender…nothing was out of place. I didn’t hear or see anything suspicious.
Had I moved the thing myself without being aware of it?
It was as close to success with the pendulum as I’d come, but it left me with a feeling of dread instead of the excitement I’d expected.
