Suspense and Sensibility: Or, First Impressions Revisited

by Carrie Bebris

  Elinor’s face registered astonishment, but at least she and Edward possessed information about Harry’s recent conduct that lent Lucy’s announcement context. Poor Mrs. Dashwood appeared completely bewildered.

  “Fanny has disinherited Harry? Whatever for?”

  “For his profligate behavior. She has been threatening it for weeks, but today she signed the papers with the solicitors. He’s still got Norland, of course, but he won’t see a penny of the rest of his father’s estate or Fanny’s own settlement after her death. Two thousand a year, yanked right out of his grasp!”

  “What profligate behavior?”

  “Mother,” Elinor said gently, “there have been rumors. . . . Out of fairness to Harry, I did not want to repeat them even to you, until I could determine their veracity.”

  “Rumors? They are more than just rumors!” Lucy exclaimed. “Why, all the ton is talking about his drunken soirees, and his mistress, and the Hel—”

  “Yes, I am sure they are,” Elinor said.

  “Mistress?”

  “Oh, Mrs. Dashwood, Harry’s the most infamous rakehell in London right now! Why, he—”

  “Our Harry?”

  “Well, yes, our Harry! Who else would I be speaking of?”

  “And Fanny has cut him off?”

  “Utterly! Said her mother did the same thing to Edward without half so much cause, and she weren’t going to allow her son to embarrass her any further. Why, she hasn’t set foot outside her door these three weeks at least, ’cause she knows folks are whispering behind her back.”

  Edward shook his head in disbelief. “Poor Harry.”

  “Oh, Edward—do forgive me. I didn’t even think how you must feel! Of course this must bring up dreadful memories.”

  Which would not, Elizabeth suspected, prevent Lucy from continuing to talk about it ad nauseam. She began to feel her own presence an intrusion, and pondered some means of making a graceful exit so that the family might discuss this news in privacy.

  “Unlike Edward, whose younger brother benefited from his loss,” Elinor said pointedly, “Harry has no siblings. On whom did Fanny settle her fortune?”

  Lucy actually stopped talking long enough to catch her breath. “Well,” she said slowly, “now that’s the other part of the news I find so incredible, you see. As you said, Harry has no brothers or sisters, and of course Fanny wants to keep the money in the family. So she gave it to Regina.”

  “Regina?” Elinor said.

  “I was as surprised as you, I tell you!” Again, she placed her hand on Elinor’s arm. “But really, who else could she leave it to? Regina is her niece, and she and Fanny have become so intimate this season. Why, Fanny adores her like the daughter she never had!” She sighed dramatically and turned toward the rest of her listeners. “We feel guilty, of course, about Regina’s gaining from Harry’s misfortune, but what is one to do? It’s better that the fortune stay within the family than go to an outsider. And if leaving it to Regina can provide Fanny with some measure of comfort to ease the pain her own son has caused her, why, it’s nothing short of our duty to accept it.”

  “Indeed,” Elinor said dryly.

  “Is the bequest irrevocable?” Edward asked.

  “I’m afraid so. As of this morning, Fanny retains only a life interest in it. How it pains me to say so! Believe me, I wish it were otherwise, so that she might have an opportunity to reconsider if Harry reforms. I tried to talk her out of it, of course, and urged her to at least reflect longer on her decision before signing the papers. But it is done.”

  Lucy’s professions of conscience were as believable as they were sincere. Elizabeth had to give her credit: All these weeks, she’d thought Lucy schemed to acquire Harry’s fortune for her daughter merely through the conventional means of a marriage between them. But instead she’d managed to win the money without sacrificing Regina to what would surely prove an unhappy future. And with this sizable increase to her dowry, Regina could now catch a better prize in the marriage market, thus further increasing her fortune.

  “How did Harry take the news?” Mrs. Dashwood asked.

  “I don’t know. Fanny was on her way to Pall Mall when I left her. I’m sure he must be devastated—anybody would be.” She sighed once more and rose. “Someone should offer him sympathy, even if he don’t deserve it. I shall go. Better for him to be with family at a time like this. It was good to see you all, even if the occasion was the sharing of such unhappy news. Good-bye!”

  With that, she blew out of the room as quickly as she had blown in, a sudden summer shower that fleetingly deluges those caught beneath it before moving on to drench another unwary party.

  In the stunned silence that followed her departure, Elizabeth also rose. “I apologize to you all for having long overstayed my welcome. Doubtless, you wish to continue discussing this matter in private.”

  “I’m sure none of us considered your presence an intrusion, Mrs. Darcy,” Elinor reassured her. “And I suspect Lucy appreciated the opportunity to play to a larger audience.”

  As her driver assisted her into the carriage, Elizabeth reflected anew on what a mess Harry Dashwood had made of his life in just a few short weeks. He’d lost his fiancee, half his fortuné, and many of his former friends, gaining little more than infamy in their stead. Well—infamy and a paunch more at home on a man twice his age. She recalled Darcy’s description of Harry preening before his elaborate mirror when they’d first met him. What did Mr. Dashwood see when he looked at himself in the glass of late? Could a man who once had taken such trouble over his appearance really be satisfied with the image now reflected?

  Perhaps, she mused, that is why he’d ordered the looking glass packed up and carted back to Norland—his vanity could no longer suffer it. And so the mirror’s London season had come to as abrupt an end as Harry and Kitty’s engagement, and for identical cause: Mr. Dashwood’s unbecoming alteration. With Mrs. Dashwood’s narrative still fresh in her mind, Elizabeth shook her head at the irony of the mirror’s being returned so soon after making its escape from obscurity. The unfortunate work of art, once valued by Sir Francis and, doubtless, other previous owners, now seemed destined to languish unappreciated in Norland’s attic for another thirty years or more. She wondered what Professor Randolph would think of such an obvious treasure suffering so ignoble a fate.

  Halfway into the carriage, she paused suddenly. She wondered very much, in fact. Very much, indeed.

  “Ma’am?” her driver said.

  His prompt brought her mind back to the present. She completed her entry and settled onto the seat.

  “Home, Mrs. Darcy?”

  “Yes, Jeffrey. By way of the British Museum.”

  Twenty-one

  “Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely because they are not certainties?”

  —Mrs. Dashwood to Elinor,

  Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 15

  “Mrs. Darcy! What a happy surprise! Do come in.”

  Elizabeth trod gingerly into Professor Randolph’s office, fearful of brushing past one of the numerous towers of books and papers lest it topple over and bury her. Though the archaeologist had secured his position with the museum less than six months earlier, his workroom looked as in need of excavation as any ruin. Overstuffed shelves bowed under the weight of old manuscripts and new monographs, ancient artifacts and modern-looking instruments. Papers littered his desk and the floor surrounding it, stubbornly refusing to adhere to any form of organization that may at one time have been imposed upon them. Archaeological wonders competed with mundane tools for dominance on every horizontal surface.

  Randolph lifted what appeared to be a small statue of Hermes from the seat of a chair. He glanced about but, finding no uncluttered surface on which to securely rest the artifact, was forced to tuck it under his arm while he withdrew a handkerchief from one of his profusion of pockets and wiped dust from the seat. He did not, it seemed, receive many visitors.

  “Do sit down, Mrs. Darcy. To wh
at do I owe the honor of this call?”

  She gathered her skirts close about her and picked her way to the proffered chair. “I would like to say I came purely out of friendship, but I am afraid I also have need of your professional expertise.”

  “Indeed?” He wove past a stack of thick leatherbound volumes to sidle into his own chair behind the desk. Still lacking a safe haven for Hermes, he held Zeus’s messenger in his hands. “How may I be of assistance?”

  “I am wondering . . .” Where to begin? The idea that had struck her while leaving St. James’s Street was still only half-formed; how to articulate it to the professor—particularly without sounding absurd in the process—eluded her.

  He studied her, understanding entering his own expression. “You seek more than the appraisal of a mundane artifact, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps we should close the door.”

  He maneuvered past the desk again and shut the door, revealing a patch of uncluttered space on a bookcase that had previously been hidden. He set Hermes on the shelf and returned to his chair. “There. You might find it easier to speak freely now.”

  Only slightly. Though she and the professor had engaged in several discussions about phenomena not easily explained, she yet had trouble considering it a natural topic of conversation.

  “Is it possible for an object to somehow retain the characteristics of its previous owner?”

  He removed his spectacles and wiped them with the same handkerchief he’d used on the chair. At least, she thought it was the same one, though it had come from a different pocket this time. “Now that’s a question I don’t hear every day. But it is a very good one.” He perched the spectacles back on the bridge of his nose, from which they immediately slid. “The concise answer is ‘yes.’ Objects, particularly items worn or carried on someone’s person for a prolonged period of time, have been known to absorb their owner’s aura, as it were. It’s not something that would be apparent to most people, but to an individual sensitive to such things, that retained essence could be perceived even after the item has left the owner’s possession.”

  Perhaps her theory was not so half-baked after all. “To what effect?”

  “A necklace worn by your grandmother, for instance, might envelop you in her spirit when you don it yourself. If she was a bitter woman, you might experience acrimony. If she was often sad, you may be filled with melancholy. If she was brave, you might find yourself infused with courage.”

  “Does this hold true for larger items, as well?”

  “Certainly. Houses are an excellent example. One can enter a vacant dwelling and sense whether it was a happy home. Prisons are another. I personally cannot visit the Tower of London without a sense of despair washing over me.”

  “How about something like a looking glass?”

  He paused, analyzing her countenance the way she imagined he studied his artifacts. “How about disclosing a hint as to what these questions portend so that I may better answer them?” he said gently.

  She released a heavy breath. It would be a relief to lay her suspicions before someone who might be able to make sense of them. “Do you recall Mr. Harry Dashwood?”

  “The young fellow I met at your townhouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “A pleasant gentleman. He was about to embark on an exploration of his attics, as I recollect.”

  “He did. There he discovered two items that had once belonged to a black-sheep ancestor of his, Sir Francis Dashwood. One was a portrait of Sir Francis, the other, a mirror that has an antique essence to it. Mr. Dashwood brought them back to London with him and, to put it mildly, he has not been the same since.”

  “And you wonder if these objects have something to do with the alteration in his demeanor?”

  “Precisely. Mr. Dashwood has developed a preoccupation with Sir Francis, emulating his debauchery and immoral behavior to the point where my sister, who had thought herself engaged to a kind, respectable gentleman, was forced to break all connection with the libertine he has become. While I hold Mr. Dashwood responsible for his own conduct, the coincidence of his sudden interest in Sir Francis and his discovery of the looking glass led me to speculate that perhaps something more than mere curiosity about his ancestor influenced his transformation.”

  She hoped she hadn’t just made herself sound perfectly ridiculous. But Professor Randolph adjusted his spectacles and leaned back in his chair with a look of concentration.

  “It’s possible,” he said. “Especially given Sir Francis’s history of religious experimentation. If anyone could extend his influence beyond the grave, he would be the man.”

  “You have heard of him, then?”

  “Quite a character, as I understand. But also quite a collector of classical antiquities. Tell me more about this mirror. Have you seen it?”

  “It’s a huge thing. The glass itself is almost as tall as I am, and it’s surrounded by a heavy gold frame with figures standing out in relief.”

  “What sort of figures?”

  She frowned, trying to recall. “I saw the glass only once, and I was preoccupied with other matters. But I believe the figures were young males rendered in classical Greek style.”

  “What was at the top of the frame?”

  “A man’s face.”

  He stood up, performed a pas de deux with a stack of old newspapers beside his desk, and wended his way back to the bookcase by the door. He pulled a journal off the shelf, thumbed through it, replaced it, and selected another. The second also earned a shake of his head, but a third triggered an enthusiastic nod. “Yes, yes—here it is.”

  He traced his finger over a page. “Mrs. Darcy, I suspect your young friend may have come into custody of an artifact known as the Mirror of Narcissus, an ancient glass said to have been brought to England shortly after the Crusades. It is a controversial piece, crafted with materials and methods so ahead of their time that some modern scholars dismiss it as a fake. Yet accounts of the mirror stretch far back in history. It has disappeared and resurfaced many times over the centuries, and was last thought to have been owned by Sir Francis Dashwood.”

  “Until his death, whereupon it sat in the attic of Norland House for over thirty years,” Elizabeth revealed.

  He snapped the volume shut and set it aside carelessly. He then scanned the bookcase, running his finger along the volumes’ spines. “According to legend, it possesses supernatural properties.”

  “What sort of properties?”

  “Those notes do not specify.” He transferred his search to the next bookcase. “I know I have a book here somewhere that offers more particulars . . . .”

  She contemplated the myth of the young man who pined away for love of his own reflection. “Narcissus’s obsession with himself destroyed him. Could a mirror named for him somehow be fueling Harry’s self-destructive indulgence?”

  “It could.” He shifted a large idol to access a mass of books behind it. “I seem to recall that many of its owners have met untimely ends.”

  The idol, which by oversight had not been placed squarely on the floor but partially on the edge of a stray pamphlet, tottered. Professor Randolph caught it in time, but in the process bumped the bookcase beside it, sending Hermes crashing to the floor.

  “Oh, dear!” Elizabeth felt terrible that one of the archaeologist’s treasures had been sacrificed in his attempt to perform a service for her.

  “Not to worry, my dear Mrs. Darcy. I had recently determined it was counterfeit.” He knelt to pick up the broken pieces. “The mirror, however, is a more serious affair. I will continue to search for my book and conduct further research into the artifact’s story. In the meantime, a more detailed description may enable us to determine whether Mr. Dashwood’s glass is indeed the Mirror of Narcissus. Can you obtain a better look at it?”

  “He recently returned it to Norland.” She retrieved one of Hermes’ wings from where it had landed beside her shoe and handed it to Randolph. “But shou
ld an opportunity present itself, I’ll take advantage of it.”

  “If you do, proceed with caution. Bring the amulet I gave you.”

  She’d stopped carrying the pocketwatch after Darcy had been so displeased by it the night they followed Mr. Dashwood home. “Is it necessary?”

  “A safeguard. I also advise you not to look directly into the mirror.”

  “Why not? What will happen?”

  “I have no idea.” He tossed the shattered remains of Hermes into the dustbin. “But when dealing with mysterious relics, one cannot be too careful.”

  Twenty-two

  “The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with.”

  —Fanny Dashwood to John Dashwood,

  Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 2

  “Have you spoken with Mr. Dashwood yet?”

  Darcy winced. The moment he’d entered White’s and saw Chatfield there, he knew the question would come. He’d fleetingly contemplated ducking out of the club before his friend spotted him, but to be observed by others giving Lord Chatfield the cut direct would have resulted in far worse consequences than giving the earl news he did not want to hear. Darcy had already avoided Chatfield once that day, having postponed their fencing appointment until he had developments to report, but now a reckoning was inevitable.

  “Not yet.” At the expression of disappointment that crossed Chatfield’s face, he hastened to add, “But I have brought in reinforcements, and we launch our campaign tomorrow.”

  Chatfield shifted his gaze across the card room, letting it rest on Mr. Dashwood. From their vantage point in the doorway, Darcy and the earl could barely see Harry for the crowd that had gathered round his whist table. The deep play of Mr. Dashwood’s party had lured others away from their own tables to observe; indeed, the stakes had risen so high that men had wandered in from elsewhere in the club, hoping to be able to say come morning that they’d witnessed a fortune won or lost.