Becoming His

by J L Pearl

  Dawn had broken cold over the rim of the world. The sparrows had grow busy in the canopy overhead. Inspector Gerald, from his position at the base of a sturdy maple, watched them with something like peace. He had slid down the trunk and did not have the strength to right himself, so his gaze was drawn naturally upward. How lovely they were to watch. How simple their lives, how urgent, but how uncomplicated.

  And short. So, so short. If it had not ached to draw breath, he would have sighed. Life was a fragile thing indeed.

  “Forgive me, Agatha,” he murmured. Visions of his long-lost beloved swam before his eyes. But when he tried to focus, they dissipated. In their place was the lovely face of one Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Now that was odd. Why should he see her just then? He reached up, his arm lazy and sluggish, to feel the skin of her cheek, but she, too, was nothing but a mirage. His fingers passed through the chilly morning mist and clung to nothing. “And you, too. Forgive me for failing you.”

  Not long now. His final moments were eking away like the night. He had always known he would die in the line of duty, but he had hoped, vainly, for a more glorious end than this. It was bitter to die before catching his prey. And from sickness! This was not how his story was supposed to end. He sniffed. So much for glory.

  “Ho there! Sir! Can you hear me?”

  “He looks very ill!”

  The inspector heard two voices—young, full of beauty of brilliance, that of a man and a woman, and he willed himself to answer, but no sound came out. He could scarcely open his eyes. With great effort, he made a sort of a gurgle as they reached him.

  “Can we help him, love?” the woman said.

  “Of course, dear Jane! I would never leave a soul to die. But it will be difficult without a horse.”

  Cogs turned in Gerald’s aching brain. Jane? Yes, and the man looked familiar as well.

  “Bingley?” he croaked out.

  “Why, it’s the inspector!” Bingley cried. “Can you stand and walk, sir?”

  Gerald tried to shake his head. It lolled to the side with another gurgle.

  “No, then,” Bingley said. “I’m afraid this won’t be very dignified, for which I apologize. But with a little luck, you’ll see another day. Here we go!” And with that, the younger man knelt down beside him. “Here, Jane—help shift him into me, would you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Inspector Gerald rose into the air with a quiet groan. He had been draped across Mr. Bingley’s back, and the younger man stood bent at the waist to keep him there. This would be a cumbersome journey indeed. “Alright,” Bingley said. “Day breaks! Onward to the town. Can you find it in the light, my love?”

  “Yes,” Jane said. “I am sure of it. This way!”

  2.

  Elizabeth was traveling on the road to town with Mr. Darcy and the doctor. Fortunately their journey was much less bothersome this time, both because dawn had finally broken, and with it, the storm passed, and because they had secured three fresh mounts from the stables. The doctor had still been reticent to abandon his post, but with the life of Inspector Gerald hanging in the balance, and with the strange goings-on with the broken window and mysterious sounds in the murder house, he had not proved overly difficult to convince.

  For her part, Elizabeth stayed close to Mr. Darcy. Their horses trotted alongside one another at a steady clip. The doctor rode behind, close enough to stay with the party but far enough that a conversation could be carried out with some hope of privacy.

  “What happened back there?” Elizabeth wondered aloud.

  “I daren’t say what I thought I saw,” Mr. Darcy replied. “Only that one moment I was sure we were about to catch someone in the house, and the next, we were alone.”

  Elizabeth mused silently. The raven that had flown away had seemed dark and foreboding. And it had startled her, suddenly cawing and flying out of the silence. Was it possible it had been trapped upstairs, and they had been hearing it all along? She voiced this to Mr. Darcy, who assented that it could be the case. But nothing in his tone sounded as though he believed it.

  “Slow, now,” Mr. Darcy called, raising his hand. “We are nearly there, I believe.”

  Though it had been quite dark when they had left the inspector, Elizabeth believed he was correct. The trees changed in density here, and there was a gentle bend in the lane that seemed quite familiar. In fact, unless she missed her guess, she supposed they would find him against the trunk of a large maple just around the corner.

  She spotted the maple before any of them, and led her horse straight to it.

  There was no one there.

  “Where could he have gone to?” She furrowed her brow and looked about, seeing no sign of anyone. But this was the place, was it not?

  “Doctor,” Mr. Darcy said, “come here. Have you any experience reading tracks?”

  “Some.” The older man’s horse came to a halt. He and Mr. Darcy bent over their saddles, gazing at the mud. “They came on foot.”

  “Yes.”

  Elizabeth stared at the ground. It was a patchwork of bepuddled trenches. “Who?”

  The doctor shrugged. “Two at least.”

  “A man and a woman,” Mr. Darcy said, “by the look of it.” He gave Elizabeth a knowing look.

  “Jane,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “And Bingley. Perhaps. In which case, they have taken up the good inspector and the three are now headed to town on foot.”

  “In the muck,” the doctor said. “Could take hours.”

  Elizabeth glanced at the sky. It did not hold the promise of immediate showers, but it was still overcast. After the terrible storm, she did not trust the weather to hold. “We must give them aid.”

  “Agreed,” Mr. Darcy said. “Doctor? Will you join us?”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “Are either of these people you mentioned medical professionals?”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “Then you’ll still need me if my man is to have any chance of surviving. Lead on, Mr. Darcy.”

  The sound of horse-hooves in the muck filled the silence. Mr. Darcy brought his horse close to Elizabeth’s and spoke in a low, calm voice.

  “I’m sure everyone has fared well, Elizabeth.”

  She looked at him askance. She was still getting used to this new, more considerate Darcy, and it was very unlike him to initiate such a conversation.

  “I only mean,” he continued, “I understand if you are concerned. I am as well. But I believe we will find all our friends and family members are well.”

  “I thank you, Sir.” Her own voice came out tight and emotionless, surprising her. She hadn’t realized just how worried she was that the opposite was quite true. It had only been a day since she had seen the dead bodies in the house they had just left. What if her own father and mother, or her poor, silly sisters had suffered the same fate? She hadn’t been there for them. She hadn’t been with them. She’d been off galavanting around the neighborhood with the darkly attractive newcomer, the rich, eligible bachelor. How stupid of her. If they found her family dead, she would never forgive herself.

  Mr. Darcy spared her a glance of concern, but bit his tongue. Perhaps he possessed some degree of wisdom.

  3.

  Mr. Bingley’s country holiday had taken turn after turn—from the mundane, to the delightful, to the horrific, to the sublime, and now, to the increasingly macabre. He had seen the state in which they had discovered the ailing inspector, and he was well aware that the man’s life was in no one’s hands but his own. His back ached and his legs burned with the effort of carrying so much dead weight. He focused on his breath. In, out. In, out. He could not fail this man. Even if Jane were not looking on, it would not do.

  But with Jane there…

  The thought of her swelled his breast with love and manly pride, and he felt his muscles wash over with fresh energy. For her good graces, for her loving smiles and her admiration, there was nothing he could not endure.

  “Can I
help, dear Mr. Bingley?”

  Her voice.

  It was the sweetest song, the most soothing balm.

  “No, love, thank you.” He shifted the weight. “I can manage. Only, are you sure of the way?”

  Jane glanced about. With the dawn, the road was much easier to read. “Yes, I think so.”

  Their way was laborious but steady. They came to a bend, past which the air sparkled with voices. Mr. Bingley drew himself up just enough to gaze ahead. “Who—?”

  “Mother! Father!” Jane rushed up the road toward the newcomers—the whole rest of the Bennet clan, from the looks of it. No, he corrected himself. Elizabeth was not present, nor her presumed traveling companion, Mr. Darcy. Mr. Bingley sighed. It would have been a relief indeed to find his friend on the road. But it was still some relief to have the help of Jane’s family, and to know, for her sake, they were well.

  “Oh, Jane!” her mother cried. “Dear, sweet Jane! What a night! What horror! What agony! What—whatever are you wearing, my dear?”

  Mr. Bingley and Jane both blushed deeply. After their romp in the rain, they had done their best to clothe themselves so as to not run down the road naked, but it had been difficult, with their clothes sodden from the storm, and with some articles torn and frayed from their passionate removal. Jane was in her dress, and not immodest, but pieces of her regular attire were rather conspicuously missing, and the whole of it was splotched with mud.

  “I fell,” she blurted, “in the mud, mother. Into a rushing stream in the storm, no less! I may have died, either drowned or been rendered lifeless by the cold and rain, had it not been for Mr. Bingley, who pulled me from the water and brought me to safety!”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Bennet turned an adoring eye on him. “Mr. Bingley, how very gallant! We owe you a debt that can never be repaid!”

  Mr. Bingley gave a little bow. “It was only a pleasure to be of service to your charming daughter, m’am.”

  “I’m sure,” Mr. Bennet said. His tone was less ingratiating, but not aggrieved. “But come, lad, let me help you with your load.” He came alongside and placed himself under one of the inspector’s arms. Mr. Bingley took the other, and breathed a sigh of relief as he stood upright once more.

  “What happened to him?” one of the younger girls asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jane answered. “But he’s very ill, isn’t he? And he was out in the storm. He’s one of the inspectors, you see. He was with our party when we—” She paused and glanced at Mr. Bingley.

  “When we attempted to wait out the storm at Longbourn,” he supplied.

  “Ah,” Mr. Bennet said, “then the old house made it through? That’s good to hear.”

  “Was Lizzie with you?” Mrs. Bennet asked.

  “Yes, mother,” Jane said, “only, I confess I am not sure where she is now.” Her face fell. Mr. Bingley’s heart felt pierced with a lance. How he hated to see her pain!

  “She is well,” he said, “I am sure of it. She is with the most competent man in England. If anyone can see a storm through and protect his charge, it is he.”

  “He?” Mrs. Bennet said. “I certainly hope you are not referring to that odious man who does you the discredit to travel with you.”

  Mr. Bingley’s face became stone. He had observed Mrs. Bennet’s chiding of Mr. Darcy these past few days, and he understood her reasoning. He had slighted her second-eldest, after all. But the fact remained that he was his best friend, and not only that, but also the best man he had ever known. He mastered himself before stating, calmly, “I do so refer, and I beg you not to trouble yourself. For all his idiosyncrasies, Mr. Darcy is a man of honor and action. He will keep her safe.”

  “Hmmph.” Mrs. Bennet sounded unconvinced.

  “In any event,” Mr. Bingley continued, “this man, who has become our charge in the night, must make it to the town to see a doctor, or I fear he may not live through the day.”

  “But…” Mrs. Bennet grew wide-eyed. “But Lizzie! We cannot abandon her!” She made this plea to her husband, who sighed.

  “I think we’d better take this man in, as Mr. Bingley says,” he answered.

  “You would sacrifice your own daughter to—”

  “Come now, Mrs. Bennet!” he cried. So uncharacteristic it must have been of him, she actually fell silent, mouth agape. “I am making no sacrifice. Well you know Elizabeth to be the most competent Bennet, more so than either of us, I daresay. I do not relish the thought of leaving her behind, if she is behind—which we do not know for certain, by the by—but if it is a certainty that this man will die without my help, I’ll take the certain bet right now and save him.”

  This seemed to pacify her for the time being, and united, if begrudgingly, the party turned and continued with Jane and Mr. Bingley toward the town. He spared one glance over his shoulder, hoping against hope that he was not abandoning Elizabeth and Darcy to their doom.

  4.

  Time passed. The sun began to climb, casting a glow about Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and the doctor. It was eerie. A thick, heavy fog had rolled in over the road. The wood at either side materialized from the mist as they passed, then disappeared again. If Elizabeth let her mount slow too much, even her traveling companions began to fade, so obscured was her vision.

  The passing of time did little to calm Elizabeth’s nerves. Her doubts had been replaced with a certainty in the pit of her stomach. She had failed her family. She had allowed herself to be seduced by this handsome, romantic stranger, and now she was nowhere near any of them. If they had needed her help, she had not been there to give it. She quietly cursed herself, chastised herself, prayed she was wrong, to no avail.

  She had failed.

  A thundering of hooves roused her from these maudlin reflections. How fast a rider must be moving to create such a sound in this muck! She urged her horse forward until she was close to Mr. Darcy. She expected to find the doctor to his other side, but he was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is he?” she said.

  Mr. Darcy was sitting high in his saddle and glaring through the fog in the direction of the sound. It had passed, left to right, as if someone had come tearing through the wood and crossed the road at a gallop. In these conditions? That was madness.

  “I do not know,” he said softly. “Hold a moment.”

  They pulled their mounts to a standstill.

  “Doctor?” he called, not loudly, but firmly. His voice was muted in the heavy cloud cover. If anyone heard him all the same, they did not deign to answer.

  “Doctor?” Elizabeth called. Perhaps her voice would carry better.

  The sound came again, this time from the right. It crossed the road behind them and evaporated into the wood once more. Someone was circling them, then. The inspectors’ doctor? Whatever for?

  “Gah!!!” A man screamed in fear and agony, far off the road to their left, in the direction the hooves had just galloped. Elizabeth had already pulled her mount around to head that way when Mr. Darcy drew up beside her.

  “Stay close,” he said.

  “You too.” Whatever her feelings, they could not afford to lose one another just now.

  The horses had trouble on the soft forest floor. The undergrowth was not too dense, but the top layer of leaf-rot had been churned up and muddied in the storm. They were forced to go quite slowly, both for that and for the horrid visibility. More than once Elizabeth saw a tree that seemed to materialize from thin air directly in front of her just before her horse turned to go around it.

  Even so, there was no mistaking the sight of the body when they came to it.

  “Oh, no,” Elizabeth murmured. The poor man.

  Mr. Darcy hopped down, his boots squelching, and knelt beside the doctor to check if he was alive. He clearly was not. “May he rest in peace.”

  Blood covered his front, dripping down from a gaping slash across his neck. The man had met a swift and violent end.

  When Mr. Darcy looked up again, his eyes were dark with anger. He rose to his feet a
nd called out loudly into the forest, “Coward! Is this how you do your work? Under cover of either dark or fog? Come out and be seen! Come and answer for what you have done!”

  Elizabeth eased down from her horse, thinking to do something with the body. Pray over him, perhaps. He deserved more dignity in death than he had received so far. But when she reached him, all she could do was close his eyes. “Rest in peace,” she murmured, echoing Darcy’s words.

  “Come to me, coward!” Mr. Darcy yelled. He had moved away from her, stepping into the wood, showing himself. Hoping to draw the murderer out? Elizabeth wished he would not use himself as bait. It seemed foolhardy; the first foolish thing she had seen him do. But she understood his sentiment. It must be driving him mad, seeing all this death around him and not being able to put a stop to it.

  “Oh!” She gasped in surprise as she was plucked from the ground. The rider had come up behind her soundlessly, muted in the fog, and snatched her up. The black horse across which she found herself draped galloped away.

  “Elizabeth!” she heard Mr. Darcy call, but his voice had already grown faint.

  She was doomed.

  “No!” She began to kick and claw at the cloaked figure. He had pinned her to the horse, but it must have been taking all his concentration to ride over that terrain at such a speed. It was not sustainable with a hostage—not if she resisted. “Let me go!”

  The head turned to her, the dark folds of the hood masking the face in shadow. It did not speak, but only bent lower, urging the mount on.

  “Let me go! Now!” Desperate, she kicked at the only thing she could reach—the horse. Her heels dug into its flanks just behind the forelegs, urging it on to even madder speeds. A thrill of fear that had nothing to do with the hooded man surged through Elizabeth. If she were to have her head smashed into a tree trunk at this speed, she would very likely not wake up ever again.

  “Come back, you villain!” Mr. Darcy’s voice was impossibly close. How had he caught up to them in the fog? Hope bloomed in Elizabeth’s breast. She was not abandoned. Together, they could stop him!