Vampire and Prejudice

Chapter 28 - Elizabeth

Fates were decidedly against me. It seemed like I blinked and the time for tomorrow's dinner had arrived and we were on our way to Pemberley. There was no gentle way of getting out of it, save for laying on my deathbed or an egregious family emergency that would make me quit Derbyshire and return home immediately.

I had waited and waited in the dress that my aunt had picked out for me because I could not do it myself, but no dreadful news came to whisk me away. A thought to feign illness did occur to me, but remembering that it had brought Mr. Darcy directly to my doorstep in Kent, I resolutely decided against it. I would rather face Mr. Darcy in company than on my own. Shame could ravage my face then, but no other danger could be entertained.

On the carriage ride there, I tried to lock all my fears and anxiety away in a box deep inside my heart and felt that I failed miserably. What perverse pleasure Mr. Darcy gained from it all was anyone's guess. He was pleased with himself, that much I could tell. He was pleased with my meeting his sister and knowing I could never think a single ill thought about her; he was pleased by the richness of the grounds which I had walked and the stately comfort of the house. He was pleased to flaunt it all before me, the wishes of his heart that he presented to me at Hunsford ringing in my ears all the while.

"Lizzy, are you quite alright?" My aunt looked at me with a smile that did not mask her worry. I had decidedly not been myself for some time.

"Just nervous. Pemberley..." Could have been my home. "It is such a grand place, after all, and Darcys are such grand people."

"They are nothing like I imagined them," she confessed. "Mr. Darcy is much more amiable than I would have guessed, and Miss Darcy is such a sweet little thing. Nobody could look at her and give vampires an ungenerous name."

"Exceedingly good people are selected to be vampires—that is the English way. None of that nonsense they do on the continent," added my uncle. By some knowledge I had gained in an entirely embarrassing way, I knew it to be true enough. Or at least that bad people—those committing unlawful and inhumane actions—were not given the freedom to stay vampires for very long. I had to battle the anger over my past ignorance on the subject. What a gullible little girl I was to think such awful things. "And the house is magnificent. I do not think I have seen the like of it in the country."

A similar statement to my uncle's once had come from Miss Bingley. Both were correct. It was a splendid place in size and elegance, good taste reigning in every room, hallway, and corner. Where Rosings was an exhibition of wealth, Pemberley—though no less wealthy—was a home. There were also no torture chambers in sight, no screams coming from the basement, and servants were unblemished and in perfect health. The shame of my previous suppositions sought to strangle my courage again. I could not believe Mr. Darcy would willingly allow in his house a person who had spun such thoughts about him. He did not simply allow, however; he invited when he was under no social obligation to do so.

Was this to be my punishment then—to bear the civilities and kindness of Mr. Darcy, though I had wronged him? It is not that he was particularly uncivil to me before. If I chose to forget our initial meeting, he was attentive to me, conversed with me, walked with me, asked me to dance. Then I had thought it all a punishment of an entirely different nature, but now I realized that I had made myself blind to his affection.

Was I committing the same mistake now? Then it had been utterly improbable to suppose he liked me, given the narrative my pride and conjecture had weaved together. Now it was utterly improbable that after our meeting at Hunsford, he still harbored any feelings that had afflicted him before. When a man is thus repulsed, there can be no question of him renewing his vows of love. Unless, of course, that man is Mr. Collins.