A Garden Path for Friday the Thirteenth

When Friday the thirteenth occurs during a summer month, it never seems quite as spooky to me as when it falls in October. Still, it is Friday the thirteenth, and while Austen was surely too rational to care much for superstitions, I am not a particularly rational person.

So, here is a short scene from my messy work in progress, Disappearing Act. Like a Friday the thirteenth in August, this snippet is odd and almost (but not really) spooky.

I’m sharing it in part because I actually used this month’s theme, “Up the Garden Path” as inspiration. Also, by posting this scene here, I’m hoping to give myself some encouragement to keep writing. I’ve been wrestling with Disappearing Act for a while now. And just a few weeks ago, I found out that I’ll be teaching high school English this year. (I haven’t been in the classroom in several years, and when I do teach, I usually teach history.) This endeavor is exciting, for sure—but not at all conducive to writing!

(Side note: I’d like to give a big shout out to fellow Austen Variations author Anngela Schroeder. A high school English teacher herself, she talked to me for forty-five minutes the other day to help me prepare for my classes! Not only that, she sent me awesome resources on teaching Canterbury Tales. I haven’t read Canterbury Tales since I was in high school, and that was…a long time ago! Three cheers for Anngela!)

I have resisted describing Disappearing Act to others because, well, so far it’s not a book—just a collection of out-of-order scenes that I’m attempting to shape into a novel. But to give this snippet some context, I will provide a few clues:

• In 1811, Georgiana Darcy elopes with George Wickham, and neither Fitzwilliam Darcy nor Charles Bingley make their way to Hertfordshire.
• In 1817, Elizabeth Bennet, a governess visiting the Gardiners in London, meets Georgiana and her five-year-old daughter, Anne, in a park.
• Soon afterward, Georgiana disappears.

That is all I will say for now. Not sure if my clues make the scene any more comprehensible, but I do hope you enjoy! (Oh, and happy Friday the thirteenth to you all!)

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They must have paced up and down the garden path a dozen times, but not once did he insist they return within doors. Granted, the path was short, for what was a London garden except a patch of shrubs? Still, he showed no annoyance at being kept out of doors, though the fog of night closed in around them.  Even when a servant emerged from the terrace house to announce the arrival of Colonel Fitzwilliam, he did not curtail their circuit of the garden. For a self-described misanthrope, Mr. Darcy was surprisingly patient—with children, at least.

Perhaps he knew Anne would wear herself out eventually. This was Elizabeth’s own supposition, and not a particularly brilliant one. Every few paces, Anne yawned with great gusto, then peeked up at Elizabeth to see if she was watching. Anne never once looked at Darcy, though Elizabeth twice caught him casting glances at his niece.

Elizabeth did not like standing between these two. Anne clutched her right hand with painful desperation, and Darcy—well, he kept his distance, but still she could feel his presence on her left. No one spoke, and she sometimes thought she was the only one to breathe.

So when at last Anne tugged her in the direction of the house, Elizabeth nearly sighed with relief. Nearly. Returning to the drawing room meant encountering, once again, Lady Catherine and Lord Matlock—and now, added to the mix, the earl’s second son. He seemed a pleasant enough man, this Colonel Fitzwilliam. To Elizabeth, he bowed (a courtesy his father had yet to offer); to Anne, he smiled affectionately.

It mattered not. The girl shrank from him, as she shrank all her mother’s relations—except Darcy. She seemed only to ignore him, and Elizabeth could not tell whether the little girl’s refusal to acknowledge her uncle was compliment or critique.

“Well!” said Lady Catherine, when Anne hid herself as best she could in the folds of Elizabeth’s skirt. “I see that you have not done as I asked, Miss Bennet.”

“You did not ask me to do anything, Lady Catherine.”

“Indeed she did!” exclaimed Lord Matlock, his rasping voice cracking on the pronoun.

Lady Catherine turned to her brother and glared. “I certainly did not ask you to speak on my behalf, Henry. I am quite able to make my own case.”

Poor Lord Matlock. He may have been a peer of the realm, but he was no match for his sister. He muttered something that sounded like “shrew,” and then said no more.  As little as she liked Lady Catherine, Elizabeth had to admire any woman able to cow the man who was, strictly speaking, the head of her family.

Then Catherine turned her glare on Elizabeth, and all goodwill for the lady fled.

“I asked you to bring my grandniece to her senses, so that we may depart, without delay, for Rosings.”

“No, you ordered me,” replied Elizabeth, arching a brow. “I consider that an entirely different matter.”

Beside her, Darcy laughed softly.

“You suppose this situation amusing?” His aunt wheeled on him, but unlike Lord Matlock, Darcy seemed undaunted by Catherine’s bluster. “Your sister is an accused murderess, your niece is being held hostage by a wayward governess—and you laugh?”

©2021 Christina Morland

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Thanks for reading!