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There is a small painting atop the mantelpiece in my father's library. It sits in a tarnished silver frame, and collects dust at a rate with which the housemaids cannot seem to keep up. On the rare occasions when I am admitted into this sanctuary, I take it in my hands and blow upon the canvas, revealing it anew.
In the background is a bright red sky, and a hot sun setting below the horizon of a barren heath. Flaming gorse and heather are scattered over the scene. Then, in the foreground, three couples in a dance, apparently unaware of their grim surroundings. Five of these people are human: a doctor, a priest, a farm labourer, a spinster and a princess, in the attire of two hundred years since. The sixth is a skeleton, in a black hooded cloak, bearing a scythe.
At the base of the painting, as explanation, is a quotation from the book of Revelation. Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
I am thinking of this painting as I, seven years old, stand by the sickbed of my grandmother Gardiner. She is very ill, I hear my mother say. She may not last the night, guesses the physician. Has the time come for her to be reaped? Nobody understands what I mean. Like the painting in father's study. Nobody knows what painting. The painting of the dancing skeleton. Nobody is listening any more, they have returned to their own conversations.
I look at my grandmother. Her face is grey, her eyelids lightly flickering. She puts out a frail hand in my direction. I reach out to take it. She squeezes my fingers weakly.
Her other hand is taken too, by pale white fingers beneath a dark sleeve. I look up at the figure. It is him. The very skeleton from the painting, there can be no doubt. The same black cloak, the same white bones, the same scythe in his right hand. He smiles at me, and it is as if I have known him all my life, from when I first beheld the painting. He is an old friend. I gasp in recognition.
Everyone looks at me, then at my Grandmother. I look too. Suddenly, commotion. Her heart beats no more, says the physician, I fear she is dead. I look back to the skeleton, but he is gone.
Thirteen long years pass until I see my friend again. My sisters and I are attending a dance at the Assembly Rooms. I am paired with Mr Bingley, a new face in Meryton, and we are dancing the quadrille. It is a dance of complex footwork requiring especial concentration. Looking up during a brief pause, I see Mr Darcy, friend of my partner, alone, against the wall. I feel irritable, for he has slighted me this evening and refused to dance with anyone. But beside him, for the first time in over a decade, I see the skeleton, in that same cloak, with that same scythe, not blunted by the years. Is Mr Darcy to die this night?
He bows in my direction. I gasp, and lose my footing in the dance. Bingley catches the direction of my gaze. Darcy has upset you, I perceive, he says, I pray you will not let him worry you, it is just his manner. At the dance's end I seek out the skeleton, but he is vanished, and Darcy lives on.
After such a long gap, I then see my friend frequently in quick succession. At Lucas Lodge, we are attending a soiree where dancing is not expected. But at one point, Mary is encouraged to perform on the pianoforte, and Lydia demands a country dance. Sir William is convivial, I see him in happy conversation with Mr Darcy. But then, just behind them, seated by a window, I see the skeleton once more, the scythe horizontal across his lap. Is Sir William's death imminent?
I walk over to meet my friend, but Sir William stops me. He begs that I will dance with Mr Darcy. Mr Darcy, too, makes the request. But I will not be put off, I must see the skeleton, to discover his purpose. Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing, I insist, I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner. At length I get away, but the skeleton has gone, and Sir William survives the night.
I begin to associate my friend with Mr Darcy. Mr Bingley and his friend come to Longbourn for dinner, and at no point in the evening do I espy the skeleton. However, after dinner, Darcy and Bingley retreat to my father's library, and upon their late departure I hear Darcy compliment my father on that marvellous little painting on your mantelpiece, the Danse Macabre. My father, I perceive, does not comprehend him, but simply agrees in order to hurry their departure from the house. I quickly sneak into the library to check on the painting. For the first occasion in my recollection, it is free of dust.
Unlike the skeleton, this Mr Darcy is no friend of mine. I have lately heard from Mr Wickham, an old friend of Darcy's, how he has been cruel to those to whom he owes respect. How he is a proud man. How he refused to give Wickham the inheritance his father had wished, and thus was Wickham reduced to joining the militia. These thoughts run through my mind as Mr Darcy approaches me at Netherfield and requests my hand in a cotillion.
I am on the point of refusing him, when I glimpse the skeleton by his side. He makes a gesture with his pale hands, encouraging me to dance. I give him a quizzical look, but he simply nods his assent. Very well, I tell Darcy. During the cotillion, I cannot remain silent. I put to Darcy the story told to me by Wickham. He denies it all. I am expecting this, for he is a proud man. He insists he will revenge himself on Wickham.
At the dance's end, Mr Darcy exits the room at speed. I follow, keeping up as best I can. I cannot allow Wickham to suffer more, I must protect him somehow. Wickham did not attend the ball, but Darcy's valet informs him that he has been seen in the kitchens with one of the housemaids.
Darcy runs to the kitchens, I follow, a little behind. On the way, he pulls a cutlass from a display on the wall. Its sharp edge glimmers in the candlelight, and its curve resembles a sickle. Thrust in thy sickle and reap, I think. I am too slow to stop him, and when I reach the kitchens I behold Darcy and Wickham in a confrontation. You have told the Bennet girl naught but lies! cries Darcy. If the poor fool believes what I say, that is only a testament to my charm, says Wickham, with a hateful grin. My heart skips a beat. Then Wickham lied? And Darcy was truthful?
I was never able to make you pay for seducing my sister, well now you shall! Darcy lunges at Wickham with the cutlass, but Wickham is too agile. He leaps out of the way, and picks up a kitchen knife from the table. Darcy lunges again, Wickham evades once more, but this time he does not leap away, for he has plunged the knife deep into Darcy's chest. I cry out. Darcy staggers and falls to his knees. Wickham looks up, beholds me, curses and flees through a door to the gardens.
I run to Darcy's side. I take his hand. I am sorry I did not believe you, I say, between cries, I doubted you and now you are dying. He looks at me, there are tears in his eyes too. Elizabeth, he says, his voice faint. I see a figure slowly approach and take his other hand. Pale fingers. Dark cloak. I look up, and behold the skeleton once more. He has followed us too.
Not this time! I shout. You cannot take him, I will not let you!. The skeleton looks at me, as if weighing something in his mind. What will you give for his life? His voice is raspy and ancient, but somehow still gentle and comforting, like my grandfather's. Anything! My tears keep flowing. I see Darcy's skin turn greyer before my eyes. The skeleton takes his time. Hurry! I shout.
Very well, he says, I will spare him. But in return I demand your hand - in all your future dances. I accept. Anything to spare the life of this man of whom I had been so willing to believe ill. I owe him this, at least. And if you should fail to keep to this agreement, it will be your life that is forfeit.
Darcy's breathing gradually returns to normal. At length, he sits up. What happened? Where is Wickham? He has no recollection of the fight, nor what came after. He fled, I explain. Coward!
He is still upon the floor, I kneeling by his side, when Bingley enters the kitchen. Darcy, I have been seeking you everywhere, the ball has long since ended! He is shocked when he beholds me by Darcy's side. We have been alone together nearly an hour. It is a compromise: we must now wed.
In truth, I am content to wed this man, who earlier this day I had despised. And he, it seems, has no reluctance to wed me, though he does not know how I spared his life, and I cannot tell him. On our wedding day, sparsely attended given the shame of our engagement, I notice my friend in a rear pew of the church. He is smiling, and he claps when the ceremony is ended.
I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy, says my father. I attempt to contradict him, but he will not hear it. Let us speak no more on the subject. On to happier things, what would you have as a wedding gift? I think on this. There is one thing in his possession I desire more than any other. The small painting on the mantelpiece, father, the Danse Macabre, for this is what Darcy had called it. He does not know to what I refer, but says I may take any painting I wish. And so upon my departure for Pemberley, I enter his study while he is elsewhere and take down the dusty painting, wrap it carefully in linen, and place it in a trunk bound for Derbyshire.
I soon discover I love my husband, and he loves me. His pride is not so fierce as I had believed, and Wickham, it transpires, was truly rakish, and had been on the point of eloping with Georgiana Darcy when her brother stopped them. All the goodness, it seems, is on Darcy's side, and none on Wickham's.
My one regret is that I cannot dance with my husband, and have not been able to since Netherfield, where we danced a dance of hate. We do not attend balls or soirees. We have not so great a society now we live at Pemberley, and our compromise is widely known. But Georgiana is an excellent player of the pianoforte, and will often perform country dances of an evening, in the hope that her brother and I will grace the floor.
I am weary, is his constant excuse, thus do I not need to fabricate one. And so we sit through Georgiana's beautiful English country dances and Scottish reels, merely tapping our feet upon the floor.
At certain times, Darcy appears distraught by these undanced dances, and flees the room. But at other times, whenever Georgiana plays a waltz in fact, my old friend appears at a doorway to the next room, and I stand up to follow him. There, in the unobserved seclusion, he offers me his arm, and, to the charming sound of the waltz from next door, we dance. It is an intimate dance, the waltz, such as I long to perform with my husband. But my friend seems to notice when I think this, and simply says, Remember your vow.
The painting hangs in my dressing room. I see it every day. It does not accumulate dust nearly so fast in this house. I am beholding it one day, tracing the smile on the skeleton's face, and thinking of my friend, when it occurs to me that Darcy has danced only once since I have known him, and that dance was followed swiftly by his death. It is a curious coincidence. When shortly thereafter Darcy enters this room, I confront him.
Why will you not dance? I ask. He has a pained expression. At length he says, I will not lie. There is a reason, but you will not believe it. This is doubtful. I insist upon his telling me. Eventually, he does so.
When I went to stop the marriage of Wickham and my sister, I was angry. I flew into a rage when I first beheld them together. I had brought with me a sabre, expecting a duel, and in my anger I took it up, intending to run Wickham through. I lunged. He parried, and the sabre instead slew my sister. Wickham fled. I was devastated, as you may believe.
As she lay dying, a figure approached. A pale skeleton, in a dark cloak, bearing a scythe. I had seen this figure before, at the deathbed of my father. But now I bargained with him. He would spare Georgiana's life, if I swore on pain of death to give him my hand in all future dances. Of course, I agreed. She lived, and I have never danced since. Except once, at Netherfield, when my attraction to you, dear Elizabeth, was so great that I could not resist. I thought I would die that night, but I suppose for some reason I was spared. I dare not dance again.
I laugh. It is a laugh of great joy. Can it be that someone else knows my friend? I take the painting from the wall and bring it to my husband. Is this the skeleton? I ask. He assents. Then I know him too. You did die at Netherfield, husband. You were slain by Wickham. But I made the same bargain for your life that you made for your sister. He can scarce believe it, but as we share stories about my old friend we come to realise for certain that we both know him, the same pale skeleton with a dark cloak and scythe.
Some days later, my husband approaches me in the drawing room, as Georgiana plays a reel at the pianoforte. Quietly, so she may not hear, he informs me of some researches he has been undertaking in his library. In an old Scottish book, he says, he has discovered a dance by the name of The Shepherd's Crook. It is danced to the tune of a reel, and, moreover, it is a trio, a dance for three persons. A loophole, Elizabeth!
He shows me various diagrams describing the movements of the dance. It does not take long for me to learn them. And what of you, can you manage it? he asks. Is he addressing Georgiana? No, she still plays on the other side of the room. I look up. My friend, the skeleton, is here too, gazing at the book. At length, he nods.
Georgiana continues to play the reel. The three of us line up on the floor, my friend in the middle, my husband and I on each side. With trepidation, we begin the dance. Why, brother, you are dancing after all! cries Georgiana. She is greatly moved by the spectacle.
At times in the dance, I take my husband's hand, and it is a most magical sensation. Our love, made real. My friend looks on, smiling, and nods to the beat of the music. Then we are three again, twirling together across the floor. I laugh aloud. My husband's eyes are full of tears, tears of great joy. Georgiana does not cease her playing, so happy is she to behold us together at last. And so do we dance at last a dance of love. And we dance through the night.