These shorts were written for the Jane Austen October Gothic Horror Nonsense (JaOctGoHoNo) 2021 writing challenge at the Derbyshire Writers' Guild, where it will be posted on Halloween. The theme is "masks." Quotations are from the book of Jude, patron saint of lost causes, commemorated on the Twenty Eight of October.
"Shepherds who feed only themselves."
The first it was mentioned, Fitzwilliam did not notice; he had taken to not quite hearing when George was discussed. Even when understood he ignored it. Surely Cambridge would introduce some other profession.
"I shall deliver better sermons than that," was the loud whisper that made the concept monstrously real one Sunday, drawing cackles from others meant for ordination. They would be like wolves, mouthing pieties while feasting on the Lord's sheep. Fitzwilliam had a sudden urge to overturn money tables.
Wrenching his mind back to the threadbare sermon, he vowed George Wickham would never wear a cassock near Pemberley.
"Clouds without rain, blown along by the wind."
That evening James Morland was forced to consider his sister's disappointment; she looked so unusually downcast. While Isabella comforted her, he addressed his friend, who again expressed surprise at passing the Tilneys earlier.
James hated questioning one already considered a brother. "I know it was an honest mistake, of course, but Catherine—"
"Oh, women are changeable as the weather, nothing stays in their silly heads for long. But I shall make it up to her all the same, depend upon it, I mean her to be happy as you."
There was sincerity in his looks; James accepted the promise gladly.
"Autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead."
It was the very witching time of year, and Brandon grew tired of disguising his dejection while worrying about wearing his heart on his sleeve. It had been a comfort, at first, to quietly appreciate Miss Marianne Dashwood. But it was increasingly difficult to watch her courtship.
On finding Eliza at last, he hid his own pain while soothing her's, only venting his feelings in private later. Two girls ruined because he had not done enough!
Well, he might do something now, even by society's rules. After all, he was quite used to seeming alive while his heart lay dead.
"Wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame."
Captain Harville ran his ship on the same rules learned from his own captains, including the one near weeping in his parlour. He would have said there was very little in their outlooks that differed.
"What gave you such an idea?" was Wentworth's unexpected answer when Harville quietly asked—he thought sympathetically—how long his friend had been engaged. It unmoored him, as did Benwick's announcement so soon after. Harville, an orphan, had been adopted by the navy's fraternity, yet now he hardly recognized them.
His patient wife coached him to smile at their happiness, which he did, despite his lingering doubts.
"Wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
There was a strange, enticing sparkle in Mary Crawford's quicksilver eyes, which caused Edmund to excuse every error cloaked in a veneer of sociability. Did not love conquer all?
It was a different person he quarreled with in London.
"Even were it not my own sister ruined, did I not consider Fanny's disappointment—"
"Fanny! If she had acquiesced, as she does to everyone else, Henry would have wed and not been ensnared to his ruin, it is her fault."
The well of darkness was exposed: she was like Lucifer, masquerading as an angle of light, who he could never save.
"Show mercy, mixed with fear."
Their's was an awkward aquaintance, to say the least: she born to a perfidious woman he nearly married. At first they kept apart, respect for their hostess alone forcing them to share a table.
Frederica believed it was hopeless.
One evening she was startled when Reginald asked to approach the fireplace.
"You do not need my leave."
"I am sorry," he answered quickly, "I should not — I distress you, I will depart early tomorrow."
"No!"
Her exclamation startled him, and they shared a proper look for perhaps the first time, their polite masks gone, each surprised by the others' compassion.
