It was Robert who first leaped lightly from the tall step of the carriage to the ground, asking Lady Catherine with some anxiety in his voice if his father was still alive.
“He does very poorly.” There was a bleakness around her eyes. Darcy’s aunt seemed determined not to cry, but she was in fact devastated by the illness of one of her oldest friends.“But he struggles on. There has been no improvement—nothing promising.”
The introduction was made between Lady Catherine and Mr. Bennet, and she was polite enough to him. She also showed perfect politeness to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth replied by thanking her for her kindness towards her before.
To call bringing her and Lord Rochester back together akindnesswas perhaps not strictlytrue, but Elizabeth rather liked Lady Catherine, and she saw no reason to change that.
They were brought to the sickroom on the upper floor of the mansion. Darcy whispered to Elizabeth, “Do you wish me to come in with you, or do you wish for it to be only you and Hartley?”
Elizabeth smiled at him gratefully. She took his hand and squeezed it. “I believe I will be well. But stay outside, if you hear any gunshots, you shall know that you and Papa must come quick.”
Robert entered first, followed by Elizabeth, while Papa and Darcy sat in the hall.
While he had never fully recovered from his first stroke, just three weeks previously Lord Rochester had been a firm and energetic man.
That was gone. One side of his face barely moved, the hands trembled, they were discolored, and he breathed with difficulty. The eyes were sunken. The smell of sickness hung about the room.
He had been lain down in a large canopy bed with curtains, the linens had been kept clean by the servants. A fine silk cord to ring the servant’s bell hung above the bed.
“Oh, Papa,” Robert said. He took his father’s hand. “You do not look well.”
The old gentleman weakly pulled his hand away from his son. He slurred as he spoke slowly. “Stiffen yourself, Robert. Youlook like you are about to cry. I fear for the dignity of our name. Be firmer when I’m dead. Look at Elizabeth. She does not cry.”
Elizabeth replied sharply, “You can hardly expectmeto feel great sadness at your death.”
“Haha. You defend my boy. Glad to see. The family feeling. Oh, if only. I wish you had been my son. Not Bobby.”
This reply was sufficient to remove any lingering question in Elizabeth’s mind about whethersheought to feel unhappy about the gentleman’s death.
He looked eagerly at her bag. “Did you bring the gun?”
Elizabeth was unwilling to disoblige a dying man in a small request merely because she thought very ill of his character. She pulled the weapon from where it was hidden in her reticule. “I did not load it,” she said and handed it to him.
He dropped it twice, and Elizabeth was obliged to wrap the shaking hand around the handle of the small Queen Anne pistol, so he could hold it up to his eyes to study it. “A fine piece. A Bunney of London. Gift from Bennet?”
“Yes, he would not allow me to come to Kent until I agreed to take it.”
He nodded. “Wise gentleman. Better sense than many. Better than the other man Amelia loved. The one who died in France.”
The sort of energy Lord Rochester had for a few minutes after they entered now left him, and he slumped deeper into the huge pile of pillows behind him. He tried to hand the gun back to her, but the heavy gesture he managed only knocked it aside and off the bed.
Elizabeth picked it up and returned it to its place in her bag next to the bullets and powder.
She had thought he would wish to see it.
His mouth worked for a minute before he managed to speak again. “The Darcy lad. I always thought. He was a good boy.”
“Your approval delights me.”
“You do not like me.” He spoke slowly. “I do not mind. I could not like you if you did. Never forget your family dignity. You are the son of an earl...The daughter. Nothing more important. Nothing above our rights. You will do well. Keep an eye on Robert. Not enough stiffness to his back.”
“I like him,” Elizabeth replied. “Far more than you.”
Lord Rochester began to laugh, but it turned into a choking croak.
The two of them sat with him for some minutes longer. When the hour rang out, a maid was called to help him drink the draught of laudanum and water that he had by his bedside.
Elizabeth did not offer to help the old man to drink, and he refused Robert’s hand.
