“They had. But they were only late. Weeks late.”
Mary scowled. “And you think you arepregnant?”
“I… we are not all doctors, you know. I had gotten used to the idea, and… my brain has been addled for this entire trip. It was the battles at the museum, I think.” Mary pulled the window curtain wide, and daylight blazed in. I squeezed my eyes closed. “Please do not. Light hurts. Perhaps I need spectacles? You had headaches before yours were fitted.” I heard the curtain thump closed and the room dimmed. Cautiously, I opened my eyes.
Mary’s hands were clutched together as if she did not know where to put them. “Light hurts. You have chills and sweats at night. How are your days?”
“Well, I am sometimes boiling. People tell me I am hot. I thought… I know ladies with child are often overheated.” Mary was very still, her eyes bright. “Mary, you are frightening me.”
“I must examine your neck,” she whispered.
The precision of her request filled me with foreboding. I nodded, and she touched both sides of my neck, her fingertips pressing exactly where I had feared. When she drew back, her face had blanched.
I managed a breath. “I noticed that, too, a few days ago. Little bumps, like dried peas. They do not hurt. I suppose I sound even more foolish when I say that I wondered if they were due to pregnancy.”
Mary spoke in a rattle of words. “Education of women regarding conception and childbirth is poor. The bias of religious stigma and male medical establishment…” She stopped.
“What is wrong with me?” I said as steadily as I could.
“I am not a doctor.”
“But you know. Do not torture me with delay.”
In a whisper, she said, “You have consumption.”
For an instant, I was shocked, then the rush of relief was overwhelming. My dread fell away, and I laughed. “Do not misunderstand when I say this, but I rejoice that you are not a doctor. I cannot have consumption. I do not even cough!”
Mary said in a desperate, tiny voice, “It is not that kind of consumption.”
“Is there more than one kind?” Mary gave an unwilling nod. “What kind is it?”
“Lymph and…” She swallowed, then set her shoulders and stepped closer, studying my eyes. She steadied my forehead with her left palm, placed her right hand behind my neck, then pressed in at the top of my spine. White-hot pain lanced down my neck and up into my skull.
I gritted my teeth. “Ow.”
“I am sorry.” Those words were polite reflex, but when she stepped back, white as a sheet, the rest came raggedly. “The bumps in your neck are tubercles of consumption. In some cases, they spread to the spine and brain. Meningeal infection, it is called. It is unusual, though not… not truly rare. I have attended cases at Dr. Davenport’s public clinic. Your eyes hurt because the optic nerves are infected, locking your pupils wide. You see haloes? Shining auras?”
I nodded mechanically. My relief at Mary’s supposed inexperience had vanished. This was the most precise diagnosis I had ever heard.
“Consumption is so slow, though,” I said. “People live with it for years and years. I have heard that recovery is a matter of lifestyle. I do not even have the cough yet. That must be good.”
Long seconds dragged, then Mary said, “It is good you do not have the cough. The cough is painful.”
The truth was in her tone. “The cough is painful and slow. The kind I have hurts less because it is quick.”
“Lizzy, do not ask me these things! Let us find the royal physician.”
“No.” My own voice was thick, but I forced words out. “You must advise me.Howquick? I do not ask from morbid curiosity, or to… to argue, or to beg. The sole dragon protecting England is bound to me. I must know how long I have.”
Mary bit her lip. “Can you detect any change within the last week?”
“It is worse in the last week.Muchworse. It is noticeably worse everyday. Mary, how long? When will I become unable to… perform duties?”
“A week,” she whispered. “Or days.”
Her answer fell through my chest like an anvil. I was twenty years old. I would not live to be one and twenty. I would not finish my first year of marriage.
“First Papa,” I said. The words stung. “Then Lydia. Bennets are dropping like flies. Thank goodness Jane is doing her part.” Mary made a desperate sound, but I waved her silent. “Miss Bingley will weep copiously at the funeral.You must judge the sincerity of her tears, then be touched or vexed as appropriate. Either will gratify me.”
