“What has happened?” he cried, hastening across the hall towards her.
“She fell down the front steps.”
“Good Lord! Is she badly hurt?”
Georgiana tried her utmost but could not prevent herself from bursting into tears. “She is not expected to survive!”
Mr Bingley’s countenance drained of colour. “Dear God, I should never have left. Where is she?”
“I do not know, I am only just returned myself. I was on my way to find her.”
“Miss Darcy! And…Mr Bingley!”
Georgiana started and turned. Mrs Reynolds was coming down the stairs.
“I did not know you had arrived, Miss Darcy.”
“Only moments ago,” Georgiana assured her. “I heard what happened. I was coming to find Liz?—”
“No!” she exclaimed. “You cannot see her, Miss Darcy.”
“But—”
“She is well attended, I assure you, but you are far too young to see such things.”
“Upon my word,” cried Mr Bingley, “is it that serious?”
“She is near the end, sir,” she replied, looking at him meaningfully. “As you might imagine, she is suffering a great deal.”
“Dear God,” he said in a rush of breath. Georgiana did not know what to say.
“Pray, excuse me,” Mrs Reynolds said. “I must fetch the apothecary myself. This delay will simply not do.”
She had gone only one step before Baker reappeared at the top of the stairs. “’Tis too late for that, Mrs Reynolds!”
Georgiana fumbled for a grip on the handrail, thinking she might fall. Baker noticed her then and bent heads with Mrs Reynolds to whisper the remainder of her dire message. Nonetheless, Georgiana still heard her say, “Not breathing.” And there was no mistaking Mrs Reynolds’ cry of, “Oh dear Lord, the poor girl!” With a last instruction that Georgiana was not to follow her, the housekeeper disappeared up the stairs with the maid.
Georgiana turned to Mr Bingley, too horrified to speak.
He did not look to be faring any better. “Forgive me, Miss Darcy,” he murmured, shaking his head, “I cannot—Oh God, I must getsome air.” With which he turned and stumbled towards the front door.
Less than a heartbeat later another door flew open, and Hughes rushed past her, followed closely by a man who must have been the apothecary. Then the house was quiet once again. Georgiana remained where she was, halfway up the stairs, shaken, alone and terrified.
“She is dead.”
“No, she is bloody not!” Darcy snarled, ramming Bingley against the wall again. “I did not give her leave to die again!”
He was vaguely aware that Bingley dropped to the ground once he released him but spared it no further thought as he wrenched the front door open and stormed into the house, bellowing for Maltravers. He was not there, but Georgiana was, weeping hysterically on the stairs.
He ran to her, resisting the pull of despair with all his strength. “Where is she?”
His sister only sobbed and shook her head.
“Mr Darcy?”
He span around. Barnaby and Maltravers had both materialised at the foot of the stairs.
“Mrs Darcy is in the lying-in chamber, sir.”
