* * *
Elizabeth returned, red-cheeked and smiling, to Jane’s chamber only to find her beloved sister in some distress.
“Oh, Lizzy,” she said faintly. “I am glad you are back. I do not feel well at all.”
Hurrying to the bed, Elizabeth found the pillow-case dampened and soiled. She helped her sister to sit up, and secured a clean pillow for her. Beneath the swellings, Jane had grown thin and pale, and even her golden hair had lost much of its lustre.
“I feel…” Jane closed her eyes for a moment, as though the effort of keeping them open was too great. “I feel as though I have got old overnight. My very bones ache.”
“You need do nothing but rest and take nourishment,” Elizabeth soothed her. “I shall do all else for you.” Jane nodded very slightly, and fell from consciousness.
Eyes stinging with fearful tears, Elizabeth yanked sharply on the bell-pull and asked the maid to request Mrs Hurst’s attendance. A soft knock sounded only minutes later, and Mrs Hurst greeted Elizabeth with equal parts pleasure and concern when she emerged.
“Has Miss Bennet taken a turn?” she asked, seizing Elizabeth’s hands.
“Her illness has reached the next stage, the one Mr Jones warned us contains the greatest danger,” Elizabeth replied in a rush. “Thank you for coming so promptly—she is asleep now, but I do not know how long it shall last.”
“Please tell me how I may be of assistance.”
* * *
Within the hour, supplies of clean cloths, fresh bed linens, and two new night-rails were delivered to the room.
As Jane slept, Elizabeth recalled the letters she had received from Mr Darcy in the garden only hours earlier. Charlotte reported that Mr Jones had seen unmistakable signs of the smallpox in Maria. Mary relayed that Lydia and Mrs Bennet continued quite ill, but that Kitty’s fever had broken and she was not half so exhausted as the other two patients had been at the same point in their own illness.
Elizabeth quickly replied with what hope and encouragement she could muster or feign for their sakes. The remainder of the day passed quietly, as Jane did little but sleep. Elizabeth would come to wish she had used the time likewise, for in the night she was awoken by her sister’s soft weeping.
There followed the most difficult two and seventy hours of Elizabeth Bennet’s life. Jane was too ill and exhausted to participate in her own care. Elizabeth pretended cheer as she turned her sister this way and that to remove and replace sheets and night-rails, sponging from her dearest Jane’s limp and trembling body all the unwholesome effluvia of the disease. As her arms ached and her stomach roiled, she smiled and murmured soothing words, and in the deepest reaches of the night she pressed her forehead to the frost-laced window and silently wept.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Bingley’s valethad news for him as he dressed that morning—to wit, that two of the Netherfield servants had developed a fever. He accepted this latest blow stoically, and asked his man to inform the housekeeper that he would speak with her after breaking his fast, before he left on his rounds. Pausing only to slip his daily note under Miss Bennet’s door, he hastened to the breakfast room.
Darcy and Carter had preceded him there, as they always did, and Bingley informed them of the latest while he filled his plate with hot food. He sent a footman for the housekeeper the instant he was finished, and decided that a second cup of coffee would not go amiss on such a cold day.
“Ah, Mrs Tobin,” he said as she entered. “I will not take much of your time. I merely wished to ask if there are servants here who have suffered the smallpox in the past?”
“Yes, sir, several,” she replied.
“Excellent. Well, I mean, that is to say…” He waved off the verbal fumble with an impatient gesture. “They are in no danger now. If any of them will volunteer to tend to those who have just now fallen ill, there shall be coin in it for them, above their regular wages. Mr Jones shall also visit those who are sick, and I will pay his fees. Is there anything else that I ought to be doing?”
Mrs Tobin’s smile was all gratitude. “Oh, no, sir! You are very generous! Most gentlemen would not do half so much.”
“Well done, Bingley,” Darcy said after the housekeeper had taken her leave. “She is correct—most gentlemen would have left the servants to sort such things out for themselves, but I am of your opinion, that their care for us earns our care for them.”
Carter nodded approvingly, but Bingley shrugged off the praise. “I should think myself a poor master if I did less. Come, let us be off.”
When Bingley returned in the early afternoon, chilled and hungry and bearing little in the way of good news, his sister hurried down the stairs to him.
“Oh, Charles, I am glad you are home. Gilbert is unwell, and I am frightened,” she said, coming to a stop before him. He handed his greatcoat to the footman and opened his arms to Louisa, who entered his embrace gratefully.
“Mr Jones is expected soon,” he told her. “I shall not allow my brother to lack for anything.”
Louisa led him to the drawing room, where a fire heated the room, and a tea tray awaited them.
Bingley warmed his hands by the hearth. “Has Hurst’s man had the illness? If not, I am sure Mrs Tobin could find a manservant to tend to him.”
“Mulgrew did indeed survive smallpox in his youth, but I suspect he would have remained in any case. He is very devoted. Some things my husband has said in the past led me to believe that his previous employer was both stingy and cruel,” she informed him, pouring herself a cup.
