She wrote steadily through the morning, first to his family, who would have the grief of both his death and his burial in a place they did not know. Then she wrote to his regular correspondents, and lastly to her own friends in town and family in Scarborough. It was a task which required little thought, for once she had got through the first, most difficult letter to his parents and brother, she could write with more formality and less detail to everyone else. The last letter she wrote was to Caroline, whom they knew, from the reports of their housekeeper in London, to be enduring her isolation with little grace and a great deal of trouble to the household.
Her letter to her sister was little different to those which had gone before, save that she concluded it with a warning that their brother’s temper with regard to her flight had not yet entirely abated. Reading back over it before she sealed it, she suddenly crumpled it into a ball and flung it into the fire. She sat back down and wrote a nearly identical missive, save for the warning. If Caroline was foolish enough not to anticipate Charles’s continued ire, she perhaps ought to learn of her error the hard way.
Louisa and her brother sat together after he returned to Netherfield, she stitching up a set of armbands for him, and he tending to his correspondence. They said very little, until Louisa’s maid left the room after informing her that the gowns she had selected had survived the dye bath and were drying. Charles then burst out, “I hope you know, Louisa, that I will take care of you!”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Of course I do, Charles. I never questioned it for a moment.”
He subsided, mollified. “Oh. Well. Good. It is only that I know I have lived a scattered sort of life these last few years, and I feared you would not believe that you may depend upon me. But I am determined to settle into the respectable life of a country gentleman and devote myself to my family and estate. You will always be welcome in my homes, Louisa. More than welcome—wanted,” he added firmly.
“Thank you, dear brother,” she replied, blinking away tears. “I have seen you take up your responsibilities with pride these last weeks.”
“Have you?” He grinned with boyish pleasure, entirely ruining the gravitas he had assumed, and she laughed for the first time in days.
* * *
Elizabeth and Jane were interrupted in their reading of one of Mrs Hurst’s novels late that afternoon by a knock on the door. Elizabeth opened it and smiled to find Mr Darcy there, assuming he had letters for her. He gave her only one, from Charlotte, and asked if she could step out into the passage for a moment. Worried, she did so.
“Your sisters have been too much occupied with Miss Lydia to write to you,” he said, “or so your father informed me. They roused him in the night and sent him for Mr Jones, for several of Miss Lydia’s marks became infected and caused a fever. While he was away, it seems Miss Mary recalled something Mr Jones had said of the proper treatment in such a case, and between her and Miss Catherine, they carried it out,” he related, his expression and tone full of admiration.
“Mr Jones was most impressed. He only gave them a little further advice before returning to his bed. I wish I could tell you that Miss Lydia is out of danger, but it is not yet known. The quick action of your sisters has given her the best possible chance, however—Jones said so himself, when I saw him a little while ago. I thought you would wish to know, both the good and the bad. I hope I have not erred?”
“No, you were entirely correct,” she replied, torn between fear for her youngest sister and pride in the other two. “How many more complications must poor Lyddie endure?” she murmured to herself.
“Let us hope this is the last.”
She turned a bleak look upon him. “I think itmustbe the last, if she is to survive. She was already so weak when I saw her.” She drew in a great breath and squared her shoulders. “But I shall not give in to my fears. Lydia is too stubborn to die. I must believe that.”
“If I hear anything, anything at all, you will know it at the first possible moment,” Mr Darcy promised.
* * *
That evening, at loose ends and unable even to lose herself in a beloved novel, Louisa Hurst sent a maid to enquire when it might be convenient for her to visit the Bennet sisters, and received a reply that they would be delighted to receive her at any time.
She knocked upon Jane’s door shortly afterwards and was admitted by Elizabeth, who greeted her warmly and expressed every proper condolence. Jane was sat up in her bed, with her hair in a plait over her shoulder and her face, now a jumble of scabs and livid pink scars, glistening faintly with Mr Jones’s salve. Louisa, having not at all forgot what it was like to confront such a visage in her own mirror, greeted the elder Bennet without any sign of pity or discomfort, only taking her hand and saying how pleased she was that Miss Bennet was now out of danger. Jane thanked her, and offered her own regrets on the death of Mr Hurst.
“I cannot begin to imagine your feelings,” said Jane, “but please believe that you have my deepest sympathies.”
Mrs Hurst turned her face to the window for a moment, and then back to those two young ladies, with whom she had not been long acquainted, but inexplicably felt she could trust with the confusing contents of her heart.
“I could not have imagined my own feelings,” she replied in a low, shaking voice. “I tried to, when I understood that he would not survive. I did not believe they would be so strong.” She produced a handkerchief only to twist it in her hands. “I married to oblige my family and improve our position, and Gilbert to gain funds to preserve his family’s estate from the results of some bad investments of his father’s. He was not a bad man, only dull and rather selfish, like so many of his class. But he never mistreated me, and was even kind, in his way. I did not love him, but proximity in the absence of mistreatment breeds a sort of fondness…” She waved her hands vaguely, the crumpled handkerchief an inadvertent flag of surrender. “Oh, I am rambling. I hardly know what I feel, except that I miss him, and I did not expect to.” She laughed without humour. “And now that I have bared my soul to you both, perhaps you had better call me Louisa.”
Both of the Bennet ladies readily agreed to this, and after a moment, Elizabeth said reflectively, “I believe I understand you, Louisa. Many a woman, I think, knows that upon entering the married state she becomes, effectively, the property of her husband, to do with as he pleases with very few exceptions. Her only safeguards are his honour and his affection for her. Lacking either of those only makes her position more precarious. If, in a marriage of practicality, the husband shows his wife kindness and respect, it is natural that she should feel a gratitude that would in time become a real affection.”
Jane added, “Oh, yes, Lizzy, I think you are right. Your feelings are perfectly natural, Louisa. And to so suddenly transform from wife to widow, when Mr Hurst was young and in good health only weeks ago, must be shock enough to overset anyone.”
“It has been a shock,” Louisa admitted. “A month ago my life was mapped out for me, and now…now I do not know what comes next.”
Elizabeth moved to kneel by Louisa’s chair, taking her hands in a light, comforting grip. “What comes next is a year of mourning in which you shall have very few demands on your time. Your brother will see to your welfare, you can have no doubt of that with such an excellent one as he!” She smiled. “And you will have that time to accustom yourself to these changes, and to decide what you wish to do after. You need not even consider it yet, if you do not want to. There is time to allow yourself to recover from the suddenness of it all.”
“I hope,” Louisa ventured, “that Charles will elect to remain here for the time being, even after we are free to travel again. I find I am more relaxed in the country, so I do not think the busyness of town would suit me as I become accustomed to widowhood. And I should not like to soon leave my new friends here,” she added, shyly.
“We should certainly dislike to see you go,” replied Jane warmly. “I hope we may know each other better in the coming weeks and months.”
“That is my desire, as well,” Louisa replied. She asked then which novels they had read lately, and they had a pleasant hour’s conversation on the subject, which was a respite to them all in their mourning.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
As had becomeher daily habit, Charlotte exited the house to greet Mr Jones when she saw him riding up the lane, but that morning his slumped posture and pale, shocked face told her that something was very wrong. Heedless of propriety, she rushed up to him as he dismounted, crying, “My God, what has happened?”
