“As you wish. But one moment.” She let go of his arms,pausing in front of him briefly as though she had balanced something breakable in a precarious place and thought it might topple over. When he did not, she stepped away to pull the chair closer.
Somewhere between pushing himself off the bed and lowering himself into the seat, Darcy began to wish profoundly that he had remained where he was. He was every bit as weak as he had expected and lightheaded with the pain of holding his head upright. He was glad at that moment to be mute, for he suspected whatever he might have said were he able to speak would have been distinctly improper.
“There,” Elizabeth said when he was in the chair. “Are you comfortable? Oh, foolish question, I can see that you are not—but are you content to sit there while I go downstairs?”
He managed a wan smile, certain the only thing worse than remaining in the chair for any length of time would be the agony of attempting to get out of it again so soon. Elizabeth dithered a little longer but decided in the end to take him at his word and left. Other than resting his head on the high back of the chair, Darcy remained completely still for some time after she had gone, the sound of his rattling breathing filling the room.
Eventually, the prospect of achieving nothing more than to remain conscious until Elizabeth returned vexed him into action. He gingerly stretched his limbs and arched his aching back. With his hands on the armrests, he pulled himself forwards until he was within reach of the water jug on the nightstand. He did not trouble himself to empty it into the basin but brought it to his lap and used his hand to splash cold water directly from it over his face, hair, and hands. He had not the strength to get the thing back onto the stand and instead set it on the floor. With his very last reserves, he gritted his teeth and hauled himself out of the chair.
He could not yell, but a God-awful sound escaped him, almost more alarming than the pain in his neck, that made him think he had ruptured something vital. He staggered the few steps to the bed and half fell, half rolled onto his back and knew nothing after his eyes closed on the brown stain in the centre of the ceiling.
Chapter 8
Sound Judgment
“IfIam forbidden from walking to the village alone, thenyouare forbidden from getting in or out of that bed again without my assistance. Is that clear?”
Darcy’s eyes had not yet opened far enough to blink away the blur of daylight before he received this angry set-down from Elizabeth. It brought him to his senses more quickly than he was used to, though he could not say he did not enjoy the novelty of being scolded. He rolled his head cautiously to look at her and was diverted to see her with hands on hips and cheeks tinged by pique. “Have you been waiting long to upbraid me?”
She scowled over his words, mouthing them along with him as she unpicked his meaning. “You frightened me!” she explained angrily once she had. “I came back expecting to find you in that chair, and instead you were sprawled here insensible, making a horrible sound as though you would stop breathing at any moment! As if it were not bad enough the first time you attempted it on your own. What on earth possessed you to try it again?”
Darcy sobered and mouthed an apology. “Forgive me. I needed to lie down.” Agreeable though it was to be the object of Elizabeth’s concern, Darcy did not like that she was distressed and made a concerted effort to breathe more shallowly in the hope the unpleasant rasping would diminish. “Is the snow melting?” he enquired to distract her, and because he wished to know.
She made a visible attempt to calm herself. “Only a very little,” she replied. “But John has offered to try to take our letters to the village for us anyway. I told him your cousin would bring men to clear the road if only we could get word to him.”
Darcy smiled with relief and managed to communicate that he would write to his cousin if she passed the pen and paper.
“In a moment. First you must eat something.” She crossed to the other side of the room and returned with a bowl. “This broth has a little more substance to it than the last. It ought to help you regain your strength more rapidly, buttake careswallowing it.”
Darcy could have hugged her. She had brought bread as well, which, after chewing excessively with mouthfuls of water, he was able to swallow without incident. By far the most enjoyable aspect of the meal, however, was that Elizabeth shared it with him. She had, until now, eaten downstairs with the other guests. This time, she sat close by with her own bowl of broth balanced in her lap and conversed with him so easily they could have been dining at a table instead of languishing in a squalid bedchamber with him half-undressed and festering in a bed. And unlike every other table at which they had dined together, he was not stuck at the far end with half the population of Meryton between them, preventing his talking to her. They were each other’s sole company—aswould be the case every mealtime at Pemberley, were she to live there.
“It could do with more salt,” Elizabeth remarked, “but I must say, I have tasted far worse in far grander places.”
“Which places?” he enquired, wondering if she meant Netherfield, where he had dined on more than one unappetising dish.
“Oh no! I suspect my idea of a grand place is a far cry from yours. I shall not be drawn into naming one only for you to laugh at me for it.”
“I would never laugh at you.”
She was growing faster at reading his lips and replied almost instantaneously. “Perhapslaughwas the wrong word. I can readily believe you would never dothat.I am of a mind to teach you how, though, for teasing a person is always kinder than despising him.”
“I see little difference—both are forms of contempt.” Disliking the implication that he would do either, he appealed for pen and paper, which Elizabeth swapped for his empty bowl, freeing his hands to write.
I would not despise anyone, least of all you, for having seen less of the world. Are you sure it is not your own feelings you are imposing on the matter—that actually you are embarrassed by your own unworldliness?
“Yes, quite sure,” she answered quickly, though there wavered a look in her eyes as hinted at a greater uncertainty than she professed. “By the same token, I could ask whether you are unjustly proud of your worldliness—whether you think less of anyone who does not possess experiences and knowledge equal to your own?”
I would think less of any person who had no wish to experience or learn about the world. That is not the same as holding them in contempt for not having had the means to see it.
Elizabeth frowned as she read this, though more pensively than quarrelsomely, Darcy thought. Indeed, she betrayed no particular desire to oppose him when she sat back in her chair and enquired whether he had visited many places.
“Quite a few,”he replied.
“Which is your favourite?”
“Pemberley.” He wondered if he would need to write the name or give an explanation of it, but she appeared to recall it from their conversations at Netherfield.
“It is very quaint that you should prefer your own house to any other place, but that is not quite what I meant. Allow me to rephrase. Which was the most impressive?”
