“Poor Mr Stratton?” Darcy repeated, incredulous.
“Aye, poor Mr Stratton! For what has he done to deserve your disdain? Or Master John? Do youtrulythink so meanly of the rest of the world that you cannot evenpretendto be polite?”
“You would have me affect civility towards a man from whom you were just running away?” He enunciated as clearly as vexation allowed, but he could tell from the way she glowered at his lips that she did not comprehend. “You were running from him,” he mouthed instead, pointing angrily at the road along which she had just hurried.
Elizabeth looked where he pointed, then back to him in furious astonishment. “I was not running away from Mr Stratton—I was hastening back toyou!”
“You were?”
“Yes, to see whether you were still alive!”
“If you were so concerned about me, why go at all? Without even a note! You must have known how I would worry.”
The hiatus to which he had grown accustomed each time he gave a mute answer and she industriously struggled to understand it felt tortuous in this new context of dispute. Her tone, when she replied, suggested a loss of equanimity that justified his anxious wait.
“You were babbling deliriously when you fell asleep yesterday. You tossed and turned all night long and then could not be woken this morning, no matter how I tried. I had serious doubts as to whether you would survive the day. Waking up, reading a letter, and coming for a stroll outside were not things of which I suspected you capable when I left in urgent search of an apothecary. I see now that I need not have been concerned at not finding one. You evidently require no medical attention whatsoever, for your pride, at least, is in fine fettle.”
Part of Darcy wished to crow at the news that Elizabeth had been so troubled by the prospect of his demise. A greater part of him railed at yet another attack upon his character. “I misjudged. That scarcely makes me prideful.”
“No? You did not then presume that Mr Stratton’s condition in life meant he could never be respectable?”
“You do not know that he is.”
“I do not know thatyouare, yet I have been alone with you all week and have heard no complaint from you about that.”
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he replied indignantly.
“But I do have something to fear from him? Why? Because I told you he is in trade and now you think him vulgar?”
Darcy snarled derisively. “He thought it proper to walk eight or nine miles with you, unaccompanied. What says that about his respectability?”
“He did not choose to walk anywhere with me,” she cried. “I walked there alone, as did he, and when our paths crossed, he kindly accompanied me back.”
Darcy stared at her in consternation. “You went alone? After you gave me your word you would not? Devil take it, Elizabeth, you do not know the area. It was not safe!”
She squinted furiously at his mouth but could only have caught one in four of his words, for he was exasperated well beyond measured speech. However many she deciphered, it seemed to be enough.
“I am well aware of that, Mr Darcy, but I thought you were gravely ill. Would you rather I had left you to die?”
“I would rather you had sent someone else.”
She shook her head. “The only people I might have prevailed on are Mr Stratton and Master John. One had gone there already before I even resolved on going myself and would not have known to look for an apothecary. The other was at his work, helping his uncle. What was I to do? Demand that they both desist and do my bidding instead? These people are not in my employ, sitting about awaiting my instructions.”
“It would not have hurt them to do you a small favour.”
“Upon my word, think you they have not done enough already? John walked to Spencer’s Cross only yesterday, if you recall, through far deeper drifts than still remained today, to deliver our letters—which have been collected now, ittranspires, so you may thank him for that.” She began to walk back and forth before him, gesturing angrily as she spoke. “He has also, in case it has somehow escaped your notice, been emptying our chamber pots all week. Think you that is his job? Mr Timmins has been caring for your horse. Mrs Ormerod and Mrs Stratton have helped me wash and shred linens to dress your wound. Indeed, they have all done quite enough! I have two perfectly good legs of my own—why would Inotwalk to the village myself?”
Her words sounded odd. Darcy worried for a moment she was weeping but recognised at the last it was not tears that shook her voice. Her teeth were chattering. Which was strange, for he no longer felt cold at all. All he felt was escalating resentment at Elizabeth’s obstinate irascibility towards him.
“I am very grateful to all of them,” he mouthed. “I was only concerned for you, madam.You are cold. We had better go in.” Without waiting for her, he turned and walked in that direction.
“I rather think you were concerned foryourself,”she said behind him.
He stopped walking, arrested by indignation and held in place by the prodigious effort of remaining upright despite his vertiginous light-headedness.
“You are angrybecause I did not leave you a note or heed your wish that I not walk to the village. You are too used to having your own way, Mr Darcy—but you have no right to be angry with me. I am wholly unconnected to you and am under no obligation to please you.”
He whirled around, the injury to his neck wrenching nauseatingly and the spinning in his head taking longer to come to a stop than he did. He could not guess her purpose in goading him. Did she mean to upbraid him for not havingproposed yet? It was a cruel ruse, given her presumption in announcing it to everybody else. “True,”he replied, ensuring he mouthed the words clearly, that she not miss a single one. “Yet, though you disdain my solicitude and constantly challenge my integrity, you had no scruple in telling everybody you are my wife!”
