She had not anticipated this; the last thing she wanted was her mother or the Collinses to suspect she was ill. They would confine her to Longbourn even further, and they would intrude on her every decision and thought even more than they already did. “I would prefer to hear your advice privately.”
Mr Jones raised an eyebrow but invited her to his consulting room. The last time she was here, she was nine and had fallen off the toll gate, and a shopkeeper had carried her in. She now felt foolish for fearing her heart ailment was serious. Behind the curtained entry, she sat on a hard-backed chair and bit her lip and twisted her fingers until the apothecary invited her to speak.
“I fear that I have some disorder of my heart, not unlike what took my father to death. I often feel a pressure, a heaviness centred around my heart that oppresses me.”
“Angina pectoris amongst women is uncommon, especially as young as you are. Has this happened more than once? Do you suffer a sudden pain across the chest and arm, and a difficulty breathing, particularly after eating or exercise?”
“The paroxysm recurs, and it does not matter what I am doing.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Are you afflicted by it whilst walking or at rest?”
“Both.”
Mr Jones then asked her symptoms, and Elizabeth described how her chest would tighten, how her legs and fingers lost feeling, how heart palpitations made it hard to stand but would continue even after she sat, how the pain squeezed around her heart until, after it was finally gone, an exhaustion took its place.
“And for how long? I mean, not how long does the pain last, but for how long has it troubled you?”
“More than a year.”
Mr Jones frowned. “This disorder is marked with strong and peculiar symptoms, and there is considerable danger belonging to anything regarding the heart. Why have you waited so long to seek a remedy?”
“I felt well enough at the beginning, but it was over the course of time that the pain worsened and the paroxysms lengthened in both duration and frequency.”
“Worsening angina attacks or sudden onset angina whilst at rest indicates impending death, although it is usually precipitated by some activity. Are you as active as you were once known to be? Still dancing until dawn and swinging on the toll gate?”
She was too preoccupied to appreciate his little joke. “I have, during the whole of this year, been less able to support any fatigue, or anything that excessively strains my thoughts and feelings.”
Mr Jones listened to her carefully and did not act as though her ailment was imaginary; in fact, he looked rather sorry for her. “Do you ever have a shortness of breath with one of these paroxysms?”
“Always.” The apothecary nodded but said nothing. “I know my father had a painful sensation within the breast. I remember him saying he felt as if it would extinguish his life if it were to continue. Is this, this angina pectoris, is that what I?—”
Mr Lynn, Mr Jones’s partner, burst into the consulting room without so much as a by-your-leave. “Sir, this express has come for you!”
“It is not from Mrs Baker to complain about her care but demand my attendance, is it?” He sighed and took the letter.
“No, the rider is from Edinburgh.”
Elizabeth watched Mr Jones’s face pale, and he tore open the letter,perused its contents, and then ran into the front room. Mr Lynn and Elizabeth exchanged a look and followed. Mr Jones was calling the shopboy to run upstairs to pack a valise, and he then asked the apprentice to go to the inn and hire a post-chaise. His hands were shaking when he turned to Mr Lynn. “My son, my son was taken ill with a fever, he is not breathing well, and they fear for his life!”
Mr Lynn offered to do whatever was necessary in Mr Jones’s absence and encouraged him that he did right in leaving immediately for Scotland. Elizabeth stood to the side, embarrassed at having seen Mr Jones’s devastated reaction to the news. He noticed her after his shopboy pressed a bag into his hand as he was about to exit. “Miss Bennet, I nearly forgot. You ought—no, do nothing. I shall write. Lynn, I will write when I am able about Mrs Baker, Miss Bennet, Miss Darcy, and the others we saw today. I do not know when—that is, my son...”
Mr Lynn pressed him to leave and said that all would be well, and Elizabeth wished him happier news than she had reason to hope for when he arrived in Edinburgh and then left. She ought never to have bothered Mr Jones. Her heart was probably well; she was a young woman, after all.
Darcy was writingletters of business in his study, his sole exclusive place and therefore safe from any household cares or unwanted visitors. Every so often, he glanced out the bow window that looked into the garden, up the middle grass walk bordered by neglected strawberry beds to the sundial. His sister was seated there with Miss Bennet on a bench, listening to her tell some amusing anecdote.
She is lively and full of good humour, and prettier than I had first given her credit for.
Darcy started at his wandering thoughts, and returned his attention to settling his accounts both here and at home. When he had done, he noticed the ladies were no longer in the garden. He entered the drawing room and was disappointed to find them chatting; he hadhoped to hear some music. He would have quietly gone away again, but his sister begged him to join them.
“I fear I shall cough more if I continue speaking, but perhaps you and Miss Bennet could converse and I could listen?”
He shared a look with Miss Bennet; they had an uneasy truce and were united only in their concern for his sister. Were they to have a conversation that was rational, or lively? Or were they to disagree so much that Georgiana thought they were quarrelling?
“So long as Mr Darcy does not examine my education again, I will converse with the person who loves you best. Do you agree he ought not to quiz me? I fear he finds my idle mind wanting.”
“You wilfully misunderstand me. You do not appear to be a woman content to be ignorant or idle, although by your own admission you were not fashionably educated.”
“But I am still an expert of getting in and out of a carriage in a modest and elegant manner, and some would say that is the height of a woman’s education.”
