“An express has come for you from your cousin.”
He took the letter, read it, and was on his feet in an instant, calling for the kitchen boy to get his man to saddle his horse. The sun set later this time of year; he could make it to town before dark. He was in his own room—packing his own things—when he realised Mrs Darcy had followed him.
“What could Colonel Fitzwilliam have written about to take you from Georgiana now?”
Debts purchased in London and Bath—legally enforceable debts—at incredible expense.
“I would not leave were it not from principle of duty.” The necessity of getting a writ from the magistrate’s court as soon as possible, the need to meet with the sheriff’s officers who arrest debtors, could not be spoken. Darcy had to step around Mrs Darcy as he packed and she looked on with disapproval.
“You have a duty to Georgiana!”
“You need not speak to me of honour or duty. It is implicit in every action I take in my daily life.” Even if Fitzwilliam was available to take care of this for him, how could he explain needing to be at the magistrate’s court himself, to look the men, whom he would hire from the office next door, in the eye? The need to begin this process as soon as possible?
“You should at least tell your wife where you are going and when you intend to return.”
He supposed any wife had a right to know where her husband was. “London.”
“You are thought to be in Madeira!” He turned to look at her and saw she was struggling for patience. “It was a risk going to town for the licence. As unlikely as it is in such a large city, if you are recognised, it could undo everything you have done to protect Georgiana’s reputation, and soon her good name is all she will have left.”
“I am going only for business. I shall stay where I will not be known, and be there and back in two days.”
“Are you hoping to avoid the death watch?”
Darcy stepped with quick steps toward her, and with much spirit resented the imputation. “Your insinuation is improper and unbecoming! I have immediate business in town. This has to be done, and it must be donenow, and it must be done byme.”
Mrs Darcy inhaled slowly. “Please, do not leave her now. We do not know—it could be any time...”
“Do you not see? The only way I could leave Georgiana at all is because you,you, are with her. I could leave her with no one else.” He grabbed her hand and pressed it, staring into her eyes. “This writ—” He shook his head, but still had not let go of her hand. “I am sorry for how rudely I spoke to you this morning.” He felt her start of surprise through her fingertips. “You did not deserve to be treated so meanly. I have to go to town, it is a moral imperative, but I will be back in two days.”
“I feel unutterable anxiety that Georgiana will?—”
“She would not dare.” He tried to smile. “She looks up to me more like a father than a brother and would never offend me by dying when I must be away from her side.” Darcy felt Mrs Darcy return the squeeze of his hand. He dropped her hand but stayed near. “Your affectionate behaviour is better for her than any nursing I could do or any medicine the apothecary could prescribe, and if you want to stop the treatments that pain and strain her, I have nothing to say against it.”
Mrs Darcy gave a sad little nod. She turned to go, but something that had passed between them compelled Darcy to call after her. “Why did you choose this, knowing however unlikely that you could dieafter Georgiana? To spend your last days nursing not a sick girl but a dying one? To be a stranger’s wife while you watch your friend die? What sort of life is this?”
“More than I thought I would have after I read Mr Jones’s letter. You cannot know what it feels like to live knowing you have a fatal disease. And you cannot know what it is like to be a dependent and on someone else’s mercy. I have leisure to read, to play the instrument, to work on what I wish, to walk as I like, to be Georgiana’s friend. If you tempered your selfish disdain for my feelings—” She stopped, likely having too much pride to continue. “I have never known such freedom as I have as a married woman.”
Darcy shook his head sadly. “You have settled for contentment, and very little at that, I am afraid.”
“It is not forever, is it?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Thank you for coming, Mr Lynn.” Elizabeth walked the apothecary out of Georgiana’s room and down the stairs to the vestibule. “She seemed to be in more pain, and I did not know how many drops of laudanum I could safely give her.”
“A small quantity may be taken with advantage. I suspect it will render the closing scene, when it ultimately comes, less painful both to Miss Darcy and those around her.”
That closing scene had been put off for the present. It seemed that Georgiana did refuse to disappoint her brother by dying while he was away from home. “Her brother will return tomorrow, and I know she will want to speak with him as much as she is able. I would hate for her to take too much to make her insensible, but I cannot tolerate seeing her suffer.”
“The amount prescribed should ease her. If I may, Mrs Darcy, I am of the opinion that neither opium nor any other narcotic should be given to an extent that interferes with bidding adieu to this world. Even the most irrational dying patient often presents a clarity, however transient, that is gratefully remembered by the living.”
Thinking about the death watch nearly brought Elizabeth to tears. Georgiana had a hectic fever and might die from want of propernourishment, an agonising death with delirium at its end.Mr Darcy will not be able to cope with letting her go.She blinked her eyes and set her shoulders, composing herself. “Please, tell me, what news have you heard of young master Jones?”
Mr Lynn’s solemn countenance relaxed. “Mr Jones’s son was attacked with a bilious fever that assumed a typhus character, he was delirious and lost pulse, and they feared a coma. But not long after Mr Jones arrived in Edinburgh, they used Peruvian bark, rum, and hot baths to bring him around. They presume he will recover.”
Elizabeth smiled as he put on his gloves and hat. “That is excellent news. When do you expect him back in Meryton?”
“He wrote last week that he intends to take his son to Bath when he is well enough to travel, and Mr Jones should return to Hertfordshire for a short stay in August before passing the autumn in Bath to oversee his son’s recovery.”
