“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Pray, accept my apologies for the language. I am afraid I am not bearing my troubles with equanimity. Would you be so very kind as to keep an eye open for my sister and Mrs Darcy? I shall have to go and lie down for a while.”
Elizabeth assured him of her willingness to do so, reproaching herself silently for her earlier lack of charity. The poor man was obviously wounded or unwell.
“Is Anderssen there?” he asked as another man, this one in the sailor’s traditional blue jacket and wide trousers, came thundering down the stairs.
“Aye, sir.”
“Then help me upstairs. Miss Elizabeth, your servant.”
Foolishly, Elizabeth curtseyed although his eyes were still shut, and the two seamen half-led, half-carried him upstairs.
Jane was awake and dressing when Elizabeth next called in to see her. It was almost time for luncheon, and Jane was feelingso much better that it was decided that they would go down together once Elizabeth had called on the other ladies.
Georgiana was still in bed and confessed, on close but kindly questioning, that she was in some discomfort. So Elizabeth ordered a small stone bottle filled with hot water and wrapped in flannel to ease her pain. Once again, the poor young lady seemed bemused by such kindness but still managed to say all that was grateful.
However, when Elizabeth knocked on the door next to Georgiana’s, a maid answered that Mrs Darcy had eaten but was still very tired and preferred not to see anybody at the moment. “And,” said the maid, whom Elizabeth recognised as a cousin of their Hill, “if I let you in, I’d ’ave to let that Miss Bingley in too, and she’s already sent her maid round with ’er ears hanging out. The poor lady don’t need botherin’ no more and that’s a fact.” Then, obviously realising that she had said more than it was her place to, she scurried back into the bedroom.
Elizabeth shared something of all this with Jane before they went downstairs, and Jane agreed that it would be kind to visit Miss Darcy after they had eaten. She also suggested that reading to her might help to take her mind off her aches and pains.
They had just reached the head of the main staircase down to the hall when they heard an all-too-familiar voice. “Oh, Mr Bingley, I am sure you have been all that is generous, but a mother’s anxiety, sir, you can have no idea of. With my poor dear Bennet so very ill, I felt I just had to come and see how poor Jane is doing. I am sure you will remember my youngest daughter, Lydia.”
Lydia giggled. “Oh, Ma,” she said, “how you do go on!”
CHAPTER FOUR
Swiftly, Elizabeth grasped her sister’s arm and dragged her out of sight. Jane would have protested, but Elizabeth succeeded in motioning her into silence and back into her bedroom.
“Elizabeth, that was Mama. We must go down and see her.”
“No, we must not,” said Elizabeth, searching for her sister’s nightgown. “You must get back into bed immediately. You know you are here entirely by Mama’s contrivance. What do you think she will say if she sees that you are recovered and ready to return home? Can you not imagine how indignant she will be to find all her plots and plans so thoroughly undermined?” She did not mention how that indignation would be expressed; she did not have to, for Jane began to undress hurriedly, urging Elizabeth to help her with buttons and ties.
She was under the sheets just in time, for a knock came at the door shortly after, a maid sent to enquire whether Miss Bennet was ready to receive her mother. Jane squeezed her eyes shut as Elizabeth opened the door a crack and whispered that her sister had just that minute closed her eyes and that she, Elizabeth, would come down.
When she arrived downstairs, she found her mother and Lydia ensconced in the drawing room, drinking tea and talking with all their usual thoughtless inanity. Mrs Bennet was extolling Jane’s virtues to a fascinated Mr Bingley and a highly suspicious Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst. “I have no idea what could have happened to Jane, for she has not had a day’s illness since she was very small. Such a healthy young girl, and as for her temperament, you could not wish for a sweeter—no, nor a kinder—and although I say it—who should not—she is a girl in whom beauty of face is just a sign of the greater beauty within.”
Meanwhile, Lydia was attempting to persuade Mr Bingley to hold a ball. “…For with the militia newly arrived in the village, there shall be partners for all, and I shall not have to stand up with Mr Wright who does not know hisSir Roger de Coverleyfrom hisGathering Peascods, and even if he did, he does not have a red coat and a sword.”
When Elizabeth entered, she was assailed with enquiries from Mrs Bennet about Jane’s health, and she knew she was not the only person in the room to read her mother’s determination that Jane stay exactly where she was for the time being. Mrs Bennet’s elephantine ideas of sophistication were transparent to anyone of ordinary intelligence. Luckily, Mr Bingley seemed too interested in and concerned for Jane to have noticed.
Once Mrs Bennet had assured herself that her plans were—as she considered it—working to perfection, she attempted to gather up Lydia and depart. Lydia, however, had not given up her attack upon their host and his hospitality, which gave Elizabeth a chance to enquire after her father.
In the background, Lydia finally received the promise she had been begging for, but it meant little compared to Mrs Bennet’s news. She took Elizabeth’s arm and turned her away from the party. “He is no worse, Lizzy, but I cannot say he is any better. That horrid cough—and he does not seem to sleep. Andnow that dreadful Mr Collins is coming to inspect Longbourn and work out how soon he can put us all out into the hedgerows, and what I shall do without Mr Bennet, I do not know.” For the first time ever, Elizabeth could see what her mother would look like as an old woman; her exasperation drained away, and she helped Mrs Bennet into the family coach with more tenderness than—her conscience reproached her—she had shown for some time.
The day was fine, and after she had waved the coach away, she took a turn about the gardens. She could see where the neglect of several years was being repaired and found a warm, sunny terrace where she could sit and consider her situation.
Neither she nor Jane could stay for more than another night. Quite apart from the encroachment on Mr Bingley’s hospitality, she was wild to be home to see how her father did. Tomorrow, yes—she would request the loan of a coach tomorrow, and they would both return, even if, as seemed likely, nothing was settled between Jane and Mr Bingley. Indeed, while Jane kept to her bed, nothing could be settled. Well, at least when they returned home, they would face Mrs Bennet’s objections in decent privacy.
Having thus determined her course of action, she set off back into the house. As she passed through the hall on her way to see Jane and Miss Darcy, she heard Miss Bingley’s voice raised in complaint. “Charles, you cannot possibly mean to gratify that dreadful chit and hold a ball here in these savage backwoods.”
“Yes, I do, Caroline. It is time we took up our position in the society of the neighbourhood.” Elizabeth could hear him shaking out a newspaper, the gentleman’s ever-ready resource in times of domestic dispute.
Miss Bingley was not that easily out-manoeuvred. “But I am sure the poor, dear captain is far too ill to be disturbed by thesocietyafforded by country neighbours.”
Mr Bingley, like many good-natured men before him, had been pushed too far, and he had obviously decided to make a stand. “My dear Caroline, Darcy has seen considerably coarser society than he will see at our ball, and if he overtires himself again, he may retire and lie down until he feels better.”
“But—”
