Page 27 of A Selfish Disdain

Elizabeth herself discovered, somewhat to her own surprise, that the days of enforced quiet suited her rather better than she would have predicted, especially given her own temperament that was much more akin to restlessness than quietness. However, being in such a worried state over Mr. Darcy’s health, she found that several more days of rest benefitted her.

Much to Elizabeth’s own embarrassment, she realized that she had not sent word of their whereabouts to either party in Meryton or London. Reeves himself had not thought to send word either. Hence, two letters were finally dispatched the very morning after Darcy’s fever broke and the oversight had been discovered. The letters were sent in two opposite directions at once; one to Gracechurch Street, to explain the delay and inquire after her uncle's condition; and the other to Netherfield, to inform Jane and Bingley of the whole extraordinary business.

Elizabeth decided not to send word to Longbourn, at least not directly, for she was concerned that her mother might make something more of the situation than it warranted. And yet, she laboured over for the better part of an hour, trying to convey enough of the truth to account for the delay without alarming her sister past what her present condition could safely bear.

The answer from Gracechurch Street arrived first, and brought with it such relief that Elizabeth found herself obliged to sit down rather suddenly upon reading it. Her uncle's fever, though it had frightened the household badly enough in its first days, had broken some time before, and Mr. Gardiner was mending well. Mrs. Gardiner reported that her husband, being a man used to frequent comings and goings, and constitutionally unsuited to the confinement of a sickbed, was thoroughly out of temper at being kept to it, and had already been discovered, on two separate occasions, attempting some scheme of escape before the physician had pronounced it prudent to allow him one.

The account brought a smile to Elizabeth's face; she knew well that her uncle, much like herself, had never been able to bear sitting idle indoors for very long, whatever the wisdom of doing so. Elizabeth thought that it seemed to be a trait she had lately recognized in Mr. Darcy, who grew daily more restless against his own doctor's orders, and bore his confinement with increasing dissatisfaction.

Mrs. Gardiner's letter, once its first business was concluded, turned with evident astonishment to the account of highwaymen and overturned carriages that Elizabeth's own letter had furnished, and closed with an instruction, underlined twice, that her niece was to consider herself and Mr. Darcy both under strict orders to remain at the Crown until Dr. Ashworth himself pronounced the whole party fit to travel, whatever either of them might privately think of their own recovery.

Elizabeth read the whole of it aloud to Mr. Darcy, underlining included, and watched his face for some sign of the impatience she fully expected the instruction to provoke in a man so little accustomed to being ordered about by anybody, let alone by an aunt he had not yet had the pleasure of meeting.

"Your aunt sounds a formidable woman," said Darcy, when she had finished reading the letter.

"She is," said Elizabeth a bit teasingly. "I would advise you to make your peace with her instructions rather than test them, sir."

The answer from Netherfield, when it came two days later, arrived by Bingley's own hand, being written, by his own admission in the opening line, being in a state of shock and gratitude at the resolution of their attack.

My dear Miss Elizabeth,

We have had your letter and can scarcely credit the whole of it, though I do not doubt a word, knowing you both too well to think either of you given to exaggeration upon so serious a subject. Jane has been beside herself with worry these three days past and will not be entirely easy, I think, until she has seen you with her own eyes and satisfied herself you are whole.

I have half a mind to come to you myself, but Jane will not hear of the exertion in her present condition, and your aunt's letter, arriving as it did within the hour of your own, has persuaded us both that you are in excellent hands at the Crown and want nothing so much as the quiet Dr. Ashworth has prescribed.

We will come to fetch you both the moment word arrives that you are fit for the journey, and not one day before, whatever Darcy's own impatience, for I know him, and I know he will be impatient, may have to say about it.

Your faithful brother,

C. Bingley

Elizabeth read this letter aloud to Darcy, who was now propped against a bank of pillows. His colour returned to his face, and Elizabeth found this new change helped to relieve some of her anxiety.

After she was done reading, Elizabeth was rewarded with the dry look she had come to learn was Mr. Darcy’s particular brand of humour.

"Bingley knows me tolerably well," he admitted. "I confess I have thought a great deal, these days, of how soon I might reasonably declare myself fit to travel, and have been prevented chiefly by the certain knowledge that you would see through any such declaration within a minute of my making it."

Elizabeth spoke in a strict voice, and a shake of her finer. "I should see through it within ten seconds, sir, and would tell Dr. Ashworth so directly, whatever protest you cared to make."

He drew a wry smile. "I do not doubt it. I have grown rather thoroughly acquainted, this past week, with your particular talent for seeing through exactly the pretences I would most prefer to maintain."

Thus, it was in this state that Elizabeth found herself, for the first time since the Crown had taken them in, with leisure enough to properly tease one another. It was a great relief for her.

The following day, Darcy continued to remain in bed, though he had begun to grow a beard, which was something that fascinated Elizabeth. It was uncommon to see a gentleman with a beard, but she found she rather favored it on his handsome face.

Neither had spoken again, in the days since his waking, of the confessions exchanged, as he began to recover. Instead, they spoke of safer topics. In the quiet afternoon, she read to him while his strength slowly returned, their low conversations ranged across every subject under heaven, and were conducted now without the old need to win, or to wound, or to prove anything at all beyond the simple pleasure of being heard.

Reeves had stepped out again, to eat an afternoon luncheon in the main room downstairs.

"What can you be thinking of this afternoon?" Darcy asked, on the third such day that his fever broke, watching her over the top of the book she had been reading aloud, but had paused, remaining silent, as she looked absentmindedly through the small window overlooking the town’s main land.

"I am considering how very strange it is," she admitted, "that I should feel, sitting in this small room with nothing before us but recovery and waiting, more entirely at peace than I have felt in the whole of the past two months together, longer, perhaps, if I am honest. I do not know what to make of it."

"I have made rather more of it than I am presently willing to say aloud," said Darcy, "for fear of pressing you toward some declaration you are not yet ready to make."

She raised an eyebrow. "That is very considerate of you, sir."

"It is not consideration,” he stated matter-of-factly. “It is fear. I might spoil by haste, and I find I would rather wait, and have it right, than rush, and risk losing what I have only just learned I possess."