Page 29 of A Selfish Disdain

Elizabeth looked between them, and she could not help but be thankful. Darcy is alive, and we are going home. That was reassuring enough.

***

Dr. Ashworth was summoned once more to pronounce upon the whole party's fitness for travel. After his examinations, he declared himself satisfied that both Mr. Darcy and Reeves might undertake the journey home provided it was managed in easy stages, with proper rest and no exertion beyond what the road itself required.

It was accordingly agreed that they should travel slowly, starting early the next morning in Bingley's own carriage, which was considerably more commodious than the farm cart that had carried them to the Crown.

Hence, the next morning, Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Bingley, and Mr. Reeves boarded Bingley's carriage.

Elizaebth felt the journey itself seemed almost dreamlike in its ordinariness, especially after the extraordinary week that had preceded it. She watched as the fields and hedgerows slid past the window, and felt there was no danger threatening them, as they traveled in broad daylight. Their conversation flowed easily among four people bound together by relief at a crisis safely weathered.

They reached Netherfield first, the light fading toward evening. Mr. Bingley had explained that they had not yet informed Longbourn, as Elizabeth, in her letter, had asked if they might deliver the news in a certain light so as to not alarm the household.

Mr. Bingley, unsure what he might discover at The Crown, decided to send a letter once he had himself seen to the situation.

Upon arrival, Jane welcomed Elizabeth with open arms, and whisked her sister away to be bathed and doted over. After Elizabeth had bathed, she dressed, and Jane, soon after, entered her room, and sat on Elizabeth’s bed, as she insisted her sister be tucked in.

Having been laid to rest by her eldest sister, Elizabeth finally asked, "You are not going to ask me anything?”

"Lizzy, I am going to ask you a great many things," Jane said. "Tomorrow, or the day after, or whenever you are ready to be asked them. Tonight I am only going to get you clean and get you fed and get you into a bed, and the rest of it will keep."

That is exactly the answer Jane would give, and exactly the one she found she wanted. Elizabeth had spent too much time with little rest, and was entirely exhausted.

Meanwhile, Jane took up the comb and worked it through her sister's hair with the same unhurried patience she had brought to the tangles in the bath, saying nothing further, asking nothing further, only drawing the comb through in long even strokes until the motion itself became a kind of lullaby. Elizabeth felt her eyes growing heavy before she had properly noticed it happening, the many day’s restlessness loosening its grip now that there was a hand at her hair and a sister at her back and nothing left to watch for. She was asleep before she had troubled to decide whether to allow it.

***

The next morning, Elizabeth awoke feeling refreshed and still bone tired. Her first thoughts were of Mr. Darcy and how he had passed the night.

Elizabeth knocked on his door and found him sleeping. His colour was better than it had been, the harsh, laboured edge gone out of his breathing, though he was still pale.

She crossed to the window rather than the bed, and drew the curtain back by an inch to let in a little more of the morning light.

As she slid the curtain, she heard him say, "My dear, you are hovering.”

She turned to find that his eyes were still closed, but he wore a slight smile on his face.

This made her smile, and she pointed out, "I’m only adjusting a curtain, and I will thank you not to conflate it as hovering. You were asleep, and I thought to allow some morning light in."

Darcy replied somewhat sleepily, "I was not asleep."

Elizabeth put her hands to her hips. "Well then, sir, you were doing a very creditable impression of it, and ought to be commended, since I have rarely seen a man snore while claiming to be awake."

That won her another ghost of a smile, though his eyes remained closed, and she took the small victory for what it was worth and settled herself in the chair beside the bed.

He is mending, she told herself, with a new feeling of gratitude. Elizabeth watched him settle more comfortably against the pillow with his eyes still closed, and she reflected, it is nearly safe to leave him.

Her thoughts shifted to her family, who did not know, not the whole of it, not properly. A brief note had finally gone to Longbourn, as they arrived at Netherfield, dashed off by Bingley's hand at her own frantic dictation, saying only that there had been an accident upon the road, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet was safe, and that Mr. Darcy had been injured in a fall and could not presently be moved. Mr. Bingley also explained that they were at Netherfield and presently recovering.

Elizabeth knew that Mr. Bingley’s note would throw the household into an uproar, and Elizabeth, for her part, had neither the leisure nor the composure to send anything further. And yet, she herself that she must return home to give them the fuller account, which they must be starving for.

Finally, she decided to interrupt the man who apparently was not sleeping at all. "I think I must go to Longbourn today."

His eyes opened at that, and found her with rather more alertness than he had shown a moment before. "Must you?"

Elizabeth could not help but smile at the despair in his voice. "My mother has had four days now to construct whatever catastrophe her imagination is capable of producing, and I promise you her imagination is considerably more inventive than anything that has actually occurred. If I do not go to her soon and tell her plainly that I am not maimed myself, I cannot answer for what state I will find her in, nor what she will have told the whole of Meryton in the meanwhile."

"Maimed yourself," he repeated, with a flatness that she knew he employed when he suspected he was being teased.