Page 1 of The Marriage Articles

Chapter One

Elizabeth set the candle on the table beside Jane’s bed and accepted the chair beneath her as a lost cause. One leg was shorter than the others, and after three nights of vigil she had learned the exact position of her own foot required to keep it steady. The candle flame leaned where the draught touched it, thin and uneven. Mr Bingley had asked her to stay and nurse her sister under his roof. She was grateful for that, though gratitude of any kind was in short supply at Netherfield. His sisters’ courtesy cut deeper than their neglect could have done, and her mother had put Jane in this bed as surely as if she had carried her here on her own back.

The fire had been built up for the night, and the maid lent by the housekeeper slept in the dressing room next door, close enough to be called and far enough to be no company. Jane lay with her face turned to the light, cooler tonight than she had been in the morning. Elizabeth reached for the cup of barley water the apothecary had ordered left within reach.

“Lizzy.” Jane’s eyes opened. “You will make yourself ill, watching me so.”

Elizabeth held the cup to her sister’s lips. “Drink. Mr Jones says you are to be drowned in barley water, and I mean to see his orders honoured.”

Jane drank a little and lay back. “Have you written to Mama?”

“I have written that you are alive, which is more than she deserves to hear.”

“Lizzy. She could not know it would rain.”

“She said it would rain. That was the whole design of it. The carriage was refused so that you would be caught at Netherfield, and you were caught. Now you have a fever and I have a chair with one short leg.” Elizabeth set the cup down. “There. I have said it, and I am no better for it.”

Jane smiled faintly at the ceiling. “You are very hard upon her.”

“I am exactly as hard upon her as the occasion requires.” Elizabeth leaned forward and took her sister’s hand, and the jest went out of her voice. “Jane, I have written in earnest. A note goes at first light tomorrow, to say your fever has broken and to ask Papa to send the carriage. If the fever holds off through the night, we may be home by dinner tomorrow.”

Jane turned her head on the pillow, seemingly satisfied with this intelligence. “Tell me how dinner went. You have been down among them every evening, and you tell me nothing.”

“There is nothing worth telling.” Elizabeth settled back and folded her hands. “Miss Bingley spent the whole of it paying court to Mr Darcy. He parted with his words as grudgingly as if they were guineas from his own purse. Mr Bingley asked after you every few sentences. Mrs Hurst agreed with her sister, as she has, I presume, done every day of her married life. Mr Hurst ate. Such was the party.”

“Mr Darcy spoke to no one?”

“To no one who did not speak to him first, and little enough to them. I set it down to the pride of a man who finds every person in a room his inferior, and I daresay I have set it down correctly.”

“Perhaps he is only reserved,” Jane said. “Some people are quiet in company and mean no pride by it.”

“Jane, you would find a good quality in the fire that burnt you.” Elizabeth laughed. “I am certain Mr Darcy is in no humour to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. He said so himself, at the Meryton assembly, and I have treasured the remark ever since as a specimen of the man.”

Jane’s laugh came weak but genuine. “He was very wrong to say such a thing of you. Very wrong. But Lizzy, surely he cannot be so bad as that. He is the friend of Mr Bingley, and Mr Bingley is the most amiable man I ever knew. A man of Mr Bingley’s temper would not choose a friend without some goodness in him.”

Elizabeth had no answer for that. It was the first time in three days that Jane had left her at a loss, and she ran her thumb along the polished arm of the chair while the fire settled in the grate.

Three miles of mud lay between Longbourn and this chair, and she had walked every step of them because Jane was ill among strangers, and she would not leave her alone with them. Her boots stood by the door, their toes still brown despite all the brushing the maid could give them, and beside them the gown she had worn to three dinners, sent for from Longbourn with two other dresses plainer still. She had gone down each evening and quitted the table at the earliest moment civility allowed. In the drawing room she sat for her half-hour, then pleaded Jane’s draught, or the fire, or a note to be written, and went upstairs. Miss Bingley had smiled at every departure and said, “We quite despair of keeping you, Miss Eliza,” in a tone that despaired of nothing so much as her staying.

A tap at the door announced the sisters, and they came in together, as they did everything together, Miss Bingley first and Mrs Hurst a half-step behind her.

“My dear Miss Bennet.” Miss Bingley was at the bedside before Elizabeth had risen, arranging Jane’s pillows with a show of tenderness she did not possess. “How do you find yourself this evening? We have been quite anxious downstairs. Louisa, does she not appear better? I am sure she looks a great deal better.”

“Much better,” Mrs Hurst said, taking Jane’s hand and holding it between her fingers as though it were a fan she had borrowed. “You have been so patient, Miss Bennet. So very patient. I do not know another creature who could endure a fever with such sweetness.”

“You are both very kind,” Jane said, and meant it, which Elizabeth found the most exasperating thing in the world.

Miss Bingley turned from the bed, and her eye travelled from Elizabeth’s face to her gown and back again. “And Miss Eliza, keeping her vigil, I see. Such devotion. And to think of your walking all that way in such weather, three days ago now, to come to your sister. A country custom, I suppose, and quite charming in its way.”

“We walk a great deal in the country,” Elizabeth said. “It is one of the few luxuries we have.”

She spent no more wit on it than that. Wit was wasted on a woman who would only repeat it downstairs, badly, and claim it for her own.

“Quite charming,” Mrs Hurst said, in fewer words, as was her custom.

Mr Bingley appeared at the open door and came no further, his hands clasped before him. “Miss Bennet. I beg your pardon, I hope I do not intrude, I only wished, that is, I hoped to hear how you do this evening. You are better? You look better. I am sure you look better.”

“I am much better, Mr Bingley, thank you.” Jane’s countenance had brightened at his voice, far beyond what her fever could account for. “You are very good to enquire.”