Page 2 of The Marriage Articles

“Not good at all, it is nothing, I should be a wretched host indeed if I did not ask. Mr Jones was with you this evening? He is to come again in the morning, I have seen to it, and if there is anything, anything at all the house can provide, you have only to name it.”

“Well.” Miss Bingley rose and smoothed her skirts. “We must not tire the invalid. Miss Eliza, you will join us at cards this evening? We are quite at a loss for a fourth, Mr Hurst having deserted us as usual.”

“You are very good, but I must give Jane her draught, and I am no great player. Your table will not suffer by my absence.”

“Then we must despair of you again.” The relief in Miss Bingley’s face was so complete that Elizabeth almost admired it. “Come, Louisa. Good night, Miss Bennet.”

The door shut on them, and on Mr Bingley’s last anxious enquiry from the corridor. Elizabeth and Jane were alone with the fire.

“They are very attentive,” Jane said, into the quiet.

“They are bound by propriety to be attentive, and they resent the duty. We are detained here from obligation, Jane, not kindness, and I would rather be beholden to almost any other family in the county.”

“Lizzy, you will not hear good of anyone in this house.”

“And you will not hear ill of anyone in it, which is the greater failing of the two, whatever Mama says.” Elizabeth took the cup up again. “But your fever is easier, I can feel it in your hand. Drink your barley water, and if the night goes well, we go home tomorrow, and they may be courteous to each other without us.”

Jane drank obediently, and a blush that owed nothing to her illness came into her cheeks. “Mr Bingley has been very kind.”

“Mr Bingley has been more than kind, and you know it. A man does not enquire so constantly after a woman to whom he is indifferent.”

“You are fanciful.” Jane turned her face to the pillow. “He is kind to everyone. It is his nature.”

“His nature has excellent taste, then.” Elizabeth let the matter rest. To tease Jane was like teasing a candle flame. It bent away and came back upright, unchanged.

Elizabeth laid her hand upon her sister’s forehead. It was cooler than it had been the night before, and she felt a relief which she made no effort to disguise with a jest. Jane’s breathing had evened into the soft rhythm of sleep. Elizabeth settled back into the chair and braced the uneven leg with her foot. She would remain until she was certain Jane would not wake again, and then retire to the chamber Mr Bingley had so kindly offered her, adjoining Jane’s own.

❧ ❧ ❧

Elizabeth came in from the park with a bright glow brought to her cheeks by the morning frost, her boots dark from the damp grass. The ease of an hour spent out of doors fell away from her at the sight of the breakfast room door. Jane’s fever had held off through the night, and a note had gone off to Longbourn at first light, reporting the improvement and begging for the carriage. If her father could be moved to any exertion before noon, they might both be home by dinner. For four mornings at Netherfield she had taken breakfast in Jane’s chamber. With Jane so far recovered she had no excuse, and was obliged to join the family instead.

She opened the door upon Mr Darcy.

He sat alone at the table with a cup of coffee. When she entered, he rose and bowed. It was a bow of the most formal correctness. He sat down again and resumed his silent contemplation without a word. Elizabeth took her seat at the chair farthest from him, which the size of the table made only a moderate victory. She had not come downstairs seeking conversation, and the arrangement suited her exactly. A gentleman who wished to be agreeable did not surround himself with so formidable an air of reserve.

He set his cup down with great care. “I hope Miss Bennet passed a better night, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Much better, I thank you. The fever did not return in the night.”

“So I understand from the housekeeper.” He adjusted his knife beside his plate. “Mr Jones is expected before noon, I believe.”

“We shall be glad of his opinion.” Elizabeth buttered her bread with great attention. That Mr Darcy should know the particulars of her sister’s fever gave her one moment’s wonder. Then she remembered that in a great house the servants carried every fact upstairs and down, and a man with so little to say must keep his mind employed upon something. She offered him nothing more. Three dinners in his company had yielded her perhaps twenty words from him, and not one had been volunteered. A gentleman of such economy did not wish to be talked to, and she was happy to oblige him. The silence settled again.

In the next quarter of an hour Mr Darcy rose twice to step to the window, though each time he returned almost immediately to his seat. Elizabeth, who observed these movements in spite of herself, set his restlessness down to impatience. Her presence kept him from the quiet he preferred, no doubt. A gentleman of his consequence could hardly be expected to relish cold ham across the table from a Bennet of Longbourn.

He looked towards her, then turned his gaze back to the window. “You have been out early, Miss Elizabeth. I hope you found the park pleasant, for all the cold.”

“I am not easily discouraged by weather, sir.”

Civility asked that she enquire how he had passed his morning. She let civility wait, and gave her attention to her tea, which had done nothing to deserve it either. Mr Darcy relapsed into stillness, and for some minutes the room was as quiet as a room with two people in it can contrive to be.

The door opened upon Miss Bingley, in a morning dress that had plainly required much thought, and her eyes made the journey from Mr Darcy to Elizabeth and back again before she was three steps into the room. “Mr Darcy, good morning. And Miss Eliza. I might have guessed I should find you here before any of us. You keep the hours of a dairymaid, and never look the worse for it.” She bestowed her smile upon Mr Darcy. He did not return it. She turned back to Elizabeth. “You look quite blown about. Has the house been so dull that you were driven into the park?”

“The morning was too fine to waste indoors.”

“How very country it is, to be sure, this passion for walks.” Miss Bingley laughed, both before the remark and after it. “In town nobody stirs before noon, I assure you. We should think the sun quite impertinent if it expected us to rise with it. But Miss Eliza keeps country hours, I collect, and walks abroad with the rooks, and thinks the worse of all of us for lying in bed.”

“Country hours have always agreed with me,” Elizabeth said, “though every taste is different.”