Chapter Nine
The Blade
The air in the bed-chamber had grown thick, heavy with the cloying sweetness of rot, which no quantity of vinegar-soaked cloths could wholly overcome.
Mr. Greene, the surgeon whom Colonel Fitzwilliam had prevailed upon to attend, did not look up as he laid his instruments upon the side-table.
The steel of the curved bistoury caught the candle-light, a cruel glitter beside the dull, grey flesh of the patient’s hand.
“Hold him,” Greene said. His voice had no comfort in it.
His assistant, James, stepped to the head of the bed and gripped Wickham’s shoulders, pressing him down into the mattress. Two other men seized the legs. Wickham’s body burnt beneath the linen shirt. Heat radiated through the cloth, and his breathing came in shallow, rattling gasps.
“When I saw him yesterday, I warned him the arm must come off if he wished to keep his life,” Greene muttered, taking the wrist in one hand and turning it without gentleness.
“He would not consent. We must then attempt what we can. The inflammation has tracked deep. The foul humour is pent within the sheath of the tendon. It must be let out, or the corruption will seize the whole limb.”
Wickham’s eyes rolled back, the whites showing under the lids, but he was too weak yet for more than a feeble struggle.
Greene positioned the bistoury over the swollen mound of the palm, where the skin was so distended it shone like a bladder, stretched to bursting. He did not hesitate. He drove the blade down.
Wickham bucked. A raw, animal sound tore from his throat, loud enough to startle even the men holding him. James threw his weight forward, pinning him more firmly, feeling the muscles writhe beneath his hands.
The blade parted the tight skin. There was no clean, bright flow of blood. Instead, a thick, foul matter—yellow streaked with grey—welled from the incision, running over the surgeon’s fingers. The stench struck James like a blow. His gorge rose, and he turned his head, swallowing hard.
Greene took no notice of the scream or the smell. He exchanged the knife for a silver probe and pushed the rod deep into the wound, following the channel along the tendon. Wickham’s back arched from the bed. His jaw snapped shut with a crack that might have broken a tooth.
“Quiet, man, quiet,” Greene commanded, offering no relief. He worked the probe. “As I feared.”
He drew out the instrument and wiped it on a rag. The metal came away smeared not only with pus, but with dark, soft fragments.
“The tendon is green,” Greene said briefly. He nodded, and the men loosed their hold upon Wickham’s legs. Wickham fell back onto the pillows, sobbing in dry, hitching breaths, his body limp as a rag.
Greene began to pack the gaping cut with lint, unmoved by the patient’s whimpers. “The mortification has already taken hold of the deep parts. I have opened and drained it as far as may be done, but the poison is, in all likelihood, in the blood already.”
James looked at the hand—now a butchered, weeping ruin, half-hidden in linen. “Will he ever recover the use of it?”
Greene snapped his bag shut. “He will be fortunate to keep his life. If the fever is no lower by dawn, they ought to send for the priest, not for me. The art of surgery can do no more against such corruption.”
Family Dinner
Elizabeth paused at the foot of the stairs, her hand resting on Georgiana's arm. The dining parlour door was ajar, and through it spilled the familiar cacophony of a Bennet family dinner: the clatter of silverware, the scraping of chairs, and Mrs. Bennet's voice rising above it all.
Georgiana was much recovered, but this was to be her first appearance at dinner since the fever had taken her down.
“Two weeks is a long confinement,” Elizabeth said softly. “Remember, you are the guest of honour. If the noise becomes overwhelming, you have only to look at me, and we shall escape together.”
Georgiana nodded. Her face was pale but determined. “I cannot hide for ever, Miss Elizabeth. And I am hungry.”
“An excellent sign of recovery. Come, then.”
They entered, and the noise ceased abruptly.
“Oh. She is down,” Mrs. Bennet cried, clapping her hands and knocking a spoon onto the floor. “Hill, Hill, set a place next to me. Miss Darcy, you look pale as milk, you poor dear. Sit here, near the fire. We have a fine goose.”
Georgiana flinched at the volume but managed a creditable curtsy. “Thank you, Mrs. Bennet. You are very kind.”
The meal began in a flurry of passing platters. Elizabeth took the seat beside Georgiana, placing herself as a buffer against the chaos.
“Pass the potatoes,” Lydia shouted, leaning across the table until her sleeve nearly touched the gravy boat. “Kitty is hogging them.”
“I am not.” Kitty clutched the bowl. “I have not even taken any yet.”
Georgiana’s hands stilled in her lap. She glanced from the squabbling sisters to the potatoes, then down at her empty plate. She waited, perfectly still.
Lydia, who had been ready to reach across the table, paused.
She studied Georgiana. The stillness of her posture, the folded hands, the silent patience.
Lydia, who worshipped fashion and consequence above all things, recognised the behaviour of a lady whom everyone would call elegant.
In that instant she saw, with a little sharp pang, how she herself must look by comparison, snatching and crying out like a child before the servants and their guest.
Slowly, Lydia lowered her arm and settled back in her chair.
“Miss Darcy,” Lydia said, her voice loud but attempting civility, “would you care for the potatoes first.”
The table fell silent. Even Mrs. Bennet paused mid-sentence.
“Thank you,” Georgiana whispered, accepting the bowl with a small smile. “That is very thoughtful of you.”
Lydia straightened her shoulders and wiped a smudge of gravy from her chin.
For the next quarter hour, when Georgiana took small bites, Lydia took small bites.
When Georgiana listened to Mrs. Bennet’s rambling discourse about the price of muslin without interrupting, Kitty and Lydia fell silent as well.
Lydia did not fully understand why Mr. Bennet’s eye rested with such marked approbation on their guest, yet she knew, with an uneasy sense that was new to her, that she wished for that look herself and did not wish to be laughed at in its place.
Elizabeth caught Jane’s eye across the table. Jane’s expression was one of pure astonishment.
“I believe,” Elizabeth murmured to Georgiana, “you have just accomplished what sixteen years of maternal instruction could not. You have my sincere admiration.”
Georgiana coloured. “I have done nothing.”
“It is a remarkable talent.”
Mr. Bennet, customarily content to retreat into detachment during meals, had set down his wine glass. His gaze moved from Georgiana, poised, gentle, softly spoken, to Lydia, who was currently attempting to eat her peas with agonising, imitative delicacy.
“Miss Darcy,” Mr. Bennet said. His voice cut through his wife’s chatter.
Georgiana turned toward the head of the table. “Sir.”
“My daughter Mary tells me you are fond of the harp, Miss Darcy,” Mr. Bennet said. “Mr. Darcy’s cart only quitted our yard this morning, and Hill has not ceased talking of the care required to place the instrument. Do you find it difficult to master?”
“It requires patience, sir,” Georgiana replied. “The strings are hard on the fingers at first, but the result is worth the discomfort.”
“Patience,” Mr. Bennet repeated. “A virtue in short supply at Longbourn.”
“I am sure that is not true,” Georgiana said. “Miss Bennet and Miss Elizabeth have been the very soul of patience with me.”
Mr. Bennet’s gaze shifted to Elizabeth, then back to Lydia, who had forgotten her imitation and was now balancing a spoon on her nose to make Kitty laugh.
The spoon toppled. The footman smothered a smile.
Colour mounted in Lydia’s cheeks as she saw, for the first time, that her father’s eye did not rest upon her with indulgence but with something more like disappointment.
Georgiana was fifteen. Lydia was sixteen.
“You do us credit by your presence, Miss Darcy,” Mr. Bennet said quietly. “It is instructive to observe.”
Elizabeth stilled. He had marked the contrast. At last.
“Perhaps,” Mr. Bennet added, his fork untouched, “we might persuade you to play for us later. I find myself in want of something disciplined.”
“I would be honoured, sir,” Georgiana said.
Across the table, Lydia studied Georgiana.
Elizabeth knew Lydia was struck by her quiet voice, her respectful words, her elegant manners.
Georgiana gathered attention without show and gained the approbation of Mr. Bennet.
When Georgiana’s many trunks had been delivered, Lydia had spent hours “helping” her organise her things.
She had exclaimed over embroidered petticoats and elegant hose, and nearly swooned over the silk gowns.
Just as envy had begun to rise in her, Georgiana had handed Lydia a much admired pair of clocked stockings.
“These would look well with your Pomona green muslin, Lydia. Please. I would like you to have them.”
The shock of such a gift had nearly, but not quite, struck Lydia silent.
She had not been accustomed to receive, from another young lady, anything but rivalry.
Ever since that afternoon, Elizabeth had caught Lydia studying Georgiana with a sort of intent, wondering air, and, more than once, imitating Georgiana’s ladylike ways when she thought no one observed her.