Chapter 18
Elizabeth woke with a crick in her neck, one hand still wrapped around Jane’s.
For a moment she did not know where she was.
The room was dim, the curtains only partly drawn, and the fire had burned low enough that the shadows gathered in the corners like patient old women waiting for gossip.
Then Jane stirred beneath the counterpane, and memory returned at once: Netherfield, rain, fever, Mr. Jones’s grave assurances, and the peculiar discomfort of being a guest in one’s own house.
Jane slept.
That was the first comfort of the morning.
Her sister’s breathing was still too warm and shallow for Elizabeth’s liking, but it was more regular than it had been in the night, and the fretful crease between her brows had eased.
One pale hand lay upon the coverlet, and Elizabeth, reluctant to disturb even so small a peace, released it carefully.
She flexed her fingers, wincing as feeling returned to them.
She had sat beside Jane far longer than she meant to, first reading a little, then bathing her temples, then dozing in the chair despite every resolution to remain vigilant.
Susie had offered to take a watch, as had the maid Mrs. Nicholls sent, but Elizabeth had found herself unwilling to leave.
Jane, when ill, was still Jane—gentle, apologetic, and far too ready to imagine herself a burden.
Elizabeth could not mend everything, but she could at least be there when her sister woke.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
Elizabeth rose quickly and crossed the room before the sound could disturb Jane. Mrs. Nicholls stood in the passage with a small tray, her expression composed but kind. Behind her, a housemaid carried fresh water and linens.
“How does Miss Bennet do?” the housekeeper whispered.
“Asleep, thank heaven. I think she rested better toward morning.”
“That is good news.” Mrs. Nicholls glanced past her toward the bed, then lowered her voice further.
“Mr. Jones is expected again before noon. Mr. Bingley sent down to ask whether there had been any change, but I told the footman not to carry up every anxious inquiry unless it had legs and hands enough to be useful.”
Elizabeth’s mouth twitched despite her weariness. “A wise restriction. At that rate, Mr. Bingley may soon be forced to come himself with broth.”
“He would, I think, if propriety allowed it.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said softly, looking back at Jane. “I believe he would.”
Mrs. Nicholls set the tray upon a small table near the hearth. “Tea, miss. And toast, though I shall not ask you to admire it. Cook says toast sent to a sickroom is rarely eaten by the sick and therefore ought to be made with the nurse in mind.”
“Cook is a woman of excellent principles.”
“She is. And she says you cannot tend Miss Bennet on air and worry.”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, but Mrs. Nicholls gave her such a look that she shut it again and took the cup offered her. The first sip was hot and strong enough to make her feel almost human.
“There,” Mrs. Nicholls said with satisfaction. “Now, miss, I mean no disrespect, but you look as though you have spent the night losing an argument with that chair.”
“I do not deny it was a most uncomfortable opponent.”
“Then you should take half an hour while Miss Bennet sleeps. The maid can sit here, and I shall have Susie look in as soon as she is awake.”
Elizabeth immediately shook her head. “No, I cannot leave Jane.”
“You can leave her sleeping in a warm room with a maid at hand, a bell within reach, and half the house prepared to run should she so much as sigh too loudly.” Mrs. Nicholls’s tone was respectful, but it held the firmness Elizabeth had long ago learned to recognize in capable servants.
“You will be of more use to her if you do not wear yourself to a thread before breakfast.”
Elizabeth looked toward the bed again. Jane had not moved. Her breathing remained steady, her face turned slightly toward the pillow, one fair curl loose against her cheek.
“I should only sit here and stare at her,” Elizabeth admitted.
“And that is a very poor employment when the patient has had the good sense to sleep.”
Elizabeth smiled reluctantly. “You are managing me, Mrs. Nicholls.”
“Yes, miss.”
“At least you confess it.”
“I find confession saves time.”
The housekeeper moved to the curtains and drew them only a little wider, admitting a gray morning light that made the room feel less enclosed.
“There is a fire in the library. No one is below at present, and the house is quiet. Take your tea there, or find a book, or merely sit in a chair that has not declared war upon your spine.”
Elizabeth hesitated.
The library.
Her library, though no one must call it so.
There was an odd temptation in the thought.
She had not spent much time there since the Bingleys’ arrival, for it was one thing to visit Netherfield as a neighboring young lady consulting Mrs. Nicholls and quite another to wander through its rooms as though she knew every repaired hinge and altered curtain.
But early morning offered concealment. If the household was not yet fully awake, she might have a few minutes in a room that belonged to her on paper, if nowhere else.
“I shall go for a very little while,” she said at last. “But if Jane wakes—”
“You shall be sent for at once.”
“If she so much as stirs uneasily—”
“At once.”
“If Mr. Bingley sends another inquiry—”
“I shall tell him Miss Bennet continues asleep and that Miss Elizabeth has not abandoned her to wolves.”
Elizabeth laughed under her breath, then bent over Jane and touched her sister’s hand lightly. Jane did not wake.
Taking her tea, Elizabeth slipped from the room and walked quietly down the passage.
Netherfield in the early morning felt almost like a different house.
The grander rooms had not yet been claimed by conversation, music, or Miss Bingley’s opinions.
A maid crossed the far end of the corridor carrying a coal scuttle, and somewhere below, a door closed softly. Otherwise, all was still.
At the library door, Elizabeth paused.
It was absurd to feel like an intruder in her own house. More absurd still to feel like a trespasser because the guests she had admitted under a lease might find her there. Yet secrecy had trained strange habits into her. She looked once down the passage, saw no one, and entered.
A small fire burned in the grate, exactly as Mrs. Nicholls had promised.
The curtains had been drawn back enough to reveal a pale, wet lawn beyond the windows, where the grass still held the silver of last night’s rain.
The shelves stood in quiet rows, familiar and inviting, and Elizabeth released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
Here, at least, nothing required immediate attention.
No mother to soothe, no sisters to restrain, no tenants to protect, no fortune to hide, no handsome gentleman to misunderstand or be misunderstood by.
Only books, warmth, and half an hour of stolen peace.
Elizabeth set her tea upon the table, drew her shawl more closely about her shoulders, and went to the nearest shelf.
∞∞∞
Darcy had risen earlier than he intended.
This was not unusual. Years of military service had made late mornings nearly impossible, and the habits formed by Pemberley’s accounts were not much kinder.
Still, he had expected that after the previous day’s agitation—the discovery of Miss Bennet’s illness, Miss Elizabeth’s arrival, the dinner that had begun with awkwardness and ended with him thinking far too much of a lady seated across the table—he might sleep more heavily.
Instead, he woke before the house had properly stirred, with the gray light of morning pressing around the curtains and Elizabeth Bennet already in his thoughts.
It was becoming a problem.
At first, after Gracechurch Street, she had been little more than an image that returned when he least expected it: dark eyes in lantern light, mud upon one cheek, a Roman coin in her hand.
Then he had thought her out of reach, not by rank precisely, but by circumstance, by uncertainty, by the sheer impossibility of ever encountering her again.
That had made the memory safe in its way.
Foolish, perhaps, but harmless. A man could admire a pair of fine eyes in recollection and still go about the business of restoring an estate.
But she was no longer a memory.
She was beneath the same roof.
She had sat at dinner the previous evening with composure, wit, and a command of estate matters that still unsettled him by its competence.
She had laughed softly at his remarks, challenged him without impertinence, and spoken of tenants and books as though both deserved understanding rather than display.
He had gone to bed repeating portions of their conversation to himself and had woken wondering whether she would remain at Netherfield another day.
That was the problem.
Darcy dressed without calling for Bates at once, needing movement more than assistance.
When his valet did arrive, he brought quiet confirmation that Miss Bennet had passed a tolerable night and that Miss Elizabeth had remained with her until near morning.
Bates offered the information with perfect propriety, but Darcy knew a servants’ hall report when he heard one.
He thanked him and made no comment upon the small, private relief the news brought.
By the time he left his chamber, the house remained hushed.
Somewhere below, servants moved with the muted industry of early duty, but the family rooms were quiet.
Miss Bingley, Darcy supposed, would not appear for some time.
Bingley might be awake, but if so, he would likely be writing a note, pacing, or trying not to ask after Miss Bennet every ten minutes.
Mrs. Hurst would not willingly descend before the breakfast tray demanded her.
Hurst would not descend without a meal to receive him.
The library seemed the safest refuge.