CHAPTER 61 #2
“Mr. Latham agreed,” she added. “So did Mrs. Reynolds. Mr. Grant, I am persuaded, will agree when I have asked him enough questions to make disagreement tiresome.”
Fitzwilliam’s mouth moved slightly. It was not a smile, but it had remembered the road to one.
“You have begun.”
“Of course. Pemberley was awake.”
“And I was not.”
“No. You were sensible.”
He accepted that rebuke in silence, which proved he was still tired.
After breakfast Mr. Grant came, and Elizabeth received him not in the sickroom, where a patient might be disturbed by the business of his own recovery, but in the same small parlour where Mrs. Reynolds had already placed the household paper and the keys.
Mr. Grant entered with the expression of a man prepared to be polite to a lady and inconvenient to everyone.
Elizabeth liked him for the second part and intended to test the first.
“Mr. Grant,” she said, “I shall not ask whether the elder Mr. Darcy is well, because he plainly is not. I want to know what will make him worse, what may make him better, and which parts of your advice you expect a household to misunderstand.”
The physician looked at her for a moment.
Then he sat.
“That is the first useful question I have been asked in this house.”
“Then we shall try not to waste it. How often must he take nourishment?”
“Small amounts. Often. He has little appetite and less patience.”
“Appetite may be encouraged. Patience may be disregarded. What kind of nourishment?”
Mr. Grant named broths, light preparations, softened bread, milk if it agreed with him, eggs cautiously, meat only later and in small quantity. Elizabeth wrote it down.
“How much conversation?”
“Very little at once.”
“Very little is not a measure, Mr. Grant.”
“Ten minutes for family, perhaps fifteen if he remains calm. Business less, because business provokes him.”
“Business also provokes many healthy men. We cannot omit it entirely.”
“No.”
“Then when?”
“Not early. Not when he has just woken. Not when he has not eaten. Not after any agitation.”
“After food, before fatigue, under witness, and stopped before he thinks himself done.”
Mr. Grant’s mouth twitched. “That may be the most accurate prescription.”
“Excellent. Miss Darcy?”
He grew more careful. “A short visit may benefit both, if prepared. Not first thing. Not when he is in pain. She must not be distressed in the room.”
“Miss Darcy may be distressed where she pleases,” Elizabeth said, “but she shall not be made responsible for his strength. How long?”
“Five minutes to begin. Ten if he bears it well.”
“And if he speaks of Wickham?”
“End the visit.”
“If he speaks of guilt?”
Mr. Grant looked at her with new attention. “That may agitate him more than anger.”
“Yes. I suspected it might.”
“End the visit.”
“Mr. Latham?”
“Twenty minutes. Less if Mr. Darcy grows frustrated. Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy should attend, but not press.”
Elizabeth wrote that down too.
“Visitors?”
“None.”
“Excellent. You will put that in writing.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You will put it in writing. Mrs. Wickham has already called twice. A physician’s prohibition is harder to quarrel with than a daughter-in-law’s common sense, though it is often less deserving.”
Mr. Grant gave her the first real sign of approval.
“I shall write it.”
“Thank you. Papers?”
“No papers left with him. No letters read to him without permission. No accounts. No argument.”
“May he sign?”
“Not yet.”
“Can he understand enough to direct?”
“At times. But he may exhaust himself attempting to command what he cannot presently complete.”
Elizabeth set down her pen.
“Then we must make recovery his first business.”
“That is what I would advise.”
“No, Mr. Grant. You advised nourishment and quiet. I shall advise recovery as duty. Between us, we may make one tolerable physician.”
He laughed once, unwillingly.
“I should be honoured by the partnership, madam, if it is not too exhausting.”
“It will be very exhausting. That is why it must be done in a schedule.”
By the end of the interview, Mr. Grant had supplied more specifics than he had intended, Mrs. Reynolds had received them with the expression of a woman watching confusion become cupboards, and Elizabeth had drawn up the first order of the elder Mr. Darcy’s day.
Broth or light nourishment before any business.
Rest after the physician. No paper before noon.
Mr. Latham only after food and only with Fitzwilliam present.
Georgiana, if she wished it, after her father had rested and before he had tired himself with penitence or command.
No visitors. No old household privilege.
No note carried from the sickroom unless Mrs. Reynolds knew its contents and destination.
No tray taken by anyone Mrs. Reynolds did not name.
“There,” Elizabeth said. “He may dislike it with perfect regularity.”
Mrs. Reynolds folded the paper as if it were a useful weapon.
A servant came then with a card upon a salver.
Mrs. Wickham.
Of course.
“She is below?” Elizabeth asked.
“In the morning room, madam. She said she would not detain you long, but could not be easy without offering again—”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “People who announce they will not detain one have generally begun already. Mrs. Reynolds, will you come with me?”
Mrs. Reynolds inclined her head.
Mrs. Wickham was seated when Elizabeth entered, which was itself an assertion. She rose after a moment, with all the grace of a woman who had long practised making deference look voluntary.
She was not grand. That made her harder to resist. A grand woman might be opposed as a power; Mrs. Wickham presented herself as an old claim in modest dress. Her cap was carefully chosen, her gloves good but worn, her expression composed around injury.
“Mrs. Darcy,” she said.
“Mrs. Wickham.”
“I hope I do not intrude.”
Elizabeth did not answer that lie with another.
Mrs. Wickham’s eyes flickered toward Mrs. Reynolds, then back.
“I was most distressed to hear of dear Mr. Darcy’s condition.
After so many years attached to this family, I could not remain away.
Lady Anne, I am sure, would not have wished those who loved her and served her house to be treated as strangers at such a time. ”
Lady Anne had been dead too long to defend herself and too beloved to be left out of any argument by those who had learned to use her.
Elizabeth sat. Mrs. Wickham had no choice but to sit after her.
“Mr. Grant has forbidden additional visitors.”
“I would never presume to call myself a visitor in this house.”
“No,” Elizabeth said. “That is precisely the difficulty.”
Mrs. Wickham’s colour shifted.
Elizabeth went on, calm and exact. “You are, I understand, a distant connexion of the family, and long known to Pemberley. I do not intend to treat distant kinship as offence. But I must also be sensible of facts. Your son has behaved dishonourably toward Miss Darcy. Mrs. Younge, who is your cousin, was concerned in placing Miss Darcy in danger. Mr. John Wickham’s last interview with the master remains unexplained, and Mr. John Wickham himself is not presently found. ”
Mrs. Wickham’s mouth tightened.
“I cannot answer for every distress produced by young people’s confusion.”
“No. Nor have I asked you to.”
“My son has been much misunderstood.”
“Then he has been very unfortunate in choosing actions which resemble understanding perfectly.”
Mrs. Reynolds’s face did not move. Elizabeth admired her for it.
Mrs. Wickham drew herself up. “You are newly come to this family, Mrs. Darcy. There are obligations here which cannot be learned in a day.”
“I agree entirely. That is why I have begun with the simplest ones.”
“The simplest?”
“The sick man is not to be disturbed. Miss Darcy is not to be approached by those connected to her recent distress. No person with unexplained ties to Mr. John Wickham is to have access to rooms, papers, servants, trays, messages, or family business. The more complicated obligations may wait until these have been obeyed.”
Mrs. Wickham looked at her as if she had encountered a locked door where a curtain had always been.
“Lady Anne—”
“I never had the honour of knowing Lady Anne,” Elizabeth said.
“I will not presume to speak for her, and I cannot permit her name to be used by others where she can neither consent nor object. She has been dead many years. Whatever was owed to her connexions has had time enough to be settled plainly. It cannot now be made a key to Mr. Darcy’s sickroom, Miss Darcy’s confidence, or this house. ”
Silence followed.
It was not a loud victory. Those were rarely useful. Mrs. Wickham still sat upright, still injured, still respectable enough to be troublesome. But the room had changed shape around her. She had come expecting old passages. Elizabeth had given her walls.
“At least,” Mrs. Wickham said, “Mr. Darcy may wish to know I called.”
“If Mr. Grant believes the information conducive to recovery, he may be told.”
Mrs. Wickham rose.
Elizabeth rose too.
“I am sorry,” Elizabeth said, because it was socially required and not, in one sense, untrue, “that your concern cannot be received in the manner you intended.”
Mrs. Wickham curtsied.
Her eyes, when they lifted, were not meek.
Elizabeth watched her leave, then remained standing for several moments after the door had closed.
“Mrs. Reynolds.”
“Madam?”
“Have her followed.”
Mrs. Reynolds’s face changed.
“Not stopped,” Elizabeth said. “Not challenged. Not frightened. I do not want a scene, and I do not want her warned. But if she sends for anyone, or goes to anyone, or attempts to carry word beyond the estate, I wish to know it.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Mrs. Wickham is not merely troublesome. She is an opening. If Mr. John Wickham is hiding near Pemberley, she may lead us to him. If Mr. George Wickham has any friend left in this neighbourhood, she may reach for him. And if she has no one, then we shall know that too.”
Mrs. Reynolds lowered her eyes to the keys, then lifted them again. “I can send a man who owes nothing to Mr. Wickham.”