CHAPTER 69 #3
The passage beyond was dimmer. The house seemed to draw back around him: footmen flattening themselves against the wall, a maid stopping with a tray in both hands, Mrs. Reynolds walking ahead with the quick, soundless authority of a woman who knew every cool stone and shaded chamber in Pemberley.
The north parlour had never been fashionable. It had too little view, too little light, and too much stone in its walls. In winter it was avoided.
In August, it was salvation.
Darcy laid Elizabeth on the sofa Mrs. Reynolds indicated. Her lashes lay dark against her cheek; her mouth, usually so ready to correct him, was still.
“Elizabeth.”
Mrs. Doddridge was beside him at once, feeling Elizabeth’s wrist with a competence that made no room for panic.
“She has fainted,” she said, her fingers steady at Elizabeth’s wrist. “Do not crowd her.”
Darcy drew one breath. It did not help.
“Ice,” Mrs. Reynolds said to the footman. “From the house. In shallow pans. And send Evans to Mrs. Darcy’s room: curtains drawn, bed turned down, and the air cooled before she is moved.”
Mrs. Doddridge remained at Elizabeth’s side, one hand at her wrist, her face so still that it steadied the room better than any exclamation could have done.
Richard had gone for Mr. Grant before any order could be given him. Lady Matlock opened the window. Hot air entered, but it moved. Lord Matlock kept Lady Catherine in the passage by the simple expedient of standing where she would have had to move him to enter.
Mr. Grant arrived with his bag and the expression of a man who had warned three households in his career that August and pride were poor physicians.
He asked for space. He received it.
Darcy remained beside Elizabeth.
Mr. Grant looked at him once and then, perhaps wisely, chose to conduct the examination around him rather than waste time attempting to remove him.
Elizabeth stirred as Mr. Grant closed his watch.
Darcy felt it before he saw it: the smallest return of weight to her hand where it lay against his sleeve.
“Do not speak,” he said, too quickly.
Her eyes opened a little.
The faintest irritation crossed her face.
Mrs. Doddridge bent closer. “There you are.”
That was all she said. It steadied him more than sympathy would have done.
Mr. Grant closed his watch and looked first at Darcy.
“Mrs. Darcy is not in danger.”
The words entered the room before any others could. Darcy drew one breath, then another.
“She has had too little food, too much heat, and not enough regular rest,” Mr. Grant continued. “In her present condition, that is quite sufficient to explain a faint. It is not extraordinary in such weather, but it is not to be encouraged.”
Elizabeth’s eyes remained half-closed, but her mouth moved faintly.
“I dislike being discussed as weather.”
Mr. Grant’s expression did not alter. “Then do not imitate it.”
His gaze moved to the doorway, where rank, alarm, and curiosity had collected in varying degrees of dignity.
“Her meals must be more regular. Her rest must be more regular. She must be kept cool, and she must not be surrounded. Mrs. Darcy requires privacy. Mrs. Doddridge may remain. Mrs. Reynolds will have her room cooled. Mr. Darcy may return when she is settled. Everyone else will withdraw.”
Darcy did not move.
Mr. Grant looked at him over his spectacles. “Sir.”
Mrs. Doddridge, seated beside Elizabeth, did not lift her head. “Go, Mr. Darcy.”
Elizabeth’s fingers stirred faintly against his sleeve.
Darcy bent, pressed her hand once, and stood.
The passage outside the north parlour was cooler than the drawing room and far less merciful.
Lady Catherine stood rigid beside a console table; Lady Matlock had one hand on the back of a chair she had not sat in; Lord Matlock’s expression was grave and shut; Richard waited near the door, ready to be useful and wise enough, for once, not to say so.
Lady Catherine spoke first.
“Mrs. Darcy might have spared the household some anxiety by—”
“No,” Darcy said.
He had not raised his voice, but the word stopped her.
“My wife has just been carried unconscious from a room. You will not make her discretion another charge against her.”
Lady Catherine drew herself up. “I merely observed—”
“Observe less.”
Richard looked sharply at the wall.
Lord Matlock stepped in before his sister could answer. “Mrs. Darcy has given this family good news, Catherine. We shall not receive it by complaint.”
For a moment no one spoke.
It was not surprise that held them silent. They had all suspected enough. The house had been too careful, Darcy too watchful, Mrs. Reynolds too ready with cool rooms and plain food. But suspicion had allowed civility to pretend ignorance. A faint had ended that convenience.
Lady Matlock said quietly, “Mr. Grant is right. She must not be crowded.”
“No,” Darcy said. “She will not be.”
“You did not think it necessary to inform us,” Lady Catherine said.
“It was not yours to be informed of.”
Lord Matlock’s eyes moved briefly to Darcy, and something like approval passed through them, though it was far too stiff to be called kindness.
Richard said, lower, “Grant said she is not in danger.”
Darcy looked at him.
“Believe him long enough to breathe,” Richard said.
Darcy did. Once.
Inside the north parlour, Mrs. Doddridge was speaking in her dry, level voice, and Mrs. Reynolds was ordering August defeated by management alone.
Footsteps sounded at the far end of the passage.
Georgiana appeared first, with Kitty close beside her. Both had lost the colour of ordinary occupation. Kitty still held a pencil in one hand, and Georgiana had brought half a sheet of music with her without knowing it.
“Fitzwilliam,” Georgiana said, “is Elizabeth ill?”
The use of Elizabeth’s Christian name told him more of her alarm than the question.
Darcy went to her at once.
“She fainted. Mr. Grant says she is not in danger.”
“Truly?” Kitty asked.
“Truly.”
Georgiana looked toward the closed door of the north parlour. “May we see her?”
“Not yet. She is to have quiet.”
The answer disappointed them both, but neither argued. Kitty bit her lip and looked down at the pencil still in her hand, as if surprised to find she had brought it to a family emergency.
Georgiana looked from Darcy to Richard and then back again.
“And—” She stopped, coloured, and tried again. “Is it true?”
The corridor seemed to grow quieter.
Darcy had faced accusation, papers, ledgers, and Lady Catherine’s temper with greater ease than that small hopeful question.
“Yes,” he said. “It is true.”
Kitty’s whole face changed. Delight rose so quickly that she seemed almost ashamed of it.
“Then we shall both be aunts,” she said.
Georgiana looked at her.
For a moment, the worry in her face gave way to wonder.
“Yes,” she said softly. “We shall.”
“To the same baby,” Kitty added, as if this were an important legal discovery.
Richard cleared his throat. “A powerful alliance.”
“Very powerful,” said Kitty. “We shall have to agree on principles.”
Georgiana’s smile trembled into laughter. “I think we should begin with spoiling.”
“Moderately,” Darcy said.
Both girls looked at him with the same expression.
Richard said, “You are already outnumbered.”
For the first time since Elizabeth had gone pale against his arm, Darcy felt something in the passage change. Not the fear. That remained. But beneath it, stubborn and impossible to rebuke, came gladness.
The younger girls had not thought first of succession, settlement, Pemberley, Fenwick claims, or family dignity.
They had thought of Elizabeth and a child.
It was, Fitzwilliam thought, the better order.
He turned back to his relations.
“Mrs. Darcy will receive no one until Mr. Grant permits it. No questions will be put to her. No complaint will be made of what she did or did not announce. Congratulations may wait until she is rested enough to receive them.”
Lady Catherine’s lips pressed into a line.
Lord Matlock bowed his head once. “That is proper.”
It should not have mattered. Darcy did not require his uncle’s permission.
Yet after so many years of family duty being used to cut and bind and silence, there was a grim satisfaction in hearing it used, at last, to keep a door closed.