Chapter Twenty-Six #2
“Excellent. Now then, Miss Elizabeth. You will remain in bed today and rest. If you feel well tomorrow, you may rise and if you find the pain tolerable, reduce the powders you take during the day to the half-dose, although you must use the double dose when you retire. If you do rise tomorrow, you must not overdo, hmmn? Rest is everything. You will need help to dress, and your maid must be careful when setting your arm in a sleeve.” He smiled again.
“I have no doubt you will keep her straight on that score, until she finds a way that pains you least!”
“I am sure I will.” But her heart was not in it, as she struggled not to show how perturbed she was.
“Use the powders as I described for a week, and then see how you do. If you are easy without them, then you may stop taking them. If you need them a little longer, there is no danger in continuing their use. You will suffer no ill effects. As for the sling, wear it for a month complete. After the month, come to Buxton. I will check your progress and, if all is well, remove the splints from your wrist. If I am needed in the meantime, send a groom for me.” He stood, took Elizabeth’s left hand in his, and bowed over it.
“Are we agreed you will have no more accidents, hmmn?”
“We most certainly are!”
Dr Barrow smiled, bowed again, and left after bidding them courteous farewells.
Aunt Darcy tapped a fingernail on the package of mafeisan powders. “I do think this will be better than laudanum. Do you need anything else, my dear?”
“I would like the tea you promised, aunt.”
“Mrs Reynolds will bring it directly, now the doctor has gone.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Aunt… these powders. Are the ones my uncle used in the medicine cupboard in the still room?”
“No. After…” Aunt Darcy stopped, and pressed her lips together. A sigh, then she went on, “After my husband no longer needed them, I gave the remaining powders to George for his father.”
Elizabeth stared, her mouth dropping a fraction, but she had no opportunity to speak.
Mrs Reynolds bustled in, carrying the tray herself.
Between assuring the kind housekeeper that she was quite well, and that tea and thin-cut bread and butter were just what the doctor would have ordered if he had been a lady of good sense and not an eccentric gentleman whose life had been spent in the East, Elizabeth had no time then to think deeply on what she had just learned.
She must think on it later, when all was quiet and calm and perhaps only Jane would be there. She would think on it then, considering how potent the powders were and that none were in Pemberley itself until now.
Then she must speak to Mr Darcy and Mr Reid.
Between bouts of sleep, since the Chinese powders were as effective as Dr Barrow had promised, Elizabeth endured a long visit from her mother and sisters until they were called down to dinner.
Jane went with them, at Elizabeth’s urging.
She returned alone later, outwardly serene and with nothing to say about how their family had comported themselves, but her expression was a little tight around the eyes.
If Elizabeth had not known her so well, she might not have noticed.
Elizabeth had no doubt their mother had greeted every dish and glass on the table with a paean on Jane’s beauty and obliging temper, and how she would make some young man the envy of his peers by being the loveliest wife a man could hope to find.
Kitty and Lydia would have smirked and sniggered.
Elizabeth could only sympathise with Jane’s feelings, but as she knew from experience, it was not possible to expire from sheer mortification.
Now, in the quiet of the growing night, with Jane sitting beside her embroidering linen handkerchiefs in the candlelight, Elizabeth endeavoured to put aside pain and the vexing character of her family, and instead sought to reason her way out of the conclusion she was drawing.
It was not possible.
It could never be possible. Never.
And yet…
And yet.
“Jane,” she said, before she could change her mind, “I must see Mr Darcy and Mr Reid tomorrow morning on a matter of great importance.”
“The gentlemen are all travelling tomorrow to the estate Mr Bingley is considering leasing. They will leave early, and not be back until Tuesday.”
Elizabeth could not prevent her frown. “Who is going?”
“Mr Bingley and Mr Hurst, of course. Mr Darcy, Mr Reid and George go with them.”
“Not Hugh?”
“I do not believe so. Tom Lackenby is here still, and I do not think Hugh would particularly wish to go.” Which was the closest Jane would come to acknowledging she had rivals for her attention.
Elizabeth slumped down against her pillows, ignoring the stab of pain from her shoulder. “Then I must speak to Mr Darcy and Mr Reid tonight.”
Jane stared. “In your bedchamber?”
“Needs must, Janie.”
“It is not proper! At this late hour? For them to see you in your bed? Lizzy!”
“Then you will help me up and into a robe, and get me into a chair. I must speak to them, Jane. It is of grave import. The gravest.”
“But—”
“You must be chaperone.” Elizabeth could not keep the impatience from her voice. She indicated her splinted arm. “I cannot write to him, and that would be my only other recourse, however improper. Please, Jane. I would not do this if it were not vital.”
Jane, looking troubled and uncertain, eventually agreed but only, she said, because Elizabeth was fretting herself into a state of nerves rivalling their mother’s.
Elizabeth almost regretted Jane’s capitulation.
Rising from her bed was a trial. Being wrapped as much as possible in her robe was another, and one almost beyond her strength.
Hobbling to one of the two large wing-backed chairs set before the fire, leaning on Jane every step, was almost beyond the strength of both of them, and she collapsed into the chair, wishing she could indeed emulate her mother and cry for her salts.
Jane took the coverlet from the bed to further preserve her modesty, covering Elizabeth with it, then twitched the bed curtains closed so, presumably, the gentlemen could not be driven into an unseemly frenzy by the sight of Elizabeth’s pillows.
“Jane, one thing more. If this were something that was merely my own concern, I would confide in you without reserve. But this is Mr Darcy’s business, and I have no authority to share it. Please bring the gentlemen here, and if you will—” Elizabeth nodded to the door to Jane’s room.
“Of course.” Jane was obliging, as Elizabeth knew she would be. “I will be discreet, dearest.”
Jane was the best of them, and Elizabeth did not hesitate to say so.
Jane pooh-poohed the notion, placed, at Elizabeth’s request, a glass of water and the package of mafeisan on the small table at Elizabeth’s left hand, and left to find Mr Darcy.
Elizabeth had only to wait and try to recover from both her exertions and her perturbation of mind. Neither was easy.
Her sister returned with the gentlemen within the quarter hour. Mr Darcy came to her at once, taking her uninjured hand in his and stooping to look into her face. His expression was both joyful and anxious.
“You are well? I have been quite… You cannot know how much I regret yesterday’s mishap, and how eagerly I would take your injuries and discomfort on myself, rather than see you suffer them. It should never have happened! We have had an anxious time of it.”
The emotion in his tone and the flush on his cheekbones spoke to his sincerity, and perhaps to some other feeling she would not trust herself to name.
She glanced at Mr Reid as if he could interpret Mr Darcy to her, given he knew him so well.
Mr Reid was usually as imperturbable as a block of his native Scottish granite, but Elizabeth would swear his mouth twitched, and he gave her a friendly nod.
She did not know quite how to respond, feeling the heat rise in her face and a strange sensation that made her wonder, not for the first time in her dealings with Mr Darcy, if there was more of her mother in her than she could like.
It was a favourite complaint of Mamma’s when anything upset her, that she felt odd flutterings.
It was not a state Elizabeth wished to emulate.
She told them she was, despite appearances, quite well and the doctor’s prognosis was favourable. “I owe you both the greatest of thanks and gratitude. I would have fared very ill without you.”
“Without us, Elizabeth, you are unlikely to have been hurt in the first place. I can only thank God it was no worse.” Mr Darcy squeezed the hand he held, and released it, straightening up.
He had called her Elizabeth the day before, while she lay on the stony hillside unable to move without agony scything through her, his big hand enclosing hers in a grip that gave such comfort.
She could not find it in her to protest his use of her given name, despite the breach of propriety.
It sounded very well, her name in his deep voice.
Jane cleared her throat. “Elizabeth wishes to speak to you in confidence, Mr Darcy. I will retire to my own room.” She gestured to the door.
“I will keep the door open. I should be at sufficient distance that I will not overhear a conversation in normal tones, but may come at once when called for.” And Jane took herself off to give them privacy.
No more prevarication.