Chapter Twenty-Nine
On A Gridiron
Without the mafeisan, Elizabeth would not have slept.
Oh, not because of the pain in her shoulder, although that was as relentless as a nagging fishwife with a deep grievance and a voice as raucous as a gull after a herring.
Instead, anxiety and a burgeoning self-knowledge would have kept her wakeful, and an embarrassment that burned the way a volcano’s lava seared and scorched everything it touched.
She feared she had come suddenly to a revelation, an epiphany, and then betrayed herself to the subject of it in the most humiliating way.
She could not have discomfited herself more thoroughly if she had tried for a fortnight.
Fear for his safety had swept away every reserve, every bit of her armour. What utter folly! He was kind, and she could count him a friend, but to betray a partiality for which there could be no return? Pah. She knew better than that. She knew exactly who and what she was, and who and what he was.
He was the master of Pemberley. He counted an earl as close kin.
He was a very rich man. He would marry someone beautiful and accomplished, with an enormous dowry and from the best kind of family; the sort of wife he was born to, the sort Elizabeth could not even aspire to be.
What was she, but the shabbily-dressed poor relation whom, that first night, he had deplored for her pert tongue and pinched countenance?
Her head bowed under the weight of understanding how meagre and deficient she must appear, despite her cheerful, playful manners and the little wit God had given her.
She had nothing to offer. No proper education, no dowry worth speaking of, no longer Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn but merely Lizzy Bennet of nowhere-in-particular.
She had nothing more than being gentle-born, but so reduced in importance—and Heaven knew, the Bennets had never been more than middling important even in the small district around Longbourn—that, other than the Darcys, her only connection now was an uncle who was doing well for himself in trade.
Was this what George felt when she had refused him, had relegated him in her heart to the place of a brother? This hopelessness, this weariness and heaviness, this churning, nauseating chagrin and disappointment?
Her arm still ached. Her head still ached. Her heart still ached, yearning for what could not be.
And so it was with deep thankfulness she opened her mouth like a baby bird when Jane bade her to, and meekly swallowed every drop of the Chinese oblivion that Jane spooned into her.
Every last drop.
Elizabeth refused to lie abed on Monday.
What use to her or any other mortal was lying in bed, pining like the lovesick heroine of a Gothic novel?
She left her room at noon to venture downstairs following a long rest to recover from the exertion of dressing, her right arm in a sling created from a pretty shawl.
She was disconcerted to find Hugh waiting outside the door.
She could only stare when he greeted her with gruff tenderness and a roughened tone that bore testimony to the fright she had given him.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He blinked, and tucked her left hand under his arm. “I live here, Lizzy.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“Jane sent for me when you were ready to go downstairs.”
“No. I meant, why have you not gone with the others to Riverlethe?”
“Why should I go? You are as bad as Fitzwilliam. He spent most of breakfast trying to persuade me.”
“I wish you had listened.”
Hugh’s grimace was a wonder to behold. He glanced ahead, to watch Jane flitting before them along the landing towards the wide staircase.
“I am doing my best to be a gentleman and accept Jane’s choice, should that be Bingley, but it is asking all too much of me to aid the man in finding an estate so close he can court her under my nose. ”
Elizabeth winced in sympathy. One day, she would be forced into Hugh’s shoes and watch a courtship that would tear her apart as if she were no more than thin paper.
“I am sorry, and I do understand. But you have no idea of the danger. Listen to me. You must not be alone today, nor tomorrow until they are safe home. Not at all. It is important you have someone with you at all times who can vouch for you.”
“Vouch for—” He stared at her, wide-eyed under the artfully disarranged hair flopping onto his brow. “Did you hit your head when you fell out of that gig?”
“No. It is important, Hugh. Humour me. Is Tom Lackenby still here?”
“Aye. We went cubbing earlier but it was poor sport. He and I will eat nuncheon, and then he will go home.”
“Ask him to stay until tomorrow. Please. The general will not mind, if you send word with a groom. Please, Hugh. Go riding, or shooting, or play billiards all day with him, but keep him here and keep him close.” She looked up into his face. “For my peace of mind.”
On any other day, she would laugh at the look of grave suspicion he gave her. “Very well. Though if you did not hit your head, Lizzy, then those damnable powders Barrow gave you have put maggots in there instead of your usual wits.” He tapped, gently, on her temple. “I think you are dreaming.”
“I wish I were.”
“Hmmpf,” he said. They reached the top of the stairs, and, with brotherly high-handedness, he ordered her to “Lean on me, and do not attempt the stairs on your own, or I will not answer for the consequences. You will be the death of me, my girl. Have you any notion of what grief you have cost us this year? Between the scarlet fever and your hurling yourself down hillsides—”
“I did nothing of the sort, Hugh Darcy!”
“Pfft. It looked suspiciously like it to me, I tell you. My heart near on stopped when I saw the mess you made of that old gig.”
Hugh started down the wide stairs at a pace his great-grandmother, had she still been living, might have welcomed as appropriate to her age and infirmity.
When Elizabeth tried to induce him to walk faster, her efforts were met with a snort and a “Not so fast! I do not want you throwing yourself down this staircase the way you do every hill in Derbyshire. Mamma told me I was to make sure you were safely brought down to the yellow saloon and that I undertook to do.” A sidelong glance and a grin betrayed his enjoyment of the situation and the power he had over her. “You are in my charge, you know!”
“Oh, I do know.”
“In all seriousness, Lizzy, you will let us help you, so long as you are not quite yourself. No arguing about it!”
“I will be good.” Elizabeth resigned herself to their snail’s pace. His great-grandmother would likely tear past them at a great rate.
Jane had gone on ahead and was now out of sight. Hugh sighed after her, and asked, rather diffidently, if Elizabeth thought anything would come of what he termed ‘this bag of romantic moonshine’ with Bingley.
“They have known each other for only two weeks. Who can tell what may come of it?”
Hugh grunted. “Well, Jane has a man bellows-to-mend on first sight. Bingley is not so bad, I suppose, for a Cit. At least she would haul him up a step or two, though I cannot approve his being from trade.”
At this juncture, Hugh stopped speaking and squired Elizabeth into the saloon, where, with Aunt Darcy and Jane, Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst were seated around a low table in the centre of the room.
It did not do for him to speak of their brother so in their hearing, and Elizabeth could only laud this unexpected acquisition of tact.
Hugh bowed deeply to all the ladies, and made his escape.
For Elizabeth, the next few minutes of exhaustive enquiries into her health and for details of the accident were, frankly, exhausting, and it was with some relief that she welcomed Aunt Darcy’s suggestion of refreshments.
She had no great appetite, likely because of the mafeisan powders, but tea was always a boon, and she sipped hers while the others devoured fruit and the little cakes that Pemberley’s cook baked to perfection.
She liked them so much, she made herself nibble on one, just to remind herself that she was alive, that she would be well, and those things were to be celebrated.
She had to concede, however, that her anxiety over the gentlemen—all the gentlemen—made even Mrs Crocombe’s cake taste like ashes, and she left most of it on her plate.
The talk moved eventually onto the visit the gentlemen were making to Riverlethe Hall.
Jane remembered driving through Hallows, the nearest village to the hall, on a trip to Sheffield, but did not think the hall had been visible from the road—a contribution to which none had a reply other than wordless murmurs.
Elizabeth then mentioned that Mr Bingley had told her of their father’s injunction to become landed one day.
It must, she said, be gratifying that he was about to achieve this ambition.
“Of course.” Miss Bingley’s smile was rather fixed.
“Although this may not be the best estate for my brother to buy. Its situation is not entirely ideal… the distance from Town, of course, and, well, there are some other disadvantages that must be considered. After all, my brother is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing, and it is only be prudent to be careful in extending one’s circle, after all. ”
This statement was greeted with a brief silence. Jane looked astonished, before making an effort to maintain her usual air of cheerfulness. Mrs Hurst must have found her bracelets to be fascinating, since she did not look up from them, her thin fingers twirling them round and round her wrist.
Aunt Darcy seemed the least affected, and regarded Miss Bingley with a cool smile. “Mr Bingley is an amiable and prepossessing young man, very gentleman-like indeed. He has been a welcome addition to our own circle here at Pemberley.”