Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
“What colour was the opera gown?”
Darcy tried to remember the triviality of all he heard the previous evening. “Miss Bennet said it was made of crepe, but I do not remember the colour. The slippers were amber; would they have matched?”
“I will imagine an amber crepe gown over white sarcenet. How lovely. What did Miss Bennet wear?”
“To the opera? She did not say.” Miss Lydia Bennet was not inclined to hear of her sister when she could instead gossip about others.
“No, what did Miss Bennet wear last night?”
“Heavens, I do not know. I can only repeat her descriptions; I have no notion as to what such things mean.” Darcy saw Georgiana’s expression fall.
“Her hair was in curls, and she did not wear a turban. Her gown was white, and it had short sleeves.” Georgiana shook her head at his incompetence.
“It had yellow around the neck, sleeves, and bottom.”
“How would you describe Miss Bennet?”
The picture of her face contorted with pain flashed in his mind. “She has an unhealthy, pallid complexion, hair that is dark, with bright eyes to match. A rather small but well-shaped nose. A stature of elegance, but her figure is not perfectly symmetrical. She is the middle height for a woman.”
A coughing fit delayed his sister’s reply. “Tell me again the songs that she played?”
“She played a Schobert sonata. A pleasing performance, but by no means capital. She has easy manners, and an unaffected style comes across in her playing. You are more proficient than—”
The servant then entered, holding a small parcel. “This was sent from Longbourn, sir.”
Darcy sighed. He had a mostly steady cook, a giddy young housemaid, and a middle-aged man for everything else, and none of them competent. “There are many people in the village of Longbourn, Hannah. Who amongst them has sent me something I do not want?”
“Not the village; Longbourn House.” She announced this as though he were simple. “For Miss Darcy, with Miss Bennet’s compliments.” She deposited the parcel with a thud and left.
The siblings exchanged a curious look before Georgiana opened the paper. A note addressed to Miss Darcy was atop, and Darcy handed it to her as he scrutinised the contents. La Belle Assemblée vol II; a libretto for Die Zauberflote; and last year’s sensational novel Self-Control.
“Did you not try to get this novel in vain last year?” Darcy asked. She nodded, and then looked back at her note while he flipped through the book. “How does a girl born in the Scottish Highlands end up on a passage down an American river? This melodramatic novel has nothing of probability in it.”
“I think that is what makes it enjoyable. Will you read it to me in the evenings?”
He nodded. Better that than the ladies’ magazine. “Why has Miss Bennet sent hundreds of pages for your amusement?”
“She writes that she is recently returned from town and had only just learnt from you that I am an invalid. She suggests the possibility that I might be weary with only you for company, and she hopes these offerings will fill my empty hours.”
“It is impertinent that she addresses herself to you without an introduction.”
“She could not have written to you, and she wished to show me a kindness.” Georgiana laughed, and it devolved into a cough.
When she recovered, she said, “She gently implies that perhaps your situation does not allow you to indulge me as much as I deserve, and she wishes to share all that she has to offer with one who would likewise appreciate the position of a dependent sister.”
“She does not know you, and she is not a patroness of a village.” Charity, and from a woman with no status and from such a family!
Perhaps she did this to remind him to keep his promise not to mention her ailment.
As though her heart could be a concern of his.
“We are respectable gentry here. You have no need of Miss Bennet’s charity. ”
“Fitzwilliam, she does not know that. We are renting a lodge that a family with more than five hundred pounds a year would never rent. You do not keep a carriage, and everyone knows you keep only three servants.”
Who was he in this place? His situation here projected a gentleman’s status, but it was a precarious prosperity that no unmarried gentleman’s daughter would set her cap on. I will not be pursued for my fortune here, small comfort that it is.
“She appears to have the sunniest of tempers.” Georgiana was still clutching Miss Bennet’s note. “I wish I could make her acquaintance. I should at least send her a note of gratitude.”
“We cannot cultivate a single acquaintance in Hertfordshire. Besides, I know nothing of this woman.”
“You are very cautious.”
“I have reason to be! This Miss Bennet has relations in town, and if she mentions to them that she has made the acquaintance of a Miss Darcy in Hertfordshire, it could raise questions I shall not wish to answer.”
“Does that matter now? It all came to nothing. We are only waiting for me to die.”
The air was driven from his lungs. He tossed aside the book and covered his face with his hands.
His plan after the incident at Ramsgate was carefully plotted: tell everyone they had gone to Madeira for the sake of his sister’s lungs, and when he had convinced Georgiana to do what was necessary, they would resume their lives in England.
But her health was not supposed to have worsened.
The door opened again, and Mr Jones was admitted before Darcy could convince Georgiana to not give up hope.
The usual review of Miss Darcy’s colour, her activity, her evacuations, her pulse, and the listening of her chest followed.
Mr Jones checked to be sure that the patient was properly ventilated and asked if she had taken any exercise.
Meanwhile, Darcy stared out the window and wished he could block hearing all discussion of the matter produced by and expectorated from his sister’s weakened lungs.
“I have not recovered in the past six weeks as you had hoped, have I, Mr Jones?”
Darcy turned in time to see Mr Jones’s eyes soften as he looked at Georgiana. “We can be in no doubt, Miss Darcy, that this—”
“Is there something in her constitution that might be to blame?” Darcy stepped nearer. “A physician in town suggested that the—that her previous condition made her more susceptible—”
“I think it a local disease, sir, not one of her constitution. It is likely hereditary. Your mother died of it, I remember you saying.”
His mother had lived with consumption until she was forty. “Now that the other matter is no longer a hindrance, can we not travel to a warmer climate?”
“Oh, Fitzwilliam, no.” Georgiana drew back and shook her head. “I have neither the strength nor the courage for a long voyage. The pain of even a carriage ride would be unendurable.”
Darcy ignored her and stared at Mr Jones, awaiting his answer.
“I question whether the virtues of a warmer climate in arresting the progress of diseases, such as Miss Darcy has, have not, in general, been based on insecure data.”
“Another physician suggested that after she—that we could then travel to Madeira or the West Indies before her disease advanced.”
The compassionate look in Mr Jones’s expression hurt more than any blow he had ever taken.
“In some cases, a gravid state can have no injurious influence on the course of pulmonary consumption; but, in my experience, that is rare. In Miss Darcy’s case, the progress of the disease has not slowed since she—”
“Are you saying the progress of her existing lung affliction was hastened? The physician said that once she was delivered, I could take her to a warmer climate and she would improve!”
“Miss Darcy’s lungs are ulcerated, and I fear tubercles are deposited.”
“A more nourishing diet? More moderate, or full of animal food?”
“My dear sir.” Mr Jones stepped forward. “I do not think her diet or the climate are relevant any longer.”
When the apothecary laid a gentle hand on his arm, Darcy threw it off with a glare. Mr Jones stepped back, but his pitying expression remained. Georgiana rose and stepped in front of him, as though he might advance on the man in his anguish.
“Fitzwilliam, it is not his fault; it is not the physicians’ fault; it is not your fault. We have both known I am not recovering from this disease in my lungs. I am beyond the reach of your medicines, am I not, Mr Jones?”
“Many in your condition live for months, Miss Darcy, some for years. I cannot speculate yet that you would be amongst the former rather than the latter.”
“But you can do nothing for her?” Darcy kept his attention on Georgiana as he asked Mr Jones.
“On the contrary, sir. Exercise in the open air that excites her interest is still preferable. I shall continue the draughts to ease her cough and her pain. Rest as needed, freedom from anxiety, and preventing her spirits from becoming depressed will all slow a decline.”
His sister had begun to cough by the end of this speech, and Mr Jones attended to her.
Darcy paced the tiny, ugly drawing room, refusing to give in to tears in front of another man and in the face of his sister’s stoic acceptance.
Before Mr Jones left, he and Georgiana talked of cod liver oil tonic for her weight and strength while Darcy’s heart broke.
My sister’s continued suffering is my deserved punishment for my unjustifiable thoughts.
It was not the fault of any medical man, nor was it Georgiana’s.
He would have taken her to the West Indies had she been in a condition six months ago for a treacherous sea journey.
She was too ill to travel now, nor could he risk returning home even if she was not in too much pain for even a carriage ride.
They were supposed to be in Madeira, after all, and who would bring home a consumptive from a warm climate to die in England?
There would be questions. Would it have made a difference had they been in a better climate all this time rather than disappearing into Hertfordshire?