Chapter 23 #2
Elizabeth may be a stubborn woman, but she was not reckless.
Her desire for control was making her say unreasonable things.
“Whether you could or not, you would not climb the gate. It is hardly what is expected of the character and conduct of a married woman. You think too well of yourself to act unexpectedly in public where everyone knows you.”
“Why should I not? We both know once I go to the Lakes, I am never coming back. I will die there, or perhaps even on the way there. Who cares what the Meryton gossips say about me?” Elizabeth turned to look at the gate. “Be grateful the only reckless thing I shall do is swing on the toll gate.”
“Do not bother. It must be locked.”
They shared a long, furious look, and the argument continued in silence with their eyes. “How can you tell at so great a distance? I shall see for myself!”
With that Elizabeth turned and ran toward the gate, with one hand on her bonnet and her reticule swinging from her wrist.
God damn it!
The tollhouse was on one side of the street that led into the turnpike road.
The wooden gate stretched from the house toward a low stone wall on the other side of the road, with a narrow pedestrian path between the wall and gate.
Two posts in the path blocked any small cart or horse from passing without paying the toll.
Darcy tugged his hat down and stalked after her. Elizabeth braced a foot on the bottom rail of the gate, held the top rail with one hand, and put her other arm over a middle rail, likely to clasp a picket. The gate was locked; it did not swing at all when she leant against it.
By the time he got near, he expected she would have cleared it, even considering her skirts and the gate being five and a half feet high.
But when he reached Elizabeth, her feet were now off the rail, and she dropped one hand from the gate, with her head down and one arm resting across one of the centre rails.
Darcy was inclined to berate her for her foolishness, but he changed his mind at seeing the embarrassed look on her face.
She did not raise her head to look at him, but even with that and her bonnet brim, he could see her pink cheeks.
He stood next to her, in the middle of the street by the gate, for a long moment.
How could I understand what she feels like living with a fatal disease?
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “what did you intend to spite more: your ailing heart or me?”
“I was equally cross about both.” She finally looked at him, and he was struck by how genuinely sad she looked. “Sometimes the unjustness of it, the anger I feel, my time being cut short . . .” She gave him a bashful smile. “My resentment of one led me to lash out at the other. I am sorry.”
Her spirit was wonderful, even if they both knew her strength was not to last. He could not allow losing his patience—however justified it was—and her recklessness to lead to acrimony.
They must make up. Where before his temper might have led him to harbour resentment for a while, they no longer had the luxury of time.
“Well, Mrs Darcy, I suppose I shall have to go against my natural inclination and forgive you now.”
She gave a little relieved laugh and leant her head against his shoulder.
Darcy repressed the desire to embrace her, and then he noticed her arm was still through the gate.
Her wrist rested awkwardly in the space formed by the steep angle of the diagonal brace, a picket, and a rail.
It was a narrow space, but she had a light figure—yet she kept her wrist through the gate.
“Is your arm trapped?” he cried incredulously.
Her cheeks turned redder. “There is a nail that holds the brace to that picket; when I put my arm through quickly to grip the gate to try to swing, my wrist caught on it. It is wedged in place, and it hurts dreadfully to try to pull my arm out.”
Darcy took off his hat to lean closer, while Elizabeth shifted to the side as much as she could with her right arm trapped straight.
A wrought iron nail that had gone through the brace was jutting into the triangle of space between the rail, the picket, and the brace.
It had pierced the sleeve of her spencer, and blood seeped through.
The diagonal brace prevented her from lifting her arm off the nail, and she would mangle her arm if she tried to force it out.
“I have fair reason to assume you will be thought an eccentric now, Mrs Darcy.” Part of him wanted to laugh as much as another part of him wanted to tell her how foolish she was.
“An eccentric? What a catchall phrase for someone who acts unexpectedly.” Darcy could tell that the courage in her voice was forced.
A few people pointed and stared as they passed along the pedestrian path, and she turned her head away.
“Perhaps everyone in Meryton will not think too ill of me?” Her voiced lifted hopefully.
“Because they have not been inclined to gossip and judge in the past?” He could not trust she truly believed that.
“Oh, they will think you are an eccentric, but your sole concern has been that your family and friends never learn of your heart ailment, and that I never acknowledge it. For the sake of your good reputation, it is fortunate we are soon to leave Meryton.”
“What a heavy burden a good reputation is,” she sighed.
Darcy thought of all he had done to preserve the virtuous reputation of Georgiana Darcy.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “yes, it is.” He was tempted to kiss away her small frown, but he supposed it would be unwelcome.
He pulled at the rail, and then rattled the pickets and the brace, but he could not dislodge any of them.
“We must get the toll collector to find a carpenter to remove either the brace or the nail.” A milk maid with two buckets across her shoulders turned sideways to go through the pedestrian path, and she giggled loudly.
Elizabeth gave a small whimper of frustration.
“While we wait for a carpenter, the toll collector can at least unlock the gate and swing you out of the way of any traffic. You will get to swing on the toll gate again after all.”
Elizabeth craned her neck to see behind her, and when she could not, she untied her bonnet with one hand and tossed it to the ground next to his hat.
The boys who had been playing ball ran past with shrieks of amusement when they realised a lady had her arm trapped through the gate.
“Oh, why has the toll collector not come out yet?” she whimpered.
“He has gone to the Crown since the mail coach has already come,” one of them called. “He asked us to fetch him if any carriages or horses came.”
“You had best run along and tell him he is wanted,” Elizabeth replied.
“But there is no one wanting to pay the toll, just a foolish lady with her—”
“Young man, this lady needs our help. And you are a gentlemanly young man, are you not?” Darcy spoke polite words but in a tone that brooked no opposition.
The boy nodded solemnly. “This lady needs you to bring the toll collector and a carpenter, and if you do it quickly, there is a thruppence for your trouble.”
Appealing to both his better nature and his pocket had an immediate effect, and the boy left his friends and ran down the street.
Darcy turned back to the nail. It was pointing in the same direction she had pushed her arm through, and if she pulled back, it would only tear her flesh further.
“Mrs Darcy, if I can bend the nail, could you slide your arm back out? I doubt it would injure you more than you already are if I push the nail forward.”
“Please do try. I feel ridiculous standing here whilst all of Meryton gawks at me.”
“You are fixed to a locked gate; you cannot blame them!” The anger was gone from his voice, and he laughed at the absurdity.
She gave him a rueful smile. “How shall you bend the nail?”
He needed some tool for leverage. “Have you your little silver knife?”
Elizabeth awkwardly raised her left hand to hold out the reticule around her wrist. Darcy was struck by how disappointed he was that gowns no longer had pockets and he need not reach through the pocket slit under her skirt to reach it. He blushed at the thought.
“Are you hot? It is a rather warm day.”
Darcy made an indeterminate sound and focused his attention on the iron nail. The blade of Elizabeth’s penknife would soon bend under the pressure. He edged the nail forward, but Elizabeth winced, and he stopped.
“No, no, I am no worse. Keep trying.”
“Are you certain?”
He heard horse hooves, and out of the corner of his eye saw two men in a curricle approaching. He bent his head to consider the nail. It yielded slightly, but his hand slipped. At least the toll collector ought to be back to unlock the gate.
“Darcy?” Elizabeth’s voice was surprisingly loud, but what struck him more was the intimacy of her calling him Darcy.
He had lost the right to ask her to call him by his first name after he told her that was only for family, but to lose his title was a step toward the relationship he dearly wanted with her.
He turned from the nail to smile at her, but she looked not at him, but over her left shoulder, behind them down the street. “Darcy, they are not slowing.”
The curricle rumbled toward them, and even at this distance, Darcy guessed the problem.
No one approaching a toll gate should be travelling at that speed.
The gentleman driving must have held the reins too slack, and rather than looping one rein into the other, he held them not in his hand but against his fingers.
They had slipped away, and the horses, fearful or confused, had bolted.
“He will control his team.” He said this to reassure her as his stomach rolled in dread. He folded the knife and, rather than using the blade, used its thicker handle as a lever.
“I could pry my arm out! I can bear the pain well enough.” He heard the fright in her voice. She pulled back roughly, but more blood seeped along her torn sleeve and she gave a little sob.
“Stop! Even if you could bear it, you will tear a vein and bleed to death on the road!”
Over his shoulder Darcy saw the ignorant driver now furiously pulling on one rein and then the other to try to bring his team to a standstill.
They were less than seventy-five yards away; unless the driver controlled the horses, he had perhaps thirty seconds before they crashed into the gate.
Darcy’s heartbeat quickened, but he found his awareness heightened.
He could not allow fear to render him motionless or they would be killed.
Elizabeth tugged her arm again, but she cried out in pain and the bloodstain on her sleeve widened. Darcy pressed the folded knife between her arm and the nail again. The handle was bending, but the nail moved slightly. He could not allow his hands to shake.
“Get out of the way.”
“What?” He used both hands to force the nail.
“Darcy, I am dead no matter what. Get out of the way.”
She had tears in her eyes, but she was entirely serious. “Elizabeth!” He paused long enough to give her a hard look. Her pupils were pinholes and her chest was heaving, but she was in earnest. “Never!”
He saw the passenger of the curricle looking poised to jump while the driver was sawing the mouth to no avail.
I cannot allow terror to overwhelm my mind.
“Please, Darcy, move!” Her eerie calm frightened him as much as the runaway curricle. He could hardly hear her over the alarmed cries from the townspeople watching the event unfold and the snorting of the approaching horses.
Darcy shifted as near to the gate as he could get to try again.
From this position, he could reach one arm through the gate and pull the blade handle down with two hands rather than try to push it forward.
The rush of his own pulse pounding in his ears was louder than the hoofbeats descending upon them.
The knife’s handle was not an equal match to an iron nail, but the nail finally tilted enough.
Elizabeth jerked her bleeding arm free, staggering backward as she did toward the horses.
Darcy wrapped an arm around her waist and, with swift steps, threw them both to the ground at the end of the gate.
They had been near enough to see the cracked leather nosebands of both horses before they stumbled to safety.
He held Elizabeth against him as the feeling of helplessness and horror and panic began to recede.
Her sleeve was ripped to tatters, and her skin little better, but she would be well.
They stayed in the dirt, and he held her as tightly as he could, and her shaking fingers gripped his coat lapels, blood running down her arm.
The sound of an animal screaming in pain pierced his mind.
From where he lay on his side, still holding Elizabeth, Darcy could see that one horse had jumped the gate and was galloping down the toll road, but the second failed to clear it.
It crashed its head and knees to the ground on the opposite side, its body across the gate with its hind legs in the air.
It was furiously kicking the curricle’s footboard and the sound of splintering wood added to the din.
Darcy raised himself on one elbow, gasping for breath, and saw the passenger had jumped clear before impact, but the man’s leg was bent at such a terrible angle that Darcy had to turn from looking at it.
It was good that Mr Jones was returned because both he and Mr Lynn would be needed to set the leg or, most likely, remove it.
The driver, oddly enough, was easier to look at because he was dead.
He had remained in the seat and had taken a crushing kick to the head from the horse he had failed to control.
Any longer, and he and Elizabeth would both have been trampled by the horses or crushed by the curricle.
Darcy lacked the strength to stand, to do anything more than look at his wife and be glad they were both alive.
Elizabeth was sobbing, crying from relief and terror, and Darcy clutched her against him.
She was deathly pale, and as he held her against his chest and told her that all was well, he was acutely aware of how rapidly and fiercely her heart was beating.