Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Elizabeth raised her head from her pillow and looked bleary-eyed around her room.
It took a long moment to realise that she was safe, that she was not staring down a speeding curricle, she was not slammed into the dirt next to Darcy, she was not listening to the frenzied commotion of townspeople all talking and screaming at the same time.
The activity following the accident was hurried, loud, and confusing.
Darcy called directions to everyone he saw about the apothecary, the horses, the smashed curricle, and the dead man.
The toll collector suggested that she ought to be carried to Mrs Philips’s because it was so near, but Darcy insisted she be brought home directly.
She remembered that the ostler had offered his cart, but Darcy made someone bring a carriage.
Someone recommended she see Mr Jones, who was occupied by the injured man’s leg, but again Darcy refused every offer other than her being brought to Netherfield’s lodge.
Did Darcy think I could die and he wanted my heart to stop in my own bed rather than my aunt Philips’s guest room or in the apothecary’s consultation room?
She had not seen much of the results of the terrifying accident.
Tears had blurred her vision, and Darcy held her to his chest, with his hand lightly pressed against the back of her head, and refused to let her look.
While they were still lying on the ground, all she could see was how trampled both of their hats had become, and then she considered what would have happened to them if Darcy had been a few seconds slower.
That was when her tears of fright had become sobs of guilt.
When the matter of where to take her and how to transport her was settled, she kept her face huddled against Darcy’s chest while he carried her to the carriage. She heard a horse screaming, the cries of people spreading the news, the wails of pain from the injured man.
And while listening to those horrid sounds, she was close enough to Darcy to feel the pounding of his heart.
He had clearly been so terrified that his heart was still beating away wildly even when they were in the carriage. Why did her own heart not stop beating from overwhelming alarm when those horses were near enough for her to see their teeth?
She would have expected the incident to bring on a painful heart episode.
I have never known such terror in all of my life.
Watching death come for her in the form of two out-of-control horses was unlike the daily fear of wondering if today was the day her heart would stop.
Her actions at the gate were reckless, foolish, impulsive.
What had begun as a way to make Darcy laugh became a stupid means to prove her strength, to forget for a little while that she was on the verge of dying.
She remembered the maid had cleaned and bandaged her arm, Cook brought her something for her pain, and her mother called and contributed nothing but cries of alarm, and then she must have slept some hours.
There was a dinner tray on the table, but it had grown cold.
Elizabeth ate a little, but was too exhausted and heartsick to finish.
I nearly got the man I love killed.
Elizabeth had never known such terror in her life, and it was a fear that had been made worse by knowing that Darcy would die, too.
He was going to let that team and curricle crush him.
That was more a strain on her spirits than the accident or even the fear of knowing her heart would soon stop.
She crawled across her bed to let her head fall back to her pillow.
The agitation—the terror—and then the guilt of nearly killing Darcy were such as she had never known.
Her heart had never had to work so hard to keep beating amid that horrible dread.
It felt as though she had run uphill twice the height of Oakham Mount.
How did the strain not kill me?
Elizabeth tugged on her pillow and curled up on her side. Could Mr Jones have been mistaken? There was, clearly, something wrong with her heart, but she ought to have fallen down dead just like her father after what happened today.
Her door opened, and she recognised Darcy’s tread. She faced away from the door, but she heard him walk around the bed and she felt him looking at her. She opened her eyes but did not raise them to meet his. She was too ashamed that her foolishness had nearly cost him his life.
Darcy was likely assuring himself, again, that she had not died while she slept.
He must see that my eyes are open. Instead of leaving, however, he sat next to her, leant against the headboard, and stretched his legs out on the bed, atop the bedclothes, still with his boots on.
He reached one hand for hers, where it was tucked near her face, and left it there with his fingers wrapped around her wrist to feel her pulse.
She stared at his hand but refused to raise her eyes to his face.
He intends to watch over me all night.
Her fatal disease could not justify taunting her husband, flying in the face of proper behaviour, embarrassing them both, and endangering their lives.
Why had Darcy stayed at the gate as long as he did?
She could still hear the way he dropped his voice when he said, “Elizabeth! Never!” Her heart did whisper that he had done it because he loved her, but it was a hope shortly checked by the memory of how he had left her room that night.
Darcy shifted on the bed, and still she could not look at him. She felt weak and ashamed, but she did not feel like she was about to die.
Why did I not die on that street with my heart pounding away in fear?
Elizabeth awoke still tired the next morning, and Darcy was gone from the room.
As she dressed, she wondered how she could face him.
How do I thank a man who does not love me for being willing to die alongside me?
When she arrived at breakfast, Darcy had already finished, but he had waited for her to join him.
He rose so quickly his chair nearly tipped backwards. “You must tell me, how do you feel this morning?”
“I do not want to talk about that.” She sat without looking at him. “I did not tell you yesterday . . . I am not even certain what I said once we came home—I was distressed, of course.” She finally met his eye. “I am so sorry.”
He looked at her in surprise. “It was a terrible accident. You are not to blame.”
“You know that is not true! I should never have tried to swing on that gate. I was angry about my heart, and angry to know you think so often about my dying.” She came around the table to stand near to him. “My failing heart does not justify how I acted! I was reckless—”
“Please, please do not distress yourself.” He sighed. “Sit down, Mrs Darcy, please.”
She had wished he might call her Elizabeth again.
Darcy brought a hand to his mouth and avoided looking at her as she returned to her seat.
“I am sorry, Mr Darcy,” she said when it was clear he was not going to speak.
“Thank you for not leaving me at the gate. I wish you had not risked your safety to preserve me from my own foolishness.”
“I would never have—you need not thank me. Do not think of it anymore. It is not good for you to worry.” When he finally looked at her, he said, “I am going to London for three or four days, but when I return, we can go to the Lakes.”
This took her by surprise. “You have business in town? This is unexpected news.” He said nothing. “What must be done?”
Darcy averted his eyes. “I must learn how the matter with Mr Wickham was resolved”—his expression was briefly one of contempt, as it always was when he spoke that name—“and make a few enquiries of my solicitor. I understand from Fitzwilliam that both my uncle and aunt are in town, and I ought to see them. I am known to be back in England, after all, and must re-establish myself to my friends and relations. It can no longer be put off since we are soon to be at the Lake District.” He came around the table and bowed. “Goodbye, my dear Mrs Darcy.”
He offered his hand, but it was such a formal gesture given what he had come to mean to her that it brought her no comfort even after he brought her hand to his lips.
Darcy certainly did not wish her dead, but he wished to return to his employer soon, re-establish his real connexions, and move on from Georgiana’s death and all of the bad memories from living in Hertfordshire.
And that includes me.
I have been a damned fool.
For too long he had thought his marriage to Elizabeth was about the things he could give her: being near to Georgiana, the independence of a married life, dignity unlike she had known at Longbourn.
They were small things that he could give her for three or four months without missing them before she ultimately died, and he could return home and be no worse off than before.
Instead, he had fallen in love with his wife, and he had kept an important truth from her.
She cared for him enough to wish for him to save himself and leave her to die at the toll gate.
Was that the gesture of a generous human being or a woman who loved her husband?
But even if her affectionate heart never loved him, he was well aware of how much he loved her and he ought to tell her so, and tell her the whole truth, before she died.
What a wretched mess I have made, and I have precious little time to make it right, if I even can.
“This is a drastic improvement over the places I had to meet you over the past year.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam fell into the seat next to him on the sofa in Brooks’s Great Subscription Room.
They had a good view of the card tables from this seat near the fireplace, and now that his cousin was here, perhaps other gentlemen would stop approaching him to wish him well, to ask about Madeira, to offer their condolences, and then offer their congratulations on his marriage.