THIRTEEN
Netherfield.
Elizabeth
“You did what?” Jane asked, though her voice remained weaker than Elizabeth was accustomed to hearing.
Elizabeth stirred the draught once before lifting another spoonful toward her sister. “I spoke with Mr. Darcy this morning in the library.”
Jane swallowed the medicine obediently, though not without a faint grimace afterward.
She had woken only minutes earlier asking for tea, insisting it was the only thing she believed her stomach capable of enduring, and though the fever had finally broken late that afternoon, exhaustion still lingered heavily upon her.
“You mean you truly conversed with him?” Jane asked. “Not merely civilities?”
“None of those,” Elizabeth said. “Yesterday evening he rather supported my decision to come here through the mud. Miss Bingley made a particular point of observing how exceedingly improper and unladylike it had been. Mr. Darcy’s remark interrupted her very neatly, though I assure you I did not require the assistance. ”
Jane shifted slowly into a more upright position, wincing slightly as she moved. Elizabeth immediately rose to help arrange one of the pillows more comfortably behind her back before settling again beside the bed.
“Still,” Jane said once she had settled properly, “I did not think him someone you wished especially to speak with. I thought you disliked him.”
“I never said I did,” Elizabeth answered automatically.
Jane said nothing. The silence lasted precisely long enough to suggest she did not believe a word of it.
Elizabeth sighed. “At least... not to you.”
Jane smiled faintly. “Charlotte, then?”
“Possibly once,” Elizabeth admitted. “Though in my defence, Mr. Darcy had not at that time inspired much affection.”
“No,” Jane agreed gently. “I cannot suppose he had.”
For a moment Elizabeth remained quiet, stirring the remaining draught absently.
“When I first arrived at Netherfield,” Jane said after a pause, “Miss Bingley mentioned Mr. Darcy was somewhere within the house, though I scarcely saw him at all.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “From what little I have observed, he seems determined to keep very much to himself even here.”
Her gaze drifted briefly toward the fire.
“There is something about him that makes me curious.”
Jane’s brows lifted slightly. “Curious?”
“Aside from gossip and impressions, we know almost nothing of him truly,” said Elizabeth. “There is the assembly, of course. Mr. Collins's account. And Mr. Wickham —”
The name escaped before Elizabeth remembered she had never mentioned Mr. Wickham’s testimony of Mr. Darcy to Jane.
Jane’s eyes lifted immediately despite the lingering heaviness of illness. “Mr. Wickham?”
Elizabeth looked suddenly very occupied with rearranging the blanket across Jane’s lap.
“Yes.”
“The same officer Lydia mentioned? The gentleman you met whilst escorting Mr. Collins to Meryton?”
Elizabeth gave a reluctant nod.
“Oh.” Jane’s expression altered slowly with understanding. “Mama declared several times that an officer was connected with your refusal of Mr. Collins. I merely did not realise she referred to an actual one.”
Elizabeth nearly laughed despite herself. “It was nothing of that nature, Jane.”
“Then of what nature was it?”
Elizabeth hesitated a moment before relenting.
“He merely spoke to me of Mr. Darcy,” she admitted at last. “Rather extensively, in fact.”
And because concealment had now become impossible, she repeated the substance of Mr. Wickham’s account as fairly as she could.
Not entirely believing it, as she admitted openly, yet unable to dismiss it altogether either.
Jane listened quietly throughout, her expression thoughtful rather than condemning.
“I confess,” said Elizabeth at last, “after the assembly, I did not know quite what to think of Mr. Darcy. Mr. Collins’s account of his accident and wife’s death gave me reason to think perhaps I had judged him too hastily.
Then came Mr. Wickham’s account, which very nearly persuaded me otherwise again. ”
She paused briefly.
“But afterward I thought perhaps Mary was correct, that people ought not to be judged entirely by what others say of them.”
Jane smiled faintly. “That is very wise.”
“I had not intended to speak with him today. Indeed, I did not even know he was in the library until I entered it. But when I saw him,” Elizabeth continued, “I decided I might as well discover for myself what sort of man he truly was. After all, I thought nothing he could say would exceed —” She stopped.
Jane regarded her with sudden suspicion. “Exceed what?”
Elizabeth looked fixedly at the fire. She had not meant to say that either.
“It was nothing.”
“Lizzy.”
“It was merely something disagreeable he said at the assembly.”
“What did he say?”
“It does not matter.”
“Lizzy.”
Elizabeth groaned softly. “Illness has made you excessively persistent.”
“And evasion has made you uncomfortable.” Jane settled herself slightly higher against the pillow. “What did he say?”
Elizabeth was quiet a moment longer.
“Mr. Bingley was urging him to speak to someone,” said Elizabeth at last. “To anyone. He then recommended me, based upon the conversation he had with you. Mr. Bingley did not realise I was near enough to hear him.”
She paused briefly.
“Mr. Darcy did. He looked directly at me and declared I was not handsome enough to tempt him.”
Jane's hand rose slowly to her mouth.
“This was after,” Elizabeth continued, her voice entirely level, “he had implied that he saw no reason to seek a conversation with me simply because I had come to a country assembly. As though attendance itself were evidence against intelligence.”
“He said that,” said Jane quietly, from behind her hand.
“He did. And he did not lower his voice.”
Jane lowered her hand slowly. “That is not merely disagreeable, Lizzy. That is unkind.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “It is.”
Jane remained quiet a moment, as though considering what ought to be said.
“And yet now you are curious about him,” she said softly.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Even at the assembly, I think I found him something of an object of curiosity.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth considered the question carefully before replying.
“I think perhaps he hides behind his pride deliberately,” she said at last. “It is easier to appear proud than to permit people near enough to wound you.”
Jane studied her sister thoughtfully. “You believe that is true of Mr. Darcy?”
“I do not know,” Elizabeth admitted honestly. “But after what happened to him...” Her gaze lowered briefly. “I think perhaps solitude has become easier for him than people.”
Jane’s expression softened, though fatigue had already begun reclaiming her features. One hand rose lightly toward her temple.
“I believe I have spoken too much,” she murmured. “My head aches still.”
“Then Mr. Jones would certainly scold me for encouraging conversation the moment you woke,” said Elizabeth gently, rising to draw the blankets more securely about her. “He would think me entirely unfit for nursing.”
Jane smiled faintly, her eyes already drifting closed again.
Elizabeth remained beside the bed until her sister’s breathing deepened into sleep.
Rain had begun again beyond the windows, light and steady against the glass, and though the blanket required no adjustment whatsoever, Elizabeth drew it a little more securely about Jane before returning quietly to the chair beside the fire.
She was in no particular hurry to go downstairs.