Chapter 3 #2
“Dear, this is Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” he said.
“She is staying at Netherfield with her sister, and I thought it might be easier for you to talk to her than to your old sea-dog of a brother. Miss Elizabeth, my sister Georgiana.” Elizabeth curtseyed and did her best to appear all that was amiable and helpful.
“I shall be off now, but if you need me at all, you know you must send for me immediately.”
The pale face in the bed smiled and said timidly, “Aye, aye, Captain.” Elizabeth watched as Captain Darcy’s lips compressed and he looked away, obviously deeply affected, then he strode over to the bed, kissed his sister on the forehead, and left the room.
Left alone, Elizabeth went over to the bed. With a smile and a ‘do you mind?’ she sat on the counterpane and took the young lady’s hand in hers. “Now, what is it I can do to help, my dear?” she said.
It took a great deal of blushing and stammering before Elizabeth gathered that it was nothing more than a case of a very shy young lady in a strange house with very little baggage, who had been surprised by the early arrival of her courses before she had made provision for the usual rags.
Turning to the maid, Elizabeth dealt with the immediate problem, ordered a little breakfast for Miss Darcy, and set her mind to putting that young lady at something approaching her ease.
She soon realised that Miss Darcy, or Georgiana as she was soon invited to call her, was for some reason unwilling to talk about her home or the reason for the visit on which she had just embarked.
However, she was more than happy to talk about the brother who had just left, even if she would not talk about the one she had left behind in Derbyshire.
As far as Georgiana was concerned, Captain Darcy was all that was kind and generous.
“For we had a post-chaise all the way and stopped three times at various inns. He would not let us pay for anything even though I had my pin money and Mama had several guineas in her purse. Maids to see to us, the best of everything—he even got me a new—” here she blushed—“nightgown when my old one fell out of my bag while it was being loaded at Stamford.”
Elizabeth was beginning to wonder whether she should be hearing these artless confessions.
It was surely very odd that a young lady from such a wealthy family should be so unused to those attentions that even families like her uncle Gardiner’s expected as no more than their due whenever they travelled.
The breakfast arrived, and Elizabeth took the chance to leave and reassure the captain, whom she found loitering in the hallway for her.
In a few brief words, she did her best to make such explanations as she thought fit for him to hear and was pleased by his evident comprehension and gratitude.
She was about to return upstairs to see how Jane was faring when she saw him sway suddenly on his feet.
He was far too tall for Elizabeth to think of supporting him, and there was no one on duty in the hall, so she seized a chair from against the wall and dragged it over so that he could sit or, rather, collapse into it.
She was just about to ring for a footman when the captain raised his voice in a bellow that, she reflected, must have been trained by many a storm at sea. “Starkey!”
After a few seconds, she heard the sound of pounding feet, and the famous valet appeared, local report having once more lied, for in the matter of legs he had an undeniably complete set.
He was also dressed in the decent subfusc of an upper servant, even if he did have an impressive pigtail hanging halfway down his back.
“You’m not been wearing your giglamps,” he scolded, producing the spectacles from a pocket. “You know what Mr Luscombe said.”
“Luscombe’s an old woman, and you are another.” However, the captain took the spectacles and put them on. “I do not think they make a damned bit of difference.” He squeezed his eyes shut and lay back in the chair. “Is Miss Elizabeth still there?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied.
“Pray, accept my apologies for the language. I am afraid I am not bearing my troubles with equanimity. Would you be so very kind as to keep an eye open for my sister and Mrs Darcy? I shall have to go and lie down for a while.”
Elizabeth assured him of her willingness to do so, reproaching herself silently for her earlier lack of charity. The poor man was obviously wounded or unwell.
“Is Anderssen there?” he asked as another man, this one in the sailor’s traditional blue jacket and wide trousers, came thundering down the stairs.
“Aye, sir.”
“Then help me upstairs. Miss Elizabeth, your servant.”
Foolishly, Elizabeth curtseyed although his eyes were still shut, and the two seamen half-led, half-carried him upstairs.
Jane was awake and dressing when Elizabeth next called in to see her. It was almost time for luncheon, and Jane was feeling so much better that it was decided that they would go down together once Elizabeth had called on the other ladies.
Georgiana was still in bed and confessed, on close but kindly questioning, that she was in some discomfort.
So Elizabeth ordered a small stone bottle filled with hot water and wrapped in flannel to ease her pain.
Once again, the poor young lady seemed bemused by such kindness but still managed to say all that was grateful.
However, when Elizabeth knocked on the door next to Georgiana’s, a maid answered that Mrs Darcy had eaten but was still very tired and preferred not to see anybody at the moment.
“And,” said the maid, whom Elizabeth recognised as a cousin of their Hill, “if I let you in, I’d ’ave to let that Miss Bingley in too, and she’s already sent her maid round with ’er ears hanging out.
The poor lady don’t need botherin’ no more and that’s a fact.
” Then, obviously realising that she had said more than it was her place to, she scurried back into the bedroom.
Elizabeth shared something of all this with Jane before they went downstairs, and Jane agreed that it would be kind to visit Miss Darcy after they had eaten. She also suggested that reading to her might help to take her mind off her aches and pains.
They had just reached the head of the main staircase down to the hall when they heard an all-too-familiar voice.
“Oh, Mr Bingley, I am sure you have been all that is generous, but a mother’s anxiety, sir, you can have no idea of.
With my poor dear Bennet so very ill, I felt I just had to come and see how poor Jane is doing.
I am sure you will remember my youngest daughter, Lydia. ”
Lydia giggled. “Oh, Ma,” she said, “how you do go on!”