Chapter 5
For the next few hours, Darcy thrashed about, rough coughs racking him even in his sleep.
Elizabeth helped him sit up from his already inclined position and bent him over the basin.
He coughed again and again, painfully hacking, and then she heard wetness in the bowl.
Another cough or two, then he was still, taking a deep breath and slumping back into the bed.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
She gasped, overjoyed to hear his voice. He was still burning with fever and might not understand who it was in the room with him or what was happening, but he was sentient enough to speak his gratitude.
She set the basin on the floor and leant close to kiss his forehead.
After replacing the poultice on his chest, she pulled the counterpane around him, watching as his expression softened and his breathing evened.
When his body slackened and he appeared to slumber peacefully, Elizabeth rose reluctantly from the chair and stepped into the corridor to send word to Mrs Reynolds that Darcy was asleep and she would rest with him.
She climbed under the covers and, lulled by the soft rattle of her husband’s breathing, knew nothing more until the late afternoon sun peeked in through a crack in the heavy curtains.
Still half asleep, Elizabeth bent her head, trying desperately to sort her muddled thoughts.
Although grateful that she and the boys were well, without a hint of fever, a glance at Darcy told a different tale: he seemed worse.
Fearing he was taking a turn into the rheumatic, she wrote a note to Dr Lumley.
He appeared two hours later, and upon examining her husband did his best to reassure her that Darcy was holding steadily. There was nothing further to be done, the physician told her, his kindly face sombre. “His lungs are clearing slowly. The fever will break in its own time.”
There is no other possibility, she reassured herself. It will break soon. It must.
Such beseeching thoughts occupied her as she paced the corridors outside their chambers, and downstairs, when she yielded to Mrs Reynolds’s urging to help decorate the mantels.
James and the other footmen had brought in ladders to hang the boughs and berries they had trudged through the snow to collect.
How Darcy had looked forward to lifting up his sons to cut branches as his father had done with him.
To seeing their little faces as the greenery was hung and the bows tied.
The boys were brought from the nursery to ‘help’ as much as small children can—pointing to ribbons that appeared crooked, picking out pine cones to take to their father.
They seemed cheered by the activity, and although it would pain Darcy to hear of these moments he had missed, he would be gladdened to know Bennet and Henry were made part of it.
Still, they must be kept from him, no matter how it upset them.
The drawing room and entry hall were all that was merry.
The silver and gold sparkled under the flickering light of the fire and candles, and the greenery lent the large formal rooms the comfortable warmth Elizabeth thought they sometimes lacked.
The boys, lifted by the footmen, had placed strings of berries and pinecones wherever they could reach.
He will see it. He will be well and be in this room laughing at the children’s antics, chuckling with Bingley, lending his voice to song.
Shivering as a gust of frosty wind hit the window behind her, she drew her shawl tighter.
Expecting an icy blast of feigned politeness to greet her in the drawing room at Matlock House, Elizabeth was not wounded by the lack of warmth exhibited by Darcy’s relations.
She was astonished, however, by her husband’s mood in the presence of so many Fitzwilliams and Darcys.
She had endeavoured to relieve his anxiety a day earlier, but now that all dozen or so were gathered in his uncle’s townhouse, he seemed at ease—beyond sending some concerned looks towards Georgiana.
Instead, it was Elizabeth who grew uneasy when Darcy reached for her hand and introduced her to his assembled family; his expression was bland, but his voice mixed joy with defiance.
She met each with courtesy and composure, thinking as she did that most of them were exactly how she had initially thought Darcy to be—cold and proud behind their cordiality.
Although none were enthusiastic, Elizabeth could only be relieved Lady Catherine was absent and no one else displayed the strength of her dislike.
The exception was Darcy’s sole uncle on his father’s side, a white-haired man who, though hunched and leaning on a walking stick, had once clearly towered over his nephew.
Elizabeth saw more similarities than mere height.
Judge Darcy was an imposing figure with a severe countenance.
He said very little during dinner and addressed Elizabeth only upon his arrival and once during the meal.
His taciturn nature did not put her off.
She had seen the amused look in his eyes and heard the sardonic tone in his voice when he spoke to Lord Matlock, and fancied he was a gentleman who, though two decades older than Mr Bennet, could be his kindred spirit.
He sought a seat next to her while Georgiana played, tapping his buckled shoe in time with the melody and clapping loudly when it was done.
He turned to her. “She is excellent. Far better than I had expected. My nephew’s letters boast of her skills on the harp and pianoforte, but the boy has always been full of pride in her. ”
“Had you not heard Georgiana play before?”
“Never. Shy girl, hiding behind the curtains and her brother’s jackets.
I would too, with family like the Fitzwilliams and de Bourghs.
” There was, evidently, some sort of long-standing quarrel between them, and he appeared to delight in poking at it and assuming Elizabeth would take the side of her betrothed’s paternal relations.
The judge leant closer, examining her as if she were a horse. “I am pleased Darcy withstood the onslaught of Lady Catherine’s demands he marry her daughter. Poor sickly thing. There is a heartiness about you that I like, Mrs Darcy. You are even a bit tanned.”
“Yes, I have been faulted for preferring a country complexion to a town bronze.”
He chuckled, and his face softened into a crooked smile. “My first wife was a country girl. A ruddy-cheeked Scottish lass.”
Elizabeth smiled and, feeling herself the object of scrutiny, looked up to find Darcy and Lord Matlock watching her and the judge. The earl’s eyes narrowed, but Darcy, after a questioning look she answered with a smile, grinned broadly in their direction.
“Ho,” the judge chuckled. “I never knew my nephew had such a fine set of teeth. The boy rarely smiles in the family’s presence, but there seems to be a change afoot. If he sings as well, I shall eat my hat.”
When her husband joined them, the old man delighted her and embarrassed him with stories of Darcy’s youth. Much as she enjoyed the judge’s tales, Elizabeth found equal pleasure in witnessing the blushes and smiles they brought to her beloved’s handsome face.
Darcy’s face was pale as he slept, only his flushed cheeks betraying the fever still within him.
After tucking the blankets round his shoulders, Elizabeth went to her writing desk and scribbled a hardly coherent express to Jane.
The Bingleys would make their journey in two days, and although pneumonia was not contagious, they had four young children, and she wanted to warn them so they might choose not to come. She wrote,
How much I wish you here at Pemberley but how little I can do for you as hostess. Yuletide is a happy time, with thoughts of our Lord’s birth and His message foremost in our minds. But it is a time of joyous merriment as well, which Pemberley may fail to supply.
A second letter, calmer in tone, was penned to Georgiana, mentioning their household was afflicted by a cold—even your mighty brother has been felled—but emphasising that Darcy would take them all to visit after the babe was born in the New Year.
She begged her sister to stay well and enjoy this Christmas at her husband’s family estate.
She handed the letters to the butler and went to the nursery.
“Mama.” Much as he tried to sound fierce, Bennet’s voice trembled. “We want to see Papa.”
“Papa is sleeping. He needs to sleep so he can get better. To bring down his fever.”
“Is Cat helping?”
Elizabeth drew Henry into her arms. “Of course he is, dearest.”
“We can help more,” Bennet insisted. “Does the fever make him hot?”
She nodded.
“We shall take snow to him! It is so cold, and there is so much of it.”
From the mouths of babes. “Yes, my darlings. Let us find our coats and boots and send to the kitchen for buckets.”
A footman joined them out in the yard, scooping snow into pitchers, bowls, and wooden buckets.
A housemaid waited by the door with a tray of empty tankards and jars, and followed Elizabeth and the boys as they carried their snow up the stairs, where Mrs Reynolds stood outside the room where Darcy slept.
“Bennet and Henry have had a brilliant idea to help their papa,” Elizabeth told the housekeeper. “We shall use the snow to help cool him.”
The hall rug was dampened by the movement of snow into the tankards and jars, which the children, with a mixture of solemnity and eagerness, handed to their mother and the housekeeper to take into the room and surround Darcy with.
Edwards appeared and quickly moved the fire-screen to keep the warm air from too quickly melting the snow.
All was accomplished in minutes, and once Darcy was encircled by the cold snow and covered to his chin with a blanket, she and Mrs Reynolds led the boys to see their handiwork.
“Papa,” whispered Bennet. “Uncle Bingley is coming—and Cousin Charlie. Wake up tomorrow so we may play.”
“Look, Mama.” Henry twisted in Elizabeth’s arms. “Cat is sleeping too.”
Darcy’s raspy snore brought giggles and, for Elizabeth, some small semblance of hope.