Chapter 7 A Sweet Recovery
A SWEET RECOVERY
The next morning, supplied with clean petticoats and stockings by the young housemaid, I went downstairs to find the breakfast parlor.
Breakfast was set, with candles warming the filigree silver pots, but the room was empty and the food untouched. The Bingley household had not yet risen.
I opened the pots, discovered chocolate, and poured myself a cup. We did not serve it at Longbourn because Kitty and Lydia would drink nothing else. I took a sip. It was silky smooth, swirling with cream, and had far more sugar than I was used to.
I topped up my cup. A reward seemed justified.
Yesterday, Mr. Jones had examined Jane, his bushy eyebrows furrowed in bewilderment. The swelling on her leg was retreating.
He spoke with me outside her room. “I am greatly relieved, Miss Bennet. Your sister’s recovery is God-sent. I apologize for considering treatment that would have been excessively severe and dangerous.”
“You acted on your professional understanding. Please do not apologize.” There were vivid scratches across his cheek; those could be from my nails, or the Scottish woman’s. “Feelings were high for all present.”
He nodded. He had not seen what I gave Jane, being under assault by a Scottish maid. I knew I should explain, but I wished to answer my own questions first. And I was exhausted and wanted to return to my sister.
I slept beside Jane that night, unwilling to leave her unprotected.
That was foolish, of course. Mr. Jones would not burst through the door brandishing a saw.
But I was not the only guard. The little housemaid, who attended me now with such wide-eyed awe that I was quite self-conscious, had slept curled in a chair beside the bed, snoring.
Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley entered the breakfast parlor with a rustle of skirts.
“Miss Elizabeth, please tell me of dear Jane,” Miss Bingley said, taking my hand. She was concerned and sincere, which made me feel better toward her.
“She is recovering well, but is tired, and has a headache and sore ankle. I should not expect her for breakfast, or that she will be about anytime today.”
Miss Bingley expressed her great relief. I did not know what news had circulated, but it would be difficult not to be alarmed by shouting doctors and sprinting guests.
Whether the sisters were satisfied by my answer or not, I had left no polite avenue for further inquiry. They contented themselves with remarking on the weather and offering to lend me a dress while the servants ironed mine, for they had spotted wrinkles.
I repeated this exchange when Mr. Bingley arrived, absent the offer of a dress. He exclaimed happily and thanked me many times for attending to Jane. Mr. Darcy inquired and received his answer with distant formality. Mr. Hurst was last to arrive and thought only of his breakfast.
After breakfast, I returned to Jane. The sisters came up to visit, and Jane smiled and chatted a little and ate a bite of toast.
“You are receiving wonderful care,” I said to Jane. “I should return home.”
“We will miss you,” Miss Bingley proclaimed cheerily. “I shall have the carriage brought around.”
Jane grabbed my hand. “Must you go? I feel so much better having you here.”
Privately, I was worried to leave. But I could not invite myself.
After a long silence, Mrs. Hurst said, “You must stay, Miss Elizabeth.”
And so, a servant was dispatched to Longbourn to tell Papa and Mamma the events and to bring back a supply of clothes.
I left Jane with the sisters and asked directions until I found the housekeeper. I wished to speak with the Scottish maid and thank her again.
“That washerwoman has been dismissed,” the housekeeper said.
“Dismissed? Whatever for?”
“She struck Mr. Jones, ma’am.”
“After I struck him.”
The housekeeper’s expression conveyed that reprehensible behavior by gentry was no excuse for disorder amongst her staff.
I was disappointed, and concerned that the Scottish woman had lost her position. But as Mrs. Hill already retained the woman for Longbourn’s wash days, I could address that at home where I had more influence.
I returned to Jane’s room. The sisters had left, and Jane was sweetly asleep, watched with maternal care by the young housemaid. Reassured, I went exploring to find my hosts.
The breakfast parlor had been cleared, but there were voices behind a closed door. I approached and heard Miss Bingley speaking in scathing tones.
“You observed her, Mr. Darcy, I am sure.”
I was reaching for the door handle, but I hesitated, wondering whom they discussed.
“To scrabble about in the bushes after draca!” Miss Bingley continued. “And to walk three miles, or five miles, or whatever it was, above her ankles in dirt! She seems obsessed with some country-girl display of roughness.”
“I have seen only her affection and care for her ill sister,” came Bingley’s voice. “I find that very pleasing.” His defense was mortifying proof of whom they mocked.
“I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley in a wicked whisper, and I realized she was inches away, opposite the door I had almost touched, “that this endless grubbiness has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”
“Not at all,” his haughty baritone replied, “they were brightened by—”
I fled to the hallway, then, afraid my steps had been heard, I ran out the front door.
The day shone, bright and pure, the air crisp from the rains. My arms locked over my chest and hammering heart. Humiliation and fury whirled in confused, painful alternation.
The foliage rustled, and the lindworm emerged to sit by my feet, tilting her head with concern. Had her hindquarters not been so lizard-like, I think she would have wagged her tail in sympathy.
“Go away,” I whispered, and she slunk to her kennel.
Entering a room with those people was impossible. But I had accepted their invitation. Should I walk home, to abandon Jane and provide fresh fodder for their disdain?
I did have defenders. Mr. Bingley had been kind. And Mr. Darcy… well, Mr. Darcy’s opinion was hard to make out.
But Miss Bingley was as clear as the daylight on my face. She was a hurtful, conceited woman. I suspected her sister was no better.
That convinced me, though. I would not abandon Jane to a nest of vipers.
I wiped my eyes and marched back in. I passed the breakfast parlor and flung open the next pair of doors—apparently with vigor, for the lone butler within bowed hastily then eyed me with extreme trepidation.
After my altercation with Mr. Jones, stories of the mad Bennet girl must be flying.
Informed that the Bingleys had moved to the drawing room, I made my way there, but I arrived resolved to be polite. Decorum is the armor of gentry, and I was a gentleman’s daughter.
“Miss Eliza!” cried Miss Bingley with a wide smile.
It seemed contempt had promoted our acquaintance to intimate friendship.
I returned the smile, savoring my dislike, and she continued, “Jane is such a dear, even with a headache. I do so detest being ill myself. We were just settling for a game of loo. Will you join us?” She gestured to the seat beside her.
Armored or not, I was not prepared to sit beside Miss Bingley and gossip between hands. “Thank you, but I must return to my sister shortly. A book will serve for my amusement.”
I went to examine the bookshelf, mostly to explain my refusal of cards, but stopped short when I saw the title Upon the Mystyry of Draca. I opened it, but it was all pictures, with flamboyant captions and not very accurate.
Behind me, conversation over cards resumed.
“How I long to see Miss Darcy again!” Miss Bingley said. “I never met anybody who delighted me so much as your sister. Such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.”
“It is almost savage the way she pounds the keyboard,” Bingley said. “And she is so slight a creature! Oh, do not glower, Darcy. I am all admiration for your sister and her modern music.”
“Does she play Beethoven?” I asked, and faces turned from the card table.
“She does,” answered Mr. Darcy. “Do you, Miss Bennet?”
I laughed at that. “No, Beethoven is beyond my skill. But my sister Mary is an advocate of his work. I admire what I have heard.”
“Indeed, Beethoven is my favorite,” cried Miss Bingley. “How delightful that his music has reached you, even here. Although of course, you do not actually play. Are you too occupied pursuing draca?”
That was a petty attack by my standard, having grown up with my father’s barbed wit. But I began to wonder why she disliked me. I had done nothing to provoke it.
“They say Napoleon is pursuing draca,” Mr. Bingley said before I could jab back. “To buy them, or some such.”
Mr. Darcy rose from the card table. His tall frame drew the eye, and there was an expectant hush.
He walked to me and indicated the book I held, open to an illustration of a firedrake. “Your choice is interesting.”
“One that will not aid my pursuit of draca,” I said smiling. “It is pictures only.”
“Few serious books on the subject exist. It has been the work of generations to collect them at Pemberley.”
Miss Bingley leaped to her feet. “What have you chanced upon, Eliza? I am all curiosity!”
“I thought you dismissive of draca,” I said to Mr. Darcy, before remembering that was my private conclusion from the rumors of his lack of marriage gold and observing his extreme behavior at the ball.
An intense emotion played on Mr. Darcy’s face, but it was unreadable beneath his well-mannered exterior. He bowed and returned to the card table. But the game did not proceed, for Miss Bingley had to effuse over my book, and then search the shelf for other volumes.