Chapter 7 Whims and Inconsistencies
WHIMS AND INCONSISTENCIES
The room was still at last. The apothecary was gone, the maid sent for more firewood.
Her younger sisters were downstairs, her mother abed.
Her father was closeted in his library with Colonel Forster, the magistrate and Mr Bingley.
Elizabeth lay unmoving on the bed, her eyes not quite closed and the whites visible between her lashes.
The ugly welt on her cheek darkened along with the receding daylight.
“Oh, Lizzy!” Jane whispered. “How could he do this to you?”
Silence was the only answer. Tears came and would not stop.
She held her sister’s hand and spoke of childhood memories and nonsense—things that would commonly have made Elizabeth laugh but now raised not a murmur.
She attempted to spoon some water into Elizabeth’s mouth, but she would not swallow.
She sang, half the words replaced with sobs, but she sang nonetheless for the sister she loved so dearly.
Nothing worked. Elizabeth did not awaken.
“Pray, Lizzy, wake up,” she begged. “Lizzy? Lizzy!”
The name sounded loud in the quiet of the room. Just as it had when Mr Bingley shouted it upon falling to his knees beside Elizabeth in the middle of Meryton’s High Street.
Jane squeezed her eyes shut against the memory, ashamed to have even noticed at such a moment.
Yet closing her eyes only recalled to her the image of Mr Bingley tenderly cradling Elizabeth in his arms as he bore her home and the distress etched upon his countenance as he laid her reverently upon the bed.
Her eyes flew open, and she blinked furiously, struggling to suppress a surge of resentment.
His concern was reasonable. He would have to be the most unfeeling of creatures not to be distressed by such a circumstance.
She would have to be the most unfeeling of creatures to begrudge her sister anybody’s compassion as she lay wounded and unconscious.
Try as she might, however, Jane could not dismiss the voice that whispered that was precisely the problem. If, even when unconscious, Elizabeth had more power to attract Mr Bingley’s notice than she, how was she ever to compete?
Monday 25 May 1812, Hertfordshire
None of the Bennets attended church on Sunday, and Bingley passed the day in a harrowing state of suspense awaiting news from Longbourn that never arrived.
Over and again, his mind’s eye showed him Wickham seizing Elizabeth, shouting at her, driving his fist into her temple ’til she collapsed to the ground—all before he was able to reach her.
Over and again, he agonised over the memory of Wickham importuning her at the last assembly.
Why had he not done more then to protect her?
It was as a result of his inaction that Elizabeth was suffering thus, and guilt threatened to overwhelm him.
He called at Longbourn at a barely respectable hour on Monday, desperate for better news, but such relief was not to be had.
Miss Bennet was tending to Elizabeth; thus, Mr Bennet received him in his library.
His haggard countenance told Bingley all he needed to know of Elizabeth’s condition even before it was confirmed that she had not yet awoken.
They spent some time in discussion of events, joined after half an hour by Colonel Forster, who brought the unhelpful news that Wickham remained at large.
“Who is it?” Mr Bennet said curtly when there came a second knock at the door.
“Papa, Mr Oates wishes to see you,” Miss Bennet answered.
Bingley’s insides jumped. He had not spoken to her properly since Saturday’s unpleasantness and found himself suddenly eager for a measure of her sweet serenity.
He stood, as did they all, when she came in.
Her lovely countenance lit up with tired but happy surprise upon seeing him, easing his disquiet considerably.
He returned her smile, but the moment was broken when the apothecary came in behind her, his expression severe.
“What news?” Mr Bennet enquired.
“The swelling appears reduced,” Mr Oates replied. “But that is no longer my primary concern.” He paused, glancing hesitantly at the other occupants of the room.
“Never mind them,” Mr Bennet grumbled. “Let us have it.”
“As you wish. Mr Bennet, your daughter has taken little or no fluids for above six-and-thirty hours. Unless she awakens and drinks something soon, she cannot survive.”
“Good God!”
Bingley assumed Mr Bennet had spoken thus until he noticed everybody peering in his direction.
Miss Bennet let out a small sob and ran from the room.
With all colour drained from his countenance, Mr Bennet muttered an invitation for Bingley and Colonel Forster to stay and finish their coffee then went after his daughter, nodding for the apothecary to follow.
“Wickham might well swing if she dies,” Colonel Forster said once they were gone.
Bingley’s guts twisted upon themselves. He sat heavily back in his chair. Elizabeth could not die!
“If they ever catch him,” the colonel added.
“I ought to have gone after him,” Bingley said apologetically. “Only my first thought was for Miss Elizabeth.”
“I understand entirely. It cannot have been a pretty thing to witness.”
Indeed not. Bingley would never forget the sight of Elizabeth lying prone on the ground. Or the feel of her in his arms, so fragile, so delicate.
“Speaking of Wickham’s crimes,” Forster went on, “I received a letter from your friend, Mr Darcy this morning. He has written to warn me about Wickham. All too late of course, but we cannot blame him for that.”
“Darcy wrote to you about Wickham?”
“Aye. Offered to pay his debts. Think you he would object to my asking for assistance with the search for Wickham?”
“Gads, no! I cannot imagine why I did not suggest it.”
Why had he not thought to contact Darcy himself? Resolving that instant to write to him, Bingley fared Forster well and rode post-haste for home. He would write and beg Darcy to come, for never had he needed him more.
Mary chose to walk about the room as she read, for she could scarcely bear to look at the frightful bruise marring her sister’s cheek.
She knew not what passages she chose, only that Elizabeth showed no sign of hearing any of it.
When tears blurred the words on the page, she dropped her hands and succumbed to her sorrow.
With her head bowed thus, her eyes were drawn to the corner of a letter obtruding from beneath the dresser.
Further inspection revealed it to be addressed to her Aunt Gardiner in Elizabeth’s hand.
How it came to be there mattered not a whit to Mary.
She could think only that her beloved sister might be about to die, and this letter seemed the closest she might ever again come to speaking to her.
Without further thought, she tore open the seal.
Reading it only made her cry harder, for the letter was more wretched than Mary would ever have imagined possible.
Elizabeth was lonely—grieved by the change in her relationship with Jane, mortified by accusations of flirtatious behaviour and struggling to suppress her natural inclination to playfulness.
She was wary of appearing too familiar with Mr Bingley, terrified of being forced to marry Mr Greyson and, most surprising of all, she held a tender regard for Mr Darcy!
“The worst of it,” Mary read aloud, giving voice to her incredulity, “is my contrary and treacherous heart. I have come to understand Mr Darcy so much better and deeply regret my unjust behaviour towards him. What pain I must have inflicted with my accusations! And now my heart seems attuned to the very mention of him and races at the thought of him. Though I have tried and tried again, I cannot laugh myself out of it. If I am honest, I do not think I wish to, though it would be for the best, for I shall never see him again. I have lost the only chance to allow this little skip, upon which my heart insists, to run into a full reel. I regret him, Aunt. There, I have written it. I regret Mr Darcy. Would that he could forgive me and come back, but—”
At that moment the letter was forgotten, for Elizabeth abruptly groaned and opened her eyes, thus proving that indeed she was attuned to the very mention of Mr Darcy.
Longbourn
25th May
Mr Bingley,
Elizabeth awoke at a little after four. She is vastly weakened and in pain, but compos mentis.
Yours,
Mr Bennet
Thursday 28 May 1812, Hertfordshire
Mr Bennet halted his amble to the library mid-stride, leant backwards and peered around the parlour door.
No, he had not been mistaken. Mr Bingley was, indeed, engrossed in an apparently diverting tête-à-tête with Elizabeth—his third call on as many sisters in as many days.
Mr Bennet could not but marvel at the man’s indecisiveness.
Tuesday’s choice had been Jane, with whom the young man had spent the better part of the day exchanging naught but protracted silences and mawkish smiles.
The appeal of such a dull courtship eluded Mr Bennet entirely, and he was not surprised when on Wednesday, Mr Bingley had diverted his attentions to Mary.
They had at least managed a dialogue of sorts, and one that must have been more engaging than it seemed, for in spite of Mr Bingley’s appearance of ennui, he had yet stayed the entire day.
This morning, it seemed nothing would do but to sample the company of a third Bennet, and very well pleased with his experiment he seemed, too.
Whatever it was Elizabeth was saying had him leaning almost out of his seat—so far, in fact, that Mr Bennet was tempted to engineer some sort of commotion to see whether the pup toppled into her lap in fright.
Jane looked on with ill-concealed vexation—never had she looked so much like her mother—and he considered that, for a girl heretofore unwilling to frown at a fart, her elevation to jealous inamorata was laudable.