Chapter One #2
“Well. Well. Well.” Elizabeth picked Emily up.
She hugged the girl tightly enough that Emily squealed.
“You shot him. I see. I see. Well. Done is done. It was always going to end badly for him. Poor Wickham. Of course, a duel. Exactly the way I would have guessed he would have died if I had tried to guess—Poor, poor Mr. Wickham. Can I hope you hit him solid, and there was not much pain?”
The man looked down. “The bullet went through his heart.”
A flash of memory: A handsome face. Glowing with happiness. My heart will always be yours.
And now what would become of them all.
Should she try Papa at last? He’d do something for her if she applied. When she saw him after George’s birth, he told her that he would help her if she ever realized that he had been right all along about Wickham.
George walked up to the sobbing girl and patted her on the knee. “Don’t be so sad. Mama always says that tears don’t help anything. You should think of something to laugh about.”
The girl nodded her head. “I should. But I can’t.”
“Mama,” George insisted. “You need to make her laugh.”
He never would have a ‘Papa’.
“It’s not always a proper time to laugh.” Elizabeth said solemnly.
How could she explain this to George? That the father he could not remember at all was dead. Until now Wickham had on infrequent occasions sent impractical presents to his son, often flashy clothes that were fitted to a child either much smaller or much larger than his George.
At least Emily was young enough that she simply could not understand.
“Oh.” George turned back to the young woman. “Then you had best find a task to do. Mama, she needs you to tell her to do something.”
From the mouth of babes.
Yes. When something bad happens, laugh. And then find something useful to do.
“Here.” Elizabeth handed Emily to the young woman. “Hold her, while I look at your brother’s dressing—I am going to change it.”
The startled girl took the child.
Surprised at being given to an unknown adult, Emily reached for Elizabeth and whimpered, “Mama!”
“Bounce her up and down,” Elizabeth told the girl who’d instinctively stood up at having a small child pressed into her arms. “Keep her moving. She likes to meet new people.”
This worked well enough for Emily to stop sobbing. Soon, she grabbed at the woman’s necklace. The young woman half smiled at Emily through her tears and pulled the necklace up so that it was easier for Emily to fist.
Elizabeth turned to the gentleman.
He pushed himself further back into the sofa as she stepped closer. “I do not wish any help.”
“I can see. I assume you have not hired a regular nurse?”
The gentleman’s eyes were quite serious.
She thought she could be easily intimidated by his gaze. Or fall into his eyes. They were quite deep.
With an effort of will, Elizabeth turned her eyes onto the bandage. “How long have you worn this—I know that the doctor must have ordered for it to be changed more frequently. Unevenly wrapped, and too tight. Don’t you know that the wound needs to be able to drain?”
“This is not any of your business.” He then looked at her again, with that serious, intent gaze. “If there is any aid in my power to give you, I will happily give it. I keenly feel the guilt of what I have done.”
“Do you want to die?” Elizabeth replied tartly.
The gentleman did not respond.
Elizabeth groaned. “That was a rhetorical question—” she turned to the girl, “Miss… uh, what is your name?”
“Darcy.”
“Miss Darcy!—And then you must be Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. My, my. George had a great deal to say about you. Miss Darcy, bring a pair of scissors.”
The girl ran off to do her bidding, still holding Emily, and Elizabeth frowned at the crusted blood showing through Mr. Darcy’s bandage.
He glowered at her.
“I need a distraction,” Elizabeth said to him. “And I am going to use you. You clearly are not well cared for, and I have had a fair amount of experience treating gunshot wounds.”
Pallor combined with a determined look.
They stared at each other. Elizabeth kept a sweet smile.
He slumped into the sofa with a groan. He hissed as the movement caused additional pain. “Oh, do as you must. I have no right to deny you.”
Elizabeth put her hand on his forehead.
Fevered already, but not worryingly high.
He breathed shallowly, but she thought that was from pain due to the wounds, and not a more serious cause. The question was whether this was a healing fever that would bring laudable pus or not.
Miss Darcy…Georgiana, that was her Christian name. Mr. Wickham had frequently spoken about the wrongs done to him by the family that he had grown up within.
The girl returned with the scissors and Emily. From the far more alive expression Miss Darcy had adopted, it was clear that her son had been right: Giving Miss Darcy a task to do was exactly what she needed.
Elizabeth sat right next to Mr. Darcy. She ignored the warmth of his body, the attractive shape of his exposed muscles, and the pleasant manly smell that was not disguised by the slight sourness from the bandages.
She cut the bandages open quickly and efficiently.
The wound sat in the middle of his chest, right over his breastbone. It oozed blood.
Miss Darcy whimpered and then stoutly refused to look towards the wound. She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth in what looked like nausea.
It was difficult for Elizabeth to repress a smile at that reaction. She had once been disgusted by such things as well.
The injury had a musky smell, and the skin around was swollen red. It was a good sign when wounds quickly began to swell and become hot, rather than waiting many days.
“What did the doctor say about your case?” Elizabeth asked as she looked around for the new roll of bandages.
“The bullet broke two ribs and the breastbone,” the man soberly replied. “It is in deep and was too close to the heart to make any attempt to remove it.”
“You two gentlemen were quite serious about harming each other—Miss Darcy, call to the kitchen. We need vinegar or a strong wine, port or the like, to soak the bandages in before placing them back around.”
“There is no one in the kitchen,” Miss Darcy replied.
“Oh? Why ever not?” Elizabeth rose. “I do hope that the ordinary supplies are available. I suppose I must check myself.”
Miss Darcy pointed with a kind of fascinated horror at the open wound on her brother’s chest.
“Think nothing of that,” Elizabeth replied. “It is closed in enough that he’ll not bleed more than is salutary, and after how tightly you bandaged it—it was you? Yes, after that I dare say it will be good for the wound if it can drain freely for a few minutes.”
Another image of Wickham flashed before her. The way he looked as he told her to ignore her father’s refusal of permission. Come to Scotland with me.
As Elizabeth stepped towards the kitchen, George went over to stand next to the sofa so that he could stare at the open wound on the reclined man’s chest. While Elizabeth of course did not keep the boy with her on those occasions when she had hired out as a sick nurse, he’d been allowed to visit sick rooms often enough that he had little of fear or disgust of such sights.
“Leave Mr. Darcy alone, and come with me,” Elizabeth said.
“But, Mama!”
There was a bite to his tone that promised a tantrum if Elizabeth was not careful.
She did not think he would throw himself on the ground and bang his head against the floor in an unfamiliar house, but she could not be confident that he would not. They were all tired and hungry after the long stagecoach from London.
“We’ll get you a bite in the kitchen.”
“Wanna stay.” George stared in delighted fascination at the wound. He asked Mr. Darcy, “Did you really get shot?”
“George.” Elizabeth’s tone was sharp.
She realized that she half wished to have a fight with her child to relieve her feelings.
Wickham’s soft eyes in the candlelight. The way he touched her the night after they’d sworn their oaths before the blacksmith.
Do not think about that.
George began to walk towards her from the sofa. Thank God he was simply obeying her this time.
“He can stay,” Mr. Darcy said. “I do not mind. Yes, I was shot. What is your name?”
George’s face lit up at being taken so seriously by the gentleman, and he immediately returned to the gentleman’s side.
Well. Well. Well.
Elizabeth went to the kitchen, followed by Miss Darcy, who still held Emily. For her part Emily babbled cheerfully but incoherently at Miss Darcy.
“Why are there so few servants—a financial calamity?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, no. Fitzwilliam dismissed them all when he arrived. He was angry that they had known about Mr. Wickham—but Sally had only been hired two days before, and she did not know anything. He said he’d marry me. You really were married to him?”
“Were. The past tense, now. Yes, I was married to him.”
Tears are useless.
Elizabeth made herself laugh. “Death did us part—do you know if he has been buried yet?”
Miss Darcy looked at her queerly.
Elizabeth clenched her fist. She only had cause for happiness. Given that she had not actually expected Mr. Wickham to ever resume family relations with her, or to provide any substantial support, this strictly improved her situation, as she now could marry again.
Miss Darcy bounced Emily, “And she is his? She really is? She looks like him.”
The situation was such that Elizabeth forgave Miss Darcy for the questions that could be taken easily as aspersions on her character.
All absurd. Papa would have thought a situation like this, with her changing the bandage of the man who’d killed her husband, to be worthy of a novel. Though Papa would have assumed that any such novel must be a bad one.
The kitchen stunk. A side of rotten beef sat on the counter. The maid who had survived Mr. Darcy’s high dudgeon sat doing nothing amidst the mess of spilled broth, scattered firewood, and broken shards of crockery.
“Do you know where the camphor and spirit of turpentine is?” Elizabeth asked the maid.