Chapter Five
Elizabeth slowly shook herself into alertness when the sun began to glow behind the curtains.
All was peaceful and quiet.
Elizabeth neatly folded the sheet that she had slept under.
She still wore the clothes that she had arrived in, and after how little she had eaten the previous night she felt ravenously hungry.
She was sweaty, she was sure she stunk, and she desperately needed a proper chance to change and freshen up.
Her shoulder hurt from how much she had carried the children yesterday.
The small trunk that contained all their worldly goods was still being stored at the inn yard where she paid for it to be guarded.
She had not felt right last night sending out to have it brought here.
She rubbed at her eyes and studied Mr. Darcy.
Peaceful and young.
With his eyes closed and several days of growth on his chin he was not so imposing as when awake. The pallor from his fever was not prominent enough to detract from the gentleman’s fine features.
So. She would be Mr. Darcy’s nurse.
A new pile of dishes had already accumulated overnight, from the broth, her own plate of cheese and apples, and the bowl of vinegar that she had soaked the bandages in.
Hopefully she would see a hot red wound with a pointed abscess forming when she opened up the bandages.
Yesterday at this hour she was hurrying George along and straining under the weight of both Emily and a carpetbag full of items and a few favorite toys as they walked to the postal station. Her friend had lent a servant to take the trunk, happy to see the end of Elizabeth’s stay.
Elizabeth stared blankly at Mr. Darcy. The slow rise and fall of his breath was hypnotic.
A hurrying child’s footsteps, and George hurled the door wide open and burst into the room. He flung himself towards her. “Mama! Mama! Mama!”
“I am here,” Elizabeth replied in a low voice. “Do not wake up Mr. Darcy.”
“Oh!” George looked at the gentleman. He said to Elizabeth, “Shhhhhhh! We must be quiet.”
“Too late for that,” the gentleman said. He sounded much more cheerful than Elizabeth anticipated.
Mr. Darcy opened his eyes and gingerly turned on his side. He smiled at them.
“Good morning, Mr. Darcy.” Elizabeth replied. “I do apologize. This is why one does not keep the children around while contracted as a nurse.”
“Had we not established,” Mr. Darcy replied with a smile, “that you are to be here nursing me as a friend? In that case the delightful pitter patter of children’s feet, and the dulcet tones of their morning shouts—I see you are smiling, but I assure you, your son’s shouts are dulcet—are part of what is to be expected. ”
Elizabeth could not repress her smile. “You certainly wish to convince me to give you not only a dry biscuit, but also a crust of bread.”
Mr. Darcy pressed his hand hard against his mouth as he struggled to not giggle. After a passage of time he said, “Please, I beg you, do not torture me by making me laugh. The wound, you understand.”
“You are surprisingly cheerful for a gunshot man in the morning.”
She liked that he insisted that she remain here as a friend. Even though the notion made no sense at all.
George jumped up and down and he walked right up to Mr. Darcy’s face to stare at the bandages. “Are you better? Are you better? Mr. Darcy, are you better?”
“Not notably,” he replied. “My wound feels quite awful. Perhaps worse, even.”
“Oh.” The little boy frowned at that.
“It is advantageous,” Darcy replied seriously. “It will make a better story for your friends if I take months to recover.”
George brightened. “They would not believe my father really pinked you if you just were up and walking. Much better. Did you see how big the wound was on his back? It is huuuuuge.”
Elizabeth tiredly rubbed her face. “I shall go set water to boil for coffee—I saw that the supply of that essential is ample. Do you wish some?”
“Should not that maid prepare it?” Darcy asked. “Is not her name Sally?”
“I kept her up quite late scrubbing the kitchen, tossing out the rubbish, and then she set up the beds for your sister and my children. And when she wakes I’ll send her out for the fresh bread and eggs that we shall all devour in front of you as I or your sister spoons you that lovely broth, to ensure you take the lesson of not fighting duels in the future to heart. ”
“No, no, no. That is beyond cruelty.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You shall need to hire more servants if you wish things to be managed invisibly.”
“Would you go out to find some people? Maybe from the inns? I cannot trust the task to Georgiana.”
This request half surprised Elizabeth. “I can. After breakfast and after we’ve changed the bandages. But why not Miss Darcy?”
Mr. Darcy frowned.
Elizabeth said, “If it is because she has shown extremely poor judgement recently, I would see that as an argument for giving her responsibilities now. She must rebuild her confidence and learn.”
The gentleman had a contemplating air.
“And I shall be off and then will return with coffee for everyone. George, do you wish to come with me to the kitchen?”
“Mr. Darcy,” her son asked, “may I stay here?”
“Of course,” he replied.
Elizabeth went to the kitchen, which still had more dirt and signs of being unkempt than she liked, but which no longer stunk like a midden.
She snacked on an apple while the water heated, not thinking about much. She ground the beans up in the small coffee mill, and then dumped them in the bottom of a cup for both herself and Mr. Darcy.
When the coffee was prepared she returned to the room.
Mr. Darcy had shifted into a more reclined position, scooted into the side of the sofa, and George had managed to curl next to him.
They read from Histories or Tales of Past Times, Told by Mother Goose. It was the only book that Elizabeth still owned. It had been a gift from Papa for little George, and Elizabeth had not been able to bear selling it with everything else.
Mr. Darcy made a great many distinct voices for the characters, though he never spoke loudly, showing deference to his broken ribs.
Elizabeth smiled to see them together, and she handed Mr. Darcy his own mug full of coffee.
She sat down next to them, in the armchair that Miss Darcy had habitually used the preceding day. Her own coffee cleared her head and left her alert.
What next?
She could decide tomorrow. Or the day after. A wound like Mr. Darcy’s would require daily attendance for at least a month.
What she should do today was go to attend the funeral of Mr. Wickham.
Even though it was not quite fashionable for a woman to attend funerals, he’d likely have no male mourners, and Elizabeth was privately certain that Mrs. Younge would be there, and something in her did not wish to leave the field to that woman.
Elizabeth let her mind wander as Darcy reached the end of the first story in George’s storybook. His impression of a young girl was passable, though odd, “What great eyes you have got!”
“It is to see the better, my child.”
His impression of a wolf was superior.
“Grandmamma, what great teeth you have got!”
“That is to eat thee up.”
Then Darcy finished in a wholly ordinary and dry voice.
“And saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon poor Little Red Riding-Hood, and ate her all up—do you want me to read the moral? I always found it rather dreadful when my papa insisted on making me listen to it, even though by then I knew it by heart, and really the entertaining part of the story is when the wolf eats up poor Little Red Riding-Hood. I think the real lesson is that one ought not be a wolf, but a hunter.”
George replied, “Mama always insists that afterwards a hunter killed the wolf and cut open his belly, and that both the grandma and Little Red Riding-Hood were in good health, except they had been rather scared.”
Darcy looked at Elizabeth with a warm smile. “Were they? That is not Perrault’s vision of the story.”
Elizabeth laughed, “I do not insist that is the true story, merely a possibility.”
When George ran off to play, Darcy shuffled through the book, stopping to look at each of the illustrations. “Mrs. Wickham, you are right.”
When he did not continue immediately after saying that, Elizabeth smiled at him, and said, “Always, but upon what matter?”
“It is hard to know what to do with Georgiana. The magnitude of what has happened is such that punishments seem...”
He trailed off.
“The consequences naturally attendant on her behavior will be of sufficient consequence,” Elizabeth said.
Mr. Darcy nodded in agreement. “Precisely.”
“I think rather,” Elizabeth said, “that a situation such as this is why parents seek to punish their children, and to teach them to always respect their word with fear. So that they will not do such things. Once they have acted as Miss Darcy has, they are forced into the world of full-grown persons.”
“She is too young.”
“Miss Darcy is a decent girl with a decent head on her shoulders. And she seems to understand the gravity of her actions and her situation. Treat her with respect. Even if you cannot protect her wholly, you still may be a safe rock upon which she can build.”
There was a hesitant knock on the door then, and Miss Darcy entered the room.
She held Emily who immediately stretched her arms towards Elizabeth and squirmed to be let down.
As Emily ran across the room, Elizabeth wondered from how Miss Darcy looked at her and her brother that she may have heard a little of their conversation about her.
Elizabeth opened the curtains while holding Emily. That is to say she let Emily try to pull the cord and surreptitiously assisted when the one year old’s efforts proved unsuccessful, and she looked out at the street directly outside of the window, and down towards the harbor visible below.
The morning world bustled. Workers and well-dressed gentlemen and ladies. Wagons and carriages. Shouts and conversation.