Chapter Nine
After Mrs. Wickham returned upstairs, and his cousin returned to snores, Mr. Darcy was unable to sleep, tormented by the pain in his chest. Part of him was certain that both Mrs. Wickham and the doctor were dissimulating, and his situation was far more serious than they claimed.
His general sense of weakness and the difficulty breathing and moving was greater than before.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
It seemed like hours had passed. The big pendulum clock in the corner of the room made a sound to indicate that only fifteen minutes had passed.
Pain.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s low snores provided a counterpoint to the buzzing summer insects.
Jove, it hurt to breathe.
Death would at least end the pain.
A deep breath. Sharp pain shot through him. The world was odd, and wavering before him.
It was going to kill him. He was getting sicker, and it was going to kill him.
Find something useful to do.
That was what Mrs. Wickham always said. What was there for him to do that would be useful? What could he do in the next days before the infection killed him that would be useful?
Throbbing pain.
He was a fool for not taking all the laudanum that she had let him take.
Hurt, hurt, hurt.
Be useful.
What mattered was the future, as little of it as there was.
Be useful.
Be useful.
Pain.
Darcy rolled side to side. The air was hot. He briefly closed his eyes, and he vividly saw Wickham again. The blood flowed out of his own chest. There was no sound, and there was no air. Towering oaks heavy with summer leaves. Wickham’s startled expression. A searing pain in his own chest.
Colonel Fitzwilliam shouted, “Shoot him, shoot him.”
The world wavered. He was in the pew of a church as Mrs. Wickham touched him; her hand was startlingly cold.
She looked at him with those sparkling, smiling eyes.
A few strands of hair fell out of that tight bun that she usually kept it in and tickled his chest. “Mr. Darcy, I believe that you can find something useful to do.”
The gun was hard in his hand. He couldn’t use it. Not this time. Wickham stood across from him. Things had to be different. The gun stayed in his hand, straining to be used.
Then all was disrupted by an earthquake. Someone had put ice on his shoulder. Shouting.
And then suddenly Darcy awoke.
Mrs. Wickham softly shook him, murmuring ‘wake up, wake up’. Her hands were freezing cold.
The dawn light streamed in through the window. Colonel Fitzwilliam had already dressed, and he looked as fresh as if he’d just come in from a parade ground. The doctor stood next to them.
“Arrived early,” he explained. “Thought I should lance your abscess first thing this morning. Has it burst on its own?”
“I doubt it,” Mrs. Wickham said. “It looked pointed but not on the verge of bursting when I changed the bandage during the night.”
“Well, let us see,” the doctor replied.
Probably woken by the noise, Georgiana came into the room, holding Mrs. Wickham’s younger child. “What is the matter!”
“Nothing is amiss,” the doctor said with a genial bow. “It is merely time to lance your brother’s wound. You ought to go to the other room, the sight is quite horrifying.”
Georgiana went pale, but then she got a stubborn and determined expression to her face, and she came close. “No, I must see. At least if it is permitted.”
Mrs. Wickham said, as she finished removing the poultice that had been tied under the bandage, “I think that is a quite decent idea.” She glanced at Colonel Fitzwilliam and said, “It is a part of life, and it is best, I think, for all to be exposed a little.”
“Keeping her too guarded has proven to hardly be of benefit,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied.
Darcy thought that there was rather more respect in his cousin’s voice towards Mrs. Wickham than there had been the previous day.
The doctor stared at the wound from several inches away.
“Very good,” he said after sniffing the wound and standing up. He set his thick black leather bag on the table and took out a long, curved knife. Darcy glanced at Georgiana to see if this was too much for her. Her lips were thin, but her expression was fixed and steady. Darcy felt proud of her.
Mrs. Wickham had taken her daughter back from Georgiana, and she bounced the girl up and down slowly, while studying Darcy’s wound. The expression on her face was serious, but not anxious.
The doctor bent to Darcy’s chest, and then he pierced the surface of the wound with the knife.
There was only a little pain. A flood of thick white liquid flowed out, a little bit like when pressing a large pimple after it had been popped.
The liquid was strongly admixed with blood, and there was a smell of musty cheese to it.
Darcy almost immediately began to feel less pain and pressure as the pus was soaked up by the linen bandage that had been placed on his stomach for that purpose.
After the flow of pus slowed to just a seep the doctor stood up with a satisfied expression on his face.
“A good flow of laudable pus, and though I cannot see underneath it, I do believe that suppuration must have set in. Mr. Darcy, if your fever has not reduced itself by the afternoon call for me, otherwise I shall visit tomorrow morning to see the progress of the wound.”
“It is horrifying!” Georgiana exclaimed. “That cannot possibly be healthful or good.”
“The body is a mysterious mechanism. There are many strange organs and processes within it that can lead to the creation or destruction of health,” the doctor replied.
In the daylight Darcy’s nighttime conviction that he was dying seemed less certain.
At least, his cousin did not look particularly concerned.
But he still must find something useful to do, and he needed to be as useful as he could be over the next few days.
There was even less guarantee than in ordinary times of life beyond that.
A new bandage and poultice were tied around his chest—Mrs. Wickham informed him that she would replace the bandages every two hours today, to make sure the pus could easily flow out, and to keep the wound moist so that the surface would not start to heal over prematurely.
Before the doctor left, Darcy asked, “Can you give me the direction of a good solicitor?”
The doctor paused, frowned at Darcy from under his thick grey eyebrows, and then he said, “Though everyone ought to keep essential papers in good order, you are not likely to die from this wound. I do not say that as a doctor seeking to keep a patient calm, but simply as a fact.”
“But I am not certain to survive.”
“The man who I do all of my business with,” the doctor said, “an excellent fellow, very precise and professional in all matters, is Mr. Martin whose office is along High Street, near The Spread Eagle. Your servant should find him without difficulty.”
The doctor bowed to everyone. Georgiana sat down and pressed her hand hard against her face. Both Mrs. Wickham and Colonel Fitzwilliam looked at Darcy with concern.
“I am of sound mind,” Darcy said to them.
“You said you were not yesterday. What settlements do you intend to make?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked suspiciously. Then he looked around the room. “Never mind. Tell me in private later.”
“Just ring for one of the manservants,” Darcy said, “and have them sent over to the lawyer’s address. Ask him to call on me at his earliest convenience.”
Mrs. Wickham asked with her own frown, “Do you intend to endow a monastery?”
Darcy did not reply at first. But after some consideration, he said, “I shall add something to the orphanage and the grammar school that are already under the support of the family.”
Mrs. Wickham laughed weakly, but she still frowned.
Little George came down and even before he greeted his mother, he immediately gravitated towards Darcy. The boy told him, “You look like the mouse that the cat dragged in.”
Darcy felt considerably better already.
The decision was made that they would all eat in the drawing room with Mr. Darcy, rather than having the mobile members of the party withdraw to the breakfast room, while leaving Darcy alone with broth and maid.
Laughing, George begged to be able to feed Darcy his broth.
Mrs. Wickham protested due to the mess, but when the young boy was clearly unhappy about not being allowed to be of service in this way, Darcy said that they should think nothing of the mess, and asked George directly to feed him.
The young boy made an enormous production of the whole, making bows and giving a proper pretense of being a footman in his mannerisms. He did not even do a bad job of it, only spilling half of a spoonful on each of the rug, the cushions, and Darcy’s own chest.
At first Mrs. Wickham watched with an instant readiness to intervene.
It was clear that she was not precisely pleased by Mr. Darcy offering this kindness to her son.
Mrs. Wickham had had a dissatisfied air the entire time since Darcy had announced that he would call a lawyer.
He half suspected that she guessed at some part of the arrangements that he meant to make and found the whole line of thought unpleasant.
Eventually Mrs. Wickham left off her intent observation of Darcy and her son, and instead she put a bread roll on her plate and then tore it into tiny pieces, all without eating anything.
Darcy did not like to see her disquiet.
When he caught her eye, he smiled at her.
She stared at him.
Somehow her manner made him smile. He liked her. And then she smiled back at him, sat up straighter, took a deep breath and laughed a little. Mrs. Wickham then took Emily from Georgiana’s lap to offer the girl bits of the torn-up roll from her plate.
There was about half the broth left when Darcy began to suspect from the shifts in George’s mannerisms that the young child was becoming quite bored. “George, your mother or Miss Darcy might help me with the rest of the soup. Run off and eat your own meal.”
“Wanna eat the soup like you!”
“Go take a taste—it is bland, though.”