Chapter 15
Fifteen
The following morning, Elizabeth remained abed well past her usual time to rise, idly stroking Darcy’s valentine with languid fingers.
Her tears had dried up hours ago, and her head throbbed in a reminder of them.
She was too exhausted to move yet too stimulated for additional sleep, so she lay there in a dizzy limbo.
She had attempted to rally herself the afternoon before but did not make it to the dinner hour before Mrs Bennet shooed her back upstairs.
She must have looked rather frightful if her mother could set aside her own nerves to fret over her daughter’s well-being instead.
It was always thus with Mrs Bennet: only beset by flutterings and an ill head until one of her children required cossetting.
Poor Kitty, with her asthmatic cough, received the most attention.
Had Jane been at Longbourn instead of Netherfield when she developed her fever last autumn, she would have found herself under Mrs Bennet’s unrelenting charge until she recovered.
As it was, their mother could not be made easy until she had actually seen Jane, and Elizabeth had assured her that there was no danger to her eldest’s life.
For all her flippant commentary about ‘trifling colds’, Mrs Bennet was a dedicated nurse to her brood.
She would only leave her second daughter’s side yesterday evening after administering a sleeping draught; Elizabeth had drifted into a drugged slumber with her mother’s fingers stroking the hair back from her forehead.
There was a soft scratching at the door, and Elizabeth croaked a hoarse, “Come in.”
The door to the hall opened, spilling brighter light into the dim room.
Elizabeth’s eyes flinched shut at the sharpness.
When she opened them a sliver, she beheld a curvy figure framed in the doorway.
She only knew one person with such an ostentatious cap and who smelled strongly of French perfume, gifted to her every Christmas by her beloved brother. “Mama?”
As she blinked and her eyes adjusted to the light, Mrs Bennet’s image came into sharper relief.
“Good morning, my dear girl,” she greeted cheerily, awkwardly entering the bedchamber with a breakfast tray suspended between her hands.
She shut the door again with a bump of her hip, reverting the room to a more comfortable dimness.
Elizabeth was quick to stuff Darcy’s valentine beneath her pillow, tucked out of sight of her visitor. She did not wish to speak of him with Mrs Bennet. “Good morning, Mama.”
Mrs Bennet set the tray upon the dresser and approached the bed, perching on the edge of the mattress. Her warm hand cupped Elizabeth’s clammy cheek. “Are you feeling any better, my love? How is your stomach?”
Mrs Bennet continued to stroke her face, and Elizabeth basked in the comfort only a mother could give. “Much better. Only a headache remains.” Heartache, more like.
“Poor Lizzy. Let me fetch you some powders.”
“Thank you.”
“You ought not to take them on an empty stomach, so I have brought you some tea and toast. There is a bit of porridge, too, if you think you can bear it.”
“Mm…perhaps a little later, Mama.” Elizabeth allowed her eyes to drift shut as she sank back into her pillow. Her hand slid beneath, brushing against her secret treasure.
“Very well, but at least have some tea with your medicine.”
“If you insist.”
There was a soft, warm pressure against her cheek and the tickle of perfume in her nose when the matron bent down to kiss her. “I shall return in a moment with the powders.”
Elizabeth sensed her rise and heard the shuffle of her slippers against the hardwood as she moved to leave. A moment later, the sound arrested with an abrupt scrape. “What is that?”
When the valentine slipped free of her fingers, Elizabeth’s eyes flew open with a jolt of horror, but she was too late to do more than swipe uselessly at it as it was pulled out of her reach.
Mrs Bennet startled back a step, mouth agape, as she darted her gaze between her daughter and the folded heart.
“Give it back! It is mine!”
Mrs Bennet harumphed and had the valentine pried open—and none too gently—before Elizabeth had done more than scramble upright. Her eyes skimmed the poem before landing on the signature at the bottom. She scoffed. “Oh, I see how it is. You are up here making yourself sick over that horrid man.”
“He is not horrid,” Elizabeth spat, though she had thought differently only yesterday. Somehow, when confronted with her mother’s disdain, her anger with him found a new direction. “He is a good, kind man and does not deserve your contempt.”
“Turnabout is fair play, I say. Do you not recall his slander?” Mrs Bennet raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “No? Then allow me to refresh your memory—he called you ‘tolerable’ and ‘not handsome enough to tempt’ him. At a public assembly, no less!”
Elizabeth’s cheeks burned with indignation. “He has apologised for that and swears he did not mean it. He was in a pique that night, that is all.”
“Pah! You might have been hoodwinked by his false humility and pretty words”—here, she flapped the valentine in Elizabeth’s direction, nostrils flaring—“but my opinion of him will not change so easily. He will ever be the heartless scoundrel who wounded my dear girl and humiliated her before the entire neighbourhood. You hid it well, you always do, but I knew how much he hurt you. A mother does not forget, nor does she forgive.” She finished her speech with a tremble in her voice and moisture collecting on her lashes.
There was a tightness in Elizabeth’s throat. She had always assumed that Mrs Bennet despised Darcy on principle, or because her pride as a mother had been wounded, but she had not imagined how deeply she felt her daughter’s pain. “Mama…”
Mrs Bennet’s hands flapped wildly. “No, no, I am not to be reasoned with on this point. Mr Darcy is a vile boor and everyone knows it! Not only to you but everyone around him who does not have at least five thousand a year to their name. His rudeness to us all has been unpardonable.”
“In all fairness, his rudeness was at least partially a response to the incivility he received,” Elizabeth countered gently.
Mrs Bennet huffed at the subtle chastisement.
“Not only did he suffer a…a mishap over the summer, putting him in a terrible mood when we first met him, but his fortune and status were bandied about the room before he had been properly greeted. And when he came here, hoping to present himself in a more favourable light, he was treated no better.” Elizabeth fixed her mother with a pointed stare.
Mrs Bennet turned her chin and petulantly lifted her nose into the air. “Yes, well, it was no less than he deserved.”
Biting her tongue against a sharp retort, Elizabeth willed herself to exert patience.
Her mother was being protective, not cruel for cruelty’s sake.
“Except he did not deserve it. Not only has he been courteous and kind since we met again in London, he also did us a good turn. He brought Mr Bingley back to Jane.”
Mrs Bennet’s eyes bulged, and her mouth fell open inelegantly. “What?”
“It is true.”
And so it was. Betrayed as she felt by his earlier actions, there was no question that he had been the instrumental—nay, the singular means of unravelling the misunderstandings that kept Bingley and Jane apart.
He had done so without prompting or promise of reward, merely to adhere to the dictates of his conscience.
He was not required to, no one would have ever known if he had refused to act, yet he had still done it.
Done it despite the reservations he still held.
Elizabeth inhaled a deep breath that shuddered in her chest. As she exhaled, the poisonous rage that had threatened to transfigure her love into hatred began to seep out of her.
It rolled away on the air like a thick fog, allowing her to breathe more freely with each expulsion.
After a short period, she had purged herself of all of it.
Mrs Bennet, who watched her warily with the valentine crumpled in her hands, said nothing as her daughter came back to herself.
When she was more poised, Elizabeth continued softly, “I do understand your inclination to dislike him, Mama, truly I do.
I despised him myself until a month ago, when he arrived with Mr Bingley and I understood what he had done for Jane.
We are alike in that respect, I think—unwilling to easily forgive trespasses against us and those we love.
“That said, Jane made me see that we are hurting ourselves when we refuse to let go of past acrimony. In Mr Darcy’s case, I was all too comfortable hating him over wounding my vanity and never bothered to see his goodness.
I refused to give him another chance until he aided Jane, and then I saw him for the generous, kind, intelligent, witty gentleman he really is. He truly is the best of men.”
“If he is as good as you say, why are you up here making yourself ill over him?” challenged Mrs Bennet, a gleam of mistrust in her eye. “And do not try to tell me that he is not the cause, because I know heartbreak when I see it.”
“I shall admit that we quarrelled over…” How shall I say this without engaging Mama’s protective nature further?
“A misunderstanding. But Jane explained some things to me that made me realise I was too harsh in my condemnation of him. Mr Darcy is not a perfect man, but nor is he an evil one. Any mistakes he made have been corrected, and I would do well to let bygones be bygones.”
Mrs Bennet continued to observe Elizabeth for several silent beats before her grip on the valentine loosened.
After absently smoothing it into something resembling its original shape, she held it out for Elizabeth to take.
“Jane is the best of us, so I suppose I ought to take her advice, too, and give Mr Darcy another chance. If he is as wonderful as you say, then I expect to be duly impressed.”
A smile spread across Elizabeth’s lips. “Mr Darcy is nothing if not impressive.”
“Good. If he proposes soon, there is still time to plan a double wedding with Jane and Mr Bingley. What an event it will be! Ten thousand a year will pay for champagne and hothouse flowers.”
A tear-blurred image of Darcy’s face when she had dismissed him the day before flickered in Elizabeth’s mind.
She bowed her head and stared at her fingers, which were fiddling with the sleeve of her nightgown.
“As to that…I am not so certain that he will come to the point after all. Our quarrel was really more of a row and…and I sent him away. I doubt he will ever wish to see me again after the things I said.”
The bedding sank beneath Mrs Bennet as she retook her seat next to Elizabeth and pulled her daughter into her embrace. Just as she had when she was a small child, Elizabeth sank into her mother’s arms, seeking the balm of her maternal consolation.
“There, there, my dear,” cooed Mrs Bennet, pressing a kiss into the crown of Elizabeth’s head. “It will all be well. If your Mr Darcy is as noble as you say he is, he will be here in a day or two begging you on bended knee for your forgiveness. Just you wait and see.”
Elizabeth snorted into her mother’s shoulder. “I was quite harsh with him, Mama. I believe his pride would rebel at such a display.”
Mrs Bennet pulled back, cupping Elizabeth’s face within her hands. “Trust me on this, Lizzy. Men might be fools, but they know a good thing when they see it. Your papa might vex me with his witticisms, but he also has a knack for making amends. It is why you have four sisters.”
Although Elizabeth was not entirely certain whether this made her feel better or not, she could not help but laugh at Mrs Bennet’s wink before drawing her mother in for a tight hug.