Chapter 6
ACCIDENTALLY TEMPTED
The night was a long one. Jane wakened at midnight, wishing to use her chamberpot, then becoming so dizzy she nearly fell off of it.
She tried to eat a few bites of broth, and then spent an hour casting it all up again.
A half an hour later, the dizziness returned, along with other unpleasant symptoms which necessitated the constant removal of the poor, abused chamberpot.
Elizabeth did not lie down in the bed provided for her in the next room, and except for a few brief minutes spent at the end of Jane’s mattress, she did not sleep.
By dawn’s early light, she was beside herself with worry, and determined that she would beg the next servant who entered to ask that a message be sent to Mr Jones.
However, with the sunrise, Jane’s slumber grew peaceful.
By the time Molly arrived, offering to help Elizabeth change from her borrowed nightgown, Elizabeth was feeling more confident in recovery.
When Mr Bingley sent a servant to enquire after Mrs Collins’s health, she was happy to report her opinion that the illness was running its course at last.
Her dress, which Molly had returned to her, had been more carefully brushed and freshened, but of course it was nothing like the garments in which the Bingley sisters would be clad.
A small part of her old pride reared up, wishing she had been wearing something not quite so unfashionable when Mrs Heartly had sought her out, but quickly, she laughed at herself instead.
The dress was serviceable and the dark fabric did not show stains easily—it probably looked a good deal less shabby than one of her better dresses might have fared, after that cart ride on muddy roads!
Mr Ashwood had been generous in her clothing allowance; she had an ample wardrobe which, if not any longer the height of fashion, was more than adequate for the life she had planned.
If, once in every now and again, she wished she might go to the dressmaker’s or browse for ribbons—as she once had done in what seemed terribly long ago—well, the urge quickly passed.
Sacrifice in the present for the future I want, she told herself. Venice, perhaps?
“Lizzy?”
Jane’s voice recalled her to the now, and she hurried back to her sister’s bedside.
“I am right here. Are you thirsty?” She reached for the pitcher.
“No.” Jane shook her head.
“How do you fare, dear? Do you feel able to ingest something more substantial than barley water?”
“Not quite yet, I do not think. But I am better, I am certain.”
Elizabeth nodded, and took the seat again near Jane. “Rest is the best medicine at this point, I believe.”
Jane nodded; it seemed easy speech disintegrated in that moment as she twisted her sheets between her fingers in a motion she once used to do—just before confessing her girlhood secrets to Elizabeth in those days when they had shared a room at Longbourn.
Elizabeth had the sudden feeling of…rapprochement, such as they had not shared in so, so long.
She nearly held her breath, not wanting the spell to break. Was Jane about to begin a conversation? I would gladly forget harsh words uttered long ago, no matter the hurt they caused.
It is silly, even, Elizabeth thought, that we have allowed our breach to go on so long. I was shocked and hurt; I can guess why she said what she did, what came before it. But what she thought afterwards, what she thinks now, is all unknown. She has not been hostile since my arrival.
Jane opened her mouth as if to speak…then closed it again.
Confrontation had never been in Jane’s character. Her linens twisted within hands grown white-knuckled.
Very well. I shall simply apologise that any action of mine caused her former unhappiness, and suggest we let bygones be bygones. As far as Elizabeth was concerned, it could all remain in the past; there was no need to unearth it all. “Jane, dear,” she began.
At that moment, a light tapping on the door preceded the entry of Mrs Hurst’s and Miss Bingley’s women—two females with a good deal of elegance, in Elizabeth’s opinion.
They made pleasant conversation, and had only just departed when Molly reappeared.
She looked only at Elizabeth, and not Jane, for some reason.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but Mr Collins is here, wishing to speak with his wife, if you please.”
Her unwillingness to address Jane directly was immediately explained when Jane gripped Elizabeth’s hand. “I do not want to see him, Lizzy. Not yet.”
Molly appeared to find something of interest in the ceiling; evidently, this was not the first time Jane had refused to see her husband.
“Please tell him I am not feeling well enough!” There was an undeniable urgency to Jane’s tone.
Elizabeth had no idea what reasons her sister held for this sentiment; Mr Collins was not a bad man, and in fact, tried very hard to be a good one.
But she did know one thing—had she been required to marry him, it would have been difficult for her indeed.
Whilst feeling ill, spending much time in his company might seem unbearable.
“Please, Lizzy, go to him—tell him I am sleeping. Indeed, I feel now I should like nothing better. He only requires reassurance, which you can surely provide, that I am on the mend.”
With a sigh, Elizabeth left her sister to provide the requested comfort.
Darcy summoned all the compassion he could muster for the man wringing his hands while pacing Bingley’s second-best drawing room.
Mrs Hurst had beaten a hasty retreat with the ostensible excuse of checking upon Mrs Collins’s condition; of course, she knew exactly the status of her patient, as they all did, and could certainly have summoned a servant to do it had she wished to hear it repeated.
She had not wished. Or rather, she had undoubtedly sent a servant to convey Mr Collins’s request, and then escaped to her own rooms.
It was for the best, however, that Bingley had gone out for a gallop upon hearing of Mrs Collins’s improvement an hour earlier. His friend had little patience for her husband.
But it was not a servant who appeared in the doorway to lead Mr Collins to his wife, but Mrs Ashwood.
She looked pale in the drawing room’s soft morning light; her wide, dark eyes bespoke the fatigue of one who had not had the benefit of rest the night before.
She wore the same dull grey gown of the day previous, albeit it looked considerably less muddy.
Her hair, which yesterday had been escaping its confines, was mostly hidden by her matron’s cap, drawn back into the severest of styles.
Yet, she managed to appear composed and lovely and young and fresh-faced—almost maidenly.
She is no maiden, he reminded himself, but that brought another notion into his man’s brain. She was not under a father’s protection any longer. Temptation, dishonourable and lurid, lurked within that realisation.
His peculiar situation had made him extremely careful with relationships of any sort.
There were plenty of females amongst the ton, women who had hinted they would be glad to welcome him into a liaison.
Most were married, which he found distasteful, even when their husbands could not have cared less; some were widows, whose lives and decisions were their own.
He would not risk it. Some of these females might say they were enjoying their freedom—but what if there were children born of the affair?
There was no perfect way to be sure there was not.
No, widow or not, if he did not wish for marriage before he shared a woman’s bed, he would not want it afterward.
The idea of turning his long hoped-for dream of a wife and family of his own into some sort of travesty of shame, payment, or abandonment sickened him.
The promise made to his dying father had been very explicit.
He had loved his niece, and although understanding of why Darcy could not marry her, he did not want Anne hurt unnecessarily.
Until Darcy was ready for marriage, he was to act with the greatest possible discretion, that gossip and rumour would never reach her.
While perhaps his father had not meant for his son’s life to go quite the way it had, Darcy was not sorry.
Besides, he had been much too busy over the last five years to even think of marriage.
His aunt, Lady Catherine—the centre of his troubles—was noisy, nosy, and nagging.
Yet, upon receiving the news of his father’s demise, she had at once travelled to Pemberley.
He had been newly home from university, green, feeling panicked and unprepared, while she was a widow who had managed her own large estate for years; in the chaos of that time, she had been a rock of good guidance, good advice, and good comfort—he owed her much, if not marriage to her daughter.
He had met beauties before Elizabeth Ashwood, and he would again.
When he finally met just the right beauty—a female of wealth, family influence, and affectionate inclination, the perfect lady to be addressed ‘Mrs Darcy’—he would know it, and then he would deal with his relations in Kent.
Until then, temptation could go to the devil.
“Mr Collins,” the beauty said, greeting her brother-in-law and going to him at once. He instantly clutched both her hands in his, neither bowing nor showing her any of the courtesies she was due before demanding her report.
“How is my dear wife?” he cried. “Is she worsened?”
Mrs Ashwood winced at the pressure on her hands, and Darcy fought the urge to grab the man by his cravat and teach him forcibly how a lady was supposed to be greeted. To his mild surprise and wonder, it took, he found, considerable effort to achieve restraint.