Chapter Ten
Charlotte was sitting in a chair beside the bed, knitting something small and pink, when Elizabeth awoke. The room was bright with mid-morning sun, and a breakfast tray was waiting on the bedside table. Elizabeth sat up and reached for the tea, which still had steam rising from it. “Oh! It is still warm – I have awoken with excellent timing.”
A mischievous smile tugged at Charlotte’s lips. “I may have incrementally increased the volume of my idle humming.”
“Thank you for waking me – it must be a late hour already.”
“Half ten.”
For a moment Elizabeth could think of nothing but breaking her fast, and she rearranged herself against the bed pillows so that she could pull the tray onto her lap. The movement was stiff, awakening the pain in Elizabeth’s body, even in places that had not hurt at all the day before. She winced.
Charlotte set aside her knitting and helped Elizabeth shift herself, setting aside the book that Elizabeth had fallen asleep reading the night before. “I imagine you are feeling the worse for wear – you did fall out of a phaeton yesterday.”
“And into Mr. Darcy’s lap.” Elizabeth flashed her a gleeful smirk before sipping at her tea again.
“Did you really? Well, perhaps this so-called courtship might become a necessity.”
Elizabeth screwed up her face. “But you had meant to talk me out of it?”
“Certainly!” Charlotte shook her head with an exasperated huff. “You have known the man less than a week. His sister is a charming girl, and I suspect her to be entirely without guile, but plenty of dreadful men have agreeable sisters who remain ignorant of their perfidy.”
The first bite of eggs nearly choked her as Elizabeth sputtered with laughter. “Perfidy! At half ten in the morning!”
“I am serious, Lizzy. Have you not considered that Miss de Bourgh may have thrown him over for perfectly legitimate reasons? He may have gaming debts or licentious vices, he may even be a violent man or a penniless charlatan. I love my dear Thomas, but his younger brother Sidney is only a better choice than the very worst of men.”
Elizabeth chortled. “A fortnight ago, you would have made a match between Sir Sidney and I.”
“Well, that was after I had not seen him in more than half a year, and I had forgotten how very… Sidney he is. If anything, it only serves as a reminder that one ought to know a gentleman very well indeed before considering anything serious.”
“But it is not serious – it is a lark.” Elizabeth grinned at her friend before stubbornly letting a silence settle over them as she took a few more bites of her breakfast.
“You may have thought it amusing yesterday, when the elixir turned you into a noodle!” Charlotte mimicked the loose, uncoordinated swaying that afflicted Elizabeth the previous afternoon, then returned to her former severity. “It was very wrong of him to ask such a thing of you, when you were in such a state; if he is a true gentleman, he would not possibly hold you to such a scheme.”
Though her memory of most of the previous day was fuzzy, Elizabeth could recall the moments that included Mr. Darcy with near-perfect clarity. “That is not at all how it was! His cousin the colonel was the first to speak of our courtship, and Mr. Darcy apologized for it when we were speaking in the corridor. If anything, I daresay I shall be the one persuading him to go on with it!”
Charlotte wrinkled her nose, her eyes narrowing with skeptical distaste. “But why? Have you not had your fill of false romance? You were despondent for months after Mr. Penny….”
Elizabeth busied herself with eating her breakfast, this time to stall as she considered her answer. She suddenly realized that it was meeting Georgiana and Mr. Darcy, and even their puckish cousin the colonel, that had dispelled the gloomy grey clouds that seemed to hang about her.
Charlotte pounced on the silence. “You like him!”
“He has an interesting predicament and amusing relations; how could I not?”
“Oh, no, Lizzy – I have you, now! You will not convince me you wish to spite Miss de Bourgh or discover how much more deranged Sidney will become once his lady is provoked to jealousy – you fancy Mr. Darcy and wish to have some opportunity to know him more closely.”
“You have said yourself that he is practically a stranger – by your own logic, would it not be wise to come to know him better?”
“You do not deny it!” Charlotte bounced in her seat with excitement at the secret she had nearly coaxed from Elizabeth by taking such a skeptical stance on the matter.
“I shall not deny that you have made several excellent points in favor of the scheme. You know I adore absurdities.”
“I now believe you also adore tall, handsome gentlemen that brood out of windows and prodigiously read novels.”
A voice from the doorway agreed. “And they seem rather partial to my Lizzy in return.” Sir Edward Gardiner was peeking in the door that had been left ajar, and when the two women looked over and bid him enter, he strolled into the room with a vase of hothouse flowers in one hand and a small bouquet of wildflowers and a parchment-wrapped packet in the other. “I come bearing gifts, my poor dear girl.”
The physician trailed behind him. “I come with more medicine, but I shall have to examine you.”
Elizabeth consented for the physician to pull back the bedding and lift her nightdress enough to expose her swollen ankle and a dark violet bruise on her shin.
Happily, Sir Edward was prepared to distract his niece from the discomfort of the physician’s ministrations as he divested himself of the many offerings he bore. “The hothouse flowers are from me, though Mr. Connors was full of advice on which blossoms I ought to select – the daffodils for good cheer and the poppies for good fortune, and so on.”
“They are lovely, Uncle! Thank you!”
“The packet here is from Chef, a few of your favorite little treats to sustain you – not that Lady Parker will neglect you in that regard.” He laid the little parcel on her breakfast tray and then reached into his coat pocket and produced a bundle of letters. “Not one letter in today’s post was for me – of all the indignities!”
Elizabeth’s heart beat a little faster. “And the bouquet?” If it had come from Sir Anthony, surely her uncle would have tossed it into the shrubbery before delivering it to her.
“Mr. Darcy called round just before I headed down to the hotel this morning – he had some volumes to return to you.”
“Oh dear – I am afraid all the novels I wished Mrs. Bevan to autograph were ruined in the mud.”
Sir Edward furrowed his bushy brows. “I think you are mistaken, my dear. These were all in pristine condition, and did indeed bear the authoress’s signature at the front of each. I have left them in your bedroom, but I thought you may wish to enjoy his flowers while you are here abed.”
Something inside Elizabeth set her skin to tingling and quickened her heart. “Yes, thank you. You can set them here on the table beside me. That was terribly kind of him, was it not, Charlotte?” She smiled appreciatively at the sight of the wildflowers, which he must have picked himself, for the bouquet was an assortment of blossoms that could be found on the hill between the cottage and the hotel.
Charlotte gave her a wry smile. “I give you leave to like him,” she whispered. “You have been wooed by many a stupider person.”
Sir Edward remained for the quarter hour that the physician attended to Elizabeth, and agreed stoutly that Elizabeth must keep off her feet for another day or two. Charlotte reminded him that he was invited to join several other guests for dinner at Trafalgar House that evening, and he promised he would happily spend an evening away from his duties at the hotel to join them.
“I wish to know this Darcy fellow better, since he appears to be a favorite of yours, Lizzy, and it warms my sad old heart to see how jolly you are with Miss Darcy.”
When the two friends were alone again, Elizabeth smiled triumphantly at her friend as she swallowed her dose of elixir. “My uncle certainly thinks well of my faux beau .”
“It is fortunate that he is not aware of your unusual arrangement.” Charlotte pursed her lips, reaching for the small card that was tucked into the bouquet. Elizabeth pouted at her friend’s presumption, but Charlotte merely glanced down at the little note and then fixed Elizabeth with a gaze that resembled pity – just what she did not wish to find in Charlotte’s face.
“Promise me that you will not allow things to go too far – that you will not break your heart or ruin your reputation for the sake of this frivolity. Promise me that you are not secretly cherishing some hope that your charade may blossom into something real.”
Elizabeth felt as if her friend had struck her. “Do you really think me so weak?”
“You have a romantic heart, Eliza – generally it is more of a strength than a weakness, but in this case….”
Elizabeth reached for the book on her nightstand, hoping it would signal her wish for the interrogation to end – though the elixir was already clouding her mind. “I will give it a fortnight; will that satisfy you? If he has not aroused Miss de Bourgh’s envy sufficiently to reconcile by then, I shall put an end to our farce. Surely by then I will have cured myself of any lingering regret over Mr. Penny, which is all I really desire.”
Charlotte sighed. “So that is what this is about.”
“I do have a romantic heart, and it is pained at the thought that he must now be wed to a woman who did not even care enough to correspond with him. I suppose that is why I wish to aid Mr. Darcy. Perhaps I can really be of some help to him, and it will turn out better this time, even if the happy ending is not for me.”
Elizabeth had unconsciously opened the book; she had marked her page with the valentine heart Mr. Penny had sent her – had sent Miss Penny. Charlotte reached for it. “What is that?”
“ He wrote this – a little card with a quote from one of Mrs. Bevan’s novels. I meant to show it to her, thinking it would be the sort of thing she might appreciate – probably a foolish notion, if not a risky admission. It was in my pocket when I fell from the phaeton, and the mud ruined it.”
Elizabeth pressed the rumpled and smudged valentine against the pages of the book Charlotte had loaned her, as if to smooth out the puckering caused by her tumble into the mud. Again, Charlotte reached for it, this time holding out the card Mr. Darcy had written. The writing on the latter was far more legible, and Elizabeth smiled at the message.
This cormorant advises you to cease all attempts to fly and hopes to find you sunning your feathers in the sand again soon.
Charlotte scowled. “What an odd thing to say.”
Elizabeth explained how she and Georgiana had compared him to a cormorant, and agreed that her flight from the phaeton was not one she intended to repeat. “As to sunning my feathers in the sand, I believe he refers to the morning after his arrival, when we happened upon one another at the beach. He mistook me for Miss de Bourgh, if you can imagine!”
“That is not especially flattering! You are ever so much prettier. He must really love her.” Charlotte screwed up her face and then turned serious. She held the two notes side by side and scrutinized them. “Does the writing not look the same to you? And both are rather cryptic, alluding to some shared joke.”
Elizabeth yawned. “I wonder you can make out the valentine at all. It is entirely illegible to me.”
“I can see similarities in the formation of the f and g .”
Elizabeth could see what Charlotte meant, but still shook her head in protest. “Surely all gentlemen are taught the same style of writing in school. If they both attended Eton, for example, they might have learnt from the same master. The coincidence would be far too great to consider it a possibility. Really, Charlotte, and you think me a fanciful creature!”
And this was all Elizabeth could manage to say about it before the elixir had her dozing back into a dreamless slumber.
***
The drawing room was full of Parkers – arguably overly so. Sir Thomas’s four young children had been allowed to remain until dinner, to be preened over and praised by their father’s guests, and Charlotte presented young Lottie, who was cooing in her arms.
The previous summer, Sir Sidney had purchased a cottage orné from Sir Edward Denham, who had found himself hard pressed for funds after eloping with his aunt’s ward. The seldom-used house now boasted three new residents – Arthur Parker, Miss Diana Parker, and Miss Susan Parker, who had lately arrived from Bath.
The five Parker siblings were as varied in disposition as the Bennet girls. Sir Thomas was as industrious as he was amiable, Sir Sidney was charismatic and debauched, and their younger brother Arthur was, though not unkind, possibly the dullest man Elizabeth had ever encountered. Miss Diana, resolutely a spinster, was fussy and overly solicitous, while her younger sister Miss Diana was silly and vain, but uncannily capable of dominating her older siblings.
The brothers had their own passions – Sir Thomas’s great love was Sanditon itself, Sir Sidney was fascinated by his own amusement, and Arthur simply relished rich food and empty conversation. The sisters were united in their chief interest, which consisted of diagnosing themselves and everybody around them with every malady imaginable and a few that indeed seemed entirely imaginary.
Elizabeth had feared they would spend the whole evening prattling on about her injury, offering preposterous advice and dire prognostication, but this lasted only a quarter of an hour. When Sir Edward arrived, the two sisters devoted their attention entirely to inquiries after the handsome widower’s well-being.
After tiring of swinging the younger Parker boy around the room in a manner that threatened to give Sir Thomas and his lady immediate apoplexy, Sir Sidney threw himself down on the sofa beside Elizabeth, nearly causing her to fall sideways against him.
She steadied herself; her hurt ankle was propped up on an ottoman, and she would have removed herself from Sir Sidney’s company if not for the nuisance it would be to hobble away from him. Instead she could only glower, but he was beyond noticing her annoyance.
He had demanded the honor of carrying Elizabeth down the stairs that evening. She thought it unusual, for they had never quite warmed to one another, and Sir Thomas had been perfectly willing to assist her. But when Sir Sidney had entered her bedchamber, his motive was apparent. After she swallowed a small dose of her medicine, Sir Sidney had examined the bottle curiously, sniffed at it, and then drank a generous swig. “That ought to make it a little easier to endure Lady Catherine,” he said to her with an unrepentant wink.
And now he was evidently feeling the effects of the elixir. He looked over and gave Elizabeth a wild laugh. “My dear Miss Bennet, what a night we shall have! Our company shall be most agreeable, for I am sure I shall be agreeing with everybody! But I must tell you, before my sallow ice princess arrives with her frigid mother, that you are looking exceedingly well this evening. I happened to notice, when I carried you down the stairs, how flattering is the neckline of your gown! One of Charlotte’s, I think? But even with the child she never filled it out so remarkably well. And how soft the silk, I could run my hands over it all night!”
“Sir! You forget yourself!” Elizabeth tried to move herself even further away from him, as he reached out and grasped a handful of the green silk. He had exposed her injured leg all the way up to the knee, though nobody else seemed to notice.
Elizabeth reminded herself that she had spoken rather freely herself the previous afternoon, under the influence of the medicine – but Sir Sidney had taken leave of his senses quite voluntarily. She was about to wave Charlotte down for aid when a footman announced that the first of the guests had arrived.
Georgiana scanned the room and found Elizabeth, and a look of horror flashed in her countenance at the sight of Elizabeth’s distress. Sir Sidney finally released the skirt of Elizabeth’s gown in favor of closely examining the diamonds on her hairpins and musing in her ear about the wonders of color and sparkly things.
As Charlotte greeted the new arrivals and her husband presented his siblings, Georgiana got her brother’s attention, whispered something, and then Mr. Darcy was striding toward Elizabeth in all haste. Elizabeth’s pleading gaze turned to one of gratitude as he approached.
He stood before her and bowed, his steely gaze fixed on Sir Sidney. “Sir, I believe it is not polite to put your hands on an unmarried woman in such a way, especially in company.”
Sir Sidney laughed and stroked Elizabeth’s cheek. “Well, your beliefs are very dull, Darcy. Anne has always told me so. But I suppose Miss Lizzy will forgive your banality since you are a handsome devil.”
Elizabeth recoiled. “Good evening, Mr. Darcy. Sir Sidney has seen fit to sample the elixir provided to me by the physician.”
The miscreant was swaying in his seat; he brought a finger to his lips with clumsy exaggeration. “Shh! That was meant to be our little secret!”
Mr. Darcy looked mortified. “Sir, have you made free with the medicine Miss Bennet requires for her recovery, for the sake of making sport and japery?”
Sir Sidney chortled and shrugged his shoulders. “I say, Darcy, I shall strike a bargain with you, in exchange for your forgiveness for my indiscretion – and perhaps not mentioning a thing about it to my brother. In return, I shall take myself over there directly and leave you to court your lady. I cannot fault your taste, as you are well aware. There is something about a woman who belongs to you, Darcy, that makes her exquisitely attractive in my estimation.”
Elizabeth answered before Mr. Darcy could speak, for he looked ready to call the rogue out. “He accepts, now please go and greet Miss de Bourgh – Mr. Darcy will say nothing of your nonsense.”
Miss de Bourgh had indeed arrived with her mother and her companion – the latter had not been expected, and Charlotte’s table was entirely put off by Miss Lovelace’s inclusion. Sir Sidney rolled his eyes as he ambled away. “My charms are wanted elsewhere – for now.”
Elizabeth gestured for Mr. Darcy to take the seat Sir Sidney had vacated. “Thank you for your gallantry, sir. It is fortunate that Charlotte has so fine a husband as compensation for enduring such a brother.”