Chapter 15 #4
“Lizzy is still in the bath,” Jane whispered, her eyes tearful. “She has been there since you left; the water must be quite cold by now. I tried to talk to her, but she said she still was not clean enough. She…she kept cleaning herself. She behaves so strangely that I do not know what to do.”
“I shall go and talk to her if you agree.” Jane nodded silently, her eyes full of gratitude and hope.
Elizabeth was sitting in the bathtub, her hair down and wet, lying on her back. She did not even turn her head when Lady Cassandra entered. “Jane, I am not ready yet,” she said, continuing to rub her hands against her body in an obvious gesture of washing herself.
“Yes, you are ready,” Lady Cassandra stated, and Elizabeth startled. Her ladyship moved forward, taking a robe from the chair. “You are ready and will get out this instant, Elizabeth. You are cold.”
“No, I am not,” Elizabeth answered with the obstinacy of a child. “And I am not yet ready. I am so dirty. I feel all that mud on me, and…” The tears burst out, rolling down her cheeks, and she wiped them off furiously and continued to wash her neck and face.
Lady Cassandra kneeled near the tub and took Elizabeth’s hands, stopping their violent movements and forcing Elizabeth to look at her.
“You must get out of the water, and then we must talk. You must trust me; all will be well!”
Elizabeth continued to cry silently, her eyes—pained and vacant, utterly devoid of their usual liveliness—stared at Lady Cassandra.
“You are calling me Elizabeth,” she said softly.
“I am? Yes, I suppose I am,” her ladyship admitted, slightly uneasy. “I apologise.”
“No, there is no need. I have long wanted you to address me by my given name, but you never did.”
“I do not know why I did not call you by your given name sooner, but for heaven’s sake, let us not have this conversation now. Come; let me help you out of the tub.”
As Elizabeth still did not move, Lady Cassandra took her arms firmly. “Elizabeth, I will give you one more minute; then, if you do not remove yourself, I will call the servants to pull you out of that bathtub. I am not joking; you know that to be true.”
“You have no right to order me like that,” Elizabeth replied, wrapping her arms around herself.
“If I am worried about a friend, I care little about rights or wrongs; I do everything I consider proper. So—shall I call the servants? Or perhaps your father, who is downstairs?”
Elizabeth flinched violently; then, after only a few moments of hesitation, she reached her hand to take the robe and wrapped herself in it as she stepped out of the tub. She almost lost her balance and was about to fall when Lady Cassandra hurried to support her.
A few minutes later, Elizabeth sat in the middle of the bed, propped up with pillows. Her colourless face and her eyes stared toward a blank point somewhere on the opposite wall. Neither Lady Cassandra nor Jane spoke, patiently waiting and exchanging quick glances with each other.
“Elizabeth…” whispered Jane after an interval of unbearable silence.
“I feel nothing,” Elizabeth said, her voice hardly audible. “Not even shame—only dirty and angry. I thought…I thought there would be pain…and blood…But there was nothing…”
Jane gasped and turned pale, whispering, “Oh, Lizzy…”
Lady Cassandra stared at her wonderingly, searching for the meaning of her words.
“Oh, my dear!” she burst out. “You think that? You believe that Markham took advantage of you?”
Elizabeth’s shocked expression confirmed that she was indeed correct in her assumption.
“My dear, what you are afraid of did not happen! There is nothing for you to feel because nothing happened! Elizabeth, I cannot say how sorry I am that you had to go through that nightmare, but fortunately, he was stopped in time. It did not happen,” her ladyship insisted, watching Elizabeth carefully.
Elizabeth stopped breathing, her eyes searching Lady Cassandra incredulously as her heart pounded with desperate hope. “Lady Cassandra, what do you mean? I can remember that something happened. He touched me and he tried to kiss me…and then I fell, and I felt him upon me and—
“My dear, please calm yourself. I left the house a few moments after Markham, but unfortunately, it took me some time to find you. I saw you fighting with him. Less than a minute later, I was there.”
“But…” Elizabeth’s face regained some of its colour; she released herself from Jane’s embrace and moved out of the bed. She felt dizzy as she stood and leaned slightly, almost falling.
“Lady Cassandra, how can you be certain? Where is my dress? I know my dress was ripped off—
“I am certain; trust me, my dear.” Lady Cassandra looked at Elizabeth’s confused, pained expression and then at Jane, who seemed as tormented as was her sister.
“Oh, dear! How can I explain this? It requires some amount of time to…accomplish that activity, much more than it took me to reach you. Besides, he was fully dressed…if you understand my meaning.”
Lady Cassandra hoped her assurance would calm Elizabeth to some degree—and apparently, she succeeded.
To her utter surprise, Elizabeth’s eyes remained fixed upon her, inquiringly, still obviously distrustful, and then suddenly Elizabeth started laughing, loudly, nervously, covering her face with her palms. Then her peals of laughter turned into painful sobs that shattered her entire body.
They allowed her time to cry—a relieving, liberating cry—and Jane’s tears joined those of her sister. Lady Cassandra tried to keep her composure as she watched the two sisters.
Suddenly, Elizabeth’s sobs stopped, and she turned toward Lady Cassandra. “You saved me,” she said. Then, as if seeing her for the first time that evening, she touched her ladyship’s cheek.
“And you have been hurt because of me. Your face is bruised—
“Oh, that? He was stronger then I imagined when I tried to take him off you, but do not worry; it is just a scratch. You should see his face. The colonel actually broke it!” she added with forced laughter.
“You have been hurt because of me. You exposed yourself because of me, risking your own safety,” Elizabeth continued with no little emotion.
“No, Elizabeth, that is not true. You have been hurt because of me. I should have taken better care of you. I should have warned you more seriously about Markham.”
Elizabeth shook her head in disapproval. “You had done everything to indicate the danger, but I did not take your warning seriously. I should have been more prudent. My impertinence exposed my family to scandal again—and only three days before your engagement ball, Jane. I am so sorry!”
“Lizzy, how can you apologise? You have done nothing wrong; it was not your fault. I certainly do not care about the ball and neither does Mr Bingley, I assure you!”
“Mr Bingley?! Jane, does he know what has happened? What did he say? Oh, of course he knows, I am in his house after all…I cannot think rationally, I only—
“Elizabeth, let us talk calmly for a few minutes, shall we?” Lady Cassandra resumed her place on the bed near Elizabeth.
“There is no scandal at all. Only the colonel, your father and Mr Bingley are aware of what happened. The colonel followed me when I exited the house and made a timely and fortunate appearance while I was fighting with Markham. He silenced Markham, but we needed Mr Bingley’s assistance, so we informed him and your sister.
There is something I need to talk to you about immediately so we can settle this thing for good.
I really hope you will use your good judgment and your sense to support me in this. ”
“What about William?” she whispered.
Lady Cassandra hesitated only a moment. “Well, Bingley informed him—and I am afraid he did not accomplish that task in the best way possible. In truth, Darcy is precisely the reason I want to talk to you about this if you feel strong enough to bear a difficult conversation.”
“Of course, Lady Cassandra,” Elizabeth answered, her eyes still downcast. “I can tolerate anything if it is about William. But do you think he will come? And if he does…I do not think I will be able to bear the expression on his face. What if he —?”
“Elizabeth!” Lady Cassandra cried, with a severe voice.
“Please listen to me—Darcy will come sooner than you think, and the only one who can put this horrible incident behind us is you! Now, here is what I have done and how I need your help…And, by the way, from now on—no more of this Lady Cassandra, if you please! I can predict we will have a long and difficult argument this evening, and it will be much more comfortable to call each other by our given names when fighting.”
∞∞∞
Darcy had compelled his mount to a gallop since the first moment he touched the saddle, and his only coherent thought was that he was moving too slowly—unbearably, painfully slowly.
The servant needed three hours to reach his house with the express from Bingley, and Darcy needed a quarter of an hour after he read it to be ready and on his horse, rushing to Netherfield—rushing to her.
First, he was certain Bingley had somehow mixed things up in a deplorable manner.
He said Elizabeth had been attacked by Markham—but that was the most ridiculous thing ever; how could Markham be in Hertfordshire?
Of course, he could not ask the servant for details, so all he could do was leave within a few minutes to discover the truth for himself.
The only thing that mattered and the only thing he prayed for while careening through fields in the middle of the night was the hope that he would arrive in time but fearing the worst.