Chapter 4 #3
Darcy would have taken more time to assure her of his admiration for her courage and compassion were he not so close to exhaustion.
The pain in his neck had grown nigh unbearable, his breathing had taken on a quality not dissimilar to the din of a sawmill, and his ears rang from the heaviness of the congestion in his head.
He opted to glean more answers over offering compliments before sleep reclaimed him.
Then?
“There is not much more to tell,” Elizabeth replied with a small shrug. “We brought you back here, and here we are still.”
Darcy used the last of the ink on the pen to enquire,
Why?
Elizabeth leant forward to read it and gave a small scornful scoff before she sat back and said with no little disdain, “We are snowed in.”
He raised a dubious eyebrow.
“There is no need to look at me in that manner, sir. I am well aware of the absurdity of the situation. There could not be two people with so little desire to be in the same place, yet here we are, detained together in the most intimate circumstances by a snowdrift. You really could not make it up.”
Darcy kept watching her. She was right; he could think of little worse than being trapped in a confined space with the woman who tested his restraint more than any he had ever met.
The possibility that she should feel similarly about him sparked the same flickering tightness in his chest that had assailed him constantly during his stay in Hertfordshire last autumn.
Resolving to disregard it, he held the pen out for more ink, his arm almost too heavy to lift clear of the bed.
Who else is here?
Elizabeth looked displeased with the question. “I assure you, were any of the other guests willing or able to assist, I should hardly refuse, but there is nobody.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly. Lovely she may be, but he wished Elizabeth were not quite so determined to always misunderstand him.
Why she should always assume he meant to upbraid her, God only knew.
Perhaps because her mother did naught else, she had grown used to defending herself?
With leaden fingers, he scrawled an almost illegible explanation.
Would know you are safe.
She appeared somewhat puzzled by this. “I beg your pardon, sir. I thought… Never mind. ’Tis a small inn, run by the owner, Mr Timmins, and his nephew, Master John.
He informs me his sister usually lives here also, but she has not been able to return from a visit to her mother since the snow began.
The other guests are Mr and Mrs Ormerod, Lieutenant Carver—”
The pen fell from Darcy’s hand. He reached after it instinctively, jarred his neck, and flung himself back onto the pillows only to receive another burst of pain from the lump on his head. He held himself rigid, exasperated by debility and wheezing in agony.
Elizabeth retrieved the pen from the floor and removed the paper from his lap. “I am perfectly safe, Mr Darcy,” she said softly. “There are eight people here other than you and me, and they have all been exceedingly kind. You need not concern yourself for my well-being.”
Darcy smiled weakly but earnestly. “Good.”
Without further word, Elizabeth once more knelt on the edge of the bed and held out her arms for him.
He accepted her help and allowed himself to be pulled forward.
Rather than removing the extra pillow, however, she surprised him by letting go of his arms, crouching to the floor and sliding the chamber pot from beneath the bed.
Had Darcy been any more alert, he would have been better able to express the extent of his mortification.
As it was, all he could manage was a level stare and a vaguely disbelieving look.
“As I told you,” she said, “I am not one to shy from real life. You need my help to sit up—therefore, either I help you, or, well—” A simple shrug said all that was needed.
“I shall send Master John up presently to fetch it.” She indicated the offending article with a nod.
Then she reached to move the extra pillow from behind him, gave him a small smile, and left the room.
Darcy rubbed his face with both hands. Then he grabbed the nightstand as he had earlier in the day, though he stopped short of attempting to pull himself to his feet, forced to acknowledge that he could not even sit up unaided, let alone stand—had done himself untold damage attempting it once already.
And what was the point in any case? They were snowed in.
Even were he able to walk, he would get no farther than the front door.
He had not the slightest hope of being rescued, for he had informed nobody of his intention to travel this way.
He let go of the nightstand and struck it forcefully with his fist. The movement jarred his neck, and he bared his teeth in pain and vexation.
How had it come to this? The last few years had brought him more than his share of misfortunes, but never had he thought to end up bloodied and enfeebled in a dilapidated hovel with Elizabeth Bennet positioning a pot at his feet in which for him to piss.
To think, when they had stayed under the same roof at Netherfield, he had considered the struggle to suppress his feelings for her the worst form of torture!
He struck the nightstand again, twice, and welcomed the pain it occasioned, for he was helpless in every other respect; he may as well triumph in his despair.
Why her? He railed to himself. Why, of all the strangers in the country, must it be she with whom Fate had abandoned him in this state?
And, worse than her seeing him dishevelled and unshaven, worse than his vomiting blood over her, worse than her bandaging his grotesque injury or setting the damned pot at his feet, was that she did it all with such captivating élan.
He barely had the strength to see straight; how was he ever to find the strength to resist her?
Even if he escaped this place alive, which he was entirely unconvinced he would do, he would never leave it unscathed.
A man would need to be dead to survive such close confinement with Elizabeth and remain indifferent.
He did not have energy enough to hit the nightstand again.
His anger had all been spent or smothered with fatigue.
With an intolerable feeling of futility and no other recourse, he submitted to simply relieving himself as he had been instructed to do.
He was asleep and sunk into dreams plagued with shame and longing before anyone returned to the room.