Chapter 13 Out in the Cold
Out in the Cold
Darcy slept ill, flitting close to the surface of full wakefulness too many times to receive any actual rest. When he struggled out of the cloying stupor, he was met with exhaustion.
His throat hurt in a new way; myriad tiny pieces of glass embedded at the back of his mouth, scraping against his tongue every time he swallowed.
Fog had returned to his head, and his face hurt.
He sat up carefully, wincing against the daylight and perturbed to realise the lateness of the day. For how long had he slept?
Elizabeth was not there. He thought to relieve himself before she appeared but found he did not need to.
He considered taking a few mouthfuls of leftover broth but found he had no appetite.
Instead, he washed his hands and face in the cold water left on the nightstand and tottered unsteadily to the chair by the hearth to throw another log on the fire.
By the time it had burned black, he had grown distinctly vexed by Elizabeth’s absence.
She had not answered his knock at her bedchamber door, though the want of any noise from beyond it had already convinced him she was not within.
He had stood at the window, watching until he could stand no longer, but there was no sign of anyone upon the snowy, wooded hillside it faced.
He had drifted off, only to be awoken by the cramp in his neck that sleeping askew now guaranteed. What time was it now?
He moved to sit at the table and picked up the book Elizabeth had been reading.
Tucked between the pages was his note confessing to finding her intimidating.
Ordinarily, the discovery would have delighted him.
At present, it only fuelled his displeasure.
Why, if she cared to keep such a token, did she not care for the distress her unexplained absence would occasion him?
Of course, there was no obligation for her to remain in this dingy, malodorous room with him, yet she had done so all week without complaint.
Wherefore had she renounced his company today?
His hopes were roused when there came a knock at the door.
It was not Elizabeth, though, for whoever it was then waited outside for permission to come in, as she had not done all week.
Unable to give any command to enter, Darcy waited until he or she either went away or let themselves in.
A few moments later, the young lad John opened the door and ambled towards the bed, presumably to collect the night spoils as he had at various other times that week.
Darcy rapped his knuckles on the table to attract his attention.
“Beggar me and all me neighbours, who’s there?” the boy shouted, jumping a foot in the air and looking wildly in all directions. He let out a great breath and thumped a fist to his chest upon espying Darcy. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. I thought no one was here.”
Darcy waved away his concerns and mouthed, “Have you seen Miss Bennet?”
The boy only pulled a face.
“Miss Bennet,” he repeated. He held an arm wide to indicate the empty room. “My companion.”
“What’s wrong with ya, mister? Can’t you speak none?”
Darcy swore to himself and extended the forefinger of one hand to confirm that, no, he could not speak. He swore again when the boy looked quizzically in the direction his finger had pointed. Snatching up the pen, he dipped it in the well, flicking ink everywhere as he dashed off an explanation.
I cannot speak.
He held it up for John to read.
“Wishful thinking, that is, mister. I can’t read no more than you can talk.”
Darcy slapped the paper back onto the table and clenched his jaw.
With a shrug, John walked to the bed, nudged the chamber pot with his toe, grunted at its emptiness, and walked back towards the door.
Darcy opened his mouth to try once again to make himself understood and was incensed when the boy laughed.
“No hope, mister. No hope.” With an irreverent nod, John was gone.
Darcy sat back in his chair and schooled himself to composure as he settled in to continue his vigil, for Elizabeth must return eventually, whether or not he paced the room until she did.
What felt like days, but which his rational mind told him was more likely less than quarter of an hour later, he pushed himself to standing again.
He gripped the back of his chair until the room ceased spinning, then walked to retrieve his boots from the corner in which they had stood redundant all week.
He anticipated that pulling them on would hurt, but the reality was worse.
As his frame went taut, every sinew in his neck twisted, his gullet convulsed, and his stomach lurched.
A sputtering exhalation that ought to have been a shout of pain bubbled impotently in his throat.
He dropped the boot and banged his fist on the table, willing himself not to vomit.
He leant gingerly against the chair back and waited to see which would triumph, pain or impatience.
It was the latter. In all matters pertaining to Elizabeth, he had long tired of delay.
Nevertheless, his determination cost him dearly, and by the time both boots were on, he was returned to wheezing like leaking bellows, and sweat slicked his brow.
He wiped it away with his sleeve, struggled into his blood-stained waistcoat and left the room.
He stepped out into a landing boasting several other doors, a tiny window, and a staircase.
Assuming only bedchambers graced this floor, he headed in the direction of the stairs, at the foot of which he discovered the likely cause of a good number of his stranger delusions earlier in the week: a large stuffed bear, posed towering on its hind legs with an apple wedged in its snarling jaws.
Beyond that antechamber, he came to a taproom, where a dozen tables were occupied by fewer than half a dozen people, not one of whom was Elizabeth.
“Well, I’ll be, Mr Darcy!” From behind a counter on the opposite wall came a stooped, red-faced man wiping his hands on his apron. “What a fine thing to see you up and about! After the look of you when you first arrived, we had worried you would not survive the night.”
Darcy winced at the indelicate allusion to his near-death, at the man’s presumptuous familiarity, at the mortification of standing bloodied and unwashed before him, at the throbbing in his neck. All of it contributed to his exasperation, though none so much as Elizabeth’s absence.
“Mr Timmins,” the man added with a bow. “Proprietor and purveyor of fine ale, at your service.”
“Good day,” Darcy mouthed.
“Ah, that is right—you cannot speak. Forgive me, Mr Darcy, your wife did tell us. And it is no wonder—nasty injury, that. Very nasty indeed.”
But for a few blinks, Darcy held his countenance perfectly still. His heart was not so obedient and drummed out a dozen extra beats. His wife?
“Can I get you a drink, sir?” the man continued, oblivious.
“No, I thank you. Have you seen—”
“Come, have a seat.”
Darcy ignored the man’s attempts to usher him to an empty table. “Have you—”
“Would you like something to eat?”
“The man is trying to say something, Timmins. For God’s sake, let him speak!” This welcome interruption came from a man whose crutch marked him as the lieutenant Elizabeth had mentioned.
Darcy sent him a nod of thanks, then wished he had not when pain erupted under his chin. Ignoring it as best he could, he mouthed, “I am looking for Miss—” He caught himself. “Mrs Darcy.”
In tandem, Timmins and Lieutenant Carver squinted at his lips, then shook their heads in incomprehension. Darcy mouthed it again, abhorring the spectacle he was making of himself.
“I do apologise, sir, but could you say it one more time, and more slowly—”
“He is obviously looking for Lizzy, Mr Timmins,” said an elderly lady seated next to an even more ancient man at the next table over.
“Who?”
“His wife.”
Someone by the fire with his back to the room scoffed derisively.
“Oh yes, of course!” Timmins said amiably. “I have not had the pleasure of seeing her today, sir. You might find her in the kitchen. Feel free to wander down and see for yourself. We have abandoned all ceremony this week, is that not right, Mrs Ormerod?”
“Quite so, Mr Timmins, quite so,” replied the elderly lady. “It has been the perfect adventure.”
Darcy made no response. He did not consider almost dying to be any shade of adventurous, and he was too pained to make head or tail of Timmins’s strange suggestion.
Having assumed Elizabeth had sought out some alternative company, a change of scene, or perhaps a different book, he had expected to be directed to another parlour, not the kitchen.
“Through there, down to the end and left,” Timmins said, pointing to a door as he hobbled past it back to his counter.
Thither Darcy would have gone, were it not for an unheralded wave of lightheadedness that left him doubting he could walk more than two steps without falling.
He clutched discreetly at the back of the nearest chair to steady himself.
“Are you quite well, Mr Darcy?” Mrs Ormerod enquired. “You look uncommonly pale.”
“Of course he is not well, dear,” her husband answered. “Even my old eyes can see that. There is no need to embarrass him by drawing attention to it.” To Darcy he said, “Pay her no mind, young man. You have been standing for longer than my hip will allow me.”
“Or my leg me,” said Carver. “It says much of our little company that a man whose head is only just still attached to his body is the halest among us.”
“Happen she went to Spencer’s Cross with Stratton.”
Darcy looked sharply at the man sitting before the hearth, but he said no more and did not turn around.
“Aye, Mr Latimer, you might be right,” agreed Timmins. “I know he meant to try and walk there this afternoon. Perhaps Mrs Darcy accompanied him.”