Chapter 16
Every Way Horrible
The world made itself known by increments. The indistinct rumble of male voices. Light, silhouetting blurred shapes. Soft warmth beneath him, terrible thirst within. A desolate ache in the vicinity of his heart. Darcy’s first conscious thought was of Elizabeth, and that he had lost her.
“About time, man. I have grown decidedly weary of watching you grow a beard in your sleep.”
Darcy blinked until the smudge of colour looming over him materialised into his cousin Fitzwilliam.
“Is he awake?” Another face appeared above him. Ladbroke? It must be serious if his eldest cousin had bestirred himself to keep vigil also.
“His eyes are open,” Fitzwilliam replied. “But I am not convinced he is compos mentis. Darcy, can you hear us?”
“Of course I can. You are shouting in my face.”
Both brothers frowned and in unison stood away from the bed. “He is still unable to speak.”
“Hmm. Farnham, what make you of this?”
“If you would allow me to examine the patient—”
“Perhaps he just needs a drink. Morby? Fetch some wine, there’s a fellow.”
“If I may, my lord, perhaps boiled water would be more advisable.”
Darcy closed his eyes again. Being an invalid had been far more enjoyable when there had been but one much calmer, far sweeter, and eminently prettier person attending him.
Where was she at present? His last memory was of the harrowed expression in her eyes as he divulged the truth about Wickham.
The need to know what had transpired since then was suffocating.
He opened his eyes and fixed them on the nearest person—his manservant.
Good. He held up a hand and indicated with the inward curl of his fingers that he required assistance.
Morby, ever astute, gave his arm directly, and with gritted teeth, Darcy gripped it and hauled himself to sit upright.
“Hell’s bells, what are you doing, man?”
“That is unwise, Mr Morby. Mr Darcy ought not to be upright.”
“Darcy, for God’s sake, lie back down!”
When the room ceased spinning, Darcy exchanged a knowing look with his man then indicated with a glance the carafe on the nightstand.
He held up a hand to forestall his cousins’ continued remonstrations and the austere edicts of the man he now recognised as the family’s physician, Mr Farnham.
He would be able to answer none of their questions until he had quenched his unbearable thirst.
It was not until he had drunk more than half of what Morby poured for him that it occurred to Darcy with what ease he had swallowed it.
He lowered the glass to his lap and took a cautious but deep breath—and suffered not the slightest discomfort.
He braced himself for pain and deliberately coughed.
It made an odd sound, not one readily recognisable as a cough, but it hurt less than expected.
He raised a hand to his throat. It was bandaged still, and a careful attempt to move his head from side to side was quickly curtailed by the discovery that it was yet exceedingly tender. Less than it had been, though.
A ripple of anticipation passed through him at the prospect of being recovered enough to speak. He turned to Fitzwilliam and said the first thing that came to mind. “Where is Elizabeth?”
Blast it! He did not choke on it, as he had done on every other utterance since the accident, but neither did he produce anything even closely resembling speech, only a whispery sort of exhalation.
“What was that?” Fitzwilliam replied. “Can you say it more slowly?”
Darcy sighed. Back to this then, he thought ruefully. He finished the remainder of his drink, handed the glass to Morby, and signalled for a pen and paper. Whilst that was being found, he submitted to, and apparently passed, a cursory examination by Farnham.
“Your pulse and temperature are perfectly regular, Mr Darcy. And your pallor has improved significantly over the last few days.”
“Few days?” He had some hazy recollections, now that it was mentioned—of these walls, and this bed, and other people who were not Elizabeth fussing around him with spoons of this and ladles of that. None of it struck him with any peculiar clarity, however.
“You have been up to your nose hairs with laudanum since Monday evening,” Ladbroke informed him from where he stood regarding proceedings from the window. “Today is Thursday.”
“Fever?” Darcy guessed.
“Nay, sir,” Farnham answered. “You were exceedingly fortunate in that regard. Your wound took no infection at all.”
“What then?”
“Farnham here thinks you were just hungry,” Fitzwilliam said with evident glee.
“Oh, ah, in addition to a probable concussion,” the physician himself added hastily.
“And undernourishment is not to be taken lightly. I understand your injury meant that you ate and drank but little the whole time you were in that place, Mr Darcy. Any significant wound takes a vast toll on the body. One requires sustenance to recover. Excessive thirst in particular can cause severe disorientation such as your…acquaintance described.”
They had spoken to Elizabeth then!
“I have stitched the wound itself now,” he went on. “It ought to be more comfortable now that it has had a chance to begin healing.”
Darcy made his customary gesture for yes, but it only provoked them all to peer quizzically at his hands. “It is,” he mouthed instead. “And my voice?” He pointed to his throat to assist Farnham in understanding.
The physician grimaced. “I am afraid I cannot say with any certainty when or whether it will return, sir, but it is not a hopeless case. It was necessary only for me to stitch the soft tissue. Your oesophagus and trachea were intact—severely bruised, hence your difficulty breathing and swallowing—but intact. It would not be unreasonable to hope that once the surrounding contusion heals, your vocal cords will likewise recover.”
This was welcome news indeed. “No other damage?” he enquired, for after a week of the most disagreeable ignorance, he would know every detail possible.
“It does not appear so, sir,” Farnham replied.
He began gesturing with his hands as he warmed to his topic.
“The musculature of the neck is tremendously thick, designed to protect all the critical structures inside. The mechanism of your injury—a blunt force to this area, here—appears to have ruptured the skin without directly compromising any of those deeper structures.”
“Miss Bennet said I bled profusely.”
Farnham clearly did not understand, but after two more attempts, Fitzwilliam managed to translate for him.
“It was a large gash,” Farnham replied. “There would still have been significant bleeding, but I assure you no major blood vessels were damaged. You would not have survived an injury of that nature.”
“I daresay it was still more blood than Miss Bennet is ever likely to have seen,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I should think it was a good deal more man than she is ever likely to have seen either,” Ladbroke added with a lascivious grin.
Darcy pretended to ignore him, but his cousin was not the first to whom that thought had occurred.
It had been impossible, whilst submitting to Elizabeth’s ministrations, not to wonder what she thought of his exposed person.
Reflecting on her opinion of his appearance only reminded him what he now knew to be her opinion of his character, exacerbating the hollow sensation presently residing just below his ribcage.
Nevertheless, the need to discover how she fared lent his actions a fervent quality when Morby returned with writing apparatus.
He wasted no time in snatching the pen and paper from his man before inching along the bed closer to the nightstand and leaning upon it to write,
Where is Miss Bennet? And is she well?
He held it up. Fitzwilliam read it, widened his eyes expressively, and, with the flat of his hand, firmly pushed Darcy’s arm downwards until the paper lay face down on the bed. “Thank you, Farnham. That will be all for now.”
“Very good, Colonel.” The physician gathered up his belongings and left.
“We will ring the bell if you are needed again, Morby,” Ladbroke said to Darcy’s man, who waited for a look of permission from his master before following the physician from the room.
“Good God, Darcy, are you still riding high?” Fitzwilliam exclaimed as soon as the door clicked closed. “You have barely escaped this mess unshackled as it is. Show a little discretion, would you?”
Darcy stared at him in consternation for one or two seconds before whipping the sheet of paper back into the air and jabbing it angrily with his finger. “Answer my bloody question!”
“Very well,” his cousin answered warily. “She is returned to her family. And, at the last I heard, in perfect health.”
Darcy could not smile. That she was well was a vast relief. That she was gone back to her family, and away from him possibly forever, made him wretched. “And when did you last hear?”
“Pardon?”
He bared his teeth, slapped the paper back on the nightstand, and scribbled upon it,
Has there been no further word since Monday?
Fitzwilliam came to lean over him and read aloud what he had written, for Ladbroke’s benefit.
There was a pause afterwards. Darcy wished they would cease looking at each other in that irritating way, as though privately communicating how they ought to manage him into compliance. He added a line to his note.
“‘I have lost my voice, not my wits,’” Fitzwilliam read, quickly adding, “That is heartening to know, Darcy. Nevertheless, you do seem uncommonly concerned about the young lady.”
“Perchance more happened at the inn than we have been informed,” Ladbroke remarked.
“What do you take me for?” Darcy mouthed angrily.
His cousin wasted very little time attempting to comprehend him before giving up with a shake of his head. “I can see you are angry, but you must agree it is singularly out of character for you to show such a marked interest in a girl of her calibre.”