Chapter Nine
When Dr. Cliff visited Mr. Bennet on the third day following his apoplexy, his face had regained sufficient symmetry, and his slow and slurred speech was close enough to its usual tone that the doctor judged him ready to attempt to walk around the bed.
“I do not think that endless rest, as is often suggested, is best for recovery,” the physician said to Elizabeth, who was sitting with her father.
“I have always had the notion that, beyond simple things such as the good effect of bleeding and a limited diet, we do not know what turns to good or ill in such cases.”
Mr. Bennet replied, “I hardly…am…believing the…usefulness of anything…”
The doctor smiled. “Even the most justified cynicism can be taken too far. Simply because often what we do causes no beneficial effect, that does not mean everything is useless. That some supposed knowledge is false, does not mean all is.”
The way Mr. Bennet talked made it easy for someone to imagine that he was simple and could no longer understand, but the doctor spoke to him in the same manner he always had.
Elizabeth found it hard to remember not to talk to her father in slow sentences with simple words.
The few times that Mr. Collins or her mother had come into the bedroom to see him, they had simply not bothered to try, speaking to him in a poor imitation of his own slurred and halting speech and enunciating like one might with a Frenchman who barely understood the tongue.
“Exercise after two days of rest is unlikely to cause additional harm,” the doctor said, “and it may even have salutary effects. Should you still be alive in a month, my chief prescription will be exercise of the most continual and regular sort. That and a diet which does not permit any of your favourite foods.”
Mr. Bennet laughed in a painful way that was more like a cough. “See…how…I cannot…w-w-walk.”
Elizabeth and Dr. Cliff lifted Mr. Bennet’s legs over the edge of the bed and onto the floor.
He tried to push himself up, but he could not properly do so with the affected arm. So, Dr. Cliff took his elbow on that side, while Elizabeth helped to support his stronger side. With a huff, they hauled him upright.
It was quickly established that he could not bear his own weight on the weaker foot but that he could move it and place it properly down if he concentrated his mind on it while Dr. Cliff and Elizabeth supported him to maintain his balance.
They walked him in a circle to the other side of the bed and back three times before he was too exhausted to continue.
When Dr. Cliff left, he gave Mr. Bennet a cheerful shake of the hand, leaving Elizabeth and her father alone. Mr. Bennet sighed and looked mournful, and Elizabeth smiled weakly at him. Then he held out his strong hand, and she took it and pressed it against her cheek.
“Forgive,” he said. “Hard for you. Hard. Difficult. Better. Wish…better.”
“Oh, Papa, I only look forward to when you have wholly recovered your health.”
He laughed again, a crackling weak laugh. “Should have…better. Wrong.”
“You will feel better soon.”
“No.” He appeared agitated. “Treated you. Better. Apologise.”
Suddenly Elizabeth knew what her father meant.
He was talking about what Mr. Darcy had blamed him for—not economising and not taking good enough care of Jane.
From that conversation until his attack, Elizabeth’s resentment towards him had grown.
But since he had been so near death, she had not thought once of the matter, not even though she was girding her soul in preparation to face a marriage she did not want to a man she could never love.
“No, no. Papa, no, do not be sad,” Elizabeth said. “I have always loved you. And you have always loved me dearly. I cannot wish for anything better. I never did. Never once. Or only seldom. Just recover.”
He looked at her sadly. “Deserve…better.”
Mary entered the room. “The party from Netherfield has come to call again, the little girl included. She is eager to see you.”
“Of course.” Elizabeth smiled. She pressed her father’s hand again before leaving. “Things are what they are. We must not torment ourselves wishing that they were different.”
Emily greeted her with all the ecstatic glee that a girl of three could manage while keeping to her solemn promise to be quiet. Georgiana’s greeting was far softer and more solemn but equally fond.
Mr. Darcy rose and bowed to her but said nothing. Instead he watched her in an intent manner that was deeply unsettling.
Mr. Collins joined her immediately, taking the seat beside her.
He demanded her smiles. Elizabeth had a mixture of anxiety and desperate hope that her efforts to attract him would be in vain, and that in the end, once her father was dead, he would decide to not offer.
However, Mr. Collins’s insistence on calling her ‘loveliest cousin’ made it tolerably likely that he merely waited for a favourable moment.
Or maybe he wanted Mr. Bennet to be actually dead before he offered.
That scared her.
She had not been able to give Mr. Collins a chance to propose.
Or maybe she had avoided doing so. At times she wanted to give him such an opportunity, and at times she was terrified of having her fate settled with him.
The bustle of the house had made it easy to delay—and to pretend there was always a good reason for that delay.
Servants ran about, only half managed as Elizabeth was occupied with both her parents and had no head for anything but her own unhappiness.
The neighbours constantly visited to offer sympathy and occasionally help.
Elizabeth had slept through breakfast each morning after staying up many hours in the night by her father’s bedside.
Mr. Darcy glared at Mr. Collins in a way that made unease run through Elizabeth. That glare made her think once more that Mr. Darcy could be a dangerous man if he took the notion into his head. It reminded her of the rumours so eagerly shared about the death of his first wife.
When Mr. Collins looked towards his patroness’s nephew, he also looked unsettled.
Mr. Darcy forced a polite smile onto his face. He sat next to Mr. Collins and engaged the clergyman’s attention with questions about how Lady Catherine managed and how Mr. Collins had become acquainted with her.
This was, as Elizabeth had already discovered, a happy subject for Mr. Collins, and her cousin was eloquent (or as close as Mr. Collins could come to eloquent) in his praise of the woman and her celebrated greatness.
Mr. Darcy was, in the opinion of the parson, uniquely blessed beyond all else in having such a woman for his relation, even though Lady Catherine was not wholly satisfied by his conduct.
Mr. Darcy glowered at Mr. Collins when he reached this point in his narration. “Does she still blame me for Anne’s childbed death after she married Lord Derwent?”
“Ah, she has spoken about…that is a few words—” Mr. Collins stuttered. “Her ladyship is of the view that you treated her daughter in a…ah…insufficiently respectful manner by not marrying her, as had been agreed by all when you were children.”
Mr. Darcy sneered, and though Elizabeth wished to ask more about that story, her attention was grabbed by Georgiana, who wished to play a duet with her again, like they had during the happy dreamlike before times, when she had stayed at Netherfield.
Emily sat with them to turn the pages, and they chose a sad song in honour of the depressed mood of the house. But after Elizabeth had sobbed her eyes out once she finished the words, she said, “Let us sing something cheerful. I would like a joyful tune.”
Georgiana saw the music sitting on the pianoforte for The Vicar of Bray, which had always been a favourite song of her father’s, and she suggested it, as it would be more interesting to play since she did not know the tune well.
After looking at the music for what seemed to be only half a second, Georgiana began a rendition of it that had more spirit and accuracy than any time Elizabeth had attempted the piece.
It was Elizabeth’s job to sing, and she did so, but the whole time she was thinking of her dear papa. Her voice became choked, and she burst into tears after singing the last chorus:
And this is law, I will maintain.
Unto my Dying Day, Sir.
That whatsoever King may reign,
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!
Mrs. Bennet sobbed too, and she came up to Elizabeth and said, “Dear, you ought to sing for your father when next he is awake. I cannot help but think he would like that.”
A small nod from Elizabeth—she then turned to Georgiana, “It is a favourite of my father’s.”
Georgiana wrapped an arm around her. “He will be well. And you must not fret. All will be well. You are my friend. You must swear not to do anything rash out of fear.”
The girl looked towards where Mr. Collins sat.
Elizabeth had nothing to say to this, so she hurried them to begin another song.
During the following hour, Mr. Darcy’s manner was somehow different from ever before. He pointedly did not look at Elizabeth, while usually his gaze frequently fell upon her.
She did not know what to think.
After they had stayed for a long time, Mr. Darcy suddenly said, “Miss Elizabeth, I have a matter that I wish to discuss with you privately. Might we walk around the shrubbery?”
Elizabeth had been playing at troll, helpless maiden, and knight with Emily and Georgiana—the game was decidedly mixed up; Emily frequently demanded they all change their roles within the space of half a second.
Upon hearing that her father was to take her dear playmate away from her, the little girl demanded that she come as well.
Mr. Darcy, with his usual kindness to his daughter, picked her up, kissed her, smiled at her, and told her that it was impossible.
“Why?”
Mr. Darcy seemed confounded by the question.
Georgiana asked with a smile, “What do you mean to speak of with Lizzy?”
Rather than smiling in return, the gentleman’s face was grim and his lips pressed together. “I shall explain only after I have spoken to her.”