Chapter 7 #2
The pig erupted from Elizabeth's arms with a squeal of pure joy. She hit the floor, skidded across the carpet, and launched herself at Darcy's feet. She scrambled up and settled on his boot before he could move, leaving a trail of muddy hoof prints across the drawing room's pale carpet.
Caroline Bingley looked at the mud on her carpet. She looked at the pig on Darcy's boot. She looked at Elizabeth, standing in the doorway like something the weather had dragged in.
Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. It was, Elizabeth suspected, the first time in Caroline Bingley's life that she had been genuinely speechless.
Bingley recovered first. "Miss Elizabeth! You walked? In this rain? Is Jane worse? Is she all right?"
"Jane is ill and I wished to be with her.
I apologise for my appearance, and for the pig.
She followed me. I could not persuade her to stay behind.
" Elizabeth's voice was steady. She would not be embarrassed.
She had walked three miles in the rain for her sister, and if she had a pig, that was her business.
"If someone might show me to Jane, I would be grateful. "
Darcy had not spoken. He was looking at her. His book was forgotten on his knee. The pig was on his boot, pressing her wet body against his trouser leg, and he did not appear to notice or care.
He was looking at Elizabeth with an expression she could not read. It was not the cold assessment of the assembly. It was not the stiff neutrality of Lucas Lodge. It was something else entirely. Something that made her breath catch in a way she attributed to the cold.
"You walked three miles," he said quietly. "In this weather."
"My sister is ill, Mr. Darcy."
He looked at her for a moment longer. Then he stood, dislodging the pig gently from his boot, and pulled the bell. "Mrs. Nicholls will show you upstairs. I will ensure your pig is looked after."
"You do not need to look after my pig."
"The pig appears to have decided otherwise."
Truffles was already back on his boot.
Elizabeth looked at the pig. She looked at Darcy. The corner of his mouth moved by a fraction of an inch.
"Thank you," she said, and followed Mrs. Nicholls up the stairs to Jane.
Jane was in a guest room on the first floor, propped against pillows, pale and feverish. Her eyes were glassy and her nose was red and she looked, for the first time in Elizabeth's memory, less than perfectly composed.
"Lizzy." Jane's voice was a croak. "You walked? You should not have walked."
"Hush." Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed and took her sister's hand. It was hot. "Of course I walked. What else would I do?"
"You could have waited until the rain stopped."
"The rain will not stop for days, and you are ill, and I am here, and that is the end of it." Elizabeth felt Jane's forehead. Warm. Too warm. "Has an apothecary been sent for?"
"Mr. Bingley sent for Mr. Jones this morning. He prescribed rest and broth. Mr. Bingley has been very attentive." Even in her fevered state, Jane managed a blush. "He sent his housekeeper up to ask how I was three times before luncheon."
"Three times. How thorough."
"Do not tease me, Lizzy. I am too ill for teasing."
Elizabeth smoothed the hair from her sister's forehead.
Jane closed her eyes. Within minutes, she was asleep, her breathing heavy and congested.
Elizabeth pulled the blankets higher and sat in the chair beside the bed, listening to the rain against the windows and the faint sounds of the household below.
She was at Netherfield. She was at Netherfield for the night, at least, because the rain would not stop and the lanes were impassable and Jane needed her. She was in the same house as Mr. Darcy, and her pig was downstairs on his boot, and Caroline Bingley probably wanted to set fire to the carpet.
She thought about Darcy's face when she walked in.
The way his eyes had moved over her and then stayed, not with the dismissive sweep she had seen at the assembly, but with something that looked almost like admiration.
For what? She was soaked and filthy and carrying a pig. There was nothing to admire.
And yet he had looked at her. He had really looked at her.
You walked three miles. In this weather.
He had said it as though the walking mattered. As though the fact that she would walk through rain and mud for her sister was something worth noting. Something worth saying aloud.
She pressed her hands against her face. She was cold and tired and her thoughts were doing things she did not sanction. She would nurse Jane. She would avoid Mr. Darcy. She would collect her pig at the earliest opportunity.
She would not think about the expression on his face, or the quietness of his voice, or the gentle way he had dislodged Truffles from his boot. She would not think about any of it.
From somewhere downstairs, she heard a faint, contented grunt. Truffles, settled in front of a fire, on or near the boot of a man who Elizabeth did not like. Did not want to like. Would not like.
The rain beat against the windows. Jane slept. Elizabeth sat in the chair and told herself lies until she believed them.