CHAPTER 59
The Rider from Derbyshire
Mrs. Marwood’s sitting room took possession of daily life more quickly than solemnity might have approved.
This was partly Lord Pomington’s fault. Having once discovered that the patch of afternoon sun beside Mrs. Marwood’s chair suited both his complexion and his opinion of himself, he showed no disposition to respect former arrangements.
Mrs. Albright, after one long look at the chair, the dog, and Elizabeth, had said only that the cushion would want brushing more often.
It was also partly Kitty’s fault.
Kitty had found that Mrs. Marwood’s sitting room had the best light for drawing, and that Miss Darcy, unlike Lydia, did not look over one’s shoulder to announce that the horse was too fat, too grave, or not half so handsome as an officer.
Miss Darcy only sat quietly beside her, made delicate marks of her own, and occasionally said, “I like that line,” with such sincerity that Kitty’s spirits rose without becoming noisy.
Elizabeth had first asked for Kitty because Georgiana needed young society.
She had not expected to discover that Kitty needed the same thing: a girl near her own age who did not command, compete, scold, or excite her into folly.
In Portman Square, with good stockings, a new ribbon, a quiet drawing table, and Miss Darcy’s undemanding company, Kitty was less silly without being instructed to improve.
It was a discovery Elizabeth meant to remember.
On the morning when the news came, the two girls were in Mrs. Marwood’s room with drawing paper spread between them.
Lord Pomington lay under the table in an attitude of martyrdom, having been denied a scrap of toast on the grounds that his nerves could not be trusted with crumbs.
Mrs. Doddridge sat near the window with sewing in her lap, present enough to make the room proper and quiet enough not to disturb its peace.
Fitzwilliam was in the library, with his coat on and his gloves beside him, having delayed chambers by three separate papers and one look at Georgiana across breakfast which had been meant to reassure her and had almost betrayed him instead.
Elizabeth was answering Mrs. Gardiner’s note and pretending not to know that he had not turned a page in ten minutes.
The house, in short, was waiting.
It had learned to do so with some elegance.
Then the front door opened below, not with the composed rhythm of a caller admitted according to rule, but with the sharper disturbance of a servant returned under strain.
Elizabeth looked up.
Fitzwilliam had already risen.
They heard James’s voice in the hall, lower than usual; then Mrs. Albright’s. A pause followed, and in that pause the house seemed to draw itself tight.
The library door opened.
Mrs. Albright stood there, composed in every feature except that her hands were clasped rather more firmly than usual.
“Sir. Madam. Willis is returned from Derbyshire.”
Fitzwilliam’s face changed so little that Elizabeth, who knew it, was frightened.
“Where is he?”
“In the hall, sir. He has come directly. He says he must speak to you.”
“Bring him in.”
Mrs. Albright withdrew.
Elizabeth stood.
Fitzwilliam turned toward her at once. “You need not—”
“I am not leaving.”
He stopped. His hand moved once over the back of the chair, then fell to his side.
“No,” he said quietly. “I did not think you would.”
Willis entered with Mrs. Albright behind him.
He looked as a man did after too many roads, too little sleep, and too much haste: his coat marked with travel, his boots dusty, his face pale beneath wind and fatigue.
He carried his hat in one hand and a folded letter in the other.
He bowed, but not as deeply as he would have done on an ordinary day, because ordinary strength was not in him.
“Sir. Madam.”
“You delivered the packet?” Fitzwilliam asked.
“Yes, sir. Into your father’s own hand.”
Elizabeth felt Fitzwilliam’s breath alter beside her.
Willis held out the letter.
“Mrs. Reynolds bade me bring this back without delay.”
Fitzwilliam took it. For one moment he only looked at the direction.
Elizabeth saw Mrs. Reynolds’s hand: steady, old-fashioned, exact, and written with such pressure that the letters had bitten into the paper.
To Fitzwilliam Darcy, Esquire. Immediate.
Fitzwilliam broke the seal.
He read once, then again, and the second reading did not steady him.
He gave her the letter without speaking.
Elizabeth took it.
Sir,
Your father has been taken suddenly and most dangerously ill.
I cannot write all that has passed, nor would I trust it to paper before you are here.
The letters brought by your messenger were received by your father himself.
Mr. John Wickham was afterwards sent for.
There was a private interview, and after it Mr. Darcy was seized very violently.
He asked for you. He charged me, as far as his speech would permit, that you should be sent for without delay, and that Miss Darcy should come if she can bear the journey and if you judge it safe.
Mr. Latham has been sent for. The physician had not yet arrived when I dispatched Willis back to London, for I thought no later report could be worth delaying your notice. I know not what may be required, only that you are required. I beg you, sir, come as soon as you may.
I remain, with every duty and respect,
Mrs. Reynolds
Elizabeth looked from the letter to Fitzwilliam.
He was very still.
That stillness was worse than movement.
“Willis,” she said, because someone must ask what Fitzwilliam could not yet bring himself to say, “tell us what you know. Only what you know.”
The instruction seemed to steady him. He drew himself a little straighter.
“I reached Pemberley on Saturday, madam, but your father had not yet returned. Mrs. Reynolds would have taken the packet, but I said my orders were particular, and that it must go into Mr. Darcy’s own hand.
She did not press me after that. I waited at Lambton, and went up to the house each morning, for your father was expected. ”
Fitzwilliam closed his eyes briefly.
Elizabeth knew what he heard in that. Not only delay. Time. Two days during which the letters existed and had not yet reached their mark. Two days during which Georgiana remained waiting in Portman Square, her courage folded into paper and carried north like a fragile thing.
“He came in late on Monday,” Willis continued. “I was sent for as soon as he had come into the house. I gave him the packet, and he read both letters while I stood there. Yours first, sir, and then Miss Darcy’s. Hers he read twice.”
Fitzwilliam’s hand closed on the edge of the table.
Elizabeth moved nearer, not touching him yet, but near enough that he might feel she was there.
“After that, sir, he told me I was to wait, for there would be an answer. I was in the servants’ hall at first, and later near the stables.
I did not see what passed. I only heard that Mr. John Wickham had been sent for—the steward, sir—and afterwards that there had been a quarrel. But I did not hear it myself.”
“No,” Elizabeth said gently. “You are right to say only what you know.”
Willis looked at her with gratitude so immediate it almost broke through his exhaustion.
“Thank you, madam. I know only that there was a great disturbance. Bells rang. Servants were sent running. Mrs. Reynolds came to me herself, with the letter. She said Mr. Darcy had been taken very ill, and that I was to ride back before waiting for the doctor.”
“So you do not know—” Fitzwilliam stopped.
“No, sir,” Willis said quietly. “I do not know how he was when the doctor came.”
That was the cruelty of it. The news had travelled without conclusion. It had arrived with urgency, not knowledge.
Fitzwilliam looked at Mrs. Reynolds’s letter, then at Willis.
“Did she say anything else?”
“Only that he had asked for you, sir. And for Miss Darcy, if she could be brought.”
The room was silent.
Those words did what no accusation, apology, or explanation could have done. They entered the house and altered every person in it.
At last Fitzwilliam said, “I must go at once.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “But not alone.”
He turned sharply. “Elizabeth—”
“No.” She went to him then and put her hand over his, where it still gripped the table.
His fingers were cold. “Your father is dangerously ill. We do not know what has happened at Pemberley, whether Mr. John Wickham is gone, or whether half the house still obeys him by habit. We do not know how long you will be there. You cannot go north as if marriage had made no alteration in your life except giving you someone to leave behind.”
“I cannot take you into this.”
“You are not taking me. I am going.”
His face worked once, very slightly.
“I should spare you if I could.”
“I know.” Her voice softened. “But you cannot spare me from being your wife.”
That reached him.
Willis looked fixedly at the carpet, as a well-trained servant should when confronted with a tenderness not meant for him. Mrs. Albright, who had not moved from the doorway, looked as if she had received confirmation of a fact long established in the house-book.
Fitzwilliam drew a breath.
“Georgiana must be told.”
“Yes.”
“She has been safe here.”
“She is still safe here. That is why she may choose.”
His gaze lifted to hers.
Elizabeth squeezed his hand once and released it.
“Mrs. Albright, will you ask Mrs. Doddridge to bring Miss Darcy and Miss Kitty to the breakfast room? Not here. The library will feel too much like papers.”
“Yes, madam.”
“And Willis must sit, eat, and be seen to. He has ridden hard.”
Willis protested faintly. “Madam, I can—”
“You can eat,” Elizabeth said. “That is not beyond even Derbyshire roads.”
He bowed. “Yes, madam.”
Mrs. Albright looked almost satisfied.
When they had gone, Fitzwilliam reached for Mrs. Reynolds’s letter again. He did not read it. He held it as if the paper itself might change if he pressed it hard enough.
Elizabeth let him have that moment.
Then she said, “Tell me what must be written before we leave.”