58. LVIII #2
“Georgiana,” Elizabeth murmured, still unblinking.
Georgiana’s chin came up, and her eyes glittered, but she spared Elizabeth no greeting.
Her aunt's hands moved helplessly. “That is what she said. Miss Georgiana Darcy. And she says — Lizzy, she says the most extraordinary thing, she says that you — that you are —” Her aunt could not make herself say it, and looked at Elizabeth with her eyes wide and pleading for it to be nonsense.
“She says you are Mrs Darcy! That you are married to her brother, of all men. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley! What could have occasioned —”
Elizabeth put her hand out and found the back of a chair, but she could not manage her voice. She could only stare painfully at Georgiana — at Darcy's eyes in that pale, set face, looking back at her now with a flat, sullen hurt that was almost hatred.
“Lizzy.” Her aunt again, softer now, frightened. “Lizzy, it must be a misunderstanding. You cannot be… how could you possibly be married and I not know of it? Lizzy, say something.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth heard herself say. Her voice came from very far off. “Yes. It is true. I… I am… was. I am sorry, Aunt. So sorry I did not tell you. He only meant to protect me, but I… oh, it is my fault! I was not to fall in love with him, but I did, and now I have ruined —”
“He is dying,” Georgiana broke in.
The words did not seem to belong to the room. They shattered in her ears, cutting and terrible. She had to grab the chair with her other hand. “He what?”
“He is dying,” Georgiana said again, and this time, there was real venom in it. “And for some reason I cannot begin to fathom, when you have done — after you sent that — he is begging for you. He will not stop asking for you. That is why I am here. That is the only reason I am here.”
The floor went out from under her.
She did not faint, quite — she came to herself already halfway down, her vision spotted and unfocused.
Her aunt cried out and was rushing to kneel beside her, and Georgiana was up off the sofa with her gloved hands out in alarm despite herself.
Elizabeth fought her way back up through the white roaring dark with the one thought hammering.
“No,” she said. “No, he cannot — he cannot be dying, he was — he did not even come, he —” he was going driving in the Park, he was courting that girl, he was sensible, he let me go — “No. No. You are mistaken! There is a mistake.”
“There is no mistake.” Georgiana's hands were on her arm now, helping her to her feet.
“He collapsed yesterday. After I brought him your — after I came home. He read it and he — he tried to call for the carriage, he said he was going to you, and then he fell down in the hall and he has been — Miss Bennet, Mrs — Oh, I cannot think what to call you! But he has been out of his senses since, burning, shaking, they cannot —”
“The ague.” Elizabeth's whole body had gone to ice. “It is the ague. The fever from Spain, come back. Padre Ignacio said it would.”
Georgiana stared at her. “Yes, Fitzwilliam said that name. But the physician called it a tertian fever, he said it would come in waves that —”
“Has he had the physician?” Elizabeth had hold of the girl's arm now. “The bark, Georgiana. Tell me he has the bark. Peruvian bark, Jesuit's bark, they will know it — tell me the doctor is giving him the bark, please tell me you got some!”
“Yes!” Georgiana blinked, taken aback as she tugged her arm away. “Yes, the doctor is giving it him, and other medicine besides, to soothe the fever. He vomited the first of the bark, but he has kept some down in the night.”
“Gracias a Dios.” It came out of her without thought; she pressed her hands together and shut her eyes and said it again under her breath, gracias a Dios, gracias a Dios, because there was bark, and that one fact was a rope thrown to a drowning woman.
She opened her eyes to find her aunt and Georgiana both staring at her, and something passing between the two of them — a glance, wary and astonished.
Oh, how she must look and sound, a woman speaking Spanish in a Cheapside parlour, weeping thanks over a fever, married in secret and hiding her relationship to the sort of man no young woman would ever conceal from her family.
“Lizzy.” Her aunt had gone quite pale. “Lizzy, what — in God's name, child, what happened to you in Spain?”
“I married him in Tudela, the night of the raid when Uncle Gardiner — oh, it is a long story, Aunt, and I will tell you all of it, I swear I will, only not now — I married Mr Darcy, and I meant to — I found I could not keep him — I meant to release him, I sent back the — this morning I even went to —”
She broke off and fisted her hands over her eyes.
“Oh, I cannot say it all now! Only believe me, Aunt… please, Georgiana, I meant to give him up for his own good, because I love him past sense, Aunt, past all sense, and I could not be the means of his ruin and Uncle Gardiner’s abandonment besides.
” She cupped a hand over her mouth to stop its rambling and turned to Georgiana.
“Miss Darcy, is he shivering? Is he cold, does he shake and call for blankets and still moan for the want of them?”
“Yes,” Georgiana confirmed, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Heaps of them, and he keeps wanting the fire built up so we can hardly stand to be in the room. How did you know?”
“Because I lived it! Listen to me, give him all of them, every blanket in the house, and do not let anyone take them off while the cold is on him. But you must watch — you must watch for the turn, when he throws them off and goes to burning, because then you cool him, then it is cloths and open windows. He will not know you, he will thrash and talk out of his head, he will say all manner of things that are not true. You must be gentle with him, it is only the fever talking, and you must not be frightened of it, you must only —”
“He is not saying all manner of things.” Georgiana interrupted.
“That is why I came, Elizabeth. In and out of his senses, burning, raving — he is only saying your name. Over and over. Whether he knows he is doing it or not, he only ever asks for one thing, and it is you.” Her chin trembled.
“I did not want to come. I thought you had broken his heart and half killed him and I did not see why I should fetch you to him. But he begged me, when he was clear enough to beg, and I could not listen to him call for you all night and not go. So. Against my better judgment. Here I am. Will you come, or will you not?”
Elizabeth was already turning for the door.
“Aunt!” She caught her aunt's hands, pressed them, her eyes streaming now. “Forgive me. I will explain everything, all of it, I promise you, only I have to — I have to go to him, do you understand? I have to go now —”
“Go,” said her aunt, who did not understand the half of it. “Go, Lizzy, and God be with him.”