CHAPTER FIVE
Fever, Letters, and Other Disasters
Jane received Caroline Bingley’s letter the same morning Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived.
It had been sent from London the previous day and bore all the signs of having been composed with care: elegant hand, expensive paper, and sentences so smooth they seemed varnished. Jane read it in the breakfast parlour while Elizabeth was upstairs with Mr. Darcy.
My dearest Jane,
I hope you will not think us unkind for departing Hertfordshire with so little ceremony.
Circumstances called us to London sooner than expected, and I confess I am delighted by the prospect of having my brother once more among friends who know him best. We are all most happily reunited here, including Mr. Darcy, whose return has been much welcomed by his sister...
Jane stopped. She read the line again.
Including Mr. Darcy. Upstairs, at that very moment, Mr. Darcy was muttering incoherently about rain, horses, and Elizabeth’s eyes while Dr. Garrison tried to persuade him to drink willow-bark tea.
Jane continued. Caroline wrote warmly of Georgiana Darcy.
She wrote of Charles’s likely long residence in London.
She delicately suggested that certain attachments formed in the country were often the result of proximity rather than true compatibility.
She hoped Jane would remember their friendship fondly.
Jane folded the letter. For several minutes she did nothing.
Then she unfolded it and read the lie again.
Jane Bennet had been accused all her life of seeing too much good in people.
The accusation was not entirely fair. Jane saw faults.
She merely disliked assigning the worst motive when a kinder one remained possible.
Here, however, kindness strained beyond reason.
Caroline had claimed a man was in London who was visibly and dangerously ill in Jane’s own house. There was no misunderstanding in that.
No charitable interpretation. A lie was a lie, however elegant the handwriting. When Elizabeth came down an hour later, exhausted and with a faint ink mark on one finger from writing a note for Mr. Jones, Jane handed her the letter. Elizabeth read it standing beside the window.
Her eyebrows climbed. “Well.”
Jane waited.
Elizabeth read the relevant sentence again. “This is almost impressive.”
“Lizzy.”
“I do not mean admirable. I mean she has lied so unnecessarily that one must respect the confidence required.”
Jane looked down.
Elizabeth’s teasing vanished. “Oh, Jane.”
“I had thought her my friend.”
“I know.”
“I knew she wished Charles to marry Miss Darcy. I knew she did not particularly value our relations. But I did not think—” Jane stopped. “I did not think she would deliberately deceive me.”
Elizabeth took her hand.
Jane’s voice remained soft, but there was something new beneath it. “If she lies to me about Mr. Darcy being in London, what else is she willing to lie about?”
“That is the correct question.”
“Do you think Charles knows?”
“No.”
Jane nodded slowly. “Neither do I.”
Elizabeth looked surprised.
Jane gave her a sad smile. “I may be foolish, Lizzy. I am not entirely simple.”
“You are neither.”
From above came the sudden sound of a chair scraping.
Elizabeth was out of the room before Jane could speak.
Darcy’s fever worsened that afternoon. Dr. Morrison, the Darcy family physician, arrived from London shortly before dusk in a carriage bearing enough medical luggage to suggest he intended to establish a hospital.
He was a compact man in his late fifties who had delivered Georgiana, treated Darcy after a childhood fall from a tree, and once informed Lady Catherine de Bourgh that her digestion would improve if she spoke less during meals.
Colonel Fitzwilliam revered him. He and Dr. Garrison conferred for nearly an hour. The household moved around them. Mrs. Bennet ordered watered wine, clean nightshirts, barley broth, fresh sheets, more wood for the guest-room fire, and a screen to keep drafts from the bed.
When Hill suggested the linen cupboard was running low, Mrs. Bennet did not hesitate. “Use my best sheets.”
Hill blinked. “The wedding set, ma’am?”
“Sheets are for beds, Mrs. Hill, and there is a sick gentleman in one. Oh! Must everything be debated?”
Elizabeth, passing in the hall, heard it.
She had spent years thinking her mother’s mind occupied only by husbands, gowns, officers, and nerves.
Yet Mrs. Bennet knew precisely which tenant wife had recently been confined, which cottage required extra coal, which child on the estate had outgrown his boots, and which dairymaid’s mother was failing.
Her care was noisy. That did not make it false.
Near midnight Darcy became restless. Richard sat on one side of the bed, Elizabeth on the other.
“Pemberley,” Darcy murmured.
“You are not at Pemberley,” Richard said.
“Obviously.”
“Then stop trying to give estate instructions.”
“South field drainage.”
“I shall inform the south field personally.”
Darcy’s eyes opened.
He looked at Elizabeth. “You are here.”
“I have been here for ten minutes.”
“Stay.”
“I shall.”
Richard looked between them. Darcy’s fingers moved until Elizabeth, after a moment’s hesitation, put her hand into his.
He calmed at once.
Richard’s brows rose.
Elizabeth ignored him.
“My uncle will object,” Darcy said.
Richard nearly choked. “Which uncle?”
“Not yours.”
“That narrows it admirably.”
“Lady Catherine.”
“She is your aunt.”
Darcy frowned. “Pedant.”
Elizabeth’s lips twitched.
“Do not let her frighten you,” he told her.
“I assure you, sir, I am rarely frightened by ladies who speak loudly.”
Darcy seemed to consider this profound. “Yes.”
Then, louder, “Elizabeth is brave.”
Richard looked toward the ceiling as if requesting strength.
“She walked through mud.”
“I have heard rumours.”
“Six inches.”
“Scandalous.”
“To Jane.”
“Yes.”
“I love her.”
Elizabeth went scarlet.
Richard coughed.
Darcy tugged weakly at her hand. “Why are you not wearing my ring?”
“I do not possess your ring.”
He looked offended. “Richard.”
“No,” Richard said immediately. “I am not fetching the Darcy jewels at midnight.”
“Coward.”
Elizabeth made a sound suspiciously like a laugh.
Darcy smiled at her. Then the fever dragged him elsewhere.
By dawn the news had left Longbourn. No one could later say precisely how.
Mr. Barnes had heard Darcy declare the engagement in the lane.
His labourers had heard it as well. Mrs. Barnes had sent broth to Longbourn and mentioned the matter to her sister.
The sister’s maid had a cousin in Meryton.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s express had reached Matlock House, where a footman had spoken to another footman whose brother worked for a viscountess.
By breakfast in London, it was whispered that Fitzwilliam Darcy had been gravely injured while riding to propose to a Hertfordshire beauty.
By luncheon, he had supposedly broken both legs saving her from a runaway carriage.
By dinner, one hostess confidently informed her guests that Darcy had fought three highwaymen, been shot through the shoulder, and become engaged while bleeding into Miss Bennet’s lap.
The only part of the story everyone agreed upon was the engagement. Charles Bingley heard it from his aunt.
He arrived at his sisters’ sitting room without knocking. “Darcy has been injured.”
Caroline looked up from her embroidery. “What?”
“In Hertfordshire.”
Louisa’s cup stopped halfway to her lips.
Bingley’s face had gone pale. “A broken leg. Fever. He is at Longbourn.”
Caroline’s colour changed. “At Longbourn?”
“Yes.”
Mr. Hurst, from the sofa, said, “Thought he was here.”
Silence fell. Bingley turned slowly toward Caroline. She recovered first. “There must be some mistake.”
“No.”
“Charles—”
“You wrote to Jane yesterday.”
Caroline’s needle remained suspended above the silk. Bingley’s voice became very quiet. “Did you tell her Darcy was in London?”
Louisa looked away.
Caroline set down the embroidery. “My dear Charles, the letter had already been drafted before we learned—”
“You learned this morning. The letter left yesterday.”
“I naturally assumed Darcy would arrive.”
“You wrote that he had.”
Caroline opened her mouth. Bingley shook his head once. He was not an angry man by nature. His displeasure usually came like a summer shower—warm, brief, and easily forgotten.
This was different. “I am returning to Netherfield.”
“Charles!”
“My friend is ill.”
“He is at Longbourn.”
“Yes.” Caroline’s expression hardened. “And Jane Bennet is there.”
Bingley stared at her. At last he said, “Yes, Caroline. I had noticed.”
He left the room.
Mr. Hurst lifted his flask in silent salute.