Chapter Seven
Elizabeth did not speak at any length with Mr. Darcy during her remaining time at Netherfield Park.
Over the course of the next day, her offence at what he had said about her father dissolved into thinking, almost for the first time ever, about her papa’s failings and his responsibility for the difficulties that surrounded her: his failure to economise, his casual unconcern about what would happen to them if he died suddenly, and particularly his part in Jane’s condition.
Even the presence of her maid, Sarah, at Netherfield was another example of the family’s frivolous spending. They always kept a full establishment of servants.
Sarah’s presence was unnecessary. Georgiana had willingly let her Ruth attend to Elizabeth in preference to herself.
However, Sarah was happy to be at Netherfield as she and Georgiana’s lady’s maid were of the same age, and they had settled into the same sort of cheerful friendliness that their mistresses enjoyed, spending a great deal of time trading ideas and suggestions on how to make the women under their charge appear at their best.
Sarah had rather more creative flair, while Ruth was more fashionable and familiar with the techniques used in high society.
When Elizabeth watched Mr. Darcy play with his daughter, she still thought his behaviour that of an exceedingly good father. But she now had some anxiety that his good instincts as a parent would one day be overwhelmed by faulty principles.
Emily begged Elizabeth not to leave, and Elizabeth solemnly promised the girl that she could visit Longbourn any time she wanted and that she would come to call on her at least once a week until the Darcys left Netherfield.
When she arrived home, she found her father in a poor mood. “I have had a headache since the morning,” he said. “I imagine it is because I have heard not a word of sense spoken since you left for Netherfield. I should not have allowed you to go on horseback.”
“No, you were quite mistaken in that,” Elizabeth agreed with faux cheerfulness.
Mr. Bennet frowned at her. “And what does that tone mean?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I simply have been thinking about matters. But what is done is done. Speaking about such things will not change them.”
“Which things?” His frown deepened.
Elizabeth shrugged. She was not used to feeling such harsh judgment towards her father, and she did not much like the sensation. Instead of speaking about it, she kissed him on the cheek and went to the drawing room to sit with Jane and her other sisters.
While Elizabeth did not wholly let go of the anger that she had held towards her mother for the past five years, what Mr. Darcy had said about how her behaviour had been motivated by proper concern and correct feelings stuck in Elizabeth’s head.
She looked at her mother with more kindness and acceptance—that was good.
Mrs. Bennet was like a character in a Greek tragedy, whose desperate efforts to avoid a terrible fate brought that fate about in the end.
Her father’s ill mood remained for the whole of the evening, and several times he complained about particular tiredness. When he went to leave the drawing room, he tripped over his own feet and smiled at Elizabeth when she helped him up. “Nothing, just a little dizzy. It will pass soon.”
The next day when they sat for breakfast, he still appeared tired, though he had a cheerful manner and tried to offer a joke that he thought would be delightful.
But Elizabeth fancied that his face drooped on one side. She tried to convince herself that was not the case as a stab of terrible anxiety surged through her.
“Well,” her father said, “I hope Mrs. Bennet that you have, that is, dinner. I have thing, place, um, reason to expect a guest for dinner today.”
“Mr. Bingley!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. She looked at Elizabeth with delight. “You told me nothing of him coming to dine.”
“No, not Mr. Bingley. It is a person I have never met in my life.” Mr. Bennet smiled. Then he frowned. He gripped one arm with the other. “So odd. Leg, no, no. Good—I mean bad. Person death. I mean place. I mean—my bottom, top. I need the butcher.”
He tried to stand, failed, and collapsed back into his chair, his eyes wild and unseeing.
Mrs. Bennet screamed, which made Lydia and Kitty scream as well. Mary gasped and stared white-faced at their father. Jane had a confused and quizzical look as she turned her head towards him.
Elizabeth stood with a sense of the deepest horror. She had no notion of what to do but to call for the physician.
She rang the bell and hurried to her father to loosen his cravat and splash his face with water.
He stared blankly at her and opened his mouth, but only an inarticulate sound came out, no words.
The whole side of his face was fallen in. He tried to push her off with his arm, but it was too weak to have any effect.
Mrs. Hill came in and screamed to see the mistress and two of the young ladies screaming as well.
Mary had gone to Jane and was telling her what had happened.
With a sharp command to the housekeeper, Elizabeth ordered her to send a boy for the physician.
“We must have Doctor Cliff. Mr. Jones will not be enough. But ask him to come as well if he might. Then bring the men to carry Papa to the sofa in the drawing room. That is a better place for him than this chair.”
“Oh my, oh my,” Mrs. Hill said. “He looks just like my old father the day he died.”
This brought a piteous moan from Mrs. Bennet. “Oh, oh, oh! And we shall be thrown out into the hedgerows!”
“Silence, madam,” Elizabeth hissed at her mother. “Do you wish to make matters worse for Papa?”
The screaming women fell silent, their faces solemn.
Mr. Bennet’s eyes were open, and at times it seemed as though he wished to speak, but no sound came out.
His breathing was heavy and laboured. After an eternity, though likely it was not an entire minute, the manservants who had not been sent for the physician gathered in the room, and then with an anxious “one, two, three” they picked up her father and followed Elizabeth’s instructions to carry him to the drawing room.
In the horror of the situation, as they carried her papa’s almost limp body across the hall, Elizabeth had a moment of terror for the future.
Every time that her mother had spoken of her fear of her father dying, he had declared himself to be in the best of health and likely to outlive her, even though he was nearly ten years her elder.
Elizabeth had simply believed him.
He was not much past fifty, and he never seemed old to her. The experience of Jane’s illness had not prepared Elizabeth for the possibility that her father might suddenly die, with all that would follow after his death.
He was laid out on the sofa and breathed with a snoring sound.
His eyes were now closed, and the pulse in his throat was visible.
Smelling salts were brought by Mrs. Hill and applied to his nose by Elizabeth, but while he drew his head away from the scent and opened his eyes briefly, they made no other impression and did not rouse him.
Elizabeth held her father’s hand, desperately hoping he would be well but expecting that he would die suddenly. It had become impossible to wake him.
No, no, no, no.
Jane came to sit next to Elizabeth, wrapping her arms around her, but she did not say any unwelcome words.
Mrs. Bennet entered the room, looked at her husband, then muttered, “Oh, we shall starve! Oh, oh, oh!”
The younger girls did not come in, but Elizabeth heard them sobbing in the hall.
What followed was an hour of dread, during which Elizabeth listened closely to her father’s breathing, wondering at any catch or change and whether any delay between breaths would be the end.
At last, the physician arrived.
Dr. Cliff was an old friend of Mr. Bennet’s, and they met several times most months to argue about scientific journals and old books. He looked pained as he approached.
The physician took her father’s arm from Elizabeth to measure his pulse. “Without a doubt it is an apoplectic attack. When did the symptoms begin?”
Elizabeth could hardly speak. “It was…that is…it has been so long.”
“We had just sat down to breakfast,” Jane said. “It must have been about nine in the morning.”
Dr. Cliff pulled his watch from his coat and looked at it. “I shall take off some blood. The pulse is still strong and full, rather than weak and reedy. There is some hope.”
The doctor removed from his bag a curved knife and a cup to take the blood. He asked the footman who had come in with him to hold Mr. Bennet’s head up so that he could easily make a cut in a vein around the throat.
Elizabeth trembled as she watched.
Her father did not stir as the cut was made.
Her mother entered the room while the cup was against his throat, and she made an inarticulate sound of despair.
The blood was taken off, and the physician then measured the patient’s pulse once more before standing back.
“How quickly will he die?” Mrs. Bennet cried. “Oh, this waiting is terrible for my nerves! Tell me how fast it will happen.”
Dr. Cliff rinsed the blood off with a bowl of water that one of the footmen had brought for him.
“In such cases it is impossible to tell. He may last in this state for some hours before beginning to rouse. Or he may suddenly be taken off by a new attack. His pulse is such that I do not expect this attack to kill him immediately. If he does rouse, he is likely to have a continuing palsy. Even if he wakes and begins to recover, another attack may take him off in the first week or two. If he survives to the end of the month, there will be hope. Especially if he adopts a proper scheme of diet and exercise—there is always a great risk of an additional attack of apoplexy in those who have suffered once.”
“Oh, Lord! He will die within the week—that is what you say? Do not give me false hope.”
“I do not,” The physician replied. “Death without ever regaining consciousness, or shortly afterwards, is possible, but he might wake.”
“Do not lie to me!” Mrs. Bennet shrieked.