Chapter Eighteen
Elizabeth woke with a start when Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his cousin awake. She also sat up, blinking in the blinding light of the man’s lamp.
The fear of the duel washed over her again.
“Still dressed, I see,” the colonel said. “Here.” He pushed a carafe full of coffee into his cousin’s hands. Another man, whom Elizabeth recognised as her husband’s valet, stood with him.
Mr. Darcy drank deeply from the coffee and shuddered as he stood. “Elizabeth, go back to sleep.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
It was pitch black outside the windows.
“Well, let us hurry. We would not want to make Wickham wait to apologise.” There was a decided sneer in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s voice.
“Not so quickly,” the valet said. “I shall not let my master go to a fight ill kempt.”
Mr. Darcy was made to sit, and Elizabeth watched with fascination as he was quickly and efficiently shaved by his man.
Then the valet used the fire screens to make a little area in the corner, where he stripped his master and dressed him in fresh clothes. Elizabeth blushed to see her husband’s white under shirt laid on the top of the screen.
When Mr. Darcy stepped out, he looked much as he usually did: a haughty and stiff gentleman whose expression told nothing of what went on in his heart or mind.
Fear bloomed within her. “You promise you will not fight?”
“It would be wrong,” he replied.
“The agreement is for you both to fire together,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “You are faster and more accurate than Wickham, so you would barely risk anything if you just mean to put him in the ground—nothing wrong with that.”
“Did you see how he started in fear yesterday? How he wished to avoid the fight?”
“I have had several deserters hung,” Colonel Fitzwilliam replied. “Their eyes were brimming with fear, and they were all full of thoughts of sweethearts and a future they would never have. That did not change the deep satisfaction I had at ordering the lever pulled.”
Mr. Darcy pressed his lips together tightly.
Elizabeth followed them to the entrance hall, and she helped her husband’s valet lace up his boots.
They looked into each other’s eyes again before he walked out to the stables. He touched her cheek. “Go back to sleep. And do not fret.”
“I cannot.”
He laid his lips briefly on hers.
Then they were gone.
Elizabeth wiped her eyes, not knowing why she was crying.
She went back to the drawing room, lit the candles, and tried to read the rest of Much Ado About Nothing.
It proved impossible to concentrate her mind on the words.
Soon the household servants woke and began to bustle about, seeing to their morning duties, and she descended to the kitchen to find Cook and Mrs. Hill arguing about what to lay out for breakfast.
Mrs. Hill looked up as she entered and addressed her. “Did Mr. Darcy look well when he left?”
“Very.”
“Good. You don’t believe what they say, do you? About him killing Mrs. Darcy? I mean the Mrs. Darcy before you.”
“All lies,” Elizabeth said firmly.
“Good that he’ll be shooting that man, then,” Mrs. Hill replied. “Though shooting is too good for his sort.”
The tinkle of a bell sounded, and Elizabeth noted it was the bell in her father’s room. With a surge of anxiety, she followed the maid and footman sent up to Mr. Bennet.
Her papa smiled as she entered the room. “How was your first night of married life?”
Relief washed over her to see him.
She had feared so much that he would die in the night.
“He read Shakespeare to me, in a very fine voice. Though he admitted to never having read Much Ado.”
“Ransacked my library?”
“Yes, sir.”
Heat rose in Elizabeth’s face as she recalled the passionate kiss they had shared the instant they had entered the room.
Her father raised an eyebrow and laughed, then Elizabeth and the footman helped him turn so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked better, more active and more himself than he had since the attack. And his speech had almost recovered its former fluency.
He stood with only Elizabeth supporting him on the one side, and it seemed as though there was much more strength and agility in his dragging leg.
“Odd wedding morning,” he said. “Your lover so eager to see another man that he leaves you alone.”
“I believe his business with the other gentleman to be of a most serious nature,” Elizabeth replied.
Her father sighed. “I wish all could return to usual, but the palsy will always persist. I shall miss you. Miss you greatly, my dear girl. If he returns. Does he mean to leave today?”
Elizabeth nodded. “But do not say that. Do not. He will. He will be well. He will not get shot. Do not say such things.”
The way that her father looked keenly at her suggested that he understood more than she had said from her words. And he smiled a little. “Ah, young love. I shall then hope very much that he returns to you.”
They went to sit in the breakfast room, and the familiar seemed strange.
The wood panels, the door, the paintings on the wall, the early light of a glorious day sneaking through the windows, the crackling of wood on the fire, the rustling of Mr. Bennet’s newspaper, the smell of coffee and fresh bread, the slight chill in the air.
I might never see Papa again.
Elizabeth poured a cup of coffee for her father, and he sipped it.
He closed his eyes and sighed in pleasure. “I have already told Cook that I shall have nothing but aliments that are not too rich. Plain food, but that is what must be done. Thankfully, Dr. Cliff says that coffee and tea are not too stimulative and may even be salutary.”
“Oh, Papa.” Tears rose to Elizabeth’s eyes.
What if Mr. Wickham shot Mr. Darcy, then her father died immediately after?
Mr. Bennet took her hand. “Do not fret. I shall miss you. Very much. You have always been my favourite. It is not quite right for a parent to have a favourite. I would advise against having one if you can manage it. But you have always been mine. Exactly what I hoped for in a child. Clever, sweet, active, independent. A mind and humour that matched my own. Do promise to write often.”
“I shall. And you must as well.”
With a smile, he said, “I shall do my best. The letters will chiefly be dictated to Mary, for now. At least it was my left side that was struck. When I can sit up for longer periods, I shall be able to write, I think.”
“You never liked to write overmuch. But I shall expect many letters from you.”
“If it is expected, then I have no choice.”
“I shall miss you very, very much too, you know,” Elizabeth replied.
“I know, dear girl. Are you certain you do not wish to have Jane? She would be happy. I imagine it would make you more comfortable.”
“No.” Elizabeth shook her head. She stared at her own coffee. “She must be here. For now. In the summer…or perhaps the spring, when we go to London for the Season…”
Her father studied her. “You wish her to be here should I die all of a sudden?”
“I must have one of us here! And I cannot be present. I wish—”
“My dear Lizzy,” he interrupted, “I only do not wish for you to be alone in that big house.”
“Sarah is coming with me as my lady’s maid. And I know Georgiana very well, and Emily, and of course Mr. Darcy—it will be best this way.”
Their tête à tête was then halted, first by Jane coming down, moving in that careful yet capable way she had developed, and then Georgiana arrived in a carriage with Emily.
Georgiana said to Elizabeth as she sat with them at the breakfast table, “Even though Fitzwilliam has promised not to fight, I could not stay at Netherfield. Miss Bingley had come down, and the expression on her face—like she hopes they do fight and both die… I cannot. And Emily was so upset. She needs to see Fitzwilliam, but it is impossible.”
“I am happy you are here,” Elizabeth replied.
Georgiana sat next to Elizabeth, and Mr. Bennet invited Emily to sit in his lap and taste his coffee, which she did. Pulling a face, she hopped down and said, “Why isn’t Papa here? I thought Papa would be here.”
“He is going to meet Mr. Wickham,” Elizabeth said. “But he will be back soon.”
“Will he fight him? Is he going to die like Mama?”
“No!” Georgiana said sharply. “Fitzwilliam will be well. And George too.”
A wave of cold washed over Elizabeth again.
The room became crowded as her sisters and mother descended. That they were all waiting for Mr. Darcy to return from a dawn meeting kept them all subdued, though Lydia and Kitty sat apart from the others and giggled sometimes.
Shortly after the breakfast of sausages and rolls was set out, with thin gruel for Mr. Bennet, Charlotte arrived with Mr. Collins.
Elizabeth’s cousin sat down at the table with a smugly satisfied air. Everything about his appearance seemed hateful to Elizabeth.
The conceited clergyman congratulated Elizabeth twice more upon her marriage to such an illustrious person, then made a comment on the deep sinfulness of duelling before eating the last of the sausages and ham at the table, leaving none for Charlotte.
Elizabeth’s friend had to satisfy herself with a tart and a bread roll to go with her coffee.
There was no conversation of note, and Elizabeth’s nerves were too strained to force any.
There seemed to be something on Charlotte’s mind, but Elizabeth was in no mood to guess what it might be.
“Look!” Kitty exclaimed from where she sat by the window. “They are returning.”
“Both Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam?” asked Elizabeth as she rushed to the window.
Lydia giggled. “La, you are acting as though you are in love.”
Not acknowledging her sister’s comment, Elizabeth peered out.
Thank the Almighty!
Mr. Darcy’s tall form was easily distinguished as he rode up the drive.
Elizabeth pressed her forehead against the cold glass and closed her eyes.
Georgiana came up next to her. “He is well.”
Realising that her father had arrived, Emily ran to the front door and had managed to open it on her own by the time Elizabeth and Georgiana reached her.
Without putting on their coats they went out to meet Mr. Darcy, as the little girl ran, crying out for her father.