The laugh came again and Elizabeth realized that the source of it was outside in the garden. A window was swung slightly open and in the moonlit garden, she saw Miss Bingley, in conversation with a man. Miss Bingley’s tall, slender form was unmistakable, especially as her head tipped back to laugh. Her companion, the man, she could hardly see at all. She heard the depth of his voice but could not make out any of what he said. She could not even identify him, although, as she heard more of what Miss Bingley said, it made Elizabeth sure that she could put a name to the figure.
Elizabeth didn’t want to be hearing Miss Bingley’s conversation, not any part of it. Her heart pounded in her breast and her breath caught in her throat, but she was rooted to the spot. She felt the guilt of a sneak, of an eavesdropper, but she could not pull herself away. She dreaded that if she moved, she would give herself away. She would be seen and Miss Caroline would be certain to denounce her as a sneak for spying.
The man said something and then Caroline laughed again. “No,” she said, “absolutely not. Put that thought from your mind completely. I know you truly have a feeling for me, but I know perfectly well what that feeling is, and it isn’t anything to do with marrying or any other proper desires.” He spoke again and she laughed even more loudly.
The man was much taller than Miss Bingley. Well figured and broad. Elizabeth cursed that she could not make out his profile or any distinguishing part of him.
“Marrying you will get me Pemberley? What base and perverted idea are you trying to propose now? You’re just being ridiculous.”
The man’s voice was low and indistinct. Elizabeth couldn’t make out any of what he said but she heard Caroline tell him, “I know that you persuaded the old man to alter the terms of his will, despite what everyone thinks. Admit it. I know that you did. Just tell me what you got him to make it say.”
Although she couldn’t hear any of what the man said, the deep voice made her think at once of Mr. Darcy.
Elizabeth was sure that what she had heard was Mr. Darcy, planning with Miss Bingley for them to marry. And it had something to do with the inheritance. When Elizabeth hurried back into the ball, she quickly found Colonel Fitzwilliam and she told him everything that she had seen and heard. When she mentioned her suspicion that the man in the mysterious couple was Mr. Darcy, the colonel told her, “It can’t have been. I’ve seen Mr. Darcy, all of this time. Look, he’s over–” and then Colonel Fitzwilliam cast his eyes around, searching the room. “I was sure that I saw him, only a few moments ago. How strange.”
“Perhaps you could have been mistaken?”
“It is always possible, of course. But I do doubt it. No, look, there he is.”
Through a doorway on the far side of the room, Mr. Darcy was returning to the dance.
Elizabeth asked, “See, he is coming back. You know the house. Could he have been coming from the garden to re-enter that way?”
“It is possible but hardly. I’m sure you are mistaken.”
Mr. Darcy was marching straight across the room toward her. Elizabeth was sure he meant to claim another dance from her. Perhaps, against her instincts, she should allow it. But she heard something odd. Something that should not have been. Behind the wash of the music and the burble of chatter and the tinkling sounds of glasses was the faint jingle of an insistent bell.
She looked at the colonel. He seemed not to have heard the bell, then back at Mr. Darcy. He had had not heard the bell either.
Elizabeth knew from the urgent jingling that something was very much amiss. Without a thought, she ran. Mr. Darcy’s face was creased in shock and the colonel looked on in bewilderment, but Elizabeth knew she had to go.
She ran all the way back to the main hall. From there that bell rang unmistakably. She turned for the rear staircase and bounded up the long flights of the steps. the bell was louder and more persistent as she ran down the dark corridor.
25
The maid was panicked. Georgiana was sitting up and she shook. Her eyes rolled, staring and she blinked hard. Her mouth opened and closed. Her tongue was thick and dry.
The maid said, “I can’t get her to take the pills, Ma’am, not at all. I can’t get near to her. I couldn’t give her pills to her last night nor this morning. Now, this. What am I to do, Ma’am?
Elizabeth took charge. “Forget about the pills. Help me to get her wrapped in the blankets. Then fetch some soup and bread. Quickly.”
Georgiana’s skin was chilly. Together they pulled blankets around the girl and laid her down, with her head Elizabeth’s lap. Elizabeth stroked her forehead and gave her sips of water. the girl calmed down. Her eyes became more normal and her shaking subsided. Still, she shuddered but she grew less frantic as Elizabeth spoke to her, soothingly.
As the maid returned with a tray, Mr. Darcy almost knocked her over as he barged past her. “What has happened?” he said, “Why was I not told?”
Elizabeth smoothed Georgiana’s hair and stroked her, gently. “Hush, Mr. Darcy. She’s floating just below consciousness. You’ll alarm her.”
“She needs her pills. If she is agitated, she is to be given more pills.”
“She needs some nourishment, Mr. Darcy, but she also needs calm.”
“The pills first.”
“I believe she should have no more of them.”
“And you are a physician, Miss Bennet?”
“Sir, you have said how little you trust the physicians and that they have had no good effect on your sister’s condition.”
“But instead you propose to treat her with, what, this corn broth and bread?” His face and his voice were anguished. “This is my sister.” He reached for the pill bottle.
“Mr. Darcy, please. Those pills are only sedatives. They are merely keeping her unconscious.”
He shouted at the maid, “There’s a doctor, Doctor Madigan, downstairs in the ball. Find him and fetch him here. At once.”
Georgiana was calming down more, but she still shook at every loud and harsh word from her brother. “Can you not see,” Elizabeth looked up at him, “She is trying to wake. The pills have kept her under a fog of sleep. Perhaps they gave her a chance to recover at the beginning but now they are no more than a poison for her.”
“You know nothing. You could be killing her. Let me give her the pills.”
Help me give her some nourishment first. Some soup and a little bread. then, after she has a chance to digest if you still want to administer the drugs to her, we shall.”
“You could be killing her, Miss Bennet.”
“I assure that I am not doing any such thing, Mr, Darcy.”
The maid came back with a gentleman in a frock coat and brocade vest. “I don’t have any of my instruments, Mr. Darcy,” he said, “there’s only so much that I will be able to do.”
“I’ll send men for your medic’s bag. And for her regular doctor.”
Georgiana blinked. Elizabeth offered her soup from a spoon. Slowly, she began to take nourishment.
Elizabeth asked the maid for cool towels and mopped Georgiana’s face and forehead and chest as she held her.
She began slowly but surely to rise out of the fever, shaking in spasms at first.
Mr. Darcy said, “Quick, the tablets!”
Caroline called out from the doorway, “Yes, the tablets. Quickly!”
“No,” Elizabeth says, “She’s recovering.”
“What do you know?” Mr. Darcy snarled.
“I know that she has been misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated. Just wait. Just a few minutes.”
“She’s suffering!” Mr. Darcy protested.
“No, Mr. Darcy. She’s awakening.”
“On your head be it, Darcy,” Caroline was shrill, “If you allow this mail-order bride to treat your sister, you could have a terrible responsibility.”
Elizabeth looked him in the eye and told him, “The doctor’s pills, they are sedatives, nothing more. I know the smell and the color. And I tasted one. My mother takes the same pill
s when she’s most distraught. All they do is make her drowsy and confused. They may at times have given precious and valuable rest to your sister, but now they are preventing her from healing, I’m certain of it.”
“Well, I’m not certain enough to gamble with the life of my sister. Come out of the way.”
“Mr. Darcy, please.”
“Come out of the way! Caroline, the pills.”
“Of course, Darcy. Wait. I’m just getting this bottle open. It’s so stiff.”
Jane stood at the doorway close to Mr. Bingley. He shouted, “Darcy! Wait! Look!”
Georgiana was looking around. Her mouth was still too dry for her to speak but the look in her eyes and on her face was unmistakably one of a young girl, intelligent and aware, and recovering. Swiftly Doctor Madigan looked in her eyes with a magnifier and held her wrist to check her pulse. He put a mercury thermometer under her tongue but even before he took it out to read her her temperature he confirmed it.
“She is recovering, Mr. Darcy. And quickly.”
The light in Mr. Darcy’s eyes was almost apologetic, but it as quickly displaced by his joy and relief at seeing his sister coming back to life. He asked, “How do you come to know all of this, Miss Elizabeth?”
“You have a fine library, Mr. Darcy and as you know, I love little more than to read. Especially at times of stress. It could almost be my own form of narcolepsy. In any case, to occupy my mind these last days, I have read extensively, every reference I could find that would cast light on Georgiana’s symptoms.”
“Then it was a miracle that brought you here, Miss Bennet.”
“And now, it is almost time for something that is not a miracle to take me back, Mr. Darcy.”
She could not bear the look on his face or the way that he accepted Caroline Bingley coming close to him and crowding her out. Mr. Darcy’s attention then was completely occupied with his sister. Elizabeth burst through the gathering crowd and ran from the room. She ran down the dark hallway, down the stairs, through the house, away from the music and revelry.
At the first door she came to, she ran out into the gardens at the back of the house, ignoring the rumble at the edges of the skies. She plunged on into the darkness. the only way she could keep from bursting into tears was to run faster. She ran into the gap in the long flat hedge. Down the corridor to the corner, then into the outdoor room with the sundial. She ran past it, feeling the cool beginnings of rain patter on her skin. turn after turn, she ran down the seemingly endless privet corridors.
Soon the rain was gushing, pelting down on her and she was lost. Trapped. Her dress was sodden and it was getting thick and heavy. She looked around, desperate. Even if there had been more light, she had no idea where she was or how to find a way out. She found herself in another outdoor room with a fountain in the middle. It was the largest room she had yet seen and on each wall was a narrow pergola, draped with vines.
She slumped onto a wet bench under one of the pergolas. It gave her a very limited, partial shelter and she hunched over. Without realizing it, she had taken the small picture out from her small purse. Fat, heavy blobs of rain splashed on it, alongside sharp, salty tears. The picture blurred and ran. It could be ruined in a moment.
Maybe it would be for the best if she simply expired here, either from exposure or from drowning. She couldn’t see that it would much matter which.
Cold and wet to her skin, Elizabeth could see no way out of her predicament. Neither the one of her being trapped and lost in the dark labyrinth in a downpour nor of her absurd and surely uniquely belittling position of a mail-order bride, spurned. The one fragment of consolation was that he would not see her reduced to this condition. Lost, defeated, bedraggled, and utterly miserable. The fact that she could endure her total humiliation in the privacy of this impenetrable depth of a hedged garden in weather that nobody but a lunatic would brave was the one shred of consolation she had to cling to.
The rain was so hard, she didn’t hear the sound at first or even see the figure that followed her there. the man who stood before her and called her name had to raise his voice against the drumming of the deluge on the shale and the sodden lawn.
“Miss Bennet. I’m glad to see you are adapting to our climate.”
It was him. Of course, it was. Now her degradation was complete. He stood, looming over her in wet breeches and a shirt that clung to his skin. Water poured through the heavy locks of his hair.
“You might like to take your acclimatization in stages though. That or perhaps bring more suitable clothing.”
She spoke hoarsely, “Your adaptation seems to be wearing fewer clothes.”
“Of course. The water soaks through. Clothing becomes a burden. But I could hardly recommend that approach to a young lady.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Where else would you be? I think by now that I do know you, Miss Bennet. I only wish that you would give me the chance of having you come to know me.”
“You know the way out?”
“Just as I know the way in. Come.” He held out a strong arm, “Walk close by me. I’ll protect you. Keep you warm.”
26
Elizabeth felt like a rescued child in the secure embrace of his arm. Cold rain, the dark night, and the baffling garden held no more fears for her. Close by his side she felt safe. She wished they could stay this way forever. Too soon as they approached the house, she realized that she could be seen by all the guests at the ball. Her miserable appearance would certainly provide them with a memorable impression.
In days and months to come, revelers would have the tale of the sodden girl from the East, looking like a drowned rat. Skulking back, after needing rescue from the storm. Too careless to stay out of the rain, too dumb to find her own way back.
Feeling the strength and warmth of his body made her wish for this moment to continue. Even the humiliation could be worth it to stay inside the protective wrap of his arm. When he guided her up a stone staircase and held open a door, she stepped into the warmth with a regret.
He had taken more care than she had expected, though. They entered the house through a quiet rear passageway. Nobody was there to see her as she dripped onto the tiled floor. He took her swiftly into a suite of rooms and found thick, soft towels for her. Then he lit a fire and sat her by the hearth.
He left her for just a few moments and she toweled her hair as he returned with a hot bowl of soup.
Elizabeth thanked Mr. Darcy with as much composure as she was able to muster. She wondered how this whole situation had all gone so terribly wrong. Was he really such a bad man as she had believed or could she have misjudged him? Now it was all too late.
She said, “I left too quickly to see for certain. Is Miss Georgiana well? Will she make a complete recovery?”
“She took nourishment and grew stronger by the moment. The doctor assures me that she will be fully recovered in a matter of days. And he admits that you were right. Admits it against a man of his own profession. That without your intervention, she could have remained sedated indefinitely. I have you to thank for restoring her to me and that is a debt I can never repay.”
“Well, I am glad that some part of our story has played out to a happy ending. For the rest, sir, I can only say that I am sorry for whatever part I may have played in making it all go so horribly wrong.”
“No!” he snapped, “The fault was all mine. I should have given you some clear way to understand my intention from the start and not presumed upon the rightness of my own authority. I believe that my intentions were not bad, but the way that my actions must have appeared to you was quite wrong and I should have known it. Please, please, Miss Bennet, allow me to say this.” He was standing close. The strength of his words made her tremble.
“You may not wish to reconsider and if that is the case, I will respect your wishes entirely, and I consider myself entirely to blame. The feelings you have awoken in me are too strong and too deep for me to ignore but, if you wish
it, I shall never speak of them again. But, if it were possible for you to accept my proposal willingly and wholeheartedly, it would be my dearest and most urgent wish to make you my bride, my Mrs. Darcy.
There are constraints on what I can say, I am bound by honor and by the law, but to persuade you if you will permit me I can say this. As you will no doubt have gathered, my entire inheritance depends on my being wed by the time of my birthday. Otherwise, I will lose Pemberley and the whole of the estate and all of its value.”
“How-” she began but he raised a hand to halt her.
“If you would consent to give me your hand and to give yourself to me in marriage, I would be content for you to name the date. If you choose one day, one week or one year after the deadline that is set in the will, I would accept it gladly. You have already restored my sister and that is enough. If I can have your true love as well, then Pemberley and the wealth it entails would be a trifling price that I would gladly pay.”
Dried and recomposed, Elizabeth re-entered the ballroom on Mr. Darcy’s arm with her head high.
Seeing her, Jane rushed to greet her, with Mr. Bingley close behind her and beaming.
“Lizzy, Lizzy, dearest! I have such news.”
Elizabeth stopped and Mr. Darcy too. They stood poised, a perfect couple, attentive to Jane’s exciting tidings.
“Lizzy, Mr. Bingley has asked me to marry him. I am to be Mrs. Bingley.”
A small crowd had grouped around them and a spontaneous ripple of applause broke out. More people crowded in to learn of the cause.
“Congratulations, Mr. Bingley.” Mr. Darcy made the most gracious formal bow, “And, to you, Miss Jane, felicitation. And I believe that your sister has an announcement she would share with you, too.”
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