“I think it’s about five, ma’am,” Lucy answered. “Perhaps half-past. Mrs. Nicholls says she was already awake when the bell rung.”
Elizabeth joined Louisa and squinted into the blackness. She wished the sun would rise, that the storm would abate, that something would happen to end this gloomy night that seemed intent on stretching to eternity. Confusion gripped the entire grounds of Netherfield. People dashed about everywhere, yet she looked in vain for the one face she most longed to see. Where was Darcy? Though she knew he was quite capable of taking care of himself, she could not be easy until she saw him again.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with that Mr. Parrish,” Louisa muttered. “He’s doing an abominable job of caring for my sister.”
Elizabeth longed to respond that it was Caroline herself who continually presented poor Mr. Parrish with the most obstacles to that goal, but she knew her point would not carry. “He seems to be trying his best,” she said.
“An Englishman would try harder.” Mrs. Hurst returned to her coach and asked her husband to hand her inside where she could sit more comfortably. “Mrs. Darcy, if your maid is done attending you, perhaps she could fetch me a hot brick. My own maid seems to have disappeared.”
“A hot brick?”
“Yes, for my feet.”
Elizabeth blinked. “I’m sure there are plenty in the burning house. Would you like some tea as well?”
“That would be lovely.”
Elizabeth met Lucy’s gaze. The maid regarded her uncertainly. She had served her only a short time, since Elizabeth’s engagement, and had not yet learned to read her mistress’s moods.
“Lucy, without getting in the way of anyone working to put out the fire, please enquire among the servants whether anyone has injuries requiring Mr. Jones’s attention. Also ask whether anyone has seen Mrs. Parrish or my husband. If you happen to encounter Mrs. Hurst’s maid, kindly relay her requests.”
“Yes, ma’am.” With a relieved expression, Lucy set off.
The apothecary finished his ministrations and, aided by Mr. Hurst, moved the weary couple to the relative comfort of the Darcys’ coach. Jane and Bingley each rested against one side and stretched their legs the length of the padded seats. Elizabeth sat on the coach floor for a time, holding Jane’s hand and speaking with her softly, but her thoughts were too scattered and her heart too anxious to attend her own conversation. Fortunately, her sister soon drifted back into slumber. Bingley followed shortly.
She left the coach and wandered restlessly about the carriage house. She longed to do something. She’d promised Mr. Parrish she’d help look for Caroline, and Darcy’s prolonged absence distressed her more each minute. Mr. Jones observed her agitation without comment, but his expression clearly discouraged her from succumbing to the impulse to leave this sanctuary. Who was he, though, to stop her? A man, just a man, with no real power over her save his own disapproval. And how often did she let mere disapproval by an outsider sway her actions?
She pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders, preparing to go back outside. Darcy had told her to get out of the house, and she would honor his wishes in keeping her promise to Mr. Parrish. She would begin her search on the grounds—perhaps Caroline had exited the mansion but didn’t know where the rest of the family had gathered.
If, however, in the process of seeking Caroline she learned that Darcy had not yet made it out of the burning building, the fires of hell itself would not keep her from going back in after him.
Ignoring Mr. Jones’s objections, she slid open the door to find Lucy just returning. She quickly drew the drenched maid inside. “Lucy, what have you learned?”
“No one’s seen Mrs. Parrish, ma’am. Mr. Parrish is a-looking everywheres for her. He says you should stay put. The professor’s helping him look.” She blew on her hands through chattering teeth. “Only one person’s hurt so far. One of the maids—nobody I talked to seemed to know if she’s an upstairs or downstairs maid, but anyways she’s in the barn with some bad burns.”
Elizabeth retrieved a dry blanket and draped it across Lucy’s shoulders. “And my husband?”
Lucy bit her lip. “He’s still in the house, ma’am. Directing everyone putting out the fire.”
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Darcy being Darcy, of course that’s where he was. She should feel pride, but all she could muster was anxiety for his safety.
Mr. Jones picked up his medical bag. “Can you lead me to the maid?” At Lucy’s affirmation, he turned to Elizabeth. “Mrs. Darcy, your husband needs to focus on what he’s doing, not worry about you running around putting yourself in danger. And I need you to keep an eye on Mr. and Mrs. Bingley for me. Can I trust you to stay here?”
Elizabeth wanted to shout in frustration at being forced to inaction. Instead, she muttered an ungracious “Yes.”
The apothecary and Lucy departed. Elizabeth checked on Jane and Bingley. The couple slept fitfully. She tucked Bingley’s blanket more securely around him and stroked Jane’s furrowed brow until it smoothed.
Mr. Hurst’s snore came from the next coach, followed by an unladylike sneeze. “Mrs. Darcy?” Louisa called. “I don’t suppose your maid remembered the hot brick?”
She could not bring herself to dignify the question with a response. Mr. Jones was right—he did need her to watch over Jane and Bingley in his absence, because the rest of these selfish people could not be relied upon to do so.
She regarded Mr. Kendall’s carriage. No doubt he slumbered, too. Why let a little thing like someone’s home burning down interrupt a good night’s sleep? All his earlier snooping and skulking that night, not to mention his hasty escape from the house, had probably worn him out.
The image of him fleeing down the staircase intruded into her mind once more. She hadn’t credited the corpulent man with such speed. His coattails had actually flown behind him as his boots clattered in double time. She rolled her eyes in disgust. Yet something besides contempt nagged at her recollection.
Boots. Coattails.
At the time the fire broke out, Mr. Kendall had been fully dressed.
Seventeen
“I confess myself to have been entirely deceived in Miss Bingley’s regard for me.”
Jane, writing to Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 26
Elizabeth stared at Mr. Kendall’s coach, wishing she could see inside to confirm her mounting suspicions about its owner. For Kendall to have been dressed when she’d sounded the alarm, he had to have been awake when the fire broke out. According to Lucy’s earlier time estimate, it had been perhaps half-past four when she and Darcy had discovered the blaze and awakened the household. That was more than two hours after she’d seen Kendall in the library.
What had he been doing that whole while? Had he returned to the library and broken into the desk—only to discover that the papers had been moved? And to what act could his resulting ire have led him? Unable to steal them, would he try to destroy them?
She crossed to the carriage and knocked on the door. “Mr. Kendall?”
A heavy sigh issued from within. “Yes, Mrs. Darcy?”
“Might I have a word with you?”
The door opened. As she had thought, Kendall wore the same attire he’d had on in the library. He scowled at her. “What is it, Mrs. Darcy?”
Now that she had commanded his attention, she didn’t know what to say to elicit more information about his movements in the past few hours. She could hardly interrogate the gentleman like the criminal he was. “I—” She grasped for an excuse to have initiated the interview. “Many of us left the house so quickly that we are without proper clothing for outdoors. I wanted to enquire whether you need a blanket to keep warm.”
“I am fine.”
“Yes, I see that you are dressed.”
His cold expression caught her breath. Suddenly she realized her foolishness in approaching him like this alone. She already knew him to be a sneak and a thief. Were he also an arsonist, that
made him a very dangerous man indeed. She took an involuntary step backward.
“I stayed up late to write letters and fell asleep in my clothes. Is there anything else, Mrs. Darcy?”
Before she could reply, Lucy slid open the door and Mr. Jones burst into the carriage house. In his arms he carried the injured maid.
Relieved by the excuse to end her conversation with Kendall, Elizabeth hurried to spread some blankets near one of the lanterns. She wondered at the apothecary’s decision to transport his new patient through the inclement weather rather than treat her where she’d already found shelter. The carriage house must offer superior lighting or comfort to that of the barn.
When he settled the maid onto the blankets, Elizabeth inhaled sharply. Though dressed in the coarse woolen uniform of a scullery maid, the woman was no servant.
“Mrs. Parrish!” she exclaimed.
“My surprise was as great as your own,” said Mr. Jones. “How she came to be wearing these clothes, one can only imagine. My questions to her have gone unanswered.”
Elizabeth removed Caroline’s wet shoes and tucked a blanket around her legs. Mrs. Parrish cradled her left hand against her chest, swaying forward and back in a self-soothing rhythm. She fixed her gaze on Elizabeth and murmured something indistinguishable.
Elizabeth leaned in more closely. “What did you say, Mrs. Parrish?”
“My hand.” Her voice was barely audible. “Please look at my hand—”
“Caroline!” Louisa shouldered her way past Elizabeth to capture Mrs. Parrish in an embrace that suggested all the warmth of the air outside. “My dear sister, I’ve been positively beside myself!”
Caroline winced as Mrs. Hurst pressed against her injury. “Louisa.”
Elizabeth straightened and backed away from the effusive reunion. “She told me she wants you to examine her hand,” she relayed to Mr. Jones.
“I tried to do so in the barn, but she resisted. Perhaps now that she’s among friends she’ll allow me to treat the burns.” The apothecary withdrew bandages and a small tin from his medical bag. “Would you assist me, Mrs. Hurst? I could use someone to hold the lantern close.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Darcy can handle it.” Louisa retreated a few steps to hover behind Mr. Jones. She addressed the maid. “Fetch my sister some more appropriate attire.”
“Lucy, please see if you can locate Mr. Parrish and tell him his wife has been found,” Elizabeth said. “Mrs. Parrish’s wardrobe needs can wait. Her present clothing, though beneath her station, is at least warm.”
Louisa gasped. “Surely you cannot be suggesting that my sister remain dressed in that—that garment?”
“I do more than suggest.” As Lucy departed, Elizabeth lifted the lantern and brought it near Mr. Jones, who had politely busied himself during the exchange by beginning his examination. “Unless you care to trade gowns with her?”
Mrs. Hurst gaped. In the welcome silence that followed, Elizabeth turned her back on her and observed the apothecary’s ministrations. Caroline’s hand glowed an angry red from palm to fingertips. Blisters swelled the base of her fingers.
“Mrs. Parrish, can you tell me how you hurt your hand?” Mr. Jones opened the tin. A pungent scent met Elizabeth’s nostrils.
“I—I don’t remember.” Caroline raised her right hand, which appeared uninjured, to her temple. “I fear another of my headaches has come on.”
The apothecary dipped two fingers into the tin and scooped up a dab of salve. When he touched the unguent to the burn, Caroline flinched and whimpered.
“There, now, Mrs. Parrish. This ointment will help soothe the pain. Just let me remove your wedding ring to aid circulation. . . .” Mr. Jones tried to slide off the ring, but it held fast on her swollen finger. He worked some salve under it, tried twisting it slowly, but the ring would not budge. Caroline mewed and shut her eyes against the pain.
“Stop tormenting her, you country bumpkin!” Louisa jerked Caroline’s hand out of the apothecary’s grasp, eliciting a cry from her sister. “Caroline, the minute this storm lets up, we are summoning a surgeon from London. Someone who knows what he is about.”
Elizabeth’s face warmed with the embarrassment Mrs. Hurst should have been feeling. Mr. Jones was a capable medical man, who had seen her family through illnesses and injuries since she was a child. “Mr. Jones, I appreciate the care you have given my sister and her family tonight. We could ask for none better.”
The apothecary returned the tin to his medical bag, rose stiffly, and handed Elizabeth a roll of cotton cloth. “Perhaps Mrs. Hurst would prefer to bandage her sister’s injury herself. It should be covered lightly. I will go check on Mr. and Mrs. Bingley.”
Elizabeth offered the bandage to Louisa, silently daring her to take it. Mrs. Hurst snatched it up and proceeded to make a bungled attempt at covering the burn. She first applied the dressing so loosely that it fell off the hand, then pulled it so tight that tears sprang to Caroline’s eyes, all the while loudly criticizing the inferior supplies of country doctors. Eventually, Elizabeth took pity on Mrs. Parrish—and everyone else in auditory range—and offered to perform the task herself.
“If you insist.” Louisa shoved the bandage back into Elizabeth’s grasp.
Elizabeth studied Caroline’s hand before applying the bandage. On the palm side, blisters and swollen tissue almost eclipsed the ring. If only they could remove it, Caroline’s pain might lessen and her injury could heal more quickly. “Mrs. Parrish, would you like me to try one last time to take off your ring?”
Caroline squeezed her eyes shut but nodded.
“You’re as bad as that bumbling apothecary,” Louisa snapped. “Leave it be.”
The carriage house door slid open, arresting further debate. Mr. Parrish and Lucy entered. Behind them, early streaks of dawn revealed that the storm had at last abated.
“Caroline! Thank heaven you are safe!” Parrish hurried to his wife’s side. His hair was soaked; rivulets of water streamed down the greatcoat he’d obtained at some point since Elizabeth had last seen him. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
He reached for her hand but stopped when he saw the injury. “Oh, darling—you’ve been hurt!” He looked to Elizabeth, his expression seeking an explanation she could not supply.
“Mr. Jones has just finished treating her hand,” she reassured him.
Parrish sat down beside his wife, put his arm around her shoulders, and drew her to his side. “You’re safe now, darling.” Caroline rested her head on his shoulder.
At the tender display, envy touched Elizabeth’s heart. The Parrishes were safe; she could only pray that Darcy was, too, and that at the end of this awful ordeal she would know the solace of her own husband’s embrace. As if reading her thoughts, Lucy departed again with the stated intention of learning more about Darcy’s progress against the fire.
Parrish watched Elizabeth finish dressing the burn. “Thank you, Mrs. Darcy, for taking care of my wife. You are a good friend to her.”
Elizabeth shrugged, disconcerted by Parrish’s gratitude. Despite having been thrown into Caroline’s company more often in the past fortnight than she’d ever thought herself capable of enduring, she’d developed no further attachment to Jane’s new sister-in-law than she’d harbored previously. The solicitude she’d shown Mrs. Parrish was simply the concern she’d feel for any fellow human being in similar circumstances. “I’m sure she derives more comfort from your presence than anything I could do.”
Indeed, the patient soon dozed off in her husband’s arms, a fitful slumber that paralleled Elizabeth’s own agitation. Mr. Parrish pulled her against him more securely and whispered something indiscernible in her ear. Her troubled features smoothed and she relaxed into his side.
Parrish’s face, however, became graver as he studied his wife. He opened his mouth several times as if to say something, but shut it again with his thoughts unuttered. Finally, he spoke. “Mrs. Darcy, have you any idea how my wife burned her hand?”
<
br /> Elizabeth confessed ignorance.
He glanced about the carriage house, at Mr. Jones resting just outside the coach occupied by Jane and Bingley, at the other carriages with their silent inmates. “I have been contemplating the question as I sit here,” he continued in low tones. “I have also been wondering what caused tonight’s fire. I—I do not like the direction my thoughts are taking.”
A chill traveled down her spine. Mr. Parrish hinted at an idea that had grazed the edges of her consciousness, suspicions so unpleasant she’d dared not articulate them even in the privacy of her own thoughts. The location and nature of Caroline’s injury, her reluctance to tell Mr. Jones how she’d burned herself, her unknown whereabouts at the time the fire broke, her wandering earlier that night and other strange behavior . . .
“Do you grasp my meaning, Mrs. Darcy? Pray tell me I needn’t say more.”
She understood. But could so distasteful a thought be true? Had Caroline started the fire? Inconceivable notion! “Perhaps you draw conclusions from mere coincidence,” she tried to reassure him.
“I want more than anything to believe that. But your sister and her husband—indeed, the whole household—could have died in this blaze. I—” His voice broke. “I no longer fear for only my wife’s safety.”
Parrish’s speculation provoked disquiet within her, the same uneasiness she’d experienced upon waking from her repeated dreams of the carriage accident. Never had Netherfield seemed such an ominous place as it did tonight, an abode of mishaps and misfortune. They had been here but two days and had known scarcely a moment’s peace of mind. Or did the howling storm and her own flagging reserves only make it seem such?
“Mr. Parrish, doubt feeds on exhaustion. When we have all had a chance to recover from tonight’s events—”
“While still more mysterious accidents occur? To turn a blind eye is irresponsible.” He smoothed Caroline’s hair, stroked her cheek. “I don’t want to believe my wife capable of the unthinkable. Yet I know my feelings for Caroline cannot help but cloud my judgment. I am in need of advice, Mrs. Darcy. You have a quick mind and a compassionate heart. What do you think I should do?”
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