Page 62 of The Winter of Our Discontent
“Darcy, do talk sense into Georgiana.”
“Why would I? Yardley will also be at your bedside, and I believe if they contrive to invite Mrs Annesley to read to you and Mary to fluff your pillows after your card game, then Elizabeth and I will have the evening to ourselves. How does that sound, Mrs Darcy?”
“Delightful, sir. Might we walk down to the lake at twilight?”
“Certainly. I wonder if the goslings will be sleeping. Did you see them this morning?”
Richard coughed theatrically, recalling me to my surroundings.
“Surely you know, Colonel,” my wife said kindly, “I will forbid them all access to you if you but say the word.”
Richard unclasped his hands and reached for her. She gave him her hand, and he said, “You know, I think the evening sounds rather wonderful after being in the company of soldiers. But you? When will you come to my bedside to dote on me?”
“Mr Darcy must go to Fairhaven, so I will station myself in that chair tomorrow morning if you like. I have recently come out of the sick room, and I have amassed an armoury of tools from my sitters with regard to entertaining an invalid.”
“Have you?”
“Oh yes. You see, nothing will make you recover faster than to be watched over, cosseted, observed, fretted upon, talked about as though you were a spot on the carpet, spoken to when you want silence, and prayed over when you long for a joke. I will be sure the room is too hot, absolutely airless in fact, yet I will douse my hands in ice water before I help you to sit. That sort of thing.”
“Poor Mrs Darcy!”
“Oh no. You must not feel sorry for me. If I had had a moment’s peace, I would have happily gone to heaven. Your cousin was positively ruthless in his insistence that I remain, however, and so purely out of irritation I lived. I am now at my leisure to plague him.”
I chuckled and took her hand away from Richard. “Speaking of invalids, Elizabeth, should you not rest before dinner? I will come and see you settled.”
“Very well. I have not been fretted over since—well, since breakfast. How neglected I feel!”
“Shall I ring for a smelly poultice?”
“If you would like it flung at your face, please do so, sir,” she said before turning and assuring Richard that he would soon have a room full of visitors.
As I left my cousin with my arm around Elizabeth’s waist, I caught the look of surprise on his face and threw him a jaunty wink.
57
ELIZABETH DARCY
For the first time in months, the predawn light caused the blood to rise in my body. What joy! Slipping out of bed, dressing as silently as possible so as not to wake my husband, whose ears were perpetually on the prick even as he slept in the adjacent room, I made my escape.
Freedom! The air was brisk still, and I was not yet so very vigorous, but I ambled down the sloped lawn and went down the spinney road, past the meadow where the peewits would soon wake and call to me.
Life had come whole again, no longer split in two. I was fully alive. I was myself. There lived within me a core of well-being, a melting kind of love for everything I had been given, for everyone I met. This must have been the life force shining in me after my hours spent hovering over the black void.
I reflected upon my sister Jane, whose beauty had again begun to show itself after her months of heartbreak. She was, for the first time in her life, in the throes of a passionateattraction. Her object, a most elegant and capable man—our own Mr Yardley—struggled mightily not to notice my sister. But of course, he could not keep his eyes from finding her again and again.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s wound had been stubborn, and since our doctor had come every day to dress it, he was often a guest at our table, as he had been last night. After dinner, Mr Yardley sat across from Jane, and I had watched with complacency as they suffered the agony of their unsatisfied craving for one another.
While they partook of this painful longing, my sister Mary and I sat together and listened to Kitty sing.
My middle sister never felt fully at home at Longbourn, and sadly, she had never earned a rightful place in the ranks of my sisters. I meant to make amends for all the times I wished her to be elsewhere, and I hoped Mary would feel well loved here. Service to the school and to the curate’s poor relief satisfied her urges to be useful, and she had begun to look quite pretty with the aid of Wilson’s genius. But honesty did not allow me to believe my attentions meant so terribly much to her. No. The cure for Mary had been Mr Darcy’s attention. He always spoke to her with kind respect, and she looked upon him almost reverentially, as though she were marvelling,“I have a brother!”
The protection, the shelter, safety, and freedom we felt in this man’s world filled a hole we had not known existed. We had only ever known our father as a representative of men, and only now, by comparison, did we feel most potently what had been missing.
Kitty, who looked upon Mr Darcy with even more awe than Mary and was quite shy of him still, had finished hersong, blushed charmingly, and dipped a playful curtsey before she rushed to Mrs Annesley. In that lady’s steadiness, she had found what she needed most. Between Mrs Reynolds and Georgiana’s companion, there had arisen a sort of competition for Kitty’s mentorship. They instructed her on everything because she had been eager to learn, and I was delighted to see her being taught to meet the world more skilfully.
And then there was my precious Georgiana. I loved her as thoroughly as I did my own sisters but also as I would my sweetest, truest friend. When at my most beleaguered, she had defended and befriended me, and her support alone had at times sustained me. She had sat next to Mr Darcy while Kitty sang, and though they were quiet as always, they looked upon my sisters and me with such warmth and satisfaction that we could never fall into feelings of indebtedness.
Having sought me out after church on Sunday, Georgiana had haltingly shared the great unspoken secret I had sensed but not understood. The nefarious Mr Wickham who defaced books took advantage of her loneliness and tried to elope with her for the purpose of having her fortune. Compassion had crashed through me like a great wave—not only for her, but for her brother. No wonder he hated me so thoroughly! A fortune hunter had wounded his sister, and there sat I across the table from him at dinner, a fortune huntress by all appearances, who had ruined him.
