Page 6 of Done for the Best (Engaged to Mr Darcy #5)

CHAPTER SIX

A PROMISE OF RETURNING HEALTH

T o Darcy’s great pleasure, the food Elizabeth ate improved her enough to satisfy Dr Hughes that her humours were not so dangerously imbalanced and that the leeches were unneeded. Elizabeth’s relief, as well as that of Mrs Collins and Mrs Bennet, was accompanied by an excess of gratitude for his intervention.

“I told him the same myself,” Mrs Bennet said. “But no one listens to me! A mother does know, no matter what these doctors might think! I knew Lizzy could never survive such a treatment! It would have killed her right there while we all stood by!”

From his position by the window, Darcy offered a faint smile, though Mrs Bennet was not looking in his direction and not likely to see it. She was a silly woman—his opinion of her in that regard had not changed—but in one very important matter they were alike: they both loved Elizabeth.

He had never before thought of it, how a mother’s apparent greed might be rooted in love for her daughters. The Bennet ladies held a precarious position in life; when Mr Bennet died, their status would be lost. Good marriages were their only hope. Was it any wonder Mrs Bennet had rejoiced at the appearance of wealthy bachelors in their little town?

“Dr Hughes was just so certain it was necessary,” said Mrs Collins. “How can one argue against a learned man in such a way? We are grateful you were here, Mr Darcy, to stop him.”

“Oh yes. Yes! Without Mr Darcy, I do not doubt that we would be standing over my poor girl’s grave even now!” Mrs Bennet cried out.

Elizabeth laughed. “Would I have been buried in Kent? Or would we have required Charlotte to come back to Hertfordshire and stare at my grave there?”

Having eaten increasing amounts over the course of three days, Elizabeth’s energy was undoubtedly returning. Her chair had been tugged close to the window by which Darcy stood; together they beheld a brilliant spring morning with birds singing and flowers blooming.

As Mrs Collins and Mrs Bennet continued their discussion on bloodletting and purgatives and Elizabeth’s near demise, she looked up at him and whispered, “I have endured this conversation no less than four times. None of it grows any more interesting in the retelling.”

Darcy smiled down at her, readily perceiving, from the sag in her shoulders, that it pained her to remain indoors as they were. “I am certain your restlessness is a promising sign of returning health.”

“Is it?” She smiled wanly. “Must I start screaming from the tedium before we may pronounce me healed?”

“My cousin Anne hit upon an idea this morning that I think you might like.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“She has a phaeton, and a pair of ponies to pull it. I wonder if a slow drive around the avenue might?—”

“Yes!” Elizabeth shot to her feet, her shawls and blankets dropping from her shoulders onto the floor. “Now?”

“What are you talking of?” Mrs Collins immediately rose and came to them.

“Mr Darcy and I are going to drive out in Miss de Bourgh’s phaeton,” Elizabeth said hurriedly, extricating her skirts from the blankets and shawls which were now at her feet. “I shall need my boots.”

“I do not know if you are ready for that, my dear. Perhaps we ought to ask?—”

“Fie on Dr Hughes, Charlotte, I need to get some fresh air.” Elizabeth turned to Darcy, released from her swaddling, her eyes shining and her countenance as happy as he had seen since her accident. “Surely a short, slow drive can do me no harm? Indeed, I think it might do me a lot of good!”

“Absolutely not,” cried Mrs Bennet. “You will certainly catch a fever out there, and that will kill you for sure!”

A heated disagreement ensued. Mrs Bennet thought Elizabeth ought to remain indoors, while Elizabeth believed that remaining indoors for even one minute more would send her gibbering mad. Mrs Collins, while cautious, tended to agree with Elizabeth, that the fresh air might help her. Darcy himself forbore from offering any opinion, but it mattered not; Elizabeth, having seen a potential for reprieve, would not be dissuaded. Darcy offered many reassurances and promises to the two other ladies before running across the lane to Rosings’s stable. He soon had the phaeton brought up to the parsonage door.

Elizabeth found a great deal to admire in the ponies as well as Anne’s little conveyance and amid exclamations of delight was soon comfortably situated beside him. He drove them along at a comfortable pace, enjoying the spring sunshine on their faces and the faint scent of apple and cherry blossoms in the air.

They passed Rosings and then went out on the avenue towards the park. He could tell Elizabeth was enjoying herself; she looked about eagerly, as if every sight was magical and new. He supposed to her, it was.

“I believe that you, sir, are my hero,” she said at length. “I could not have remained in that room for even one more minute.”

He laughed. “It does please me to relieve your suffering, in whatever small ways I can.”

She answered him with a smile that could only be described as loving—it made him catch his breath. He knew he returned her look with his own emotion plain in his eyes, but hard on its heels came a prick of his conscience. He needed to tell her that she had refused his offer, but the words of Dr Hughes echoed in his mind. Would it be too shocking to tell her now? She had improved, but he had no wish to set her back.

His inner debate was silenced by her question: “Will you tell me about yourself?”

“Tell you about myself?” Darcy chuckled, prodding the ponies to take a left turn. There was a beautiful field of wildflowers that would likely not quite be in bloom but would be pleasant to check upon. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything, I suppose. I do not really know anything about you.” She said it lightly but there was a small note of anxiety in her tone, and he resolved to put aside his innate reluctance to speak of himself.

“Very well, but you must tell me immediately if I grow tiresome. Where to begin? Um…well, my estate is called Pemberley, and it is in Derbyshire.”

“Derbyshire? Oh!—I presumed it was nearby.”

He smiled at her before continuing. “My parents are deceased?—”

“They are? I am so sorry,” she said with genuine feeling in her eyes. “Recently?”

“No, it has been some years now. I was fourteen, and my sister, Georgiana, was only two when our mother died, and our father died just above five years ago, when I had only lately finished at university.”

“You became master of your estate so young!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“Master of Pemberley and guardian to Georgiana, ill-qualified as I was for both,” he said with a rueful chuckle. In truth, he did not much like to recollect those days when a dark cloud of uncertainty and sorrow had seemed to encapsulate him.

“She was quite young—and is much younger than you are, it seems? Is it only the two of you?”

“Only the two of us,” he confirmed. “She is sixteen years old.”

“Is Georgiana…does she…” Elizabeth paused.

“Does she what?”

“Does she like me?”

“Ah, well, she does not know you yet, but she does send her regards and best wishes for your health.”

“That is very kind of her.” Elizabeth looked thoughtful. “What did you…how did you manage it? Raising her, I mean.”

“She went to my aunt for a bit, we hired a governess for her, of course, but then my aunt became very busy bringing out my cousin Aurelia, and Georgiana seemed to be…in the way. She was twelve then, so we thought school would do her some good.” He shook his head. “In truth, I have never felt I did well by her. I always looked at her as a child and then suddenly one day she was a child no more.”

He glanced at Elizabeth, wondering if more would be too shocking. “I was reminded rather painfully last summer of how she was no longer a child.”

“Oh?”

He fixed his gaze on the ponies. At length he said, “You recall I once mentioned a Mr Wickham to you?”

“A man in the militia, yes?”

Darcy nodded and continued, telling her of Mr Wickham’s association with Pemberley and their family, and then, more painfully, of what he had done to Georgiana. When he finished, Elizabeth’s mouth was agape.

“Poor, poor girl!” she exclaimed. “And you! I cannot imagine what you must have felt for a good friend to have betrayed you like that!”

“It was terrible, but in retrospect, not entirely unexpected. I had denied him money, you see, and no doubt it was on that day that his scheme was formed. Georgiana has a fortune of thirty thousand, and that was clearly his first object.”

“The scoundrel! But—this man is roaming about Hertfordshire? Does my father know? He allows my sisters too much liberty…he ought to know so he can have a care with them. Have you met them?”

“I have indeed.”

Elizabeth grimaced. “They are full young and ought not to be out. Lydia is out, is she not?”

“Yes, she certainly seemed to be when I was there.”

She shook her head. “I knew my mother could not long withstand her entreaties. She is only fifteen! The most dangerous young ladies are those who cannot wait to prove themselves grown. You take someone like this Wickham person and heedless, impulsive girls like my younger sisters, and you have the sure ingredients for disaster.”

“I shall write to your father about it tomorrow. Forgive me, it should have been done long before, only I…” Darcy paused, shame flooding him. “I did not wish to lay bare my troubles.”

“You scarcely knew us,” Elizabeth said absently. “Still, you may trust my father’s discretion, particularly if you ask him for it.”

“If I can reassure you on one point. Wickham, and men like him, do tend to prey on wealthy young ladies.”

“Then my sisters, and indeed all the ladies in Meryton, shall have no fear.” She turned that loving smile on him again, but it was short-lived. A shadow passed over her face. “You do know that I have no fortune of my own?”

He nodded. “You know how it is these days; one can scarcely enter a room without everyone immediately wishing to examine their accounts.”

She laughed. “Too true. I am glad to hear that you are aware that you have made an impractical choice.”

“I do not consider it impractical.”

She turned to look at him, a question in her eyes. The ponies were trotting along well, so he took one hand off the reins and gently brushed her cheek with his fingers. “What price can be placed on love? A man who has found it is the wealthiest man alive.”

That made her blush, deeply, and she lowered her gaze only to jerk it upwards, eyes wide, moments later. “Oh! But if your sister—Georgiana?—if she has thirty thousand pounds, then Pemberley…you…” She sent him an awkward look, then asked, “Are you very wealthy?”

Unsure how to answer, he paused; he had just opened his mouth to reply when she cried out, “Wait! Do not answer me. That is to say, clearly I know, from seeing your aunt’s house and your sister’s fortune and the like that you have means, but…allow me to know you in the absence of your income.”

Then she smiled, a little tremulously, and said, “I know, already, how well I like you. You are good and kind and protective and…and I see a turn of our minds that is very similar. I just wish to not have those practical considerations in my mind as I become reacquainted with you. Is that silly?”

“It is charming,” he told her. Then he again released the reins, reaching over to squeeze her gloved hand. “Utterly charming.”

He kept his hand on hers too long; it inspired within him a powerful, almost irresistible urge to kiss her, a kiss that he knew instinctively she would not rebuke. Indeed, she seemed almost to invite it, looking at him with a faint smile on her lips, the air between them increasingly charged.

He forced himself to tear his hand away and turn his attention back to the ponies, remarking over some trifling thing on the ground they travelled, even though there was nothing, and the ponies were plodding along as sedately as they had been before. The danger, of course, was hardly beneath the ponies’ hooves; the danger was right there in the phaeton and took some time to dissipate.

This was not real, no matter how it felt. Elizabeth needed to be told that she did not love him, and had not accepted him, and it was horrid that he had not done so thus far. Kissing her could only compound his sins, no matter how tempting it might be to do so.

He glanced back at her and was immediately alarmed by her appearance. She had grown paler and seemed to be sagging a little in her seat. “Forgive me, you are grown tired.”

“I confess I am, though I am enjoying our discussion. I have struggled against it, but I fear it is getting the better of me. Perhaps we will continue another day? I am eager to hear how it was that we fell in love.”

“Next time,” he promised, and again, the moment of truth went by him.