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Chapter?VII

The first true breath of autumn arrived on a brisk north-easterly that rattled the greenhouse panes and drove a metallic sky over Bath.

Overnight, the orchard had changed: where only yesterday fruit hung neat and symmetrical, this morning wind had shaken down dozens of apples, mottling the grass like fallen coins.

Elizabeth, stepping into her boots at dawn, felt a pang as she surveyed the damage—some bruised, some cracked to brown sweetness, all needing swift collection before wasps discovered the haul.

Darcy joined her with a basket under one arm and a length of hemp rope over his shoulder. “We must strip the high branches before the next gust,” he said, nodding toward the rocking crowns above. “If the wind takes them, many will spoil.”

Elizabeth agreed, though a shiver traced her spine at the restless clang of the ladder’s iron shoes against the trunk.

The November fête at Netherfield loomed only a fortnight away; they had imagined the orchard still and golden for Georgiana’s planned sketch of the scarlet-ribbed russets Darcy prized.

Now the trees tossed like ships in quarter gales.

They began with smaller pickings—Elizabeth stooping for wind-falls, Darcy bracing the ladder for Mrs?Winter’s ceremonial first climb of the season.

But the widow, discerning the gale’s caprice, contented herself with the lower boughs, leaving the uppermost pickings to Darcy’s greater height.

Elizabeth, uneasy, wound the rope round trunk and rail anyway, fastening the treaty ribbon tight beneath.

Darcy ascended briskly, his voice carrying reassurance down the rungs: “The limb is sound, Miss?Bennet,” and later, “These pears will keep a month in straw; Mrs?Winter will have puddings through Advent.” Elizabeth answered with careful encouragement, passing empty trugs up and lowering full ones gingerly.

A sudden squall sent leaves whirling, and with them an unripe apple that struck Elizabeth’s shoulder before thumping into grass.

She cried out more in surprise than pain; Darcy lurched sideways to look, his footing sliding on a slick rung.

Elizabeth’s heart flew to her throat—but he righted himself in a heartbeat, nodding, “Steady,” though the colour drained from his face.

Mrs?Winter insisted on rest and tea, bundling them into the greenhouse where the air smelled of damp fern and lemon balm.

Yet Darcy’s gaze kept straying to the shuddering crowns outside.

“The wind will only rise,” he muttered, flexing fingers against his mug.

“Tonight half the crop may lie rotting.”

Against Elizabeth’s better judgment—and Mrs?Winter’s sharp protest—he returned to the orchard after luncheon, determined to finish the highest tree.

Elizabeth followed, refusing to let him face the gale alone.

Clouds stacked slate-grey; the ladder rattled like flint on flint.

Darcy tied the rope with deliberate care, then climbed.

Time blurred into the roar of wind in her ears, the thud of apples into burlap. She kept one hand on the rail, the other guiding full trugs aside. Her shawl snapped like a pennon; she smelled rain on the air though no drops fell yet, only spindrift cold and electric.

He was three branches above when the hidden bolt in the ladder’s top hinge gave a startling pop.

Elizabeth saw the metal flash, heard it sing—a note of failure—then watched in frozen horror as the ladder shuddered.

Darcy shifted his weight to compensate, but the wind at that instant gusted brutally, and the entire frame kicked sideways.

He managed one half-vault toward a low branch—caught it—but the rung beneath him sheared free.

The branch held an instant, then cracked, unable to bear both man and momentum.

They fell together: branch, man, and a rain of apples. Elizabeth’s scream tore through the orchard as Darcy struck the grass shoulder-first, rolled once, then lay still. Leaves and fruit pelted around him with cruel applause.

She was on her knees beside him before thought returned. “Darcy—Mr?Darcy—Fitzwilliam!” Her hands hovered, terrified to touch for fear of worse harm. His eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched, breath shallow and ragged.

Mrs?Winter’s cane thumped somewhere behind, her voice sharp: “Do not move him—let me see.” The widow’s years fell away in authority; she knelt, palpated limbs with surprising steadiness.

“Arm dislocated, perhaps fractured. Head intact, thank Providence. Elizabeth—fetch the splints from the potting shed, quick as breath.”

Elizabeth ran, heart galloping louder than the wind, fumbling with boxes until she found two straight cedar slats Darcy had prepared for espaliering. When she returned Mrs?Winter had bound his arm in a makeshift sling of her shawl; Darcy’s face had blanched to the colour of paper.

“I must set the joint before swelling traps it out of place,” Mrs?Winter said, voice low. “Miss?Bennet, hold his shoulders.”

Darcy’s lashes flicked open; agony clouded the grey. “Elizabeth—” It was no more than a rasp.

“I am here,” she whispered, kneeling to brace him, feeling the wild stutter of his pulse beneath linen.

The widow manoeuvred the limb with a swift, practiced jerk; Darcy exhaled a broken moan, and sweat glimmered on his brow.

Elizabeth swallowed tears she hadn’t felt rise.

Once the splints were tied, Mrs?Winter squeezed his good hand.

“That will hold until a surgeon arrives. He will need warm fire and laudanum and no foolish heroics.”

Darcy nodded once, eyelids sagging. Elizabeth and the widow gathered blankets from the greenhouse and, with Mrs?Butterworth’s help, half-carried, half-guided him into the solarium, which Mrs?Winter insisted be stoked like a small furnace.

Rain finally came, rushing the windows in silver torrents as if the sky mourned its mischief.

Georgiana arrived within the hour, breathless, led by a neighbour’s footboy who had witnessed the tumult.

She flew to her brother’s side, pale but composed.

“I will write for the surgeon,” she said; “Miss?Bennet, you sit.” But Elizabeth could not sit; she hovered at the hearth, mixing mustard poultice as Mrs?Winter instructed, counting each rise and fall of Darcy’s chest.

When the surgeon arrived at dusk he praised Mrs?Winter’s swift alignment. “Only the clavicle, dislocated,” he announced. “No break—fortunate. Sling six weeks, rest two. Limited lifting.” Darcy managed a wry twitch of lip. “You ask the impossible, sir,” he muttered.

“Pain will remind you,” the surgeon replied, then dosed him with laudanum that dragged heavy lines over his features.

Still, as he drifted he turned toward Elizabeth, fingers of his uninjured hand seeking something in the quilt until hers met them.

He squeezed once—acknowledgment, gratitude—then sleep claimed him.

Georgiana insisted Elizabeth eat, but bread turned to ash in her mouth.

Only when she slipped back at midnight to check the fire did she admit the tremble in her limbs.

Darcy slept, breath even, but the bandaged arm lay rigid across his chest. She eased another log onto embers and sat in the chair Mrs?Winter had vacated, allowing exhaustion to settle.

Outside, wind had fallen to hush, raindrops ticking sporadic on leaves.

Elizabeth lifted the treaty ribbon from the table where it lay—found earlier in the grass, torn free.

She smoothed its frayed end, tears finally slipping, silent and unstoppable.

All their care, their pact, and still disaster—a single hidden flaw in the hinge had undone them.

“Do not weep,” came a faint voice. She startled; Darcy’s eyes half-opened, soft with opiate haze. “Not your fault.”

She wiped quickly. “Rest. The surgeon insists.”

A ghost of a smile: “Surgeon not here.” His lashes drifted, then lifted again. “You caught me … in other ways.” The words slurred but clear enough to scorch her cheeks. He exhaled and slid back into sleep.

She watched the slow rise of his chest until the candle near guttering warned dawn would come unasked. Carefully she laid the ribbon across the back of the chair—mended, it might yet serve—and slipped away to her room, mind echoing with his whispered admission.

Sleep, when it came, brought dreams of ladders made of ivy that bent but did not break, and an orchard washed clean by quiet rain.

For two days Elizabeth’s world shrank to the solarium where Darcy convalesced.

Mrs?Winter oversaw tonics; Georgiana read aloud from a slim volume of Cowper; Elizabeth prepared cool compresses and recorded the surgeon’s instructions in neat columns—ointment times, arm elevations, forbidden movements.

Darcy bore pain with a stoicism that alarmed her more than outcry; only when dosing wore off did his breath hitch, and then he would glance toward her with an embarrassed apology she refused to accept.

On the third morning, weak sunlight traced latticed shadows over his coverlet. Elizabeth arrived to find him propped higher, eyes clearer. “I shall go mad,” he said by way of greeting, “if I must watch one more spider traverse that beam.”

“Then I bring distraction.” She opened Mrs?Darcy’s rose journals Georgiana had copied. “We never finished planning the south border at Pemberley.”

He sighed, a sound touched by relief. “Read me the entry about July grafting.”

She did, inflecting the late Mrs?Darcy’s elegant notes with gentle humour—“ Prune with forgiveness ,” she quoted, and saw his lips curve. Discussion followed—soil pH, compost ratios—and she marvelled how effortlessly they could dwell inside a shared purpose even in stillness.

Afternoon brought the post. Among routine circulars nestled a cream envelope bearing Mr?Bingley’s exuberant hand.

Elizabeth sliced it open while Darcy dozed: Harvest fête preparations apace; Jane writes she will arrive a full week early.

I have purchased six barrels of cider and cannot manage apple-press without Darcy’s engineering mind.

Tell him haste or the drink will sour before his arrival!

She imagined Bingley’s consternation at learning of the injury. Jane would worry. Elizabeth’s stomach knotted. The trip—Darcy’s pride at showing Number?Nine’s apples—seemed suddenly tenuous.

That evening she broached the subject. “We may postpone. Bingley will understand.”

Darcy’s brow furrowed. “And have the fête without apples from our ladder?” He attempted to shift, winced. “No. We shall travel as planned—if I go in a carriage rigged like a parcel and do nothing more strenuous than taste cider.”

Elizabeth argued practicality; he countered with determination. Finally Georgiana broke the impasse: “If Miss?Bennet accompanies us, she can ensure he behaves.” Darcy’s quick sideways glance betrayed a hidden hope. Elizabeth, cheeks warming, consented—on the surgeon’s written approval.

The surgeon, summoned next day, examined the clavicle and pronounced the journey possible providing strict adherence to rest. Darcy promised obedience; Elizabeth privately vowed to enforce it.

As days passed, his pallor receded. He ventured short walks in the herb parterre, arm cradled in a fresh sling Georgiana embroidered with small blue forget-me-nots.

Elizabeth accompanied, matching his slower pace, resisting the urge to hover.

They spoke of Longbourn, of winter lettuces, of the subtle sweetness of pears ripened indoors.

And sometimes they walked silent, sharing the flutter of sparrows or the hush of turning leaves with no need for speech.

One misty dawn, Elizabeth found him at the orchard’s edge, gaze fixed on the ladder lying dismantled under canvas. “I shall forge a new one,” he said. “Stronger. No hidden bolts.”

She stepped beside him. “We did everything right save find that fault. Blame lies in steel, not us.”

He looked down, smile rueful. “Still, I cannot escape the sense that Providence warned me against careless haste.”

“Elinor Dashwood herself might say Providence tempers us through trials.” She paused, then added softly, “And trials teach patience we once lacked.”

His eyes, grey-blue as low clouds, searched hers. “You are patient already.”

“You have not seen me with my youngest sisters.” She earned a laugh—a true one, not cautious.

Leaves swirled at their feet. He offered his good arm’s hand; she accepted, palms cool in cool air. “I will not waste this lesson,” he said.

“Nor I,” she answered.

They turned toward the house while robins stitched quicksilver song above them.

Behind, apples lay harvested, rails lay mended, and a broken branch—once cause for calamity—stood propped in a tub of river sand, buds already swelling where Mrs?Winter had pruned and grafted a quince scion.

Proof, she had said, that wounds might bear sweeter fruit for the hurt.

A week later, on a soft morning edged with the musk of wood-smoke chimneys, three carriages rolled from Royal Crescent toward Hertfordshire: one bearing Mrs?Winter amidst baskets of Number?Nine’s best apples; another filled with Georgiana’s harp and jars of lemon curd; and the last conveying Darcy—arm secured but spirit unbound—sitting opposite Elizabeth as dawn light gilded the road ahead.

Through the window she glimpsed Bath receding, garden walls fallen away behind rooftops. But the scent of fallen apples lingered on her gloves, and at her feet, tucked safe in a wicker hamper, lay the quince-grafted branch—its tight buds trembling with the promise of a bloom born from broken wood.