Page 44 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)

By morning, I discovered I was not recovered at all.

I could barely sit up, my eyelids scraped over my eyes as though they were filled with sand, and my head throbbed with every heartbeat.

I felt so weary! I was too tired even to explain my state to Wilson, who looked upon me with alarm before she helped me to the necessary.

Breathless and exhausted, I returned to bed for a cup of tea.

My breakfast stared at me, and I stared back at it.

I did not have the will to chew, and I put my cup down and fell asleep.

At one o’clock, a soft knock at the door woke me.

Georgiana came into the room and stepped up to my bed in a rustle of blue silk.

Her eyes were troubled, her hands cool as she grasped mine.

“Elizabeth,” she said with great sympathy.

I smiled weakly and dug deep for the energy to speak. “I am overtired, my dear. Forgive me if I rest today?”

“Of course you must rest! What an ordeal you have been through. ”

I found myself wishing she would whisper, but instead, she launched into an eager and impassioned speech.

“I spoke to my brother last night. I told him how horrid everyone has been, and I only wish I had a tenth of your courage to stop and render aid as you did. I also said to him that there is speculation he will send you away, and if he does, he will also send me away, for I will not stay here without you.”

“Oh, I wish you would not?—”

“Well, I have never spoken to him in that way, but I was very angry. I unleashed a torrent of words, which I have never done in all my life to anyone, but I felt much better for having done so.”

“Did you?”

“I would have been wretched had he scolded me for saying my piece, but he listened to me very gravely and assured me no one would be sent anywhere. Well, no one except Mr Johnson, that is.”

“What?”

“Mr Johnson was dismissed this morning, Elizabeth. My brother says he should have supported you and done a great deal to mitigate the difficulty. Instead, he seemed to have encouraged the ill feelings that arose.”

I felt the reverse of triumph at this bit of news. I felt deflated and thoroughly beaten, literally, as though with a rod. “I am sorry it has come to this,” I murmured.

“You should not be sorry in the least. My brother says Mr Johnson’s lack of feeling is a most unsavoury trait in a steward, and that, coupled with his poor opinion of women in general—what is the word he used?”

“Misogyny?” I mumbled.

“Yes! Coupled with his misogyny, which has come to light in the past few months, Fitzwilliam does not feel he can rightfully be entrusted with the care of an estate that is more than half comprised of women and children. He said our mother would have had the man driven to the gates of Pemberley and pushed out onto the road if she had ever heard his opinion of what to do with a starving family, and we really should keep in mind what she would have done when judging what you, in fact, did. ”

I heard this without any comprehension at all. Was she saying he defended me? Surely not. No, I cannot have heard aright.

“Forgive me, my love,” I said weakly, “but could you ask Mrs Reynolds for some of her headache remedy?”

This jolted her out of her fervid narrative, and she replied in the hushed tones proper for a sick room. She held my hand and caressed my forehead and fretted at Wilson before rustling downstairs to see to my request.