Page 50 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
FITZWILLIAM DARCY
“She is raving, sir,” Wilson said in a low voice.
Was her maid begging me for understanding?
I believe she was. Did she fear retribution for whatever my wife said to me while in a fever?
My wife had been rambling and crying out off and on for hours on end, interspersed with fewer and fewer moments of lucidity.
“Is Yardley not returned?”
“No, sir.”
We mutely agreed then to sit Mrs Darcy—Elizabeth—high enough to get her to drink. She was still swallowing at least.
A waft of aromatic smoke crawled around the bed curtains. “Must we burn camphor?” I asked pettishly.
“It soothes her cough, sir.”
My wife was then shivering, and I put more coal on the fire which was roaring in the grate.
Panic stampeded through my body. This was the same room, with these same smells, this same kind of fire, this same time of year as when my mother died in that very same bed.
I was almost too weak to stand when I remembered my sister at the age of eleven, all innocence and incomprehension, brought into this room as my father pulled her towards the bed to say farewell to her mother—my mother.
How fortuitous my wife had begged me to remove Georgiana! No, not fortuitous but merciful. Mrs Reynolds was suddenly at the door.
“Mr Darcy, sir, Mr Hodge is here.”
“What? Now?” I barked.
One glance at the clock showed it to be nearly noon. Had it been so long? But what day was it? Wilson stood up from where she was leaning over my wife and looked curiously at me.
“Send him in, Mrs Reynolds,” I said as if from afar.
The curate held Elizabeth’s hand and whispered a prayer. He read from Psalms. He shook my hand and murmured words of sympathy and of hope. I wished him to the devil.
Yardley arrived. He looked ghastly. We did not speak. I was leaning helplessly against the wall, and I could not move. I had not moved for half the day. He examined Elizabeth and then looked sharply over at me.
“Have you eaten? Mrs Reynolds, I believe Mr Darcy should have tea at least.”
“What of the birth in Lambton?” I asked this stupid question in a small voice so he would stop talking about me.
Yardley looked away and shook his head.
“Who?” Mrs Darcy, unbeknownst to us, was in one of her rare lucid moments, awake enough to hear us.
Wilson tried to soothe her back to sleep, but she insisted in a coarse whisper, “Who gave birth, Mr Yardley? Was it Ellen Wimple?”
He nodded .
“But it is too soon. Tell her it is too soon!”
“Shh,” Wilson said, sponging her with a lavender-soaked cloth.
Elizabeth pushed her maid’s hand away to stare at the doctor, her eyes startlingly clear for the first time in days. One hand fluttered up to her mouth and tears of horror filled her eyes as she comprehended the meaning of Yardley’s grave face.
Her head fell back on the pillow, and I heard her whispered lament, “Everything dies here.”
A burst of the bitterest resentment filled my mouth. How dare she utter such a curse against Pemberley! Then I realised she was not saying that everything dies here , but that everything dies in this world, and I found myself blindly groping for a chair.