Page 5 of The Blackmail of Mr. Darcy
“Well, I will get some tea with honey. It will help you not to cough so much.”
Before she could reach the bell pull, Elizabeth heard a knock on the door. She hastened around Jane’s bed to see who it was—and she was surprised but pleased to see Miss Darcy standingthere holding a small tray. Behind her stood a servant with a much larger tray.
“Come in,” Elizabeth urged. She saw that Miss Darcy had been holding a kind of brothy soup, and the maid behind her held a teapot, a dish with lemon slices, a honey pot, a covered dish, and tableware.
Elizabeth thanked Miss Darcy for her attentions and introduced her to Jane. Then, embarrassingly, Elizabeth's stomach growled, and Miss Darcy insisted that she accompany her downstairs to eat luncheon.
The two helped Jane get settled with the soup and tea, and after leaving her with a maid named Nancy, they walked the hallway together. Elizabeth said, “You were so very kind to send luncheon to my sister, and I thank you for your consideration.”
“Actually, it was my brother who suggested it. He thought it would be a good thing for you, too, to be able to come downstairs again.”
That was certainly surprising; Elizabeth felt sceptical that Mr. Darcy would have thought of such a thing, let alone convince his sister to enact his idea, but Miss Darcy seemed too direct to be dissembling.
Elizabeth was also surprised to hear so much from the shy Miss Darcy. She had barely said a dozen words in Jane’s room, but she had talked at a normal volume and in a firm voice. Now, in the corridors, she spoke in entire sentences. Elizabeth guessed that Miss Darcy was becoming more comfortable with her.
But when they entered the smaller of the manor’s two dining rooms, Miss Darcy resumed her mantle of silence. She murmured, “Thank you,” when her brother helped seat her, and whispered her thanks three more times when Mr. Darcy served her food from the table. Elizabeth started to worry that the young girl was afraid of her brother.
That seemed impossible, though. After all, they looked at one another with so much affection.
As Miss Bingley’s screeching segued from how very accomplished Miss Darcy was to how very fashionable Miss Darcy was, Elizabeth hazarded a second guess: could Miss Darcy be clamming up because of their hostess’s continuous praise?
When there was a slight pause in Miss Bingley’s sycophancy, Elizabeth hurried to bring up a new topic, hoping to relieve the pressure Miss Darcy might be feeling. “I am very much enjoying the book I borrowed from the library, Mr. Darcy.”
He immediately turned to her with a smile, but he did not help out with asking questions or saying his own opinion. Elizabeth thought,Come on, help me out, sir. I do this for your sister, but she gamely struggled on: “Mr. Bingley, did you purchase the excellent book about the recent expedition to Spanish America?”
Mr. Bingley looked utterly blank, as if she had burst into Finnish or Hungarian, and she smiled and said, “I guess you did not. Well, today I read about Sir Humboldt’s sojourn in Venezuela, and I could not believe all the things he saw and did!”
Both of the Darcys looked interested, as did Mr. Bingley, who had finally shaken off his original gape. Elizabeth was only talking about the Humboldt book in an effort to stymie Miss Bingley’s focus on Miss Darcy, but it was nice to see nods and hear words of encouragement as she described some of the highlights, including a fish that emitted electric shocks, a meteor shower, and a lake of asphalt.
Mr. Darcy had finally begun contributing to the discussion when she started with the specifics. He mentioned further information he had read elsewhere concerning the electrical fish, and he asked if she had ever seen a meteor shower.
Elizabeth shared that, for her, the biggest surprise was the suggestion that human agriculture had made an entire regionwarmer. “I have always known that weather affects people—I am sure that storms have ended battles, for example, and of course we all know the perils of an especially dry year on our food supplies—but it is remarkable to me to think that people could affect the weather!”
Mr. Darcy agreed that he, too, had been amazed at the concept.
Of course, Mr. Darcy was the only other person in the room to have read the book, but Elizabeth actually found it humorous that Mr. Bingley, despite his education at Eton and Cambridge, struggled to engage onanyof the topics she brought up.
Miss Bingley was levelling an unhappy glower at Elizabeth, but Miss Darcy seemed to be happier, and that had been Elizabeth’s goal.
When Elizabeth excused herself to go to Jane’s room, Miss Darcy went with her. Clinging to Elizabeth’s arm, she whispered, “You did that for me, did you not?”
“I did. I thought you looked very uncomfortable with all Miss Bingley’s praise. Did I read you incorrectly?”
“You understood my feelings perfectly, and I thank you for your intervention.”
“You are most welcome, Miss Darcy.”
“Could you call me Georgiana? Or Georgie, if you prefer?”
“Of course, and you must call me Elizabeth or Lizzy.” Elizabeth met Georgiana’s smile with a warm smile of her own. She was very glad to have been of service to the pleasant, intelligent girl, and they said goodbye as Georgiana entered her own room.
The afternoon started off well. Elizabeth read the novel to Jane, stopping when she slept. Just when Elizabeth was considering going home, however, Jane’s face became flushed. Elizabeth hurried to place her hand on her forehead and was dismayed that she was now feverish. She listened one moretime to her lungs, very carefully, and still did not detect any worrisome noises, but she could not leave her sister to battle a fever without her.
Elizabeth called for a maid to attend to her sister while she looked for one of the Bingleys. She found Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy in the library; they seemed to be comparing figures written in two different ledgers. From the little bit she heard, Mr. Darcy was patiently explaining entries, and Mr. Bingley was excitedly exclaiming about how much more the crops earned one year than the other, and how neatly the steward managed to write all the numerals, and did he really have to know all this? After all, the steward….
Mr. Bingley stopped talking when the men noticed Elizabeth’s approach. She said, “I am so sorry to interrupt, but my sister is feverish now. I was going to walk home, but I fear I must stay with her after all. I would like to ask three enormous favours. First, could you please send a footman or someone to fetch the apothecary, Mr. Jones, so he might check her symptoms and mix a draught? Second, might I stay here, at least tonight? And if you agree to that, could you send someone to Longbourn to let my parents know about the change of plan and to pick up a few items of clothing for Jane and me?”
Naturally, Mr. Bingley agreed to everything; he rang for servants and began issuing orders. Mr. Darcy stepped closer to Elizabeth and asked if she would also want him to send an express to his personal physician in London. “Of course, the apothecary will get the message in mere minutes and should come right away, but if you think it might be dangerous, I could send for Dr. Wells. He could be here in three to four hours.”
