Page 21 of The Blackmail of Mr. Darcy
Mr. Bingley swung his head from Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth, and then back and forth again. His eyes were wide, his eyebrows elevated, and his skin flushed in a splotchy way. “Goodness!” hesaid. “I had not the smallest idea—I thank you, Miss Elizabeth, again and again. And I thank you, Miss Darcy!”
Shaking himself like a collie shaking off water, he said, “The luncheon supplies are in the blue drawing room. Please help yourself.”
Elizabeth said, “I must visit my sister first. I have spent little time with her today. Excuse me.”
A few minutes later, Elizabeth saw that Jane was asleep, although Susan assured her that she had been awake most of the morning. “She is doing so much better, miss, it is as if the cold nighttime helped her to get better rather than made her worse, as I feared.”
Because her sister was sleeping, and because Elizabeth was hungry, she went down to the drawing room to get a plate of food. She went back upstairs with her food and dismissed Susan with many heartfelt thanks for her excellent care.
Elizabeth gladly began to read about Alexander von Humboldt’s excursion to Ecuador. She loved to read while she ate; it was a special treat that she was rarely allowed in her busy home. Here in Jane’s sick room, she sat in a wide chair, tucked her feet up under her skirts, and nibbled at her roll, cheese, and meat from the plate she had placed on the nearby table. She felt breathless as she read about Humboldt and his team climbing up a volcano called Chimborazo—and learning about how hard it was for the explorers to breathe as they ascended to such heights.
When Jane awoke, Elizabeth saw to her every comfort. Of course she checked her sister’s temperature and listened to her lungs—and all was well in those regards—and she helped Jane refresh herself and then settle back into bed. She made sure that she had eaten as she urged her to drink some water. “Should I ring for tea now?” she asked.
Jane demurred and asked her sister to read the novel.
“I will in a moment,” Elizabeth said. “First, let me smooth the bed linens.”
Jane’s eyebrows went up with Elizabeth’s words, since she had just smoothed the bed linens. But because Elizabeth immediately moved to another table and began writing on a sheet of blank paper, Jane did not say anything.
Elizabeth brought the written message to her sister. It said, “We have an eavesdropper. We are not free to say everything we might wish to here.”
Jane’s eyes widened, but all she said was, “Oh dear, I believe that I have made a lump in the bedding just now. Could you help me?”
Elizabeth nodded her approval and burned the scrap of paper in the fireplace, then wrote another note: “We must stay here a few more days to help Mr. and Miss Darcy. A young girl’s reputation is in danger.” Elizabeth did not want to even consider the idea that she might be putting off returning home so that she could see more of Mr. Darcy.
She showed this second note to Jane, and she was proud that her sister picked right up on what must be done, saying, “Thank you, Lizzy, the bedding is perfect now. I wish my head was, though. I feel decidedly worse than I did this morning.”
“Oh, no, Jane. Do you think you are worse off because of last night’s necessity of sitting out in the cold?”
“That may be the reason. I just wish I could get well enough to go home, but Mr. Jones said not to travel if I was feeling poorly, and right now I feel quite, quite poorly.”
Elizabeth burned that paper, as well, making sure the flames fully consumed both messages, and then she picked up the novel and began to read to her sister about the trials and tribulations of the Earl of Glenthorne.
Chapter 14
Darcy
Netherfield was slowly returning to normal for the residents, if not the servants. That night’s dinner was very simple—featuring cold meats and cheeses supplemented by a large assortment of rolls Darcy had ordered and paid for.
Darcy was startled when Miss Elizabeth began her campaign of confusion. She swept a smiling look around the table as she said, “I wanted to tell you all, since you are new to Hertfordshire, about a very interesting library connected to one of Meryton’s neighbouring towns. I wondered if you have heard of Mr. Wickley, who owns the bookstore in Hatfield?”
The Bingleys and Hursts just looked blank, but Darcy hurried to answer, “I have not,” and his sister said, “Nor I.”
Miss Elizabeth smiled brilliantly and said, “Well, Mr. Wickley runs a very fine shop—no bigger nor better than our own bookshop here in Meryton, but with many different books. My father routinely buys from both shops. And Mr. Wickley so appreciated my father’s patronage of his store that, when he heard that my father had business in Manchester, he invited him to his uncle’s estate, which is in Ramsbottom. His uncle, who is also a Mr. Wickley, has an amazing library. Miss Bingley,I thought you might be interested in his scheme: rather than shelving his books by topic, as most people do, he organises them by the colour of their spines.”
Miss Bingley immediately looked thoughtful.
Darcy, in an attempt to act as others would expect, used a judgmental tone as he asked, “Organised by colour? What sort of sense does that make?”
Miss Elizabeth said, “The elder Mr. Wickley said that he does not organise his own books for the convenience of people browsing their preferred interest, but rather so that he himself can easily find the desired book, and he finds that organising them by the colour of their bindings enables him to swiftly find whatever volume he is searching for.”
“Mr. Wickley is unusual,” Georgiana said. “Most people pay little attention to the colour of the spine of a book and would be hard pressed to remember the colours of hundreds of volumes.”
“Yes, Mr. Wickley must surely be an odd fellow,” Miss Elizabeth replied. “But my father claimed that Mr. Wickley’s colour-sorting scheme resulted in a beautiful library. According to him, standing in the middle of Mr. Wickley’s library is like standing inside a rainbow!”
Darcy shook his head, pretending to be flummoxed by the foibles of others. He said, “That reminds me of Mrs. Wickall’s library in Ramsbury. Do you remember Mrs. Wickall, Georgie?”
Georgiana replied, “I am not sure. Is Mrs. Wickall the widow who…did not like reading as much as did her dearly departed husband, Mr. Wickall?”
