Page 21 of The Heroic Mr Darcy's Bad Manners
“You must go on horseback.” Mrs Bennet looked gleefully out of the window whilst disregarding Mr Bennet. “It looks like it is going to rain, and then you will have to stay the night!”
Mrs Bennet attended Jane to the door with cheerful prognostications of inclement weather, and Jane had not been away for long before it rained hard. Mrs Bennet was delighted, but Elizabeth became uneasy when the rain continued without intermission for the rest of the day.
“This was indeed a lucky idea of mine,” Mrs Bennet mentioned more than once through the course of the evening. Just how fortuitous she had been was proved the next morning when a note was delivered to Elizabeth. Jane had taken ill.
Contradictory emotions warred within Elizabeth. Jane said she suffered a trifling cold, but knowing her sister as well as Elizabeth did, she knew she would not complain unnecessarily. That she had written at all was proof she was very ill indeed. On the other hand, there was the matter of Mr Darcy, whom she would prefer to avoid.
She could manage to enter Netherfield clandestinely through the kitchen. But she was being silly. What was Mr Darcy to her? Absolutely nothing! Jane was infinitely more important, and she needed her sister. Come to think of it, Miss Bingley had not a nurturing bone in her body. Jane must be suffering neglect—or worse, tedious company.
Elizabeth declared her resolution to visit the patient. The carriage horses were occupied in the fields, so she would have to walk, but the distance was nothing when one had the motive.
“May I borrow your book, Mary?”
“You may. I have finished it,” Mary acquiesced and fetched the tome.
The three miles were done in an hour, though her skirts suffered in the dirty, wet grounds. She was approaching the kitchen in long strides when she heard Mr Darcy call her name. She imagined herself to be her mother, who proficiently and frequently overlooked her father’s calls for attention, and hastened through the door, where the housekeeper, Mrs Nicholls, was ever so pleased to see her.
“I have come to enquire about my sister,” Elizabeth said.
Mrs Nicholls expressed her relief she was there because Jane was not well at all. She offered to escort Elizabeth to her sister, but it was then that Elizabeth’s luck ran out. The housekeeper, who was unaware of her tactic of avoidance, led her first to the dining room, where the entire Netherfield party were having breakfast. Elizabeth curtseyed, stated her errand, and was taken to a feverish Jane before anyone had recovered enough to return her greeting. Poor Jane had begun coughing after she had sent the note.
When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt she had to return home. Miss Bingley offered her a carriage, which so distressed Jane that the lady had to rescind the offer and instead invite her to stay.
Elizabeth would have politely declined if Jane had not been so ill. She accepted reluctantly and wrote a note to Longbourn to send necessities to the two sisters.
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At half past six there was a knock on the door.
Elizabeth walked as quietly as she could so as not to awaken Jane, who had finally fallen asleep. She opened the door with a finger to her lips, slipping out and closing it behind her before asking what the maid wanted.
“Dinner is served, miss. Mr Bingley is eager for you to join their party.”
Indecision warred within her. It would be abominably rude to reject Mr Bingley’s kind offer, and the maid was already aware that Jane slept.
“I shall sit with Miss Bennet while you eat,” the maid offered, sensing Elizabeth’s reluctance to leave the patient unattended.
“Thank you.” Elizabeth surrendered to that which was unavoidable and walked down the stairs towards the voices emanating from the dining room. She halted just outside the door to straighten her back and bolster her spirits.
“She has nothing to recommend her but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning.”
The voice sounded like Mrs Hurst, which was confirmed by Miss Bingley’s reply.
“Indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Imagine the two of us scampering about the countryside windswept and forlorn.”
“We would never! Her petticoats were six inches deep in mud.”
Elizabeth wondered what she could have done to Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley for them to abuse her so.
“Your picture may be exact, but I thought that Miss Elizabeth looked uncommonly well. Her dirty petticoats quite escaped me.” Mr Bingley’s voice of reason did much to soothe Elizabeth’s unease.
“You observed it, Mr Darcy,” Miss Bingley purred. “I am convinced you would not wish your sister to make such an exhibition.”
“Certainly not!” the oaf confirmed.
Elizabeth, as she saw it, had two choices. She could run back to her room and cry into the pillow, or she could raise her chin, enter, and make the residents of Netherfield as uncomfortable as they deserved to be.
She looked at the stoic footman in the porter’s chair. She had long known Tommy as he was the child of a Longbourn tenant. She caught his eye and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Tommy rolled his eyes back in his head, and she almost laughed aloud. She mouthed thank you and entered.
