Page 45 of Lord Lonbourn's Daughter
“This might not be pleasant, Lady Elizabeth. May I suggest that you leave the room so that I can examine him? I shall give the colonel a full report.”
“No!” she replied with force.
“No?” the doctor asked, clearly bewildered.
“I am his wife, Doctor Scott,” Elizabeth offered as explanation.
“We have tried to make her see reason, but she is as stubborn as her husband,” the colonel said.
The doctor grumbled something unintelligible but performed his examination without any further comment about the presence of the patient’s wife.
“Well, Colonel, he has suffered no broken bones as far as I can tell, but he is badly bruised. His face, left shoulder, and buttock have taken the brunt of it, but his knee looks like it has suffered a strain. It is difficult to give an exact diagnosis when the patient cannot cooperate nor answer questions. He has a large bump on his head and a swollen eye that accounts for his loss of consciousness. We must hope he awakens soon. With a head injury, the longer they stay unconscious the less chance they have of a full recovery. Then there is the fever. Not much can be done about that either if he does not awaken to swallow any tinctures. I hesitate to bleed a man who has suffered so much blood loss already. In my experience, it does more harm than good.”
“Thank you, Doctor!” the colonel expressed.
Elizabeth felt no need to thank him for giving her such dire news. She busied herself with helping her husband’s valet to pull a clean shirt over his battered body and covering him up, making sure no cold air could seep in through any cracks. She pulled up a chair and sat down beside the bed, gently stroking the knuckles she had cleaned earlier with tender ministrations. They were as swollen and bruised as his face and left buttock, yet it was the right hand not the left that was bruised. Why would all the injuries be on his left but for his right hand?
Elizabeth must have fallen asleep with her cheek on his injured hand. Mr Darcy groaned and tried to pull it away from under her head. Elizabeth was wide awake within the blink of an eye, sitting bolt upright in her chair and examining his face. He looked even worse than he had before she fell asleep. He was tossing and turning his head while trying to turn towards her. It occurred to her that it must have been painful for him to lie on his left side. She should have moved him to his right. He calmed down quickly; it was to be hoped asleep rather than unconscious, but she had no way of knowing. His eyes were moving under their lids, she could tell. Since he had not yet become fully awake, she saw no need to call for the doctor.
“Elizabeth!” His voice jolted her up from her chair to lean over him. His voice was very weak, and she wondered whether it had been a figment of her imagination.
“I am here,” she whispered back.
“Elizabeth!”
“Fitzwilliam, I am here,” she consoled him a little more loudly.
“Elizabeth!” he bellowed. The doctor was back in the chamber within seconds. He must have been waiting in the adjoining sitting room.
“Doctor, do you think he may have lost his hearing?”
“He could have, but it is not a common occurrence with these types of injuries. It is more likely that he has not yet fully awakened, or he might have suffered a serious head injury. With the fall and the fight, his brain took a severe beating.”
“Fight? I assure you, Mr Darcy does not fight. He is a gentleman.”
“Of course, Lady Elizabeth. It is not like he has been brawling on the streets. He challenged Lord Hazard to a fight at Gentleman Jackson’s establishment. It is a very civilised form of entertainment.”
Elizabeth must have had a quizzical expression suffusing her countenance as the doctor continued his explanation.
“As I understand it, they made a wager in the betting book at White’s. The stake was a thousand guineas to the winner. Gentleman Jackson is a renowned pugilist. All fights at his establishment are bound by a set of rules and are conducted civilly.”
Elizabeth could not understand how hitting another human being could be done with civility.
“I met Lord Hazard when Mr Darcy arrived. He asserted that my husband owed him two thousand guineas.”
“Yes. As I understand it, he lost both the fight and the race.”
“Are you telling me that he fought and lost to Lord Hazard, then immediately followed this travesty with a horse race?” Elizabeth enquired incredulously.
“Yes, or so I was told. I was not there, but there were hundreds of witnesses.”
“A wise decision to refrain from watching such a spectacle, I am sure. It is a ridiculous pastime if you ask me, but who am I to judge? By what you have related, I am inclined to believe Mr Darcy lost his mind prior to his injuries,” Elizabeth managed to utter before her husband wrenched himself to the side and lost his stomach contents all over his wife and the floor.
She pulled the bell to summon someone to clean it up. She bathed his face as he lay back down on his pillow, wondering how a sensible man like her husband could be so utterly stupid.
Mr Darcy fell back to sleep once he was cleaned. The doctor gently persuaded her to retire for a bath, a rest, and most importantly, a change of attire. He promised to notify her if there was any change. Reluctantly, Elizabeth agreed.
If the doctor had thought that she would lie down when he mentioned retiring, he was sorely mistaken, though she did see the advantage in changing her gown. Half an hour later she was back in her husband’s room with a selection of books in her hand.
