Page 31 of A November to Remember

“Yes, miss. Thomas says Mr Darcy took one look at Mr Bingley, who was sitting on the sofa throttling a cushion, and then at his cousin’s hands shaking in his gloves and said, very quiet-like, that two men would manage the errand better than one, and went for his coat before anyone could speak otherwise.” Sarah dusted her hands. “They’ve gone this last hour. And the other gentleman—the colonel—stayed behind, and oh, miss, the kitchen.”

Jane blinked. “The kitchen?”

“The colonel came down himself. Down the back stairs, miss, into the kitchen, big as a church door, and Cook nearly fainted into the stockpot. He said—” Sarah drew herself up and produced, in a gruff approximation, “— ‘A chill wants beef tea, not gruel. Gruel is for prisoners and poets.’ And he stood over the pot while Cook started it, tasting it with the long spoon, and had her put in more beef twice so far. But Mr Bingley, from the sofa, barked for John, and he’s had him bring up more coal for you, which is this coal, miss, this very coal but I brought it in ‘cause John’s a lad, and then he told Mrs Nicholls that you were to have whatever you asked for and three more.”

Jane lay very still under the quilt and felt her eyes prickle, which she blamed on the fever. She had ruined their rugs, set their whole household on its ear, and somewhere out in the wet dark two gentlemen were rattling back along the Meryton road on her account—one of them a man who had every reason to think of the Bennets as a nuisance in a damp county, and the other... The other had gone white as the tablecloth.

He would have done the same for anyone, she told herself firmly. He might be insufferable, but he is a gentleman. It signifies nothing.

The thought held for nearly a full minute, which under the circumstances she considered creditable. Her eyes closed slowly. Next time she opened them, the maid was still there.

“Will you take some broth now, miss?” Sarah hovered with the cup. “The colonel’s own receipt, as it were.”

Jane took a little, to be polite to the colonel, and then a little more, because it was—she had to concede—remarkably good beef tea. Somewhere below, faint through the floors, she thought she caught a thread of the viscount’s voice, too distant for words. It cannot be him, she thought.

She slept in earnest this time, and dreamed confusedly of riding Nelly through a church while her mother preached in the pulpit on the parable of the wise virgin who took time by the forelock and left her daughters to the elements.

She woke to lamplight and low voices at the door.

“—not above a quarter-hour, sir, she is that worn.” Mrs Nicholls, in the doorway, was addressing someone in the passage. “And you will stay this side of the threshold, if you please, apothecary or no apothecary between you.”

“Mrs Nicholls, I would not dream—that is—naturally—is she—” The speaker stopped, regrouped, and tried again at a lower pitch, with the success of attempting to whisper through a hunting horn. “Is she comfortable? Is the fire sufficient? Should there be another fire?”

“There is one fireplace in the room, sir.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Quite right. Could one be added?”

Jane, floating somewhere between fever and sleep, smiled into her pillow before she remembered to school her face into invalid solemnity.

Mr Jones was a dry, brisk little man who smelled of camphor and wet wool, the latter freshly acquired. He took her pulse, peered at her throat, laid the back of his hand against her burning cheek, and delivered his verdict.

“A severe chill, well caught and thoroughly settled. Bed, warmth, broth, and no removal—I shall not answer for her if she is jolted three miles in a carriage before this fever breaks. Draughts every four hours,” he said, rummaging in his leather medical bag. “I shall call again tomorrow.”

From beyond the door came a strangled sound.

“No removal—no, no, certainly not, she must not think of it—Mrs Nicholls, the yellow room is hers for as long as—should we send to London? Jones, ought we to send to London? There is a man in Harley Street my sister—”

“Sir.” Mr Jones packed his bag swiftly. “It is a chill. I have physicked this county for thirty years. If the young lady is worse tomorrow, you may send to London, to Edinburgh, and to the Continent as your feelings require. She will not be worse tomorrow.”

“No. Of course. Thank you. It is only—” the voice performed a small, audible surrender, “—thank you, Mr Jones.”

Footsteps retreated down the passage: the apothecary’s brisk, and then, after a long moment, a slower set, pausing twice before the stairs.

Sarah, banking the fire, caught Jane’s eye and said nothing with tremendous eloquence.

Morning arrived grey and rinsed, the storm reduced to a repentant drizzle. Jane felt as though she had been trampled by Nelly. Every joint was aching, her head thick as porridge, but the fever had loosened its grip enough for her to sit against the pillows.

Mrs Nicholls arrived with a breakfast tray and the day’s decrees. “I do not think you remember much from last night Miss Bennet. Mr Jones examined you and you are expressly forbidden from leaving that bed. I am instructed to enforce it, and between the two of us I also have the colonel’s authority, which he assures me supersedes the King’s within these walls.” She set down the tray. “There is a writing desk here when you feel equal to it. Your family will want word.”

Jane looked at the little lap desk for a long time after Mrs Nicholls had gone.

She had to write to Longbourn, that much was plain. What was less plain was what could safely be said. She had to pen a note of strategic vagueness: ill enough to explain the need for her prolonged stay at Netherfield, well enough to forbid a rescue party, and grateful in terms too general to encourage anybody’s hopes. A dispatch, Jane thought, which would not feed the beast of Mamma’s ambition.

Therefore, she was about to lie. Deliberately, in ink, to the people she loved best in the world. The realisation troubled her for the length of one sip of the colonel’s beef tea, and then—her aching head settling back against the pillows, in Mr Bingley’s very dear house—it troubled her rather less.

She dipped her quill, took a breath, and began.

My dearest Lizzy...