Chapter 4

Mr Bennet did not reply to Mrs Gardiner’s request to keep his elder daughters an additional six weeks, but four pages were not enough to contain Mrs Bennet’s glee that Mr Bingley had returned to Jane’s side, or her insistence that Jane remain in London until she had well and truly caught him. She allowed that Elizabeth might as well stay also, and hoped that Mrs Gardiner would assist in leading Elizabeth to understand what a terrible mistake she had made in refusing the proposal of the heir to Longbourn.

Maria Lucas was dispatched back to her father’s house on the day they were all originally scheduled to go, in Mr Gardiner’s comfortable carriage with a maid for company and propriety and a manservant riding up with the driver for protection. She parted with the Bennet sisters with many fond protestations of affection and hopes for Jane’s future felicity.

In the course of a week, Mr Darcy visited thrice, Miss Darcy once, and Mr Bingley not at all. His physician, Mr Darcy reported, remained baffled as to the cause of Miss Bingley’s ailment, and out of an abundance of caution had decreed that Mr Bingley and the Hursts should remain within the house also, until they were certain it was not contagious. If they were well after a fortnight, they might go about again.

Flowers came, however. Flowers for Jane, every day but Sunday. They reassured Elizabeth and her aunt that his mind was still very much turned towards Gracechurch Street. To Jane, they simply seemed to give pleasure. She remained serenely confident in his eventual return, and Elizabeth did her best to trust that Jane’s certainty was not misplaced.

Elizabeth’s thoughts were often more agreeably occupied by her own visitors, however. It was impossible to suggest that either of the Darcys came for the purpose of speaking with anyone else, though their manners towards Mrs Gardiner and Jane were faultless. Miss Darcy was a sweet girl, and quite clever when she could be persuaded to show it. Her thoughts on art and literature were not in any way deficient, though she was rather ignorant of the state of the war, like most gently-born young ladies. She knew just enough to be happy that her beloved cousin was presently stationed in Plymouth, assisting in the movement of troops and supplies, rather than on the Continent.

At the end of the week, Mrs Gardiner and her nieces had been invited to visit Miss Darcy at Darcy House, and thither they went in their best morning dresses, and spent a moment gazing awestruck through the carriage windows at the elegant home before they descended and approached the door.

Darcy House was no less pleasing inside, everything upon which the eye fell proclaiming a long and happy marriage between wealth and good taste. There was much that was beautiful and little that was uselessly fine, and Elizabeth could only think that she had been entirely wrong to expect even the faintest echo of Rosings Park’s gaudy display here.

Miss Darcy greeted them warmly in her own private sitting-room, an honour they all felt deeply. It was a bright and comfortable space, recently re-done. She blushingly received their compliments on the room and the house, giving all the credit for the former to her companion, who had assisted in the design, and for the latter to her mother. With only a few subtle cues from Mrs Annesley, she poured tea and served cakes and expressed her pleasure in having them to visit.

“I hope,” she concluded shyly, “that this will be the first of many occasions we shall all be here together.” Her guileless gaze flicked hopefully to Elizabeth, who could only smile and try not to blush under the knowing looks of her aunt and sister.

Those same expressions were trained upon her again some minutes later when the door opened to admit Mr Darcy, who claimed he was only looking in to greet his sister’s visitors, but was very easily persuaded to take a cup of tea with them. The ladies had been speaking of the theatre, and that subject was taken up once more. Elizabeth listened with fascination as brother and sister described a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor they had seen at Covent Garden in the spring, but this, too, was destined to be interrupted, this time by the arrival of the butler.

He bowed to Mr Darcy, extending a card. “Apologies, sir, but I felt you would wish to be informed.”

Mr Darcy took the card, his eyebrows rising as he read it. He turned to Miss Darcy. “Georgie, would you mind terribly if I were to invite an unexpected guest to join us? My caller is someone I believe we all wish to see—Mr Bingley.”

“Oh, yes, Brother, do!” agreed Miss Darcy instantly, and at the master’s nod, the servant left to retrieve the visitor. Mr Bingley appeared in the doorway not two minutes later, beaming. “I am just come from Gracechurch Street, where I was informed that all the ladies were expected here,” he said, entering and bowing. “I thought Darcy might take pity on me, and you see how right I was.”

He was urged to join them, and Miss Darcy moved to the tea service to pour as he sat and regarded them all with a jovial air. “How good it is to see you all again!”

“Miss Bingley is recovered?” Jane enquired eagerly, in clear expectation of a positive answer.

“I regret to report that she is not,” the gentleman replied, briefly displaying a frown that spoke more of irritation than concern. “She will recover, but is, at present, quite a bit worse. She nearly died, and it is all her own fault.”

The silence that followed this astonishing declaration was profound. “I think, Bingley, you had better tell us all,” Mr Darcy said at last.

Miss Darcy had shaken herself out of her shock and moved to hand the cup to Mr Bingley. He accepted it with a gracious nod and wet his throat before relating the tale.

Miss Bingley had truly been ill, but it was now revealed to have been an illness of her own infliction. Having learnt in childhood that she suffered blotchy skin and a sore throat when eating strawberries, she had avoided them thereafter. Desiring now to keep her brother close to home, she had taken to her bed with a hidden jar of strawberry preserves, consuming small amounts to give herself a swollen throat and mottled complexion. She pretended also to great pains in her stomach and a fearful spinning of her vision when she attempted to stand. Those attested symptoms, when combined with the visible ones, were sufficient to alarm her relations, baffle the physician, and raise the spectre of contagion.

“Unfortunately for Caroline’s schemes, it seems that when one has such a reaction to a food, if one continues to eat it the effects may suddenly become very much worse, even fatal. She became extremely ill while Mr Newsome attended her the day before yesterday, the result of a taste of the preserves taken before his expected arrival. If her maid had not told us what she had been doing in time for Newsome to administer a purgative, I would be planning her funeral even now. As it was, we were in suspense as to her fate for much of the night. There was a great stretch of time during which she could hardly breathe.”

“How frightening that must have been, for all of you,” Jane said with more sympathy than Elizabeth could have mustered at that moment. She was very cross indeed with Miss Bingley for stooping to such plots to separate her brother from Jane, and did not find her present suffering undeserved.

“It was, most deeply so for Caroline. It seems my dear sister has been frightened into repentance,” he informed them. “She says she will no longer attempt to manage anyone’s concerns but her own. I wish I could believe it will be a lasting change.”

“Perhaps it shall,” Jane offered. “People do alter after facing death, they say. We shall hope this has been a lesson to her.”

“We shall hope it indeed,” Mr Bingley answered drily. “But perhaps it would be best if we did not depend upon it.”

Jane looked at him for a moment and then inclined her head, saying only, “Perhaps.”