Darcy continued to encourage George to spend time around him, to bother him, to get him to read books, and of course, any time George was interested, Darcy was happy to let the boy look at the open wound when the bandages were changed.
Elizabeth found it impossible to not smile at the whole. Darcy sent George out with Georgiana and a fair amount of money to buy all the books which George wished to get from a nearby bookstore. And a fair number of toys from a fashionable toy store that did a brisk business with families who were summering in the resort town.
When Elizabeth made a complaint on the point, Darcy insisted that they wereDarcy’stoys and books, but it was clear that they had been purchased for the non-exclusive use of George—non-exclusive because Mr. Darcy insisted that Emily also had the chance to play with them.
Mr. Darcy had somehow, through simply talking to him, convinced George to happily let Emily play with his things. Elizabeth had never succeeded at anything of the sort, even with the use of such punishments as she could bear to apply to her son.
Two days after Colonel Fitzwilliam arrived, Mr. Darcy’s valet rode into Ramsgate around the time the evening had already turned dark. He had bags under his eyes and a look of terrible relief on seeing his master.
That evening John replaced Colonel Fitzwilliam as the person sleeping with Mr. Darcy each evening, and by the next morning one of Darcy’s dressing gowns had been modified so that it could be placed on without causing any pain to Darcy’s ribs, and so Elizabeth was faced when she sawDarcy to change his morning bandage with an expensively dressed gentleman at his leisure, his face completely shaved clean.
It turned out that the manservant from the inn who Colonel Fitzwilliam had found, had done a quite poor job with scraping Mr. Darcy’s face. A discussion between John and that servant established that these two persons would despise each other forever.
Elizabeth, though she disliked doing so, confessed to seeing the difference after John had turned Mr. Darcy’s face and hair into his artistic masterpiece—the difficulties created by having a subject who was an invalid, and unable to properly sit up, merely made the artistic accomplishment all the greater.
It was still Elizabeth’s task to change the bandage, though John had made some noises about taking that over.
Each evening she would be woken by Sally, disentangle herself from her children, talk to Sally for a few minutes in the kitchen, and then place the poultice, either linseed or bread and milk on Darcy’s chest.
Over the following days the flow of pus from the wound steadily slowed, and it looked more filled up with the red granulations underneath. Soon it would be time to replace the poultices that kept the wound wet and open with a simple dressing that would allow it to scab over and permit the healing process to finish.
Each night after she changed Mr. Darcy’s bandage, they talked for half an hour before she returned to bed.
He was always kind to his sister—a sister whose condition was still in question. Elizabeth had made a point once while walking along the West Cliff promenade with Georgiana to explain to her the signs that would show if she might be with child. The girl was both properly embarrassed by such a conversation, and properly appreciative of the information.
This was at present the earliest date that Georgiana’s courses could have begun, and thus it was still too early to worry about the matter.
Life in this house was too pleasant, too relaxing.
Elizabeth had always had far more anxiety about Wickham returning briefly than she had hope that he would make himself into a decent man. Now she did not need to fear him getting another child on her. She did not need to worry about his debts or diseases.
It was only sad that he was dead and gone forever.
The anxiety that Elizabeth had felt during her first days in this house slowly drained away as the first and then the second week passed.
She lived like a gentlewoman, like a welcome guest.
Strong coffee with every breakfast, and she was free to take a second and third helping. The servants properly filtered it out, so there was little of the coffee dust in what she tasted. She ate the best pieces from the meat, without worrying whether the friend she stayed with might think her greedy. Her children ran wild, and Mr. Darcy and Georgiana were both so kind, and so visibly happy to see the children being happy, that Elizabeth felt no more worry about them breaking things than she would have if this was her own home.
Mr. Darcy had, after all, said quite explicitly for her to not worry about that matter.
And he was lovely, and tolerant, and understanding, and even smiling and helpful when both dissolved into tears on occasion and developed an absolutely unreasonable need for something impossible before crying themselves to sleep. And the whole process of managing two children was enormously easier when Georgiana was present, and always eager to entertain George or Emily if their sibling needed attention. And if Elizabeth was busy when the children needed attention, for example changing a bandage, they needed to simply ring a bell and Sally would come to help.
The servants treated her with respect—yes, she was Mr. Darcy’s nurse. But she wasnotthe nurse. She was ‘ma’am.’
She had not been ‘ma’am’ for years.
Elizabeth wished the world would always stay as it was now. The contrast would make everything awful when she hired out as a nurse later.Then she would just be one of the servants—a well-paid, well-placed servant, but still a servant.
Elizabeth also was determined to wallow in and enjoy the little delights that her position here let her enjoy.
She took to asking Sally—who was in fact becoming decent in the kitchen, though she would never be particularly precise at cleaning—to make her hot chocolate in the evenings, with just a dash of a fine rum that Mr. Darcy had. She used white, heavy woven paper, with Whatman’s watermark, to send letters to friends in London. She ate tea biscuits and slowly sipped her finely brewed tea—always right after Elizabeth changed Mr. Darcy’s bandage.
Then she would give the gentleman a half dozen of the tea biscuits, judging that to be light enough that he would not get a dangerous overabundance of blood from their consumption, so long as he was still not permitted to eat any meats.
There was chattiness, an endless conversation in the drawing room, and the pleasure in being treated as the senior woman of the house.
Elizabeth was suspended above a pit.
