The maid immediately adopted an offended and mulish expression. “I do what I’m told.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. She pressed her lips together.
Shouting at Mr. Wickham. Demanding he find employment at something now that his money had run out. Pointing at her own pregnant belly. Asking him if he really expected her to clean and cook like a common servant. ‘My papa was right about you. I should have never married you.’
“I do apologize.” Elizabeth said when she opened her eyes. “I believe your name is Sally? This is your first place, is it not?”
The girl nodded.
“You’ll do better in time.” Three deep breaths. “Let’s find the supplies.”
At least the servant girl knew how to hunt through the pantries. Miss Darcy looked completely helpless.
Though, when Emily spotted a half loaf of bread and started reaching for it and desperately saying, “Bre, bre, bre,” Miss Darcy successfully cut an even slice from the loaf for her.
After five minutes vinegar was found, but no camphor or spirit of turpentine.
“Sally, off to the apothecary, get more rolls of bandages, spirit of turpentine, and camphor. Also, comfrey and chamomile. Ought I write that down?”
“I cannot read, ma’am.”
Of course not.You cannot, as already noted, do much.
Elizabeth vibrated from tension and the desperate need to not think.
Itshouldbe written down, with the paper to be handed to the apothecary, but Elizabeth would only write it all out after she changed the bandages.
After a search, Elizabeth found a still clean bowl to soak the bandages in and returned to the drawing room. She was followed by both the servant and Miss Darcy with Emily.
Mr. Darcy was fully reclined now, wiping at the bloody matter oozing onto his chest with a damp towel that presumably George had acquired for him.
The boy eagerly listened as Mr. Darcy said quietly, “Yes, I killed the man who hit me.”
“Woah.”
“Why are you telling him these stories?” Elizabeth asked with some annoyance. “George, there is bread in the kitchen. Sally, can you cut him a slice?”
“I can cut my own bread!” George insisted.
“I knowthat. I am worried about what else you might cut.” As Elizabeth spoke, she grabbed a roll of the bandages, worked them out, and soaked them in a bowl full of vinegar.
“Yes, ma’am.” Sally said, “Come along George, there is some butter that you can have with the bread, and I’ll let you help me hold the knife.”
Several treatises written recently preferred a method of bandaging with damp bandages to keep the wound from drying out completely, and the doctor who had several times recommended Elizabeth as a nurse was insistent that he’d achieved far better outcomes for patients treated in that way.
Elizabeth wrung out the vinegar-soaked linen and then wrapped them again into a loose pile. “This shall likely sting,” she warned Mr. Darcy before placing them against his wound.
The gentleman hissed.
“Have you taken sufficient laudanum?” Elizabeth asked as she wound a long strip of still dry linen several times loosely around his body to fasten the main roll of bandages in place.
“I have not taken any laudanum.”
Elizabeth looked at him in some surprise. “How can you speak at all? That must be exceedingly painful.”
“It is not so bad.”
She stared at him. He calmly stared back at her.
