“Mr Darcy,” she said, “if I remain in your house, I cannot promise to explain myself.”
He moved in the chair. Something crossed his features that she could not read, and was gone almost at once. “I do not ask it.”
“You ought.”
“I ought a great many things. I ask only this. If there is something you cannot say, say that. Do not invent in place of it.”
She watched him. “You hate lies so much?”
“Yes.”
The single word had more in it than any history would have given her.
“And silence does not offend you?”
“Not half so much.”
She gathered what she had left. “Then I can promise that much. If I may not answer, I will say so. If I can answer, I will answer truly.”
He inclined his head. “That will serve.”
“It is a poor bargain for you.”
“On the contrary. I begin to think it an unusually good one.”
“You cannot know that.”
“No. But I live in hope of being surprised.”
A breath escaped her that might, under kinder circumstances, have become a laugh. The effort spent her at once. Her lashes drooped, then lifted again with visible annoyance, as if her own body had presumed too much.
“You should rest, if you can,” he said.
“I cannot.”
“Then close your eyes at least.”
“And think? Certainly not.”
He made as if to answer, but she was already gathering herself against another inward plunge.
“No.” Her voice came out with more force than her strength permitted. “Do not stop. If you stop, I shall begin again.”
“Begin what?”
“Everything. The surgeon. The leg. Morning. All of it.” She gathered the air for the last of it. “You said I might have a stupid subject. I claim it.”
The line of his mouth altered. A shape of smile gathered there, and stayed long enough for her to borrow calm from.
“You claim it very despotically for a woman in bed.”
She drew the breath the answer required. “I am extremely ill. It excuses much.”
“So I am learning.”
He waited, as though still hoping rest might overtake her if he gave it room. It did not. Her eyes remained open, fever bright and resisting.
“Very well,” he said at last. “One trivial subject, then. Was there, in this country town of yours, any musician worth the name?”
