Page 26 of The Servants’ Matchmaking

CHAPTER 6

Mr. Darcy

Mrs. Bennet arrived with two daughters, a hamper, and enough concern to fill the entrance hall twice over.

"My poor Jane," she said before she had even got her bonnet off. "I knew this would happen when she rode in the rain, though naturally she had no choice in the matter. Mr. Bingley's invitation was most particular."

Bingley received this with visible pleasure, colouring at the compliment. Darcy noticed Elizabeth close her eyes for just a moment, as though gathering strength for what was to come.

Sarah stood behind her, holding the blue shawl. McKeever waited near the library door with Darcy's morning letters. The two servants exchanged no glance whatsoever. Their obedience had become, Darcy thought, almost theatrical in its carefulness. Two conspirators determined to be caught doing nothing at all.

Kitty coughed because her mother had mentioned illness. Lydia laughed because Kitty coughed. Caroline offered them a civility so faultless it curdled into something very like contempt.

"You must come upstairs at once. Jane is sitting up, but she tires quickly."

"Certainly, certainly. Lydia, do not touch that vase. Kitty, stand straight. Mr. Bingley, you have been an angel to my girl, a positive angel."

Mrs. Bennet took Bingley's arm as though claiming a prize. He looked delighted. Helplessly delighted, the way he looked at most things. They went upstairs in a body, Mrs. Bennet's voice leading the charge. Lydia looked back at Darcy on the landing and whispered to Kitty without lowering her voice in the slightest.

"He is very handsome when he is not speaking."

"Lydia."

Darcy looked at the ceiling with great interest. Bingley made a noise that might charitably have been called a cough.

When the party had vanished upstairs, Caroline turned to Darcy. "Charming."

"They are distressed for Miss Bennet."

"Distress does not excuse vulgarity."

"No. Nor does elegance excuse malice." He said it evenly, but he meant every word of it.

Her mouth thinned to nothing. He left before she could find an answer.

In the library, McKeever placed the morning post on the table with his usual precision. "Sarah says Miss Elizabeth has slept six hours in two nights."

"You are still discussing her."

"Her mother's visit may prove difficult, sir."

"That is not your concern."

"No, sir." McKeever did not look remotely chastened.

Darcy broke the seal on his steward's letter and read the first line twice without absorbing a word of it.

"Did Sarah ask you to tell me this?"

"She said Miss Elizabeth would receive no rest today. I concluded the rest myself, sir."

"And what precisely do you expect me to do about it?"

McKeever looked towards the ceiling, where Mrs. Bennet's voice carried undiminished through a floor and two closed doors. "Nothing improper, sir."

It was a careful answer. Darcy had, if he was honest, asked for exactly that kind of carefulness.

"Mention to Bingley that the apothecary may approve Miss Bennet's return tomorrow. He may wish to have the closed carriage ready. And tell him Miss Elizabeth has had no rest; half an hour of company is enough for any invalid today."