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“That explains her preference for Mr Collins. Still…I feel that the sort of care your brother requires has more to do with time and rest than any particular potion. Perhaps it is for the best that she does not allow some so-called proficient to experiment upon him.”
They both were silent, staring out at the garden’s beauties, trying to hold on to hope.
* * *
A clock striking somewhere in the dark startled Lizzy from a light doze. Checking the time, she saw it was an hour past midnight. Perfect. Quietly, she left her room and entered her friend’s.
“Georgie,” Lizzy whispered.
The girl did not move. Lizzy shook her shoulder. Georgiana rolled over, mumbling something. Lizzy tried again, but short of pouring water on her, the effort seemed futile. This would not do. Should she return to bed and forget the exercise?
In the end, she determined their plan could not wait. She had already decided that if she were caught, she would simply claim to have heard noises requiring investigation. After all, there were no footmen stationed in the corridors at night. Still, she halted in every shadow to ensure she was yet unobserved, her heart beating in a frantic rhythm; when a loudly creaking step screeched its alarm, she stopped short, throwing the panel on the dark lantern Georgiana had procured for them. When no one popped out to confront her, she crept on but kept the lantern cloaked and felt her way forward until she reached the empty second floor.
At long last, she reached the door that, according to Georgiana’s direction, should be the nursery. It might be locked from the inside, especially if it were in use. Still, it would be a clue of occupancy, would it not? An ugly thought tried to deter her; was she truly prepared to deal with the dislikeable Mr Stimple, who might be Mr Darcy’s attendant? What if he could not be reasoned with? What if he were to assume she was some sort of ‘woman of the town’ and tried to assault her?
For a moment, she shivered in fear. But then, she straightened. Why, she would dash the lantern in his face and run screaming, consequences be devilled. On the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained. This was her opportunity to discover whether Mr Darcy was here, and she was determined to discover it.
Before opening the door, she paused and pressed her ear against it. She could hear a murmur—were they conversing? Did Mr Stimple read aloud? Plucking up her courage, straightening her spine, she put her most imperious expression on her face and tried the latch, prepared to do her best impression of a formidable matron demanding to see the patient.
But the door opened easily, with no attendant on the other side staring at her in surprise and disapproval. She shut it quietly behind her. Dimming coals burned in the fireplace, doing little more than creating shadows. There was no other light beyond her small lantern. She peered into the gloom.
She discerned the outlines of a bedstead. Must Mr Darcy be within it, since they had bothered with a fire? At the furthest end of the room, a door was ajar, from which emerged the sound of raucous snores—Mr Stimple’s? She moved closer, holding the lantern aloft so she could see.
Mr Darcy stared back at her, his aspect as formal and grave as she had ever seen him, and Lizzy, suddenly struck by a wave of awkwardness, stared back. The plan had all seemed much more rational and understandable, even obvious an effort, when in discussion with his sister. Supposing Georgiana would be accompanying her, she had not conceived what she would say. Still, her presence in his home, in his room, must be explained at the very least.
“Mr Darcy,” she whispered, hoping not to disturb Stimple’s snores. “I apologise for this intrusion on your privacy and my unforgivable boldness. I know my presence here is highly irregular. I assure you, only your sister’s extreme anxiety could bring me to this point, although I share her deep concern, and I cannot blame you for thinking…whatever it is you might be thinking…”
She broke off, rolling her eyes at her ridiculous discomposure, looking at him somewhat helplessly, wondering if he understood a word she said. As though he might give her some clue about how to proceed. Foolish girl!
He had lost more weight since her visit to Younge’s, she realised, and yet he was handsome as ever, with one lock of hair falling forward into his eyes; she had the urge to smooth it back. In those eyes, she saw traces of the same impatience she’d held when her mother had launched one of her rambling effusions. The comparison stiffened her spine and resolve.
She went straight to him, maintaining that eye contact and, unbidden, remembered again his derision, his mocking taunt.
“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Instead of shoving his mockery from her mind, as was her habit, she faced it directly—he was not some stranger, nor even simply someone’s patient, but a man, a man with flaws of his own and a sister who worried. She would discover what he knew of his coming treatment and Donavan and see what else he might need, how else she might be of use.
Then she saw what, in the darkness and in her embarrassment, she had previously missed. The fabric cuffs around his wrists had been replaced; he was no longer tethered to his bed with a leather cord.
Instead, he was chained.
* * *
Darcy saw at once when someone entered, shutting his mouth upon his speech rehearsals with a clack of his teeth. How long had it been since he had been spirited up the stairs of his own house, into the nursery he had never bothered to fill with his own children? A day? Two? He squinted into the darkness. Mrs Taylor? His aunt? Or…could it be Georgiana? His pulse accelerated, torn between desperately wanting to see his sister and desperately wishing she would never see him, not like this.
But no, she was not tall enough to be Georgie, and though he could not see her face, it was certainly not Mrs Taylor. Mrs Taylor had never possessed such a pleasing figure as that, could not have, even when she was young enough to have had one.
The woman approached with her lantern high, lighting her face.
Elizabeth. Her eyes were wide and dark in the lantern’s shadow—though he knew them to be a striking shade of green. For once without her ugly cap, her hair was drawn up in a mass of shining copper curls, her cheekbones high, her mouth wide, her chin sharp and determined. How had she grown lovelier? How had she come to be here? The answer was obvious; she was not. He had dreamt her again, his own, personal delusion. But he willed the dream to slow its speech, to allow her words to penetrate the mists of darkness in his mind.
It is a dream, another impossible dream. I wasted the last one, trying to bring her into my illness, into my sordid world. I shall not make the same mistake again, but only enjoy the illusion until my sad wakening.
Through many hours of practise, he had finally discovered that if he set his words to a rhythm, almost like poetry or a tune, he could usually get through most of them without betraying himself with filth. He had even memorised a statement for his cousin Fitzwilliam—should he ever bother to visit again—hoping his sanity would be recognised in the normal words, though spoken in an unusual cadence. He almost opened his mouth and began reciting a sonnet to the dream girl, one memorised in his youth, a tribute to his adoration:
‘All days are nights to see till I see thee
And nights bright days when dreams do show me thee.’
