Mr. Darcy’s Cipher

by Violet King

  “No!” Miss Bingley exclaimed. “No country advice can be of any service. We must send an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians.”

  “I could not ask you to trouble yourself to that degree,” Miss Elizabeth said, but with little heat.

  Mr. Darcy, having sat with both his sister and brother through their childhood illnesses, found most often the best cure for a fever was uninterrupted rest, and he was glad to concur when Mr. Bingley suggested Mr. Jones be called for early in the morning if Miss Bennet was not decidedly better.

  To Mr. Darcy’s relief, Miss Elizabeth left again immediately thereafter. She made him uncomfortable, and Mr. Darcy did not court discomfort. Though Mr. Darcy tried to settle himself with listening to the sisters’ duets after supper, he found all the interest in the others and their entertainments quite vanished with Miss Elizabeth gone.

  Mr. Darcy excused himself as soon as he politely could. Miss Bennet had seemed to have congestion, and so Mr. Darcy had suggested to the cook one of his mother’s recipes: hot water with sweet almond oil, syrup of violets, saffron, and nutmeg, delivered as steam from a clay pot. He could only hope this remedy would have a more positive effect on the Bennet sisters than his apology.

  16

  When Elizabeth returned to her sister, to her shock a housemaid at the head of Jane’s bed was holding a clay pot to Jane’s nose. With a fan, the housemaid waved steam into Jane’s face.

  “What are you doing?” Elizabeth asked.

  “It was Mr. Darcy’s orders, miss. My mama did the same when I caught ill as a child. Miss Bennet’s breathing a little easier already.”

  Elizabeth approached the bed. The thought of Mr. Darcy insisting on any form of treatment for Jane was repugnant, but her sister was breathing more evenly, and she had stopped struggling in her sleep against her dreams.

  When the steam had faded, the maid stepped away with the pot and said, “I’ll be taking this back down to the kitchen. But you give a ring if needs be, Miss Elizabeth. Your sister has a kindly heart, and we want very much to see her improved again.”

  Somehow, in her brief stay, Jane had won over the servants. Elizabeth could only admire her sister as usual.

  “Thank you, and…” As much is it galled her, Elizabeth could not help but feel gratitude at Mr. Darcy’s sudden and inexplicable solicitude. “Thank Mr. Darcy. For Jane.”

  The maid curtsied again and gathering up implements, left. Elizabeth passed the rest of the night in her sister’s room, and by morning, Jane was much improved. The housemaid returned early in the morning with another steam treatment and a cup of chamomile tea with lemon and honey. “Mr. Darcy says it is just the thing for his sister,” the housemaid explained.

  In addition to the tea, they also delivered a tray with two bowls of honeyed porridge and toast with a boiled egg.

  Elizabeth, who had been too worried through the day and night to do more than pick at her food, ate the porridge with relish. Again, she felt unwanted gratitude towards Mr. Darcy. How was that he could be so terrible in person and yet so kind in his absence?

  Jane woke and sipped at her tea, even taking a couple of spoonfuls of the porridge before exhaustion overwhelmed her again and she closed her eyes.

  Now that Jane was at least somewhat on the mend, Elizabeth requested to have a note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit and form her own judgment of the situation. Mrs. Bennet, Lydia, and Kitty arrived at Netherfield soon after the family breakfast.

  Jane was so well improved, Mrs. Bennet, instead of showing the remorse she ought to have, seemed well satisfied with her daughter’s situation.

  “Perhaps I can be carried home,” Jane suggested, but, much to Elizabeth’s dismay, neither Mrs. Bennet nor the apothecary thought this suggestion advisable. The mother and sisters sat together for a while, and then upon Miss Bingley’s invitation, Mrs. Bennet and her three daughters attended Miss Bingley in the breakfast parlor.

  Miss Bingley said, “Miss Elizabeth says Miss Bennet is much improved, and I hope you have seen the same.”

  “Indeed I have,” was Mrs. Bennet’s answer. “But she is still a great deal too ill to be moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her, and I agree. We must trespass a little longer on your kindness.”

  “Removed!” cried Mr. Bingley. “It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal.”

  Any hopes Miss Bingley would insist on their leaving were soon dashed. She said with cold civility, “You may depend upon it, madame. Miss Bennet will receive every possible attention while she remains with us.”

  From there, Elizabeth resigned herself to another day at Netherfield Park. Elizabeth might have found the experience tolerable without having to endure Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingley, especially Mr. Darcy, who had become even more of a conundrum in his solicitude than before with his rudeness. But as difficult as it might be for Elizabeth in her good health, she would not abandon Jane to such capricious mercy.

  Mrs. Bennet continued, first extolling Jane’s virtues, “… for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I’ve ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her. You have a sweet room here Mr. Bingley, in a charming prospect over the gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease.”

  Listening to her mother go on, Elizabeth realized all here, with the exception possibly of Mr. Bingley and herself, were involved in their own machinations. Lydia and Kitty were whispering to each other, Mrs. Bennet was intent on securing a marriage for all five of her daughters, and Mr. Darcy—who knew what he was plotting, only that he was plotting something.

  Miss Bingley glanced at Elizabeth and then Mrs. Bennet. She pursed her lips.

  “Whatever I do is done in a hurry,” replied Mr. Bingley, “and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.”

  Perhaps Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy had as much in common as Elizabeth had first suspected. Both were capricious. Except Mr. Bingley had seemed genuine in his concern for Jane. Was it only a whim? Elizabeth could not keep some sharpness from her voice as she said, “I should hope your enjoyment of Netherfield is more than a fleeting fancy.”

  “Fleeting fancy?” Mr. Bingley’s expression belied nervousness, and Elizabeth felt some relief. Hopefully Mr. Bingley had only attempted to seem capricious.

  Elizabeth said, “While I admit at points I enjoy an intricate conundrum, in the matter of character, one who is clear in his own aspirations and who strives, in the pursuit of them, to neither confuse nor offend is by far preferable.”

  “Lizzie,” cried her mother, “remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.”

  “I should hope you saw no intent on my part to confuse or offend?” Mr. Bingley said.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Certainly not. Mr. Bingley, in all things, you have offered yourself as the picture of gentlemanly kindness.”

  Mr. Darcy, to everyone’s surprise, said, “I find much to admire in Miss Elizabeth’s value for the forthright.”

  Was Mr. Darcy making a jest at Elizabeth’s expense? He seemed no less serious or formal than the usual. Perhaps he meant to give her a genuine compliment? She should expire on the spot!

  After an awkward moment, Mrs. Bennet, never one to let silence lie, continued, “Yes, Mr. Darcy, indeed! Our village offers much to admire in regard to the forthright. And so many entertainments! I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, except for the shops in public places. The country is a fast deal pleasanter, is it not, Mr. Bingley?”

  “When I am in the country,” he replied, “I never wish to leave it. When I am in town, it is pretty much the same. They each have their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.”

  Again with equal happiness! Was this anot
her attempt at pretend ambivalence? With Mr. Bingley’s statements of varying whims, he made himself more of a cipher than Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth had thought Mr. Bingley held a special admiration for Jane, but if he was equally content with one woman as the other, then Jane’s particular character hardly mattered. How could Jane be happy on the arm of a man who found her as both ornamental and interchangeable as a well-tied cravat?

  Jane had already fallen into a most quiet and intense infatuation. One fueled by a second dance, an invitation by proxy to dinner, and Mr. Bingley’s solicitude in her illness. Mr. Bingley had seemed more steady in his concern for Jane’s health than the others, but perhaps Elizabeth had only wanted to see him that way. What if Jane were wrong?

  A man who held every woman in precisely equal regard admitted no special admiration for any. In that, Charlotte had been quite accurate in stating that if Jane went to secure Mr. Bingley’s hand, she had best show more of her own feelings. Mr. Bingley had been effusive in his own praise. Whether that praise had meaning, however, was another thing entirely.

  Mrs. Bennet, having no inkling of Elizabeth’s worries, continued, “What an agreeable man Sir William Lucas is! So much the man of fashion! So genteel and easy! He had always something to say of everybody to everybody, do you not agree, Mr. Bingley? That is my idea of good breeding; those persons who fancy themselves very important, but never open their mouth, quite mistake the matter.” Mrs. Bennet went on, “And the Lucases are very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think Charlotte is very plain—but then she is our particular friend.”

  Elizabeth hated it when her mother set Charlotte down to raise her own daughters as a comparison. “Mother—” Elizabeth started to say in defense of her friend, but Mr. Darcy cut over them both.

  “A woman’s beauty can take many forms. Miss Lucas seemed a pleasant enough young woman, in my observation of her.”

  Who was this man, and what had he done with Mr. Darcy?

  Mrs. Bennet, taken aback, stuttered, “Oh—dear yes—she is intelligent and kind and possessed of her own virtues. But Lady Lucas herself has often admitted she envied me Jane’s beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane—one does not often see anybody so better-looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own partiality. When Jane was only fifteen, there was a man at my brother Gardiner’s house in town so much in love with Jane that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young.”

  “Jane was too young, her suitor too old, and of little interest to her,” Elizabeth said plainly.

  Mrs. Bennet cleared her throat. “Well!” She turned back to Mr. Bingley and began again to praise him for his kindness to Jane with an apology also for troubling him with Lizzie. As they prepared to leave, Lydia, who had been whispering with Kitty through the entire conversation, put herself forward and asked, “I was wondering, before we leave, Mr. Bingley, when did you intend to give your promised ball at Netherfield?”

  Elizabeth thought her sister more than brash in her approach, but Mr. Bingley simply smiled and said, “I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement. When your sister is recovered, you shall name the very day of the ball. None of us wish to be dancing while she is ill.”

  “Of course not. Yes, it will be much better to wait until Jane is well, and at that time, perhaps Mr. Wickham will be able to attend if his duties do not keep him away.”

  “Absolutely not!” Mr. Darcy said with shocking decisiveness.

  “Now Darcy,” Mr. Bingley started, turning towards his friend.

  “No.”

  “You have no evidence—”

  “Do what you wish. But if you invite him, I shall not attend.”

  It was the most emotion Elizabeth had seen from Mr. Darcy in... well... ever. Though she was more kindly disposed towards Mr. Darcy after seeing the efforts he had made for Jane’s comfort, Elizabeth was not sure if his absenting himself from another ball constituted much of a problem. At the same time, Mr. Darcy, for all of his numerous faults, did not appear in the slightest inclined towards dishonesty. Whatever issue he had with Mr. Wickham, it was genuine. That did not mean it was deserved. Mr. Darcy found fault with most things, and even at his best, he was not a person with whom one easily got along.

  Elizabeth did not know what to think.

  “Oh!” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. “Dear Mr. Bingley, neither I nor my daughters would wish to suggest anything to cause you or your friend discomfort.” She refused to address Mr. Darcy directly. “Mr. Wickham and Mr. Darcy were raised together in childhood, and why my darling Jane had been remarking how close such bonds can be and how painful their breaking. Why, she expressed a deep wish, if possible, that both parties might reconcile their differences as—”

  “No.”

  Mrs. Bennet, whose mouth was parted to speak, shut it and then opened it again, giving the impression of a landed fish. She said, “Well... Well! If such is the situation, then that is how it must be.”

  Mr. Darcy responded, “Do as you wish, Bingley. But should you open your doors to Mr. Wickham, then be assured I will absent myself that night.” On that note, Mr. Darcy bowed, turned on his heel, and left.

  Mr. Bingley, looking a little lost, attempted in his amiable manner to resolve the conversation on a more salubrious note. “Mrs. Bennet, your eldest daughter’s kindly and forgiving nature does both her and you credit.”

  Mrs. Bennet looked at the floor, her cheeks flushing. “Oh, Mr. Bingley!”

  “It is no trouble to host both of your daughters as Miss Bennet regains her health. Now, if you will excuse me.”

  “Yes, of course. You and your household have our deepest gratitude.”

  With that, Mr. Bingley quickly departed the room, presumably to have a discussion with his friend. Mrs. Bennet showered Elizabeth with a mix of overblown praise and unnecessary instructions mingled with admonitions before finally, to Elizabeth’s relief, returning with Kitty and Lydia to the carriage. Before her departure, Mrs. Bennet handed Elizabeth a packet of letters. “From your father,” she said in a low voice.”

  Elizabeth smiled with genuine pleasure and thanked her.

  Holding the letters under her arm, Elizabeth made her way back to Jane’s room. As she passed through the parlor, Miss Bingley confronted her.

  Miss Bingley said, “You Bennets certainly know how to make an impression. While I did mention it, I suppose Miss Lydia could not be faulted for her lack of knowledge of the depth of animosity between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham. I suppose…”

  “My sister is very young,” Elizabeth said. “Her words were not ill-meant.”

  “Young indeed, and yet out. Of course, it is done differently in the country.”

  “Perhaps if we had some hint as to the reason for the animosity between the two men, it might be easier to know which response would be more appropriate.”

  “Mr. Darcy keeps his own counsel,” Miss Bingley said. “My!” She added, noting the packet Mrs. Bennet had handed Elizabeth before her departure. “You and your sister receive a significant amount of correspondence.”

  “Sometimes.” Elizabeth curtsied. “Now I must see to Jane. Excuse me.”

  “Of course, you must. The dear woman. How difficult it is to be so ill!”

  Miss Bingley fell into step with Elizabeth, and to her dismay, accompanied Elizabeth to Jane’s sick bed.

  17

  Mr. Darcy stood in Mr. Bingley’s library, staring sightlessly at the spines of dusty books standing like soldiers on the shelves.

  Wickham!

  It was as though the threads of fate conspired to put Mr. Darcy in constant misery. Nothing he did, and nowhere he fled, held any peace. Mr. Darcy, in his own mind at least, allowed himself to wish Mr. Wickham and his brother Reginald’s fates had been switched. If anyone deserved the ignominy of being murdered by a cutthroat in a French alley, it was Wickham. But God’s will was inexplic
able and sometimes cruel. Maybe it would be best if Mr. Darcy returned to Pemberley. But with Miss Darcy absent, and only having the company of his own thoughts, Mr. Darcy feared he would fall into a bottle and dishonor himself.

  Mr. Darcy’s eyes blurred. What was he, a child, to be weeping at the slightest problem?

  “Darcy!”

  Of course, Bingley chose this moment to make himself known. Darcy blinked, imposing his will as best he could over his recalcitrant emotions. He kept his back to the door a moment longer, though it was impolite, and said, “Yes, Bingley.”

  Something of his discomfiture must have betrayed itself in his manner or tone because Mr. Bingley’s footsteps slowed, and he placed a gentle hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “Oh, Darcy, I have made a hash of things, haven’t I?”

  “You?” If anyone had made a hash of things, it was Mr. Darcy himself, despite his best efforts. It might be one of his truest areas of “accomplishment” as Miss Elizabeth might state it. “You have no reason to be ashamed. I am your guest, and it is not my place to say who you can and cannot invite into your home.”

  “Mr. Wickham can throw himself into the sea for all I care. From the rumors of his behavior in London and your own disapprobation, I realize the man has little to distinguish himself. But it might be of use if you were to share with me, as a friend, what he did to change your opinion of him. You used to admire him. There is truth to miss Bennet’s words. Childhood bonds are often the strongest.”

  Discussion of Mr. Wickham, who Darcy despised, at least had the salubrious effect of pushing his mind from any thought of tears. And while the weight of his friend’s hand comforted Mr. Darcy, he could not continue to converse with Bingley while facing a bookshelf. It only made Mr. Darcy ridiculous. He turned to face his friend and said, “It is not my own counsel I must keep. Mr. Wickham tried to take liberties and—” That was as close as Darcy could come to revealing how Wickham had seduced and almost ruined Georgiana.