Pride and Prescience (17 page)

Darcy, in contrast, tensed as she related the tale. At its conclusion, he left her side and slipped into his breeches.

“Where do you go?”

“That man cannot be trusted until morning. I know where Bingley keeps his key. I am going to move the documents in that drawer to a safer location until he can attend to them. Someplace Kendall won’t think to look.”

“Where?”

He kissed her. “Under our mattress.”

“Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself.”

Mrs. Gardiner, writing to Elizabeth,
Pride and Prejudice,
Chapter 52

I
t seemed she had just settled back into slumber when Darcy’s urgent voice penetrated her consciousness. “Elizabeth!”

She burrowed further into the bedclothes.

“Elizabeth!”

This had better be important.
“What?” she whispered without opening her eyes.

No response. She rolled to face him and forced her lids open. He lay fast asleep.

She held perfectly still, listening for the voice again. Had she only imagined it? Had Darcy uttered her name in his sleep? Had someone called from the hall? She would have testified under oath that a voice had come from within their chamber—indeed, from right beside her. An unsettling thought gripped her: Was someone else in the room?

She held her breath and peered wide-eyed into the shadows. The wan firelight revealed no other person. Only the sound of
sleet yet pelting against the glass disturbed the night.

The voice must have come in a dream. She sighed and curled into a ball, wondering what time it was and whether she was destined to get any rest before dawn. At this rate, she’d appear a sorry sight in the morning. The wind howled, mocking her sleeplessness.

Despite the heavy counterpane and her husband’s proximity, a shiver seized her. The fire sputtered. She lay in bed, the knowledge that she should add a log to the hearth battling reluctance to leave her cocoon to do so.

She forced herself from beneath the blankets. To delay would only permit the room to grow colder. The floor chilled her toes as she neared the fireplace. For a dying flame, the smell of smoke hung strong.

A basket of extra wood stood beside the hearth. As she reached for a log, she blinked back the sleepy haze that clouded her vision. Or at least she tried. But she could not clear her gaze.

Because the smog wasn’t in her head. Nor, a glance revealed, did it come from the fireplace.

Smoky tendrils snaked in beneath the door.

She dropped the log. “Darcy!”

She rushed to the door, tested its panels for heat. Mercifully, her touch met cool wood. “Darcy! I think the house is on fire!”

He was at her side before she finished the words. She tried to yank the door open but he restrained her panicked movements. “Slowly!” Though his command suggested composure, his tone revealed alarm that matched her own.

Together, they cautiously opened the door. Smoke swirled in the hallway. It seemed to come from the room across the hall. Jane and Bingley’s room.

Elizabeth started forward. Darcy stopped her. “Rouse the others and the servants. Send someone to help me but do
not
follow me in there yourself. Get out of the house.”

Every instinct urged her to run straight to Jane. But she
realized it would take stronger arms than hers to help Darcy get the couple to safety, and many hands to keep the blaze from engulfing the house.

She sprinted down the hall and pounded on the next door. “Fire! Wake up! Fire!” Mr. Hurst answered with greater speed than she would ever have thought he possessed.

“Quickly! Go to Bingley’s room and help Darcy!” Without waiting for a response, she crossed to Parrish’s door.

The American answered before she even knocked. “I heard your cry. But I can’t find Caroline—she’s not in our chamber!”

Elizabeth glanced toward the staircase where she’d so recently seen the elusive Mrs. Parrish. There was no sign of Caroline, but she saw that Darcy had already dragged Jane into the hall and gone back for Bingley. Jane wasn’t moving.
Dear God, let it be only the laudanum.
Hurst slung her over his shoulder while Louisa fluttered around uselessly.

With the door to Bingley’s chamber open, the hallway was rapidly filling with smoke. In just a few minutes more they wouldn’t be able to see a thing. “Ring for the servants while I wake the others,” she said. “Then I will help you look.”

She left the family quarters and dashed up the side staircase. She had no idea who occupied which guest suite, and so just pounded on each door in succession. “Fire! Help!”

Randolph came into the corridor immediately. “What can I do?”

“Go downstairs. See whether Darcy has gotten Jane and Bingley to safety. Then help Mr. Parrish find his wife.”

Lawrence Kendall made no offer of aid, just fled down the steps as fast as his boots could carry him. Mr. Jones had the presence of mind to grab his medical bag. “I have a feeling I’ll be needing this,” he said as they descended the stairs.

When they reached the landing, so much smoke filled the air that she could barely discern the servants who had formed a bucket brigade and already worked to douse the flames.
Had Darcy gotten Bingley out yet? And Caroline—where was she? She headed toward the mayhem, but Mr. Jones caught her arm. “Where are you going?”

“I promised Mr. Parrish I’d help him look for his wife.”

“He has probably long since found her. Doubtless, they wait with the others outside. Where you should be.”

“But Darcy—”

“Will vivisect me if I allow you to remain in this house a moment longer. If you must help someone, come with me to attend your sister.”

She did not need further prompting to seek out Jane. Her lungs burned as she and Mr. Jones groped their way down the final flight and across the entry hall. Coughs wracked her, slowing their pace.

At last they reached the door and burst into the night. Icy pellets stung her, rapidly drenching the thin shift she wore. The stone steps froze her bare feet.

The lawn was pandemonium. Servants raced about everywhere. Some of them carried buckets toward the house, while others carried valuables out. She saw no sign of Darcy or the Bingley family.

“Mrs. Darcy, thank heaven!” Her lady’s maid appeared at her side and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, rescuing her from both the elements and indecency. She handed another to Mr. Jones, who also wore only nightclothes. “I’ve been waiting here for you, just a-praying you’d come out soon!” She bent down and slipped a pair of unfamiliar shoes onto Elizabeth’s feet. “I hope these fit—they’re mine. I couldn’t get to your chamber for any of your things.”

“Lucy, I can’t take your shoes from you!” The servant probably had just the one pair.

“Oh, not to worry, madam. One of the men brought me a pair of Wellingtons from the barn. I’m sorry I don’t have a pair for you, too, sir, but there are more boots and blankets in
the carriage house. That’s where Mrs. Bingley and the others are gathered.”

Elizabeth gratefully pulled the blanket about her more tightly. “Lucy, you are a godsend. Is Jane all right? What of her husband?”

“I think they’re fine, ma’am. But they sure will be glad to see Mr. Jones.”

The trio made their way to the carriage house with as much haste as the weather allowed. Elizabeth felt sorry for Mr. Jones having to walk through the slush with no shoes, but the apothecary uttered not a single complaint. He did, however, immediately procure some boots when they reached shelter.

To her overwhelming relief, she found Jane and Bingley both conscious. They spoke groggily, the effects of the drug and the accident and fatigue still evident. Coughing spasms seized them as smoke worked its way out of their lungs. But they were alive and safe once more. Mr. Jones moved one of the lanterns to a nearby crate and began to examine his patients for the second time that day.

The Hursts sat on the back of their coach, huddled beneath separate blankets. Mr. Hurst wore a pair of borrowed fishing waders beneath his nightclothes, lending him an absurd appearance that Elizabeth wished she were in a better mood to appreciate. Ever the lady, at least in her own mind, Louisa had taken the time to don her dressing gown and a pair of now-soaked slippers before fleeing the house.

“Where is everyone else?” Elizabeth asked. “Where’s Mr. Darcy?”

Mrs. Hurst sneezed and looked about for a handkerchief. Spotting none, nor an appropriate substitute, she self-consciously dabbed at her nose with the corner of the blanket. “After we got Jane and Charles here, he left. I think perhaps he’s helping Mr. Parrish look for Caroline.”

“And Professor Randolph?”

“Also looking for Caroline.”

“Mr. Kendall?”

“Right here, Mrs. Darcy,” boomed a voice from within Kendall’s coach. The gentleman had drawn the curtain across the window. “Thank you for the enquiry. I didn’t know you cared.”

Odious man.

Elizabeth took her sister’s hand. “Dear Jane, what a wretched day you’ve had. First the carriage accident and now this! Have you any idea what happened?”

“No.” A coughing spasm seized her. “I was sleeping so soundly,” she continued when she could speak once more, “that I didn’t even know we were in danger until I woke up and found Mr. Hurst carrying me outside.”

“And I woke up beside her—slung over Darcy’s shoulder,” Bingley said. “Slept right through a fire in my room, but this weather sure is rousing.”

As if in confirmation, Louisa sneezed again. Mr. Jones nodded toward the assorted footwear someone had piled in the corner. “I suggest you trade your slippers for something dry.”

She cast him a look colder than the draft that threatened to extinguish the lanterns. “Servants’ boots? No, thank you.” She shuffled to the doorway, where, with great exertion, she slid one of the doors partly open. Darkness still gripped the sky.

“Does anyone happen to know the time?”

“I think it’s about five, ma’am,” Lucy answered. “Perhaps half-past. Mrs. Nicholls says she was already awake when the bell rung.”

Elizabeth joined Louisa and squinted into the blackness. She wished the sun would rise, that the storm would abate, that
something
would happen to end this gloomy night that seemed intent on stretching to eternity. Confusion gripped the entire grounds of Netherfield. People dashed about everywhere, yet she looked in vain for the one face she most longed
to see. Where was Darcy? Though she knew he was quite capable of taking care of himself, she could not be easy until she saw him again.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with that Mr. Parrish,” Louisa muttered. “He’s doing an abominable job of caring for my sister.”

Elizabeth longed to respond that it was Caroline herself who continually presented poor Mr. Parrish with the most obstacles to that goal, but she knew her point would not carry. “He seems to be trying his best,” she said.

“An Englishman would try harder.” Mrs. Hurst returned to her coach and asked her husband to hand her inside where she could sit more comfortably. “Mrs. Darcy, if your maid is done attending you, perhaps she could fetch me a hot brick. My own maid seems to have disappeared.”

“A hot brick?”

“Yes, for my feet.”

Elizabeth blinked. “I’m sure there are plenty in the burning house. Would you like some tea as well?”

“That would be lovely.”

Elizabeth met Lucy’s gaze. The maid regarded her uncertainly. She had served her only a short time, since Elizabeth’s engagement, and had not yet learned to read her mistress’s moods.

“Lucy, without getting in the way of anyone working to put out the fire, please enquire among the servants whether anyone has injuries requiring Mr. Jones’s attention. Also ask whether anyone has seen Mrs. Parrish or my husband. If you happen to encounter Mrs. Hurst’s maid, kindly relay her requests.”

“Yes, ma’am.” With a relieved expression, Lucy set off.

The apothecary finished his ministrations and, aided by Mr. Hurst, moved the weary couple to the relative comfort of the Darcys’ coach. Jane and Bingley each rested against one side and stretched their legs the length of the padded seats.
Elizabeth sat on the coach floor for a time, holding Jane’s hand and speaking with her softly, but her thoughts were too scattered and her heart too anxious to attend her own conversation. Fortunately, her sister soon drifted back into slumber. Bingley followed shortly.

She left the coach and wandered restlessly about the carriage house. She longed to
do
something. She’d promised Mr. Parrish she’d help look for Caroline, and Darcy’s prolonged absence distressed her more each minute. Mr. Jones observed her agitation without comment, but his expression clearly discouraged her from succumbing to the impulse to leave this sanctuary. Who was he, though, to stop her? A man, just a man, with no real power over her save his own disapproval. And how often did she let mere disapproval by an outsider sway her actions?

She pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders, preparing to go back outside. Darcy had told her to get out of the house, and she would honor his wishes in keeping her promise to Mr. Parrish. She would begin her search on the grounds—perhaps Caroline had exited the mansion but didn’t know where the rest of the family had gathered.

If, however, in the process of seeking Caroline she learned that Darcy had not yet made it out of the burning building, the fires of hell itself would not keep her from going back in after him.

Ignoring Mr. Jones’s objections, she slid open the door to find Lucy just returning. She quickly drew the drenched maid inside. “Lucy, what have you learned?”

“No one’s seen Mrs. Parrish, ma’am. Mr. Parrish is a-looking everywheres for her. He says you should stay put. The professor’s helping him look.” She blew on her hands through chattering teeth. “Only one person’s hurt so far. One of the maids—nobody I talked to seemed to know if she’s an upstairs or downstairs maid, but anyways she’s in the barn with some bad burns.”

Elizabeth retrieved a dry blanket and draped it across Lucy’s shoulders. “And my husband?”