Chapter 2 A Test of Fire

Elizabeth Bennet fluttered her eyes open and the blurry image of her sister Jane appeared. Closing them once more, she sunk into a deep peace of being reunited with her sister. For a brief moment, she believed they must have perished together. But as she opened them again, searing pain ripped through her body from her feet up through the top of her head. She cried out, but her throat was too dry and the scream came out abrasive, scratchy, scarcely audible.

“Oh, Lizzy!” Jane exclaimed as Elizabeth flailing her arms knocked the teacup off the small table next to their shared bed.

Thunderous shouts and scrambling from the hall came bursting into their room as their father and three younger sisters suddenly came to see the miracle for themselves.

Mr. Bennet’s bottom jaw quivered at the sight of his battered child, finally conscious after the fire two nights ago. He rushed to her bedside but hesitated to touch her as her hands were bandaged and her legs had sustained burns from when her gown caught on fire. Dropping to his knees, he bowed his head in prayer.

“Merciful Lord, that you have restored to us what we feared lost,” he uttered.

Elizabeth tried to swallow, but her mouth was still dry and her hands useless. She looked to Jane and mimed with her cracked, dry lips to signal she wished to have a drink.

“She’s thirsty!” Kitty exclaimed, and Jane rushed out of the room to seek more tea. She reached the kitchens where Hill stood ready with a fresh tray at the ready, prepared at the sound of good news upstairs.

“Is Miss Lizzy?”

“She woke up!” Jane said, to the cheers of the servants behind Hill, back in the kitchen. She reached out as to take the tray, but Hill refused. She insisted she would carry it up behind her. Jane took two steps and then urged Hill to go up without her. Turning around, she walked over to her father’s study where the door stood ajar, and inside, a man paced back and forth before the window.

“My sister has awakened,” she said.

A pair of pained brown eyes gave Miss Bennet his full consideration. “Has she spoken?”

Jane shook her head. “She tried to, but the smoke . . . I am certain once she has some tea, perhaps. I’m sorry, Mr. Darcy, I really must go back above stairs and see to her needs.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” he said, picking up his hat from the chair he had frequented so often in the last two days. “If I might be of any service . . .” he began, but Miss Bennet had already left. Suddenly, he felt as though he were intruding and thought it best to return to Netherfield Park and carry the good news to Mr. Bingley, who would undoubtedly wish to bring his good tidings tomorrow when they met for the funeral service for the fallen. Twenty souls lost, but at least it had not been twenty-one.

Taking his hat in his hand, he felt quite dumb that he had not thought to summon his physician! But that was one circumstance he could remedy. Alone in Mr. Bennet’s study, he pulled out parchments and a quill and began to write his missive.

Above stairs, Jane poked her head into her mother’s room, but Mrs. Bennet remained abed, keeping the room dark.

“Jane?” she croaked before the eldest Bennet daughter could rejoin the sister who had risked her life for her safety. Of course, Lizzy would have died in that search if Mr. Darcy had not intervened, Jane had escaped through the back door when the panic spread throughout the assembly.

“Yes, Mama. Lizzy has awakened.”

“Praises to the angels you were spared the loss of a dear sister,” Mrs. Bennet said, weeping. Aunt Phillips had been playing cards upstairs at the assembly and was sitting closest to where the fire broke out. How the blaze occurred, no one fully understood, but the origin paled in priority compared to the outcome.

Jane grimaced as she wanted her mother to rejoice that one of her offspring was spared. But she held her tongue from any criticism. Lizzy was not healed yet and Jane felt unsure of daring to consider her devastation if Elizabeth had not awakened.

“I shall see to Lizzy,” she said, as though her mother had worried about who would see to her daughter’s care.

Back in the room, Mary had taken the position of spooning small amounts of tea to Elizabeth’s fragile lips. Mr. Bennet paced in an agitated state, frustrated by his inability to ease the pain of his favorite.

“You cannot move, Child! Your legs were badly scorched and Mr. Jones worried you might not recover. The bandages . . .” he began, looking around the room for the basin. Finding the bowl with fresh bandages in the water, he tested the temperature to find the water had gone warm. “Hill!” he cried, and the housekeeper suddenly appeared. “Cold water, the coldest from the pump,” he demanded.

“Father, she is in pain. She cannot help but move,” Jane soothed, stepping forward with the bottle that was usually trusted only to the lady of the house. With her mother out of commission in her grief, it became Jane’s burden to administer the laudanum. She placed a drop in the next spoonful Mary was about to dribble into Elizabeth’s mouth. “This will help you rest, and when you wake again, we can talk to you more. Learn if there are any injuries we have missed,” Jane said, calmly, taking over the tea duties from Mary.

Kitty and Lydia stood in the back of the room, still frightened to get too close to Lizzy.

When the fresh bowl of cold water arrived, Jane sighed as Elizabeth was now beginning to slumber lightly.

“Father, you have slept not a wink. Why don’t you find some rest and I will change Lizzy’s bandages.”

“Jane, you take too much on upon yourself,” the man replied with gratitude, suddenly aging before her very eyes from his exhaustion finally settling in.

“You girls too, I will need Mary and Kitty to sit with Lizzy tonight.”

“What about Lydia?” Kitty asked, making Jane smile. Despite the calamity before them, her sisters could still find cause to squabble. The small glimmer of normal life before the fire gave her the oddest sense of hope.

“Lydia can stay with me and read for Lizzy. Can’t you, Lyddie?” Jane asked, and the youngest Bennet sister nodded assent, even though reading aloud was her least favorite thing to do.

Soon the room emptied and Jane was left with nothing but the unpalatable task of tending to her sister’s wounds. The cuts and minor burns on her hands would heal the fastest, Mr. Jones predicted. And if there was scarring, it would be along her palm, unnoticeable. Jane also felt her sister would mind less the injuries to her hands because so often they wore gloves outside of close family and friends. The real problem was her legs.

Gently, Jane lifted the coverlet and watched her sister closely for distress. Lizzy moaned, and Lydia paused in reading the book of Hamlet they had been using to keep their patient company.

“Keep reading, she is well. This is never easy,” Jane encouraged Lydia.

Under the coverlet, bandages soaked in an odd yellowish coloring with tinges of blood covered both of Elizabeth’s legs from the tops of her feet to just a few inches above her ankles. Jane gave another prayer of thanksgiving that the injury was not more extensive up Elizabeth’s calves, or worse, to her thighs, which would have been fatal. It wasn’t clear how her dress caught on fire, but the assumption was that embers from the ceiling must have fallen onto her skirts as she was searching. That same ceiling collapsed just moments after Mr. Darcy stumbled out with Elizabeth in his arms.

Jane felt a wave of guilt pass over her as she tenderly removed the first bandage. She followed Mr. Jones’ instructions and breathed deeply to detect if there was any foul odor coming from the wound. But the oozing, angry pink and red flesh, exposed to the air gave none. She held Elizabeth’s leg down as she removed the others for washing, as once the first was removed, her sister attempted to avoid further discomfort in her sleep.

When at last the skin was exposed, Jane cringed over the next part. Lifting the bottle of the treatment left behind from Mr. Jones, a foul-smelling liquid made chiefly of vinegar and urine, she beckoned Lydia over to the bedside.

“Please, no,” Lydia whispered, refusing to put down the book.

“We must. You know we must,” Jane said, sweetly as though what they did next was akin to unpleasant lessons in the schoolroom. “Do you want to hold or dab?”

“Dab,” Lydia said, putting on Jane to move out of the way and prepare to brace all of her weight on Lizzy’s thighs.

“Ready?”

Lydia nodded, the mixture in hand, and dipped the sponge into the bowl.

Jane took a deep breath and pressed herself against Elizabeth’s strongest muscles and Lydia hesitantly dabbed the injuries.

“Faster!” Jane urged as Elizabeth grew restless.

A new outcome of the searing treatment manifested quickly, the direct result of their care just moments before. Elizabeth Bennet let out a soul-piercing scream. Followed by another, and another.

Lydia froze and Jane began to bark orders.

“Get the bandages!” she grunted and began to blow on Elizabeth’s ankles to try to cease her sister’s thrashing and howls of misery.

“What?” Lydia asked as the racket was loud.

“Bandages!” Jane yelled.

Down below the stairs, Mr. Darcy clenched his knuckles tightly. At first, he was elated to hear the best news that Elizabeth had awoken, but that unearthly scream unsettled him to his core. He warred with the rules and boundaries of polite society. Why was no one helping them?

“Pardon me, sir,” Hill said as she hurried up the stairs to the girls’ room.

Deciding that he could accept the consequences that come, he braved entering the private sanctuary of the Bennet household, one reserved for the most intimate of family members and not visitors like him. He rushed up the stairs as the screaming continued.

The room Elizabeth was set up in was the second on to the left, and he stood in the doorway to spy utter chaos. The youngest sister stood in the middle, crying, paralyzed with fear. Miss Bennet’s hair had fallen from its pins as she tried to explain what needed to be done and keep Elizabeth from further harming herself.

Confidently, he strolled into the room, gently nudged Lydia to the side, and with a calm, baritone voice spoke.

“How may I assist?”

Jane began to speak, but noticed at the sound of Mr. Darcy’s voice, her sister’s thrashing lessened.

“Keep speaking, sir,” she whispered, nodding to Hill towards the bandages.

Mr. Darcy looked around the room and spied the abandoned tome of Shakespeare in the chair. Lifting it he began to recite:

To be, or not to be — that is the question.

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

Elizabeth stilled and Jane and Hill made quick work of applying the fresh cool bandages to her tormented skin. Still, Mr. Darcy cleared his throat and continued, his delivery steady and methodical, rivaling the clarity of tone of any London actor.

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And, by opposing, end them.

Jane sighed in relief and stood next to Mr. Darcy as they watched Elizabeth settle down, back to a slumbering, labored breathing. Jane stepped forward once Hill retreated and replaced the coverlet over Elizabeth’s legs, removing the slight indecency to her modesty in front of Mr. Darcy.

“Thank you, Mr. Darcy. My father has been with her night and day, reading to her. She must have thought you were him,” Jane explained as it struck her as so uncanny that the moment Mr. Darcy spoke, her sister responded.

“Of course. I am happy to have been of what little service I could,” he stated, then recalled his letter down in the study. “I am sending for my physician in London.”

“That is very kind of you, though I do think she is mending well.”

Mrs. Bennet suddenly appeared in the doorway, thankfully wrapped in her robe, though entirely inappropriately dressed for Mr. Darcy’s presence.

“Jane? Jane? Oh, Mr. Darcy! Whatever are you doing in here, sir?”

Mr. Darcy’s eyes widened in shock at Mrs. Bennet’s disarray, and Jane cringed with embarrassment.

“Mr. Darcy was needed to help with Lizzy’s care. He read out loud while Hill and I changed her bandages,” Jane explained, as Lydia suddenly bolted from the room, afraid she might get scolded for being in a room with a gentleman.

“Where is your father?”

Mr. Darcy handed the book to Miss Bennet and bowed to her mother. “I believe he has finally given in to his exhaustion. I am so sorry for your family’s loss and realize I am intruding. Forgive me.”

He glanced back to take one last look at Elizabeth, though to Mrs. Bennet it appeared Mr. Darcy was looking back at Jane, and then removed himself from the room after Mrs. Bennet stepped back to allow clearance.

Stepping into her daughter’s room and seeing her pale, second daughter, lying on the bed, she sniffed and made a face of disgust. “He must truly have an interest in you Jane, to come into the sick room.”

Jane closed her eyes as her mortification finally registered outside of the crisis. There was nothing pleasant about caring for Elizabeth’s needs in her current state, but the man had been ever-present nearly night and day since the tragedy.

“I don’t believe it was my benefit he sought out, Mama. Would you like a tray of food?” Jane offered, realizing that her sister would be fine for a short time.

“Yes, yes I believe I should eat,” Mrs. Bennet agreed, slowly approaching Elizabeth’s sleeping form. She bent down to press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, and then gently patted Elizabeth’s matted hair. “You are always so strong, my Lizzy.”

Jane gaped at the sudden tenderness from their mother but didn’t dare to say a word. When her mother was finished with the maternal ministrations she cared to offer, she smiled weakly at Jane.

“You take so much upon yourself, Janie. Mind that you also care for yourself,” she said, leaving the stench of the sickroom behind to return to her own bed.

Jane laid down in the extra bed they moved into their shared room from the guest room. It was small and not so tightly strung, so the mattress sank a few inches when she rolled onto it, not bothering to change into a shift.

She stared at her injured sister, sleeping fitfully as Jane observed her wince and grimace in her sleep, but not open her eyes. Even though she realized Elizabeth was still in considerable discomfort, seeing her sister fight and respond to the pain was far preferable to before when they were unsure if she would awaken again.

“If I was in that bed, you’d do the same for me,” she said, with a yawn. “Only you’d manage it so much better. They’d all listen to you,” she said, dreamily, before finally allowing herself to take a rest as well.