Chapter 7 A Test of Fire

Elizabeth Bennet heard humming. The constant, irritating humming that she could not escape courtesy of the care of Dr. Stevens. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes to see the man inspecting her chamber pot, making that infernal noise.

“Sir, I believe I was quite clear last evening that I would prefer you not enter my bedroom before I have awakened,” she said, pushing up to her elbows, looking around for Jane. Her bedroom door was open and she could hear numerous voices of her family members throughout the house. “Where is Jane?”

Dr. Stevens made notes in his journal and restored the handkerchief placed over the private vessel. “She just left to see about your tea. This is yours?” he asked, and Elizabeth flopped back on the bed in defiance.

“Yes. As I told you yesterday morning, my sister has her own.”

“Quite right, quite right.”

“Father!” Elizabeth shouted, truly at the end of her patience with the good doctor Mr. Darcy had sent to vex her night and day.

Dr. Stevens chuckled. “He is not in,” he explained, suddenly earning a glare of threatening anger from his patient. Stepping cautiously back from her bedside, the man wisely returned to stand in line with the open door. “Perhaps I should step out and allow you to dress?”

“Yes, and close the door on your way out!” she shouted, waiting until the door latched before daring to remove her coverlet.

Sucking in her breath in preparation for pain, Elizabeth gasped when removing the coverlet no longer bothered her legs! She laughed almost maniacally as she flapped the blanket over and up, over and up, with no ill effects. After her amusement faded, she gazed down at the tops of her feet and wrinkled her nose. The skin still looked terrible where her burns had been, but after five days of vinegar treatments from Mr. Jones, and weathering a fever for three, she finally felt only the echoes of pain where once it had caused her to scream.

The lack of pain allowed her to exuberantly leap from the bed, only for her weakness from a lack of food to cause her collapse with a thump. She cursed her thoughtless behavior but righted herself out of sheer determination.

“Miss Elizabeth!” Dr. Stevens’ voice called and he began to open the door.

“I am well! I am well!” she shouted, her voice cracking from a touch of dryness. Feeling as though she ought to wait for Jane, she called the next best thing and asked the good doctor to send her a maid. Elizabeth despised help with her dressing, as in her earlier years, the staff were always loyal to her mother and tattled on her about many a torn petticoat and muddied hem. But the new maid, Henrietta, had become a close ally now that Elizabeth and Jane enjoyed control over their pin money.

Jane arrived with a tray of tea and toast just as Henrietta struggled to fix a gown over Elizabeth’s undergarments. Over a week without indulging in her favorite foods had thinned her bones to practically Jane’s measurements. In the end, such a solution was her elder sister’s idea: Elizabeth would borrow one of Jane’s frocks for the day.

“Would I be a horrible sister if I begged we take the tray downstairs? I am so tired of this room!” Elizabeth complained, sitting on the bed with her feet dangling over the edge. Her skin healed and closed, she could wear regular stockings and slippers for the first time since the dance. And her hands no longer hurt where the glass had cut them, the scars just as Mr. Jones said, on the inside of her palms and out of sight.

“I have a better idea,” Jane said, with a cat-like grin. She walked over to the door and opened it, revealing Dr. Stevens waiting in the hall. “Did I not hear you speak to Mr. Darcy and my father this morning that if Elizabeth is well, you must return to London?”

Dr. Stevens walked in and bowed to both ladies. “Yes,” he said, sheepishly. “This is why I was trying to conduct my final check of your person. I believe you to be well . . . quite well,” he emphasized, using Elizabeth’s own words she had uttered over and over for the last two days.

Still, Elizabeth fumed. In her opinion, that man was the very reason she had taken such a turn for the worse. And without Jane, no one would have called for Mr. Jones. As far as she was concerned, not only could Dr. Stevens leave Longbourn, but she hoped she never saw the man again.

Stalling, Elizabeth utilized the tray Jane had brought up to make herself a cup of tea. The water had cooled in the time it took from its arrival to her partaking, providing the perfect amount of warmth to her parched throat from a combination of slumber and recovering from the infection.

“Lizzy?” Jane asked, as her sister showed signs of thoroughly enjoying the doctor’s discomfort.

“Jane, I am breaking my fast. And then, I will happily go below stairs to speak to Father and Mr. Darcy, assuming the man is still here.”

“He is,” Dr. Stevens explained.

Elizabeth brushed an errant curl that had fallen to her face. In her haste to be dressed, she had not pinned her hair properly.

“Perhaps you’d care to wait downstairs?” Elizabeth stated more as a demand than a question.

Dr. Stevens walked over to her bedside table to retrieve the last of his instruments and place them into his leather bag. Elizabeth refused to meet the man’s eye, earning a soft sound of disapproval from her sister.

Once they were alone, Jane assaulted Elizabeth’s behavior.

“You know, many people have nursed you back to health,” she began.

“Not him! He nearly killed me!”

“Lizzy, you are being ridiculous.”

“Until I was under his care, I was mending well.”

Jane placed the slice of toast with a pat of butter on a plate and handed it to her sister. If she was so intent on breaking her fast, Jane intended to help her.

“That is entirely unfair. Even Mr. Jones said that there was no way to know when your body had begun to fight infection. Dr. Stevens might have saved you! If he hadn’t drained that fluid, you might have succumbed!”

Elizabeth scowled. She sipped her tea to hold back what she wanted to say to Jane, that it was easy for her to not be cross, she hadn’t been subjected to the burning cleanse of vinegar treatments every few hours to an open wound. As she allowed the unsweetened, bitter liquid to stun her tastebuds, Elizabeth watched Jane more closely. Her sister looked almost as terrible as she felt. Her eyes were darkened circles, her lips thin and cheeks pale in color.

But any sympathy Elizabeth might have felt for Jane ended the moment her elder sister decided to help her with her hair. It was always clear when Jane was angry and the last activity you wanted her to do was brush or style your hair.

“Ow! You’re hurting me!”

“Tosh, you cannot go downstairs with this tangled mess of a bird’s nest,” Jane charged, insulting Elizabeth’s curls that rarely submitted to being tamed.

Closing her eyes, she felt Jane’s efforts slacken in pull. Her sister attempted to be more gentle.

Elizabeth sighed.

“What do I need to say in Father’s study?”

Jane didn’t answer at first. So Elizabeth asked her again.

“Well, Mr. Bingley and I were taking a turn around the garden when Father and Mr. Darcy spoke. I only caught the end of the conversation.”

“Jane!” Elizabeth expressed her frustration with her sister. For two decades, at least since they could both talk, they had looked out for one another. Elizabeth helped Jane escape their father’s notice when it came to lessons, and Jane distracted their mother whenever Elizabeth’s exploits were cause for admonishment.

Jane mumbled as she held the pins in her mouth while putting a simple plait into Elizabeth’s hair. One by one, she pulled out the pins to weave and push them into place, taking care not to poke Elizabeth’s scalp. Still, she missed once.

“Use a ribbon,” Elizabeth pleaded, but Jane told her it was too late. Elizabeth moved away just as Jane finished her handiwork.

Taking the empty teacup from her sister, Jane set it on the tray.

“I’m certain if you wash your face and muster what spirit you can manage, you will say and perform everything you need to convince Mr. Darcy and Father that you no longer need Dr. Stevens’ services.”

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow at her sister as Jane seemed to be in great haste to finish her duties to her sister.

“Mr. Darcy? I surely do not need humor his opinion on the matter,” she said, with as little care to her voice as she could playact.

“That tone will work well with them, but will never persuade me,” Jane said, laughing lightly at her sister. “I heard the name you moaned in your sleep,” she added, cheekily, grabbing the tray and leaving the room before Elizabeth could protest.

Vanity seized control over Elizabeth’s thoughts as she consulted the looking glass that hung over the dressing table she and Jane shared. The reflection staring back at her shocked her. She had thought Jane looked poorly, she looked positively ghastly! The grayish sunlight spilling into her room from the mid-autumn morning made her coloring appear ghoulish. Gone was the strong, vivacious woman who hiked more mornings than not up to Oakham Mount. Her cheekbones were suddenly very prominent, as was her collarbone. Twisting her mouth this way and that to make faces in the mirror, Elizabeth settled on the only happy thought she could muster before facing both her father and Mr. Darcy together. At least now her mother would not scold her for eating extra biscuits at tea time to consider her figure.