Mr. Darcy's Daughter (29 page)

They
stayed with her a week, during which time they sent urgent messages to
Pemberley, to Mr. and Mrs. Tate, and to Julian Darcy at an address in France.

Initially,
Josie seemed to respond to the medication, care, and pleasant surroundings in
which she found herself. But in truth, she made little progress, remaining pale
and weak, with no appetite for even the most delectable food.

Richard
had begun to suspect tuberculosis, deep seated in her lungs, and his suspicions
were unhappily confirmed by a colleague at the hospital, whose opinion he
sought.

Lizzie
and Cassandra were inconsolable on being told the prognosis, unable to accept
that everything that had been done to recover her might prove to be in vain. It
took all of Richard's understanding and patient explanation to persuade them
that it was not for lack of action or care on their part that Josie was deemed
to be beyond recovery.

He
explained that her affliction probably had far deeper roots, though it may have
been exacerbated by the deprivation and misery of the last few months.

Julian
Darcy arrived first, very early one morning, having travelled over two days and
nights from France. When his brother-in-law explained Josie's condition, he at
first refused to believe it, but gradually accepting the inevitable, stayed
with her constantly, reading to her, telling her of his work, and assuring her
she was going to get well.

When
he came downstairs, Cassy could not bear to see the grief in his eyes.

Yet
when he was with his wife, he would cheer up and persuade her to take her food
and medication, as though she was well on the way to recovery. She responded
well, too, giving him hope.

Soon
afterwards, Mrs. Tate and a nurse from Matlock came to join Cassy, who had
decided to stay on, while Lizzie and Richard returned home.

The
latter had done all he could, leaving his patient now in the care of one of the
best physicians at St Thomas's Hospital, who visited daily.

Lizzie
went reluctantly, but knew that there was not a great deal more she could do
for Josie, now Mrs. Tate was here.

Cassy
remained because, as Mr. Darcy's daughter, she had the authority to give orders
and get things done at the house, like no one else could; besides, she felt her
brother needed her.

Cassy
had written her parents a letter that Elizabeth and Darcy read many times over,
trying to glean some hope in the midst of the gloom.

She
wrote:

Dearest
Mama and Papa,

It
is with a heavy heart that I write, though we have been rejoicingat our success
in discovering poor Josie and taking her back to PortmanSquare, from such a
place as you would never have dreamed to have founda member of our family. I
shall spare you the awful details, for I am sureRichard will tell you more;
suffice it to say that she is gravely ill withtuberculosis and, though it
breaks my heart to say this, she is not expectedto live beyond a few months.

Since
we have been here, however, she is much more cheerful and eatsa little better.
Her faithful maid Susan attends her night and day. Josienever complains. Best
news of all is that Julian is here, having travelled fordays and nights across
from France, and dear Mama, you should have seenher face when he walked into
the room. My dear brother has suffered much,but he is a good, kind man and has
completely forgiven Josie and will notsay a word against her.

Cassy's
letter concluded with the hope that she would see them in London, soon. Mr.
Darcy and Elizabeth decided they would go to London immediately; Elizabeth was
determined to go, even though it was almost Winter and she hated London in the
Winter cold.

Before
setting out, however, Mr. Darcy paid a visit to Anthony Tate, to plead with him
to accompany them to London.

"I
believe you must go, Tate. Julian is there; he has come from France and if he
can forgive, so can you. You cannot turn your face from your daughter now;
remember she may not have long to live."

Mr.
Tate was shocked by his words. "How is that? Do they not have the best doctors
and the best medicines in London? No one has told me that my daughter will
die!" he thundered.

Clearly,
Mrs. Tate had omitted this fact in her letter to her husband, or he had not
read it through. On hearing it from Mr. Darcy, he flew into a temper, cursed
everybody including the government and the entire medical profession, and told
Darcy he would be ready to leave in an hour.

Mr.
Darcy returned to Pemberley and, even before he spoke, his wife knew he had
succeeded, where everyone else had failed to persuade Anthony Tate to see his
daughter.

"He
will come, my dear, but he is a very angry man. You will need to be patient
with him. His disappointment and sorrow are so great, he cannot bear it and can
only react with rage, even though he is unable to find the right people to
blame and so rails against everybody."

Elizabeth
knew how very hurt Mr. Darcy had been by Josie's actions and could understand
how much greater must be a father's grief.

*

A
week or two later, there was some good news; Cassandra wrote that Josie was in
much better spirits after the arrival of her father and the Darcys and was now
anxious to see her son. This time, it was entirely up to Lizzie; her brother
Darcy was away in Derby and her father was attending a dying patient in
Chesterfield, whom he could not leave even for a day.

Mr.
Carr, who was visiting her at the time, offered to accompany them; indeed, he
said, they could travel in his carriage, which would be far faster and more
comfortable than the public coach. Having consulted her father and taking both
Anthony's nurse and her own maid, Ellen, with them, Lizzie left for London in Mr.
Carr's carriage, not knowing how the journey would turn out.

She
had never travelled without a member of her family before and, as for Anthony,
she prayed the child would not fall ill or become tired and fractious on the
way.

The
journey was long and tedious, though the roads were far less crowded and
hazardous than before, for more and more heavy goods were being carried on
rail. It meant there were fewer over-laden vehicles on the road posing a potent
threat to smaller carriages. It was also for the most part uneventful, except
when they broke the journey for meals and to rest and water the horses.

Staying
overnight at Luton, before proceeding to London, they lodged at a local inn,
where Mr. Carr, conscious of the need for decorum to be observed, asked for two
rooms for Lizzie and her maid, the child and his nurse. Having ascertained that
they were comfortably and safely lodged, he proceeded a mile up the road to a
hostelry, where the horses could be stabled and fed, and there took a room for
the night.

Lizzie
was not unconscious of the motives behind his actions. It was, for her, an
indication of the sincerity of his feelings for her and his determination to
protect her from gossip. He had assured her father that he would take very good
care of them and he was keeping his word meticulously. Lizzie was certain that,
had it not been for the exigencies of the situation, brought about by the
arrival of Susan that stormy night and the subsequent discovery of the parlous
state of Josie's health, which events had thrown every other plan into
confusion, Mr. Carr would by now have spoken, giving her some indication of his
intentions.

Indeed,
when she had returned from London with her father, her brother Darcy had
indicated as much. He had, he said, given Mr. Carr her note when he arrived on
the Sunday and had watched, with some amusement, the disappointment that had
swept over his countenance.

"He
was most anxious to know if you were in good health and, had you not given me a
hint of it, Lizzie, I might have teased him about being so downcast.

But,
since you had taken me into your confidence, I did not. Instead, I gave him a
few more details about Aunt Josie's unhappy situation. He was most sympathetic
and asked, as usual, if there was anything he could do to help."

Lizzie
had smiled, even as she listened. She could well believe it.

It
was typical of Mr. Carr that he would offer to help. There was never an
emergency in which he would not offer his assistance, readily and without
regard to the cost to himself. It was a character trait that had endeared him
to her from the very start of their acquaintance. In an era of increasing selfishness,
when men were urged to compete for every advantage over one another, a man who
would put himself out for others, without seeking some return, was rare indeed.

She
recalled how a few days after she had returned home, he had called and was keen
to discover how events had transpired in London.

"Is
Mrs. Darcy recovering well? And has any action been taken against those who so
callously took advantage of her?" he had asked, his face dark with anger,
after she had told him of the desperate state in which they had found Josie. It
was with great sadness that she had told him of their fears, based upon her
father's diagnosis and its confirmation by his eminent colleague.

"Sadly,
it would seem that my aunt has contracted tuberculosis, Mr. Carr, and it is not
certain she has either the strength or the will to fight the disease,"

she
had said, adding by way of explanation, "She has wasted away over the last
six months; she was never very sturdy, but she is now a mere shadow of herself.

One
piece of good news, however, is that my Uncle Julian is come from France to be
with her."

At
this Mr. Carr had seemed very moved, especially when Lizzie had added,

"and
he has hardly left her side, since."

"He
must love her very dearly," he'd said, to which Lizzie could only reply,
with genuine feeling, "Oh yes indeed, Mr. Carr, he certainly does."

One
glance at his face had been sufficient to let her see how deeply he was moved
and, for the first time, Lizzie believed he was about to say something more
but, he did not.

Clearly,
it was neither the time nor the appropriate circumstance for a declaration of
love, if that was what he had intended; the words that might have been said
remained unspoken.

Lizzie
had, however, no doubt at all of her own feelings. During the seemingly
interminable days and nights, when she had been in London with her mother,
attending upon Josie, she'd had plenty of time to think about Mr. Carr.

The
realisation that he, above any other man she knew, possessed the character and
disposition that would suit her in a husband had come to her with a clarity she
could no longer deny.

Apart
from a very early and juvenile infatuation for her handsome cousin Charles
Bingley, who had barely noticed her existence, Lizzie had never experienced the
youthful excitement of being in love.

Unlike
many young girls of her age, she was not overly interested in the pastimes that
threw young women into the paths of eligible young men with the potential to
become serious suitors. Lizzie disliked and assiduously avoided hunting and
shooting parties, did not play cards, and took no pleasure at all in flirting;
and while she enjoyed dancing and was very good at it, she was partnered most
often by her brothers and their friends with whom she had grown up.

None
of them had she been able to take seriously for long enough to fall in love
with. She had often marvelled at the capacity of heroines in books to fall in
love at first sight with complete strangers, a practice she thought must be
quite hazardous, even if they did turn out, in the final chapter, to be the
sons of noblemen with large fortunes!

With
Mr. Carr, however, things had always been different. He was older than most of
the young men she knew. Her brother Darcy had said he was almost thirty, which,
from the vantage point of nineteen, seemed an age of considerable maturity,
presenting for Lizzie a remarkable contrast to the rather skittish young men
she met at county functions. There was the fact that he always treated her
seriously, talking to her as an equal, listening to her views, and sometimes
debating them, without the patronising manner adopted by many of the young men
she had met in London. He was handsome and tall, too, she had noticed, of
course.

As
she considered her feelings, Lizzie had to admit that, if the truth were told,
her partiality for him dated from her realisation that, of all the gentlemen
she had met, Mr. Carr was the only one who made her feel like a young woman
rather than a schoolgirl. It was not uncommon for girls with elder brothers to
find themselves treated like children still in the schoolroom. All her
brother's friends, remembering her in a pinafore and braids, did just that,
except Mr. Carr.

Although
they had never engaged in flirtation, she had no doubt that her feelings were
engaged and was beginning to believe that his were, too. When he had kissed her
hand, she had felt her heart race and she had known, without a word being
spoken, that deeper affections than friendliness were involved on both sides.

She
knew in her heart that he was aware of it, too; it was manifest in his manner
towards her when they were alone and often, it had seemed, they had been on the
verge of admitting it to one another. Yet, at other times, they would sit
together and talk of ordinary things, of matters on the farm, the horses he had
purchased, or a piece of music they had enjoyed, as though they were old
friends, rather than new, as yet unacknowledged, lovers.