Page 29 of Till Death Us Do Part: Book 2
Elizabeth thought about it a minute and decided it was the perfect loophole. Her husband specifically prevented her from calling on any of the neighbouringestates, but he had not said a single thing about being introduced to them by chance in a bookshop. She believed the shop door worked as a strainer to keep most disreputable people out.
She whispered her reply, “It would be my pleasure!”
Bartlet led her over to the gentleman.
“Mrs Darcy, may I present Sir William Gladstone? Sir William—Mrs. Darcy. Sir William keeps an estate ten miles north of Pemberley.”
“It is indeed a pleasure to meet you, madam. I understood you to be in mourning, so I have forbidden my wife and daughters from making a nuisance of themselves, but I am not certain how long I will be able to hold back the tide.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Well met, Sir William. Tell them they will be welcome in a few months’ time. My husband is away, in addition to my mourning period, and I prefer to await his return before entertaining.”
“Sensible enough. I shall deliver the message forthwith.”
Elizabeth gave him a slight smile. “I knew another Sir William in my previous home, but I doubt he could distinguish a bookshop from a tobacconist without a clearly written sign.”
Both laughed, and Elizabeth was happy to see at least one gentleman in the area with good humour.
“I might have the same problem, but of a different sort. The tobacconist could draw my attention to the point where I was unable to see anything on either side. I do like my pipe—and that is to say nothing of the wineshop,” Sir William chuckled.
Everyone found they shared the same good humour, and Elizabeth spent the rest of the day in the bookshop. Quite how she had spent so many hours there over five months without meetinganyoneof note before was a mystery, but apparently things went in bunches. Before the day was out, she met Mr Keats, Mr Follet and his daughter Gretchen, Mr Mead, Mr Reeves and his son Garth, and another half-dozen of the local gentry and tradesmen. She suspected a report had begun to circulate that the new Mrs Darcy was in the bookshop and not averse to introductions.
Elizabeth was incredulous at the meetings. Were these the people her husband did not want her acquainted with? Was he worried about her, or about himself?After some consideration and observation, she came to the depressing conclusion that he was not worried about the neighbours discomposing his wife—he was worried about his wife discomposing his neighbours. There seemed no other reason, unless there were some truly bad apples that he was trying to protect her from. That thesis sounded unlikely, but it was at least plausible.
Everyone had left the shop, and dusk was rapidly approaching, when Mr Longman finally ran out of patience. He had been perfectly content to sit and listen to the chatter for three hours, but he wisely drew the line at any perceived danger for his mistress, and riding a new horse in the dark—or even close to it—was just plain stupid.
With a thoughtful expression, Elizabeth mounted with Longman’s aid. She envied his ability to ride astride, and mountor dismount anywhere he liked, but she had to be content with what she had.
For all the ride back to her home that felt less like a home than any place she had ever been, she kept wondering about her husband’s restrictions. Was he afraid of his neighbours, afraid of his wife, or—far more likely—did he just want to control everything in his sphere of influence?
Only one of the potential explanations was to his credit, and Elizabeth eventually decided she could chew on the problem like a dog with a bone for several months, but absent more information, it would be just as unknowable at the end of the process as at the start.
After a decent supper shared with a chatty Molly, who had finished yet another gothic novel since Elizabeth left her at Pemberley all day without a single thing to do except read, she finally laid her head down on the admittedly very fine pillow, atop her admittedly fine bed.
She was happy for her meetings that day and did not really care whether her husband would be or not. She now had friends, and better yet, she had some ideas about how to spend some of her days in a way that was more interesting than talking to her maid, who had read only a few adult books in her life. She had made certain arrangements before leaving the shop, so she at least had something to occupy her time for the next fortnight.
Her last thought before drifting off was that she would endeavour to be scrupulously fair. She would give her husband enough rope to either hang or save himself—but just like any rope, there was a limited supply.
12.Toulouse
“Monsieur Darcy—Monsieur Darcy—Êtes-vous réveillé ? Pouvez-vous m’entendre ?”
Fitzwilliam Darcy tried his best to swat away the annoying voice that was nattering away at him through a pounding headache, but it just kept droning on and on. It took some time for the gentleman to work out that he was either addled, or the fly buzzing about his head was not speaking English. It was all very confusing, and distressing, and confusing, and distressing—and—and—
He had just barely ascertained that he was going around in circles, or more likely going mad, when another voice interrupted.
“Darcy!Darcy!Wake up, old man! I can tell you from experience you do not want to be on our Babette’s bad side, and she seems to be losing patience.”
With a mighty effort, Darcy pried open the eye that hurt less than the other, though his addled brain would be hard pressed to say which one it was, and looked around, which in retrospect turned out to be a mistake.
“Vous allez bien ? Vous souvenez-vous de moi ?”
Darcy shook his head in confusion. He thought the language was French, in which he had reasonable skill, but he could make no sense of her words at all.
The deep voice from a moment previously said, “She is asking if you remember her, my good fellow. I assumed if you still lived you must. She is a hard one to forget, our Babette, hard as nails, but pretty as the day is long.”
Darcy looked up, and had to admit that Babette, whoever she was, would easily pass as a beautiful woman in any situation. She was not especially tall and looked more Scandinavian than French. She had blonde hair, neatly done up in a bun andcovered by a neatly starched cap. She wore a simple dress in a solid pattern, though he would be hard pressed to guess the colour, since his eyes had trouble distinguishing pink from black. She had a neat, white, starched apron over the top. Combined with the fact that he felt as if he had been run over by horses, he made the leap that she was a nurse, and therefore he must be very ill indeed.
He tried to croak out something, but only managed a strangled, pathetic sounding cough, so the nurse called out to a man at the other end of a long room for help. With the man’s aid they lifted him to a sitting position and gave him a drink of water, waited a minute, and gave him a bit more, all the time hammering away at him in French, and occasionally slapping his back if he started coughing.
