Sudden Awakenings (The Other Paths Collection)

Chapter 37

Fear gripped Darcy’s heart at seeing his wife lying on the bed, unconscious. With a footman’s help, he had carried her up the two flights of stairs to her bedroom. Bixby sent for the doctor who arrived shortly.

The doctor examined Elizabeth thoroughly. “I am not certain what is wrong with her. But her symptoms appear consistent with poisoning.”

Darcy felt his mouth run dry. “Poisoning?” he repeated.

“Could something have been wrong with the tea?” Bixby suggested.

Darcy shook his head. “She did not drink any of it.”

Parker, who was also hovering nearby, asked, “Perhaps something she ate during breakfast?”

“I do not believe so. If she had, she would have fallen ill much sooner,” the doctor replied. “Was Mrs. Darcy home all day?”

“She went out earlier, sir, to call on Mr. Darcy’s aunt,” Parker told him.

“She called on Lady Matlock?” Darcy asked.

“No, sir. It was Lady Catherine whom she visited. Her Ladyship sent a message this morning, requesting her presence, while you were out.”

Darcy clenched his fist. What had Lady Catherine given her ?

“We must discover if Mrs. Darcy consumed anything while she was calling there,” the doctor declared. “If she was, indeed, poisoned, then perhaps we might learn by what means, in order that I might properly treat her.”

Parker wrung her hands. “I should have accompanied her! I would have, but Mrs. Darcy insisted she had no need of my services, and since I was behind on my work at home, I allowed her to leave unchaperoned.”

“It is not your fault, Parker,” Darcy sought to reassure her. “It is possible, had you accompanied her, you might now be in the same predicament.

Bixby left to order Darcy’s carriage, while Parker was sent to fetch cool compresses for Elizabeth’s head. Once they were out of the room, Darcy addressed the doctor in a low voice.

“Will she live?” His throat tightened.

The doctor pressed his lips together. “It is uncertain. Until I know what poisoned her, I can do little to treat her other than attempt to keep her comfortable. I cannot administer any medications or seek an antidote.”

Darcy nodded slowly. His insides felt as though they had been reduced to ashes. How could he bear it if he lost Elizabeth?

S

Darcy did not wait for Lady Catherine’s butler to announce him before bursting into her drawing room.

“What have you given to Elizabeth?” he demanded.

Lady Catherine was on her sofa, cradling a small dog that appeared to be dead .

“How dare you enter here, unannounced and unbidden!” She said through her tears. “Can you not see I am mourning the loss of my poor Otis!”

“Elizabeth lies at home right now, unconscious and weak. What did you do to her?” He put his hands on Lady Catherine’s shoulders and shook her, roughly.

“I told you things would not end well if you married her. I warned you that you would come to see the mistake you have made, in not choosing Anne.”

“What. Did. You. Do.” He spat out each word.

“What makes you think I did anything at all?” Lady Catherine answered him. “I merely invited her to tea, to extend an olive branch to her. Surely, you can see nothing wrong with that.”

Darcy’s servants who had accompanied him returned from searching the kitchens.

“Sir,” one of the footmen said. “We found these in her kitchen.” He held up a platter of scones. “They must have been poisoned. The kitchen maid lies on the floor. Dead.”

“We also found these.” Another servant held up a basket of deep, luscious berries resembling blueberries, a jar of tea, and a receipt.

Darcy took the receipt and read it. It contained a list of ingredients for a custom tea blend. One of the ingredients listed was flowers from the belladonna plant.

“You gave her belladonna?” He picked up one of the hideous porcelain figurines off of her side table and smashed it against the wall.

“Darcy, be reasonable! Belladonna flowers are perfectly safe to drink. I have taken them in my tea for years, as a remedy for my ulcers. Mr. Collins grows them for me in his garden. Do you think I would be alive today if my tea blend contained a deadly quantity of them?”

She had a point. Although Darcy had not known that it contained belladonna, he knew she drank her special blend daily .

Lady Catherine glared at him. “Now, if you would, kindly leave me in peace to grieve my poor puppy.”

Darcy crossed his arms. “How did your dog die, exactly?”

“It must have been something he ate,” Lady Catherine insisted. “Perhaps your Elizabeth slipped him something, for he died not an hour after she left this house. I bet she had chocolate in her pocket and gave it to him!”

“Or perhaps whatever poison you intended for her made its way to your dog instead,” Darcy said. Not waiting for her permission, he scooped up the dead animal from her arms and turned to leave.

“Stop!” Lady Catherine cried. “Give me back my Otis!” She ordered her butler to bar the way to the door, but Darcy and his servants pushed past him. Lady Catherine chased them all the way to the street, where Darcy’s carriage waited. But Lady Catherine, with her large figure, was not as agile as Darcy and his footmen were. She could not reach the bottom step before they were off.

S

Elizabeth dreamed of Darcy, but it was not a pleasant dream. She kept running towards him, but he continued to remain out of reach. She called out to him to wait for her. He stopped and turned towards her, but instead of a smile, he wore a frown.

“I told you, Elizabeth, I do not love you. I never have, and I never will.”

“But, why?” she cried.

“Because you forced me to marry you. You tricked your way into my bedroom, pretending to be sleepwalking, so that you would be compromised, and could lay your hands on my fortune.”

“That isn’t true! You know it isn’t! ”

He turned away from her and continued walking. She reached out to grab his arm. When he turned his head again, his face had become grotesque, like some devil or gargoyle. She screamed. She felt a jolt of pain, followed by a bright light. She appeared to be in her bedchamber, but there was a strange person hovering over her, whose face, to her mind, looked like a skull.

“Elizabeth, Elizabeth!” came Darcy’s voice, only his face remained like that of a devil to her.

“Get away from me!” she shouted, thrashing about on the bed.

“Calm yourself,” the strange person with the skull-face said. “It is only Mr. Darcy.”

“No, no, get away from me, devil!” She screamed more, continuing to toss. Her head felt hot, but her body felt chilled, her stomach nauseous as if she were about to lose its contents. The bright light from the window seared her mind, causing a throbbing pain to her head. She felt someone holding her down, and forcing a bitter liquid down her throat, before everything fell back to darkness.

S

“I am sorry to have to do that,” the doctor said, putting aside the spoon. “She appeared to be having violent hallucinations.”

“What did you give her?” Darcy asked.

“Merely a tincture of valerian root, to calm her. It should not harm her.”

Darcy had raced upstairs as soon as he returned home from Lady Catherine’s. The shock of seeing his wife screaming and convulsing upon his entering the room, as well as the way she seemed not to know him, calling him a “devil” impressed heavily upon him.

Elizabeth was still now, having succumbed again to unconsciousness .

Darcy knelt beside her bed and desperately prayed she would recover.

S

The doctor examined the berries, the tea, and the contents of the dog’s stomach and returned to Darcy House with his findings.

“There is no doubt about it,” he said. “Mrs. Darcy was poisoned with belladonna. Both the tea and these scones are laden, although the tea contains only trace amounts of dried petals. However, these scones contain the full berries of belladonna. I am uncertain how many of them it would take to kill someone, but consuming one would certainly cause confusion, blurred vision, dilated pupils, and sensitivity to light. It could also cause delirium and hallucinations, such as what Mrs. Darcy appeared to be experiencing.”

“Then the dog died of belladonna poisoning as well? And the kitchen maid?”

“I have not examined the kitchen maid. The dog ingested an entire scone, which is what killed it. The berries might appear to be blueberries at first glance, but they are most definitely belladonna. If the kitchen maid ate some, it is likely that which killed her as well.”

“Then belladonna poisoning is fatal.” Darcy’s heart felt as though it had fallen through the floor into a giant pit of despair.

“Quite often, yes,” the doctor said. “However, we do not know how much of it Mrs. Darcy consumed. If she only drank the tea, it is possible she may survive, unless Lady Catherine added the juice of the berries to the tea as well.”

There was a knock on the door, precipitating Parker’s entrance. “Forgive me, sir,” she began. “I took the liberty of summoning Mrs. Darcy’s relatives.”

“Thank you, Parker. ”

He took Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner into the room where Elizabeth lay in feverish sleep.

“The poor dear!” Mrs. Gardiner gasped. She knelt by her niece’s bedside and stroked her hair lovingly.

“I hope whomever did this to her is locked away!” Mr. Gardiner shook his head angrily.

As soon as Darcy had left his aunt’s house, he had sent a messenger to Bow Street, and they had arrested Lady Catherine on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.

“The authorities are investigating all this right now,” Darcy told the Gardiners, “but they have Lady Catherine de Bourgh in holding until it is resolved.”

“Can anything be done for her?” Mrs. Gardiner asked the doctor.

“There is not much, no,” he answered. “I have made her as comfortable as I can. If she awakens and experiences more hallucinations, you may administer another dose of valerian root. I must go to consult my library to see if I can determine any antidote or treatment. Send word if her condition worsens.”

S

Darcy showed the doctor to the door. Before he turned to go upstairs, Bixby interrupted him. “I am sorry to bring you news at a time like this, but an express has arrived from Hertfordshire.”

“From Hertfordshire?” He had only sent an express to Longbourn hours before, informing Elizabeth’s parents about her condition. It was far too soon to expect a reply from them.

“Although it is addressed to Mrs. Darcy, I thought, perhaps, you might wish to read it. It may contain news from her family.”

“Yes, thank you, Bixby. ”

Darcy broke the seal. It was from Elizabeth’s sister, Kitty.

Dear Lizzy,

I wish I had time for more lengthy correspondence, but the urgency of the news which I have received compels me to be brief. Since our departure from Pemberley, Lydia has maintained a correspondence with Georgiana. In Georgiana’s last letter to her, she communicated a surprising piece of news– Mr. Wickham has followed her to Gloucestershire these past three weeks, and she believes herself to be in love with him.

This alone would not give too much cause for alarm, but something which she said near the end of the letter hinted at her belief that we would be surprised the next time we meet her, for she should have a new name to call her own. In Lydia’s ecstasy, she told me she feels certain Georgiana must mean to marry Mr. Wickham, for there could be no other reasonable explanation for such a statement. Lydia thinks it terribly romantic.

I argued that Georgiana could not possibly go through with such a thing,as her brother surely has not given his consent to such a scheme, but Lydia believes that Georgiana must have obtained Mr. Darcy’s permission already, or else she would be taking off for Scotland with Mr. Wickham. Perhaps that is her plan, I do not know, but I felt this intelligence must be communicated to you straight away, for you will surely know Mr. Darcy’s intentions and how to act.

I have seen Jane and her new husband, and will write more later concerning my thoughts about their newfound happiness.

For now, I remain, your beloved sister,

Kitty Bennet

Darcy gripped the page so tightly, the edge began to crush. Wickham! So the lady-love he had spoken of wooing was Georgiana, not Miss Silverman. He had long suspected Wickham might have some designs towards his sister, but thought that as long as she was under his protection, Georgiana would be safe. Now, he could see it was a mistake to allow her to travel to Gloucestershire.

With his wife still upstairs at death’s door, Kitty’s intelligence could not have come at a worse time. What was he to do?

He briefly pondered writing to Colonel Fitzwilliam, but the colonel was currently stationed at the training grounds in Kent. Too far away to reach Georgiana in time, even if the news was sent by express.

Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner came down the stairs.

“Your servant mentioned there was an express from Longbourn,” Mr. Gardiner said, noting the worried expression on Darcy’s face. “Is there some news from my sister and brother?”

Darcy shook his head. “No, the letter contains intelligence about my sister, who has been writing regularly to Lydia. I am afraid she may be in danger.” He dared not say more, for the sake of Georgiana’s reputation.

“You must go to her,” Mrs. Gardiner said.

“But, Elizabeth–”

“There is nothing you can do for her here. Her fate is in God’s hands. If there is a chance you may rescue your sister from whatever peril she is in, then godspeed to you.”

Mrs. Gardiner was right. He could not save Elizabeth, but if he set off at once, he might arrive in time to prevent Georgiana from making a foolish mistake. As much as he hated to leave Elizabeth in her present condition, Georgiana needed him more.

Darcy rang for Perkins to pack a saddlebag and ready his horse. He would leave within the hour. In the meantime, Darcy went to his safe and retrieved some important letters he kept there. They might be needed, if he arrived too late to prevent the wedding.