Installment III - Anne de Bourgh, the Humbling

The next morning brought with it a curious easing of Anne’s regular aches and malaise so that she was able, without an immediate tonic, to sit herself up in bed, plumping her pillows as she did, and take up her spectacles to check the time. It was still early, which was not unusual. She always awoke early and found it necessary to fortify herself before facing the day. She reached for her dosing bottle and stopped, frozen with the sudden remembrance that he was here. Her body, were it able, wanted to jump up and race out to find him, like a child on Christmas morning, while everything inside wanted to crawl under the bed and hide. A mixture of anticipation and terror is not a sustainable combination for one as feeble as Anne , and she took to shaking. Her cough immediately bubbled up, and she reached for her strongest prescription, taking more than her full dose. From somewhere in the back of her mind, the tiniest thought leaked out: It is not scotch, but it will have to do. She took another gulp and lay back on her pillows, waiting for the medicine to take effect. Just as her nerves began to quiet, the door opened, and her nurse entered. Without a word of greeting from either woman, she set about administering the rest of the medications. Anne was eventually afforded some small news of her mother while she waited for the waves of nausea that always accompanied her morning tinctures to pass. Her Ladyship was awake and requiring the nurse’s immediate return. The Doctor had been summoned from a deep sleep and would be visiting with his patient for the morning. She had not asked for Anne. After taking breakfast alone, Anne found herself again in the drawing room where another low fire had been set for her, despite it being a warm day. Though she would rather have been in a room less cavernous, she dared not venture further into the house. It had been years since she had been beyond the principal rooms of Pemberley, though she had run freely through the halls as a child. She was not sure she would not get lost in one the many smaller corridors that ran through the interior. She resigned herself to spending the morning alone and soon found it was not an entirely unwelcome notion. The only opportunity she ever had to be alone was when her mother and nurse’s afternoon nod-offs happened to coincide. Then she would steal away to the more remote parts of Rosing’s, away from servants and where she would be in nobody’s way. It was perhaps her only secret. She looked around. There was a beautiful pianoforte that occupied the space behind her. It was the one Elizabeth preferred to play, lovely though of a smaller scale than either Cousin Georgiana’s or the one in the drawing room at Rosing’s Park. It reminded her of the one in Rosing’s housekeeper’s room. Yet, it was clearly of superior quality, and the colour of the wood was of a richer chestnut. Anne listened closely to the silence of the house and withdrew into her chair, sighing as she did. The silence was nice, for it was the true and peaceful silence of a happy home, but a little music would have been nicer, particularly without Lady Catherine’s commentary overriding it. Anne passed the time by taking up book after book and perusing a few pages of each one before tiring of it and replacing it with another . At length, she succumbed to boredom and dozed. When she came to, the Doctor was sitting opposite her, in his same seat from the night before, and was studying her with a physician’s acumen. He waited until the coughing spell, which immediately seized her upon seeing him there, had passed, making no effort to alleviate the attack for her. “Your mother is doing well, Miss De Bough. She is not entirely out of danger of another spell, but she is comfortable, and her vital signs have all returned to normal. However, she has no appetite.” This was the summation of his report to her, and he fell quiet, waiting for the regular set of questions. Anne did not know what to say. Surely there was something to be said. What would that be? She tried to think. Her face must have belied her efforts, for the Doctor next inquired after her own wellbeing. With no ready answer forthcoming, he seemed to grow a little impatient with this strange creature. He started a series of simple “yes or no” questions, which Anne was able to barely answer with nods and shakes of her head and the occasional shrug of her shoulders. Had she slept well? Nod. Had she eaten a good breakfast? Nod. Had she taken any exercise that morning? Shake. Was she feeling poorly? Shrug. Had she taken any medicines? Nod. Could he see the bottles? Nod. The Doctor rang the bell and continued his questioning. Were these new symptoms for which she was being treated? Shake. There was a pause, and he looked her over with more care. Was she in pain? There was another pause as Anne struggled with the answer. Certainly, she was in pain, though it had been so constant for so long that she barely took notice of it anymore. Additionally, she did not like people to know she was in pain as it always led to looks of pity and snippets of useless advice. The tiniest shrug. The Doctor laughed. “That would be a ‘yes,’” he said. A young footman, apparently new to his station, came in and stood awkwardly awaiting orders. “Have someone go to Miss De Bourgh’s room and bring whatever medicine bottles they can find for me to look at.” The questions resumed. Was she always in pain? A sigh and reluctant nod. Had she been so her whole life? Shake. The Doctor was a little surprised. Since when, then? Shrug. Another, much longer pause was finally interrupted by the arrival of the medicines, six bottles in all. They were set down on the ottoman for the Doctor to inspect, and he did so at great length, smelling, tasting, rubbing them on his skin, holding them up to the light. Anne waited with a growing curiousity and admiration for his clearly superior expertise. He finally finished his assessment and sat back with a notable measure of antipathy and disregard. Anne waited. His repugnance passed after a moment, and he continued. He understood her father had passed some years ago. Nod. The Doctor considered. She had been alone with her mother since? Nod. She was not sent to school?

Shake. Had she ever been out of her mother’s company? Anne froze, fearing the implications of her answer. For more than a couple of hours, that is? A sigh and a shake. The Doctor peered into the fire, then, without a word of departure, left the room directly, leaving poor Anne in a swirling mix of apprehension and assuredness. Something untoward would undoubtedly come of her answers, but she was strangely unafraid as long as the Doctor was there.

Chapter 5

The morning wore on, and the shadows shortened across the drawing room floor. Anne was called to dinner and ate alone at the great table. On her way back to the drawing room, she was intercepted by the same young footman. The Doctor had requested that she join him for a walk in the garden. Anne was shocked. She had forgotten his request for a tour the evening before. Panic seized her. She had not been in the gardens at Pemberley since childhood and, apart from the evening prior, which was an abysmal performance, had never been alone in the company of a gentleman. She had absolutely no idea how to proceed. She was presented with her shawl and parasol, which she took with shaking hands. He was waiting under the lane of trees to the left of the stone stairs, a wry smile on his face as he watched her advance.

“Your mother has asked to see you,” he said as she approached. Anne stopped, ready to turn back directly. “Not just yet, however. I have given her a small draught to allow her a short nap. I did not wish to miss my tour.” “I am sorry, sir,” Anne muttered, “I do not know this garden well, or any garden for that matter, but this garden particularly. You may wish to ask Mr. Stoughton for the gardener.” “Miss De Bourgh, I have no interest in the garden,” the Doctor declared, as if it were something previously understood. He gestured for her to join him on a path that was banked by scattered repeating blooms of Jacob’s Ladder. They started a slow stroll, a pace he seemed to adopt for his patients. “I take it you do not walk often,” he mused. “Too much walking makes me dizzy, sir.” He offered her his arm. Anne stopped and looked around to the upper windows of the house. “Do not worry, Miss De Bourgh, your mother has sanctioned the walk, with my suggestion that the fresh air will be good for your . . . constitution.” He smiled. Anne took his arm, and the stroll resumed. “I have been discussing your diagnosis with your mother and your nurse. It seems there are several diagnoses, each with a different remedy.” “I have a routine of medicines, yes.” “And what are the results?” He asked. Anne could not answer. If the Doctor’s question had been addressing improvements to her health, she would have to admit she had not experienced any in all the years of taking the medicines. She had remained just the same. “How do they make you feel?” he clarified. “I do not mind the evening ones. They allow me to sleep,” she said with surprising enthusiasm. “The morning one’s upset my stomach at first, though my doctors assure my mother that this is normal. Then they make me alert, but nervous. There is one I like, however.” Here, the tiniest of smiles snuck onto her face. “How so?” “It is warming, like your scotch.” The Doctor let out a great laugh at this, infecting Anne with it so that she too started a giggle, which warped immediately into a coughing spell, stifled behind her handkerchief. The Doctor watched and waited for the fit to pass before continuing. They walked in silence, the birds chorusing overhead as they came out from under the canopy and onto the meadow that sloped down to the lake. Anne attempted to take in some of the view but could not, so preoccupied was she with watching for the dizzy spell that did not come.

The walk, however short, produced just the effect the Doctor had prescribed. When he escorted Anne to her mother’s room, there was the slightest hue to her cheeks, an ease across her shoulders, and a light in her eyes. Lady Catherine greeted her from her bed. “Your walk with the Doctor has done you some good.” “Yes, mother,” she said and waited for an invitation to enter further. None came. Her Ladyship turned instead to the Doctor with a fresh list of complaints, including having been left attended only by Nurse Jenkins while he was busy escorting her daughter around the gardens. “I do not make a habit of hovering over my patients, Madam. There is nothing greater to make a person feel sickly than to always having someone worrying over their health.”

Anne shifted in her spot.

“Sit down, child,” Lady Catherine barked. Then, to the Doctor, she said, under her breath, “Talk about someone hovering.”

“It is that very subject on which I wish to speak with you, Lady Catherine.” He finished his cursory check of her condition, then pulled a thick chair next to the bed, installing himself deep into it so that he disappeared from Anne’s view. She could hear his voice, which he had lowered, but could not make out what he was saying. She watched her mother closely for her reaction. It was clear that Lady Catherine was impressed with the Doctor and was willing to extend him far more consideration than she did any of the other physicians with whom they were acquainted. Indeed, such was the Doctor’s reputation that even Lady Catherine De Bourgh could not dispute it. She listened to him patiently for a full five minutes, seemingly quite prepared to take his direction, though, as it would turn out, not without her own stipulations. At length, she was finished listening. She turned to look at Anne. After an eternity, she turned back to the Doctor. “We shall consult my nephew on the proposal when he arrives.” An arched look at the young handmaid who stood ready by the door procured the report that Archie had left first thing in the morning to fetch the master, and they would likely arrive later that evening. Lady Catherine was considerably displeased. “I will need something fresh to eat,” she ordered, then turned to the chair. “What do you recommend, Doctor?” A hearty stew and buttered bread were brought in, which Lady Catherine choked down and followed with a small plate of Pemberley’s blackberries. She then excused Anne from the room, requiring her company no further. The Doctor rose to join her but was met with a strong command to stay. Lady Catherine would have some amusement and wished to hear one of his famous stories of the East. Anne descended the stairs quietly and made her way to the drawing room, the needless fire ever waiting.