Richard Fitzwilliam, lately of His Majesty's Hussars, could have made faster progress by crawling into the room. As it was, he limped in with one hand resting heavily on the butler's shoulder, who seemed to think nothing of it, and a cane.
"RICHARD!," came the scream of joy from Georgiana Darcy, and the young lady was across the room like a shot, only to pull up short a few paces away when she saw that her cousin was only partially able to walk and barely able to stand.
"Well, Georgiana… is that all I get," the gentleman laughed, and she then went up and gingerly wrapped her arms around his waist to give him a quick peck on the cheek, before burying her face in his waistcoat.
"Oh Richard, we were sure you were dead. Why did you not write? Come sit. Come sit down right now."
Darcy had by then come over to replace the butler in supporting his cousin. His greeting was more sedate, but no less heartfelt.
"Welcome Home, Richard! Welcome Home, Indeed! Come… sit. Let us introduce you."
"Thank you, Darcy. It is good to be home. Is that Charlie Bingley?"
Bingley had by then joined the Colonel, and in a much more circumspect manner than his usual, replied, "Colonel, still a scoundrel I see?"
The colonel laughed heartily, and Bingley joined him, while everyone else but Darcy looked on in confusion.
Darcy said, "Enough! You look to be in pain. Pick your poison."
"The blue sofa, if you please."
Darcy and Bingley helped the Colonel over, until with a great heaving sigh of contentment, the man sank down into the chair. Lina very quietly asked if there was anything she could do for his comfort, and he smiled, thanked her and indicated all was well.
Georgiana jumped up and down a few times, looked sternly at him, and asked, "Where have you been, Richard. It is bad enough you have been gone two years, but no letter for the last four months seems a bit much."
The Colonel looked at her fondly, and calmly replied, "Are you out yet, Georgiana? Is there still time to learn proper etiquette beforehand, or am I too late?"
Georgiana's deep blush coinciding with his great laugh would have been a wonderful release of tension, if the soldier had not started coughing ferociously.
When he got back on a solid footing, he said, "Forgive me Georgie. I have been in hospital for months, and we take our amusement where we can get it."
The mood of the room took a definite chill, but the Colonel looked around and said, "Enough! No more maudlin thoughts. Might you introduce me to your friends, Georgie?"
Georgiana stood up and replied, "Well, all right… but you will sit there."
"I am convinced."
"Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, may I make you known to my good friends. This is Mr. Bennet, of Longbourn in Hertfordshire."
"Well met, Colonel. It is an honor to meet you."
"Mr. Bennet. Are you the father of that girl Darcy has been mooning over for two years?"
Darcy tried to look at him severely, but everyone in the room just laughed.
"Yes, Sir. Guilty as charged. Here you have my eldest daughter Mrs. Bingley, and my youngest, Lydia."
Jane and Lydia stood up and curtsied, while Jane took the duty of answering, "A pleasure, Colonel."
"Likewise, ladies. Bingley, well done."
Jane blushed at the directness of the statement, while the Colonel hardly seemed to notice.
Bingley stood up, and added, "And my sister, Caroline, though we all call her Lina."
The Colonel looked at her with appreciation in his eyes, and replied, "Miss Bingley, a pleasure."
"The privilege is mine, Colonel."
Once everyone sat down, and Richard was offered and declined refreshment, Georgiana ran out of patience.
"All right, Richard. Four months! We have not heard anything except that you still lived after the last battle for four months. Explain yourself."
Not perturbed by the outburst, the Colonel said, "Did you get my letters?"
"I got the first one, but it was not in your hand."
"Yes, one of the nurses wrote that for me. My hand was… not capable of writing at the time, and even now, it is almost as bad as Bingley's."
Georgiana gasped and looked at the offending hand, only to see a band of scars doing all the way across the back, and one finger that did not point in the correct direction.
Looking wistfully inward as he looked down at his hand folded on his lap, he said, "She kept me alive, that nurse. Kept all of us alive. It was…"
Everyone could recognize it as a solemn moment and said nothing until the Colonel took a deep breath and continued.
"Could you read the letter at all? She had to write dozens in those first few weeks, but she always did so cheerfully, and I thought she had a good hand."
"I could read some of it, but it was water damaged on the way over, so the handwriting was barely decipherable. I got one more that was entirely destroyed, and no more."
"Drat, I had her write two more, and I wrote one myself."
"Where were you?"
"You could not even read that?"
The Colonel just shook his head in wonder at the army's inability to do one simple thing, and finally replied, "They are calling it Waterloo. To me, it was just a massive afront to all that is human."
He seemed to lose himself for a moment, and forgot that there were ladies present, before continuing.
"It was awful… the worst battle I have ever been in. I got it all in less than five minutes. Shrapnel, bullet and bayonet. All three in one surprise attack."
Everyone gasped, and he continued, "That surgeon and the nurse… well, they saved dozens of us. They worked themselves to the bone, day and night. Many dozen were beyond their reach."
Shaking himself, he looked around and asked sheepishly, "I apologize ladies. This is not a discussion for your ears."
Somewhat surprising, the entirely mild looking Mrs. Bingley spoke to him quite sharply.
"We will have none of that, Colonel. May I presume this nurse was a woman? If she can experience it, then I think we can hear about it. You will be surprised at how resilient we can be."
The Colonel laughed in amusement.
Darcy replied, "Do not let her complacent looks fool you, Richard. I can tell you from experience that it is best to be on the good side of the Bennet ladies."
Richard laughed again, and said, "Well then, if you insist, I shall tell you."
"Please do, Colonel."
"I was part of a cavalry force that was cut down by more than half. We achieved our objectives, but at a very high cost…"
He faded out for a moment, before continuing.
"We lost over half our men, and those left were in terrible shape. Some of us were dragged into a local farmhouse where a surgeon and three nurses had set up business. After that, it was chaos. The nurses were running ragged, and the surgeon worked for a night and a day without stopping. Saved a lot of lives. They almost gave up on me… which would have been sensible, but one of the nurses could beat a stone in a stubbornness contest and have enough left over for a mule. She brought me back from the dead."
Bennet replied, "For that, they shall have our eternal thanks. What happened next, Colonel."
"The battle ended soon after that, as far as the Kings and Generals were concerned. Napoleon was defeated, and the war was over. It seemed a reasonable cost to them. What is 60,000 casualties when you are not one of them."
The bitterness of the tone put a damper on the mood of the entire assembly, which the Colonel hardly noticed as he continued.
"I was left in one field hospital with nearly 400 wounded spread across a series of tents and farmhouses. Then it was just a slow grind. Every day, a few boys out to the graveyard, and a few back home. Next day, a few to the graveyard, a few new ones coming in, and a few went home. Those of us that survived did our best to help the nurses that were keeping us alive. In the end, I was one of the last to go home. There were less than a dozen left with just the surgeon and the last remaining nurse when I left."
Nobody quite knew what to say to that, so the Colonel continued.
"Oddest thing! Funny coincidence and all that."
"What is that, Colonel?" asked Miss Bingley, who was apparently the only one brave enough to disturb him.
"That nurse… I could swear I got her the occupation in the first place. It was years ago, when I was a Captain. She found me through some sort of connection… friend of a friend of a relative. Asked me how to become a nurse with a remote posting. I asked around, gave her a name and forgot all about her… until I found her popping my dislocated shoulder back in."
"Extraordinary!"
Nobody was certain who said it, but the sentiment was shared universally.
The Colonel thought a few more minutes before continuing.
"I could have stayed another month, but I wanted to do something for her… for that nurse that kept so many of us alive. I thought I might ask my father to set up an annuity. Keeping his son and a few dozen others alive should be worth foregoing a few rounds of cards."
The last was said with a bitterness that nobody could mistake. He was the one fighting for King and Country while his eldest brother was burning through much of the family fortune in gaming hells.
Darcy, said somewhat stridently, "You will not ask your father or your worthless brother for a farthing, Richard. I will see to this nurse. It shall be my honor and greatest pleasure. How shall I find her?"
"She will be there for two more months, then I have no idea, and she seemed uncertain herself. She might just settle there."
"Does she know what you are about?"
"No… I thought I should see to it before I boasted of it. I left one last letter with her to mail if I never made it home."
Georgiana and Lydia gasped, and the Colonel just looked at them with a kindly expression and asked gently, "Do you wish to be excused from this conversation? It would show some good sense."
Surprisingly, it was Lydia who answered.
"No, Colonel. I think you for both your kindness, your care for us, and for your honesty. We appreciate not being treated like nickninnies just because we are girls."
The Colonel harrumphed, and said, "Fear not, ladies. Your sex was quite adequately represented on the battlefield, and you will never hear me disparage women's courage. You are all probably stronger than you think you are."
His speech was interrupted by a scratch at the door. When Georgiana called for entry, the nursery maid stepped into the door, curtsied, and said, "Begging your pardon, Ma'am. You asked me to bring the little one when she awoke. Should I do so now?"
Jane smiled brightly, and said, "Yes, please bring her in Sally."
The Colonel had a hard time turning to face the door, so he just waited to see what Mrs. Bingley decided to do. It did not take long, as in about another minute, Mrs. Bingley was standing in front of him bending over with a bundle in her arms.
"Colonel Fitzwilliam, may I present to your acquaintance, Miss Elizabeth Bingley."
Much to the Colonel's surprise, the next moment, Mrs. Bingley carefully laid the bundle in his arms, then took his other hand to wrap around to hold her secure, and then she just stepped back leaving the child in his care.
"She likes you, Colonel."
Colonel Fitzwilliam looked down at the little blue-eyed bundle of sunshine in his arms and felt a joy that had been almost entirely absent from his life for far too long. He put his finger in the tiny little hand and felt her grasp it while he grinned at the little girl like a fool.
Mrs. Bingley, apparently not the least concerned with her daughter's safety calmly walked back over to sit with her husband, who was not quite so sanguine about the situation, but not likely to contradict his wife.
Mrs. Bingley continued, "She is just three months old, Colonel. We call her 'Little Lizzie' in honor of her aunt, who is away from home at the moment."
The Colonel, completely entranced, cooed at the little girl, who had apparently had enough excitement for the moment and went right back to sleep.
Without looking away, the Colonel said, "Lizzy… an interesting diminutive. The nurse I was telling you about apparently was called that at one time."
Everyone stared at him, but Darcy was the one to ask, "Lizzy?"
"Yes, well I did not call her that, but some of the men who were very young… boys, really. She let them call her 'Lizzy'. I always thought some of them were probably French, but we all looked the other way. She quite doted on them."
While Darcy was lost in contemplation, Mr. Bennet took up the questioning.
"You say you did not call her that, Colonel?"
The Colonel was back to being distracted by Little Lizzy, and he answered somewhat absently, "Oh no, we were afraid of her."
"Afraid!"
The outburst had come from the group in general, so the Colonel laughed a bit, then carried on quite nonchalantly.
"Oh yes, you did not want to get on her bad side. One time, a Sargent was feeling poorly, and took it out on one of the youngsters I mentioned. Screamed at the poor boy until he cried. The Sargent got a lesson in just how loooooonnnnnnnggggg it can take to remove a bandage if you are not in a hurry. You could not fault our nurse's manners, though. She apologized quite profusely for hurting him… seventeen times."
Everyone in the group laughed at that, and the Colonel warmed to his storytelling.
"I saw her dress down the Earl of Montfort one time. He came in wearing a filthy bandage, dropped off a couple of injured, and went to leave still with the filthy bandage. At least that was his plan until our nurse got hold of him. She said…"
He looked around at all the ladies faces in the crowd, stumbled to a halt, and finally muttered, "Let us just say that he left with a clean bandage and what was left of his pride."
Everyone laughed at that, but Mr. Bennet was not quite finished.
"So, you did not call this wondrous creature 'Lizzy'. What did you call her?"
Absolute silence greeted the question, and the Colonel began to wonder what was afoot.
"Nurse Dashwood, of course. We all either respected her, feared her or both… though she was just the sweetest woman on this Earth if you were on her good side. Once I made a blanket statement that women could not play strategy games like Chess as well as men, and she took a piece of my pride out and buried it in the mud behind the tent that I still have not recovered."
The Colonel was chuckling at the memory of the encounter, while everyone else was sitting forward in their seats.
Darcy started to speak, but Mr. Bennet held his hand, so he yielded the floor.
"Colonel, 'Dashwood' is the name of two sisters in a novel called 'Sense and Sensibility'. Is it possible that was not that nurse's original name?"
The Colonel looked around at everyone staring at him like a prisoner on the dock.
"Nursing is a terrible business, Mr. Bennet. They see more death in a day than most of us see in a lifetime. In many ways, I think it is worse than battle. At least we get to fight back. It is however, one of the few honorable ways a gentlewoman can earn a living if she feels a need to leave her home and decides to forego or delay marriage. So, let us just say that perhaps her name is not 'Dashwood'. We take what we can get, and do not care a whit if their name is what they were born with."
Darcy, wanting to get into the fray, said, "Richard! Describe her!"
Wondering what all the fuss was about, Fitzwilliam continued.
"Well, she is a couple inches short of Georgiana's height. Brown hair. Very pretty… a bit rumpled by her duties, but always well put out. Nicest woman in the world if you are on her good side. Meanest if you are not."
Lydia somewhat surprisingly interjected into the conversation with, "Colonel, you can see what we are getting at, can you not?"
"No, cannot say that I can."
Mr. Bennet replied to the Colonel's confusion, "You see, Sir. My daughter, who left home for mysterious reasons of her own, is named Bennet… Elizabeth Bennet, but we all call her 'Lizzy'. She read that novel less than a month before she departed. She is the height you described, has the hair you described, and the fiery temper… well…"
Lydia jumped in and said, "I can assure you, Sir. Lizzy has enough temper for a dozen nurses."
That assertion broke some of the tension, and everyone relaxed into their seats, with the idea that they might just be onto something.
Lydia continued with, "Can you tell us something else about her Colonel. You were around her for months. Something she says, or something she does that would be distinct?"
Surprised by the sensibility of the question, everyone around the couches started nodding in agreement.
The Colonel thought about it, and said, "Most of what she says could easily attributable to any woman. She was better educated than most, though. She would slip in quotations from literature just for her own amusement sometimes. Half of them were so obscure Darcy would hardly recognize them. She was without doubt gently born and bred. She knows quite a lot about estates. We had a boy who grew up on a pig farm, and she spoke intelligently about the business for hours with him. She was ruthless in Chess and Backgammon. She would smile sweetly at you, act as dumb as a rock, and then sweep in and crush you when you became complacent."
Bennet laughed and replied, "She sounds an awful lot like either my Lizzy, or someone I would equally like to be acquainted with, Colonel."
The Colonel said, "It is easy enough to find out. Darcy, you were going to give her an annuity. Go find her. I presume you will recognize her if she turns out to be your Miss Bennet, and if not, you have business with her anyway."
Everyone laughed a bit, and the Colonel thought about it a bit more.
"I do have one mannerism that I think might be hers alone, although it seems unlikely any of you would have heard it in her original home. It is a sort of saying… something she said reverently… but it is not something likely to come up in normal conversation. It only applies to distressing situations."
"Do tell, Colonel."
"Well, you see. She had an affinity for the youngsters, the boys that were much younger than her and really should not have been there in the first place. I told you she encouraged them to call her 'Lizzy' or 'Miss Lizzy' if they were not quite capable of that level of familiarity."
"Yes"
"Well, when one of them went home, she always said the same thing. She would say something like, 'Go home, Samuel. Be a good man. Live a good and honorable life, and when it gets difficult, as I assure you it will sooner or later, please remember that I am somewhere in the world thinking well of you."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
Everyone looked around in shock at Georgiana who had jumped up from her chair and shouted the last question.
"Repeat that last part, Richard."
Wondering exactly what was going on, Richard gave up on understanding, and repeated, "remember that I am somewhere in the world thinking well of you."
To everyone's complete shock, Georgiana yelled, "HER! IT'S HER!" and then bolted from the room with tears in her eyes while everyone else looked on in confusion.