A/N: The sad deterioration of a once beautiful mind like Lizzy's is always sad to write but painfully necessary.

Part 7- 'A bitter curse…'

'And you are quite sure there is no immediate danger Dr Irvine, Jane will be well again?' Lady Hartfield stood facing the middle-aged doctor, an insistent tone betraying the concern in her voice.

'Considering what Miss Bennet witnessed in seeing the death of that young man, one could hardly expect…'

Lizzy was stern in her reply, 'I am very well aware of what took place here yesterday doctor, I believe my question was with regards to my sisters health.' She met his gaze with a cold look of her own. She had sent for the doctor, as soon as Darcy had left, to gain an insight into Jane's condition, as her mother had made it clear she would no longer be welcome, second hand information from the doctor was the only manner in which she could hope to receive any news.

Dr Irvine sniffed haughtily, 'I believe she will recover fully, it is a matter of time and bed rest of course.'

'Thank you, if you would be so kind to ensure that all bills are directed here and addressed to me. I will settle the whole.' Lizzy moved toward the door in an effort to dismiss him.

He was already moving in that direction, he had no wish to remain longer in the wretched house. 'How very like you,' he thought, 'how very much like the cold and indifferent Lady Hartfield to think that sensation and compassion can be bought.' He had heard something of the events that had led to David's death, and equally had no doubt of the part this woman had played in it. And now, to dismiss any portion of blame she was attempting to pay off her sister's medical bills for a condition her husband had caused.

He shook his head in silent disdain, what change wealth wrought even in those he thought too sensible to be affected by it. He had known Elizabeth Bennet as a child, and where he had once felt the acutest sympathies for her situation, he now felt disgusted by her aloofness. Well he remembered the child, affectionate and easy with everybody, and as he gladly took leave of her, wondered where that sensitive creature had gone.

Darcy did not return to Netherfield immediately, he took to walking the hills surrounding Hartfield Estate, wandering far but always close enough to keep the house in view. How close he had come to kissing her, and how he could have sworn she had not found the notion so entirely repulsive.

It was his perpetual worry that kept him close, 'I am to blame…' she had said, but how she could have been responsible and how she could apportion blame upon herself with such unrelenting despair was beyond him.

Her poor hands, he pictured them still, bleeding and now bandaged lovingly and devotedly by him, she seemed to have been oblivious to the injury she had inflicted upon herself. Yes, it was perpetual worry that kept him close, and would keep him close. He could never very well leave her now.

'So you see, she couldn't have come…' Georgiana looked up at Darcy. He was stood in that familiar lone place by the fireside amazed at what he had just heard.

Bingley likewise was ashen faced. They had all been listening riveted to Caroline's words; she spared no details as to how it all came about. How it was that Lord Hartfield had shot a young stable boy who had threatened him. She spoke with a glint in her eye that made clear her admiration at what she perceived to be the Lord's heroics.

'And Miss Bennet was there…?' Bingley's words bespoke his concern. Caroline nodded enthusiastically. 'Yes, apparently the poor girl was splattered head to foot in blood.' Bingley visibly shook at the horror his beloved had borne.

Mrs Hurst then joined in the narrative, 'They say Lady Hartfield saved his Lordship's life, apparently she shouted out a warning, his Lordship would have been run through otherwise for sure…' She went back to playing with her bangles. Her husband was stretched out on the chaise beside her, drunk and sound asleep, as he turned over and grunted, the room regarded him with disgust.

Darcy went back to chewing his fingernail; it was an unfortunate habit, one he had acquired from perpetual worry, it had begun soon after his parents had died, since then his fingers had rarely looked their best. 'So that is what she meant,' he thought, in saving her husband she had injured her sister.

'Of course,…' Caroline began again, 'You do know the greater surprise lies in her warning him at all.' Darcy looked at her curiously. She had that mischievous glint in her eye.

Bingley shook his head confused, 'I can't understand your meaning Caroline, of course she would warn him, he is after all her husband.'

His sister scoffed, 'Surely you must know how that peculiarity has come about?'

Darcy impatient for details snapped, 'We do not enjoy the luxury of loose-tongued maids who revel in gossip and hearsay, unfortunately gentleman cannot expect to rely on their valets for the latest village scandal…'

Caroline sneered, 'And of course, the luxury would be all the greater if the gentleman in question had a valet to speak of.' Always those belittling comments at his lack of wealth, he was not surprised by it; he had long come to expect little else from the mercenary Caroline Bingley. Georgiana hurt on behalf of her brother went and stood next to him, Darcy patted the hand she rested on his arm.

Bingley, too full of concern for Jane was unwilling to reproach his sister as he ought, he leaned forward in his chair, as anxious as Darcy for more information, 'Caroline what peculiarity?'

She stood and walked about the room, deliberately and rather cruelly drawing out his suspense. 'It was all decreed in the most ridiculous will. Old Lord Hartfield declared that if his son was to inherit anything at all, it was conditional entirely on his marrying Elizabeth Bennet. It is the only way this match could have taken place at all; his Lordship would never have looked at a mere country gentleman's daughter twice. Lord Hartfield could have done infinitely better than Elizabeth Bennet…'

Darcy smiled indignantly, 'Perhaps we ought to say it is Elizabeth Bennet that could have done infinitely better than Lord Hartfield.'

Caroline snorted, and almost laughed outright, 'Elizabeth Bennet…? I assure you the good fortune is entirely hers. After her father's death the family was facing certain destitution, their home was entailed away to a distant male relative. The fact that the Bennets' reside at Longbourn still is due entirely to the generosity of Lord Hartfield. He bought the place outright for her, no it is Lady Hartfield that is to be envied.'

'And yet the village is surprised by her efforts to save him?' Bingley sounded as confused as the rest of them.

Caroline sniffed and held her nose high in the air, 'Lady Hartfield will forever be one of those women who fall headlong into good fortune without the good sense to recognise it as such. By all accounts the marriage is certainly not of the felicitous kind, but they say Lady Hartfield is proud, she will make every attempt to ensure appearances suggest otherwise.'

Darcy was intrigued, this was certainly a development. He had thought the match was through a mutual love, but the fact that they were bound together instead by a father's will was something altogether different. Bounds of the heart were sacred and infinitely more resistant; bounds of the law, on the other hand, to his revolutionary mind, were made to be broken.

Lizzy breathed deeply and fought against the faintness, she stood outside the study once more, much in the same way she had done before Darcy had interrupted. She could not understand this need, this desire to enter the wretched room once more.

Surely it was in an effort to punish her self further, what other reason could there be?

She gripped the handle tightly, the pain from her cuts shot up and the faint tingling travelled slowly up her arm. Pushing the door open slightly, she stepped in with closed eyes. But she was not alone in the room.

No, there was Sarah, dear, forgotten Sarah on her hands and knees with a bucket of water beside her, scrubbing away at the blood stains on the rug. Scrubbing furiously at the place where David had bled, forcefully removing the stain, removing the mark, the memory. She wept as she rinsed out the bloodied cloth in the bucket; her hair was loose and fell about her face, her reddened face, marked by exertion and sorrow.

Lizzy for a moment was aghast and simply stared as Sarah scrubbed and rinsed, rinsed and scrubbed.

'Sarah…?' she called out tentatively, it seemed she was not heard, and she repeated the name. Sarah stopped and shaking in anger suddenly turned a grief-crazed eye on Lizzy, Sarah's eyes were rimmed red and the dark circles encircling them gave her an all the more maddened look, and gave Lady Hartfield all the more reason for fear.

Lizzy shrunk back.

She backed right up against the bookcase, but it was not safe. The wall and the endless volumes were covered in blood splatters; she spied them out of the corner of her eye, and she couldn't breathe. Lizzy recoiled away from the wall and stood in the centre of the room, looking around her, the horror returned, and she saw it all again in her mind's eye. David falling, David dying, and then the voices returned. Recriminating voices…painful voices, accusing…condemning.

Only it was not Darcy's soothing voice that quelled them this time, it was Sarah. Lizzy had shut her eyes, but she could not escape, and Sarah was there in a moment, stood behind her, at the side of her, in front of her. 'It's a curse…' she seemed to be whispering, 'You cannot escape it, always, this will always be with you…what you did. I curse you Lady Hartfield, condemn you to your cold, unfeeling heart, and David curses you, he curses you with all his spirit. The images that play in your mind, that spring from the very depths of hell itself, they will haunt you forever…always…'

Lizzy could bear it no longer. She placed her hands over her ears to shut her out, and fell to her knees screaming. The commotion inevitably brought the servants running, what they saw shook them to the core, Lady Hartfield was in the middle of the study, kneeling, begging and screaming for forgiveness.

As Lizzy prepared herself for bed that night, and poured herself a hefty draught of laudanum in her glass of wine, she contemplated over the sheer lunacy of the mornings events. The day so full of contradictions, had seen her be saved from lurching into one type of madness only to fall headlong into another a mere half hour later. Mr Darcy had bandaged her hands, and for the few moments he was with her had held the broken pieces together. And she had rewarded him, almost rewarded him with a kiss.

But then how poorly she had fared on her own, Sarah had not been in the study when she had entered, Sarah had not been to back to Hartfield since they had carried David's body out, the servants were adamant on that point. The room had been cleaned, made spotless in fact, but certainly not by a half-crazed maid.

So Lizzy had imagined it all. As she gulped the last of the wine, she lay back on the bed and waited to sleep and pray chance not to dream. The guilt would kill her, she thought as a restless slumber promised to carry her away for the night, she was sure of it.