Walking Dress (1814)

Fashion Plate (Walking Dress). Rudolph Ackermann. England, London, August 1814. Hand-colored engraving on paper. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“I had thought her father would bring something for her to wear.”

“If she wakes before he arrives, she cannot get out of bed.”  He intentionally looked away from Bingley as he said it.  He could feel his face and ears growing warmer as he thought of why she could not get out of bed.  His shirt was plenty large and hung to her knees or nearly so, but the way it draped around her body and its ability to only mask what lay beneath made it far from decent. “She is not exactly dressed for company.”  He pulled his hat down as Bingley chuckled softly.  “I will rinse her clothes in the rain as best I can and then wash them in the water you prepare.” He opened the door and stepped outside.

Darcy placed a bucket of rainwater inside the door and waited while Bingley found a basin and then emptied the water into a large pot for heating before returning the bucket to Darcy.

Darcy tugged the door shut and returned the bucket to where it could collect water and be reached without venturing too far into the rain to retrieve it.  Then, he placed Elizabeth’s clothing on the portion of the woodpile that was exposed to the wind and rain where the roof of the structure built to keep the wood dry was broken and partially missing.  Bingley would need to fix that as soon as possible if he wished to have a place to escape his sister and enough wood to keep him warm and fed while hiding.

Darcy rubbed the fabric of Elizabeth’s stockings, trying to help the rain remove the stains of mud and blood.  Then, setting them aside, he attended to her chemise and petticoat before working on her dress.  Try as he might, he could not keep his mind from wandering to the wearer of the garments.

from Waking to Mr. Darcy

Waking to Mr. Darcy is one of the five novellas in this Cottage Collection.
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Leenie Brown

Leenie Brown fell in love with Jane Austen's works when she first read Sense and Sensibility followed immediately by Pride and Prejudice in her early teens. As the second of five daughters and an avid reader, she has always loved to see where her imagination takes her and to play with and write about the characters she meets along the way. In 2013, these two loves collided when she stumbled upon the world of Jane Austen Fan Fiction. A year later, in 2014, she began writing her own Austen-inspired stories and began publishing them in 2015. Leenie lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two teenage boys and her very own Mr. Brown (a wonderful mix of all the best of Darcy, Bingley and Edmund with healthy dose of the teasing Mr. Tillney and just a dash of the scolding Mr. Knightley).

4 thoughts on “Walking Dress (1814)”

  2. I love that one. She was escaping Longbourn and her cousin’s proposal. She fell, was bleeding from a cut on her head, and had a nasty gash on her leg. A sudden storm came up as she stumbled to a cabin that was occupied by Bingley and Darcy [who were escaping Caroline]. Now we had a compromise situation on our hands. I need to reread this series. Blessings, stay safe, and healthy.

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