The household was in uproar. Georgiana roused herself from her uneasy slumber and made her way gingerly to the door of her bedchamber. Aware that she was not suitably attired to descend the stairs, she leaned as far over the bannister as she could without endangering her safety or exposing herself to those passing below. The scene before her was confusing and frenetic.
Several of the housemaids were crying. All of the footmen were making for the front doors and hurrying down the stone steps. Georgiana could not see where they were going from her vantage point and so moved to the ballroom whose windows overlooked Pemberley's frontage. Once there, she was granted a vista which allowed a greater understanding of the chaos. Mr Fitzwilliam was directing the male house and garden staff to move out in pairs, Georgiana could see them fanning out across the gardens, beating at hedges and shrubs, evidently searching for something or someone with great urgency. From behind the house appeared two men on horseback who stopped briefly by her guardian for instructions before heading off at breakneck speed in two separate directions – one towards Lambton, and one heading eastwards, to where Georgiana knew not.
She opened one of the windows and began to catch snippets of the conversations below. Mr Fitzwilliam was the loudest voice, stationed as he was directly in front of the house,
"Cover all the ground quickly. He has probably fled already, but there may be a trail….No, not that way, he will not be lingering near the summer house, go towards the lake."
The summer house? Georgiana thought. She took stock of her surroundings and moved through to the ballroom's smaller ante-room which was usually set up for cards during any of Pemberley's events. The room had only two windows, but one of these overlooked the east wing and would afford her a view of the structure in question. She quickly opened the drapes and focussed in upon her target. Her eyes took in the scene more quickly than her brain could process it, but the horror was immediately apparent.
The summer house was only a short distance from the main house, and her view was only partially obstructed by the large number of people who were rushing around before her. Georgiana could see that the table which usually sat within the structure had been moved outside. Her eyes skipped over to the floor which seemed to have had something dark spilt upon it. It looked so familiar to her. It looked just like what she had seen in Mr Wickham's room. She recoiled, but not before her eyes had taken in the prone form lying on the floor next to the dark puddle. She looked away, refusing to accept what she was seeing.
Hurried movement from within distracted her, and she recognised her brother emerging, burdened by something large in his arms. It took a moment for Georgiana to realise that it was a person. A woman. A woman wearing Lydia's flamboyant clothes. It was Lydia. Furthermore, it was a Lydia whose head was lolling limply over her bearer's arm.
Georgiana took a step back, but then checked herself and looked again. She could see Mr Peterson, not standing in his usual commanding manner, but leaning heavily upon the edge of the table and being supported on his other side by one of the gardeners. Movement from across the lawn caught her eye and she turned slightly to see young Mr Ramsay racing across the grass. He came to a halt beside Mr Peterson, who seemed to be finding speech difficult. However, he evidently said something intelligible as the next thing that Georgiana saw was Mr Ramsay staggering and then dropping to his knees in obvious distress and anguish.
Oh God, it's Allie. The epiphany came to Georgiana in a flash, and she felt the early signs of panic rush towards her. She heard a mewling sound and only dimly realised that it was coming from her own throat. Her knees began to buckle, and her vision began to darken, the blackness advancing from the outer edges of her eyes towards the centre. She was on the verge of giving way to it when her limited gaze was caught by two figures on the grass beside the summer house. It was Lizzy, half lying on the ground, in tears and with grass stains on her pretty dress, holding in her arms a figure who had collapsed across her lap. The prostrate figure was Kitty. Georgiana's vision cleared and she turned and ran for the door.
Kitty was gulping breaths so fast that she thought her heart would explode. She could feel the damp ground beneath her, and Lizzy's tears falling on her own face, but the physical world barely registered. Allie was gone. And she knew not whether Lydia was alive or dead. The earth seemed to be tilting beneath her and Kitty wondered if she would simply lose her grip and slide away. Nothing that had happened over the past few days made sense to her. None of this should be happening to them. Why were they being punished like this? She felt that she might run mad. Yes, run, that was what she wanted to do. She did not want to be held and cried over by Lizzy, she did not need her sister's grief as well as her own. She needed something else. She needed to be somewhere else.
Kitty tore herself from Lizzy's grasp and ignored her sister's cries for her to stop. Hitching up her skirts, she ran as fast as she could away from the throng of people behind her and did not stop until her lungs screamed their protest. By this time she had managed to reach the edge of the woodland which surrounded Pemberley, and she could no longer see the summer house. She allowed her shaking legs some respite by leaning her weight upon a nearby tree trunk and then she allowed her tears to turn to loud shaking sobs that were neither dignified nor dainty, but which were more than necessary. It was like this that Georgiana found her.
Usually she would have been uncertain how to approach someone in the throes of such emotion, but Georgiana did not even have to think twice in this instance. She walked calmly forwards and enveloped Kitty in her arms, rocking her gently and soothing her hiccoughing sobs. Kitty, who minutes before had felt oppressed by her sister's embrace, sank willingly into her friend's arms and allowed herself to absorb her warmth. Finally pulling back, she placed her hands on Georgiana's shoulders and tried to tell her the terrible news. She managed no more than a few stumbling words before Georgiana cut in gently.
"Shhhhh. I already know, Kitty. I know about Allie. I know about Lydia. I saw the summer house. I guess what you must have seen. I know that she is gone. I need to know that you are alright. That is what is important now."
Kitty shook her head, helplessly, "What is happening to us all Georgie? Why are these horrors following you and me around? Who is doing this? Why are people dying everywhere we turn?" Her voice rose with every sentence and she was almost incoherent by the time she got her final words out.
Georgiana took stock of the situation quickly, and recognised the signs of potential hysteria standing before her. She did not hesitate. She placed one finger under Kitty's chin and tilted her face up towards her own, then she cupped her face with her other hand, leaned in, and kissed her gently but firmly upon the lips.
Later Kitty would realise that she should have been shocked, but in that instant she felt nothing more than a sense of peace and a growing warmth all over her body. When Georgiana did not pull back immediately, it became clear to Kitty that this was a different type of kiss to that which a sister or a friend might have bestowed. Georgiana's lips clung to Kitty's own, and Kitty had the almost irresistible urge to move her own to better accommodate them. There was something more here, she felt, something so different to anything that she had felt before. Her fingertips tingled, and without even thinking, she reached out to lace them through Georgiana's silken hair. She swayed towards her, and felt the heat radiating from Georgiana's own nightgown clad body where the two nearly touched. Her free hand hovered uncertainly in midair before finally settling on Georgiana's waist. Slowly Georgiana pulled back. Her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing quickly, but she sported a soft smile; shy, and tinged with the sadness of the day's events, but reassuring to Kitty's confused mind and emotions. When she could form words, Kitty struggled to find the right ones,
"You certainly seem to know how to surprise me, Georgie!" was her initial foray, but as soon as she said it, she realised that this was neither what she really wanted to say, nor what Georgiana needed to hear. She reached out and took both of Georgiana's hands in her own.
"What I really mean Georgie…is thank you. Thank you for knowing how much I wanted and needed that. And thank you for being the one brave enough and strong enough to do it."
Georgiana bent forward and placed a gentle kiss on Kitty's forehead. "I do not know what this all means Kitty, and I don't know what happens to us now. But I know how I feel about you, and I know that nothing about that…kiss," she struggled slightly saying the word, but carried on steadfastly, "nothing about that kiss felt to me as if it could be something wrong."
Kitty shook her head vehemently. "It is not wrong Georgie! It cannot be wrong!" she squeezed Georgiana's hands almost to the point of pain. Georgiana released herself from her grasp and pulled Kitty into an embrace and whispered softly to her,
"My dearest friend. With everything that has happened in the past two days, I couldn't let another moment pass without letting you see how I feel. I think that I only truly realised it myself today but I should have seen it before. I am certain that you knew."
Kitty held her tightly. "Allie's joy and her life has been snatched away from her. Lydia may be dying. It seems wrong that I should be feeling even the slightest happiness, Georgie. But I am."
Georgiana shook her head,
"Kitty, if I have learned anything in my short life so far, it is that love must be encouraged if we are ever to counter hate and fear. We have had a moment of it now, and we can go back to the world a little stronger. Nothing there will be easy or pleasant, but we have this moment to sustain us. Take strength from it, dearest Kitty."
"I will, but Georgie, we can let no one know. They would not understand."
"And no one will know. Kitty, I know as little as you about what happens now, but I promise that no one will find out how we feel. We are safe."
Georgiana wiped the remaining traces of Kitty's tears from her face gently with her handkerchief and took her hand, leading her back towards the house. She marvelled that, when in so many other circumstances she was weak, she somehow seemed able to find strength whenever Kitty most needed her to have it. They gave each other's hands one last quick squeeze as they emerged from the treeline, before dropping their hands and walking briskly side by side back into the turmoil.
They did not look back, and neither of them heard the snap of a branch as the furtive witness to their interlude stood up and abandoned their hiding place, brushing dirt from their clothing and taking a moment to secrete a heavily stained pair of gloves in the thickest part of a nearby hedge. The figure stood silently to watch the young ladies cross the lawn, before turning and retreating further back into the darkness and shelter of the trees.
