Chapter Thirty Five

Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.

Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

"Frailty, thy name is woman!"* Georgiana cried bitterly, pressing her back to the wall of the corridor with a heavy sigh and a heavier tear escaping her laden eyes. How foolish, she mused, to presume to arrange the affairs of her elder brother! As if her judgment was greater than his! As if any wrongdoing might be forgiven for the end result, and now that end result to be so disappointing! She had assumed, clearly quite wrongly, that Elizabeth's thoughtful looks were the result of romantic feelings … to now find them to be the result of confusion, bemusement, uncertainty!

She had made a very serious error in judgment. She could practically hear her brother's heart shattering on the floor of the corridor beside her. He had held his face together as well as he always did, but his shoulders went up and his eyes shone with the broken glass of his dreams. And she the cause! She, who had already once betrayed him! Who had only recently nearly eloped with his greatest enemy, to now be the cause of his heartbreak again!

She had resolved to be better, to show better judgment, to prove her worth as an adult. And now, with one childish trick pulled with the over-excited desire for a sister and for the happiness of a much-loved brother, she had shown herself to be as immature and incompetent as her brother must have supposed her to be.

Footsteps on the stair alerted Georgiana to the pending arrival of another person, so she quickly straightened up and swiped the tears from her eyes as well as she could, taking a few deep breaths to calm her nerves. All was for naught, however, when she saw it was Elizabeth who mounted the stairs and turned to greet Georgiana with a bright smile, ignorant of the betrayal.

Georgiana tried to smile back, but she failed miserably and another tear sprang forth to tumble down her hot cheeks. Concern immediately writ across Elizabeth's face, the older girl opened her arms and immediately enclosed the younger in a warm hug. The tears she had been fighting now burst forth with abandon in the embrace of the one whose private thoughts and judgments she had so secretly betrayed to her brother, and she sobbed for a few long moments on Elizabeth's shoulder.

Composure returned to Georgiana after the initial rush had died down, leaving her embarrassed and apologetic.

"I – I'm so sorry, Miss Elizabeth," she murmured hastily, scrubbing her cheeks with her handkerchief to erase all signs of distress. "Truly, I did not mean to go on so."

"Nonsense," Elizabeth smiled understandingly. "We must all have a good cry now and then. And I am Elizabeth to you, remember."

"Yes," Georgiana smiled weakly. "Thank you."

"Is there something troubling you, dear?" Elizabeth asked, her face the picture of genuine concern. "Has your brother said something? I thought he came up here with you…"

"Oh no!" Georgiana cried, even more distressed by the idea of Elizabeth blaming her brother for her tears. "Oh, he has done nothing! It is I who am at fault! I have betrayed him so badly, and this again! I am forever making mistakes, and he forever forgiving them, and I fear I shall never grow out of them!"

Her tears began in earnest once more. Elizabeth ushered her friend to the chair which stood by the hall table to wait out her tears.

"Georgiana, have you ever meant your brother ill?" Elizabeth asked.

"Why, no! How could you ask such a thing?" Georgiana cried, appalled at the idea.

"Have you ever done something against your brother out of spite?"

"No! Never!"

"Have you ever been intentionally cruel to him?"

"No! I have never been intentionally cruel to anyone, especially not him!"

"Listen to me, Georgiana, dear," Elizabeth said gently, petting the girl's soft curls with the same fondness she might show to her own sisters. "I shall tell you a secret about families. In families, there are very few things which will not be forgiven. When you love someone, you will forgive them nearly anything – especially when they did not mean to harm you. Your brother loves you very much, Georgiana. He would not be so unfaithful to you."

"But I have been so unfaithful to him," Georgiana protested feebly.

"I am very, very sure that all you must do is ask for forgiveness and it shall be granted you," Elizabeth assured her. "Come! Let's get you cleaned up and downstairs – I will help with the music sheets, and perhaps you and Mary could play another duet for us after supper. Music is a balm to the soul."

Elizabeth's cheerful words encouraged Georgiana to her feet, and she was quickly whisked away into the bedroom Elizabeth shared with Jane for a splash of water on her face. Feeling better recovered, the two girls split the music sheets between themselves on the way downstairs – whatever Elizabeth's errand upstairs had been, it had been speedily forgotten. They entered the parlour with smiles, and if anyone noticed that Georgiana's was not quite as bright as Elizabeth's, it was not mentioned in company. Mary proved to be absent from the parlour party, but the girls were quickly drawn into the conversation by the fire on the subject of after-supper entertainment.

Mary knocked very lightly on the door to her father's study. She did not often approach this door, nor enter this room unless in search of a book, and her nerves were quite frazzled – whether because of the need to speak with her father, with whom her relationship was not particularly amiable, or because of the subject of discussion, she could not rightly say.

"Come in!"

His voice caused her to flinch, harsh as it was. Hesitantly, she eased open the door and entered, her slippers making no sound on the carpet. Mr. Bennet was at his desk, book open in front of him, spectacles perched on the end of his nose. He looked up when she entered and raised his eyebrows with surprise.

"Mary!" he cried, astonished. "What brings you to my dark corner this evening? Are you seeking another volume of Fordyce? For I am afraid I am quite out."

"No, Father," Mary denied stiffly. She shut the door and leaned against it, using its strength to support her own flimsy will. "I wished to speak with you about … something."

Mr. Bennet's eyebrows furrowed now, and he leaned back in his chair. Removing his spectacles and placing them on top of his book, he gestured for his daughter to approach.

"Come, do not stand in the door like so! Come, have a seat. I do not often hear confessions from my daughters, most particularly not from you. I am quite intrigued."

Mary blushed, already regretting her decision, and reached for the door handle. "Never mind, I am sure it is nothing –"

"Mary," Mr. Bennet's voice was serious now, and it stopped her in her tracks. "Come have a seat and tell me what is troubling you."

"It is not troubling," Mary said, stepping forward towards the desk and wringing her hands all the while. "Or at least, I do hope it is not, but it is so unusual, and I did wonder if now was a rather peculiar time for unusual things to be happening…"

"Well, there are a number of unusual things happening at the moment, I suppose, but that does not necessarily mean they are unwelcome. To what event are you particularly referring?"

"Not an event, per se – a person."

"A person?" Mr. Bennet's interest was caught. "Man or woman?"

"Man."

"Hmmm. Is a man soliciting your attentions, Mary? My, my!"

"I – I don't – I think – I hardly know what to think!" Mary declared at last, throwing herself onto the chair before her father's desk with an uncharacteristically dramatic flair. "Only, he's being so terribly kind, and is taking such particular notice of me, and men don't do that – not to me. I just – Georgiana said I should mention it to you, because she said that sometimes men know things about other men that women don't know, and that I should be sure he isn't a suspect or something. I can't imagine you suspecting him of Lydia's … murder … but no one has ever paid attention to me like that before, and –"

"Slow down, Mary," Mr. Bennet said, putting up his hands as though he could physically restrain her deluge of dialogue. "Slow down! What man is this who is paying such attentions to you?"

"Mr. Greengrass, Uncle Phillips' clerk," Mary confessed, blushing now very seriously.

"And he has never spoken to you before?"

"Not at all that I can remember until the other week."

"When did he approach you? What did he say?"

Mary retold the tale of how Mr. Greengrass had approached her in the bookshop, of her discovery that the book belonged to him, of her attempt to return it and the subsequent conversation. Mr. Bennet listened carefully, asking pertinent questions and rubbing his brow with serious consideration. When Mary finished her story, he was quiet for several long moments.

"It seems a shame, my dear, that for the death of one daughter at the hands of a man we must now be suspicious of any man of our acquaintance," he mused sadly, "but I am afraid that I fear the outcome of not doing so, particularly when we have yet to learn the identity of Lydia's attacker. I will say that I am not particularly suspicious of Mr. Greengrass – or at least, I was not. There is a chance that he is very sincere in his attentions to you, but I'm afraid he has chosen a very poor time to act on those feelings of admiration. I would like to speak with him and with your uncle very seriously before you see him again, is that understood? No form of communication from or to him unless it goes through myself – at least not until we have completely cleared his name."

"Yes, Papa," Mary agreed, her chest easing now that a decision had been made and it was no longer her responsibility to bear the burden of secrecy. Georgiana had been quite right – it was so much easier to speak the truth! So much easier to allow someone else to help! She practically bounced out of the study with such a load no longer weighing her down, unaware as she left of the droop of her father's shoulders as he took the burden from her.

Upon her exit, Mr. Bennet allowed his body to sag in his chair, weary from worry. Would it ever end? Would he ever feel safe? Would he ever be able to look at a suitor for his daughters' hands without seeing a murderer lurking in the shadows? Were all men to now become suspects, even the men he would before have dismissed as silly or inconsequential? Even men he had known since they were boys?

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,"** he muttered darkly, picking up his glass of port and swirling it around, gazing into its inky depths with even blacker thoughts. Yes, something rotten, indeed.

Elizabeth was decidedly puzzled.

It was quite a while after she had finished comforting Georgiana in the upstairs hall and seen her settled comfortably round the fire with Jane and Bingley's easy conversation to soothe her spirits that Mr. Darcy finally made an appearance. Elizabeth, who had been fully prepared to take the gentleman aside and give him a quiet tongue-lashing, found herself rather taken aback by his appearance.

It seemed, truthfully, that Georgiana's words had some merit – whatever she had said or done to this man, it had a clear effect. The man's cravat was askew, his hair mussed, his eyes distant, and his colour high. He did not look himself at all. Upon entering the room, he espied Georgina engulfed in company and immediately, silently, made his way to the window where he took up his usual stance with decidedly less arrogance than usual. Elizabeth was astonished.

What could Georgiana have done to this man that would distress him so? She was a girl, practically still a child! Clearly there was affection there, but whatever could account for such a disturbance?

Making up her mind to do what she could to ease this hardship, or at least to let him know how very sorry his sister appeared to be, Elizabeth stood and also moved to the window as quietly as she could, trying not to draw Georgiana's attention to her movement.

"I must beg you forgive me the impropriety of such an address," Elizabeth murmured, "but I'm afraid I must importune you for a moment."

He seemed unsurprised by her soft words – he must have felt her approach, seen her in his peripheral vision. He merely nodded his assent.

"I came upon your sister in the upstairs hall not long ago, and she was very distressed," she confessed, careful to keep any trace of accusation from her voice. "She confided in me that she had wronged you in some way – betrayed you – and that this was not the first time she had done so."

"Not the first-?" Mr. Darcy seemed confused, but understanding soon dawned in his eyes alongside grief. "Oh, no! No, no! She is – no, indeed, she is not to blame for the first. She was deceived. She was ignorant of things of which she ought not to have been ignorant, but that is much more my own fault than hers."

Elizabeth was touched by his ready defence of his sister's actions. "Nevertheless, Mr. Darcy, I believe some assurance on that score would not go amiss. Dare I suggest that perhaps today was a similar misunderstanding? Is her offense here equally forgivable?"

Mr. Darcy turned his eyes from the window to look at her, his gaze deep and intense. After a few long moments, he looked away again.

"Perhaps. She made a mistake, but it was borne of good intent, and I could have intervened to prevent the situation if I had chosen to do so. We are equal in blame, and equal in guilt, I imagine."

"Can it not, then, be forgotten? May not a brother's and sister's sins cancel each other out? For it is much better, I believe, to remember the past only as it gives us pleasure – one cannot too easily lay wrongs to rest."

"If we remember only the pleasure, Miss Elizabeth, how are we meant to learn from our mistakes?"

"I did not say to forget our mistakes, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth corrected him archly, "only to remember the pleasant things."

Mr. Darcy absorbed this thoughtfully.

"Miss Elizabeth, while I have you here, would you please sit a moment with me? I should like to take advantage of our relative privacy to discuss something with you."

Elizabeth, astonished but not unwilling, perched upon the window seat. Mr. Darcy joined her. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"As it happens, Miss Elizabeth, my sister's mistake has caused me to re-examine my own actions over the course of the last few months, and I believe I owe you an apology. Please allow me to give it now."

To say that Elizabeth was surprised would be a severe understatement – the words astonished, amazed, and astounded did not do the feeling justice. Flabbergasted was perhaps the most accurate, or possibly stunned, for she found herself frozen in place with a decidedly blank expression on her face which did little justice to her usual intelligence.

"My behaviour, these past few months, has been … civil, at best, I suppose. I am realizing that my actions and my words have not been displaying well my feelings. I am not accustomed to showing feelings in company, Miss Elizabeth, and I must beg a great lack of practice in the art of showing pleasure as my excuse. I am often told that I am of an austere countenance, and I am afraid it often gives the impression that I am uninterested or unimpressed with the company. My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, often remarks upon it. I have not his ease in company, nor even Georgiana's. I must beg you to forgive whatever offense I may have given you and your family over the course of these months – I assure you it was unintentional. I find your family quite charming, and I find you … a very able conversant and an excellent dance partner."

"I am tolerable after all?" The words had slipped out before she had even thought them, and Elizabeth's hand quickly went to cover her mouth with shock and embarrassment. "Oh, I beg your pardon!"

Mr. Darcy paled, flushed, and shook his head. "I believe, Miss Elizabeth, it is I who should be begging your pardon. A thoughtless comment, and an untrue one. I ought to have followed Polonius' advice."

"'To thine own self be true?'" Elizabeth asked, confused as to how the advice was relevant in this particular situation.

Mr. Darcy smiled. "Rather, the rest of the monologue. Do you know it?"

"I confess, I do not have it memorized!"

"Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportion'd thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment."*** Darcy stopped here, his cheeks pink under her amazed stare. "It continues for several lines and concludes with the advice you recall, but I shall not bore you."

"Wise words," Elizabeth observed, "of which I ought to have taken heed myself. My words have also run unchecked, and I have been too eager to quarrel with you, too eager to make judgments."

"Well deserved, I believe, Miss Elizabeth, after I had treated you so abominably," Mr. Darcy said wryly.

"We must agree to disagree, Mr. Darcy," Elizabeth concluded, unwilling to argue the point any further. Fruitless endeavour!

"Indeed, particularly if we are to adopt your philosophy of remembering the past only as it gives us pleasure!"

Elizabeth laughed. "My own words used against me! Very well, let it not be said I cannot take my own sword!"

"May I request the honour of considering us as friends, Miss Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth paused for only a moment, surprised, and then smiled.

"I should be delighted to be your friend, Mr. Darcy. As your friend, may I offer you a cup of tea?"

It was dark in the Gardiner's front parlour. The lamps had been dimmed, the fire was screened, and the windows had been shuttered against the fierce snowstorm whistling down the streets. Kitty, her head still quite achy from her fall, was ensconced in a warm blanket on the sofa. The children were being kept away, Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Clark were lounging in the study, and Mrs. Gardiner was attending to some correspondence in the small room next door, with the doors set open in between so that she could act as a discreet chaperone. For Kitty was not alone in the dark parlour – rather, she had the company of the serious Mr. Stone who, for reasons which Kitty could only ascribe to guilt, had taken it upon himself to entertain the young lady whilst she was unable to set her eyes to any serious task.

"I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth," Mr. Stone read, his voice deep and solemn and smooth as it read the words of the famous bard, "forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?" ****

Shakespeare had never been a favourite of Kitty's, and, in fact, she had ever so slightly cringed when he had informed her of his choice of reading material. Why could he not pick something lighter, funnier, more amusing? she had wondered with a goodly amount of frustration, imagining herself being subjected to pure boredom for hours on end. However, he was now into the second act and she had yet to be bored – his voice, serious as it was, seemed to make Hamlet's tortured voice come to life. It was, she was discovering, really quite a similar story to some of the gothic novels she and Lydia had read and giggled over together. Ghosts, murder, revenge!

In truth, however, she wondered if she did not prefer it now for the sympathy she felt for the main character – this Hamlet fellow. For, surely, he had the right idea of grief! He understood how it felt to feel as though all of the colours had been bled from the world, as though all of the beautiful things were now meaningless. Those things which she had previously valued seemed inconsequential. All of the great accomplishments of women, even marriage, seemed futile.

"Do you know," Kitty said softly, interrupting Mr. Stone's reading, "I think I understand Hamlet very well."

Mr. Stone looked up from the book, fixing his dark eyes on her – the dim light of the fire and the lamps reflected in his eyes, seeming to light them from the inside.

"Yes, I thought you might," he agreed as solemnly as he ever did.

"How did you know?"

"He feels grief very strongly, as you do," he observed. Once again, Kitty felt as though she ought to be offended by his observation but could not bring herself to be bothered. "He expresses it very well."

"I never liked Shakespeare before," Kitty admitted. "But I like this."

Mr. Stone smiled a little bit. He turned his head just enough that the fire was no longer reflecting in his eyes, and Kitty noticed how warm they were, how grounded and earthy and comfortable he seemed.

"I am glad," he said quietly. He returned, after a short pause, to his reading. Kitty, however, could hardly attend. Oh, Lord. Why did she think him attractive? How could she? Was she not loyal to Edgar? Although, really, it was not as though she and Edgar had any sort of real understanding … but she didn't even like Mr. Stone! He was boring!

Her brains were addled. That must be it. The fall had done it to her; her head wound was causing problems. Her head aching, Kitty closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply. Yes, it was just her head wound thinking for her. This would all go away soon. Yet somehow, try as she might, Mr. Stone's deep voice still kept her quite awake and quite warm and quite comfortable and quite uncomfortable all at the same time. Oh, Lord.

*"Frailty, thy name is woman!" Hamlet, Act I, scene ii

**"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Hamlet, Marcellus, Act I, scene iv

***Hamlet, Polonius, Act I, scene iii

****Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

AN: An over-abundance of Hamlet, I know, but I couldn't resist. Thank you all for the beautiful reviews - very glad to welcome some new readers on board! :)