The next morning, he sought her; the previous night's escapade worried him enough. As much as he could empathise with the fright of a young woman who had nearly walked into her employer's bedroom the very first night under his roof, her reaction – her face distorted with such a primal fear – did not respond to the banality of the cause.
He would be the first to admit that Pemberley was downright unnavigable at night if one had not spent half of their life in its halls. The accident was bound to happen. If not Miss Bennet, then the next newcomer would stumble upon him by mistake.
He asked of her whereabouts. The servants pointed him to the stillroom. There, among the thatches of dry herbs and shelves crowded with glass jars full of herbal mixtures, wreathed in the pale morning light and a black shawl, he found the governess rummaging through the cabinets. He caught a glimpse of her left hand. The skin was angry red, covered in painful blisters.
Before he could announce his presence, she turned around to see him standing at the door. She took a step back, her face blanched, and he noticed light tremors in her shoulders. That lasted only for a fleeting moment, though, as she took back the control of her movement once more.
"Mr. Darcy."
And then, with forced deliberation, she curtsied. Yet, he recognized the skittishness of a small animal chased into a corner by a pack of hounds. He knew not the words to address that, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Before the incident she had been perfectly calm.
"Good morning," he bowed stiffly. "Perhaps a doctor should have a look at your hand. That burn seems rather severe."
Her gaze dropped to her hand. "It is not that bad, Sir. Certainly, nothing chamomile and marigold ointments cannot treat. Thank you for your concern." She paused. "I must apologize for what happened. It was not my intention to enter your chambers. I think I missed a turn on my way back from the library."
Had it been her intention, there was a word for such impropriety. But here she stood, in her modest slate-coloured day dress three years out of fashion, her manner unnervingly disparate from the cold young woman of before.
"Miss Bennet, I would not fault you for that, not after a single day in Pemberley. You are not the first nor the last person who walked into the wrong corridor. I hope this will settle the matter. I am not angry because of an honest mistake."
While he expected respect from the members of his household, being feared offended him. Had he not treated everyone under his roof with utmost kindness?
She nodded, nervously, and returned to her search for the ointments. He sighed, walking to the cabinet. He felt her growing tension.
"Here." He handed her the jar from one of the top shelves she could not reach. "And I guess you will need this as well." A box full of muslin gauze cut into narrow strips. "For bandages."
She thanked him and he gave her a curt nod before taking his leave. He wanted to see Georgiana before the breakfast.
. . .
When she had graduated the seminary, Elizabeth forced herself to look at her prospects with the most objective sincerity. Elizabeth had been a far too dedicated cynic since the cradle to even bother to nurse any misplaced hopes about her future.
For women of her class, becoming a governess was considered the last honourable resort to avoid hunger. The wages were naturally abysmal, but there was the security of being provided with bed and board during the time of her employ. The degradation of her position diminished the governess's social circles and cast her into the solitude where her charges were often the only company. Yet it was still preferable to languishing in a secluded cottage, surviving on the charity and condescension of her betters. Despite the hardships the profession carried, it provided some semblance of dignity.
For women of her class, hiring a governess was considered a double-edged sword. To welcome an unattached woman into her household, to deprive herself of her children's attention was the price for gaining one of the public marks of respectability, and the marriage prospects of her daughters. So, a lady gritted their teeth, faked smiles and sought teachers for her children, hoping her husband would consider them pitiable rather than alluring, that he would not find his own wife wanting in comparison. The matrons prayed their adolescent sons holidaying at home would restrict themselves to self-abuse behind locked doors instead of attaching themselves to their siblings' teacher.
Elizabeth knew that her age alone would warn most married women against accepting her; and her beauty would alarm the rest. Madame Deval had kindly explained her situation to Elizabeth; widowers with broods of small children, and rakes seeking some redemption through the care for the fruits of their dalliances would be the most likely to accept her services. Beware of those, Madame Deval had said, and Elizabeth had taken the advice to her heart.
All things considered, her invitation to Pemberley was a blessing. Mrs. Gardiner had spread the net of her connections in Lambton to make sure her niece did not enter a den of depravity that would further injure her. The reports had informed the Gardiners of young Mr. Darcy's conscientious and generous, if rather aloof, character. So little scandal it bordered on boring.
(Boring was good.)
The man in question lived up to his reputation. Elizabeth considered herself lucky. She was supposed to be safe.
The last night incident only reminded her that no matter her surroundings, that sense of security was forever denied to her. It had been no one's fault. She had taken a wrong turn in the dark. Maybe she was lost in her mind too – such moments of dissociation occurred occasionally since that last walk on Netherfield grounds.
When the burning hot wax spilled on her hand, she could only watch, paralyzed, the silhouette of the man, and her nostrils were immediately filled with the scent of that soap. And she was not in Derbyshire anymore.
She was back home, on that cold ground with the weight of him on her, and she could not breathe.
His voice broke her out of her nightmare. She stuttered out apologies and run, in dark, to where she hoped her own bedroom was.
To Mr. Darcy's credit, he did not convince himself it was a hairbrained scheme to seduce her employer. He seemed more offended by the idea she would suspect him of thinking her doing anything so immoral. Nevertheless, his manner towards her remained as always: civil.
Only now she noticed the hint of mistrust in his gaze.
. . .
Georgiana tapped the end of her pencil against the smooth page of her notebook with growing frustration. Why, indeed, she had to learn things that could later be disproven? Was anything eternal hidden in those numerous books that occupied the shelves of Pemberley's library?
She sighed and wrote another argument into her notebook. She desperately hoped Miss Bennet would accept her reasoning. She so longed to gain her good opinion – there were no other young gentlewomen in her acquittance (discounting her cousins, of course, who had already debuted and worried more about their romances rather than spending time with her; they were beyond her reach now) and Miss Bennet was everything elegant and erudite.
Her brother entered the library through the door connecting it to his study. He leaned down to kiss her brow and asked about her progress. She made a face.
"Ah, do not underestimate yourself, beloved. May I?" She allowed him to read through the jumbled mess of her notes. After a while, he said: "I think you grasp the issue perfectly; you only need to formulate your arguments better."
"Do I?" She beamed. "I thought it would be too convenient for the answer to be that examining a wrong notion makes one realize at least some mistake of their reasoning and remedy it. It sounded like that made-up argument by Socrates. Or was it Plato? Well, one of those."
"Well, given the fact that most of philosophy consists of thinking about thinking, the resemblance of the ideas was to be expected." He smiled. "You are doing great, Georgiana."
She had just turned back to her notebook when her brother spoke again.
"Beloved, if you notice Miss Bennet's hand getting any worse – would you tell Mrs. Reynolds to call a physician? I am afraid your governess is of a stubborn self-neglecting sort."
. . .
Their first proper lesson took place after breakfast. Miss Georgiana paid the same degree of attention to her words as a zealot to a priest. Unfortunately, once the lesson ended, the same focus was turned to her bandaged hand. In a single instance she gained (unwillingly) the most dedicated nurse one could ask for. It mattered not the wound was healing well – Georgiana, tantalized by the untimely deaths in her family, insisted on making absolutely sure the wounds would not fester.
The girl was remarkably bright – Elizabeth already knew that but watching her prod each question with kittenish curiosity only to dissect it a layer by layer filled one with wondrous awe. She could not doubt Mr. Darcy's intentions anymore. Leaving such intellect unattended was a heresy against God.
May turned to June; June turned to July. Miss Georgiana devoured knowledge like a hungry dragon. Mr. Darcy was hardly ever home, as he travelled with his steward between Pemberley and his other estates scattered around the country in preparation for the harvest.
It was the fifteenth of July, when Mr. Darcy returned home for good.