A/N:*Sigh* So, it's finally happened. My schedule has caught up to me, and I'm posting my last finished chapter.
Because of that, I will be going on a brief hiatus with my posting to catch up on writing (somewhere around a month) after which (hopefully) I can resume my weekly posting as usual.
I also wanted to say that your guys' support so far has truly meant to much to me. I appreciate every single review, reviewer, follower, and reader, and I also appreciate your patience and understanding with this. I look forward to seeing you all again soon :)
Chapter 15: A Confidence Shared
It was, Mary thought to herself the next day as the rains began to come down on Pemberley, quite easy for one to confuse the notions of the beautiful and of the sublime.
The one was delicate, graceful; it inspired pleasure in the senses, but little else. The other was great, and terrible in its greatness, in that it inspired equal parts delight and terror, equal parts awe and pain. To look upon fine art was to look upon beauty; but to look upon the great, stretching horizon, upon the towering alps, upon the cavernous abyss – this was to look on the sublime.
Stormy weather was always wont to put Mary in a pensive, brooding mood; and though the rains were not particularly strong, and the winds neither howling nor fierce, she felt the heavy weight of wistful contemplation settling upon her; the raindrops beating a cadent pattern upon the windows, soothing her into a languor; she recalled, as she looked out onto the grayness of the morning, a memory, one of her earliest – it was of a violent, whipping storm which had lashed terribly against Longbourn, thunder echoing in its halls, winds howling plaintively in the distance, so fierce it seemed that the very house was but moments from ruin. That, Mary supposed, was the sublime – for even as she had huddled beneath her sheets, awake and frightened, but too apprehensive to wake either of her older sisters, she had remembered a sense of reverence and awe at this display of force. It was a strange sensation – to be stirred by something, and yet also fearful of it, in equal parts.
Georgiana was in a subdued, abstracted mood herself; though Mary suspected this did not stem so much from the weather. Whatever ill feeling had plagued Georgiana at the dinner had not yet entirely passed; an air of melancholy seemed to hang over her these few days, and there was a distraction about her as well; and every so often she sighed, but there was no artifice or pretension in it; it spoke of an earnest affliction, a faint malaise of the soul.
When they did have chance to speak this morning, they spoke only of trivial, meaningless things; of the weather, of music, of their studies; but Mary soon found that Georgiana seemed to be steeling herself, preparing for some solemn and grave pronouncement; and she could not help but suspect that perhaps Georgiana intended to at last unburden herself to her friend.
She was indeed correct in her conjecture; for at last Georgiana stood, and came to sit directly beside her. "I suppose you have noticed that Edmund Benson had chance to upset me last night, more so than in his usual way."
"You should pay him no mind, Georgiana; it is only that he cannot bear to have attention wrested away from him, or for his poor, unclever jibes to not gain reaction; you handled him quite splendidly last night."
"Oh, it is not him, Mary," Georgiana said quietly, though a slight color rose to her cheeks. "…Or, it is him, but he could not have possibly known the whole effect of his words, it is only… they conjured in me unpleasant remembrances, a moment in my life which I do not like to recollect." Here she paused, and turned her gaze down to her hands, which twisted unconsciously in her lap; but Mary sensed she had not yet finished her speech, and remained silent, waiting for her to continue. At last, she sighed, and looked up at Mary once more, and in her eyes, there was a new, quiet determination.
"There was a time when I vowed I should never speak of it to anyone; and I have held that vow quite faithfully; my brother and Lizzy are the only two earthly beings who know of this, aside from the gentleman in question. But it does not feel right to keep it from you any longer; you, who have been so dear, and steadfast a friend to me; and who has so staunchly kept every confidence."
"What is it that so weighs on you?" Mary said; but part of her had already known some time; had inferred there was a memory which held pain and embarrassment in Georgiana's life, of which she could not speak; had known there could only be so many causes for it; that affairs of the heart, unwise ones particularly, were almost always the root of such evils; and Benson's comments last night – of hearts broken by the proud Miss Darcy – could only serve as confirmation of it in Mary's mind.
Georgiana smiled at her, but there was a sadness that hid in the corners of it. "When I was fifteen, my governess accompanied me on a summer trip to Ramsgate. There, was a gentleman, a gentleman who… he was known to my governess, and in her good graces. By way of her introduction, I came to know him, and to – to think myself in love. He avowed that my feelings were returned, and convinced me we should marry; but that we should do so in secret; without my brother's knowledge. Even then, I think I knew there was that in him which was not wholly earnest, or good – but I was not old enough to understand the consequence of these suspicions, and he spoke to me always so charmingly, and so prettily, that I could not help but believe him.
"We would have eloped, then, if my brother had not arrived to visit me; but once Fitzwilliam was there, stood before me, I realized I could not betray his trust so; him, who had always taken care of me, and protected me; I could not deceive him any longer; and of course, once I had told him all, it was the end of it; I never saw the gentleman again, nor my governess; and I was given a new chaperone, and brought back to London, and kept there under most careful watch and care."
It was much as Mary had already suspected; but to hear it laid out so plainly, the innocence of poor Georgiana, and the callousness of the gentleman, if the word of 'gentleman' was even to be applied to him! It stirred Mary's heart painfully, and some of this must have shown on her face, for Georgiana was quick to interject, "Oh, I do not share this with you for pity, Mary, dear, or for comfort. I shall not lie, and say it was not some time of agony for me; of great shame and self-reproach; oh, I was practically sick with it. And Fitzwilliam could not imagine how terribly I had taken it, how much blame I had laid upon myself; but then, when he married, and when I found Lizzy already knew of it all, she spoke of it with me, at great length, many times; and Lizzy set upon persuading me that the fault was not mine, but lay entirely with him; and with my governess, who had been entrusted to watch over me, and who had betrayed that trust. And gradually, I grew to understand that her words were true, and my guilt and shame is now quite diminished; and now, when I think of it, it only tends to make me somewhat despondent and melancholy, but it passes just as quickly. In truth, I chiefly feel relief for its weight being now lifted from my shoulders."
Mary could imagine it well: Lizzy's shrewd, sincere way of speaking – of laying out facts as they were, of describing things astutely and eloquently, honestly but without any sting of harshness; patient and kind, she would have been the ideal balm to Georgiana's soul, to her painful regret and self-rebuke, to repairing all self-inflicted injury – a delicacy and sensibility of which Mary herself would have never been capable. She almost feared to ask; but curiosity burned within her too intently.
"What befell the gentleman?" she said softly.
By Georgiana's furrowed brow, Mary could tell this was a question which she had not wished to answer, but which she had nevertheless expected.
Mary began to rescind her words, wishing she had not spoken them after all; but Georgiana had already begun to answer. "He… he is married now. And I wish to say that I bear no connexion to him; but alas, there is some which remains, though I can hardly imagine that Fitz should ever allow him to come near Pemberley again when I am here. And then…and then I do not wish to speak wholly ill of your family, Mary, for family to you he now is."
For one odd moment, Mary's thoughts went to Mr. Collins, for he was the only male relation who came instinctively to mind; but then she allowed herself to understand the full consequence of Georgiana's words, and to consider who Georgiana would have chance of knowing, and by whom she could be influenced. The shock of it, as the realization came upon her, was quite severe – that she herself should not simply know the gentleman in question – but to be now sister to the gentleman in question!
"Good heavens, Georgiana, you cannot mean Wickham!" - but by Georgiana's expression, she was only assured that Wickham, indeed, was the offender.
It now appeared all very differently than it had before, when she had still imagined the man to be some unknown, distant figure; but no; it was Wickham, and she still remembered him well - newlywed and visiting to claim his title as their newest son and brother - his unctuousness, his ill-bred charms; he spoke very well, Mary remembered – too well, too eloquently and precisely and feelingly – he would have seemed a perfect martyr, a romantic hero to Georgiana, he would have said all the most correct, most lovely things, would have coaxed and wooed her into his charms – she could see it all so clearly now, so vividly, how it all might have happened.
And all was different now, too, with the memory of poor, silly Lydia – Lydia, her own sister, only fifteen, whom she had judged so harshly for her transgression, blamed all on her lack of sense and her vanity. Mary recalled how proudly she had held herself, certain that she should never have fallen to the entrapments of flattery and wickedness as her sister had done, even if she had been just as young.
Georgiana's cheeks were now quite red with feeling, but still her voice remained calm, and even noble in its tone. "I do wish the best for your sister, Mary – and I hope he has become a deserving and respectable husband for her; Fitz did not even tell me of their elopement until several months had passed after their wedding; only then did I learn of it! And I felt so for your sister, but I was relieved, that he had acted correctly by her, and also that I had not… well, I felt at first great sympathy for her, but I hope now that she is happy; and that there is indeed some true affection between them."
Mary had seen Wickham as he had acted towards Lydia; she could not share Georgiana's hope; or at least, could not earnestly believe in it as she did; but she would not for all the world deprive Georgiana of this reassurance – her, who had already felt kinder and more compassionate sentiment towards Lydia, having never even met her, than Mary herself had ever possessed, towards her own sister and blood.
"They seemed quite happy, when they came to visit us," Mary said – only untruthfully in part, for Lydia had been very pleased with herself, indeed – and was rewarded as Georgiana's face became brighter with the news.
"And I should only add," Mary continued with great sincerity, "that I wholly agree with Lizzy; and I think you should be only esteemed for the growth and wisdom you have gleaned from this unfortunate circumstance, and to find some redeeming quality in it, in the strength you have come by due to it."
Ah, how different these words, than the ones Mary had said so long ago of her newly eloped sister; how hollowly and painfully the remembrance of them rang now in her ears; and now, for the very first time, Mary could remember Lydia without the slightest sense of superiority, or loftiness; but instead only with pity for her, and a mourning of the chance which Lydia had lost, by her marriage to Wickham, to one day grow into a well-bred, fine young woman; for far worse than her had been made into proper ladies, by the guiding influence of those wiser and more sensible.
Georgiana smiled, and sighed again, but this time with much of her previous melancholy departed. "I confess, I am quite relieved to have told you; and I feel much the better for it. It is always a relief to no longer possess a secret; for it always sits rather heavily upon a friendship."
An unpleasant thought then occurred to Mary. "Georgiana, you have not spoken of this with Emma or Charlotte Benson, have you?"
Georgiana was surprised. "Why, no! You are the only one I have told."
Mary felt immediate relief. "It is only my advice, and you are not obliged to heed it; but it is my fervent opinion that you should not make mention of this to them. They are your friends; I shall not endeavour to convince you otherwise; but they perhaps may not be as faithful as one would desire of their friends in maintaining confidences."
"You mean to say they might impart it to their brother," Georgiana said softly.
Indeed, that was not what Mary had meant; she was of the opinion, knowing what she knew of the Bensons, that as soon as it was entrusted to their confidence, they should think nothing at all of spreading it among the neighborhood directly.
But the threat that it should be shared with their brother seemed grave enough for Georgiana; and after several moments of contemplation, she assented, tentatively, to Mary's advice; and her defense of the Benson sisters, as it followed, was not as ardent as usual; and Mary began to suspect that perhaps their friendship was not so intimate as it had once been.
After several more minutes, Georgiana seemed content to return to her reading, and Mary to her reflection. She gazed once more out the windows, at the somber, overcast skies, and at the droplets which trickled down, almost delicately, along the glass.
She wondered, to herself, why it was that fear so often accompanied awe; why was one frightened of the very same thing which stirred him, moved him? Why was one always so fearful of vastness, of that which is unknown and unknowable? Was it in order to protect himself – from the frightful misstep, the looming edge – the misguided heart?
She pondered these questions, but indeed could come up with no satisfactory answer to them; and so, at last, she reopened her book, and relied on her reading to clear her mind – just as she had done many years ago, tucked into her bed, by the light of a pilfered candle, to wait out the dangers of the storm; and as always, she was soothed; and as always, she was safe.
