"Georgie?"

Darcy looked around the long‑abandoned schoolroom on the second floor of their townhouse and was rewarded by Georgiana stepping out from behind a cabinet.

"You always know where to find me, Brother."

Darcy chuckled, and replied, "It is not that difficult. You always come here when you are upset."

He looked carefully at his sister and saw that she had been crying for the past quarter‑hour. He could have easily found her sooner since he knew exactly where she was going, but he had chosen to give her some time to put herself back together without so much embarrassment.

"I imagine everyone thinks me quite mad?"

"No, Georgiana. Everyone is concerned about you. They are, I must admit, as curious as I am about what you meant by that outburst, but content in the knowledge that they will learn what they need to know when they need to know it."

"I am not so certain."

"Come… sit with me."

Brother and sister met together in the middle of the room and sat down on a pair of rocking chairs that had originally been set up for mothers and nursemaids (and the occasional father) to rock children. Both had been in the room for generations, and probably would be for at least one more.

Unsure of themselves, they both simply rocked for a few minutes, while Darcy waited patiently for his sister to speak.

"I suppose you are wondering just what in the world I meant?"

"I am, but I believe you will enlighten me in time. Can I presume that you have actually met Miss Elizabeth?"

Georgiana nodded a few times, lost in thought, before she finally replied, "Yes… twice."

"And…"

Darcy did not really know how to continue, but finally said, "You know you need not tell me Georgiana, but I would prefer you do so. A burden shared is a burden halved."

Georgiana made a bit of a strangled sound, and replied, "Not always, Brother! Sometimes a burden shared is a burden doubled. It depends on the nature of the burden and who you share it with."

She paused, tears forming in her eyes again, while Darcy waited patiently.

Finally, she said, "She taught me that."

"Miss Elizabeth?"

"Yes… I feel so stupid! Two years! For two years, the truth has been sitting here staring me in the face. Two years of clues I ignored… two years of stupidity… two years of…"

She just ran out of words, and finally said, "I… I… Fitzwilliam, I do not know what to do."

"Allow me to help, Georgiana."

"It is not that simple."

Darcy slid out of his rocker to sit on the floor in front of his sister, took her hands in his, and replied, "Actually, Georgie… it is that simple. Whatever it is, you can trust me. No matter what you say, no matter what was done, no matter how bad it is; I will do my best to make things better."

Georgiana stared at him for a moment, and finally just nodded her head.

"Get Mr. Bennet, Brother. Let me clean myself up and I will meet you in your study in a quarter hour."

"Miss Darcy, how may I be of service."

Georgiana looked at Mr. Bennet. The gentleman was quite good friends with her brother, and of course she was very intimate with his daughters, so she had met him on many occasions, and spent a surprising amount of time at Longbourn.

"Mr. Bennet… I… well, sir. I do not quite know where to begin. I feel so stupid that I never put two and two together. The answer has been staring me in the face all this time."

Chuckling, Mr. Bennet said, "It does not matter how smart you think you are or where you begin. Sometimes it is easiest to start in the middle and work both ways."

Darcy added, "Georgie, I presume there is something enormous you have to tell us, but perhaps it is all too big to chip off in one big piece. You say you met Miss Elizabeth twice. Perhaps you could start with something easier… perhaps you can tell me about one of the meetings… the easier one."

Georgiana sighed, and replied, "That sounds like I am avoiding the unpleasantness."

Mr. Bennet replied, "There is plenty of time for that, Miss Darcy. Let us just make a beginning."

Georgiana took a huge breath, then steadied herself and began.

"Well, Sir… Brother. I shall talk about the second and last time I met her."

"Agreed. Proceed at your own pace, Miss Darcy."

"Well, Sir. I believe Miss Bennet… Elizabeth… well… she outplayed me. She outplayed me quite badly. She met me about a week after I returned from Ireland, which I believe was a fortnight after she left Hertfordshire. I walked in Hyde Park, and she simply walked up beside me and started talking as if we were well known to each other."

"So, you did not know who she was."

"No, Sir. I will explain why in a moment and it will all make sense. Now that I have worked out her motives, I believe she found me specifically just to convince me that she was well. Now that I think about it, I believe she did not precisely lie to me, but she said something she deliberately wanted me to interpret in a particular way, and just let me stumble to her preferred conclusion on my own."

Mr. Bennet chuckled and replied, "She does that quite frequently, I am afraid. You are not her first victim. What did she say?"

"Well, Sir. She told me she was leaving the country, and I was not to worry about her. I can remember it exactly. She said, 'I am leaving my home on my own terms, going to a place I want to go to do something I want to do.'"

Georgiana sighed, and said, "I was unsatisfied with that, so I somewhat impertinently asked her 'why'?"

"Yes, I can see. Very impertinent, these one‑word questions."

Georgiana grinned a bit at that, knowing full well the aged father was trying to make her feel better.

"Yes, well I think that is where she decided to fool me. She strongly implied she was to be married. She said, 'I met the best man I have ever known. He is honorable, kind, forthright, thoughtful and best of all, implacably stubborn.' From that, what was I to assume?"

Mr. Bennet said, "Do not feel bad, Miss Darcy. Elizabeth has fooled me quite a bit more often than you, and I was not born yesterday."

Darcy, feeling as if he had been poleaxed walked over to his desk, pulled out the letter, returned to the group, handed it to Georgiana, and said, "Read it! Both of you. Please."

Feeling unsure of herself, Georgiana moved from her chair to sit beside Mr. Bennet so they could both read it together. By the time she was finished, she was crying, saying, "Word for word… Word for word… That means… that means… that…"

She looked over at her brother with a combination of sympathy and understanding, and finally said, "She as much as said she is in love with you, Fitzwilliam."

"Yes, she did. I had hoped… prayed… dreamed… but…"

He trailed off and found himself crying right alongside his sister.

The group sat there quietly for several minutes, and Georgiana finally sighed heavily, and said, "I cannot put it off any longer. It is time."

Mr. Bennet replied, "Go ahead, young lady. I would hope you feel safe enough here."

Georgiana took a deep breath, and said, "Well, Sir. Let me start by warning you that I am going to acquaint you with two very shameful events. You may well wish to reconsider whether you want your daughters to associate with me."

"Miss Darcy, may I ask a question?"

"Yes, Sir. Of course."

"Would you, under any conditions deliberately do something to harm my daughters."

Gasping, Georgiana said, "Of course not, Sir."

"All right, second question. Would you through fear, malice, laziness or any other character flaw allow any of my daughters to come to harm that you could prevent."

She just looked down, and replied, "No, Sir… but it is not that simple."

Mr. Bennet slid closer to her and took both her hands in his much older ones, and said, "That is where you are wrong, Miss Darcy. It is that simple. People make mistakes and others are harmed by them. That is life, but malice… well, that I cannot abide. You will have the same association with my daughters tomorrow that you had yesterday, regardless of what you tell me now. I can assure you of that."

Georgiana nodded, and said, "Well, let me get to my first bit of shame, Mr. Bennet. I am about to tell you something I promised faithfully I would never reveal to another living soul. I am going to break the most solemn promise I ever made in my life."

Squeezing her hands tighter, Mr. Bennet replied, "Miss Darcy, please do not take this amiss, but I believe you are suffering from one of the many maladies of youth. You think too much in absolutes. Life is rarely simple. It is rarely unambiguous. A promise broken is not always a bad thing. You cannot tie your life down by something you thought to be true at one time. Every day, you need to be able to look at the world as it is, not how you think it is or once thought it would be. Sometimes this means you must do something that you might have found to be wrong before. May I take it that you have decided that the amount of good in the world could be increased, or the amount of bad reduced, by breaking your promise?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well, my girl, think of the promise as something like a little creature. It lived its life well, it performed its duties as required, and now it might be time for it to end its usefulness. Does that make sense?"

Georgiana just nodded, though she could not look at the gentleman.

Mr. Bennet looked at the young heiress, and could tell that she was thoroughly discomfited, and might well fall apart before the end of the interview, so thought a bit of humor might help.

"Now, you can tell us the one thing that you are really trying to convey. Tell me, Child. You are safe from my censure. I can hardly believe it could be so terrible anyway. It is not as if you killed someone."

He expected something of a small smile, but instead, what little expression had been on the young lady's face disappeared entirely. She turned pale and her countenance became as flat as it could possibly be.

Staring at him in earnest, she drew in a deep breath, blew it out, drew one more and continued.

"No, Sir. I did not kill anyone… Miss Elizabeth did. She killed a former childhood friend of my brother named George Wickham."

Startled gasps came from both gentlemen, and Mr. Bennet slid back into his chair looking pale himself, while Darcy jumped up and replaced Mr. Bennet by falling to his knees in front of Georgiana and taking her hands, ready to reassure her, but he did not have the vaguest idea what to say.

Several minutes passed in stunned silence before Miss Darcy managed to call up her courage and began the tale.

"In the summer of year twelve, when I was fifteen, I visited Ramsgate with my then companion, Mrs. Younge. I had just been taken from school, which was a horrid place. I was feeling lonely, left out and… please to not take this as criticism William, but unloved. No, that sounds like excuses, and I do not want to do that."

Being well aware of his deficiencies earlier, Darcy replied, "No offense taken, Georgiana. We both know what those years were like, and you have nothing to be ashamed of."

Georgiana nodded, and said, "While I was there, I met seemingly 'quite by chance', Mr. Wickham. Mrs. Younge allowed us considerable time alone together with the excuse that he was practically family. I later came to believe she was in an evil scheme with him. We met quite often, and… and… and… well, I now understand he was a practiced seducer, but I knew nothing of such creatures at the time. He came to convince me we were in love, and he spent several weeks encouraging me to elope."

Darcy growled, but Georgiana did not think she could begin again if he said anything, so she just squeezed his hands and implored him to silence.

Darcy nodded for her to continue.

"I had not actually decided, but I very foolishly agreed to meet him alone early one morning near the seawall over the cliffs. We talked for some time, and he kept asking me more and more stridently to elope, and then finally… finally… finally…"

Darcy saw her eyes lose their focus as if she were staring at something far-far away.

After some time, Georgiana, completely disregarding copious tears streaming from her eyes, and continued with a shaking voice.

"Eventually, he lost his patience, or perhaps became desperate. He said, 'If you will not accept the easy way, Georgiana, we shall have to use the hard way.' Then he grabbed me about the waist, manhandled me behind a hedgerow, threw me to the ground, lifted my dress and started unbuttoning his fall. I tried to fight back, but… but… well, I imagine he might have done that before, because he managed to pin me down and no amount of scratching and hitting could dislodge him. I only managed a small scream before he stuffed a glove into my mouth, but that was enough for Miss Elizabeth to hear."

Both gentlemen were by now crying along with the young lady, while simultaneously flexing their fists and grinding their teeth in impotent rage.

"She ran through the hedge like an avenging goddess. Oh my, was she fierce! I have never seen the like. She knocked him off me using his own walking stick, but he was tougher than he looks. He jumped up and hit her on the side of the head with a blow I thought would certainly kill her. She stumbled back and cut her leg quite badly."

By now, the young lady was shaking like a leaf, but she continued as bravely as she could.

"She came back up and set out to defend both of us. He was swinging his fist directly at her face, and she swung the walking stick quite desperately. It connected with his ear, then he went down and seemed to be unconscious."

"Unconscious, you say?"

"I wanted to check, Mr. Bennet, but she would not allow it. She is lightning fast in her thinking. She told me I could not look at him, and as far as I knew, he was unconscious. I started to introduce myself, but she would not allow us to know anything about each other. She said she desperately wished I had not said my name."

Darcy squeezed her hand, but still had nothing to add.

"You see, Sir, she was, and probably still is, deathly afraid of the law. People hang for far less every day, right there in Ramsgate. She told me to go home, clean myself up, get rid of my companion subtly, and live a good life. That's where I heard her line about being in the world thinking about someone. She said it me exactly as she said it to you, Fitzwilliam, and to all those soldiers."

Mr. Bennet took a shuddering breath, and asked, "So she specifically instructed you not to look, and yet you assert he is dead. How do you know?"

"Because what was left of the scoundrel washed up on the beach the next day. I read about it in the papers. She must have dragged him to the seawall and thrown him in. I cannot imagine what it took to do that. You have seen her. She is the size of a mouse, and that scoundrel was as large as you are, Brother. Yet somehow, she managed to get him into the ocean."

Both gentlemen were sitting by then with their mouths hanging open, trying to picture it.

Mr. Bennet finally asked, "She was quite badly injured in Ramsgate. She said she had an accident where a path collapsed under her feet and she rolled down a slope of rocks. Might she have fallen in whilst throwing this Wickham fellow to the fish?"

"Oh! No sir! If she went off there, she would be dead, not injured. It is a good dozen yards straight down to the first shelf of rocks, and another dozen to the surf."

Mr. Bennet sat trying to work it out, but Darcy answered first.

"A smokescreen."

"I beg your pardon."

"A smokescreen. That is what she did. She had at least two highly suspicious injuries and probably torn clothing. I am guessing she staged the accident to hide her other injuries. It is hard to notice one cut or bruise among many."

Georgiana stared at him, and asked, "She deliberately nearly killed herself?"

Mr. Bennet replied, "Perhaps her scheme worked too well."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes, going through the sequence that must have occurred.

Finally, Darcy said, "You say you told her your name, Georgiana, but she would not tell you hers."

"Yes. She said that I could be convicted of perjury if I lied about what happened, but I could not lie if I did not know anything. She told me quite strenuously that we were not to know each other. We were never to meet, and if we happened to encounter each other, we would look the other way."

Mr. Bennet chuckled and said, "She is right about the perjury, you know. I do not know if I was a good or bad father, but I allowed her to learn those things. She is also right that she well could have been hanged for it, regardless of how much the cretin deserved it. She must have been well and truly terrified. How did she hide it for so long? How did I not see it and know something was vastly amiss? I fear your boasts about your stupidity have been bested, Miss Darcy. I shall now claim the mantle."

Darcy was sitting thinking hard, and finally sat up straight abruptly, and said, "It all makes sense. Blast it all, it makes perfect sense. Everything about her now makes perfect sense! What a bloody fool I am."

Bennet asked, "What makes sense, Son?"

"Remember that day I came to apologize?"

"I remember the most diverting day of my life… although now that I understand what happened, I should probably feel guilty about it."

Darcy nodded, and replied, "Yes… well, the night of the assembly…"

"Not your finest moment, Son! Probably not even your second finest… but if Elizabeth will not hear another apology, I will not either."

"That was not my intention, Sir. That night, she was laughing at my ridiculousness, until she heard myname. Then she pulled her disappearing act and started that whole dance."

Mr. Bennet rubbed his chin in thought, before resuming.

"So, I presume she spent the next six weeks trying and failing to not fall in love with you with a shadow of the hangman across her path the entire time. She must have been terrified nearly every minute of your sojourn. She probably felt a fair bit of shame as well. 'Thou shalt not kill' is drummed into our heads quite thoroughly. That was why she feared the woods. That is the cause for her obsession with propriety. That is why she moved away from Jane and towards Mary. Yes, Son… it all makes perfect sense in hindsight."

"Yes, Sir. Now I understand why she was so hot and cold. How she managed to be in my presence enough for us to fall in love, I have no idea… but it did happen."

Mr. Bennet belatedly pulled out two handkerchiefs from his pocket and handed one to Darcy. He sat in contemplative silence for a couple of minutes, wiping his eyes, then finally stirred and said, "Well, we know where she is and why. I only have one question for you, Son."

"I am at your disposal, Mr. Bennet."

With a chuckle, Mr. Bennet calmly asked, "Why are you still here?"