And here is the new chapter. This one, to warn you from the start, is about Georgiana. Finally, we're getting in her head to see the ifs and whys. Now, bear with me through this long chapter. We learn about her childhood, about Mr. Darcy, Mr. Wickham a little bit, Mr. Bancroft and...once again Georgiana!

I'd like to thank ixi-shaj and Quiz for their reviews. To answer ixi-shaj, Georgiana doesn't exactly quit on Theodore, it's something else per se. You'll find out if you read:)

Thanks for the big support everyone! This story wouldn't exist without you.

Chapter 33: The happy girl (who was sad)

Mary, above all, was the most inclined to be shocked by the news. She, who had witnessed the love and cherishment between the two lovers, was at a loss for words in front of this travesty of good feelings. Georgiana's fretting and Theodore's longing both assured Mary it must be some misunderstanding.

Therefore, she diligently wrote back to Georgiana, asking her the circumstances of this wondrous engagement. She received no reply, which only obfuscated her more.

Mr. Darcy, however, was the least to show surprise in the matter. Though he appeared to be put out, he was not quite as remarkably astonished as the others. His account of it was that Mr. Bancroft and Georgiana were old friends and companions and that the young boy had always harboured sisterly feelings for her. Now they had developed into something more.

He took exception to Georgiana doing this in secret without telling him, in such a wild, uncouthly fashion, but there was some strange relief in the event. He knew very well his sister nurtured some feelings for a certain young man.

James Prowler had visited Mr. Darcy some time ago when he was still in Kent, to describe to him the situation of his friend and tell him of Theodore's considerable part in helping Darcy with his unsolved affairs. He had mentioned that his deliverance would make a young lady very happy. He made it clear that this young lady was close to Darcy; therefore Fitzwilliam looked into the matter.

He only later discovered that the young scoundrel Georgiana had met and felt infatuated with in Bath was the same Theodore Stoddard, the luckless thief. He remembered how last autumn he had adamantly scolded her for her inattentiveness and lack of care, for her naiveté at believing this new fellow who lived on the streets could treasure her for anything else than her fortune.

His discovery only produced more consternation, since he suspected Georgiana had somehow kept in touch with him, despite his warnings. He had to concede that perhaps he had not been entirely right about this young man and that, unlike Wickham, he could change and become wholesome once more, but being indebted to him was one thing and romancing with his sister was another. He could not allow the second without a deep set frown.

Liberal and just as he may be, this was real life and in real life people like Georgiana and Theodore rarely found happiness together. What would the world say, how would they condemn Georgiana for marrying a convict, a fortuneless young man of no purpose? And how would he fare as the unconscious brother who had let her degrade herself so?

No, it was inconceivable. He had engaged her in conversation on the matter the following day. There was no escape for her, she was much too sensitive and easily wounded not to deliver the truth and the truth was that their romance had continued under her brother's nose. A heated argument ensued which lasted for more than three days resulting in Georgiana's departure to Bath.

Therefore, you see, Darcy had no reason to be too shocked by the piece of news.

His wife, Elizabeth, felt somewhat piqued that her sister-in-law had chosen such a moment to announce an engagement, her mother not being yet cold in the grave.

The rest of the family thought it a very curious, bizarre affair. Kitty did not shrink from calling it quite "wild" and that she had never expected her sister-in-law to be so inclined to novelty. Now that she was a married woman she thought herself very mature and experienced. She no longer remembered her own inclinations to novelty.

Yet the real mystery was Mr. Bancroft for he was the unknown character everyone sought to know. Only Colonel Fitzwilliam could give an account of him and to him everyone applied. His very favourable impression of him earned the family's good opinion. They trusted the Colonel to judge a good character. Most of them now awaited to meet him to verify his character.

Mary was the only one in a quandary. As an intimate friend of Georgiana she could not imagine what had driven her friend to such lengths.

Quizzical as this engagement was to her, the reader must understand how different Georgiana and Mary were in perceptions and principles. And their social circumstances could not be more different as well.

***

Perhaps Mary Bennet, who despite her frustration, had enjoyed a certain sense of liberty and independence from her family, did not understand Miss Darcy, a young girl who had not been let to have a mind of her own, or at least not let to express it too often.

What happens indeed to a young girl of seven when her mother dies?

She is given to the care of a governess.

What is there to be done when there is no governess?

Georgiana Darcy had been a very stubborn, complaining child. She would sometimes throw fits of agony and cry and yell until everything was done as her will demanded.

But that was a very long time ago. She had been very much affected by her mother's death.

She drove every governess away with her gruesome misbehaviour. It was not that Miss Darcy could not behave but she would not.

Her father, a busy man who had no time for her, barely saw her and kept occupied with his son. She had had all the attention of her mother before. Now she was the centre of no one's attention. This fatal wound to her heart made her act as she did.

She was chided, scolded, locked in her room, even flogged, but nothing would induce her to relent and be a good child.

She ran amok into the woods of the estate and liked best to stay with the low servants in the kitchen. This situation prolonged itself until she turned eleven.

That was when her father died. This second tragedy she dealt with better.

In fact, she barely even felt it. When the news came to her, she was sleeping and she continued her sleep. When she woke up and felt the death sink in she cried for a while, simply because she thought she ought to. She prayed a little and in a week or two forgot about it.

When her brother came home from his studies he found her swimming with her clothes on in the lake.

He had come down to the lake and had bid her come out and get dressed and welcome him home from a long absence. She was now almost fourteen.

Georgiana was more familiar with her brother than with her father. He often came to see her, if only to wish her good night or play chess with her. She was not fond of him, but she liked him well enough to smile briefly when he approached the banks.

'I have come, sister. And yet I find you here, stark and wet. Is this any way to welcome me?'

'I thought you did not need me to welcome yourself on your estate.'

'After such a long time this is what you say to me?'

'Well, it's not as if we know each other well enough.'

'I think we know each other enough to be polite to each other. What kind of future lady behaves this way?'

'Well…I am only swimming. You needn't be alarmed,' she explained in a childish way, hiding behind a large fern.

'Not only is this highly improper but someone might see you. What would they say then? That the fair Miss Darcy is a country girl?'

'I do not care so much, I suppose,' she said, uncertain of her words. She did care maybe a little, she thought. But if she cared she wanted not to care.

'Won't you come out then? I shall show you some presents I bought for you in Cambridge.'

'Is there anything to buy in Cambridge?' she asked curious. 'I never thought there was.'

'I have bought you something very beautiful indeed. Something you will surely like.'

'Then…I might come out and see it,' she said smiling.

She slowly climbed up the banks. She was wearing her woollen frock. She pulled over a small dress and went to meet her brother. She looked very much dishevelled. Almost as if she was a lady of the streets.

But instead of her brother's warm words, she encountered something quite different.

He grasped her hand by her wrist tightly and pulled her with him towards the house.

'Aaa! It hurts me! What are you doing?'

'You are coming with me.'

The carriage was waiting in front of the mansion. He gently pushed her in, if one can say that and bid the groom to drive away.

'What is the meaning of this?' she asked half-scandalized, half-afraid.

'I'm taking you on a little trip,' he replied curtly.

When they arrived in town, the carriage stopped in front of the church. He stepped down and made her climb down as well.

There was quite a crowd in the town square. Merchants and horses, old wives and their daughters, factory workers and young boys playing some flutes.

Fitzwilliam pushed her upfront.

'Kind folk hear me, for I am Fitzwilliam Darcy.'

Some stopped half-way through their toils to look at him surprised. Others stopped completely and averted their attention to him. All of them stared waiting. Only the boys kept playing their flutes.

One old lady bowed to him and saluted him but he ignored her.

'This is a servant of mine. I keep her in my house. Today, she has slandered me deeply. She has sinned and stained my house,' he said pointing at Georgiana.

She looked a dreadful sight. Her hair was untamed, dirty and almost black from the water. Her sallow, angry little face showed discontent and fear. Her clothes were torn or wet and her hands and feet were muddy.

Yes, they could all believe she was a servant.

Georgiana Darcy had never gone out in society, therefore people had no idea what she looked like or who she was.

'I am discharging her and leaving her in front of the church so that God might take her in His kind hands and maybe expiate her.'

They all stared at her judgingly. Some women started whispering loudly, things she could hear, words that made her shudder and turn with shame. They said she must be with child and that she must have sold herself for a small price. They pointed their fingers at her. The old men shook their heads.

The boys winked at her and some of the more pious factory men told her she should repent before it was not too late.

The old lady who had saluted Darcy glared at her and told her she did not deserve such a good family.

'Pooh! You little wench, you little wench!'

Georgiana blinked in shock. She put her hands in her hair and stomped her foot.

'How can you believe such gruesome falsehoods my brother entertains? He is quite mad! I am Georgiana Darcy, heiress of Pemberley!'

They all chuckled pityingly. The laughter and snigger made her angrier.

'How can you believe it?! I am Georgiana Darcy! I am!'

'Then prove it young lass!' one of the men said mockingly.

'She's mad, isn't she?'

Tears welled up in her eyes and she covered her tiny body with her hands.

The carriage had already driven away. It had stopped outside of town.

Georgiana ran away from the crowd who was trying to bring her into the church and she found her brother's carriage.

'Do you wish something from me?' he asked.

'I'd like to get in.'

'My sister should get in.'

'I am your sister. I…I want to prove to them I am Georgiana Darcy,' she said looking down. There was repent in her voice, but there was also hidden hate.

'Do you really want that?'

'Yes.'

She was driven back to Pemberley and they never spoke of it again.

From that day on the house turned into a haven of silence and peace. The calmness that floated over everything was merely temporary.

Georgiana turned into a very quiet, withdrawn, odd creature. She had not been very loud to begin with but she had enjoyed making fun and mocking the things around her. Now she stood silently in her room, stitching or embroidering or dreaming sadly at her window. She tore every cushion she finished and started all over again.

Her brother had spoken the truth; he had bought her an exquisite gift; the beautiful pianoforte. She had lessons every day. The teacher was very hard on her and beat her fingers with a small, wicker stick whenever she made a mistake.

Whenever she showed signs of rebellion and her anger flared up her brother reminded her that this was not the behaviour of a Darcy and that he would take her out again and this time he would leave her alone, in town.

Eventually, she came to love the pianoforte. And she sat in her bed at night and kissed her swollen fingers and enjoyed to see them bleed from hard practice. The keys were the feelings she was towering over. There was the silent hate, the love for something she didn't know, something she was waiting for, a love she would soon give, there was grief, there was selfishness and there was an acute sense of inferiority. She was proud but she felt ugly, she was vain but she felt awkward. She did not like her hair, she did not like her eyes, she liked her long, slender fingers.

And when she looked in the mirror she saw the town laughing and the brother holding her shoulders, whispering he wanted her to be a true lady. He told her he wanted her to be happy.

Though she always kept the hidden resentment for her brother, they slowly became friends. Not very intimate ones, but surely friends who could care for each other. She played for him, he read for her. They reached this mutual agreement that in the absence of their parents they were now and would always be the masters of this estate. She was a lady and he was a gentleman.

Sometimes he showed his brotherly affection and she received it half-heartedly. She never responded, she nodded and smiled and pleased him. But her soul was heavy. She liked her brother, how could she not? And yet she almost hated him sometimes.

When Mr. Wickham came into her life in the shape of a suitor, the picture was so silent and dreary, that he became a beam of hope to her. Her brother didn't much approve this affection, therefore she strove to please him more, play better and be a humbler lady so that he might allow her this small happiness.

Mr. Darcy did not have anything against their union if he harboured honest feelings for her and cherished her as she truly deserved. He was an old family friend that had always been close to the late Mr. Darcy. Georgiana had known little of him before when she was very young. She had been far too preoccupied with herself to notice. But now that he strode in as the romantic, passionate knight, her eyes no longer saw anything in the world but Mr. Wickham's handsome face.

They spent many happy hours together. She would make flower coronets and wear them while they shared chaste kisses under some lonely beech.

The hills of Derbyshire could not contain their feelings, or perhaps, her feelings.

She read poetry to him, poetry she had hated before. And he told her that her pretty eyes were lovely in summer. She grew to love summer.

But then he jilted her and ran away when he discovered he could not have her fortune. The pain she had to endure, the misery and fever she suffered for months were nothing compared to the seething anger she felt.

He had charmed her, made love to her with words, made her believe in a very different world, a world where they could live together without rules and horrid wicker sticks, without family and relatives, a world of their own, full of exotic places and large ships crossing the wide blue seas. She would hold his hand over the vastness of life and he would hold hers.

He had made her feel wanted and she had last felt this feeling with her mother. But he had just toyed with her, he had mocked her, she had been the object of his advancement and amusement.

It was all a sad little ruin from which she couldn't get up.

Not one man, but two had prevailed over her and trodden over her feelings.

The first, no matter how loving now, had sealed his fate by making her the subject of derision. The second had made her derision itself.

Now, I would like you to guess what was in her soul. She might want revenge and independence, maybe freedom, maybe a life of her own.

But now, in this stage of her life, Georgiana felt more acutely than ever that she was lost and hopeless. She laughed loudly and played from day to night on the pianoforte, she went to small dinner parties and gossiped with the girls and even told some she would like to kiss a stranger. She was almost unhinged.

So she fell in the happy arms of Theodore, thinking he would either be like them or be different, but she would not care and she would let herself feel any sort of love, be it a lie or a trick.

And she was surprised to find a good man in him. She was surprised to find a very big soul, a soul without reason and meaning, but a very big soul. And she had cherished that above all things.

She turned her pain into infatuation and decided she would do anything to make this connection last.

But now the world seemed against her; her brother, the law, the world, maybe even God.

She had wanted to escape this house, this brother, but Theodore was imprisoned, he could not save her and she could not have him.

Georgiana knew well enough she couldn't marry him now. Maybe she could, but she wouldn't, it would be a hasty mistake. She would find another way.

And perhaps there was a way. There was a way of finally going away from her brother, of making her own choices and living her own life.

Now the latent anger and vindictive spirit that had been sleeping inside her awoke with a furore and made her act.

She accepted Mr. Bancroft's shy, dim-witted proposal.

He was a very good sort of man, but very droll and stupid. He was agitated and mirthful when people listened to him and loved his sister very much. She was his ruler and he never went against her wishes. His sister had always thought Georgiana would be a good match for him. And he came to be infatuated with her because of it.

They met at a Fair held in Derbyshire. Introduced by Colonel Fitzwilliam when she was fourteen and he was sixteen, they became good friends and shielded themselves against the cold, rough world of adults and families.

Now he had come to love her more like he loved his sister and he decided that now was the time for him to marry and have a family.

He had not expected her to accept so willingly.

Miss Darcy had accepted solely so she could be his mistress, so he would wait on her hand and foot, so she would be the hand that guided him. Her significant, impeccable revenge on someone completely innocent.

She had a very well-rounded plan. She would become a married woman and get out of society as she should. She would live somewhere away from Derbyshire.

Then, she would visit Theodore. She would wait for him to be freed and they would be lovers. And then nothing could stop her, nothing could stop them.

These designs had been thought of for a long time. She had gone over her prospects very carefully and decided this was best.

There was only one pang in her heart now; Mary.

Georgiana Darcy was sitting in her room in Bath, thinking about Mary Bennet.

Oh, the many lies she had told her. Some of her letters had been true, some had not.

She recalled their first encounter. What would her friend think of her now? She was her only true friend, her closest, most beloved friend.

Perhaps she would feel cheated and betrayed and she would judge her. But Georgiana had to bear it. She was doing what she had to. Mary would never agree, to begin with.

In fact, everything she was doing was probably against Mary's better judgement. If she knew what she was really like, would she still like her? Would she still be her friend?

She had never told her the story of her soul. Maybe she had wanted Mary to guess. Maybe she had wanted to be a mystery, she had wanted to seem pleased and content. She hadn't wanted to be a tormented soul. Mary shouldn't know.

She had received her letter. But now it was too late.