A/N: Everyone's guessing at which Bennet girl went with Fitz. This chapter will at least narrow the field ;) I'm in Sydney working now, so might get another chapter late tonight if I can.
After the moderately unusual start of her visit, Georgiana found fitting into life at Longbourn to be surprisingly easy. With five daughters in the house, most of the inhabitants thought one more or less to be of little note, and to be honest, with some of the daughters missing it wasn't certain that they all could keep exact count anyway.
All that was expected of Georgina was for her to encompass some of the nobler (or at least more notable) attributes of other Bennet sisters. She was expected to be beautiful and serene, able to think the best about everyone and everything, and to take all that happened with absolute grace and decorum. Since she was living in a dream world free of her nitpicky brother with his glowering stares and her companion with her excessive demands for accomplishments; she hated that word… it wasn't an accomplishment if you were doing it by rote for nothing but entertainment or entrapment. It was difficult to think of anything happening in Longbourn that could affect her countenance, and as for beauty… well, she thought she could hold her own. In fact, she thought she was at least marginally more than tolerable, so she was quite content.
She was expected to be a great walker (and possibly tree-climber, but that requirement was ambiguous), so she got up every morning to wander the lanes of Longbourn. Her brother always went on and on about the untamed beauty of Derbyshire, but as far as she was concerned, that just meant a lot of hills. Up and down and up and down and up… it was exhausting. She could walk around Longbourn all day long and half the night without the least effort.
She was also supposed to play the pianoforte adequately, and apparently, the standards for 'adequate' were quite low, so was quite happy to get her practice hours cut down to practically nil, and was surprised then the others in the house went running whenever she sat down to play.
She was expected to be well-read… very well read. This turned out to be much easier than expected. When she went into Mr. Bennet's library to spend the day with him, she found Sense and Sensibility embedded in the cover of Plutarch. This kind of well-read she could deal with. She also had to stereotypically play chess with Mr. Bennet just to show that girls could be clever, but having played with Fitzwilliam, she knew that all he required was for her to let him win about half the time. The only hard part of that was keeping track of wins and losses so she didn't accidentally exceed her fifty percent quota, so she did that by scratching marks on Cicero with a dagger.
She was expected to be able to quote from Fordyce's Sermons, but since nobody ever paid the slightest attention to those, she found quoting random passages from Jane Austin or Emma Brunton just as effective.
"Mama, Lydia has stolen my new bonnet."
"That's because I look so much better in it. Your coloring is all wrong for that bonnet."
"But to appear happy when I am so miserable-oh! who can require it?"
"Mama, I wish to go to Meryton to talk with the officers."
"She was born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions"
As for Kitty and Lydia; well neither of them actually had any redeeming characteristics, so she need not emulate them. One Lydia would be more than sufficient, and there were basically two, so there was quite a surfeit of Lydia-like behavior and nobody thought to chastise Georgiana for missing out on that one.
All in all, she was quite happy as a Bennet sister. No Companion! No Snippy Brother! No hours of practice on the pianoforte just to escape her cousin. Yes, this place was entirely satisfactory, and she couldn't wait to meet her other new sisters when they returned from Scotland.
Walking the paths of Longbourn, in her new companion-free existence, gave her lots of time to think about her life and what she wanted from it. While she was quite enjoying her time at Longbourn, she had to think about the future. She really was quite fatigued with the role of tragic backstory... I mean come on… Tried to elope with Wickham... brother forgives all… Very accomplished… Hates Caroline Bingley but too shy to call her an unladylike name… Not a particularly interesting story. So what did she want her story to be?
Maybe she could be the hero. Yes, yes. The hero! Now that would be something. But… on second thought heroes always had to encounter difficulties, unpleasantness, villains; and to be a really proper hero, one had to suffer quite a lot. The more suffering, the better the hero. When she thought about it from that perspective, it seemed that really the hero's role belonged to Lizzy, or maybe Anne or Jane, or when you get right down to the suffering aspect, anyone who was not Georgiana Bennet. She really wasn't made for suffering. The rewards didn't seem worth the effort.
Maybe she could play the sidekick! Oh yes, that would do. The sidekick! How well that sounded. You got to go on all the adventures with the hero, but never had to make any real decisions; just inject witty dialog from time to time, or chastise the hero for their latest stupidity. Yes, sidekick was good! But… on second thought, it seemed likely that her cousin Anne probably already had that role locked down, and to be truthful, the sidekick usually had to endure all of the aforementioned unpleasantness, plus they had to endure the company of the hero. So all the unpleasantness with none of the credit. No Thank You! On second thought, the sidekick would not do it all.
Maybe she could be the plucky comic relief! Everybody loved the comic relief, and everything they did that was just stupid somehow came out funny. Nobody really expected them to accomplish anything but deliver a few laughs to lighten up the heavy drama. Yes, plucky comic relief would do! But… On second thought, Aloysius definitely had a lock on that role. Besides that, an instant switch from tragic backstory to comic relief might be just too much of a stretch, although the comic relief frequently required a tragic backstory. Too bad she wasn't as inherently ridiculous as Aloysius.
What to do… What to do… What to do… Which role do I play?
Georgiana was so entranced with the impressiveness of her thinking, that she walked headlong, full tilt, smack dab into one of the hedgerows her mother was so obsessed with. Ouch!
She bounced back from the hedgerow and fell flat on her unpadded bottom. She lay on the ground stunned for a moment, and even more surprised she found that she had lost her memory entirely. She could not remember who she was, where she was, or the first thing about the hedgerow in front of her. She sat up and looked around in confusion, trying to spot the required handsome gentleman, or horse, or handsome gentleman on a handsome horse, or sympathetic neighbor, or distressed sister. Finding none of the aforementioned available, she thought, 'No… Can't play the amnesiac either'.
Dissatisfied with all of her choices, she sat stood back up and prepared to go on her way, when she heard some voices from the other side of the hedgerow. She instinctively (for instinct always goes in this type of story) knew that her sister Lizzy would probably say that those who eavesdrop get what they deserve, although the eavesdropping generally helps advance the story. She actually had no qualms whatsoever about eavesdropping, as was appropriate for the daughter of Fanny Bennet.
She listened carefully to the words coming through the hedgerow, and everything became clear to her all at once. She was the unexpected catalyst! This overheard conversation could change everything. She must immediately run about, find other useful characters, engage in unexpected activities and somehow change the entire story. Yes, Georgiana Darcy had a meeting with fate… and she expected to keep it!
Without a backward glance, she set off running as if chased by Elizabeth Bennet herself in the direction of Netherfield.