She stayed in her room until dinner, but Elizabeth came and persuaded her to come down for that. "It would look much worse if you did not," she said. "This way you can show everyone that you are as unaffected as you can be, after that initial shock, and that will go a long way to helping things get back to normal."
Kitty did not particularly care if things ever got back to normal, but she was not in a mood to argue, and assented without objection. She took no special care of her own appearance, but she came down and tried to smile, and act as though nothing was amiss. The others must have either sensed that the subject was forbidden, or Elizabeth had spoken to them, for no one mentioned it and if the conversations on other subjects did not seem as comfortable as they ought to be, they were at least cheerful enough to keep her nerves under regulation.
When the ladies withdrew after dinner, however, Amy approached her and Kitty felt sure she was not equal to meeting the look in her friend's eye.
"What a morning!" she murmured, taking Kitty's arm and leading her around the room. "I wonder that you can bring yourself to face being in company at all."
"I am not so affected as that," Kitty insisted. "I liked him very much, but I was not really in love with him, you know." She was not so confident of that as she tried to sound, but she needed Amy to believe that she was not heartbroken.
"Weren't you?"
"No indeed! And I see no reason to dwell on it. We were mistaken in his identity and his character; the best thing to do now is to forget the whole sorry matter and move forward with something else."
"But how he must have been laughing at us this whole time—and at you particularly! I own, it would be a good joke, if you were not so cruelly treated by it." To Kitty's astonishment and mortification, she laughed. "The looks on everyone's faces were priceless! I have never wished so desperately that I could draw, so I might have captured them. I thought Miss Darcy was going to die of shame, and she did not have half the reason you did. Your defiance to Camilla was spectacular, however. Stone-cold, and would not even give her the courtesy of standing to receive her! Well done, Kitty, well done indeed!"
Kitty did not know which part of this speech to object to first, but Amy misinterpreted her silence.
"Oh, yes, she is the Camilla of whom I told you before. She always was far too high-strung, that girl. And so it was Mr. Johns whom she entrapped into matrimony! Given his look this morning, I believe he has lived to regret it. Well, that does tell me one thing: the man is a determined flirt, and not even matrimony can cure him of that. She has the rest of his life to try to mend his ways, I suppose!" She laughed again. "Well, I suppose you'll have nothing to occupy yourself now. You shall have to devote yourself entirely to forwarding my interest with Colonel Fitzwilliam."
She clearly meant it as a joke, but Kitty could not help recoiling at the very idea. She was quite through with making matches, for herself or anyone else. "You had better find out whether he is married too," she said sharply, "before you go any further, or someone else will be laughing at you." She disentangled her arm from Amy's and went to sit with Lizzy and Miss Darcy, where she could at least expect to be left alone.
Thankfully, both Elizabeth and Miss Darcy were happy to protect her from more of Amy's hurtful chatter, and Kitty was able to keep herself occupied with some of Elizabeth's work and half attending to their conversation. She could not stop herself, however, from thinking over the events of the day and wondering at how quickly her world could go from optimistic to completely hopeless. What on earth was she going to do with herself now? She had certainly made a mess of things with everyone in the house. She was, in fact, a little bit surprised that her father had not already insisted that he take her home—or maybe he thought that she was better punished by being forced to remain here among all the people who had witnessed her shame. She wondered whether the Bingleys were far enough away that she could go to them and be able to start fresh. Would she be forced to be in company with Mr. Johns that far away from Edgepark? She might not ever see him again. That would be preferable. But Mr. Darcy had already promised that he would not be welcome at Pemberley again. Perhaps she would do best to just stay there, and trust that her family would protect her.
She was suddenly thankful of her fear of Mr. Darcy. She knew that not everyone found him as intimidating as she did, but he was certainly not the sort of man one meddled with, either. If he guaranteed her safety, he was forbidding enough that she was sure to be safe.
When the gentlemen joined them, she watched them enter the room with a feeling of detached disgust. She wanted nothing to do with any gentleman at that moment, married or otherwise. She wondered whether it would really be so terrible if she never married.
"Lizzy," she said quietly.
"Yes, dear."
"Do you think… if I never marry anyone, could I come and live with you? I cannot bear the thought of living with the Collinses, but…"
Lizzy laughed a little bit, but gently. "Of course you may, dear, but do not despair of marriage just yet. I know that Mr. Johns has given you a terrible view of men at the moment, and I do not blame you for being disappointed and angry, but not all men are that way."
"That does not matter if I cannot find them," Kitty said.
"And if you do not ever find a man to love you, you will always have a home with us."
"I know how you are feeling, Miss Bennet," Miss Darcy said suddenly. Lizzy looked at her with an expression of surprise, but she nodded once and Lizzy shrugged. Miss Darcy smiled at Kitty. "You are probably doubting me, but perhaps I should tell you my story so that you can better understand."
In a soft undertone, therefore, Miss Darcy laid out a description of her history with Mr. Wickham, to Kitty's growing astonishment. "I truly believed that he cared for me," she concluded with a little sniff. "My poor brother had to prove me wrong by bribing Mr. Wickham to leave me, in front of me. It was the most humiliating, horrid thing I have ever endured." She paused, letting out a shaky breath, and laughed a little bit. "So, you see, I have some idea of what you are feeling—the betrayal, the disbelief, the anger. But it will pass, with time, and you will find that you are actually grateful that you went through it, because you will be better at seeing through undeserving men in the future."
Kitty had no idea what to say. By this reckoning, Lydia's husband was an abysmal specimen of humanity, and Miss Darcy had suffered far more than Kitty was doing.
And she could not help feeling a pang for Lydia. "My poor sister…" she whispered. "What kind of life has she bought for herself, with such a man? She was so happy to be married first, but to such a man!"
Miss Darcy laid her hand on Kitty's. "Yes, I know. But perhaps he might reform, as he has a wife now and must no longer hope to marry a fortune, as he once did."
"How can you say that," cried Kitty, pulling her hand away sharply, "when you and I have immediate proof that there are men in the world who would not hesitate to deceive a lady into thinking whatever she liked of him even if he is already wed to another!"
"Oh, Miss Bennet, I'm sorry—I didn't think of that! But, truly, I do not think that is something Mr. Wickham would do—what would it benefit him? He was not interested in winning hearts as much as he was in winning a fortune, and without the possibility of marrying a rich woman before him, I do not think he would do as Mr. Johns did—truly I do not—he would have no reason to."
Kitty forgave her right away, but she was shaken. The realization that there was one such man out there was bad enough, but to know that there might be two, and that her sister might have married one of them… it was too much. And the more Kitty thought about her brief acquaintance with Mr. Wickham, and the letters she had received from Lydia since they had been married, she could see the thin veneer of affection that cemented their marriage in Kitty's mind as a thing of romance was nothing but whitewash on a tomb. She shuddered. What had her sister really gotten into with Wickham? What might Kitty have gotten into with Mr. Johns, if it had not been for his awful wife?
"Miss Bennet?"
Kitty smiled a little. "After all that, I think you've well earned the right to call me Kitty."
"Thank you, Kitty—and you must call me Georgiana." She returned the smile, and Kitty relaxed back into her seat the smallest bit. She felt as if she had at least one true friend now, who could actually understand what she was feeling, and that was something. The awkward glances of the others and the laughing looks of Amy Pratt were, she felt, at least somewhat defended against.
"You know," Georgiana continued after a moment, "I swore never to marry, too, after what happened with Mr. Wickham."
Elizabeth looked up from her work. "Did you indeed? I did not know that."
"Well, I have since changed my mind, of course. But for several months after, I was convinced that I would remain single. I had planned everything—I was going to live with Mrs. Annesley and purchase a cottage somewhere by the sea, and draw and play music all day."
"You are fortunate that you could afford to do so," Kitty said, "if you wished to."
"I was foolish to think that my brother would not wish me to live with him," Georgiana answered, laughing.
"But you have since decided that you will marry?"
"If I meet someone I wish to marry, I will. I have only decided that I will be very particular about the man I choose to marry, and if he never appears, I will not be disappointed in my life. I have so many sources of happiness, you know, that I do not need to marry to be content."
Kitty felt the implied criticism in this and bristled. "I do not believe that life without marriage can really be satisfactory. But if every man I meet with will be either attracted to one of my sisters or someone else entirely, I shall never have the opportunity to marry no matter what I do."
"Have you not been satisfied with your life so far?"
"Good heavens, no!" Kitty laughed at the very idea. "I have spent my entire life looking for something I shall never have. How dreadful!"
Elizabeth shook her head. "You should not hang your happiness so much on the actions of other people, Kitty. Find ways to be content with yourself, and what you can do."
"For example, you can come with me to the Stephens's again, to return that basket of mending. They will be delighted to see you, I am sure, and very grateful for your efforts on their behalf. I have found that serving them has helped me to begin to overcome my shyness, and taught me to be thankful for what I have." Georgiana held up the handkerchief she was embroidering. "There is no reason, for example, that this should be ornamented, except that it gives me pleasure to have it so, and I am grateful that I am able to make it as pretty as I want it."
Kitty knew she was supposed to feel chastened by this and express her thankfulness for the things she had, but all she could think of was the lonely life she was destined to lead. Georgiana would marry and leave; Elizabeth and Jane and even Lydia would have children and spend their time and affection on them instead of their spinster sister, and her only other hope was that Mr. Collins would take her in when her father died, and his companionship was more of a trial than a blessing. Embroidered handkerchiefs and mending other people's things did not seem like sufficient balm for such wounds.
"I do not believe you have convinced her, Georgie," Elizabeth said, smiling slightly.
"I did not expect to, yet." She laid aside her work and took Kitty's hands. "Your conduct has been much less atrocious than mine was. I fear right now that the wound is too fresh for you to do anything other than ache over it, but I promise, you will find one day soon that things are not so hopeless as you have convinced yourself they must be. In the meantime, I will do whatever I can to ease your mind."
Kitty swallowed back tears, and the urge to hug her. "Thank you. I have never had such a friend as you." She pressed Georgiana's hands tightly and forced herself to smile.