The dinner that Netherfield party attended at the main inn in Meryton with the officers of the regiment had been prolonged in hopes of seeing the rain cease, or at least become less heavy.
It had not.
When they finally left a little before dusk, Darcy, Mr. Hurst and Bingley hurtled from the inn to climb quickly through the open doors of the carriage so they could escape the pouring rain.
Upon settling himself in his seat, Bingley clapped his hands together and exclaimed with a grin, "Genial and jolly fellow. I like Colonel Foster."
"Not a bad sort. Not at all," Mr. Hurst agreed loudly and rubbed at his stomach. "Awful ragout. Terrible kitchen in that inn. They ought to be shamed. Such a table does not keep up the honor of the regiment."
"You can never expect the same attention to your tastes from a public kitchen that a private one will give," Bingley replied consolingly. "For my part there was nothing wanting! A finer company of officers cannot exist in England!"
Darcy was quite certain that a finer company must exist somewhere in the country. He gazed out the window of the carriage as they passed deep piles of wet fallen leaves and rattled over the rocky road that was barely visible through the grey haze of rain.
Bingley and Hurst kept up a quick conversation without any of his input.
There was a sensation, an old and familiar sensation of loneliness. He never felt more alone than sometimes when he was in large groups of people. It seemed to him as though everyone else was an odd talking monstrosity, driven by minds and habits wholly foreign to his own.
The constant raising of glasses to the fairer sex. The overconsumption of the wine in those glasses. Laughing. Jocularly making bets and losing money. Discussion of fashion, and the price of horses, and who was going to win in the next regimental contest. Which lady was of particular interest to which lieutenant or captain.
Though Bingley had sense in his head, he could talk with the senseless as though he were one of them. And Hurst was one of them, though of a different senseless sort. He placed rather more importance upon his meal and clothes, and rather less importance upon cards and the fairer sex than was usual amongst the officers.
And Darcy sat the whole time, keeping the grimace from his face, and listening, listening, listening to endless chatter, while he never ventured an opinion of his own when Bingley did not make him.
He pressed his hands against his eyes.
Halfway to home, as the light steadily dimmed, they had to pause for a minute at a crossroad as an overladen farmer's wagon, filled with sacks from the recent harvest, was stuck. Bingley's postillions and footmen got their livery splashed with mud when they went around to help the shouting wagon driver pull the rims out of mud that went up halfway to the axles.
The horses strained desperately, rolling their eyes back and shaking their heads from side to side. Darcy put his hand against the latch of the carriage door, preparing to step outside to help them.
But the wagon began to move, and Darcy's eyes were caught by a manor house in the distance.
The walls and chimneys were almost invisible in the dark, it appeared as an extra black against the gray of the cloudy evening sky. However, all the windows were lit brightly by candles and lamps within, and torches burned on each side of the door.
The light in the rooms made it so that Darcy could clearly see the women stepping about the house in their fine dresses, and the gentlemen smiling and bowing to them. A child of about twelve ran past the windows, appearing in three of them over a course of seconds.
The moment seemed like a glinting shard of diamond or glass. Even the rain paused for a half minute.
There was something sublime and beautiful about this, about seeing a happy party in a warm and well-lit space, while he was alone amidst the cold and rain, and not able to participate in it.
He could almost hear the music that must be playing inside, but it sounded to him like Georgiana as she played her favorite sonata written by Herr Beethoven. Something in his stomach hurt, but in a joyful way at that pang of sensation.
And then the wagon blocking them had been pulled out of the way, and their carriage driver shouted, and they pulled forward.
Hurst exclaimed, "Bloody annoying. Men who can't drive their own wagons properly ought not to be allowed out onto the roads. There ought to be laws."
And Bingley disagreed. "Eh, poor fellow. Those horses look like old half dead nags."
The moment was lost, and the beautiful light glowing from the manor house was left behind, falling away, away, and away from them.
Darcy pressed his hand against his mouth, with a sensation as though losing that moment of melancholic peace he'd just experienced had been like the destruction of a pearl of great value, whose like would never be seen again.
Upon their arrival at Netherfield, Darcy noted that the windows of a generally frigid and silent guest room were lit bright by a dozen candles and a glow from the fire.
It was a paradoxical matter.
Darcy had been delighted and moved to sublime melancholy by the candlelight shining out the windows of a different estate. One that was filled with strangers or men he was barely acquainted with. But a lit guest room at Netherfield provided impetus once more to that easy irritation which Darcy desperately hoped was not to become a habit.
Why?
Yet another person across the dining room. Yet another heated brain that would fill itself with thoughts about him, and whose gaze he must accustom himself to. Bingley and his family were well enough known to Darcy, and when it was only the domestic party at Netherfield present, he could sink into his own thoughts. He even sometimes dared to stand, as a bad guest, against the tall marble mantelpiece during the evening and fiercely scowl at the flickering yellow flames.
When Darcy was in a mood more cheerful, Bingley took advantage. They had great fun with rides, billiards and chess, fencing and bowls, shooting pheasants and running foxes down with the hounds. Dining with the other gentlemen, some of whose company Darcy enjoyed, almost.
Not another person across the breakfast table!
Bingley also noted the bright light gleaming from the window, and he exclaimed cheerfully, "Another guest — only explanation. How delightful! Who could it be?"
He opened the door before the carriage was quite properly stopped and leapt out on the creaking white gravel. The rain had become heavier again, and it drooled like a panting puppy onto their top hats. Darcy lowered himself out of the carriage with a reluctance that made the precise opposite of the enthusiasm with which Bingley bounded up to his heavy red door that was held open by the butler.
"What ho! I see a guest. Who's the friend? Eh?"
The butler replied with a serious manner, "I am afraid that it is not so pleasant. Miss Bennet took ill with a head cold or a flu when she came to visit your sisters this afternoon, and as she was not well enough to go home again by horse, especially in this weather, she has been given a room to rest in."
For a weird moment, frightening and unsettling in its intensity, Darcy thought that "Miss Bennet" referred to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and he was filled with both anxiety for her and a delight that she was to be under the same roof as him.
But when Bingley exclaimed with a half-choked voice, "Jane! — has the apothecary been called to see her? Is she well? That room has not been used since we came. Was it warmed and aired sufficiently? Has the cook made up bone broth to send her? Or porridge?"
The butler replied stiffly, "The young Miss is well cared for, and your sisters have—"
"Yes, yes." Bingley rushed past him, through the hall and into the drawing room. He flung open the door and shouted, "How sick is poor Jane? I mean Miss Bennet. Caroline, shouldn't you have put her in a better room?"
Darcy followed.
It was rather silly how Bingley could worry so much, and so instantly about any person who he had only met a bare handful of times.
Darcy reached the drawing room in time to hear Miss Bingley say, "The foolish girl's own fault I say — she rode a horse here. In this weather! You must have seen how it rained. She said that it had not started when she headed out — but that is nothing. The poor girl was soaked through when she arrived. It is no wonder she took sick."
"Oh, I'd like to see Miss Bennet ride," Bingley replied with an almost dreamy tone. "She must keep a fine seat — are you certain there is nothing you can do? You both ought to stay up with her, in case she needs anything."
"The new maid Mary is up with her."
"I thought it was Jenny," Mrs. Hurst replied.
"Or whatever her name is." Caroline frowned. "Mary will do fine. If Miss Bennet needs anything she will get it — quite inconsiderate in my view to become sick at another person's house. And Miss Bennet is asleep."
Bingley sighed. "But you have called the apothecary?"
"We'll have him come if a night's rest doesn't set her right," Miss Bingley said. "It does very often. And Mrs. Nicholls sent up to her a special healing tea. It really is quite frustrating. I would never fall sick at a friend's house."
"Oh." Bingley rubbed his hands together. He smiled suddenly. "Jove, that's a good notion you had. Inviting her to stay — not that she could have gone off home in this weather, even if her health had been sounder than that of her horse. But heavens! I'm glad she fell sick here rather than elsewhere since we can take proper care of Miss Bennet."
"I hardly think," Darcy said, "that it would be ordinary for a person to prefer to fall sick in a stranger's house instead of their own home."
"Nonsense! Miss Bennet is no stranger."
"And," Miss Bingley rolled her eyes as she spoke, "it was not fortune which trapped her here."
From the tone of the young lady's voice, Darcy immediately understood what she meant to say: Miss Bennet had come by horseback in the rain for the sake of having no ability to return home. The purpose was that she would be obliged to stay longer and have a chance to spend time with Bingley.
Clever scheme.
It was clear that Bingley either did not understand his sister's insinuation, or he did not care, liking the idea of having Miss Bennet present in the house whether or not it was the result of a scheme.
Bingley called for the housekeeper, and then he interrogated her for ten minutes upon all the details of how Miss Bennet was being cared for, and he offered a wide variety of impractical suggestions for additional things they might do for the young woman, almost all of which were discouraged by Mrs. Nicholls.
The next morning when they woke, it was clear that Miss Bennet had not in fact recovered during the night. She was more feverish than before, with cough, headache, and aches all over.
Bingley's great anxiety in unequal measure with Miss Bennet's symptoms made the decision to send a messenger to call for the apothecary. Miss Bennet herself penned a short message to her family, informing them of her illness and begging them to send clothes and other necessaries, and not to worry. That message was sent off by footman, and this business accomplished, Miss Bennet lay down to rest again, and the Netherfield ladies removed themselves from attendance upon her. They once more replaced themselves with the new maid, whose name was in fact Jenny.
The whole Netherfield party then settled into the breakfast room.
Darcy could not help but wonder what Miss Elizabeth would think when she heard that her sister was ill.
Was Miss Elizabeth the sort of woman who tended to flights of anxiety?
In Darcy's experience women tended to an excess of nervous spirits far more often than gentlemen, perhaps because it was their fundamental nature. Or perhaps the more constrained nature of their lives tended to encourage an excess of thought, when a man would have the opportunity to dissipate anxiety in productive action.
Maybe Miss Elizabeth would phlegmatically shrug and say that people did not often die of little trifling colds, and that when they did, the matter was predetermined by the Almighty, and no human power could stop the tragedy by worry.
The conversation round the table was subdued, though it was punctuated on occasion by Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley agreeing at length that it was always inconsiderate to fall sick at a friend's house, and that neither of them would ever do anything of the sort.
She would visit.
Darcy had noted that Miss Elizabeth was the most attached to Jane of her sisters. There was no certainty — a smallish estate such as the Bennets' often could not afford to spare the horses for many carriage trips. But it was more likely than not that Elizabeth Bennet would visit today, by horseback if not by carriage.
The morning was sunny enough, and the weather as unthreatening as possible in early November.
This thought set Darcy to attacking his buttered rolls and herring with a more cheerful mood than had been his wont of late, and he determined that he would not absence himself from Netherfield for any great length of time today.
Miss Bingley on the other hand assiduously encouraged Darcy and Bingley to go out shooting. The presence of illness would make the house itself quiet and dull the whole day.
Neither of the gentlemen could attend upon Miss Bennet in the bedroom that she had been given, while at the same time the ladies could hardly attend upon their guest if they were required to also entertain the gentlemen. "Go shooting. Go shooting — that was what you told me about at length when you took Netherfield, all those fine pheasants that the agent promised you. Go knock them out of the sky."
"I've already shot a fine passel of birds this season." Bingley cheerfully made the gesture of pretending to hold a rifle up to his eyes and tracking a bird with it. "Too many to eat." He laughed and pulled the imaginary trigger. "By no means. Not till the apothecary — Mr. Jones, I believe? — not till he comes and pronounces Jane healthy and on the mend. I mean Miss Bennet."
"I don't doubt that is what you meant," Miss Bingley said, with raised eyebrows. "But out of kindness to Miss Bennet, do you not think you ought to be a trifle more cautious with a gentlewoman's name?"
"Course I should." Bingley flushed and rubbed the back of his neck. He turned to Darcy. "Eh, shooting after the apothecary comes?"
Darcy shook his head. "I do not believe so. I'll stay in and read my book today."
"But the sun! This is too fine a day for books." Bingley laughed. "I'll not have this from you — oh, ho! The mail."
A footman entered and distributed amongst them the results of the morning post, a couple of letters for both Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, a collection of notes from the neighborhood and one or two letters from friends to Bingley, and a sizeable pile of matters business and social that had been forwarded from Pemberley and his London man of business to Darcy.
Darcy absently shuffled through his notes, and then he gasped.
His heart seemed to catch, and he stiffened. He was not sure with what emotion.
A letter from Georgiana.
He recognized the handwriting even before he noticed the name and the unfamiliar London town address.
The name: Georgiana Wickham.
Darcy's chest clenched. He saw red before him. Wickham. Always laughing Wickham. Wickham hurling insults. Wickham promising revenge. Wickham demanding. Always demanding. Always begging.
Wickham had taken his sister. Wickham was her husband. With the husband's rights. Wickham. His damned brother now, Wickham.
Father's godson. Sister's lawful husband. Brother-in-law.
Wickham. Wickham. Wickham. Wickham.
There were days when Darcy wanted to murder his childhood companion.
Blood and air. Shoot him and force the blood and air out.
"Good Lord! She didn't! That—" Miss Bingley slapped her hands on the table. "What a woman! To send you a letter after what she did to you. Burn it. Immediately. You can want nothing further to do with the wife of a steward's son."
"A letter from little Georgie?" Bingley exclaimed. "Poor girl. No, what does she say?"
"I do not know." Darcy looked down at the unopened envelope.
"Poor girl," Bingley said fervently. "Poor girl — always such a mouse."
"Poor girl or not, you ought to have nothing further to do with her," Miss Bingley said. "Any woman who has despised society, her family name, and all that is good and reasonable in life so far as Georgiana Wickham did should not even be spoken of. And I'll not speak of her further. She hurt you so much. I can see how tortured you have been by the way that people know your family name is stained by Mrs. Wickham. Burn the letter."
"She is my sister," Darcy said sharply. "She will always be my sister."
Miss Bingley seemed to not know what to say in reply to that.
After a hanging silence, Mrs. Hurst said cautiously, "You really ought not read it, it will look better if—"
"I do not care!"
A wave of nausea washed over Darcy. In his mind's eye all the gossips of London, the Meryton assembly, and each false friend he'd ever known stared at him. Every single one. The gossips who judged Georgiana rather than him were right here, right here in the house he lived in.
Why, oh why had he ever made this choice to stay with Bingley?
Because you could not bear to live anywhere that you had lived with Georgiana. In words different: You are a coward.
Darcy stood. He stuffed the letter into his coat pocket and said, "I beg your pardon, Miss Bingley. I allowed my temper to get the better of me. That was unbecoming of me, and I shall strive not to allow my emotions to gain the better of me ever again."
"Darcy," Bingley said. He leaped up from his seat and rushed to follow Darcy as he marched towards the door. He placed a hand on Darcy's shoulder. "Not so harsh. Not on yourself, not on Georgie. Not on — eh, just remember, don't be so serious. It would be worth a kingdom to be less serious."
Kind smiling eyes. And Darcy knew Bingley really had a sincere concern for his honest happiness and wellbeing.
Darcy pressed his hand against his mouth and nodded sharply several times.
He set off, forgetting to put on an overcoat in the whirlwind of anger, sadness, and uncertainty that the reception of this letter created.
For ten minutes he walked at a furious pace, stomping along the muddy roads, barely walking around the big puddles, and driving his legs as fast as they could carry him.
The warm sun and pleasant breeze were like a taunt from the universe.
He wanted to hit something, to spin off like a dying top into a helpless rage of pounding his hands against the wrinkled bark on an overgrown oak till they were bruised and bleeding.
Wickham, Wickham. Georgiana Wickham.
It made no real sense that he'd been thrown into such a mood by the receipt of a letter from Georgiana. It was the first directly from her, as all previous letters had been from Mr. Wickham and written in Wickham's hand.
The only thing that kept him on the road, and in a little control of his own emotions, was the knowledge that his father's ghost stared down at him.
That ghost was disappointed. That ghost was angry.
He had failed.
But he had not yet given the ghost reason to sneer at him in disgust and simple disappointment. If he lost control of himself so far as to act like a spoilt brute child who'd just learned to walk and scream, then the unhappiness of his father's ghost would be complete.
He would not fail again.
In this blind anger Darcy was completely startled by the call of a woman's voice shouting, "Hallo, hallo. Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy, how does my sister do?"
He did not immediately understand what he heard, and then he saw Elizabeth Bennet, leaning against the side of the fence. She stood in the farmer's field on the other side of the fence, and she had a concerned frown. Her face was flushed red from exercise and sweat beaded on her forehead. The curls of hair that framed her face stuck to her cheeks. She wore a blue straw bonnet and a light pelisse that she'd opened to cool down, her petticoats had spatters of mud on the hems. Well used soft brown walking boots completed the picture.
Darcy hurried across the road to stand next to her, studying her as he came. "You have walked out to see your sister?"
She flushed red to the tips of her ears and grimaced and looked down at the mud spotted petticoats. But when he stood next to her, she looked up straight into his eyes, and said with more than a little hint of worry, "Sir, tell me how she fares — her letter was full of assurance and attempted cheer, but Jane is the best person in the world. She would never complain much, no matter how she suffered."
Darcy placed his hand briefly on Miss Elizabeth's, which rested on the fence. He felt something jump from her hand to him, and he pulled his palm away, startled. Her eyes were wide. He said, "Your concern for your sister speaks well for you. You came all this way on foot?"
"And on mud," she replied with a mischievous smile. She gestured down at her petticoats that must be six inches deep in the mud "As you can see."
Darcy laughed in reply.
The two of them smiled at each other.
Her lips were rose red, and there was a depth to her dark bewitching eyes that drew Darcy in. Despite everything, despite his mood, despite Georgiana, despite the difference in their stations, there was a great pleasure to be found in looking into the eyes of a very pretty woman.
They looked at each other for too long. Darcy felt as though he was on the edge of a great promontory above a crashing wild sea, volatile, not in his ordinary way, his mood changed so quickly.
He looked down and away from Elizabeth. He spoke to their boots — his large polished black leather Hessians only a foot away from her small brown leather boots. "Why did you not take the carriage? Or come by horse? Surely that would have been easier."
"Of course, I came! I am not ashamed of this mud on my dress. I love my sister. I would do anything for Jane, just as she would do anything for anyone else. Besides, I enjoy walking. Any person who loves their sister would walk three times three miles to her side if she needed her."
Darcy looked up at her. He was surprised by the sharpness of Miss Elizabeth's tone. "No, you should not be ashamed. I do not judge you for that. I merely wonder."
Their eyes met each other again.
Darcy's heart began beating harder. He felt little thrills go through him.
"I apologize," Miss Elizabeth said at last. She kept his eye for a second, and then it was her turn to stare down at their shoes. Darcy admired the locks of hair falling over her fine cheeks and the hint of her ivory neck visible behind the edge of her bonnet. "I do not know why I was so angry… I am ashamed, else I would not have spoken in such a way. But I do not like to ride, while I do like to walk, and my father did not want to spare the carriage."
"Neither today nor yesterday, I see."
Miss Elizabeth laughed. "My mother did not want it spared yesterday — tell me how does Jane fare?"
"So far as I have been told there is nothing that speaks of a cause for concern. But I have not seen her in person as she did not feel equal to coming down for either dinner or breakfast."
"Oh."
The woman's mobile face went still for a moment as she digested this information, then she made a small shrug, shook her head a few times from side to side, and smiled wryly. "I'll see her myself in another half an hour if I judge the remaining distance of the path right, and then my information will be greatly superior to yours. Silly to ask now."
"You worry."
"Oh, not much! My mother is right that people do not often die of trifling colds. But I worry about how she suffers."
Miss Elizabeth started her walk along the inner side of the weathered fence, tapping her hand rhythmically on the posts as she passed them. She walked towards the stile that went over it fifty yards further along the road.
Darcy automatically walked alongside her, the two of them separated by this worn, weathered, yet firm and substantial fence. Was this fence an apt metaphor for the difference in their stations that made it impossible for him to do more than admire this girl? He said, "You do not mind if I accompany you on the way back to Netherfield?"
"No! Not at all," Miss Elizabeth replied with a smile and heightened color, "I would rather enjoy your company."
Once again it was Darcy's turn to flush and look down.
"I would not wish to interrupt your solitude," she added. "You looked more extremely determined than even your general manner when you walked by me."
"So determined that I came within twenty feet of you and had not even seen your presence."
Miss Elizabeth laughed. "Any pretensions I had to possessing great beauty, or a face that might launch a thousand ships have been demolished. Insensible gentleman!"
To his own surprise Darcy laughed with her. "The fault was with my eyes, not with your beauty."
"No, no, that will not do. My beauty exists to entrance men such as you. And it is proof of what I always knew: I shall have to depend upon my wits, and not my looks — no, no, no. I see what you mean to say."
"Do you?" Darcy replied drily.
"You think to compliment me, as what I said had very much the appearance of a fisherman casting about, desperately hoping to catch such a compliment. And you may compliment me, but only upon my wits, not my looks."
"Ah, in that case, if I can say nothing, I shall not," Darcy replied in a serious voice. "Though I am usually a most loquacious man."
"No, no! You are supposed to compliment my wits." Miss Elizabeth laughed and shook her head while smiling, as though deeply amused in some secret way. "To think you appear so humorless."
That brought a smile from Darcy. "I do not — or do I? I suppose…" He sighed. The memory of that letter in his chest pocket, eating away at the silk lining like a worm, came back to him.
"And now you remember whatever drove you to your solitary hurtle. I can find my way forward to the house if you need solitude. I understand that occasional need, those moments when the presence of another, even one who you like or love, is insupportable."
"You do?" Darcy looked at her in surprise. "When I have watched you, you always struck me as one who is most comfortable amongst groups of friends, lively, laughing, and often the overseer of the conversation."
Miss Elizabeth went deeply pink as she looked at him. Then she shook her head again and smiled. "Ah, well, that one enjoys company does not mean that one does not find solitude also necessary — perhaps you might enjoy society more if you understood that your need for solitude does not mean that you cannot also find great joy in the presence of others."
They reached the stile, and Miss Elizabeth clambered up on the unsteady wooden steps, and Darcy offered his hand to her to help her descend on the other side, even though it was amply obvious that the vigorous girl had no need of aid in hopping over the stile.
Her hand was ungloved, and his as well. The skin of her hand was smooth, though a little dry from the choppy November wind. It was a small hand that fit easily into Darcy's own, and he felt an odd rightness to helping her. There was a sense of something passing up his arm, like some mysterious force that could not yet be understood by the research of science and natural philosophy.
She did not look up at him when they again strolled down the lane, side by side. There was a silence that was not quite awkward, but which also was not quite comfortable. Miss Elizabeth's cheeks were pink, and Darcy was filled with the awareness of her form next to him. If he merely moved his hand a few inches to the side he could press it against her stomach, or brush against the side of her bosom.
Not that he would, but the thought itself, the awareness of a woman as a physical presence, was something almost new to him. His stomach was unsettled.
"No perspicacious comment," Darcy ventured after a few minutes. "Upon how it must be a thought of my sister that drove me to my 'solitary hurtle' as you described my hurried stroll."
"That was no stroll, Mr. Darcy," Miss Elizabeth replied. "And as for the other… the thought had occurred to me. But it would be foolish for me to assume that every frustration you receive comes from the same source, and further, I have determined to apply the golden rule in my interactions with you — I cannot imagine I would enjoy it greatly if every time I exhibited a frown another person exclaimed 'I know! I know! 'Tis your unhappiness with your sister's marriage!'"
Darcy laughed.
He felt nothing of that newly habitual irritation and anger. It seemed to dissolve under the force of Miss Elizabeth's cheerfulness. "To apply the golden rule to such a matter — I thank you, Miss Elizabeth. And there is a freshness of novelty for me, that I am now the one to make the statement: It was a matter of my sister."
He pressed his hand over where the letter sat in the inner pocket of his coat. "I received a letter from her this morning."
The tension began to gather in his chest and hands again. A tightness in his throat, a clenching of his jaw. A thing that felt almost separate from Darcy himself.
"Oh! And what news? — I do not mean to pry. But if you wish to disclose, I suppose I do wish to pry."
Miss Elizabeth's words made Darcy grin at her again. "Curious?" He let out a deep breath. He rather believed that she had meant with her joke to break him from that anger again. "I have not yet read the letter — so there is nothing yet to report."
"You must be so angry with her."
"I am the one who failed. She was only fifteen, and she was betrayed by the companion who I hired for her. This was not her fault. She is blameless and lost because I—" Darcy's voice caught.
You failed. You failed. You failed.
He took a deep breath and let it out. "So no, I have no just cause to be angry at her."
Miss Elizabeth pressed a hand on his elbow to stop him. She looked at him with those wide sympathetic eyes. "That you blame yourself does not mean you are not also angry at her — and that you refuse to agree with those who think that you ought to now despise your sister, does not mean you do not have a right to be unhappy with her, and to wish sincerely that she had made different choices."
"I promised my father. I promised him. As he lay dying. I promised him I would take care of Georgiana. And now I can't. Now she belongs to Wickham. To a man who had already given me good reason to despise his character and his judgement. And — I can't do anything."
"You can read her letter."
He didn't want to.
That was what Darcy realized: A large part of his mind and soul rebelled and revolted against the very notion of looking sympathetically upon anything that Georgiana might have to say to him.
This time he couldn't stop that surge of rage.
Darcy clenched his fist, ground his jaws down, and hurried forward along the road, away from Miss Elizabeth. "Damn, damn, damn, damn. That damned girl." He pounded his fist against his palm. "How did she not see that she needed to at least talk to me? Jove! She was not so stupid. Not. So. Stupid. Young, but not stupid. I always thought she had good sense. She was clever, educated — too sheltered. Damned school. Damned — she knew better!"
Miss Elizabeth's eyes were still soft and understanding. He didn't think they were pitying, just concerned.
Darcy slowly breathed in. Breathed out.
There was a sound of flapping as a bird that was startled by him few away from its perch.
"I… I must apologize. That speech and behavior was most unbecoming of me. I should not have displayed my feelings before you in such a way."
She smiled softly.
A deep breath again. "You are right. I am angry — I do not even know what I'd do if she were under my guardianship again. Not let her practice on the piano for three months whole. My father believed that children should never be beaten, and she would be much too old for such a punishment in any case. But Jove! I wish, I just wish…"
Darcy pressed his hand to his mouth.
He clenched his fist to stop the tears, but a few came anyway. No. He would not cry in front of Miss Elizabeth.
Tight pressed lips.
He'd been taught to never cry. The last time he'd cried had been after his mother died: Don't cry, Fitzwilliam. You are near an adult, and men don't cry.
Darcy threw his shoulders back and lifted his head. Opened his hands to stretch out the fingers, and then closed them three times. Deep breaths. Set jaw.
There.
He turned again to Miss Elizabeth who watched him with wide eyes. "I apologize for these displays. I am not my usual self, but I shall soon be in full control of my faculties once more."
"There is nothing that you should — do you always react that way? When you feel strong emotions? — Oh, do not listen to me. But you should not — you still feel what you feel, beneath that mask. Whether it is what you ought to feel, and whether you ought to feel it. Despite everything, that emotion is there. You cannot remove the emotion by refusing to display it."
"I make it a practice to not display myself before strangers and the idle crowd." Darcy's chest was tight.
"Is there anyone, a friend or part of your family who you can be wholly… show all that you feel to?"
He looked at her. That seemed to him such an odd question.
"I must always be the master. I am Darcy of Pemberley, ever since my father died. Who would I depend upon in such a way? I must be strong. Even when I fail, I must appear strong."
"No. Not always. You will not be despised. I like you more, and I respect you more, because I have now seen something of your weakness in addition to your strength."
"I am supposed to just be strong." The words came out almost plaintively. "That is what my father demanded of me. I am determined to never fail him again."
They had passed through an avenue of trees that were planted along the drive up to Netherfield. The manor house was directly in front of them. The dirt had been softened by the heavy rains the day before and made almost no noise beneath their feet. Just up ahead was the section of the drive right in front of the house that had been covered with gravel for better drainage. The air smelled clean and raw. The earlier sun was occluded by a high white cloud, and in the distance a gray banked anvil cloud had appeared on the horizon.
Miss Elizabeth stopped to study the red brick façade of Netherfield and the fine portico. "You are strong. And… I do not wish my words to be taken awry, and I hardly know you — certainly not as well as I would wish to — but do you think it is possible that you might… learn to judge yourself less harshly? It is evident in how you speak that you are a man who takes your responsibilities seriously. I am certain that you did everything to manage your sister's education and to ensure her well-being that could reasonably have been done."
"I did not go to great enough lengths to study Mrs. Younge's references. We later discovered that the response to the letter I sent to Lord Broadwell, who she had given as her reference, was purloined by the postman. That postman turned out to be in the employ of a smuggler named Mr. Younge who was Mrs. Younge's true husband, and of course a dear friend of Wickham's. The entire matter from the first was a swindle arranged by Wickham. Even the notion of taking a house in Ramsgate so that Georgiana might have a chance to develop more independence — it was a notion that sounded odd to me at the time, but I still acquiesced. I ought to have approached Lord Broadwell in person and asked him, instead of—" Darcy waved his hand about, unable to express his own gullibility.
"Instead of trusting that a letter which no doubt had a seal on it, and that was written in appropriately fancy handwriting and was signed by the person it was supposed to have been from. And I imagine this Mrs. Younge presented other appropriate references."
"All of which were proved false in the end. It was chiefly Colonel Fitzwilliam, my cousin and co-guardian who studied the references. I do not blame him, since he blames himself sufficiently. But we all considered ourselves too clever to be made the victim of such a cheap scheme, but we were not."
"A bribed postman! That sounds to me like an expensive scheme." Miss Elizabeth looked at him. Her eyes smiled a little. "You cannot accuse yourself of being cheaply fooled."
This was something he had told himself, but it was different to hear it spoken by another person, by a woman who he admired. The words in a different voice rang true in a way they did not in his own mind.
He was suddenly very glad that he had forgotten himself so far in his unsettled mood as to disclose this much of his own affairs to Elizabeth. Perhaps his usual reticent manner was not the best for ensuring his own happiness. "Even if I was fooled at cost, the profit they turn on Georgiana's fortune is sufficient to pay for that cost."
"The chief aspect of the matter though is that you behaved at all points in a reasonable and considerate manner."
"But the end was a disaster, and so I must blame myself," Darcy replied, but he said it in a sort of wry voice that he already felt as distancing his emotions from this conviction of his own failure that had echoed through his mind endlessly for months and months.
"Do not be ridiculous. Disaster and failure are ordinary parts of life. To suggest you ought to be immune from them is to mistrust the judgement of the Almighty."
"You mean to say I am irreligious?" Darcy tried to joke.
Elizabeth smiled at him. "If that notion will help you to see yourself in a more proper perspective, then think that is what I meant to say."
In a suddenly more cheerful tone, Darcy added, "At least their profit was less immediate than they want — Wickham studied the law, but he never could study well. It seems he believed that the terms of my father's will placed Georgiana as the femme sole owner of her dowry, which would thus immediately transfer to the husband. He was quite irate when he came to me to demand the transfer of funds, immediate and posthaste, to discover that I had no duty to do so. Until she is twenty-five, any disbursement of the funds occurs at the discretion of Colonel Fitzwilliam — her other guardian — and myself. And when she reaches the age of twenty-five, if Mr. Wickham is still alive, I have the right to form a settlement on her which only gives the income during her life."
"Your father thought of everything."
"And his lawyers — but Georgiana was very young when he died. I suppose I was very young as well. I was only twenty-two, fresh returned from university and some travels that had been limited in scope by England's continental engagements with the Corsican. I think that is why Colonel Fitzwilliam was named the co-guardian with me, he is three years my senior, and I think that while there is not such a great difference between seven and twenty and thirty, the gap in responsibility and understanding of the world between a gentleman of twenty-one and twenty-four is considerable."
They walked up to the house that Darcy had left just three quarters of an hour earlier. They found Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst still in repose at the breakfast table. Miss Bingley was penning a letter in reply to a piece of her morning correspondence, while her sister listlessly flapped the decorative charm back and forth on her golden bracelet.
Bingley was in the billiard's room playing a round with Mr. Hurst, but upon hearing the return of Mr. Darcy, and the arrival of an additional guest, he hurried out in his shirtsleeves. He effusively greeted Elizabeth, remarked upon his worry for her sister. Then after giving him a smile and an adieu, Elizabeth went up to see her sister. In this she was joined by Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst. Darcy was left alone with the gentlemen again.
What an odd conversation that had been.
Darcy had shown more of himself than he ever could recall before, and — he was glad that Miss Elizabeth was such a sensitive listener. There was something about her that made it easy to speak to her, easy to express things in him that he did not even like to express to himself. There were features of his own soul that existed in the stillness of the night that he refused to admit to himself, and perhaps it had done him good to face them with her.
He felt more like his old and ordinary self than he had in the past six months.
Bingley clapped Darcy on the shoulder. "Are you well? Have you read the letter — no need to tell me. But, well. Chin up. You'll endure anything." Bingley smiled at him. "Do not take yourself so seriously, eh. You are only Darcy." He laughed as though that was a joke.
And to his surprise Darcy laughed with him.
"I have not yet read the letter, I shall retreat to the library to look through it, and perhaps play a round of billiards afterwards. Maybe we might do a little shooting afterwards."
When he worked open the seal with a penknife, Darcy quickly scanned through, and then read more cautiously.
The essence of the letter was a statement that due to his high-handed and unwarranted refusal to honor father's wishes by not disbursing the whole of the fortune immediately, Georgiana and her husband were thrust into deplorable circumstances. As a loving brother he could not possibly wish that, and he ought to without delay release the money. Further, both members of the couple would be most happy to see him and discuss the matter at his leisure.
The handwriting was hers.
The style was… not Georgiana's. He was used to receiving many letters from her while she was at school.
There was something off about the whole thing.
He stood and paced around the library, his eyes idly sliding over the red and brown leather-bound backs of the books and the walnut wood of the mostly empty shelves. There was a big bear rug in the center of the floor of the Netherfield library. Claws and a mouth stared out at him from it, and in his inattention, Darcy tripped over the head once.
He caught himself on one of the walls and stood up.
Suddenly he realized what was the matter: The handwriting was Georgiana's, but the words clearly were from Mr. Wickham.
And why hadn't Georgiana written to him after the marriage? — there were notes from her in the first letter that he received, and in the letters that were sent to arrange a first meeting following Georgiana's engagement. But none after Wickham had been informed that they would receive nothing but the income from the fortune set aside for Georgiana.
Wickham. Of course, Wickham did not permit his sister to correspond with the brother who he hated.
That was his right, one of his several conjugal rights, as her husband.
The man had been furious with him, and Darcy had been furious with Wickham in turn when they met at the nominally neutral precincts of Childe's bank to discuss the disbursement of Georgiana's fortune.
Wickham had always been a sort of man who liked to assume that matters would go easily according to his plans, and to then be shocked when difficulties remained afterwards.
Wickham wanted to meet him again.
Obviously, the intention was to beg for a sum of money beyond the quarterly distribution of the income from Georgiana's fortune — a distribution that Darcy had decreed would only take place if Georgiana appeared in person each quarter at Childe's Bank to accept the funds. This was within his rights, and the bank had a long relationship with the Darcy family. When she came, the banker would be able to observe her and report to Darcy on what he could see of Georgiana's welfare.
Another meeting.
Darcy felt in the back of his head a little of that rage at her whose existence he'd only acknowledged this morning. After throwing off the Darcy family name to lower herself into the ditches by marrying the wastrel son of a steward, she still wanted to meet him as her brother.
It was an odd sensation to hear those phrases that he had absolutely refused before to allow himself to think echo through his head. These thoughts were part of him. They were not the only part of him, but they were there.
But he wanted to see Georgiana. He wanted to know how she looked, and he wanted to see for himself how she fared.
He had not seen her the previous time he met Wickham.
They were in London, and they were the supplicants. He'd have them see him tomorrow morning, likely at the townhouse on Grosvenor Square.
Darcy returned to the billiard room where both Bingley and Hurst studied a difficult set up for Hurst's next shot.
"Eh, up for the next round? The winner will be determined by whether Hurst can knock in the red."
"I must travel to London on business, and I intend to ride off immediately. I believe I shall return by the afternoon tomorrow, but I may be delayed an additional day."
"Oh! You are going to meet Georgie? I am glad. I hope you find her happy… just because she married unwisely does not mean that I don't want to see her happy in that marriage. Even though you hate the husband. It'd be better if they are happy."
That was an odd way of thinking that Bingley described, but he had a sense that Elizabeth would likely agree with it.
Hurst made his shot, and the red ball did go in. He cheered, clapped, and drank down a shot of whiskey.
Bingley let out a theatrical groan of displeasure at losing. "Well, Darcy, I'll see you then tomorrow."
"Give some parting words from me to Miss Elizabeth before she goes."
Both Bingley and Hurst looked at him queerly. At least Darcy thought they did. But he simply stared back, calm and resolute.
Fitzwilliam Darcy. The master of Pemberley.
"Of course. Of course—" Bingley said. "I'll give her your greetings. I mean partings."