Mary sought out her sister and found her checking accounts.
"Lizzy, may we speak?" she asked awkwardly.
Elizabeth smiled at her sister, laying aside her work, rising from the table and bidding Mary sit by her and to speak of anything she wished.
Mary swallowed hard, not sure of how to begin.
"I… we… I…" she said, then breathed deep and started again. "Georgiana is so wonderful, so kind and loving. I… feel that I can't do enough to make her understand how special she is to me, to bring her the happiness she deserves."
"Oh Mary," Elizabeth said, hugging her shoulders and tilting her head so that their brows touched. "I can see how happy you make her. And how happy she makes you."
"Yes, that's it, she makes me happy, so much more happy than I ever anticipated," Mary explained. "But she gives up so much to be with me. She could marry anyone, do anything she wished, but she chooses me. It is…. too much to bear. I need to do something to make her feel just as happy as I am."
"You make her happy," Elizabeth said. "She is not missing society or anyone else. She is happy with you in a way that Darcy says he never observed in her whole life. Why should you question yourself or the happiness you bring her?"
Mary frowned. "I don't know. It seems that there must be something else I can do to bring her joy."
Elizabeth blushed slightly, trying not to think of what the two girls might do privately, but determined to give Mary the benefit of her experience.
"When I was at Netherfield and struggling with how to make Mr. Darcy happy, Mrs. Romney told me something that I should not have known without her wisdom. She said that there are few places on one that do not feel good when touched or kissed by one's beloved," she said, blushing more deeply.
Mary's flush was several shades darker as she took in her sister's meaning.
"The best gift you can give your beloved is yourself, your attention and attentions," Elizabeth told her. "Study to please her. Don't fret about propriety when you are alone. Pay attention to that which brings her happiness and explore your own happiness with her. That is how you will repay her love."
Mary's face was red and downcast as she tried to take this in, then hastily thanked her and retired to her own room to think.
"Well, Kitty, here is a letter all for you," Mr. Bennet said, producing a letter from the stack. Kitty had ceased to hope that Fitzwilliam would write again and took it indifferently. It was from Lydia, whose failure to write after her arrival in Brighton had surprised no one.
The note was short and full of talk of militia officers, and Kitty could share none of her sister's pleasure. Her own chosen officer was far off, perhaps not even knowing of her helpless love for him. He must not know or he would write, at least to her father. Kitty sighed.
Caroline stared at herself in the mirror. Each day seemed to add three to her appearance. Used as she was to stalking her prey at liberty, she felt constrained by the necessity to find a husband and to distance herself from talk of Darcy's doings and relations.
Unfortunately, the delightful scandal of the propertied gentleman not only running off with a country girl, himself, but enmeshing himself with her family, particularly a sister addicted to eloping, was irresistible to the bored gentlefolk.
Always it seemed that no sooner had she drawn close to the gentleman of her choosing, one Mr. Trew, their host and a man of respectable fortune and estate, than another lady cut in to ask her about Lydia or Eliza Bennet. Or, even more dangerously, Georgiana. Caroline had grown heartily sick of them all.
But by unremitting effort, she thought she had appealed to Mr. Trew's abundant self-love by indicating her endorsement of it.
She must make him propose by summer's end, she determined. They must be married before anyone thought of returning to town. She waited until her maid was done with her bedtime ministrations, then took herself to bed, intending a good night's sleep to make up for many indifferent ones.
"My cousin, Fitzwilliam, writes," Darcy announced to Elizabeth. The girls had gone out early, and they breakfasted tete-a-tete this morning, a delicious return to their honeymoon bliss. Darcy had hinted to Mrs. Annesley that the girls could well be left without a chaperone at the family home, and she happily spent her days reading in her room.
Elizabeth paused over her toast and asked how was his cousin.
"He seems to see the humor in the situation. Determined to help me, he made an unnecessary trip without leave to Meryton but returned immediately upon finding that Lydia was already wed and gone. He writes that his commander was understanding."
She gave a small sigh of relief, glad that the only other unknown was now safely settled.
"I am glad that there was no ill effect," she said, clasping his hand in hers.
"Thank providence there was not," Darcy agreed. "If he had faced court martial for desertion because of me, I never could have forgiven myself. Now it seems the only outstanding item is his desire to be remembered in our invitations for Christmas."
"Oh, let us invite him," Elizabeth cried happily. "I have already told Kitty we shall have her to Christmas. With Mary and Georgiana, and Jane and Bingley, and Mama and Papa, my aunts and uncles and cousins, what a cozy family gathering we shall have!"
Darcy quietly thought that they would have all they might want of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty in town but could not spoil his wife's pleasure in planning a warm Christmas.
Darcy confessed to Elizabeth that he had told Mary the truth of their elopement. She started slightly, quickly casting her mind back over recent days.
"But she has said nothing, has not shown any coldness to you at all," she objected. "She is perhaps even more sisterly toward you."
"She has called me brother more than once," he confirmed. "She asked me for a brother's blessing on her and Georgiana."
"What did you say?" she asked anxiously.
"I promised to do so. Really, Mrs. Darcy, I thought we had established that I am not an ogre, bent on making sisters unhappy. As soon as Georgiana asks as well, I shall bless them both."
She grinned and hugged him closer. "I should not have doubted you, Mr. Darcy. And Georgiana and Mary do seem happy."
She thought of her conversation with Mary and decided not to share it with him. One didn't like to think of one's siblings in the way of passion, she reflected.
Darcy shook his head slightly. The idea of the two of them in some kind of sentimental, romantic tryst was disconcerting, and it took every bit of his new-won sympathy and humility to respond as befit his duty to the girls.
Seeing the consternation in his eyes, Elizabeth stroked his brow and kissed him softly.
"You are acting every inch the supportive brother, and I wonder at your self-possession in this most unforeseen circumstance."
"I can only imagine how I should have comported myself, before you," he said, wrapping his arms more securely about her.
"I shall have to tell Georgiana, too," he said. "It is not fair to expect Mary to keep my secret from her."
Elizabeth caressed him, knowing how painful the admission would be. But the lie was goading at him like a thorn in his heel, and he must draw it.
The next morning, Darcy took the opportunity of Mary having received a letter from her mother to walk with his sister. His guilt at removing his sister from her friend — her beloved — jarred with the painful anticipation of his confession.
"Georgie… Georgiana, I have lied to you," he forced himself to say.
"What about, brother?" she asked, shocked that he would lie, but hoping to finally understand what it was that had been haunting him.
"I told you that Elizabeth had gone away with me of her own will. She did not. She refused me, and I forced her to go so that she would have to wed with me." He spoke fast but steadily, staring at the ground before him. "I alone am responsible for the gossip you endured."
Georgiana stared blankly. Never could she have imagined her brother engaged in such an act of violence. And since first she saw Elizabeth and him together, their actions had betokened deep mutual affection. How was it possible that this loving had its beginnings in nothing less than kidnap?
"Brother, how could you?" she asked at last.
He hung his head, feeling her words deeply. "I felt that I could not live without her. That feeling made itself my master and I did as it commanded, without regard for Elizabeth, her family, for you or anyone else but myself."
He shook his head at his own selfishness. "I was wrong, and if you cannot ever forgive me, I will understand. I do beg your forgiveness, but cannot expect it."
Georgiana shook her head, trying to accommodate this shocking reality. That a man so upright, the very mode of propriety, her own brother, should descend to outright savagery to gain the woman he desired… As Wickham had been prepared to do with her. What might not a man be willing to do to gain his desire?
She drew a shuddering breath, forcing herself to think of how devoted and happy a wife Elizabeth so clearly was. He could not be a monster, not if she loved him so dearly.
"You never… hurt her?" she asked tentatively.
"No, never," he affirmed, then considered. "She did say she suffered when I went overboard, but I can scarce believe it."
"She has forgiven you so entirely?" Georgiana asked, a sob catching in her throat.
"She says she has," he said, tears starting in his eyes. "She said that she was so happy that she must see all that brought us together as a good. She is unbelievably generous with me, you see."
"Oh brother," she cried, hugging him to her. "It is so bad… but I am glad you told me. I wondered so what it was that made you act so— I know not how to describe you since your return into Hertfordshire."
"I have been a madman," he admitted. "Driven by passions, an example of how being given one's own way in all things makes for an entirely selfish being."
"You have never been entirely selfish," she objected. "I have seen you consider my needs and wants, and those of Bingley and his sisters, and Mary's sisters, many times."
Darcy shook his head, seeing only blinds for fulfilling his own selfish desires in any proffered act of selflessness.
"I thank you for seeing the best in me, but I see only selfishness," he explained.
She looked up at him. "We should go back to the house. Elizabeth is there, and she will make you feel better. She always does."
Absently he thanked her, then continued. "I have told Mary this, and I thought it only right that you should know as well. I did not wish her to have to keep such a secret from you. Confidence is important between…" he fumbled for a word.
"Intimate friends," Georgiana offered with a smile.
"Yes, indeed, just so," he said hastily, frantically thinking of any relevant advice to offer her. He was a married man, he should be able to counsel her — who else stood to do so? But all he could think of was the first thing that sprang into his thoughts.
"Always tell the truth, what is on your heart, dear sister," he counseled her. "It is lies and silences that drive us apart from those we love."
She smiled and squeezed his hand, leading him toward the house.
Mary read the letter with distaste. That her mother should importune her to press Mr. Darcy for further generosities galled her. She could not bear her mother's rank greed, and thrust the letter aside, deciding it deserved no answer.
She knew Darcy and Elizabeth must travel to London come winter for Kitty's presentation. That she and Georgiana remain in the country, in the house that made her beloved so happy, was paramount in her desires.
Determined to know Georgiana's mind on the subject, Mary raised the matter as they rose from their afternoon study.
"Do you wish to go to town for the season?" she asked, aiming for disinterest and failing markedly.
"Oh no," Georgiana said instantly, taking her hand. "The noise, the smoke, the horrid people… No, I wish to stay here with you." She smiled warmly into Mary's eyes, who felt as though her chest should come open under the strain of the affection welling up within.
When Mary's eyes swam back into focus, she perceived her own hand on the back of Georgiana's neck. The feel of the soft skin, the silken hair, mesmerized her. Georgiana smiled radiantly, pressing back into Mary's hand, eyes closed in pleasure.
Lizzy's words echoed in her thoughts, and she moved her hand over the tender skin reverently but deliberately.
Georgiana collapsed against her, face buried in Mary's shoulder and her arms wrapped around her to press gently against her back, fingers spread to touch more of her.
"I love the feeling of your fingers on me," Georgiana said, nearly mesmerized by the sensation. "Since that first day we played together, I loved your fingers on the keys. As the days passed, I came to wonder how they would feel upon me. It is more wonderful than I ever could have imagined."
Overcome by her admission, Mary found herself confessing, "I love to touch you. I wish to touch you all over."
Still trembling with joy, the girls lay in the shelter of the desk, holding each other.
"Brother told me about… he said that he had already told you," Georgiana told Mary, still struggling with speaking the words.
"Yes, he did confess that the elopement had been all his own doing," Mary said, looking anxiously into Georgiana's face to see how took this terrible revelation.
"Oh Mary, I scarce know what to think! That he should force a woman — your sister — from the home of her friends… It is hard for me to believe, though he told me, himself."
"I had never heard of such an act among civilized persons," Mary said carefully. "And as he always seemed the epitome of civilization, his act is the more shocking."
"Yes, he has always been so measured, so in control of himself," Georgiana said. "That he should have seized her like a villain in a novel… If brother could act so, who is to say how any man could act when motivated by passion?"
Mary frowned. Her thoughts had also tended toward critique of the masculine sex upon this confession. She had to admit in all fairness that men, at least Englishmen, did not kidnap maidens to wife like un-Christian savages. That Georgiana's brother had done so invited particular criticism that she was not inclined to deliver, knowing how much affection her beloved held for her brother and guardian.
"As there have been no similar cases of marital kidnap, we must allow that this was a very unusual circumstance," Mary said. "He gave no defense of his behavior, saying that his act was unnatural and evidently condemned and punished by God."
"To me he condemned himself as entirely selfish," Georgiana added.
Mary considered this. "It strikes me as unusual and laudable that he should not defend his actions. Men, and women for that matter, in my experience always justify their sinful acts in some way."
"They always do," Georgiana concurred.
"He seems to view his life as an ongoing contrition for the act," Mary observed.
"Yes, that is very Christian of him, is it not?" she asked. Mary agreed.
"As Elizabeth has forgiven him, cannot we do the same?" Mary asked.
"Yes, he has behaved so well by us, and Elizabeth loves him so dearly. I think we must forgive him, even though his act did cause us pain."
"For my part, I should have encountered shame of the sort through my younger sisters' actions at some point. That the scandal distressed you is harder for me to forgive, but as you forgive him, I cannot resent it."
Georgiana embraced her.
"You are ever fair but generous," she said, marveling at her beloved's perfections.
—
Dear Readers,
Posting a day early because of AO3 being down.
If you're interested in reading an Advanced Reading Copy of one of my upcoming P&P variant books, please email me at kaurifish at gmail dot com.
Thanks for reading!
Kaurifish