The Fracture of Her World

Georgiana Darcy was a woman grown, and what a terrible thing that was. The tender transition from youth to adulthood was always destined to be full of its own difficulty, but nothing about womanhood had brought the youngest Miss Darcy anything but pain. She was not yet out in society, and if she had any say in it, she never would be. It did not do to think of what could have been had she not gone away to the seaside, but there was no going back – not now.

For Georgiana, the last vestiges of her girlhood had burned to ash that fine evening in early July. The glazing had rattled violently as she pounded her fist on the drawing room window, shrieking her pain and desperation at Wickham's rapidly retreating figure. In all the years she had worked at the art of civility and delicacy of feeling, she had never experienced the sheer violence of emotion that had erupted from her that terrible day. Had she not experienced it, she would even now believe herself incapable of it. Georgiana had left something behind in that cursed house in Ramsgate, and what she had left was quite irretrievable.

Her own intensity of feeling was only rivaled by that of her brother, though his fury was of a silent and more lethal sort, dreadful in its calm. His rage was felt rather than seen – like a tremor in the air or a barometric pressure drop that heralded a gathering storm. George Wickham had certainly felt it. His handsome veneer of charm and ease had vanished in an instant, leaving in its place a thin and pale man frozen in terror, as if he were a fox discovered with his mouth on the neck of a lamb. Darcy had never raised his voice. He hadn't needed to.

"Is there nothing of honor in you, George?" he had said with deadly calm.

When Wickham's eyes moved to the door, Darcy's hand shot out to seize him by the lapel, dragging him closer as he spoke in a rapid hiss, so quiet that Georgiana was barely able to make it out.

"She is but a child, George. A child who knows nothing of your depravity and avarice. Are you so lost to all decency that you would cut down the tree to pick the apple? Let me be understood – Georgiana will always have my protection. Always. And you shall have not a pound from our coffers – not while I draw breath. You would do well to remember George, that the only thing keeping your blood off of my hands is the dutyI owe my sister."

With a look of disgust, he gave Wickham an abrupt shove that caused him to stumble back against the mantle. Georgiana gasped in shock, involuntarily flinging her arm out as if to help but he righted himself quickly, his breathing rapid and shallow.

"I am grateful only that my father was spared the pain of seeing your treachery," said Darcy.

Wickham made no response, and nobody moved for a long moment until abruptly Wickham turned on his heel and fled the room. Darcy watched him go silently, his posture rigid, his eyes still filled with cold fury.

George Wickham had not even favored her with a backward glance as he all but ran down the street. She was certain he could hear her wailing and pounding on the window but his eyes had stayed fixed on his escape as he pretended to hear nothing of her pain. His flight was the certain proof of his caprice, upending his fervent avowals of a love everlasting. Georgiana knew in her bones this leave-taking represented the end of all of her hopes – and the death of her innocence.

Georgiana did not notice her brother's presence as he wrapped a steady arm around her torso to draw her away from the window. As she was gently compelled backwards, she spun in his grip and turned her fists to his chest, shrieking her dismay and cursing him. For what? She knew not. As the truth of Wickham's absence settled on her, rage turned to anguish and her cries melted into sobs as she hung from her brother's lapels. She wept into his chest, feeling his soft voice in her ear, painfully gentle.

She wanted to hate her brother for sending her George away, but her George had not even tried to stay. Something felt wrong – like a discordant note left unresolved – about the whole affair. She did not understand what had caused such powerful anger in her usually steady brother, Fitzwilliam. Indeed, his reaction to an unsuitable marriage should not have been this bad. Even through his terrible rage, she saw how he instinctively placed himself physically between her and the man she would marry, as if he were. . . afraid. Indeed, she had seen something like horror in his eyes as she joyfully told him of her intention to wed. He had mastered himself quickly behind a severe and austere mask, but something of it still lingered. She realized now that Fitzwilliam had been terrified.

Later, when she had cried herself into a quiet trance, her brother had told her in stark terms what he knew of his childhood friend. He spoke of George's vice and sin as if he was tainted simply by speaking of it. She heard the words and yet she did not understand. As she digested his account, fresh tears began to slide down her face. Had it been anyone other than Fitzwilliam telling her, she would have laughed at the ridiculousness of the lies. However, she knew her brother and her trust in him was absolute. Even when she had thought that perhaps he was mistaken, her instinct urged her to trust her wise and eminently kind brother. George had also said nothing in his own defense; his guilt now seemed obvious by this stark omission.

Georgiana had loved him – truly loved him – and he had betrayed her while whispering soft love into her ear. Wickham had lied to her. It was now so painfully clear that he had wanted her only for what she might give him. He sought her out to harvest her capital, knowing he would ruin her. This was far worse than a rejection. Not only had he never cared for her, he had had no qualms whatsoever about destroying her life.

With that realization came the fracture of her world. It seemed as though the very ground beneath her had split and pulled apart, and a gulf now stood between the time before George had left, and the time after.

In her head, she thought of the time before as life and the time after as death, for that is what it felt like.

Georgiana now lived in death, and yet she somehow still lived. The dawn broke every morning and the sun set each night and she continued, inexplicably, to exist. But Fitzwilliam existed, too – a faint star twinkling in the void of night, a dot of light, which gave her a tiny seed of hope. Fitzwilliam had always been a fixture in her life, the one constant through every tragedy she had faced in her fifteen years.

Although he said little about it, she knew he worried. He never spoke of that day, or at least not directly. Instead, he watched her with those eyes that were so like her father's – clear, but unfathomable and serious. He made plans as though life were normal, as if she were normal – but It had not made any difference at all. Fitzwilliam was nothing if not persistent. He came to her day after day saying little, but choosing still to be near. She was grateful for his presence, but she also did not know what to do with it. When he was necessarily away, he wrote to her every day.

He sent her long, detailed letters that were open and revealing. In the past he had restricted his letters to factual observations about the events and people that surrounded him but now, he revealed his thoughts and feelings on these subjects and his life in general. It seemed to Georgiana that he was casting about wildly for some point of connection. Some foothold that would lead him to find the sister he remembered. He told her things in his letters that he had never spoken out loud, things she knew that he would never have revealed had she never gone to Ramsgate. She wondered how much of this vulnerability was also for his own sake?

It had long been the Darcy tradition to keep one's own council, but the effects of this were very often a sort-of proud isolation. She could tell her brother was lonely too. Regardless of his motivations, she knew that he loved her and she knew rather than felt that she loved him too. That was the strangest thing about this melancholy – most of the time she felt nothing at all. She could recognize the place where feeling would normally stand, but in its place was only numbness. Oddly however, she still cried sometimes, although she could not always say why.

Mrs. Annesley was with her much of the time and made her do things that were quite ordinary, such as get out of her bed, attend to her toilette, sit with her brother for meals, and continue to pursue the banality of her accomplishments. This normalcy felt so hollow now. What Georgiana had longed to do was to sit in her music room and do nothing at all. did not like this habit, and discouraged it as best she could. Despite this, Georgiana still found herself there far too often.

Sometimes her cousin Richard came to see her. His disposition tended naturally towards cheerfulness, and he spoke gently to her, offering blythe humor that, although it did not make her laugh, made her appreciate her cousin all the same. Fitzwilliam and Richard were the two people dearest to her since the loss of her parents and she wished she could return to her old self if only to stop them from worrying about her.

It was difficult to understand what her feelings were after George's betrayal, but as the months went on, she began to feel something more of anger towards that gentleman and also a new sense of guilt for the brother and cousin she had disappointed. She also had recently begun to feel the stirrings of humiliation.

Wickham had certainly been duplicitous, but she had done nothing to temper her own regard with rational thought. She was ashamed of her behavior. It was all the worse because not a word of censure had crossed either Fitzwilliam or Richard's lips since Ramsgate. She was certain that although she could never lose their love, she had destroyed their good opinion. She had never realized until then how much she valued their respect. She had been someone of which they were proud – and now? She was a broken little secret; a liability to the family's honor and respectability.

She felt a new sympathy toward every woman who had ever brought shame on her family. She knew now how little effort it took to cause irreparable damage, and it made her physically ill. She was grateful that the knowledge of the affair had not gone beyond herself and her guardians, but some part of her thought that should Lady Catherine ever come to find out, the magnificent dressing down she would receive would at least give her some penance for her sin. Instead her shame was hers, and hers alone. Through her despondent emotions,she longed for an opportunity to earn back some of the good opinion she had squandered.

When her brother had come to her music room not even a week after returning home from Netherfield she was dimly surprised to find him holding a letter out to her. He had said she needed a friend. He was right -but why did it make her feel ashamed? His gentle concern was a painful reminder that her own brokenness was causing pain to those she loved.

She was sorry for it. Sorry for all of it. She tried to tell him so, but he would not hear of it. He was always good to her.

"... read the letter, sweet one." he had said, "I know not how, but I think it will help." Georgiana doubted this, but it might help him to see her exert herself. She resolved that she would try – if only because it seemed important to Fitzwilliam.

The letter had been. . . light. A burst of sun, cutting through the window shade at dawn. For FItzwilliam, she tried to let it in, to soak it up as much as she was able. She had determined even before the seal had been broken that she must like this Elizabeth Bennet, because her brother thought that she should. But to her surprise, she found that it would have been impossible for her to do otherwise. After she had finished reading, she had hurried to her writing desk to reply before she was overtaken by her sadness yet again.

Monday 1st December, 1811

Miss Bennet

I must confess that I was astonished when my brother gave me your letter. I was certainly not displeased, but I could not fathom why you should want to write to me, I am a stranger to you. My brother tells me it was his idea, but I am grateful that you should agree to it.

I think I must admit to knowing rather more of you than perhaps I ought. My brother had written to me often while at Netherfield and I believe he said something of you in nearly every letter. I begged he would tell me more as his accounts of you were always the most interesting. I understand you to be a joyful person with a bold and independent nature. (You must tell me how accurate a picture I have of your character in your next letter.)Your love for debate made you a far more interesting person to read of than his other new acquaintances. I am sure they are very fine and respectable, but to me (and even second-hand) you were always brighter than them all.

I believe your opinion of Mr. Bingley is much the same as my own. He is a dear friend to my brother and has even spent much time with us at Pemberley. I wonder what you think of his sisters? For myself, I know not what to say of them except that I do not envy my brother the weeks he spent being attended by Miss Bingley. It is perhaps uncivil of me to say so, but I believe she wishes to be my mother's successor.

I know I should perhaps not elaborate on this point, but I will. I am learning that not all the world will judge me by my own merits and Miss Bingley is a very fine example of this phenomenon. My brother receives the larger portion of this fawning attention, but It is still its own particular kind of humiliation that I believe my brother and I both feel acutely. I believe we have different means of expressing ourselves on this point. I blush while Fitzwilliam becomes quite dour.

I laughed at how you captured that peculiar tendency of his to sulk by the window. I am certain that rather than being offended by the glazing he is imagining himself on the other side of it, fleeing into the hills at the first mention of lace trimmings. I believe he credits parlour rooms with being the seat of all ill-intentions -or so he has said on more than one occasion.

Has your Mr. Collins been introduced to Miss Bingley? What an auspicious pairing they might make? I know not why I have written that. Were Mrs. Annesley to read this letter, I should be made to scratch it out at once.

I beg you would not excite your anticipation on my account. I am certain that whatever you might have heard of me has been greatly exaggerated. Like you, I do not think overmuch on my own character, but I believe that my family calls me demure. This is a kind way to say I am easily embarrassed by nearly any overt attention.

I believe I am tall for my age – although I try not to feel my own superiority about this. I am most certainly not the tallest woman of my acquaintance, but I am taller than most. If only this could be counted as a virtue in a lady, I would not need to work so hard at my studies. I am very fond of music which is the only reason I have any skill at the pianoforte. I have no one at my disposal to play for me, and so I have learned that I must take the trouble upon myself. Were it not for my enjoyment of music, I doubt I should have liked to put in the effort. I am sure you underestimate your own skill. I have once heard your playing called delightful.

My brother tells me that you have many sisters, and I confess I envy you. Even were she a holy terror, I should have liked to have someone to share my toilette with on occasion – even if only to argue over hair combs ( is this not what sisters do?). I am grateful for my companion, Mrs. Annesley, but she is no sister, a failing she can hardly help. She is a kind woman who has a good understanding and a sensible temperament. I believe society would call her the perfect companion for a high born lady. She is, on the whole, a very quiet person. Considering the temperaments of the only other residents of Darcy house, this does make for a very quiet life.

I have not had occasion to write many letters to anybody outside of my immediate family circle and I know not what to say. Perhaps I shall follow your example and begin in the middle by telling you of my life of late.

I am dull. I do not mean to say that things do not happen or that there is nothing interesting to speak of, but I fear that I have been in an ill humor and have not taken much trouble to notice them. For a family of the 'highest circles' we see few people outside of family while in London. When in town, I do delight in visiting the many bookshops and art galleries, but I have not felt equal to any such enjoyment for many months. I believe it is the fashion for ladies to express a preference for town, but I simply cannot. I vastly prefer the country.

My father, rest his soul, used to say that the air of Derbyshire was better for the constitution than any salty sea-breeze. I think that he must be correct – for when I am unwell, I long for Pemberley. But perhaps this has nothing at all to do with Derbyshire? Were my house to be in Devon, I imagine I would long for the Devonshire air with equal passion. I am sure you must feel the same way about Hertfordshire when you do manage to leave it.

I must mention nothing of this longing to my brother for he would remove us to Pemberley this very day were he to know of my homesickness. I believe he has important business to attend to here, and I shall not be the one to disrupt his work for my own sentimental desires. I must learn to be a creature of strong constitution and resolve. We are to return after Easter, and I will not betray an ounce of dissatisfaction until that day.

I believe I have left you in some suspense regarding my enjoyment of reading; fear not, I shall do so no longer. I am fond of reading. I often have great difficulty in setting down a good book – I do not know how some can have the patience to read in bits and pieces. When I was a child, I used to hide away in the folly to read. I was scolded by my father on more than one occasion for doing so but I have found that it is not so enjoyable to hide away with a book when I am observed.

I enjoy novels most of all. Some might consider this a defect in my character, but, little though I truly know of you, I believe you will not. I love stories of nearly any sort, but most of all I enjoy stories of adventure. Perhaps it is not entirely feminine, but as I shall never sail the high seas, I do not see the harm in it. In this, my brother concurs. We used to amuse ourselves by reading aloud. Fitzwilliam's recitation is always far more expressive so I insist he read out the most exciting or dramatic passages. He captures the feeling so perfectly. (He would not like me telling you this, I worry he is at times too concerned with his dignity.)

I believe most ladies of my age long to attend balls and social occasions, I however have no such desire. I have practiced my dancing for many years, and I believe I am proficient. My master even calls me elegant (I cannot say if he is in earnest) However, I am terrified at the thought of standing up with strangers. Dancing itself is certainly agreeable, but it would be far better if everyone would close their eyes or turn away whenever I take to the floor – especially my partner. I like dancing with my cousin Richard. He is a very easy gentleman and he makes me laugh. I am sorry your cousin cannot be as agreeable as Richard.

As to my brother disliking dancing, I suspect that it is balls and not dancing that put him out. He is a fine dancer and he has helped me to practice as often as Richard has. I think it suits him to have everyone believe he is universally opposed to the activity for it spares him the need to stand up more than he would like in company.

I also like to be out of doors, but I confess I prefer to ride than walk. I am no great horsewoman, but I do love horses. At Pemberley, I have a favorite chestnut mare with a little white patch under her forelock that curves in a shape almost like a 'G'. My brother says that he commanded it to be placed there so that I would always know which horse was mine. I asked him where the 'F' horses were, to which he replied that they had all been sent to France to fight Napoleon. How unlucky.

My favorite thing in the world is to open the windows to my music room on a fine summer evening and play something beautiful on the pianoforte. Fitzwilliam complains that I will draw biting flies in by opening the windows at night, but I know he does not truly mind, as he helps me to open them.

I think my brother must have told you something of my low spirits, a circumstance that I shudder to think of. I dislike the notion that of all the things that I am, sad is what is spoken of. There is truth in it, however much I might dislike the idea. I have tried to bring myself up, but how does one drive out sadness? Some people make it seem as though it is nothing at all. I confess it is a circumstance, much like the entail of your father's estate, that has become quite central to my life. I will not dwell overmuch on this point - the worst thing of all would be that you should think sadness a part of my character.

In my next letter, I shall exert my will and tell you something more of my happiness. Perhaps you could tell me what it is like to have sisters?

Georgiana Darcy

Some time later, as Georgiana dropped her quill into the ink, she sat back with a sigh. As she began to re-read her words, she realized that this letter felt more like a diary than a correspondence. She feared she had revealed too much of herself to this stranger, and yet looking at the pages covered over in her own hand, she felt lighter than she had in weeks. As though putting her ink to paper had bled off some of the poison in her veins. She would not change it. Fitzwilliam was right; Georgiana wanted a friend. She wanted a friend to confide in, and oddly it seemed easier when the confidant was not known to her.

When Fitzwilliam had given her the letter, there was an odd tension about him that had led her to believe that he was nervous. Fitzwilliam was certainly not prone to anxiety, and yet the sense of disquiet about him made Georgiana certain that this letter was more important to him than he would admit to. Therefore, she wasted no time in penning her reply. He had also thought that it might help her – and she was surprised that it had. The lively voice of this unknown woman was like another small dot, glimmering faintly in her dark world.

She sat pensively at her desk for so long that the ink had dried completely by the time she roused herself from her absent thoughts. With perhaps more deliberation than was necessary, she folded her letter and pressed the seal with the Darcy crest into the cooling wax. It was only then that she realized that she had left the letter from Elizabeth Bennet in the music room. She had now a strong desire to read it again.

Elizabeth put down the letter in her hand, frowning faintly. She had been unsure of what to expect upon receiving it, but it was certainly not this. Whatever Georgiana Darcy was, she was not proud. In fact, the person who was conjured from this missive seemed to be painfully the opposite. She was not nearly so delicate and child-like as she had expected given her age. Elizabeth was instead confronted with a person of deep feeling, subtle wit, and a genuine nature. Mr. Darcy had not erred when he spoke of her sadness. She even mentioned it herself, although Elizabeth would have detected it had she mentioned nothing at all.

She had suspected that there would be some similarity of character between Georgiana Darcy and her elder brother. She could now say with certainty that there was – although the similarities she saw were surprising. She recognised a similar intelligence marked by an active mind, perceptive nature, and a keen wit. Georgiana's letter had alluded to a deep feeling and loyal nature, neatly hidden behind reserve. Mr. Darcy was certainly reserved, as well, except in his great devotion to his sister.

What had surprised Elizabeth more than anything was Georgiana's account of her brother.

Indeed, it was hard to reconcile this devoted and attentive man with the one who had destroyed Wickham's future with his jealousy and caprice. It was the little ways that he showed up in her words. Had she never met the gentleman, she would have been quite envious of Georgiana. Elizabeth had longed for a brother, and were she to create one herself, she doubted she could imagine one better than the brother Georgiana had spoken of.

She had expected to find something like Lydia in this girl, whose age was now quite obviously the only thing these two had in common. What had created such maturity in one so young? Some might attribute it to her impeccable education. However Elizabeth had met many a well-educated person who lacked sense and maturity – and often with the benefit of many more years to develop either. Elizabeth suspected that her personal grief was more at work in the formation of her character than her education. Georgiana's letter had given her much to occupy her mind – little that she needed it.

This week had been full of its own trials. Jane's disappointment at Bingley's allegedly permanent removal to London had been so much on her mind these past few days that she had forgotten almost entirely about the letters she had sent nearly a week before. Elizabeth reflected, with no small amount of surprise, that she was already feeling a connection to this mysterious young woman. Mr. Darcy had correctly supposed that she was the sort of person whom Elizabeth would like. She was already absently composing her reply before she had even put quill to paper.

119, 3272,191,29,66

146, 4205, 243,37,79

159, 4495, 259, 38, 90