Chapter Seven #5
“Perhaps. Mrs. Younge will not. She is a practical woman. She does not wish to see the law at her door. She knows that even if we do not secure a conviction, the attempt will ruin her. No respectable family will employ her again. No tradesman will extend them credit.” Richard leant forward.
“I will offer them another course. Wickham leaves England, if he has any sense. In return, we do not press the matter further.”
“You would let him go free?”
“I would have him gone,” Richard said. “Out of England, out of reach. If he is in Vienna or Virginia, he cannot trouble us here.” His expression hardened. “If he refuses—if he insists on remaining in England and making mischief—then we revisit the question of prosecution, scandal or no scandal.”
Darcy was silent, turning the proposal over in his mind. It was prudent. It protected Georgiana whilst removing the immediate danger.
It was also profoundly unsatisfying.
“When do you leave?” he asked at last.
“To-morrow morning. I have three days more before I must rejoin my regiment. If I can conclude this business before then, I will. If not,”—Richard shrugged— “I shall make what progress I can and resume when next I have leave.”
“I should be doing this.”
“I think not. I can make my way through the gutters without drawing notice. You would be marked as a man of means as soon as you stepped on the pavement. Your place is with Georgiana, furthering the fiction that she is merely recuperating with friends. Stay at Netherfield. Ensure she feels safe and cared for. Leave Wickham to me.”
Darcy held the back of his chair forcefully.
“You speak as if my remaining here gives Georgiana comfort. It is Elizabeth—Miss Elizabeth—who has done the greater part. Georgiana looks to her first. She is the one who can persuade her to take food, to walk, to sit by the fire instead of shrinking from every sound.” The words were out before he had quite intended them.
“She saw what Wickham had done, and she did not look away.”
Richard’s brows rose. “You place considerable reliance on Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”
Darcy knew his colour rose and disliked himself for it. “She has earned it. She has treated Georgiana with a kindness and good sense I have seldom seen equalled.”
“And yet she is one of the Bennets,” Richard said, studying him. “No fortune, no family to boast of, a mother whose manners would sit ill at a London table.”
Darcy opened his mouth to agree, to repeat, from habit, the arguments of rank and prudence that had long governed his choice of wife.
Instead, he heard himself say, “Her relations may be thought wanting. Yet she is not formed by their follies. She sees as clearly as you or I where they are absurd and bears it with a spirit and good humour entirely her own.”
Richard gave a low whistle. “For a lady you mean only to thank and forget, you speak very warmly.”
“I am merely acknowledging what is due to her,” Darcy said, more stiffly than he intended.
“If you say so.” The Colonel’s tone was mild, but his look was shrewd. “In any case, the fact remains: you trust her with Georgiana. Enough to set aside every ‘prudential’ objection you have been reciting to me these ten years.”
Darcy had no ready answer to that. The more he attempted to deny it, the more the truth pressed upon him: in the one matter which now touched him nearest, he had already allowed Miss Elizabeth Bennet to overrule his judgement.
Richard rose. “I will send word as soon as I have news. In the meantime, you must do what I cannot. Keep Georgiana easy. Let her go on believing that Longbourn and Netherfield are safer ground than all the laws in England.”
After Richard left, Darcy continued to feel an uncomfortable restlessness. Wickham was within reach—likely hiding in some rented rooms in Holborn, no doubt congratulating himself on his narrow escape.
Richard would see to it. And if Richard could not extract the assurances they needed, then Darcy would find another way.
Chaos Reigns
Netherfield was handsome enough, but it had the chill of a house newly taken and not yet lived in.
The ceilings were high, the rooms well-proportioned, the carpets thick beneath his feet, but there were no impressions of long use—no table scarred by a hundred letters, no book that fell open of itself to a familiar page.
The furniture stood where the house-steward had first placed it, obedient rather than inviting.
Even the fire in the great saloon seemed to burn for form’s sake, not for comfort.
It reminded Darcy at every turn that, though the lease was in his name, he was only encamped here, watching the road to Longbourn and counting the days until his sister might be safe under his own roof again.
When the hour was decent for a morning call, Darcy rode the rutted lane to Longbourn. Were he the true master of Netherfield, the condition of that road would have been addressed at once. As it was, he shook his head and fixed his thoughts more narrowly on his destination.
At Longbourn, he sat on the edge of the striped sofa, his posture rigid.
He had come with the intention of paying his respects to the ladies of the house before enquiring after his sister’s health, a courtesy demanded by good breeding.
Good breeding, however, appeared to have stopped at the threshold of the drawing room.
“Pay me! Pay me!”
The shriek came from the card-table near the window, where Mrs. Bennet and her two youngest daughters were engaged in a game of vingt-et-un.
It bore little resemblance to the quiet, civil pastime Darcy knew in Town, where the rattle of counters and the rise and fall of voices were kept within the bounds of decorum.
“I will not!” Kitty cried, colouring. “You are a cheat, Lydia! You took a card from the bottom!”
“I did not!” Lydia shouted back, striking her hand upon the table with force enough to make the candlesticks rattle. “I have vingt-et-un! One-and-twenty, Kitty!”
Darcy looked towards the fire, where Miss Elizabeth sat with her head bent over her work. She was not sewing, he perceived. Her needle remained still, her knuckles white upon the linen. She did not look up, but the tension in her shoulders spoke of mortification.
“Girls, girls,” Mrs. Bennet said. There was little authority in the remonstrance. Her eye was fixed upon the little pile of mother of pearl fish in the middle of the table. “Do not make such a noise. You will put my poor nerves quite out of order, and you will disturb Mr. Darcy.”
“She is stealing my fish!” Kitty wailed.
Lydia ignored her and swept her arm across the green baize, drawing the whole pot into her lap with a scrape.
“Mine,” Lydia cried. “You are only jealous because I am fortunate, and you are as dull as a post.”
“Mamma!” Kitty turned to her mother, tears in her eyes. “Make her give them back. She drew the king after she declared.”
Darcy waited for the correction. He waited for Mrs. Bennet to insist that the game should be played fairly, to require at least some show of justice between her children.
Mrs. Bennet only fluttered her fan and laughed a little, more from flurry than from malice. “La, Kitty, do not be so sullen. It is only a game. Lydia, my love, you should not teaze your sister so. You will have her crying herself sick.”
The reply discomposed him. It was not merely silliness. To see a mother so little alive to the effect of her words, so ready to smooth over a trick because it spared her the trouble of deciding between her daughters, was a kind of negligence he had seldom witnessed.
Lydia, unchecked, turned to Kitty and thrust out her tongue, a gesture that belonged in the nursery rather than the drawing room.
“Gather your coins, Kitty,” she taunted. “Or perhaps Mr. Darcy will lend you a sovereign. He has thousands of them.” She looked towards him, her eyes bright with thoughtless curiosity.
“Lydia.”
Elizabeth was on her feet. The single word cut through the noise, startling even Mrs. Bennet into silence.
“You will not address a guest in that manner,” Elizabeth said, her voice low and unsteady with anger. “Nor will you cheat your sister. Return the counters.”
“Mamma said I won,” Lydia muttered, though she shrank a little.
“I say the game is ended,” Elizabeth replied. She came to the table and began collecting the cards with swift, decided movements. “Mr. Darcy, I beg you will excuse us. My sisters have entirely forgotten themselves.”
She looked at him then. Her eyes were dark with shame, yet beneath it he saw something else—a weary resignation, as if such spectacles had been enacted a hundred times already, and would be enacted a hundred times more.
Darcy rose, his resolution hardening.
“I believe I shall visit Georgiana now, if I may,” he said, keeping his tone even.
He bowed to Mrs. Bennet, who was already shuffling the pack for another round, quite insensible to the judgement he had just pronounced upon her household.
As he moved towards the door, Elizabeth spoke, quietly, for his ear alone.
“I would apologise, Mr. Darcy, but I have apologised for my family so often that the words have lost their value. You have seen what is in the common way at Longbourn. You must draw your own conclusions.”
Her tone was dry, almost detached, as though her capacity for fresh humiliation had long since been exhausted and hardened into something like sardonic acceptance.
Darcy paused, uncertain how to answer. Before he could frame any reply, she had already turned back to the card-table, where Lydia and Kitty were renewing their dispute with diminished vigour.
He left the room The sound of their squabbling followed him into the passage, a shrill reminder of the disorder to which he was asking his sister—and himself—to submit.
When Darcy arrived at the blue guest-room above-stairs, he found Georgiana and Mary seated together, examining some sheet-music. Mary had brought up several hymns to show her.
“Fitzwilliam!” Georgiana set aside the music.
“You are looking well,” Darcy said, pleased. She was dressed in one of her own gowns, sent down in her trunks from London.
“Mary has been teaching me these new pieces,” Georgiana said. “She is very accomplished.”
Mary coloured a little at the praise, and rose. “I must go down, Miss Darcy. Mamma will be expecting me in the parlour before the post comes in.” She dipped a small curtsey to Darcy. “Mr. Darcy.”
“Miss Bennet,” he replied.
As Mary moved towards the door, it opened to admit Elizabeth, who carried a covered tray.
“I beg your pardon,” Elizabeth said. “Cook has sent up some broth and a little custard, Miss Darcy. She was persuaded you had eaten very little at dinner.”
“Thank you,” Georgiana said, with a shy smile.
“I shall go to Mamma,” Mary said, slipping past her sister. “She will be eager to hear about your visit, sir.”
When she was gone, Elizabeth set the tray upon a small table and drew it nearer to the sofa. “I hope you will forgive our officiousness, Mr. Darcy. Longbourn delights in feeding its guests, whether they will or no.”
She uncovered the cups and poured out some broth for Georgiana, then a little tea for Darcy, placing the saucer within his reach before resuming her place by Georgiana’s side.
“Your care for my sister is a kindness I shall not forget,” Darcy said stiffly, for want of better words
He took the chair Mary had vacated. Elizabeth remained seated close to Georgiana, adjusting her shawl with nervous fingers. She bent her head and said something low—only a few words of encouragement—but Georgiana’s cup trembled, and after a moment she drew a breath and looked towards her brother.
“I received your letter,” Georgiana said, quietly. “About the companions.”
“Yes. I hope to have that matter settled shortly. You will be well attended.” Darcy glanced round the room.
An awkward silence followed.
“The candidates,” Georgiana ventured at last. “Mrs. Dalrymple and the others. Are they very strict?”
“Mrs. Dalrymple belongs to an excellent family, and has great experience. I am persuaded she will answer perfectly.”
“But is she—that is, does she seem—” Georgiana faltered, the courage going out of her voice.
“Does she seem what?” Darcy asked.
“Nothing. I am sure she will be perfectly suitable.”
Darcy frowned slightly, but did not press her.
They spoke instead of other matters—Bingley’s party at Netherfield, the weather, whether Georgiana had yet ventured below-stairs.
Through it all, Georgiana remained subdued, her eyes straying once or twice to Elizabeth, who listened in thoughtful silence.
When at length Darcy took his leave, bowing to Elizabeth and promising to call again, the room became quiet.
Elizabeth moved to the hearth and stirred the fire. “Why did you not ask him?” she said gently.
“I could not.”
“Georgiana—”
“I tried, but I could not find the words.” Georgiana’s voice was small. “He is my guardian. My brother. Every thing I have, every thing I am, depends upon him. I cannot simply insist that he consult me in his decisions.”
“I did not urge you to insist upon anything,” Elizabeth said. “I urged you to express your feelings.”
“It would sound the same to him.”
Elizabeth was silent for a moment. “Would you like me to speak with him?”
Georgiana’s head came up sharply. “Would you?”
“If you wished it.”