Chapter 11 #3
Elizabeth was cutting rose hips in the garden when she heard footsteps on the gravel path.
The air was sharp enough to sting her cheeks.
The holly leaves pricked through her gloves as she gathered them into a basket.
She turned to see Mr. Darcy approaching, his dark coat standing out against the pale grass.
The gravity of his countenance made her set the shears aside at once “What has happened?”
“I have received a letter from a surgeon in London.” He drew a folded paper from his pocket, but did not offer it. The wind caught at the edge of it and rattled it faintly between his fingers. “Wickham is dead. The infection in his arm was beyond all remedy. He refused amputation to the last.”
Elizabeth wiped her hands on her apron and came towards him without hesitation, the cold forgotten. “I see.”
“I am confounded whether I ought to tell Georgiana.” His voice was even, yet the strain beneath it was plain in the tension about his mouth and the way his shoulders held too rigidly beneath the superfine.
“If I tell her now, she may torment herself with guilt, though her conduct was entirely justified. If I am silent, and she learns it through some idle report, she may think I deceived her.”
Elizabeth glanced towards the stone bench near the shrubbery. its surface dusted with a fine crust of frost. “Will you sit a little?”
They sat nearer than strict propriety required, their shoulders almost touching. The stone was cold through Elizabeth’s gown. She could feel, even through two layers of cloth, the warmth of his arm beside hers, the slight tremor when he exhaled, how rigidly he held himself.
“You are chiefly afraid that she will blame herself,” she said quietly.
“She will. I know her well enough for that.” He looked straight before him.
towards the bare hedgerow and the thin winter sun beyond it.
“She defended herself against an attack—there is no fault in that. Yet she is fifteen, and has been taught, all her life, that violence is shocking, that Christian charity demands forbearance. How is she to endure the thought that her defence has proved fatal?”
Elizabeth considered him for a moment, his tired eyes telling of sleepless nights. “May I speak plainly?”
“I wish you would.” He met her eyes, and she saw there, more than his habitual reserve, the anxiety of a brother lost between duties and, beneath that, an unaccountable trust in her judgement that warmed her.
“You cannot protect her from this for ever,” Elizabeth said.
“If not to-day, then another day. If not from you, then from a careless tongue. Some person connected with Pemberley will hear of it in Town. Servants and tradesmen carry news swiftly. It will reach her at last.” She paused.
“Your impulse to spare her is natural, and honourable. Yet it brings its own danger. Is it not better that she should hear it from you, with such preparation as affection can give, than from a stranger who does not care how the blow falls?”
“From me,” Darcy said at once. “Undoubtedly from me. Only—how am I to tell her? What words could I use that would not wound her beyond bearing?”
Almost without thinking, Elizabeth laid her hand over his, where it rested on the bench between them. His glove was cold, but his fingers were tense and very much alive under hers. She felt the faint jerk of surprise before he stilled. Even through the leather, the contact seemed to calm him.
“She has a right to the truth,” she said softly. “You cannot spare her all pain. You can only help her through it. And I do not believe she will be quite overthrown. Georgiana is stronger than you allow.”
“You have told me so before.”
“Because it remains so.” Elizabeth’s voice gentled.
“She climbed out of a window in a snowstorm. She passed a night alone in a freezing barn. She recounted the whole of it to you without sinking under it. She has been reading philosophy with me—asking how one bears what cannot be altered.” She held his gaze.
“Perhaps it is time to trust that strength.”
He looked down at their joined hands. When he spoke again, his voice was roughened. “I should have been wholly at a loss these last weeks, without your judgement, your kindness to my sister.”
The way he said it made her breath catch. What reason had he to value her judgement at all? She was the daughter of a country gentleman with a small estate, no fortune, no great connexions. Yet he regarded her as if her opinion had weight, as if the warmth of her hand steadied him.
“She has been much taken with Marcus Aurelius,” Elizabeth said, her tone unsteady.
“We have spoken of submitting to what cannot be changed, of finding some quietness of mind in the midst of misfortune. She has a thoughtful understanding. She may astonish you by the manner in which she receives this.”
“She has astonished me already,” he said.
His hand turned under hers, his fingers closing around hers. The pressure was gentle, but it was deliberate.
Elizabeth knew she ought to withdraw. They had already come nearer, in word and manner, than the world would approve.
But the warmth of his grasp, the unguarded appeal in his eyes, held her where she was.
The cold wind around them seemed suddenly sharper, as if to throw their small circle of warmth into greater relief.
“Shall we tell her together?” she asked, low. “She may find it easier with both of us.”
“Would you?” The relief in his tone was unmistakable. “I should be… very much obliged.”
“Then we ought to go at once,” Elizabeth said. “The more one dwells upon such a task, the harder it becomes.”
She drew her hand away and rose. The loss of contact was disproportionately felt. Darcy got to his feet and offered his arm.
As she took it, she was acutely aware of the solid warmth beneath his coat, of the faint scent of starch and clean wool and a trace of the smoke from Netherfield’s hearth. The simple civility seemed charged with more than it ought to bear.
“Thank you, Miss Elizabeth,” he said quietly.
The use of her name in that tone ought to have set her instantly on her guard. Instead, it sent an unexpected wave of warmth through her.
For a moment they simply looked at one another, their hands joined, their breath mingling in the cold air, the bare branches of the shrubs clicking softly above them.
“We should go to her,” Darcy said at last, though he did not immediately move. “Before I squander what little resolution I have gathered.”
“You are in less want of courage than you imagine,” Elizabeth said. “You require only to be reminded of it now and then.”
“And you have taken that office upon yourself?”
“Somebody must,” she replied. “You are far too much given to self-reproach.”
“Another fault you have discovered in me?” He began to move, and she fell into step beside him, their shoulders almost, but not quite, brushing.
“Not a fault. A tendency,” she said. “One I find I am growing rather fond of correcting.”
The look he gave her—warm, wondering, full of checked feeling—made her turn her eyes away, lest she betray too much.
They found Georgiana in the morning room with Mrs. Annesley, working at her French.
A small fire burnt briskly in the grate.
The air smelt of ink and lemon from the pens, and of the faint lavender.
Georgiana brightened at their entrance, then her expression altered as she perceived the seriousness of their looks.
“Fitzwilliam? Miss Elizabeth? Has something happened?”
“We must speak with you on a matter of some consequence,” Darcy said.
Mrs. Annesley rose at once, gathering her books. “I shall be in the library, miss, if I am wanted.”
When she had withdrawn, Elizabeth took the chair beside Georgiana, whilst Darcy remained standing, as if unable to be at rest.
“What is it?” Georgiana’s hands were clasped in her lap.
Darcy drew a breath. “As you may remember, I engaged a surgeon in London to report regarding Mr. Wickham. He has written to inform me that Mr. Wickham is dead. His infection was quite advanced. The surgeon urged amputation. Mr. Wickham refused it, again and again. He died two days ago.”
Georgiana’s face grew white. Her hands flew to her mouth. “He is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Because I bit him,” she whispered. “Because of what I did.”
“Because he attacked you,” Elizabeth said at once, taking Georgiana’s hand. “You defended yourself. That is all.”
“But he is dead—”
“He refused the only treatment that might have saved him,” Darcy said. “The surgeon tells me that, had he submitted, his life might have been preserved. He would not. What followed was his own choice, not yours.”
Georgiana’s fingers trembled in Elizabeth’s grasp. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I have killed a man,” she said brokenly. “I have taken a life.”
“You saved your own life,” Elizabeth said, gently. “There is a wide difference.”
“Is there?” Georgiana’s voice shook. “He is dead, and it is because I—” She pressed her hands to her face. “Oh, what have I done?”
Darcy moved at once to her side, kneeling by her chair. “You have done nothing wrong, Georgiana.”
Elizabeth let a little silence pass, then said quietly, “Do you remember what we read yesterday? from the Meditations?”
Georgiana lowered her hands a little. “Which part?”
“The passage about enduring what cannot be altered. About finding peace in knowing we have done what is right, whatever may come of it.” Elizabeth leant nearer.
“You did not choose to be in that room. You did not choose to be attacked. You chose only to resist when there was no other hope. That choice was right and just, even if the consequence is grievous.”
“But he is dead—”
“He forced a sham marriage upon you, forged your name, bound you to a chair, and attempted to violate you,” Elizabeth said, her tone still soft, but firm. “He created every circumstance that led to that moment. You only refused to submit to it. That refusal is not a crime.”