CHAPTER 55 #3
“Not in words. Not so that I could repeat it and be believed.” Her voice shook on the last word.
“That was the worst of it. He never said enough. He only made everything sound already settled somewhere beyond me. Mrs. Younge said I mistook delicacy for uncertainty. That gentlemen do not speak plainly before all arrangements are made. That Papa would not be troubled with details until there was something proper to tell.”
Darcy’s expression had gone almost blank. Elizabeth knew him well enough now to be more alarmed by that than by anger.
Georgiana drew another breath.
“This morning Mr. Wickham said I had trifled long enough.”
Darcy looked up.
“He said delay would make everything harder. That if I spoke too soon, others would make a quarrel of what ought to be settled quietly. That I must have courage, and not let myself be persuaded out of happiness by people who did not understand him.”
“And Mrs. Younge?” Elizabeth asked.
“She said Papa had always wished to show Mr. Wickham kindness. That I ought not to make a difficulty where my family had already shown so much confidence. She said I ought not to mistake my brother’s dislike for proof of Mr. Wickham’s character.”
Elizabeth said nothing, but her hand closed once in her lap.
“I asked to go out,” Georgiana continued. “Only to a shop. Mrs. Younge did not come herself at first; she sent Dawson with me, and said she would join us after another errand. It was not far from here. I knew the way tolerably well. I had looked for Portman Square once before, after Bond Street.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened.
“When Dawson turned to speak to the shopman, I went out by the other door. I thought if I waited for better weather, or a carriage, or leave, I should begin to think obedience safer than sense.”
“So you came here,” Elizabeth said.
Georgiana looked at her.
“You gave me your card.”
“I did.”
“You said I need not use it.”
“Yes.”
“That was why I thought I might.”
For a moment Elizabeth could not answer.
Darcy bowed his head over Georgiana’s hand.
Then she said the last of it, very quietly.
“He spoke of marriage.”
There was no movement in the room.
Darcy did not speak. Elizabeth did not speak. Even the rain seemed, for one instant, to have withdrawn from the glass.
“He did not ask me,” Georgiana said. “Not as a gentleman asks. He spoke as if I had already been promised, or as if I had only to be brave enough to understand what others had arranged. Mrs. Younge said many girls would think themselves fortunate. She said Papa had always wished to show Mr. Wickham kindness. She said I ought not to take my brother’s dislike for justice. ”
Darcy rose then, but not abruptly. He released Georgiana’s hand only because he had to stand. When he spoke, his voice was low and terrible in its restraint.
“Our father never spoke to you of this?”
“No. Never.”
“Did Wickham say he had?”
“No. Only that he understood Papa’s wishes. Better than I did.”
Darcy turned away for one moment.
Elizabeth stood.
“That is enough for now.”
Georgiana looked frightened again. “But—”
“No,” Elizabeth said, with gentleness that permitted no argument. “You have told enough to be believed, enough to be safe, and enough to be tired. The rest may wait until after dinner, or tomorrow, or until you are no longer shaking when you hold a cup.”
Georgiana looked down at her hands, as if surprised to discover that she was indeed shaking.
“You will remain here tonight,” Elizabeth said. “The blue room is ready. No one will be admitted. No message will go to Darcy House until we have determined what it ought to say.”
“Papa—”
“Papa shall be told you are safe,” Darcy said, turning back. His voice was changed now: still restrained, but no longer terrible. “Not by Wickham. Not by Mrs. Younge. By us.”
Georgiana’s eyes filled.
“And you are not angry?”
“With you?” Darcy crossed back to her. “Never.”
“I should have known sooner.”
“My dear child,” he said, and the phrase came from him so naturally that Elizabeth understood at once how long it had belonged there, “you have made no trouble that was not already made for you.”
That undid her. She bent forward, and this time he put his arms around her. Carefully still, but fully enough that she could at last cease standing guard over herself.
Elizabeth rang.
Mrs. Albright came in almost at once.
“Mrs. Albright,” Elizabeth said, “Miss Darcy will rest before dinner. The blue room is ready?”
“Yes, madam.”
“No one is to disturb her.”
“No, madam.”
“And the house remains not at home.”
“Very good, madam.”
Georgiana rose. Darcy stood too, and did not quite let go of her hand until she had steadied herself.
“You were right to come here,” he said. “You are right to remain.”
She answered him with a look more than words, then turned to Elizabeth.
“Thank you, Mrs. Darcy.”
“You may thank me by sleeping if you can, and by not apologising for being sensible enough to come in out of the rain.”
That produced, through tears, the smallest broken laugh.
Elizabeth was pleased with that. It showed life.
When Mrs. Albright had taken Georgiana upstairs, the room held only husband and wife and the sound of rain.
Darcy remained standing where his sister had left him.
Elizabeth did not speak first. She had learned already that silence in him was sometimes not absence, but feeling too exact for speech.
At last he said, “She came here.”
“Yes.”
“To you.”
“To the only person who had given her leave.”
He looked at her then in a way that made all lighter answers impossible.
“You have done more for me in one afternoon than my family did in years.”
Elizabeth went to him at once.
“No,” she said. “Only brought one piece of it under our roof. The rest we must still do.”
He took her into his arms then, not with relief, for there was none yet, but with the fierce, silent gratitude of a man who had found his sister safe and could not, for the moment, bear to speak of what had almost been lost.
Above them, the house moved softly around its newest charge: fires laid, curtains drawn, dry clothes warmed, a tray carried carefully upstairs.
After dinner, they would write.