CHAPTER 56
The Proper Management of Waiting
When Georgiana came down to dinner, Fitzwilliam rose too quickly, and Elizabeth was glad that he had learned enough of tenderness to sit again before haste made a spectacle of feeling.
Mrs. Albright and Evans had done wonders in a short space of time, though neither would have submitted to praise upon so ordinary a subject as dry clothing.
One of Elizabeth’s earlier gowns, altered with improbable speed and domestic resolution, had been made to answer tolerably well.
It was simpler than Georgiana might ordinarily have worn, and perhaps less girlish; but it was warm, becoming, and, above all, had the effect of placing her visibly under Portman Square’s protection.
Her hair had been smoothed. Her colour, though still uncertain, had improved.
If she still looked shy and over-conscious, she no longer looked hunted.
That difference alone went farther toward quieting Fitzwilliam than any assurances could have done.
Elizabeth greeted her not with pity, but with calm satisfaction.
“There now,” she said. “You look much more like a young lady who ought to dine than one who ought to be kept in a shawl and fed from a spoon.”
A slight smile appeared in Georgiana’s face.
“I am afraid the gown is yours.”
“At present,” said Elizabeth. “If you ruin it by soup, I shall merely think it promoted.”
That answered better than solemnity. Georgiana sat.
Dinner was quiet; not strained, not cold, but governed.
Elizabeth took that business into her own hands.
There was soup, because soup admitted no argument from nerves; there was fish, because it could be eaten without heroism; there was bread placed so near Georgiana’s hand that taking it seemed less like appetite than accident.
Elizabeth asked whether she would prefer the lighter soup or the stronger.
Georgiana chose the lighter, and Elizabeth permitted the choice because there were forms of command which must wait until the second course.
Fitzwilliam said little at first. That too was a kindness.
Elizabeth knew when a man should be included and when he should merely be allowed to remain present without being asked to do more before he was ready.
He asked Georgiana once whether she was warm enough, and when she said yes, he did not ask again.
But several times during dinner her eyes lifted to him quickly, almost as if she were still making inward allowance for the fact that he was there at all; and every time he saw it, something in him both tightened and eased.
Lord Pomington dined as if family alarm had no claim whatever against his established habits, but afterward installed himself upon the rug between Georgiana and the fire with such compact gravity that Elizabeth nearly laughed.
“Even he,” she said, looking down at the dog, “appears to understand that Miss Darcy is not to be contradicted this evening.”
Georgiana looked uncertainly at the dog. “Is he often so solemn?”
“Only when convinced of his own importance.”
Lord Pomington yawned.
“Which is to say,” Elizabeth added, “often.”
That produced the smallest sound from Georgiana, not quite a laugh, but near enough to one that Fitzwilliam looked at Elizabeth as if she had accomplished more with a ridiculous dog than half the letters in England could have done.
After dinner, the writing things were brought.
That altered the air at once, though not so heavily as before, because action is always easier to endure than suspense.
Elizabeth arranged the table herself. Georgiana sat beside it, attentive now in the anxious way of a girl who had rested enough to remember that duty remained. Fitzwilliam took the first sheet.
He had written difficult letters before.
Some had cost him more humiliation than this one.
Others had required more force of self-command.
But none, Elizabeth thought, had demanded from him so exact a balance between cold civility and personal claim.
He would not write warmly to his father; warmth there had too long been wasted.
Nor would he write as a supplicant, as though Georgiana’s safety under his roof required apology.
The thing must be plain, firm, and first.
Elizabeth said nothing while he wrote. She sat opposite with the sand-shaker near her hand and the wax prepared, not intruding, not withdrawing, only present. She saw his pen pause once, then move again with a firmer line.
At last he set it down.
“Will you read it?” he asked.
Elizabeth held out her hand at once.
Fitzwilliam gave her the letter. She read it carefully.
Only once did her expression alter much: at the sentence in which he had written that he would not yield Georgiana to any third person, however trusted.
At that, her mouth softened, for she understood at once both the tenderness and the distrust under which the line had been made.
The letter ran thus:
Sir,
I think it right that you should receive from me, and with as little delay as possible, an exact account of my sister’s present situation.
Miss Darcy came this afternoon to Mrs. Darcy’s house in Portman Square in a state of considerable distress, having left the care under which she had lately been placed from apprehensions which, in the circumstances, I cannot think either unreasonable or lightly founded.
She has represented to Mrs. Darcy and myself that she was pressed by Mr. Wickham, with the active encouragement of Mrs. Younge, toward a private understanding, engagement, or marriage, which she had never understood to be sanctioned by you, and to which she was entirely unwilling to consent.
The secrecy urged upon her, and the haste with which she was encouraged to decide, alarmed her so justly that, finding herself without other safe direction in the moment, she came to the only house in London where she believed she might claim protection without impropriety.
Mrs. Darcy received her with every care proper to her condition, and Miss Darcy is now perfectly safe under this roof.
I am ready to convey her to you, should she be willing to go, or to consider any instruction from you concerning her future residence that accords with her safety and wishes; but I must beg you to understand that I cannot consent to yield her up to any third person, however trusted, nor enter into any arrangement by which she is removed from my immediate knowledge.
If she is to leave Portman Square, I would greatly prefer to place her myself into your hands, or to see you receive her here in person.
Until such direction is received, she will remain with Mrs. Darcy and me.
I thought it indispensable that you should be informed of this before any distorted report could reach you from another quarter.
I remain, sir,
your obedient son,
Fitzwilliam Darcy
Elizabeth folded it once against her finger.
“It will do very well,” she said. “You have contrived to be perfectly proper and perfectly immovable at the same time. It is an excellent letter.”
“I am glad to have your approval.”
“You need not look so wary. I am very capable of admiration when it is deserved.”
Then she turned to Georgiana.
“And now yours. You need not justify yourself beyond endurance. He must only know that you are safe, that you came here willingly, and that you do not consent to what was pressed upon you.”
Georgiana bent over the paper. Hers was slower work. Several times she paused, not for want of words, Elizabeth thought, but because shame and duty were still arguing over which ought to guide her pen. At last she finished and, after a moment’s hesitation, held the little note out to Fitzwilliam.
He did not read it until she nodded.
It was short. Elizabeth did not ask to see it. She had learned already that protection did not require possession of every word.
Fitzwilliam read it, closed his eyes briefly, and folded it with his own.
“You have written very well,” he said.
Georgiana looked down. “I do not know if Papa will be angry.”
“He may be,” said Fitzwilliam. “But he will know where you are.”
“And that I did not mean to be wicked.”
Elizabeth could not leave that to stand.
“My dear Miss Darcy, wickedness is not usually so careful about dry stockings, brothers, and letters to fathers.”
Georgiana’s eyes lifted, surprised.
“It is one of its many failings,” Elizabeth added.
This time the small smile came more easily.
The packet was sealed. The wax had scarcely cooled before Georgiana’s shoulders altered, not with relief, but with the exhaustion which follows completed duty.
“You have done enough for tonight,” Elizabeth said. “The remaining letters are ours to manage.”
Georgiana rose obediently.
“Mrs. Doddridge will sit with you until you are settled,” Elizabeth continued. “You need not sleep at once, but you must be warm, quiet, and free from anyone’s questions, including your own where possible.”
“I am not very good at that,” Georgiana admitted.
“No one is. It is why pillows were invented; to give anxious minds something harmless to oppress.”
Mrs. Doddridge came forward, having waited at the edge of the room with the air of a woman who could become necessary without ever having intruded.
“Come, Miss Darcy,” she said. “We shall see that you are comfortable.”
Georgiana looked once at her brother.
Fitzwilliam went to her and took both her hands.
“You were right to come here,” he said. “You are right to remain.”
Her eyes filled, but she did not cry. That, Elizabeth thought, was a victory of a kind; or perhaps a postponement of one.
When Georgiana had gone upstairs, the room seemed at once larger and less merciful.
Fitzwilliam remained standing by the table. The sealed packet lay between them.
“Not the post,” Elizabeth said.
“No,” he replied. “Not for this.”
“And not merely sent to Pemberley to be placed on a tray. Whoever carries it must put it into your father’s own hand.”