Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
On Friday morning, Darcy collected his sister and Mrs Younge, and they made the short walk to Mrs Bennet’s lodgings for the excursion to Pegwell’s Bay. However, when they arrived, Mrs Bennet begged off.
“I am not much of a walker, and I have been unwell, you know,” she said from the sofa, looking as robust as she had Wednesday evening. “But Mrs Younge will be with you, and Mr Darcy too. Have a pleasant time, girls.”
Darcy thought Mrs Bennet was perfectly capable of pedestrian activities—it was barely a mile and a half—but kept his silence.
With the mother absent, it fell to the eldest Miss Bennet to rein in two girls who had no interest in propriety.
He saw in her face that she felt the futility of it.
She occupied Kitty, as Lydia and Georgiana had grasped hands and bounded forward together in high spirits.
An overwhelming desire to talk with Elizabeth again pressed on him, so he forced himself not to.
He had been too frank with Elizabeth at the concert.
She had overheard his accurate but impolite comment, and then he had continued to say familiar things to a stranger about how little he liked the concert and what sort of mother she had.
What had possessed him to insult her mother’s managing of her daughters?
Yes, it was true, but he had the sense not to offend a young lady by speaking against her family directly to her.
It was almost as though she made him nervous, and he had rambled insensibly. But that could not explain his behaviour. It was unlike him to be lacking in confidence or clarity of mind.
He watched Elizabeth shift from Kitty’s side to walk with Georgiana as Lydia ran to look at something in a shop window.
Georgiana and Elizabeth’s heads were bent together, and he saw his sister speak more than she had when she was with Lydia.
Lydia saved his shy sister from much talking, but Elizabeth gave her space to be heard.
For all her challenging him last evening, Elizabeth was likely a generous friend.
He would have to get along with her; she seemed the one most likely to continue an acquaintance with Georgiana after they left Ramsgate.
Most of the Bennets would be a degradation to his family, but Miss Elizabeth Bennet, taken on her own, would be proper enough company.
They stopped walking and took in a view of the bay, and Darcy watched the girls’ extreme hilarity of spirits and carelessness of manner. At this rate, it would take them two hours to walk a mile. While the Bennet sisters laughed and joked, he noticed Georgiana draw away to read one of her letters.
“Georgiana,” he called after a while, walking toward her. He noted her hurried manner as she hastily folded it. “Is something the matter? Who is that from?”
She huffed. “Just a friend. Must I tell you all it says?” she asked, turning pink.
It was unlike her to demand privacy. “Only if you think it concerns me. I did not come to press you. I came to ask why have you left your friends? Did their high spirits distress you?”
His sister stuffed the letter into her pocket and pushed her way past him. “Not at all. I like them all very much. I will return to them.”
Mrs Younge came to his side as he watched Georgiana go.
“She has been reading letters in every quiet moment since I arrived,” he said. “Whenever I come near or ask about them, she tucks them away.”
“It is just the private laughs and harmless secrets as all girls have between one another,” Mrs Younge said. “Nothing more worrying than whatever talk is going on right now between her friends,” she added, pointing to the Bennet girls.
“It is unlike her to keep anything from me.”
“She is a young lady now, not a little girl, and needs to have privacy.” Mrs Younge gave him an indulgent look. “Best to pretend you do not notice, sir, lest you embarrass her. Older brothers are not confidants to their sisters.”
It was hard to act like a brother when he had been thrust into the role of father.
He supposed Mrs Younge must be right; Georgiana never gave him any trouble, and Mrs Younge had more experience with fifteen-year-old girls than he did.
Still, he listened to their conversation as the Belle Vue Tavern came into sight.
“Have you seen any pleasant men in Ramsgate—other than Wickham, of course?” Lydia asked Georgiana. “Have you had any flirting?”
“No,” his sister whined. “I would not even know how to flirt. I am so timid.”
“Oh, you are so tall and pretty and wealthy, you will not have to flirt to find a husband,” cried Lydia.
“I hope so, because I should like to have a husband. I hate the idea of being on parade to find one. I just want to be married, and quickly, and without having to be on display in society first.”
“Not me,” cried Lydia. “Being on display is the best part, and you will get to be on display in town with new clothes and fine amusements to get a husband.”
“Is anyone encouraging you to marry?” Elizabeth asked sceptically. “You and Lydia”—she turned to look at her sister—“are very young.”
Lydia stuck out her tongue, but his sister said softly, “My aunt Lady Catherine has mentioned it, but only as a far-off thing. But I am not so young as everyone thinks,” she added with a pout. “I am fifteen. I could have a husband now.”
“My aunt Philips wants us so to get husbands, you can’t think!” cried Kitty.
“Wickham would make a good husband,” Lydia insisted. “Anyone that handsome would.”
“He is not even in Ramsgate,” Elizabeth said matter-of-factly. “Just because a single woman goes to the seaside does not mean she must return home with a husband.”
“Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is our eldest sister, Georgiana. Older than Lizzy. Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before two-and-twenty!”
“If only we could all have a seaside romance,” Kitty said.
“I should like to have a romance,” Georgiana said wistfully, and Darcy’s stomach twisted. Were such fancies typical of young ladies? If they were, it was something no brother should hear.
“A seaside romance would be just the thing,” Lydia agreed. “My mother encourages us all to get husbands before we go back to Longbourn. I had hoped Wickham might be the man, but he knows you better, Georgiana. If he likes you more, you have the greater claim, since you have known him the longest.”
Georgiana reached a hand into her pocket and then stopped. As much as he disliked the topic, Darcy was glad his sister talked with her friends rather than going off to read letters alone. “I, I could not say who he likes better. It is difficult to tell.”
“Well, I will take him if you do not!” cried Lydia with a grin as she linked an arm through Georgiana’s.
Kitty pointed to something and the three younger girls ran ahead, Mrs Younge a few steps behind them and admonishing them to walk like ladies. Darcy stood and watched them, and Elizabeth noticed how he hung back.
“I suppose hopes of romance and flirtation seem very small to a man of the world,” she said in an arch manner he supposed was typical for her. Or perhaps she was angry with him for his words last night.
Rather than agree and offend her, he observed, “Your youngest sister is taken with Mr Wickham.”
She instantly looked embarrassed. “I have noticed Lydia’s interest in him. My mother wants us all settled; we have only a thousand pounds each after the death of both our parents. As much as I think she is too young, I see no harm in knowing him better, even though it will come to nothing.”
He barked a dry laugh. “I have known him all my life, and I assure you he is not worth knowing.”
She stared, and he regretted opening his mouth. Why was he so unguarded around Elizabeth Bennet? He was never at ease around strangers, but he felt awkward around this handsome woman.
“I am surprised to hear that about him. He struck me as a modest man.”
“He has much to be modest about,” he retorted.
Elizabeth gave him an expectant look that said she expected him to elaborate.
If saying the truth about Wickham’s vicious propensities would be difficult to admit to his sister, it would be impossible to a woman wholly unconnected to him.
But those intelligent eyes of hers were insistent. He must say something.
“Mr Wickham has no profession and no friends to help him. His own choices led him to his current desperate situation, which is that he wants to marry with great attention to money. Your sister will be disappointed.”
Elizabeth watched the girls laugh and skip ahead together before replying.
“Wickham has flirted with Lydia and me, and we have no money at all. He knows that. I think he is simply an amiable man, even if he knows his own appeal. He gives his smiles too freely, and it will force Lydia to face her own insignificance.”
She sounded sad, as though she would spare her sister from that trial if she could, even though Darcy could see that would be the only way Lydia could learn anything.
“Mr Wickham has eyes for all pretty women, and if they have a fortune, all the better.” He saw his sister coming back toward them, so he lowered his voice and said, “I regret speaking against your mother’s oversight the other night.
I suspect you did not need me to tell you that.
So I must tell you, Miss Bennet, do not let your sister dash herself against the rocks of George Wickham. ”
Georgiana drew his attention to the fishermen in the bay, and he went to join her.
“This is a severe look, Fitzwilliam. You dislike my friends, don’t you?” Georgiana asked gloomily.
He could not dissemble for his life. He might not like most of them, but he would not forbid the connexion. “I do not object to them so much that I would prohibit your friendship whilst you are in the same watering place.”
“You will make me give them up, won’t you?”