Chapter Seven #5
That afternoon, among other tasks, he wrote a letter to his man of business to determine which seminary near London would be the best to send Georgiana to.
When the reply to this letter came a week later, he immediately called his daughter and Miss Wilson to him and informed them that Miss Wilson’s services would no longer be required at the end of the quarter, as he would send Georgiana away shortly after the wedding.
“No, no, no. You can’t send me away!”
“It is decided, and it is for the best.”
“No, no! Papa, not now. Will I even see you again?”
“It will do you no good to see me decay and meet my end. I already can perceive that I am weaker and in more pain than I was a week ago. No, I would rather you not watch it. I wish you to remember me as I am now, when I am almost healthy. And if you are here with me, watching me die, worrying when I have a particularly poor day, your education will be horribly disrupted. Time is the one thing that we ought to never waste. No, you shall go to school, and you will stay there until the holidays about Christmas, when we will see each other if I am still alive.” Mr. Darcy felt another stab of pain as he said that.
He did not think he would be.
Miss Wilson kept her lips pressed tight together at hearing this. Though he had a sincere concern for his children, she had long since known that Mr. Darcy was a hard man, with a cold temperament, and a most unusual way of seeing things.
She said what was proper under these circumstances to a man who had employed her for many years. And then she asked, “What about Miss Elizabeth?”
“I cannot imagine there is much of importance that she still needs to know. And she cannot learn to dance or draw, or anything of that sort. I do not think it will injure her to end her education now. Do you think there is any master that she should have contracted for?”
“She has learned the chief points of what she must,” Miss Wilson replied. “Her knowledge of mathematics is much advanced beyond my own, she has a mastery of the piano and many memorized songs. She knows her geography and can speak all the modern languages with a clear accent.”
“And she will turn fifteen in only a week. We may consider her education complete—What do you mean to do?” Mr. Darcy asked Miss Wilson. “I will happily provide every reference I can for you.”
“Thank you, sir, but that is not necessary. I have worked as a governess for many decades now, and I have set aside enough that if I go to live with my niece, I will in no way be a burden. I had already decided not to seek another post when I finished teaching Georgiana.”
“I shall give you wages then for the full year, to add to your savings,” Mr. Darcy said. “And you may leave with my good wishes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
It perhaps does not speak well of Elizabeth’s character that she felt a far stronger clenching at her throat and sense of grief at hearing that Georgiana was to be sent away to a school near London than she had at being informed that Mr. Darcy was dying.
Georgiana was devastated.
The girl felt as though she were being rejected by her father, as though he hated her, and as though that was why he could not bear to have her near him now that he was dying.
Georgiana did not know what she had done to make her father exile her from the people she loved, the place she knew, and to send her to a terrifying school where they would teach her things that she had not learned from Miss Wilson, even though she always learned all her lessons as best she could.
Elizabeth was not the sort of person who could assure Georgiana that her father was making the best choices for her, or even that he was trying to make the best choices, when Elizabeth did not believe that herself.
Despite not being reassured on that point, Elizabeth’s reaction to the news comforted Georgiana immeasurably more than anything else might have.
Elizabeth sobbed and desperately insisted that she would miss Georgiana very much, and that life in Derbyshire would be immeasurably worse without her. They both cried a great deal.
For Elizabeth this was the least happy time that she had lived through since the weeks recovering at the Phillips’s house after the fire.
She made every effort to appear happy for Jane’s marriage, but she was distraught.
And she now felt disconnected from Fitzwilliam; since a letter where he told them that he would leave Denmark for Russia the next day, they had heard nothing from him.
Not having communication with him at least every other week made Elizabeth feel as though a limb had been hacked off, or as if she’d lost a second sense in addition to her sight.
But Elizabeth and Georgiana were not the only ones unhappy.
Jane was filled with a sort of unreality.
She knew, rather than felt, herself to be happy and in love.
Everyone told her that she must be so happy, to be so well settled, and to such a handsome man who she had known since earliest childhood.
He was charming, he hurried himself to serve her every whim, and there would be so much money from the gifts of Mr. Darcy.
She knew that she loved George. The only thing that made sense was being in love with George.
She would be a quite irrational and paradoxical creature, the sort of person who disappointed all who cared for her wellbeing, if she was not in fact in love with George.
That was not something that Jane could be; she was the person who made those around her happy, and who delighted them all by being exactly what she was supposed to be.
And, and this was no small consideration in Jane’s mind, if she married George, the settlements upon her would precisely ensure that they could always keep Lizzy with them, and that Lizzy would never need to worry for anything.
It was proper that her sister be a burden upon her dearest family, rather than upon Mr. Darcy.
Despite this, Jane was not happy.
She felt always uneasy in her stomach and in her chest. She woke to sweat-filled nightmares. She heard a voice in the back of her mind telling her to beg off, to simply explain to everyone that she did not want to marry George, and that she was that awful sort of paradoxical creature.
It was so strange. She rather imagined such a thing happening to Lizzy rather than herself.
She had never felt this way before. Likely it was that she did not believe she deserved to be happy, so very happy as she would certainly be when they were married.
But as Lizzy had once told Jane, she had as much right to happiness as Lizzy, or Georgiana, or anyone and everyone else.
Jane looked at Mr. Darcy’s face, slowly becoming more sunken, and she imagined herself saying that she could not marry George. But she couldn’t bear the imagined disappointment he would feel.
Every week when the banns were spoken in the Kympton parish church Jane heard them like a dread sentence of death pronounced by a hanging judge.
Even though Miss Bennet was neither the most suspicious, nor the most perceptive of creatures, during her long acquaintance with George, she had perceived some marks of falseness and unusual selfishness in his character.
The way that he spoke very differently with his friends, with herself, and with Mr. Darcy.
The way that when he failed to do something, it always ultimately was the fault of another who had harmed him.
With servants and those whom he considered to be his social inferiors, he had a delight in commanding them, in acting the master, the superior.
And, once, when his best friend Mr. Clarke had received an unexpected gift of some value from his grandfather, Wickham had complained to Jane for half an hour about how ridiculous it was that John received something of that sort, when he was just as deserving.
Even though he always spoke with friendliness to Fitzwilliam, there was something in his eyes when he looked at the son of their godfather that Jane knew could not reflect a good emotion.
The idea that perhaps, maybe, possibly, George was not a good person, a moral person, a worthy object of her affections arose frequently in Jane’s mind.
But that was impossible.
Jane was always determined to think the best of everyone.
She had seen no positive evil in Wickham, just occasional lapses of goodness.
She could not expect him to be perfect. She was not perfect herself.
And it was wrong for her to wish for others to be perfect when she was not perfect.
Only God was perfect. George must have a good heart.
He said he did, after all. He always said all that was proper.
And he wished to be a clergyman. He would not wish to take orders if he was not good and filled with every good sentiment.
Any mistrust that Jane had towards George must be a mark that she was being a wicked creature who did not deserve him.
But when Jane said that she did not deserve him, George insisted that there was no need for her to doubt herself, and that she was perfect, and that he was happy to marry her. And then he complimented her beauty at length.
Yet, this did not settle her at all. It showed how paradoxical and odd Jane’s emotions were, and how she could not trust them at all.
It occurred to Jane that Wickham often spoke of her beauty, and sometimes of how biddable and submissive she seemed to be.
But nothing else about her, none of her other virtues, the things that Jane thought mattered more, seemed to have any weight with him.
But, she of course did not in the end do anything to delay or prevent the wedding. She was not an irrational and paradoxical creature. She was in love with George. She did wish to marry him.