Chapter Twelve
The following week left Elizabeth a great amount of time to think and contemplate.
Georgiana was kept in her lessons all the day by Miss Wilson, and except for when they sang and practiced the piano together, there was no cause for Elizabeth to be present. Jane was the last person whom Elizabeth wished to speak to.
The weather stayed fair, as it had on the day that Fitzwilliam returned, and Elizabeth spent a great deal of her time out of doors, letting the autumnal sun warm her face, while the autumnal breezes rustled through the leaves.
She loved Pemberley, and she would miss it dearly.
When she tried to remember what Longbourn had been like, Elizabeth could not remember with any clarity.
A red brick facade. Two stories. The shape of the hallway.
But try as she might, she could not recall if it had been Mama and Papa’s bedrooms to the left of the upper floor, or the nursery and Jane’s room.
She did not wish to live in the house of Mr. and Mrs. Wickham.
Elizabeth had thought about asking Uncle Gardiner if she could come to live with him as soon as Jane had told her that she was to live with them, instead of in the big house. But at the time Elizabeth had been unable to do it.
Georgiana would need her.
But Elizabeth had not changed her mind about facing life in the same house as Wickham when Mr. Darcy announced that Georgiana would be sent away.
She knew why now.
She hadn’t wanted to go away from Fitzwilliam’s home.
She had been longing for the time when he would be back here, and she would be able to hear his voice every day, enter conversation with him about books and friends and his duties about the estate.
She had meant to be there if he needed her when Mr. Darcy died.
But Fitzwilliam did not need her.
She liked to tell herself that he did, but it was a silly girlish thing. It was not the truth. She was only a small scarred blind girl with only a little fortune, and a tendency to run about in a way that shocked everyone.
They were friends. Dear friends. But they would never be anything else.
Elizabeth could see it easily enough.
It was a pity that this first time that she fancied herself in love would end in such unhappiness.
When Fitzwilliam returned, he would be free. He would not marry Jane. She could hope. She could try to engage his attention. She could try to make him love her. She could always be there for him, letting him cry on those rare occasions when he let himself cry.
Always hoping.
Such people appeared in stories—not only those in books, but also the stories she heard in gossip among the servants. Women who stayed near a man, always waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting…often when the man married or died, they kept waiting.
Long ago, when Papa was still alive, Elizabeth had read a story about a poor woman who loved a man from afar for her entire life, just saving the money she earned as a washer woman, and watching as this man, who was a tradesman, became married, had children and lived his life.
And then when that woman died, she gave the man all of the money she had saved through years of this closed and small life.
The writer of the essay had thought the woman had been a good woman, and this was an example of what it meant to truly love. To expect nothing in return for endless devotion.
Elizabeth could imagine little more awful and horrible.
Life in London promised more of interest, stimulation, and usefulness than remaining in Pemberley.
Once she made that decision, she went upstairs to write a letter to Mr. Gardiner. She kept wondering if this would make her a fool. Perhaps Fitzwilliam would decide to turn to her for comfort after Jane was married, and he would see in her everything he wanted in a wife.
Utter nonsense.
No man who fell in love with Jane could possibly have any particular interest in an Elizabeth.
Elizabeth hinted in her letter—it would have been gauche to say it clearly—that she disliked the man who Jane would marry, and she wanted to live with Mr. Gardiner and his wife instead of them.
She wrote that she was sure that with the money from her fortune she might even be an addition to the household accounts, and she hoped she could also be helpful by hanging about their children and teaching the daughter when she was old enough to benefit from a teacher.
It was the afternoon before the day of Jane’s wedding when the post brought Mr. Gardiner’s reply. Rather than having Sarah read it to her, she interrupted Georgiana’s lessons to beg her to read the letter to her in private. Miss Wilson gave her permission.
While Elizabeth did not love the governess who had taught them these years, she would miss her also when she left in just a few days.
The letter read as followed:
My Dear Lizzy,
We would be delighted for you to live with us. I always felt as though you belonged more with me and my dear wife than far in the north. But as you have always seemed happy there, I have thought little about it.
I must note that our little Fanny is only three years of age, and it will take her some time to become used to the necessity of picking up after herself and setting everything back into place, exactly where it had been. But I think such difficulties can be managed.
We have an excellent guest room that can be yours, with ample proportions and a modern Franklin stove.
It has been recently repainted a lovely blue color, but unfortunately that cannot interest you.
I shall warn you that there are some who claim the winter in London to be unpleasant, and others who speak against the summers.
But for my part, there is no city in the world where I would rather live.
As Johnson said, if a man is tired of London, he must likewise be tired of life.
Mrs. Gardiner speaks fondly of a hope to come to know you very well, and her unhappiness at not having done so yet.
And I have just received direct information from Fanny that she is not opposed to having her cousin Elizabeth living with us, though I must warn you that when you first arrive, she shall hide in the nursery for twenty minutes and pretend that you do not exist if you nevertheless approach her.
But following that she will treat you as the dearest of friends and force you to partake of an excellent tea and biscuits made of air, the brew likewise composed.
My dear niece, do come. You said that your friend Miss Darcy shall be sent to school presently; perhaps it might make a more pleasant and commodious journey for both of you if you could share the carriage.
Your loving uncle,
E Gardiner
Georgiana put the letter down on her desk and said in a small voice. “You are leaving too?”
“I think it is better. Would you not like it if I went down with you?”
“No, no. Everything is changing. But then you won’t be here. You won’t be here when I come back.”
“I am going,” Elizabeth replied with a smile, “to be closer to you. In London I’ll be close enough to your school’s address that I can use the penny post to send letters to you, and they’ll arrive in a day or two.”
“Everything is changing! It’s not fair.”
“No, no it isn’t,” Elizabeth said. “A great deal is not fair.”
“You won’t be here at Christmas.”
“I’ll go to see you at your school, and you’ll be able to show me about.”
“I doubt they’ll let me see anyone,” Georgiana said tearfully. “I’ve heard that these schools never allow the pupils to see anyone but their parents, and that only for ten minutes once a year.”
“Are you sure you do not have them confused with a nunnery?”
Georgiana was silent in reply as she was not sure.
“My dear Georgie,” Elizabeth said, “I dearly love you. But I do not wish to remain, not with you leaving. Not when I won’t be living in the house.”
“But Fitzwilliam, he’ll need you when Papa dies. If you leave with me, you won’t be there when Fitzwilliam returns.”
Fitzwilliam would prefer for her to be there when Mr. Darcy died.
“Fitzwilliam can care for himself,” Elizabeth said. “He can. We know he can. He will miss me, and he will miss you, but he’ll be surrounded by his friends. Jane will be here to comfort him.”
“Jane? He doesn’t even like Jane.”
If only you knew. Elizabeth thought it unsurprising how Georgiana had not detected anything of Fitzwilliam’s feelings about Jane.
“Must you go? You can’t wish to live with tradesmen.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Don’t believe what your Papa says about that.
Mr. Gardiner is a very good man, and he has always been very kind to me, and he was the one who purchased that dissected map of Europe for me, the one you’ve always loved.
You’ve heard many of the letters he has written to me—it is impossible for you to not agree that he is a very gentlemanlike man. ”
“But he’ll be busy; he won’t have the time to take care of you, the way you need him to.”
“Georgie, I don’t wish to have anyone take care of me. I would much rather care for other people.”
Georgiana tightly hugged Elizabeth. “I’ll miss you! I’ll miss you! I will! I swear!”
“I know.”
“You always have taken good care of me! You have! You have. And when I’m grown, and I’m an adult, you’ll come to live with me.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You’ll marry.”
“I won’t. Or if I do, you can live with us.”
“Maybe. If I do not marry before you, I rather like the idea.”
“Oh, yes. You might marry…I wish nothing ever changed.”
“Sometimes, I do too.”
“That’s why you don’t want to live with Jane. She would try to always take care of you and wouldn’t let you care for her at all.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, surprised that Georgiana saw that. “And I dislike Wickham.”
“You don’t like George,” Georgiana said with some surprise. “Why ever not?”
Elizabeth shrugged.
Suddenly she remembered that time years ago, when she heard Wickham engaged in carnal relations with one of the maids.
Elizabeth felt cold.