Chapter Twenty
Mr. Darcy died three weeks later, a few days before Christmas.
His daughter was on the road for Pemberley for the holidays when he died, and Georgiana’s carriage came up to the great estate a little after noon the next day to find every curtain in black, and her brother wearing a deep mourning suit.
The girl felt little grief at seeing that the long-expected event had occurred.
Her chief emotion at seeing her brother, now Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, was delight at the news she had received by letter from both parties, and that had been confirmed in person the time Elizabeth was permitted by the mistress to visit her at her school, about his engagement to Elizabeth Bennet.
Upon the carriage stopping, she jumped into Fitzwilliam’s arms and embraced him tightly. It was only seeing the grief and somberness on his face that reminded her that he must be sad. He had loved Papa dearly, though Georgiana barely understood why anymore.
She hugged him tightly, and he squeezed her back.
Despite Georgiana’s delight at returning, the estate was a somber and quiet place. The usual joy was missing.
This was not because of the black that everyone wore and the way that the servants spoke in quiet voices, and how everyone Georgiana met, who was not part of the family, made a solemn speech about how they felt her grief.
First, Lizzy was gone.
Georgiana could barely recall a time when her dear, dear friend did not sleep in the bed on the other side of the nursery. Pemberley was not properly home without her.
Certainly, they received letters from Lizzy every single day, at least a paragraph or two about what little Fanny Gardiner was doing, or how the baby had started to babble. But it was not the same. Not in the slightest.
It was even worse than at school, since then the letters were only a day old before they were received.
And Miss Wilson was missing.
And both Jane and George. Georgiana was not told the details, but both Lizzy and Fitzwilliam insisted to her that she should not trust George or ever be in the same room as him alone.
And Fitzwilliam tried, but he simply did not have the time to properly attend to her.
The funeral. The funeral calls. He met one by one all of the principal tenants and all of the servants.
Several times he visited old Mr. Wickham who had taken sick with a complaint in his chest three days after Papa died.
Georgiana was lonely, and Pemberley did not feel right.
It was only the day after Papa was buried that Fitzwilliam had a chance to really talk to her at length. He sat next to her in the drawing room, and listened to her play, and then he asked about everything that she’d learned at her school.
Georgiana described the flower arrangements, the lessons on geography, history, and chemistry that Miss Wilson had long since made her memorize, and the endless practice with embroidery, comportment, and speaking properly.
“Do you like it?” Fitzwilliam asked seriously when she had finished.
“No!” Suddenly Georgiana cried and cried. She hugged Fitzwilliam tightly. “I don’t want to go back.”
He hugged her back. “There, there.”
“And I miss Lizzy! I miss her so much. She loves me. None of the girls at the school even like me. They steal my things, and Lady Georgette found and burned all of my letters from Lizzy when she was struck with the ruler after I complained to Mrs. Castle about how she’d ruined my necklace, and Mrs. Castle seemed to be angrier with me than with Lady Georgette.
And—after Lizzy visited, they were all so sneering about her, because she was blind, and because she lives with a tradesman, ‘in Cheapside, hehehe, in Cheapside’—I hate them.
And they said that it is a very lowering marriage for you, and they laughed about Lizzy’s scars, and I hate them.
I hate them all. I don’t want to stay there. And I miss Lizzy.”
“I do as well,” Fitzwilliam said solemnly. “You do not wish to return?”
“No, no. Please don’t—” Georgiana recognized from his tone of voice that there was some hope to convince him.
“Please don’t. I promise, I’ll listen to any lessons anyone gives me about comportment.
And I’ll memorize every flower arrangement.
And I’ll learn to dance perfectly. Just don’t send me back. ”
Fitzwilliam sighed. “The principal reason to send you to school was so that you would make friends with other girls of your station, not so that you would learn flower arrangements.”
“Oh, but they aren’t my friends! I hate them.”
“And you should not hate people. We are all creatures of God,” Darcy replied.
He then thought about Wickham. Even if it was a sin, he would not abandon his hatred of that gentleman.
“They are not good people. They are not kind like Lizzy. And they don’t…they are not nice.”
“I understand.” Darcy ran his hand through his hair. What should he do?
The simple fact that Georgiana wished to leave the school should perhaps be ignored. It was not a child’s place to decide how they were to be raised. It was the guardian who had greater wisdom and perspective who must decide.
Papa certainly would have ignored all of this and simply sent Georgiana back. But Georgiana also would not have asked Papa to let her leave the school.
That was what determined Darcy’s reply beyond anything else.
He did not want to be like his father in this way.
Papa had been too cold, too focused on making his children into the sort of person who would be a glory to the Darcy name to attend to their real character or to make any allowance for the peculiarities of the nature of each of his children.
If he had not known Lizzy, Darcy thought he would presently think very much like Papa. He would then be able to sneer at those in trade, and to think little of those outside of the family circle. But her goodness made that impossible.
“Then you shall not return,” Darcy said to his sister. “They after all do not sound like good friends to me either. And I could never approve of anyone who insults Lizzy.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. “You mean it!”
She hurled her little self around Darcy again and hugged him tightly. “Thank you! Thank you! You will not regret it! I’ll work very hard at anything set. I’ll make friends with anyone who you tell me to, and—and whatever I must.”
Darcy laughed. “No, no. I think the school was one of Papa’s mistakes. We’ll come up with some scheme for your education that we both like instead—I shall ask advice from a wise person who knows you very well. The sooner the better, I think.”
“You mean Lizzy,” Georgiana smiled slyly at him.
“I do. And what would you think if we went to Town to see her? There is no need to wait longer. I do not wish to.”
“Do you mean that? Yes! Yes!”
Fitzwilliam smiled at her warmly. “We are engaged. I dare say that I miss Lizzy even more than you.”
Georgiana thought about sticking her tongue out at Fitzwilliam, but she was not quite brave enough to do so. But then she decided that Lizzy would have told her to do it, so she became brave enough to stick her tongue out.
He laughed. “I see her influence on you.”
“Well of course. And I want to see her two little cousins. They sound like darling geese as well.”
“I do too. And I wish to meet her aunt and uncle.”
Due to frost and snow, travel by carriage at the very beginning of January tends to be slower than during the more pleasant parts of the year, but Darcy and his sister made good time, and less than a week after this conversation they arrived early in the afternoon at a residence on Gracechurch Street, near the towering pillar of the Monument to the Great Fire, to make a call upon Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and more specifically their niece.
Had Darcy’s life been different, he might have felt quite odd about entering an intimacy with tradesmen, but he had read many letters from Mr. Gardiner to Elizabeth over the years.
He felt quite familiar with the gentleman’s good features.
Beyond that, the events of the last months of his father’s life had forced Darcy to evaluate anew the philosophy and notions of proper behavior which he had received from his father.
The house had a respectable look and when Darcy knocked, he was greeted by a manservant, rather than a maid.
There was a ceremoniousness to how they were conducted to the parlor that suggested to Darcy that there had been some effort to prepare for the visit of the grand gentleman who would marry Miss Bennet.
They were announced, and Darcy’s eyes were drawn instantly to Lizzy.
She rose, and a smiling woman of about thirty, who was advanced in the family way, helped her niece walk towards him.
Lizzy looked very well, smiling, rosy cheeked, with a glow.
It was a little odd that she did not wear the ribbon that Darcy’s father had always wished to hide her eyes with. It seemed that Elizabeth was a little taller than before.
Darcy liked seeing all of her face.
Georgiana rushed past Darcy and gave Elizabeth a squeezing embrace. “Lizzy! I’ve missed you so much! So, so much! And I have so much to tell you!”
“That you did not say in your letters?” Elizabeth embraced his sister in turn. “Georgie. My dear Georgiana.”
What weak hopes Darcy had to monopolize Lizzy’s conversation were quickly dashed by his sister’s enthusiasm, but when Darcy came and took Lizzy’s hand, despite her aunt and uncle watching them, she embraced him and whispered, “Dear Fitzwilliam.”
They all sat, Darcy on one side of Elizabeth, holding her hand, while Georgiana squeezed onto the sofa on her other side.
Darcy easily fell into conversation with Mr. Gardiner.
This had been expected. While Mr. Gardiner did not have so long of an acquaintance with Darcy’s letters to Elizabeth as Darcy did with his letters to her, he had read aloud himself, or heard his wife read aloud nearly every letter which Elizabeth had received from Darcy since she had come to Gracechurch Street.