Chapter 3 #2
For an instant, he bristled at strangers disrespecting his sister and calling her by her given name. What a long-forgotten value. And a reminder of a life he no longer wanted. The equinox could not come soon enough.
Keeping the thought to himself, he looked at Georgiana for her to decide.
“I have thought of you as my sister since Fitzwilliam married you,” she said to Elizabeth. “It is no trial to me to pretend to be your actual sister.”
Elizabeth was not in general a person moved to tears.
Moved to emotion, certainly, but not one to cry with every strong feeling.
But she blinked a few times and hugged Georgiana.
Elizabeth’s sister Jane was a pleasant woman, but Darcy never thought their relationship was substantive.
She was too busy with her profession for anything more than texting Elizabeth a meme.
“Oh, me too!” she cried, still hugging Georgiana. “We’re so lucky you’re here. We are going to have fun this summer. I’ll help you adjust, and you can get to know Sandra, and we’re going to the Lakes in August. I want to know all about you!”
He thought that his shy sister would have drawn back from so much physical contact, let alone so much enthusiasm.
Theirs was not a time when it was as accepted.
But Georgiana embraced her warmly, and it pained him to know that the sisters could never have the friendship they would have known had they lived in the same century.
Elizabeth released Georgiana. “I remember coming up with my time traveller backstory with your cousin.” She looked at him, smiling at the memory. “You had no interest in the details—you just wanted it done and me out of your sight—but Colonel Fitzwilliam had a grand time putting it all together.”
Darcy flinched at the mention of his cousin’s name, all the air driven from his lungs. He managed a non-committal sound as he choked down his breakfast.
“How is Colonel Fitzwilliam?” she asked his sister. “He must be about forty-five now. Is he married?” She asked to be polite. They had done enough genealogical research to broadly know the answer.
“He married several years ago,” Georgiana said with fondness, “to a woman who is extraordinarily kind. I like her very much. She is about my age, the daughter of a baron. He has now left the army, but his wife has a fortune. They adore one another. They have a daughter who is five, and they expect another child this winter.”
A deep sorrow washed over him, and Darcy looked away so neither of them would see it.
Even after all these years, he sometimes caught himself wondering what his cousin’s opinion on some matter he faced might be, or how Fitzwilliam would mock him when he did something thoughtless.
He still wished his cousin could have been Sandra’s godfather, still wanted to pass a quiet evening with cards and port with his oldest friend.
To hear his cousin’s name brought him pain, and yet such relief. Someone else in this century knew his cousin, remembered him, and could talk about him. He wanted to ask his sister a thousand questions about Fitzwilliam, but that would hurt more than it eased.
“I love the idea of Colonel Fitzwilliam as a girl dad,” Elizabeth said, grinning at him. Darcy smiled absently and moved around the kitchen, avoiding her eye. No, he would ask nothing about Fitzwilliam. What was the point?
“My cousin spoils her, but she has her mother’s sweetness,” Georgiana said, not understanding the bond that was encompassed in the phrase “girl dad.”
He and his cousin both had daughters, two little girls close in age who would never know one another.
Both fathers would make the world a better place for their daughters, but there was nothing Darcy would have taught a son that he would not teach his daughter.
Fitzwilliam would be constrained by the values of his time, but he would certainly be an affectionate father.
Although it looked different for both of them, parenting a daughter was another thing he could not share with Fitzwilliam.
“When I told him I was visiting you,” Georgiana said, “he came to see me off and—”
“You mean to talk you out of it?” Darcy interrupted.
Fitzwilliam had been reluctant about his scheme to leave the nineteenth century.
No, not reluctant. Vehemently opposed. But his cousin had helped him because returning to Elizabeth was what Darcy wanted.
It was a friendship and loyalty that he had never replaced here.
He had friends, good friends he could rely on, but nothing that made him think they would ride and die alongside him like Fitzwilliam had.
“No. He even gave me a letter for you,” Georgiana said with the hint of a question.
“He put a great deal of care into it.” Darcy nodded with a polite smile and put his dishes away.
“He gave a strict order that unless you have become duller than stagnant mud, you are to write to him whilst I am here. He hopes very much you would give me a letter for him in return.”
He made a non-committal sound. Why bother writing, unburdening himself, when he would never receive a response?
“I will read it later. I need to brush Sandra’s hair before school,” he muttered, leaving the room as fast as he could.