Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Darcy hid in the stables doing labour he ought to have left to his employees.
He sensed their relief when he finally left to meet Sandra’s bus.
On their walk home, he explained that Georgiana would stay for the summer, and she was her mother’s sister.
It was not as though Mrs Bennet or Jane would ever visit and refute it.
Elizabeth still yearned for their notice, but he knew they would never love her the way she deserved.
He had expected difficult questions, but Sandra was most concerned about whether Aunt Georgiana liked to play Barbies or LEGO.
When they came home, Elizabeth was instructing Georgiana about the phone, which made Sandra giggle.
“You don’t have to push quite so hard,” Elizabeth said kindly as his sister stabbed at the screen to open an app.
It took him back to the three months he had spent here in Bakewell with Elizabeth.
He had been desperate to get home, but equally wretched at the idea of leaving the only woman he imagined sharing his life with.
He had wanted to learn every single thing about this complex world and yet hated the idea of bringing back knowledge he could unfairly use to improve his life in the nineteenth century.
His phone chimed, and he saw Georgiana had texted him from Elizabeth’s old phone. She had written two complete sentences with punctuation, along with a salutation and valediction. Georgiana looked at him expectantly, so he replied with a short congratulation before updating the contact info.
“Did I do it correctly? And I can really speak with you whenever I need to?” she breathed. “No matter where you are?”
He took a steadying breath, staring at his phone.
He had a family member in his contacts. Georgiana was here, and he could talk with her whenever he wanted.
His sister was in his phone until the end of September, but after the equinox he would never talk with her again.
What was the point of furthering a relationship that would never last?
“Remember, you can be brief in a text, and you don’t need a greeting,” Elizabeth answered for him, “but that’s right.”
“This is remarkable,” Georgiana said, hefting the small smartphone in her hand but eyeing it warily. “You can send a message to anyone at anytime, anywhere? There is nothing at all like it when I am from.”
Darcy wondered when the telegraph was invented. Georgiana would not see telephones come into use, but she could send a telegram in her lifetime.
“Now, if the director needs to contact you about changes to your performance schedule,” Elizabeth went on, “or if you need to talk with me or your brother while we’re not here, you can.”
While Sandra unpacked her school bag and changed out of her uniform, Elizabeth confirmed that the museum director agreed that Georgiana could be their musician-in-residence pretending to research private music collections of the nineteenth century.
Once the instrument was repaired, she would give daily performances in the music room while people passed through to look at the gowns.
“How did your meeting with the director go?” he asked, worried that she had appeared to be out of her time.
Georgiana gave a polite smile. “She seemed interested in me, but I could communicate nothing aside from what Elizabeth prepared me to say.”
“She realised that you’re a little shy,” Elizabeth said, “but I could tell the idea of the music program excited her.”
Perhaps Georgiana’s shyness would be an asset.
It was clear to anyone who met her that she was shy, although not as exceedingly timid as she had been when Darcy left her all those years ago.
With experience had come greater confidence, as he always knew it would.
Still, her natural reticence would make it easier to avoid hard questions she could never answer.
“Someone is coming on Friday to examine the instrument,” Darcy said.
“I think they maintained it through the 1980s whilst—” He broke off, nearly mentioning the name of Pemberley’s last inheritor.
Saying that her surname was Willers-Darcy was not a hint he could in good conscience give.
“If it was not greatly neglected, he said it might take a month before it is playable.”
“I do not mind,” Georgiana said. “Elizabeth explained there was a mechanism that could play music to accompany me, and I can sing with that in the meantime.”
She said this in a bemused voice, and he fully understood her being charmed by the notion of instant music.
He opened his mouth to talk about it, but hesitated.
He did not want Georgiana to sympathise with him, to share his appreciation for how marvellous it was to listen to music whenever it was wanted.
It was simpler for him if he and his sister had no deeper moments, no shared experiences.
It would make her departure in September easier to endure.
Sandra rushed back into the room clutching two Barbies and a box of what Darcy knew to be an excessive amount of doll accessories. “Aunt Georgiana, do you like Barbies?”
Georgiana looked to Elizabeth, who muttered quietly, “Playing dolls.”
“Oh, I certainly do, my dear,” Georgiana said while lowering to the floor at her level. “In fact, I play with another little girl about your age whenever I can.”
“Really?” Sandra asked while thrusting what Darcy knew to be her second-favourite doll into Georgiana’s hand. “Who?”
“My cousin’s daughter Louisa, who is five.”
Now Darcy knew his cousin’s daughter’s name, and the loss of Fitzwilliam’s friendship struck him again.
He felt the sting of jealousy, but what was the use of feeling jealous that his sister could spend a lifetime with Fitzwilliam’s daughter and not his?
Three months of this heartache were before him.
And all the while he would worry if his sister would change anything once she returned that would destroy the full life he had here.
He noticed Elizabeth’s concerned look and wished his wife was not so perceptive. Talking about his sense of loss would only make it harder for him to bear—and make Elizabeth fear he regretted leaving everyone else he loved behind when he chose her.
Darcy busied himself with emails that could have waited until tomorrow, and Elizabeth left to work longer in the museum office.
He watched his daughter and sister play on the floor with mingling happiness and disappointment.
There was a similar sensation when he thought of the connection between Elizabeth and Georgiana: happy that they enjoyed one another so much, and disappointment that it would end.
There was a sisterly affection and genuine friendship between them.
Did Elizabeth wish she had that relationship with Jane?
She likely did, but Georgiana wasn’t a replacement for the sister who disregarded her.
Elizabeth loved Georgiana for her own sake, but it would only end in sorrow for everyone.
It wasn’t a relationship that could last.
As the afternoon passed into evening and they made and ate dinner, Darcy realised Sandra would be an asset in explaining the modern world to Georgiana.
They simply had to mention an item or a practice, Georgiana would be genuinely confused, and then Sandra would find it hilarious and proudly explain it all.
Buses, people cooking their own food, ready-made clothing, toilet paper, a lack of public clocks were all canvassed with great amusement before Sandra’s eyes drooped by eight.
“She had a late night yesterday and a full day,” Elizabeth said by way of explanation after she put her to bed.
“Sandra is delightful,” Georgiana said. With a fond smile, she added, “I still remember the look on Mrs Reynolds’s face when we read your last letter after she was born.”
Elizabeth laughed. “She was such a stern woman. I wasn’t aware that she had facial expressions beyond glaring in displeasure.”
“She was moved to tears that you had named your child for her.”
Darcy remembered the brief note from Reynolds that was tucked into Georgiana’s letters for him to discover after he returned to the twenty-first century.
The housekeeper was a reserved woman with her own secrets and trials, and for her to go to the trouble of writing him to thank him for the honour spoke volumes.
“Is she, is she still at Pemberley?” he dared to ask.
“Of course she is.” Georgiana wore a fond smile.
“She refuses to allow me to pension her off, although she is nearly seventy. She moves slower than she used to, and I have made the servants understand they are to take the stairs to save her a trip or lift anything to save her the burden. But she has severe words for anyone who implies she is no longer capable.”
That did not surprise him in the least. That was the life Reynolds had chosen. They had both thrown themselves into a life in a time they hadn’t been born to. But so had his sister, in a way, and yet here she was in 2026. He looked at Elizabeth with emphasis, and she sighed, taking his silent hint.
“Georgiana,” Elizabeth said gently, “we are so glad you’re here. I’ve wished I could see you again ever since I left 1811. But…”
“You must wonder why I came?”
“Did you want to stay here?” she asked in a hesitant voice that was not alarmed enough to match his own fears. “Or learn about the family you were born to?”
“No.” She spoke softly, but there was a firmness behind it.
“I was in earnest when I told Fitzwilliam before he left that I had no interest in returning to your time. My home is at Pemberley—in the past. His plan to find you depended on my taking care of Pemberley. He could never have abandoned his responsibilities otherwise.”
“I always wanted you to be happy, though,” Darcy insisted. “If you had wanted a different life, I would have found another way.”