Chapter 5 #2
“Being Pemberley’s mistress makes me happy,” she said confidently. “It has given me strength, just as I am sure I strengthen it by being its mistress. I just—I am facing a change and I wanted to—” She sighed. “I wanted to talk it over with you, with someone who understood what I face.”
“What is happening?”
“Philip—Mr Willers is leaving Pemberley.”
He and Elizabeth shared a startled look.
Darcy had not been prepared for such news.
Mr Willers had been devoted to the estate and its people, and he knew the truth about where Darcy had gone.
He had joined Pemberley not long after Darcy had inherited, and they had grown into their respective roles together.
And his former steward and his sister were supposed to marry after years of working closely together and slowly falling in love.
“Why is he leaving?” he asked. “I had thought that, second to you, there was no one more dedicated to Pemberley.”
Georgiana threw up her hands. “I do not understand it. He says he has found employment as Lord Gordon’s private secretary.”
“Is that a promotion?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, not at all.” He narrowed his eyes and frowned. “A steward was not considered a servant, but a skilled professional with a high status.”
There was no other employee on an estate higher than a steward; he ran the business of the estate and was integral to its success.
Mr Willers had a sense for numbers, meticulous record-keeping skills, knowledge of agriculture, and an amiable manner with people.
He was trained as a solicitor and was valuable for his experience with contracts.
And Mr Willers had not baulked at working for Darcy’s sister rather than him. Or at the time travel.
“He called on me very formally,” Georgiana went on, “to say that he had been considering leaving for some time and had ultimately accepted Lord Gordon’s offer. He wanted to leave after we collected rents on midsummer day, but I—I did not handle his news well.”
“It must have been a terrible shock,” his wife said kindly.
“I was so distressed, Elizabeth,” Georgiana said with a shaky laugh.
“You would have handled the news with much more reserve, Fitzwilliam, but I was astounded. I scarcely made it to my own rooms before I cried. Two days later I told him I wanted to see you, see you both,” she corrected, “and he agreed to stay at Pemberley until the equinox, so as not to leave the estate with no one at its head. I thought that was quite generous of him,” she added guardedly.
“Mr Willers collects rents, manages tenant contracts and disputes, and keeps all the records related to those activities?” Elizabeth asked.
“He is not a mere rent collector,” Georgiana insisted. “He is an active manager who aims to improve my property, and he cares deeply about all of my tenants.”
Elizabeth gave a patient smile. “I was only clarifying. I remember him as being an even-tempered and capable man.”
Georgiana blushed. “Yes, forgive me.”
“Have you offered Mr Willers a higher salary?” Darcy asked. He had doubled his pay before he left, and Georgiana would have made sure he was more than fairly compensated during the intervening years.
She nodded. “I offered more. I even offered to double it. Foolish, I know, to pay a steward twelve hundred pounds a year, but he refused.” In a smaller voice, she added, “He said it was not about the money.”
Darcy exchanged a questioning glance with Elizabeth. What could be his reason for leaving after all this time?
Georgiana saw their look and said to him, “His departure should not affect your future. He assured me of that. Everything is prepared to return Pemberley to you in 2013, and he is certain no future solicitor or steward could change a thing.”
“But you are the diligent landowner,” he said, “not whomever you employ. You make all the decisions.”
“Of course, but I would be a fool to hire a man I could not trust or not take a wise counsellor’s advice.
I have relied on Mr Willers’s experience for years.
We are both actively involved in Pemberley’s management and are intimately aware of every detail.
We know one another well after all this time too,” she added, her voice cracking.
“I know some might think it strange, the heiress befriending someone so outside of her circle, someone who works for her, but…”
“You were a team,” Elizabeth supplied. Georgiana looked confused. “You collaborated and worked together closely for Pemberley’s sake.”
“Yes. For nine years I have had full control of the Pemberley properties, ever since I turned one-and-twenty. And Mr Willers has been by my side all along.” Georgiana spoke faster and at a higher pitch.
“He is forward-thinking and genuinely cares for the tenants. He knows the truth about where Fitzwilliam went. It, it will be quite a change to work closely alongside someone else.”
“Of course you will miss him.” Elizabeth put an arm around her. “He has been your ally for years.”
“I am so sad to lose him.” For a moment it looked as though his sister would cry, but she took a long breath and settled herself.
“I am sorry if my arrival distressed you both. I just needed you to tell me I could manage Pemberley without Mr Willers,” she said to him, “and I needed you, Elizabeth, to tell me I am not weak for being unhappy about losing him.”
Darcy’s heart clenched. He did not want to be the one Georgiana relied on, but his wife’s eyes were telling him to encourage his sister. “You can handle anything, my dear,” he said, believing it to his core. He just recoiled from being the one his sister needed to hear it from.
She smiled, and Elizabeth hugged her, her silent companionship better than any words he could offer.
He did not want to be needed by someone he would never see again after the autumnal equinox.
To know his opinion and approval mattered to Georgiana—still mattered, after all this time—was painful enough.
Georgiana pulled away from Elizabeth and steadied herself. “Mr Willers is leaving,” she declared. “I had best accept it. I just hoped to have your encouragement and validation to help me face this new challenge once I return in September.”
She rose and said, “I will read for a while. Would you tell me again which colourful picture is the one that contains all the books?” She held out her borrowed mobile, and Elizabeth showed her the eBook app and demonstrated again how to turn the pages.
Georgiana curtseyed before she went into her room, and Darcy stopped himself from rising to bow as she left.
Everything about her appearance in this century brought to mind how much happier he was here, but it also painfully reminded him how much of the past was still a part of who he was.
When Georgiana’s door closed, his wife whirled on him. “How can Mr Willers leave?” Elizabeth hissed, her face expressing all the disbelief she had been suppressing. “They’re supposed to get married.”
“Maybe his missing her whilst she is here will convince him to stay at Pemberley.”
“Not if visiting us convinces her she doesn’t need him,” she retorted. “That is specifically why she came. What if he leaves and she never marries because she carries a torch for Mr Willers for the rest of her life?”
Darcy exhaled a long breath filled with anxiety. “They will have to sort that out once she returns. But if he wishes to leave, I can think of nothing that will convince him to remain.”
“Can’t you?” Elizabeth moved to sit next to him. “Don’t you see? He loves her, but doesn’t think he can approach the wealthy cousin of an earl. She won’t ask him because she’s his employer, and she lives in a world where the men are supposed to confess romantic feelings first.”
Darcy stared at her. “You think he’s leaving due to what he assumes is an unrequited love for my sister?”
“Of course he is!” she cried, and then looked down the corridor toward Georgiana’s room and lowered her voice. “And she’s devastated he’s leaving not just because he’s a standout employee but because she’s fallen in love with him.”
He did not want to involve himself in this, not even to make Elizabeth happy.
“We are not meddling in their hopes and wishes. You and I agreed Georgiana would learn nothing about her future.” He raised a hand to interrupt her.
“We agreed not to interfere with time any more than we have. She has to resolve it without our help. It is too dangerous. What happens to us in this century if we change something in the past?”
“But what if she was always meant to come to us so we could encourage her to tell Mr Willers that she loves him?” she pleaded when he rose to walk away.
“We don’t have to tell her she’s fated to marry him, but we can tell her to go for it if she loves him.
Maybe coming to us for reassurance was what convinced her to marry Mr Willers all along.
Maybe this was supposed to happen. You have to tell her you approve. ”
He could not be drawn into Georgiana’s sorrows and needs. That was an old life. “I want no part in it.” He left the room.
“She needs you, Fitzwilliam,” she called after him.
He went into their room and gently shut the door. Elizabeth would be dissatisfied with him, angry even, and he would certainly fall asleep without his wife naked in his arms. But she was not the one grieving the loss of someone standing right in front of him.
Georgiana would leave in three months, and they would never see one another again. If his little sister still needed him when she was thirty and he was forty-two, with two hundred years to separate them permanently, it would make her inevitable departure all the harder for him.
“I am sorry, Elizabeth,” Georgiana cried when Elizabeth had returned from taking Sandra to the bus. “I forgot!”