Chapter 6 #2
Georgiana accepted her brother’s detachment, but she was never a confrontational person.
And she was still from a time when men, and male relatives especially, were deferred to.
She had grown more confident with experience and responsibility, but was not assertive like her brother.
That might also be why she hadn’t spoken to Mr Willers yet.
Elizabeth saw their friends by the stable watch Sandra dismount her pony and run over to Frank and Gwen. No time to dwell on things now. Turning to Georgiana, she said, “They’re kind people, I promise.”
“I am sure they are.” After a breath, she added, “I will use my shyness to my advantage.”
“Eventually Sandra will have enough of the grownups and you can escape with her if you want.” Georgiana stared blankly, so she said, “Sandra will find the conversation of the adults to be tiresome, and she will give you a polite excuse to leave to mind her, if you are finished talking with strangers.”
They reached the paddock, and while Sandra changed from her riding helmet and boots into trainers and a bike helmet, Elizabeth made the introductions.
Georgiana remembered to offer her hand, although she dipped into a curtsey as she did.
She noted their friends’ widened eyes and O-shaped mouths when she explained their sibling relationship, but they said everything welcoming.
“So you’re a musician?” asked Gwen. “I never had a talent in that area. What do you play?”
“The pianoforte and the harp,” she said after a deep breath. “I sing as well.”
“Along with research, Georgiana is going to perform in the music room for visitors later this summer,” Elizabeth added.
“You going to play that old-timey music Darcy has someone play when they hold those Regency costume parties for the fashion fans?” Frank asked good-naturedly.
There was a long beat before Georgiana simply whispered, “Yes?”
Darcy spared her more chat and wheeled out the bike, thanking Frank for helping.
“Bicycles are much easier than horses, kiddo,” Frank told Sandra. “Forget what your father said.”
Darcy rolled his eyes with a smile. For a while, Frank held onto the seat and ran along behind her, while Gwen walked behind and cheered encouragement. Darcy watched intently, curious but clearly more confident in teaching his daughter to ride a horse than a bicycle.
He was so attentive to Sandra. Their daughter needed to learn to ride a bike, and Darcy had no idea what that meant.
But he learnt what it was, purchased her one, and found someone to teach her to ride it because that was what an English girl born in 2018 needed.
The way Darcy managed in this century still impressed her.
He would look at something completely foreign to him and then carefully figure it out.
And the way he taught Sandra and praised her intelligence and kindness made her fall in love with him all over again.
She caught Darcy’s eye as he watched Sandra go past again, and they shared a smile. Elizabeth tried to tell him in a single glance she loved him, that she was delighted with how well he did here, and that no matter what happened with Georgiana that all would be well.
“Oh, it is like a pedestrian hobbyhorse!” cried Georgiana, drawing Elizabeth’s attention from Darcy with a start. “I had not known what you meant when you said the word ‘bike.’”
“You’ve seen one?” Elizabeth said in surprise. “Fitzwilliam said he had never seen a bicycle.”
“They are relatively new, although one does not balance and propel themselves by those things attached to the wheel. Some call them dandy horses, although I have seen women in London use them. They sit like Sandra is, but one’s feet reach the ground and they push themselves along, so long as the ground is flat. ”
Sandra fell off when Frank let go, and Elizabeth cringed, but Sandra was fine. She held herself back from running to her side. “That’s okay! Try again, honey!”
As Frank set her upright and helped her back to the top of the slight incline on the grass to begin again, Georgiana asked, “Can you ride one?”
“Oh yes. Most people learn as children, but I’d never let go of her.
” Her daughter had to know she could do it, and that her mother believed in her.
“It took weeks for Fitzwilliam to convince me to let Sandra learn to ride a pony. I know she’ll be fine, but if I’m nervous about her falling off the bike, I’ll just make her too nervous to try. ”
“And Darcy here can’t ride at all,” called Frank as he walked past with Sandra. “Good thing you guys have me!”
“I said I’d learn to ride a bicycle if you tried riding a horse,” Darcy called back from the other side of the grass.
Frank made a hand gesture Elizabeth was glad Sandra couldn’t see. “What about you, Georgiana?” he asked. “Can you ride a bike?”
Georgiana hesitated. “I have not done so since I was a child. I could not do it now.”
“Nonsense,” said Frank. “Once you learn, you never forget. And anyone can learn,” he said to Darcy.
“But today, it’s my turn,” Sandra cried. “Let’s go!”
After half of an hour, Sandra was riding across the lawn without stabilisers and Frank could no longer jog fast enough to keep up with her. Darcy had already decided to buy a bicycle for Elizabeth to ride with her, but he supposed he ought to learn as well. But he would not have Frank teach him.
There was only so much teasing a man of his age could handle.
He was uncertain who struggled more at dinner, the shy time traveller who was utterly confused by every topic, or the tired child who was no longer the centre of attention.
When they finished eating, Georgiana offered to play with Sandra and then put her to bed while Gwen and Elizabeth looked at the paintings that needed cleaning.
“You got your daughter on a bike,” Frank said to him approvingly as they made their way to the library, beers in hand.
His mother would be appalled at anyone drinking in the library.
The house had closed at five, and with the staff also gone, Pemberley was entirely their own again.
“Fatherhood achievement unlocked, my friend.”
It was a significant moment in a child’s life, he supposed.
Like breeching a boy or taking a horse out of the paddock on your own.
He was immensely proud of his fearless little girl.
And he was grateful they had friends who loved them like family to share significant events with.
Along with Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas and her teenaged daughter Mary, they had found their own family here.
Georgiana would leave and would never fit into this new family he had created.
And, heaven forbid, she might go back home and accidentally do something that destroyed it.
The ever-present fear surged and gripped his heart.
What would he do if his sister went back on the equinox and all of a sudden Elizabeth and Sandra disappeared?
“Summer is the worst, Darcy,” Frank said while settling into a chair. “Far too long until football starts.”
Darcy forced a laugh, but was glad to be drawn back from dispiriting thoughts.
Frank was a devoted Manchester United fan.
He had learnt to appreciate his friend’s favourite game and had chosen a team to support, although supporting Frank’s team when they were “down the pub” with friends was a requirement.
Frank was slight, not nearly as tall as he was, and in his early fifties.
He was amiable, but beneath that was what Elizabeth called “a backbone” she thought came from his military career.
Curious phrase, but Darcy knew what it meant and agreed.
Still, he was rather teasing, and rarely required anything more substantial from him than camaraderie.
For a reserved man who had to hide where he spent the first twenty-eight years of his life, it suited him well.
“So this sister just appears out of thin air?” Frank asked sceptically. “Looking for an internship and finds a sister too?”
“Serendipity,” Darcy muttered, taking a drink.
“She don’t say much, not like Elizabeth and Sandra.”
“I don’t say much either.”
“You’re standoffish, but God help me if you disagree with me because then you don’t shut up. That new girl is timid. Is she hiding something?”
He did not want his sister to disrupt his life and make him miss all the things he left behind in the nineteenth century, but he certainly did not want her to come under scrutiny. “I think she’s just shy.”
Frank shrugged. “You know little about her except she has a few photos of Elizabeth’s father and she has musical talent. Kind of like you popping up in Bakewell out of the blue all those years ago, saying you were a student needing a place to live for the summer.”
Darcy exhaled. It was best to be silent and not acknowledge the similarities.
“Always thought there was something weird about that,” Frank mused. “Showing up and never talking about your past, not even after you came back a year later and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I inherited a mansion.’ I told Gwen you might’ve been a vampire.”
Darcy paused in bringing his drink to his lips.
Was that the creature that crawled up a castle wall and drank blood or the sapient creature made in a science experiment?
He read so many books written in the last two hundred years.
There were seemingly thousands of popular culture references to keep straight.
Whatever it was, he knew from his friend’s tone he was joking.
“You think I’m a vampire?” In conversations like these, Darcy found it best to give his finest dismissive glare and repeat the word or phrase that baffled him.
“Yeah, you had to reinvent yourself as your own descendant to hide the fact that you don’t age.” He gestured with his beer bottle to the room at large. “So you could keep the fancy house that was really yours to begin with.”
This was just too close to the truth. Darcy took a slow breath and levelled a stare at his friend. “Don’t vampires drink blood and kill people?”
Frank leant forward, engaged in his story.
“No, see, you’re like the vampires in those girlie books and programmes Gwen likes.
A poetic, tragic hero pining for a human lover to spend eternity with.
You’re an immortal vampire who doesn’t drink blood, who has to reinvent himself every generation to hide you’re not ageing. ”
He blinked once. “I think the Brufen I take if I ride for too long and the silver strands through my hair speak to my not being immortal.”
Frank shrugged and sighed. “Well, I guess you and the sister aren’t mysterious vampires. But I can tell you don’t much like her.”
This took him by surprise nearly as much as being called a vampire. “She’s my—she’s Elizabeth’s sister. Of course I like her.”
“Uh-huh.” Frank took a drink and threw him a disbelieving look. “You don’t like her, and you’re ticked off that your wife is all about her new sister.”
It was close enough to the truth as he could admit to.
“So Georgiana has the same deadbeat dad, but he never even sent money for her?” When Darcy agreed, Frank gave a dismissive shake of his head and cursed Mr Bennet.
“It’s a wonder Elizabeth turned out so well, emotionally neglected as she was,” Darcy said quietly. “Abandoned by her father, and encouraged to need no one by her bitter mother.”
“Little harsh on Mum,” Frank said. “She was a struggling solo mother who wanted her daughters to avoid that fate by having careers and not families.”
“I suppose.” Divorce and financial abandonment of children were so foreign to his own personal sense of duty and family. “But she never had an approving word for Elizabeth, whereas Jane could do no wrong.”
“When was the last time her mother or sister came to England?”
“When Sandra was born.” The one and only time, and neither one had prioritised phone calls, FaceTime, or letters since then.
“And who’s the one who taught her how to ride a bike?
” Darcy said with emphasis. There was a reason Frank and his wife were the school’s emergency contacts and why Charlotte Lucas would raise Sandra if anything happened to him and Elizabeth.
“I still remember the look on Elizabeth’s face after you two cleared out deadbeat dad’s house years ago. There’s a reason she didn’t take a damn thing with her. She probably grew up better off without him, and she’s better off without a mother and sister who don’t pay attention to her.”
“Elizabeth has a great capacity to love,” Darcy said slowly, “and she’s put that on Georgiana.” He didn’t say that she was soon to leave and never be heard from again, but Frank nodded like he understood.
“You don’t want the pretty American to get hurt?”
He was just as afraid of getting hurt himself, but he nodded. Elizabeth’s disappointment in parting from Georgiana forever could not match his, but it would still distress her, and that would add to his own pain.
“Don’t get all broody on me,” Frank barked in a louder voice.
He knew that word. Frank often threw it at him when he was inclined to reflection and bordering on melancholia. “Aren’t I supposed to brood?” he teased back. “I’m a forlorn vampire, am I not?”
Frank shook his head. “No, you’re just a strong, silent type. Plus, you’re clearly older now than when I first knew you.”
“Thanks, Frank. You always know just what to say.”