Chapter 11 #2
Georgiana nodded and rested her head on her shoulder, and they sat in silent contemplation. A bird with a salmon-coloured breast flew up from the grass and landed in a tree above them.
“Was that a charbob?” Georgiana asked without raising her head.
“The little one with the white upon its wings, the brownish back, and blue cap? It is a chaffinch.”
Georgiana smiled the smile of a memory. “We call them charbobs. I always liked birds. I kept a canary when I was small.”
“My aunt calls chaffinches charbobs as well. Whenever I tease her about it, she reminds me that she is from Derbyshire and says it is a regional name.”
Georgiana was silent for a heartbeat. “My cousin and uncle call it a scobby, and I have heard others call chaffinches spinks. Is it not interesting that one creature is known by so many names?”
This nature chat occupied them until Colonel Fitzwilliam found them, and he insisted on carrying his cousin back to the house.
He was not as tall as Mr Darcy, but the colonel easily hoisted Georgiana into his arms, although he complained that she weighed as much as a horse and he pretended to stagger under her heaviness.
She is as thin as a little bird herself, poor creature.
They approached Netherfield Lodge from the lane rather than the garden, and saw near to the house a fashionable carriage overturned, and two shocked-looking gentlemen in conversation with Mr Darcy. The contents of what had been on the luggage-boot were strewn across the lane.
“All your friend is saying is that you ought not to have attempted to go quickly downhill on a rough lane,” she heard Mr Darcy say calmly.
Elizabeth watched her husband mediate their dispute. For a man of modest income and comforts, Mr Darcy’s clothes were as high a quality as theirs, but he lacked their affectations.
The first man bowed his head. “I ordered the driver to cut the horses too sharply, perhaps.”
“Perhaps?” the other gentleman cried to his friend. “We are overturned!”
“Did you not say you wished to be there an hour ago? If I did tell the postboy to go quickly, it was at your urging!”
“You are the one who refuses to begin morning calls until three, even whilst in the country! And we were not going that quickly.”
Mr Darcy stepped between them. “I saw myself your carriage press against the horses as you descended. You took the hill too quickly, but set your quarrel aside. Call some men in the other field to help you get the carriage upright again.”
Elizabeth was surprised that the men with the post-chaise followed his directives.
Mr Darcy spoke steadily and quietly, but something in his manner compelled them to action.
They set aside their walking sticks, watch fobs, snuff boxes, hats, and gloves.
Colonel Fitzwilliam offered his help if it was still wanted when he finished carrying Georgiana inside.
Meanwhile, Mr Darcy advised how to right the carriage, but did not lend any assistance himself, as if it was more natural for him to dictate and be listened to.
These fashionable gentlemen are willingly taking directions from a man beneath them in consequence because his manner is authoritative.
Mr Darcy and the postboy determined that the carriage, being now set up, had received such an injury on the fallen side as to be unfit for present use.
He told the men to wheel it to the barn a quarter of a mile away in the next field to clear the roadway and instructed them on where to go in Meryton for assistance in repairing it.
The two gentlemen were not only attentive to his every instruction, but grateful for his advice on managing their disaster.
How did a man of no significance in the world, with education but no status, and without fortune, have such a commanding aspect?
Mr Darcy gave directions, and without any doubt that he would be listened to.
Somehow, he had that kind of worldliness that others recognised as coming from experience and responsibility. It puzzled Elizabeth exceedingly.
Elizabeth came into the parlour to work and saw Colonel Fitzwilliam in a chair near to where Georgiana was reclining on the sofa, fast asleep.
She would have gone away again, but he asked her to stay.
During his time here, she had many lively conversations with him, but he never showed an interest in a serious tête-à-tête.
He continued gazing at his cousin for a long moment.
“I was thinking . . . thinking that when I leave tomorrow that I shall not see my young cousin once more. She will be dead before I can come to Hertfordshire again.”
“You and Georgiana are too morbid and sensational. Mr Lynn does not believe she is in a dying way. I grant you she is very ill and needs considerable care.” She wished to tease and distract him.
“I did not realise that regiment army colonels were required to be doctors before their commissions were purchased.”
“Your charmingly mild manner smooths over your sometimes . . . impertinent style.”
“If I was offensive, I am sorry for it. We all know she is poorly, that the pain of a lengthy, rattling carriage ride would all but kill her. But, as weak as Georgiana is, if we care for her properly . . . the apothecary does not feel that death is imminent.”
“I understand that yours is.”
Elizabeth looked at Georgiana. She wanted to be a woman who came to terms with her own life, and its end, as well as Georgiana had.
“I wake up every day knowing that it might be my last. I will be her friend, her confidante, her nurse, her sister until my heart gives out, and that purpose gives me the strength to face the day knowing I will drop dead at any moment.”
“And if Georgiana dies before you, however unlikely you feel that to be? How will you behave then?”
“How do you mean? She is my friend, my sister. Of course I will mourn—”
“You had best be certain to do nothing to wound Darcy if Georgiana dies before you.” He fixed her with a cold stare.
“If you speak against my family’s reputation, if you act in a way that is unbecoming as the wife of Mr Darcy, if you wrong him, I will make your last days miserable.
The Darcys are dear to me and they have suffered enough, and I will be damned before I let you injure them. ”
They stared at one another for a lengthy moment. Colonel Fitzwilliam did not so much as blink, but Elizabeth thought she understood him. “I can tell you are not in the habit of threatening young ladies. Have you been practising that speech?”
He gave her a smile that she gladly returned. “Yes, how did I do? Was I intimidating?”
The colonel’s love of family and his loyalty to them were nothing for her to be distressed over. “No, but you need not threaten me on this matter. I love Georgiana, and her reputation is as dear to me as my own.”
“But what of Darcy?” The colonel’s smile faded. “What if Georgiana dies in July and you die in October? Yes, the apothecary thinks that unlikely, but how will you treat Darcy without his sister’s presence to remind you what you owe to your new family?”
“I could not love Mr Darcy, but I will at least keep his good opinion. Not for myself or for you, but for Georgiana’s memory.
And, I suppose, because he is a good man and it is right to be done.
” She gave her head a little shake and forced a smile.
“Enough of this talk of death! Shall we part as friends?” She held out her hand.
“I know you disapprove of my arrangement with your cousin, but do not let it convince you that I am an honourless, unfeeling woman.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam pressed her hand and kissed it. “All I ask is that you care for the Darcys, both of them, as your own family.”
“I hope my manner will continue to smooth over my offensive style when I remind you that you have been to Longbourn. I can promise to care for the Darcys better than that.”
“I am not refusing to oblige you, ma’am,” Cook said kindly. “It takes time to make lozenges, and if you want Miss Darcy’s medicine now, you can have dinner after eight o’clock.”
Elizabeth exhaled loudly through her nose and tried to keep her patience.
“The new maid has been here since I married, and with Colonel Fitzwilliam now gone, how much extra work does she have? Can she not help you in the kitchen?” Her mother had always had an able housekeeper to manage these matters.
The cook laughed. “I know where you lived before, ma’am, so I don’t mind telling you where you blundered. One maid of all work will be busy enough caring for the rooms and furniture, emptying chamber pots, cleaning hearths, and scrubbing floors.”
Elizabeth felt a little ashamed at not having realised their one maid would never do needlework or help Cook in the kitchen.
The Darcys had but one maid before, and had managed well enough.
I must make do in my new situation. It would be temporary for her, but the Darcys had never known anything better.
Cook bent over a barrel of flour as she went on.
“The man does coal carrying and carrying buckets of water, and chopping wood and horse tending, and does his best as the master’s valet, and Mrs Moon comes in for the washing, while I cook and tend the kitchen garden.
Who do you think that leaves for food preserving, going to the shops, sewing, medicines, and anything else needing done? ”
“I suppose the new lady of the house will have a few more responsibilities than the mistress of Longbourn.” Despite that, it was not bad living here.
Aside from having Georgiana’s company whenever she wished it, she had more freedom and more peace at the lodge than she ever had at her childhood home.