Chapter 13 #2
The following two days progressed the same as did the days that Mr Darcy had been gone, except that he had his share of tending to Georgiana. Her gums receded farther, along with swelling in her feet and legs and sinking of her eyes. The difficulty in swallowing contributed to her rapid emaciation.
She had wanted to hear some music, and Mr Darcy carried her to the parlour where Elizabeth played every song she asked for. Her fingers cramped, but she would never complain, not when it would be the last time Georgiana heard her favourite pieces.
“You know that this is the only reason that your brother married me?” Elizabeth strove to be lively. “He wished to hear music in the house and decided that securing a wife would be less expensive than hiring musicians.”
Georgiana struggled to speak. “Not true. Married . . . because you. . . are engaging and cheerful.”
“No, she is right,” Mr Darcy answered with a smile. “I married Mrs Darcy to hear music whenever I wanted.”
“And I only agreed to marry him to secure your friendship and presence in my life.”
Georgiana’s eyes brightened in amusement. “No, married him . . . because he is attractive and clever.”
Mr Darcy did have a quick eye, and strong handsome features.
She looked over her shoulder at her sister, intending to refute this, and caught Mr Darcy’s attention instead.
When she felt her cheeks warm, she quickly turned back to the instrument.
“If truth be told, he married me because I have a tolerable enough face and figure. He is the least fastidious man I have ever known. If Lydia had sought out your company rather than me, he would have married her.”
“Yes, I can hardly tell you apart,” he said drily. “You might have done as well as your sister. Is it too late to exchange one Bennet girl for the other? Georgiana, would you prefer Lydia? It is all the same to me.”
She and Georgiana laughed, and Elizabeth began another song. Georgiana did so enjoy attending to their playful conversations.
“Fitzwilliam! Know you are joking.” She coughed again. “Bond that unites husband and wife much . . . closer than dear bonds of brother and sister.”
Her fingers faltered, but Elizabeth doubted Mr Darcy noticed since he was too busy arguing Georgiana out of that opinion.
She felt for him in that trial to the feelings that must be experienced in watching the fatal progress of disease in a near relative.
While she played, Mr Darcy sat by Georgiana and amused her with stories of his childhood and memories about hers, he reminded her of what their mother looked like and what their father always said.
When the ties that bind that sweet spirit to earth are severed, Mr Darcy will not be willing to let her go.
That evening it became apparent that after Mr Darcy returned his sister to her chamber, she would not quit it again.
Georgiana could no longer swallow, and she was burning from a fever hotter than Elizabeth had ever felt.
She tended to her, talked to her, and prayed over her that night and through the next day, and all the while an anguished emptiness filled Mr Darcy’s dark eyes.
There was one time when the death watch was too powerful for him, and Mr Darcy was obliged to walk in the garden to take breath.
Elizabeth was sitting on the bed next to Georgiana, who was propped upright against her and whose head rested on her shoulder, when he returned quarter of an hour later.
It had been hours since Georgiana last spoke—and four since Elizabeth first took this post—but her sister’s eyes often showed a fleeting alertness.
She was in such pain, and yet she lingered to life.
Mr Darcy came into the room with grave deliberation to sit on the edge of the bed, and held his sister’s hand as he looked directly into her face. “Georgiana, poor soul, my heart is sad to lose you, but you will be an inhabitant of heaven, and I may one day be reunited with you there.”
Elizabeth looked at him, surprised. She thought Mr Darcy would cling to her to the last, unable to bear parting with a relation more like a daughter; but he truly took care of his sister to the end, telling her that she could go if she was ready.
Her heart was fit to burst. Elizabeth and her husband shared a significant glance, and they both nodded.
“Yes, my dearest friend.” Elizabeth kissed her forehead. “I know how you long to see your child, and there your sufferings will be over.”
Georgiana gave a slight motion, and her eyes came into focus. She flexed and tightened the fingers her brother held, and then pressed her head heavier into Elizabeth’s shoulder. “You have all in each other.”
An hour later Georgiana Darcy breathed her last. Elizabeth did her one final service and closed her eyes, and then wept her heart out.
The sad ceremony was to take place on Tuesday morning.
Elizabeth was picking an old silk pelisse to pieces and meant to have it dyed black for a gown since she could not afford to have a new mourning gown made.
Charlotte sat with her, helping to cover her bonnet with black crepe.
Whenever Charlotte was not here, Elizabeth kept vigil upstairs, as she had since Georgiana died.
“You have not said how Mr Darcy has been,” Charlotte said.
“You have been here helping me enough to know his nature for yourself. He swears, drinks, is cross, jealous, selfish, and brutal.”
“Eliza!” Charlotte set down the bonnet and threw her a disbelieving look.
Elizabeth sat back and rubbed her eyes. The man was in restless misery, silently going from one room to the other, often upstairs to sit with the remains of his sister.
But Mr Darcy will not grieve with me. “He does not speak to me if he can help it. He is civil and answers when spoken to, but he is not at ease with me.”
“He is grieving, and rightfully so.”
“We both are, Charlotte.” Mr Darcy behaved with a degree of dignity and resolution that no common man would possess on the death of a loved one.
“I wish he showed some depth of feeling. I know he feels wretched. We may not have a marriage based on affection, but we are inseparable companions in this misfortune, yet he avoids me.”
“Your husband might feel that his loss and sufferings are equal to no one else’s. And, as you married more for practicality and comfort, Mr Darcy may not expect consolation from you.”
“Perhaps it is I who am in need of consolation.” Elizabeth began to cry. “I lost a friend and sister, too!”
Charlotte led her to the sofa and let her sob on her shoulder. “We need not enter into a panegyric on the departed, but it is sweet to think of Miss Darcy’s worth, of her solid principles, of her excellent spirit.”
Elizabeth slowly composed herself, but did not feel any relief.
Dear, rational Charlotte, indeed no one in the neighbourhood, had known Georgiana, save for her brother.
And Mr Darcy does not speak of his sister, and he does not speak to me.
He married her from mutual interest, not from choice, and that reason was now gone.
She was not his family, and he would not confide in her.
She would not be oppressed as had been at Longbourn, but she would be dreadfully lonely until she died.
Madeira, June 13
Dear Lady Catherine,
My heart is sad, my dear aunt, and I wish that the event might be broken gradually to you, but my sister has taken leave of her sufferings.
If virtue can secure happiness in another world, Georgiana is happy.
No one better than myself knows the greatness of your and Anne’s loss or how much your hearts must feel it in all its extent.
Darcy threw down his pen and left his study.
He had nearly a dozen of these damn letters to write to his relations and closest friends, and each one was painful.
It may have been a happy release for Georgiana, but he still feared he might fall frantic with grief if he so much as stayed still.
He looked in the drawing room and saw Mrs Darcy was there with Miss Lucas, and it appeared his wife had just finished crying in her arms.
He turned on his heel and left to walk outside.
His sister had been ready to die for weeks, and Darcy knew why.
Yes, she had been in unbearable pain, but the hope of seeing her infant was a powerful reason to welcome death.
Georgiana wanted to reunite in heaven with her child.
The child that he had sworn to hide all existence of, the child that had prevented them from travelling to a warmer climate, the child that was the reason for their isolation, the child that Georgiana had refused to give up, the child that had been born too soon.
The child that he loathed as an inconvenience, a nuisance, a mere thing that threatened their reputation and respectability.
His fifteen-year-old sister had such love for an infant that she never even saw, and for all of his having lived in the world, his superior age and knowledge, Darcy had not understood that love—the love of a mother—until it was too late.
What manner of a man does that make me? An appalling, heartless, lonely one.
The mourning letters he had to write were no comfort because any consolation from his friends and family would be two months in coming.
The ruse of conveying his correspondence as though it had come through Madeira was never more maddening than in this moment.
He had no family to mourn with him, and no friends to distract him, and Fitzwilliam’s duties to his regiment and then to his father meant he was unable to come into Hertfordshire.
I would give anything I have for some family, someone who holds me dear, to condole with me.
Darcy considered riding, but no obligation should go unfinished and, after noticing the strawberries in the garden that were rotting on the bushes, he returned to the house.
Two hours later he had scarcely left his study to look into the empty drawing room when Lydia Bennet was shown into the vestibule.
“Miss Bennet, your sister has been keeping vigil when she is not working on her mourning clothes. If she is not there, then I suspect she is laid down on her bed. I can ask a maid to wake—”
“No, I saw Lizzy yesterday, and if I see her, she will only cry again. And I paid my respects to your sister when I was last here. I am sorry for your loss.”
Darcy nodded, incapable of replying. He could not explain why Miss Bennet was here if she did not wish to see Mrs Darcy. Miss Bennet came closer and held out a bandbox.
“These are for you from my mother. I am supposed to say that it is from Longbourn, but Mary is a miser and Mr Collins only agreed for the sake of appearances.”
What could Mrs Bennet possibly send to me? Darcy looked the question to Miss Bennet, who gestured that he should open it.
A crepe hatband, a pair of black gentleman’s gloves, a few armbands and black ribbons. He looked up in astonishment, unable to form words.
“My mother harassed Mr and Mrs Collins into paying for them because she has little money of her own, but she has more sense of what is due on the occasion than those two. Of course, I am not supposed to say so. If you send any compliments, I will have to give them to everyone at Longbourn, but you ought to know it was my mother’s doing.
She assumes three months’ mourning for you, and six weeks for Lizzy, and the rest of us can choose six weeks or three. ”
A matriarch in a family set the tone for mourning and made sure the family and servants were properly attired.
Mrs Bennet had sent these to her daughter’s household, but most of these items were for him.
It was more than a gesture of condolence; it was the care and concern one showed to family.
There was a feeling high in his chest, choking his throat.
“I . . . you must thank your mother for me, and I appreciate your thoughtfulness in bringing these yourself.” He noticed for the first time her black ribbons and the crepe on her bonnet. “Forgive me for keeping you in the vestibule. You must come in.”
Miss Bennet shook her head. “You don’t have to entertain me. I suspect you would rather be with your wife. If anyone can comfort you, it would be her. Lizzy loved Miss Darcy as much as her own sisters. You are welcome for the mourning things.”
Darcy stared into the box for a long moment, willing any tears thinking about forming to stop their progress. He choked out another thank you, and Mrs Darcy’s sister left him to his grief and gratitude.