Chapter 35
As to angels…
There was the word again, heavy and cumbersome in Georgiana’s mind. The depths were warm and comforting, sucking her back and down and in, but that word danced on the caustic surface.
Her brother had put it there, but not for her own sake. He called the woman an angel: the woman with a blue eye sparkling around her throat.
The angels in the Bible looked a little like that. Georgiana knew that they had not their own forms but took on ones that were comforting. Comforting, yes, but terrifying. She saw them in her nightmares, swooping and screaming over wretched shepherds by the light of a burning midnight star.
Such images always tore into the depths, making her childish imaginings crackle and crumble. There was no goodness left to look for. Colour was gone, and so too was the light. Angels, Georgiana knew, could not survive in the darkness.
But she could. Oh yes, she could survive. Damnably, painfully, she survived.
Oblivion would have been a blessing.
Georgiana Darcy had never had much cause to beg favours from God.
In her sheltered, pampered life she had made only two heartfelt prayers.
The first was that her dear childhood friend, Wickham, would see that she was now a grown woman.
The last was that the shell he had left behind might slip quietly away.
It would only hurt a little.
Her brother would be glad that it was so easy and quick. Yes, she would be gone, but it would be a peaceful and beautiful death. He would mourn, and move on, and perhaps even forget. That would be fine.
God, it seemed, did not concur.
Darcy thought that she was gone. Georgiana saw it in his eyes, when he stared without hope into her own.
She could not look back. Her vision blurred and shimmered and swam like a fever-dream.
By the time she struggled to surface and focus her eyes, he was always gone.
The hours had passed. It had been noon when he visited her, and now it was nighttime.
She focused on the moon instead. She let herself slip back into the dappled eddies of night.
But she was still there. The waves did not make time pass any faster, nor make her unaware of her body. She knew that it hurt. She knew that she must be fed, and dressed, and changed like an infant when she messed herself. Humiliation was a distant foe, but oh yes, she was there.
There for every slow second of her imprisonment. There, beneath the waves and utterly alone.
My name is Elizabeth. I am here to love you.
Georgiana swam again to the surface. It was another well-meaning voice, but she knew their eyes would be empty.
They never had the nerve to see her. It was too horrible to think that she was conscious, and so they would all rather pretend.
Georgiana knew it, and she knew that Elizabeth would give up, just like all the others.
But… every day… every day…
The things that Elizabeth said! The things that she didn’t say!
A careful silence about Darcy, save for the unlikely fact that she was his wife.
Georgiana lingered by the surface, listening attentively to every word.
He had gone away again, only for a few weeks, but he was gone.
He had forbidden Elizabeth from setting foot in this room.
I cannot stay long, dearest. I am not supposed to be here.
It was almost funny. Georgiana might have replied: I am not supposed to be here, either.
Darcy had forbidden even his wife from visiting her. Did he think his sister was beyond help? Was she embarrassing?
How dare he pretend that she didn’t exist?
It was the first vivid emotion that Georgiana had felt for months. Where before there were only the sighing waves, she felt the rough currents of anger pushing her to shore.
No wonder she hadn’t seen anyone else! Where was her cousin? Where was her aunt? Where was anyone apart from the awful Miss Crocker?
It had taken Elizabeth - a stranger! - breaking into her room for Georgiana to find out about even a shred of her brother’s life. Of his rules.
Well, she did not have to obey!
Except… she did. The water still swirled around her. Just because Georgiana looked for an island, did not mean that she knew how to swim.
One exhausting day at a time, Georgiana Darcy inched towards the surface.
Elizabeth wept the first time that their eyes met. Oh, it had been agonising to do it, and Georgiana could only focus for a second, but she did it! Hot triumph bubbled inside her. She had tried for so long that she thought Elizabeth would leave before she managed it.
After that, her new sister waited patiently for Georgiana to make that tiny connection. She kissed her warmly each time she managed her staggering feat. Elizabeth saw the battle. She saw Georgiana reaching out and knew how desperately she was fighting.
Georgiana loved her sister with all of her heart.
Love. It was the second emotion to shimmer through the water, and it was staggeringly beautiful.
The grey, murky water became clear and prismatic, illuminating the shining castle that had been hidden on the ocean floor.
It beckoned to other emotions, letting them soar effortlessly through towards her.
Georgiana learned happiness like an infant learning how to speak. She felt it every time Elizabeth walked into the room. After happiness came discontent.
She had not cared, before, if she was hot or cold, in darkness or in light… but now that she knew the colours of happiness, Georgiana realised that it would never find her here.
Her hand clenched by instinct. Hours of relentless practice had not summoned so much as a finger twitch, but she gripped her sister’s hand like a lifeline. She could not let go, not even when Elizabeth begged, until her strength gave out. Then the impulse was gone, and her body was still once more.
But not Georgiana. She was there, and she was all motion and light. She was alive.
Happiness returned in daylight and in warmth. It caressed her in her sister’s gentle words and the soft song of a distant harp. It came in forgiveness, when she heard her brother’s heartfelt apologies to herself and to the angel. It came slowly, and it brought healing in its wake.
Georgiana healed because of others.
But she taught herself how to smile.
Now, it was easy.