Chapter 66
Jane asked Elizabeth to meet her in the garden while everyone else was sitting down for luncheon.
Not at all surprised that her sister had no appetite, Lizzie hurried there as soon as she got the message.
She imagined her sister in tears, as white-faced and broken as she had been the day she arrived from London.
To Elizabeth’s utter shock, Jane looked happy.
How was it possible? The night before, Jane had looked as if she would never smile again.
Mr. Collins’s vicious, unending assault was enough to drive a man to madness, much less a sweet-hearted lady trapped in his web.
Elizabeth knew her sister, and she knew that she had been heartbroken at dinner. Now, she looked radiant!
“My darling,” Elizabeth hurried forwards and seized her sister’s hands. “How are you?”
“Well. I am well.” Jane reassured her, eyes shining. “I have just come from seeing Georgiana. This afternoon her gown will be returned from the dressmakers, with the adjustments we ordered. She is so excited!”
“I know. I promised to help her try it on the moment it arrives. Jane.” Elizabeth shoved the word into the sentence like a brick, stopping their chit-chat in its tracks.
“Where were you before you saw Georgiana? Was it the same place where you hid last night? I did not see you at all after you left with Mr. Bingley.”
Jane managed to keep her serene smile, but she blushed cherry-red and looked quickly down at her shoes. Then she peeked up through her eyelashes, smiling in a way that Elizabeth had never seen before, but understood at once.
“Oh.” she breathed and shook her head. “Jane, tell me where you were.”
“I was…” Jane could not finish the sentence, “We were…”
“Together?”
A nod.
“All night?”
Another nod, a slight flicker in the eyes. Elizabeth finished the confession for her, in utter disbelief:
“In his room?”
“It is not what you think, Lizzie.” Jane defended herself at once with words that had clearly been rehearsed. “We are engaged. Or, rather, we shall be engaged, but you must help us to speak to papa.”
“You know I will help you!” Elizabeth cried, “How can you doubt it? But Jane, you must not… oh dearest, what have you done? The shame… the scandal it will bring down on our heads…”
“Yes, I know. It is a scandal which mother will do anything in her power to conceal. Including, I think, standing up to Mr. Collins.”
Elizabeth was so stunned by this quiet, logical response that she had to sit down.
The low brick divide between the roses and the honeysuckle was not enough to make her comfortable, but it did at least give her a chance to collect herself.
The air smelled of perfume and of fresh air, but she felt as if it was crackling around her.
There was a storm coming, she thought… but the sky was clear.
“Please tell me that is not why you did it.” Lizzie begged weakly.
Jane sat beside her, taking her hand as she had ever since they were little girls.
“No, it was not that. I confess that the thought made it easier for me to… um… to give myself permission. I gave myself to him out of love, Lizzie. It was wonderful. Why didn’t you tell me, darling?
I had no idea that it was possible to be so happy. ”
Elizabeth’s throat closed up. With tears in her eyes, she kissed her sister’s cheek. “I am glad for you both, dearest. Truly, truly glad. I will help you however I can, but I must make one request.”
“That I cannot tell our sisters about it?” Jane smiled crookedly, “Of course I shall not, my love. I have behaved sinfully and shamefully, and I would never forgive myself if our sweet girls were led astray.”
“You cannot tell Darcy, either.” Elizabeth warned, “You must ensure that Bingley does not breathe a word of this to him. He cannot even hint at it.”
“Yes, I shall. I promise.” Jane’s eyes filled with anxious curiosity, “We did not mean any disrespect to him, Lizzie, I promise. It just happened, and then… I know it can link him to the scandal, but we did not think it would go so far, and... do you think it will make him angry, Lizzie?”
“I fear it might.” Elizabeth drew a deep breath, “It is because of Georgiana.”
“Georgiana?” Jane’s eyes widened, “Do you mean that she… that her accident was…”
“I do not know for sure. I have gathered… fragments, Jane. Pieces here and there, from Mrs. Reynolds and from things which Darcy and Bingley have let slip. And there was a picture in the gallery of a man who was involved. I do not know everything, but… this is some of what happened.”
Georgiana had never felt so free as she did that summer in Ramsgate.
She had taken trips before, of course, but those were in the company of her serious brother or her domineering aunt.
Spending time with her cousin Anne was almost as intolerable as watching paint dry - something which, in their mornings doing watercolours together, Georgiana had ample time to discover.
Sometimes it was just her and Fitzwilliam. Georgiana preferred that, although she would never admit as much to Darcy. Her brother adored her, but Fitzwilliam humoured and teased her.
Sometimes when it was just the two of them, Georgiana imagined herself as a lady of age who could choose her own amusements with her own companions.
True, she would probably still choose to be with her brother…
but it would be on her terms. Georgiana Darcy yearned for a life where she was not always under a superior eye.
Her governess, Miss Beale, had left her a few months ago to marry a schoolmaster in Norwich.
Georgiana wrote to her daily. She did not care at all for her aloof replacement - that is, until they travelled together to Ramsgate.
There, Miss Darcy discovered that Mrs. Younge was an ally indeed.
She was willingly blind to unladylike behaviour and permitted things which would have made Miss Beale’s face turn blue.
One evening, for example, Georgiana expressed her impossible desire to paddle barefoot in the sea, as the local children did.
Before the hour was out, on a moonlit and secluded beach, the illustrious Miss Darcy felt coarse sand beneath her naked soles.
When the icy waves lapped over her toes the girl squealed with childlike delight and then clapped her hand over her mouth.
But Mrs. Younge did not mind unladylike noises any more than she cared about decorum. She only wanted to make Georgiana happy.
Had she been more worldly, Georgiana would have realised that a woman who allowed one person liberties would doubtless allow any other person the same. Particularly a person whom Mrs. Younge was as fond of as George Wickham.
Mr. Wickham had no compunction about taking liberties at all.
Like warm yellow sand and shining seashells, like fresh sea foam and moonlit nights, Georgiana loved her new freedom with every beat of her heart.
Oh, how she loved him! George would never scold her. She was a bird, he said: a little bird trapped in a cage who deserved to soar.
A little sparrow in the day.
His shy, wide-eyed owl at night.
In the morning he was the hawk, feral and demanding, and Georgiana was afraid.
Fear was its own freedom. With it came brutal clarity. The little sparrow opened her eyes and finally saw the world as it truly was.
Like sharp sea shells, broken and hollow, cutting callously into tender virgin flesh.
Like torn-away stockings on a moonlit night.
There was her freedom made fresh. She had reached for it! Oh yes, she had clutched at her ruin like a greedy child! And then Darcy arrived and she had to watch her poisonous liberty cut him to the very soul.
There was no freedom when they returned to Pemberley. Georgiana forbade it to herself. There would be no music, no deceitful art or pointless indulgence. The world was sharp, and she would let it cut her. That was justice.
The house grew quiet. Her brother remained but some part of him seemed to be missing. This, too, was Georgiana’s punishment. Darcy loved her dearly, but when he looked at his little sister he saw only failure. Her own, of course was obvious. His own failure was far more profound.
Years of careful protection, something which he had prided himself on, had been dashed apart overnight. His efforts were undone; her convictions nothing but words. Worse, his position as the man in her life had been usurped - discarded by a foolish sister at the behest of a master manipulator.
It was a single mistake, and it was not Georgiana who had made it. It was Darcy himself. He had been deceived.
Darcy looked at Georgiana with compassion. He looked at her with a broken heart.
He was silent.
Silence was her punishment.
Georgiana did not fight it. It was when her brother saw her that he hurt the most.
So that was what she destroyed first. Viciously, with fearful logic, she made it impossible for him to look at her again. Georgiana Darcy was gone - erased.
That way, when she fell into the silence forever, he would see a stranger and not a mistake.
Elizabeth did not say all of this to Jane. The little she knew was beyond her ability to describe, and the rest was Georgiana’s story alone. Still, she recited the facts of the matter with enough accuracy for Jane’s eyes to fill with tears.
“Oh, my poor love!” she whispered, all of the glow gone from her cheeks, “Oh, that wicked man!”
Elizabeth’s head ached. She had known the truth, but she had never put it into words before. To hear it laid out like that had made her feel unwell. Her tongue had stumbled so many times that she was surprised that Jane could make any sense out of it at all.
“Darcy cannot speak of it. I shall never ask that of him. I can see it, though, in his manner. He is so protective - almost harsh, at times. He cannot abide innocent flirtations. For him, it is never innocent. You saw how he was with Mary, after Fitzwilliam laughed with her at luncheon.”
“He glared.”
“Yes, and had no kind words for his cousin at all. Yet to Mary he was most accommodating and gentle.”
“He has been like that with me too, Elizabeth. Are you sure that is not just Darcy’s manner with all women?”
“Not at all, I am sorry to say. It is the circumstances and not the gender which repel him. He cannot abide easy amity.”
“Forgive me, but…” Jane hesitated and then spoke boldly, “He was just as friendly with you, just as rapidly as Fitzwilliam is with Mary. You were married within a few weeks.”
Elizabeth looked away. “He did not make me his wife until months later, Jane. Even then, he saw that as a mistake. Ever since then we have not…”
Jane’s eyes widened. With the innocent, blushing disbelief of a newly plucked flower, she gasped: “You haven’t? Why? What made him think it was a mistake?”
“There are many reasons.” Elizabeth told her awkwardly, “You know that he is reserved. Well, he was determined not to put me under any pressure and insisted that we be… chaste. I was willing, for I knew that I must, but he would not accept. For a time, I thought that we might… that a certain feeling was growing between us, but… but then we were drunk, and upset, and it happened by accident. He did not mean to hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” Jane frowned, “Lizzie, you promised me that it did not! The day in the woods…”
“That was not the same, Jane.” Elizabeth interrupted bluntly, “That was… I made Darcy promise that we would not be intimate. What you saw was… there are other ways to… he likes to bring me pleasure, Jane, and I… I am learning how to do the same for him.”
Jane’s eyes were wide as saucers. “That sounds rather intimate to me.”
“Yes, but we do not…” Elizabeth made a gesture that was as meaningless as it was possible to be. Jane blinked, looked away for a moment, and then spoke in a low voice.
“Because you are afraid that he will hurt you again?”
Elizabeth did not answer, but by her brick-red face and twisting hands Jane knew that she was right. Lizzie saw her sister’s face darken with concern and seized her arm anxiously.
“I did not tell Darcy that. There were other reasons to delay, and he accepted them. I am not afraid, Jane. Not all the time. I just… there is a moment, and then it passes. When I am not afraid, I want him with all of my soul, Jane. Is that sinful?”
The older girl laughed softly, “Lizzie, I just ruined myself for that exact reason. It did not hurt at all. The first time was a little surprising, I admit, but by the third time…”
Lizzie laughed in disbelief. It was so strange to discuss such lewd matters out loud, especially with the sister who had always seemed closer to taking holy orders than the others.
She half expected a divine lightning bolt to shriek down from Heaven to smite them both!
To hear sweet Jane say such things in her dear, gentle voice…
The only option was to laugh. Lizzie resorted to teasing: “It seems that you are more experienced than I, Jane! Three times?”
“Is that not normal? Charles was rather enthusiastic.” Jane smiled self-consciously at the memory and added, “Dearest, I am sure that it will not hurt you. Mr. Darcy loves you so much.”
“He loved me the last time, Jane.”
“Yes, but he was angry and drunk.”
Elizabeth had no answer to that, for it was her own description and sadly true.
She sighed and shook her head, gesturing for them to turn around and start walking back towards the house.
“Jane, now that you know what Darcy is like, and what Georgiana suffered, do you understand why I am asking you to keep this a secret?”
“Yes, my love. I shall tell Bingley at once.”
“In private?” Lizzie laughed at the immediate blush on her sister’s face. “Off you go then, dearest. I suppose you cannot be more ruined.”