Chapter 6 Georgiana’s Help Requested
GEORGIANA’S HELP REQUESTED
Several days later, Darcy found himself pacing in his study, very nearly overwhelmed by his distress.
Fitzwilliam’s revelations in the carriage, with Bingley’s chastisements following so quickly thereafter, were both shocking and disheartening.
To think that two people he considered dear to him had such poor opinions of him!
He had hoped that Elizabeth’s anger towards him might be handily dispatched by a reunion between her sister and Bingley. That hope, it seemed, was false. He had no idea what Bingley might or might not do about Jane Bennet, but he was certainly not likely to plead Darcy’s case to any Bennet.
He had debated going to Bingley’s home hundreds of times since their quarrel.
Each time he dissuaded himself, thinking more time would be needed to cool tempers and soften hearts.
Further, he did not think he could stand it, were he to be denied admittance into the rooms Bingley kept in town.
But it was difficult, very difficult, to be at odds with a friend like Bingley.
His sense of regret swelled within him as he considered how poorly he had treated his friend, who had been so delighted by Netherfield.
Miss Bingley, for all her aspirations of becoming a true gentlewoman, had very thoroughly disparaged Hertfordshire and the populace who would be her neighbours and tenants—had he done likewise?
He recalled how disgruntled he was to be there, so sure that the townsfolk were all seeking his approval and he so determined not to give it—a ridiculous figure he was, too, disdainful, haughty, and arrogant.
He could not like the picture that presented. Was it any wonder Elizabeth disliked him? Could he be surprised that Bingley, agreeable as he was, had finally had enough of him?
I was given good principles but left to follow them in pride and conceit.
His mother and father, he recognised now, had spoilt him dreadfully.
His status as the only son and heir no doubt encouraged their indulgence of his every want and need.
The result had been that he had arrived at the age of eight-and-twenty as a selfish and overbearing man who thought little—if at all—of the sense and worth of others.
Heaven only knew there were plenty of young men exactly like him amid his circle in London, and he had always secretly scorned them, their arrogance, the nonsense of them all. Yet he was just like them. Perhaps worse.
No more. I shall improve myself. I will become a man worthy of them both, in thought, word, and deed.
He would never be the sort of man who overflowed with mirth, who greeted every stranger as a friend, but he could be the sort of man who had a generous spirit, who considered the needs of others above his own.
A man with no improper pride whatsoever.
The sort of man who would appeal to a woman like Elizabeth Bennet.
But for now? He had planned to call on her in Gracechurch Street, had meant to pay his addresses to her there.
It seemed positively absurd to do so now.
When he tried to imagine it, he envisioned a cool reception, with her perhaps glancing at the mantel clock, desperate for the quarter-hour to be over.
The thought of that was excruciating. He simply could not do it. He considered himself a fairly brave man, a man who stood up to duty and danger when he needed to, but to face the disinterest of Elizabeth Bennet? That he could not do.
I must forget her. I must conquer these feelings and go on.
He did not speak of it to others, the course of improvement he had set himself upon. Over the next days, he strove to be less taciturn and more agreeable to those around him, and it did not go unnoticed. It was, however, vastly misunderstood.
“Darcy, it seems you are ready,” Saye pronounced one morning at their club.
“Ready for what?” Darcy enquired.
“To get out there and pay court to someone.” Saye mockingly toasted him with his tankard.
Darcy ignored the salute. “Impossible. I will never find another woman like Elizabeth Bennet.”
“A man does not find his ballocks by searching in his desk, does he?”
“What does that mean?”
“You are a clever man. Think about it,” Saye said, and rose to take his leave of him.
What he meant, Darcy thought later, was that sitting about in my house and my club will not help me find a woman. If I am going to put Elizabeth behind me, I must put someone else before me.
With such thoughts in mind, he went to the Matlock town house one morning, intent on seeing his cousins. The housekeeper greeted him like another son of the house, directing him to the billiard room where both of his cousins were playing a game of their own invention.
After greeting them both, and declining to join the game, Darcy said, “I have been thinking of the advice you gave me—”
“To stop wearing that disgusting straw-coloured waistcoat?” Saye asked as he lined up his shot.
“It is quite ugly, Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam agreed. “Not your usual thing at all.”
“It is very possibly the ugliest waistcoat I have ever beheld,” Saye added. “And it makes you look sallow.”
Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose and reminded himself to be agreeable. “No, not that advice.”
“You finally wish to invest in one of Gertie’s opportunities?” Saye asked, referring to one of his more dubious associates, a Mr George Birdsell. “You could double your fortune!”
“Gertie is a smuggler.” Fitzwilliam shot his brother a disgusted look. “His opportunities, as you call them, are not investments; they are crimes, and as heir to the Matlock earldom, you ought not to consort with such a person.”
Saye leant on his stick and yawned affectedly. “We are not speaking of my friends; it is Darcy who wishes for help. You were saying, Darcy?”
“I realise that I have very little chance of ever seeing Miss Elizabeth Bennet again.” A wash of despair went over Darcy at the thought, but he fought it off.
“Even if you did see her,” Saye remarked, “I doubt you would know how to woo her anyhow.”
Darcy took a deep inhale and ignored the truth in that. “I mean to embrace the Season. Toss myself into the Marriage Mart. Find a wife.”
“Must it be a wife? You are yet young; you could have many years—”
“I wished to marry Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy said, interrupting Fitzwilliam. “So finding someone else I wish to marry is the only way I will be able to forget her.”
Impossible as it may seem.
Over the next month, Darcy thrust himself into the Season as he never had before.
He attended balls and dinner parties, went to the theatre, joined walking parties, went riding on Rotten Row—any and all of it.
Thoughts of Elizabeth were never far from his mind, but he kept on, hoping in time that they would dissipate.
Hoping in time he might find someone who piqued his interest as much as she did; hoping to find some woman who was even close to her excellence.
Early on, he realised success would be far more difficult than he had anticipated.
There was absolutely no one in London like her, but he was undeterred—he had to be.
Once word spread that he was attending so many events, speculation began that he was seeking a wife; once that speculation spread, the ladies became ruthless in their schemes to be the one so chosen.
One evening, he was enjoying—in the most limited sense of the word—a conversation with a lady on a recent art exhibition they had both seen in town, when several comments she made led him to suspect that she had, in fact, not seen the exhibit.
She appeared to be simply mirroring his own opinions and observations.
Thus, he began to say things that were the exact opposite of what he had said earlier in the conversation.
She did not seem to notice and agreed just as enthusiastically as she had with his first position.
Another evening, at a ball he attended with Saye, he was alarmed to discover that a plan had been made to enclose him in a closet with one young lady whose elder brother would be sure to insist on matrimony.
It was Saye who learnt of it and told him of it, to his disbelief.
“Who would wish to marry a man, knowing full well they had coerced him into offering for her?”
“Most of them,” Saye replied knowingly with a broad sweep of his arm across the crowd. “If not all.”
Darcy was called upon by several fathers who were none-too-subtle regarding their daughters’ dowries and inheritances.
Brothers of many ladies, some of whom had never even been introduced to him properly, came to him while he fenced or at his club, to make his acquaintance and forward their sisters to him, with little effort at subtlety or delicacy.
“I just had a meeting with Mr Henry Pawley,” he informed Saye when he joined him at their club one morning.
“How was that?” Saye enquired, signalling to a servant to bring him a drink.
“He told me that each of his three daughters has an excellent dowry but that should I like one more than the other, he would be happy to give her more.”
“How much more?”
“That is not the point! It is dreadful, these…negotiations! We speak of marriage, not the purchase of a horse!”
“You should have proposed that they all submit bids for you.” Saye laughed. “Better yet, let us take you out into the square and auction you!”
Darcy rose from his seat, at once anxious to be home. “I am not sure how much more of this I can endure,” he informed his cousin darkly before he left the club.
It was a short journey back to his home, and he nearly sighed with relief at the thought of some solitude. He entered the house to find his butler awaiting him with a message. “Miss Darcy has requested that you attend her when you are home.”
The request was unusual; Georgiana scarcely ever requested anything. “Did she say why?”
“No, sir, she did not,” Hughes replied. “She just received tea in the drawing room. Should you require anything?”
“No, I think not,” Darcy replied over his shoulder, already hurrying to meet his sister.
“You wished to see me?” he asked as, moments later, he entered the drawing room. Georgiana appeared reasonably serene, a book by her side and tea and cake in front of her.
“I did.” She offered a small smile. “Will you sit with me?”
He sat and allowed her to make his tea. Watching her, he suspected that she must have a request to make of him. New dresses perhaps, or a trip somewhere? He hoped it was something so easy.
As he sipped the tea she handed him, he saw her struggle, obviously seeking the appropriate words for what she wanted to ask him. Mildly, he said, “I would hope I am not so fearsome as to cause such consternation as this.”
Georgiana looked down into her teacup. “I have heard that there is a generally held belief that you are intending to take a wife at the end of the Season.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“One of my friends from school,” Georgiana said. “She is older than I am and just came out. Miss Manning. It seems your intentions to marry are well-canvassed.”
Darcy sighed heavily. It was not comfortable for him to discuss such things with his young sister but, with his newfound resolve to consider the feelings of others, he would.
“Miss Manning tells me it is exceedingly shocking, what some ladies will do to try and…and win you. Very brazen, if even half of the stories are true!”
“It is a side to many of these ladies I had surely never suspected existed,” he owned. “Appalling—and their fathers and brothers are not much better.”
“Miss Manning would never act that way herself,” Georgiana assured him.
“That is a good thing,” Darcy said warmly. “I should not like to imagine you being friends with some of these ladies.”
“It does speak to a finer character for sure, but… She also says that it seems the ladies who do not push and jostle their way to the front of the line—so to speak—alas, also do not get noticed.”
With a jolt, thoughts of Jane Bennet were immediately before him again. Yes, it was true, the more diffident women likely did get overlooked at the parties, or for marriage proposals. Their reticence was interpreted as indifference, if anyone thought of it at all.
“Fortune favours the bold,” Georgiana concluded with a little shrug. “Miss Manning says the ladies do anything and everything to ensure they are not left standing alone in July. Some of them have three or four suitors dangling, just to hedge bets.”
“Unfortunately, that is likely true,” he admitted even as he winced at the phrase ‘hedge bets’.
“Do you intend to take a wife, Brother?” Georgiana had a smile on her face, but it did not appear genuine, particularly not with obvious concern in her eyes.
“I would like to,” he told her. “If for no other reason than I cannot imagine doing this again next year.”
“But how will you know?” she asked earnestly. “If these ladies are being so brazen, so forward…it seems impossible that they would become agreeable wives or amiable sisters—do you agree?”
At once, he understood her trepidation. Georgiana feared that he should find himself tied to some artful, brazen woman who, once she had won him, would make them both miserable.
Caroline Bingley came immediately to mind as one who knew how to flatter and please a man but who would turn a household upside down merely to show that she could.
“I would rather you never married at all than a woman who made you unhappy,” Georgiana said earnestly.
“As would I,” he said with another heavy sigh. “Would it help you if I promised you that I shall make no one an offer without meeting you first? And if you perceive that she is the scheming sort—”
“Forgive me, but I could never be so impertinent as to…to offer an opinion—”
“Shall not I have the same power over your suitors?”
Georgiana smiled at that. “That is a brother’s prerogative. A younger sister, however… I am sure if there is someone you love, I shall approve of her.”
Someone I love. How to tell her that love shall be no part of this matter?
“Many a man has fancied himself in love with the picture a lady presents, only to discover later there was no truth in it. You would do me a great honour by putting your hand in the matter. Another lady tends to see these things more clearly.”
“Very well.” Georgiana had gone pink but looked pleased. “If you are in earnest, I should be very glad to assist in any way I can.”
“I am in earnest.” He reached over and patted her hand. “You have my word.” He rose and gave her a little bow. “The future Mrs Darcy thanks you for your kindness.”