Chapter 11
Elizabeth
As Elizabeth worked with the steward in the wrecked kitchen, she was pleased to hear from Georgiana that her message to Longbourn had been sent and that Jane was doing well. “Or so she claims,” Georgiana said. “She sneezed twice, and I was only in her room for a few minutes.”
“Thank you for being so kind as to check on Jane and bring me a report, Georgiana!”
“Again, you have my brother to thank. But now I am wondering how I can help you. Or help everyone. Might I take over your list-making duty so you can read to your sister? Should I get a book of poetry to read aloud to her, myself?”
Mr. Tomkins said, “Actually, Miss Elizabeth, we are pretty much done with the list. I was wondering….”
He hesitated long enough that Elizabeth asked, “Do you have an idea of something that needs to be done?”
“Well, it ought to be Miss Bingley or someone from the family doing this, but I wondered if you two young ladies might be able to check in with the tenants. Take some of the whiskey and the honey salve, which the servants have been using to clean and soothe cuts and scrapes and blisters, and see to all the folks that helped last night who do not have access to it.”
“That is an excellent idea,” Elizabeth said. “Georgiana, I will check in with Jane and Susan—or is it Molly right now?—to see if they can do without me for a few hours. Would you please check in with your brother? And make sure to inspect his cuts and scrapes and blisters!”
“I will,” Georgiana promised.
As Elizabeth was climbing the stairs, Mr. Hurst finally made an appearance.
She politely asked after him and his wife.
He thanked her and claimed that they were both well, and he asked, “Is the steward here at the house, Miss Elizabeth?” She nodded, and he said he intended to offer his help but—he admitted—he did not know the man’s name.
Elizabeth replied readily, “He is Mr. Tomkins. And I imagine he will have some ideas for you; there is much to do today!”
“Is Bingley awake?” Mr. Hurst asked.
“I was just about to ask you that,” Elizabeth replied. “I have seen neither him nor Miss Bingley. I hope everyone is well.”
Mr. Hurst rolled his eyes and said, “I am sure they are healthy enough to be helping here.” Elizabeth let him know the location of the hot beverage station and the bakery selection, and he nodded and thanked her.
Soon, Georgiana and Elizabeth were away, briskly walking towards the closest tenant house. Each carried a basket with bottles of cheap whiskey, the honey salve Mr. Tomkins had suggested, clean bandaging materials, and a pair of scissors.
The tenant visits went as Elizabeth expected.
Georgiana was almost silent with the adults, but she was eager to follow directions and managed to speak to the children with so much kindness, she ended up becoming a popular figure in each home they visited.
Most of the men had blisters, and they came in from their fields to have their blisters and other wounds treated.
Some of the women and older children had slight injuries that Elizabeth and Georgiana cleaned and dressed as well. As they left, Elizabeth urged each tenant to come to the house for aid if any wounds became infected.
By the time they had visited all eleven tenant homes, Georgiana was exhausted. Elizabeth said, “Let us just walk slowly back, then. Even if there is still much to do, today, surely Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst can put some effort into recovery from the fire.”
“They can, Elizabeth, but will they? Still, I approve of a meandering pace.”
They cut across a fallow field, and when they were in the middle, Elizabeth turned to Georgiana and said, “May I ask you a very serious question?”
Georgiana stopped walking altogether and said, “Yes, of course.”
“Is it possible that Miss Bingley knows about what you have called a colossal error, and that she is threatening to tell people if your brother does not do as she says?” Elizabeth drew a breath and continued, “In other words, do you think it is possible that Miss Bingley is attempting some sort of blackmail scheme against your brother?”
Georgiana looked as though she was going to cry again, and Elizabeth said, “Oh, dear, I should not have asked you where people could see you crying! I just wanted to make sure we were in a place where nobody could overhear us. Even in your room, with the door locked, I am afraid a determined person could still overhear.”
Georgiana drew herself up, apparently willing herself not to dissolve into tears. She wiped her eyes, and Elizabeth was sure that it was sheer determination that kept them dry.
“Should we just not talk about this?” Elizabeth asked.
“Actually, I think we should. And I think we should talk about it right here, because of the overhearing issue, and that means that we should talk about it right now. I do not want to have to walk all this way again tomorrow!” She smiled just a bit as she said that, but her smile left her as soon as she started her tale about her terrible, horrible mistake.
George Wickham was, she began, her father’s godson and the son of Pemberley’s steward, and he had seemed very nice when he was a little boy. “But,” she said, “I have only recently found out that, the older he grew, the meaner he became, the more jealous, the more dishonest, the more disreputable.”
She sighed and said, “I will not tell you how young and stupid I was this past summer. I will tell you my age then—I was just fifteen and have since turned sixteen—but I was very protected from any ugliness, so I am convinced that I was more naive than most girls that age.”
Shaking her head, as if she were renouncing her former self, she continued.
“Mr. Wickham was my brother’s age, almost to the month.
He was, therefore, almost twice my age, something that I likely purposefully refused to think about.
My brother and I now know that he seduced my companion and convinced her to join him in a scheme to gain a fortune.
She persuaded my brother to arrange a seaside visit to Ramsgate, and Mr. Wickham went to Ramsgate as well.
There he seemed to run into me by chance, and my companion kept saying how kind and dear he was, and how much he seemed to like me.
Everything that I thought might be against propriety, she explained away because Mr. Wickham was an old friend of the family and my father’s godson. ”
She shuddered. “Basically, he acted the devoted suitor. And…I let Mr. Wickham kiss me twice, and embrace me, and hold my hand. That was all we did—I certainly would have panicked if he had tried to take any further liberties, and I think that they knew that. Because Mr. Wickham did not try to push for further intimacies.”
Georgiana was silent for a bit. She had kept her voice low, but still both young women glanced around, and listened, checking to make sure that they remained as alone as they could possibly be.
Then the girl said, “The worst of it was that I agreed to elope, and Mr. Wickham went out to hire a carriage. I am so lucky that, while he was gone, my brother surprised me by coming to the house he had rented for us….”
Another huge breath, and then Georgiana continued: “I was happy to see my brother, and I told him why I had packed a bag. I really believed what Mr. Wickham and Mrs. Younge had been telling me—that my brother would be pleased to hear about the marriage. But, of course, he was horrified. I have to admit, the word elopement had seemed a bit scandalous to me, but I had let myself be convinced that it was adventurous and romantic.” Georgiana shrugged and shook her head again.
Elizabeth patted her back and thought of her fifteen-year-old sister.
She could imagine how positively Lydia would consider a daring plan to elope!
“When Mr. Wickham arrived with the carriage, I listened at the window as William confronted him, and Mr. Wickham—he—he said I was a stupid little girl, and then he lied and said some disgusting things, said that I did disgusting things to him, and let him do disgusting things to me—and I promise you, I swear to you, he was lying about that. My brother looked like he wanted to kill him, and of course Mr. Wickham just got on his horse and rode off, leaving the carriage he had just hired behind, leaving his accomplice behind, and knowing that my brother would not give chase because he would have to take care of me.”
Elizabeth hugged the girl and said, “How awful that your companion, who was hired to protect and guide you, would betray you like that!”
Georgiana did not give into the tears that once again filled her eyes, blinking them back.
She said, “My brother got her to admit her part of the scheme; they were after my dowry, of course, and William asked her something like, ‘Once you had the thirty thousand pounds, what was the plan? What were you going to do with my sister?’ Mrs. Younge looked horrified as she said that she did not know that part of the plan.”
Georgiana gulped at this part of the story, but she continued: “Then my brother told her that the dowry was tied up, legally speaking, with safety measures, so that it would not be released to a fortune hunter. And he pointed out that he could easily prosecute her for attempted kidnapping, and that was a capital crime. Oh, Elizabeth, she almost fainted when he told her that, and she and I both realised that she had been duped by Mr. Wickham, too, and he had left her to face the consequences of his own failed plan. I could see that, if Mr. Wickham could have laid his hands on my dowry, he would surely have abandoned me somewhere, and likely her as well. I saw the horror of that realisation reach her eyes, and I am certain she saw equal horror in my own.”
Elizabeth continued to hug her and whispered words of comfort.
“Your brother, who loves you, put a stop to it. It was a natural enough error on your part; you believed in the person your loving brother had hired to care for you, and you believed in your own father’s godson.
It was in some ways just a small error of judgement on your part.
But you are right, if the elopement had occurred, it would have been a colossal problem. ”
Suddenly both girls froze. They heard the sounds of an approaching horse. Someone was coming.
Elizabeth sighed with relief when she saw that it was Mr. Darcy. He smiled a bit when he saw them, but then he looked extremely concerned, and she imagined he could see their expressions.
He dismounted and took a few long strides to close the distance between them. “Are you well?” He looked from his sister to Elizabeth, so she knew that they were both included in the question.
Instead of answering, she asked him a question of her own: “Mr. Darcy, does Miss Bingley know about Mr. Wickham and Ramsgate? Is she attempting a blackmail scheme against you?"