Chapter Twenty-Four
Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, miss,” Sioned said, introducing them with a curtsey as if this was a perfectly ordinary call.
Darcy and Elizabeth both stood in the doorway, staring at me as if they could not believe what their own eyes were showing them.
It felt like years since I had seen them, so much so that it was startling for them to be looking exactly as they had when I’d left Longbourn House.
I brushed my hands awkwardly over my skirts.
Lady Butler has assured me she would fetch Kitty back from her usual walk, but until then, I was alone in this.
“Good afternoon,” I said weakly, unsure where else to begin.
My brother took three long strides across the room. For a moment I expected him to strike me like Lady Catherine had done for burning Kitty’s letter, but instead he pulled me into a hug, crushing me tightly in his arms. I just stood there, too surprised to return the gesture.
I tried to get the words out once Darcy had stepped away, but Elizabeth swiftly took his place, wrapping me up in her own embrace just as firmly.
There were ten dozen questions filed away behind their eyes, but I began talking before they could start asking them.
I’d decided what I was going to say only in the moments after Lady Butler had left the room.
“I would like the money Father left for me. I won’t…
It will never be needed for a dowry, and I should like to have it.
I plan to travel and shall need funds. You need not try to look for me.
” My voice was shaking, and I had to hide my hands behind my back so their trembling was less evident.
“I would also like your word that Emma will be provided with assistance in locating another position. She shouldn’t have to suffer because I ran away. ”
Elizabeth and Darcy both looked at me like they were listening but not actually hearing. It was as if they’d seen a ghost, rather than a tired, unkempt seventeen-year-old girl with no idea what was about to become of the rest of her life.
“Are you all right?” Elizabeth asked. “We went to Rosings as soon as we heard you had left, and we spoke to Charlotte. She thought you might be here.”
“Yes, we are perfectly all right,” I assured her.
Underneath the tiredness and unkemptness, I felt more like myself than I had in a long time.
Certainly I had not been this all right since I had left Longbourn.
My nerves at having to stand before them both and wait for judgement would fade, and I would be left with a lifetime with Kitty, and nothing could be more right than that.
“We?” Elizabeth asked.
Her confusion made it clear they thought I was alone. If they’d left Pemberley as soon as they received word from Rosings, they would have missed any subsequent message from Longbourn. They didn’t even know Kitty had left home.
“Kitty is here,” I explained. “She is safe, I promise. Only out for a walk. They have gone to fetch her back.”
Elizabeth’s eyes went wide as she raced through several emotions in quick succession, from fear to worry to relief. Her experience with Lydia’s abscondence with the intention of marrying Wickham had no doubt left her practised in the art of sisterly concern.
Darcy opened his mouth but closed it before any words could come out, his teeth clicking together.
I wasn’t sure if there was anger amongst the emotions in his eyes, all of them too muddled to tease apart.
Once he did find the words, they rushed out in a series of questions, each one latching on to the coattails of the one before it.
“Why did you run? You cannot be serious in meaning to leave again? When will you return?”
Each one was a barely restrained demand, but I knew he wouldn’t like my true response to any of them. In an attempt to reduce his anger, I opted to answer only one.
“I’m not sure it would be wise for me to ever return,” I said quietly, focusing on the books on the shelves behind him so I didn’t need to meet his eyes.
Even so, I heard Elizabeth’s quick intake of breath.
Darcy remained completely silent. “It is for the best,” I tried to explain. “I am in love with Catherine Bennet.”
I risked raising my gaze and found Elizabeth smiling softly at me, seemingly proud and almost encouraging.
It was perhaps the closest I would come to earning the blessing of Kitty’s family.
Darcy was not smiling. His brow was furrowed in deep concentration as if he couldn’t find a way to reconcile what I was telling him with how he understood the world to be.
“As I understand it, women often form close female friendships. It’s—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. I would not let him explain this away in the most palatable way.
“I feel it here.” I put my hand over my heart.
I didn’t tell him how every word ever written about love paled in comparison with the way Kitty’s smile made my whole chest contract, but I hoped he could still at least try to understand.
“It is Kitty you plan to… travel with?” Elizabeth asked tentatively.
Before I could speak for her, Kitty’s voice sounded in the doorway.
“Yes,” she said, stepping into the room.
I could not blame her for joining the conversation as soon as she’d arrived. It was never enjoyable to listen to people speak about you without being able to add your own voice.
Elizabeth rushed across the room to drag Kitty into a tight embrace.
“I cannot believe you thought this was a good idea,” Elizabeth chastised, pulling away to look her younger sister in the eyes like she was a disobedient child. “After what Lydia put us all through. With Father still recovering!”
“I left a letter,” Kitty said, her voice meek as if she was well aware what a weak comfort that would be for her parents when they found her gone. She ducked her head, clearly feeling shame.
I fervently hoped Elizabeth had not talked her out of our plans.
I would not stop Kitty from going home, but I was certain that, if she did, she would not be permitted to leave again to go gallivanting across the Continent with me.
Even if her parents did not know the depth of our feelings for each other, we were still intending to hop from country to country with little regard for the proper way of things, completely unchaperoned.
Kitty wrung her fingers together, a little overwhelmed by the attention.
She crossed the room to stand close to me and tucked one of her hands behind her back.
The request evident, I took it in my own and squeezed, letting her know I would not let go.
If Elizabeth or Darcy noticed, neither of them mentioned it.
“Have you thought this through, Georgiana? This is not… It’s not like you,” Darcy said.
I held my head high. “This is what I want,” I promised him, certain. “I will not lie about who I am anymore.”
“What if we found you a husband who was prepared to… look the other way? You need some kind of stability, and there are no guarantees I will be here to protect you forever,” Darcy said. I could tell he was attempting to reason with me, but I was not much in favour of changing my mind.
“I don’t want a husband,” I said, fiercely enough that I hoped he would see how unwavering I was on the matter.
I had seen the life Charlotte lived and, while she made it work as best she could, I knew I wasn’t that strong.
The lie would eat me alive, and she’d been right—I had another option.
I had seen it with my own eyes, and I wanted nothing else.
“I don’t care if it’s more difficult or if people disapprove or that I can never properly marry Kitty,” I insisted.
“I’m willing to leave, to go to another country if that’s what it takes.
I have no desire to bring shame on our family, but I will not live a lie.
If you grant me my money, I will settle as far away from Pemberley, and London, as I can.
You need not ever hear from me again. There is no need to send me away like you did Frances. I’ll do it myself.”
“Frances?” Darcy asked, his brow furrowed with confusion.
The name that was constantly in my thoughts meant nothing to him. My jaw tightened, anger coursing through me on her behalf.
“Our chambermaid. You sent her away when she was caught with a maid from another household. It was the first thing you did, after Father died. Even before his funeral,” I explained, forcing him to remember.
Darcy clearly struggled to grasp at a memory I would never be able to forget, but I watched realisation take over his features, and he latched on to it. He shook his head and I waited for his excuses, but they weren’t quite what I expected.
“No, I… It was the last thing Father did. He gave the order before he died and… I let it happen. I regretted it then, if you’ll believe me, and I regret it much more so now, but I was newly head of the family and had so much to worry about, and even through the veil of death, I didn’t know how to argue with our father,” he said, his head bowed. “I apologise.”
I was not the one his apology should have been directed to, and there was no telling what had become of Frances in the five years since she’d been sent away.
Still, I accepted his words with a nod, knowing he intended them to excuse not the action of expelling Frances from Pemberley, but for the years of doubt it had grown in me.
“It has been plaguing me for years,” I told him, because he had to know.
Darcy’s eyes creased with sadness, aging him five years instantly. I refocused on the floor, hating to see that I’d upset him. The wood grain of the floorboards was starting to go blurry in my vision when Elizabeth spoke up, her words aimed at Darcy.
“If you lose her like this, you are the only one who will carry the blame,” she said. “I will not forgive you.”