Chapter Eleven #2
Georgiana frowned. “Papa was…he spoke little to me. But when he decided that I must do something, he would be terrible if I did not behave. I once was birched fiercely when I refused to stand from the pianoforte when it was time for my French lesson. I deserved it. I had screamingly insisted that I would continue to play, and I was old enough to know better. Mama was always angry with me that I had not made dear friends at school. But you must ask Fitzwilliam. Papa took greater pains over him than over me.”
“And your clearest memory of him is when he had you fiercely whipped,” Elizabeth said sadly.
“It sounds awful when I say it in such a way. But do not take that so seriously. Fitzwilliam always says that Papa was a great man whom we must all think back upon with respect.”
“My mother is often frustrated with me. But only since I have been in society, not before.” Elizabeth thought about how Mrs. Bennet would have responded had she refused both Mr. Darcy and Mr. Collins.
“My mother and my aunt—your cousin’s patroness—they sternly lectured me upon the importance of making connections, and how that was the reason I was at the school.
They hit my wrist with a ruler if I did not attend closely to what they said.
But I still made no friends at school, and when Mama was dying at the end of last year, Fitzwilliam would not let her send me back…
” Georgiana looked away from Elizabeth. “I was not…the way she wanted me to be. I am too much like Fitzwilliam—quiet and reserved. It is good for him. He is a man, and he is respected for the way he is. But it is not good in a girl.”
“It is not so good for your brother.” Elizabeth paused. She thought about what he had said to her when he called himself a cold man. Mr. Darcy certainly attributed many of his difficulties in his first marriage to that reserve.
That was how he was in company, but it was not the entirety of his character. With Emily and Georgiana, he was warm, gregarious, considerate, and kind. And he even tolerated the child’s noise to a greater extent than most fathers.
Perhaps, in time, she could make a friend of him in the way she was a friend to Georgiana.
Yet he also thought that he was failing in some great way by not disciplining Emily. That was what he had said to Elizabeth. But she had seen nothing wanting in Emily’s character.
She must speak about this to Mr. Darcy. If she was to be Emily’s mother, it was her duty to demand some say in how the girl was managed.
This talk of whippings, slapping the wrist to make the child attend, and a father who seldom spoke to his daughter all suggested a parent very different from either of Elizabeth’s.
While they had neglected to prepare for the future of their children, Elizabeth’s parents had given her a childhood where her chief memories were filled with joy, warmth, and a soft, happy glow.
It must be possible to do both—to attend to the future interest and well-being of the child while also giving them scope for love and the simple pleasures of noise.
Despite this notion of the importance of noise for the well-being of a child, Elizabeth firmly requested that Emily be quiet around her father when they went into the house.
The girl solemnly nodded and promised.
Then of course she hid, saying, “I must be very quiet,” behind the other sofa as soon as they entered the, by now familiar to her, drawing room.
Mr. Bennet smiled benignly to see the girl run past him. He then invited Georgiana to join him for a game of draughts while they talked.
His movements with his weak arm were erratic and uncontrolled, and his speech was slow. But his mind was as sharp as Elizabeth had ever seen—though after his second victory, he carefully chose poor moves to give Georgiana a chance if she played her best.
Emily emerged from behind the sofa, first peeking out, then immediately hiding again when Mr. Bennet looked at her. After another short period she simply walked out, came to look at the draughtboard, then scolded Georgiana for speaking too loudly.
This made everyone laugh, and Mr. Bennet said, “You need not be so quiet for me.”
After staring at him, Emily said, “You talk funny, and your face looks wrong.”
He laughed. “Is wrong. Yes. Sit here. Do you know draughts?”
“Yes, my papa taught me.”
“Then sit here. Tell me what moves to make.”
The advice given by the girl, and Mr. Bennet’s strict adherence to it, meant that Georgiana was now required to play poorly to lengthen the match, but in the end Elizabeth’s friend was not so skilled at making bad moves as her three-year-old niece.
So, alas, her father and Emily suffered the despair of defeat, after which the former made an exaggerated and lopsided display of misery, making Emily laugh.
Elizabeth could see that despite the possibility of death coming suddenly, her father was in decent spirits.
From the questions that Mr. Bennet asked Georgiana on the rare occasions that Emily allowed anyone to speak about a topic that was not of interest to her, Elizabeth gained a description of the actual size and situation of Pemberley, the distance round the park, that the stream was always kept stocked with trout, that Mr. Darcy particularly liked fishing, and that they hosted a big gathering for all the tenants every Christmas.
“You’ll preside. Be Lady Bountiful,” her papa said to her. “Prepared to look the part?”
“Oh yes! Lizzy will be perfect,” Georgiana said. “Everyone will think she looks exactly as Mrs. Darcy ought. I am so eager to see her there!”
So very soon.
Special licence.
They could marry any time after Mr. Darcy returned. She would not see the Gardiners when they came for Christmas.
She did not know when she would see them again.
Do not be dour.
There would be ample occasions to call on them, in her married splendour, when in London. Elizabeth knew that Mr. Darcy was frequently in town, even though he disliked the city.
Mr. Gardiner had not come out to Hertfordshire to be with Mrs. Bennet after Mr. Bennet’s apoplexy. His business was in a particularly busy period as he set everything in order before Christmas.
Had Mr. Bennet died, Elizabeth was confident that he would have made the journey to be with his sister and to attend the funeral, but no message had been sent to Gracechurch Street to inform them of the misfortune that had struck them until it was known that her father would require an additional apoplectic attack to carry him off.
Shortly after, Georgiana ended their call, saying that she had promised to return the carriage to Miss Bingley in good time so that lady could visit a shop in a town a few miles away where they supposedly made exquisite vases.
After they left, Mr. Bennet said, “I like them. Well enough. His nearest family. No difficulty for you. Sweet child. Much confidence. Is a little spoiled.” With a fond smile, he added, “You were too. Happy.”
He settled back into the sofa and closed his eyes to nap again.
Twenty minutes after their friends departed, Kitty and Lydia returned to Longbourn with a huffing Mr. Collins.
They were full of the tale of a particularly handsome officer named Mr. Wickham.
“Lizzy! He will be at Aunt Phillips’s card party tonight!
You can meet him if you leave Papa long enough to come. ”
“Surely you do not mean to go to a card party while Papa is so ill?”
Lydia giggled. “Jealous that you can have no interest in a handsome officer since you will be a dull married woman in a week? Oh, it is not fair! I hoped, with how you and Jane are old maids, that I should be the first to be married. It would have been such a joke! I would despise myself if I was twenty and not yet married.”
Elizabeth smiled a little. “I had selected one-and-twenty as the age at which I would rail against myself as an old maid, and as I have not reached it, and also because I shall marry before you, I consider myself as having been quite successful.”
The reply from Lydia was to stick her tongue out at Elizabeth. “La. I could elope with someone in the next three days and still marry before you.”
“No,” Mr. Bennet said without opening his eyes but with a clear smile on his face. “I absolutely…ah, forbid it.”
Lydia giggled. “La, it would not be nice to steal Lizzy’s thunder. But it would be such a joke!”
While Elizabeth knew that her sister was not at all serious about eloping in the next three days, she was rather concerned that Lydia was too much in a hurry to enter the married state and that she was likely to make a mistake as a result.
Except that would be an odd thing for Elizabeth to think, as she had derived no benefit from being slow and deliberate in her efforts to find a companion for her future life.
Her father roused himself and sat up. “Go to Mrs. Phillips’s party. You should not all curtail…your pleasures. Have the fun you may…while you can. Lizzy, you go. You’ve barely been out. Since I…ill.”
“Papa, I could not leave you!”
“Will sleep. Or Hill will read to me.”
“But if you have another attack, I must be here.” I shall be gone soon and will not know.
“If I die…our last words were affectionate. Must live your life. Soon you will leave. Might be last card party at aunt’s. Should see your friends.”
Elizabeth agreed in the end, as much as because her papa became agitated as he insisted she go to the party as out of an actual desire to see her friends.
She had only a mild curiosity as to whether the officer was as handsome as Lydia and Kitty declared, and she had no desire to meet him for herself.
All her thoughts were about Mr. Darcy, even though she was not marrying for love.
She remembered his soft kiss and the way his taste had lingered on her mouth.