CHAPTER 59 #2
The practical question steadied him more than comfort would have done.
“Jenkins,” he said. “Brentwood. My uncle Edward. Richard.”
“And no one else?”
His mouth tightened.
“No one else in that family.”
She understood him at once. He would not send his father’s illness, Georgiana’s name, and Pemberley’s disorder into the same channels which had once carried Mrs. Wickham’s account of him so willingly.
The Fitzwilliam relations had believed her, or near enough to believing her that they had left him to bear the disgrace without them.
Until he knew which channels were clean, blood was not the same thing as trust.
“Then no one else,” Elizabeth said. “Hartwood certainly. Beaker too, if any of my papers may be delayed or forwarded.”
“I cannot ask—”
“You are not asking. I am telling him where we shall be. That is what one does when leaving London with half a household, a young lady under protection, and a dog with more garments than judgment.”
The corner of his mouth moved. It did not become a smile, but it remembered how.
“Jenkins first,” she said. “You will tell him what may wait, what must be carried to Mr. Brentwood, and what is to be sent here. You will not leave your clients to discover your filial alarm by clerical confusion.”
“Filial alarm?”
“Would you prefer filial disorder?”
“No.”
“Then write.”
He obeyed.
That, more than any declaration, frightened her. Fitzwilliam usually obeyed sensible orders only after contesting the principle sufficiently to preserve dignity. Now he sat, took paper, and began at once.
Elizabeth rang.
Mrs. Albright returned before the bell had finished its complaint.
“Madam?”
“We travel north tomorrow, as early as proper arrangement permits. Mr. Darcy’s man is to be sent for. James must go to chambers, and another servant to the posting-house. Evans may begin with my trunks, but nothing is to be packed for Miss Darcy or Kitty until they have chosen.”
Mrs. Albright received the whole as if Elizabeth had given three sentences rather than the beginning of twenty instructions.
“Very good, madam.”
“Mrs. Doddridge should remain with the girls for the present. We shall not pack a young lady as if she were a cloak.”
“No, madam.”
“Portman Square must remain as closed in our absence as it has been this week. No inquiry concerning Miss Darcy is to be answered beyond saying that Mrs. Darcy is from home.”
“If Mrs. Younge calls, madam?”
“Then Portman Square is not at home.”
Mrs. Albright inclined her head with grave approval.
“Lord Pomington travels,” Elizabeth added.
Mrs. Albright’s expression did not change. “I shall inform Cook, madam.”
“Cook?”
“His lordship’s broth must be considered if the roads are long.”
Fitzwilliam’s pen paused.
Elizabeth looked at him. “You see? It is impossible you should have gone alone. You had not considered the broth.”
His pen resumed, but now there was a line at his mouth that had not been there before.
The breakfast room had been chosen because it was warm, ordinary, and already accustomed to doing useful work without being praised for it.
Georgiana and Kitty came in together. Georgiana held herself very straight; Kitty looked from Elizabeth to Fitzwilliam to the sealed letter in Elizabeth’s hand and abandoned whatever cheerful inquiry she had meant to make.
Mrs. Doddridge followed, calm enough to make the scene possible.
Fitzwilliam stood when Georgiana entered.
Georgiana saw his face and went pale.
“Papa?” she said.
“He is ill,” Fitzwilliam said. “Very ill, I believe. We do not yet know more.”
Her fingers tightened around the back of a chair.
“Did he receive my letter?”
“Yes.” His voice changed. “Willis says he read yours twice.”
Georgiana’s face crumpled for one moment, not into tears, but into a terrible uncertainty. Elizabeth knew it at once: the child who had feared she had done wrong now discovering that she had been heard by the very person whose authority had frightened her most.
Fitzwilliam gave her Mrs. Reynolds’s letter.
“You need not read it if you do not wish.”
Georgiana took it and read slowly. At the line that concerned herself, her breath caught.
“Mrs. Reynolds writes that he asked for me,” Fitzwilliam said. “And that you should come, if you can bear the journey.”
Georgiana did not answer at first. Her eyes moved from the paper to her brother.
“You are going?”
“Yes.”
“And Mrs. Darcy?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I am going too.”
Georgiana’s fright altered then. It was not Pemberley alone that alarmed her, nor even her father’s illness. It was the thought of being left behind while the only people who had believed her went into danger without her.
“You shall not be carried north merely because others are going,” Elizabeth said. “If you wish to remain in London, I will arrange it. If you wish to come with us, we shall arrange that too.”
Georgiana looked at the letter again.
“I am afraid of Pemberley,” she said.
“I know,” Fitzwilliam replied.
“But I am more afraid of not being where you are.”
The words entered him visibly. He crossed the room then and took her hand, not quickly, not commandingly, but as if she had given him leave.
“You would be protected wherever you were.”
“I know.” Georgiana’s fingers closed around his. “But not by you.”
Elizabeth’s throat tightened.
Georgiana drew a breath.
“If Papa asked for me,” she said, very softly, “I should not like him to think I would not come.”
“You need not prove anything to him,” Fitzwilliam said.
“No. But I wish to go.” She looked at Elizabeth. “If you are going. And if Kitty—”
She stopped, embarrassed by the hope she had nearly exposed.
Elizabeth looked from Georgiana to Kitty and understood that one choice had been made, and another was waiting to be invited.
“Then we know what Miss Darcy wishes,” she said.
Kitty started, as if she had hoped to escape notice by sympathy alone.
“You may come with us,” Elizabeth said, “or I can send you to Jane, or home to Mama. I shall write to Mama in any case, but I will not decide for you.”
Kitty looked immediately distressed by so much liberty.
“Would Miss Darcy wish me to come?”
Georgiana looked up. “Yes. If you wished it.”
Kitty’s relief was visible before she spoke.
“Then I should like to come. I do not think I am tired here.”
“Tired?” Elizabeth repeated gently.
Kitty coloured. “At home one is always—there is always something. Lydia wants one thing, and Mama another, and if Mary is improving herself she thinks one ought to be improved too. Miss Darcy only draws.”
Georgiana said, “Not very well.”
“No,” said Kitty, with perfect sincerity. “But quietly.”
Elizabeth looked at Kitty with a sudden tenderness that hurt. Kitty was not choosing danger, nor duty, nor usefulness. She was choosing the first household in which her presence had not been made into noise.
“You may come,” Elizabeth said.
Kitty’s relief was immediate.
Fitzwilliam looked between the two girls, and Elizabeth saw the moment he understood what she had already seen: Georgiana’s safety and Kitty’s peace had become entangled in the gentlest possible way.
He bowed his head slightly. “Then we shall be grateful for your company, Miss Kitty.”
Kitty looked pleased enough to be in danger of speechlessness, which was rare and therefore to be respected.
Georgiana turned to Elizabeth then, still pale but steadier.
“Mrs. Darcy—”
“Elizabeth,” said Elizabeth gently.
Georgiana stopped.
Elizabeth smiled. “If we are to travel north together in such haste, I think Mrs. Darcy is too long for the carriage. It is a useful name for servants, strangers, and people who must be kept at a distance. It is not necessary among frightened sisters.”
Georgiana’s eyes moved from Elizabeth to Kitty and back again.
“Then I should prefer Georgiana,” she said. “From you. From both of you, if you would not mind it.”
Kitty’s relief was immediate. “Then I cannot remain Miss Bennet. It would be very unequal.”
“Kitty?” Georgiana asked.
“Kitty,” she said. “Unless I have done something very solemn, and then Catherine may be used to frighten me.”
Georgiana’s mouth softened.
“I do not think I should like to frighten you.”
“That is very kind,” Kitty said. “Lydia never minds it.”
Elizabeth saw Fitzwilliam look down when Georgiana said her own name, and knew that he could not speak of it. Something had been offered without pressure, accepted without fear, and widened before anyone could make a duty of it.
Mrs. Doddridge rose. “I shall see what is wanted upstairs.”
“Thank you,” Elizabeth said.
“Miss Darcy’s things first, I think,” Mrs. Doddridge said. “New purchases are sometimes more easily found before they have been put away too carefully.”
It was not a joke, exactly; Mrs. Doddridge rarely troubled herself so far. But Kitty looked relieved by the plainness of it, and Georgiana seemed glad to be given something ordinary to do.
After that, Portman Square altered its nature.
It did not panic. Elizabeth would not have permitted it, and Mrs. Albright would have considered panic an insult to the linen.
Instead, the house began to prepare.
Some of that preparation was visible: Mrs. Albright at the hall table with the house-book and key-ring; James sent to chambers; Evans opening Elizabeth’s trunks; Mrs. Doddridge quietly taking account of the young ladies’ things; a servant dispatched to the posting-house; another to Brook Street with a note for Jane.
More of it was felt than seen. Doors opened and closed. Footsteps crossed the stairs. The house did not hurry, but everything in it moved.
In Georgiana’s room, Kitty and Georgiana gathered the things that had been bought that week.
The ribbons were laid together, then separated, then laid together again because Kitty believed colours ought to travel in acquaintance.
Georgiana packed her drawing paper with care.
Kitty added pencils, removed half of them, and put them back when Georgiana said Pemberley had trees.
Mrs. Doddridge wrote down what was wanted and made no comment beyond asking whether the gloves had pairs.