CHAPTER 72 #2
The room had been chosen because it held no strong memory and no official consequence: not George Darcy's chamber, not the steward's room, not the library where papers had lately grown teeth.
The windows were open to the morning before the heat gathered; the blinds had been lowered against the later sun; a bowl of lavender stood upon the table, more useful than ornamental.
Georgiana looked at the three chairs and stopped.
Fitzwilliam went to her at once. "You are not in trouble."
"I did not think--" She looked down at the book, then coloured faintly. "I forgot I had brought it."
"Then your father's book has acquired a temporary guardian," said Elizabeth. "Nothing worse."
Georgiana tried to smile. It did not quite succeed, but the attempt was brave enough to count.
They sat. Fitzwilliam did not place himself opposite her, as if she were to be examined. He sat at an angle, close enough to be brother and not judge. Elizabeth sat on Georgiana's other side, leaving the space before her open to the window and the quiet morning beyond it.
For a little while, nobody spoke.
At last Elizabeth said, "Your father is not worse."
Georgiana's eyes flew to hers.
"He is well enough to be troublesome about breakfast."
The breath that left Georgiana was almost a laugh.
"He should not be troublesome," she said softly.
"He has been Mr. Darcy longer than he has been a patient," said Elizabeth. "Old habits are stubborn."
This time the smile came more easily.
Fitzwilliam leaned forward, his hands loosely clasped. "He wished you to hear some things from us before they reached you in any other manner. Not everything. Not every ugly detail. But enough."
Georgiana's fingers tightened around the book.
"Is it about Rosings?"
"Rosings," said Elizabeth, "and Pemberley, and what was attempted around you."
The book shifted once against Georgiana's gown.
Fitzwilliam waited until she looked at him. "You know that my father has dismissed Mr. John Wickham, and that Mr. Latham has been examining the accounts."
Georgiana nodded.
"What you may not know is how the theft was hidden."
"Theft?" she repeated.
The word had been avoided in Georgiana's hearing too often, softened into accounts, irregularities, improprieties, as if gentler names could make betrayal gentler too.
"Theft," Fitzwilliam said.
Georgiana looked toward the door, not as if she meant to flee, but as if breakfast, her father, and the ordinary morning must still exist somewhere beyond it and could perhaps contradict him.
"But Pemberley was not poor."
"No," said Fitzwilliam. "That was part of the disguise."
Elizabeth said, "Mr. Wickham did not make himself look like a man ruining an estate.
That would have been too easy to see. He made improvements, found economies, showed better returns in some places -- and hid his theft inside the increase.
A false charge here. A man paid there. A repair entered twice.
Small things made familiar by repetition. "
Georgiana looked down at the book. Her thumb moved along the leather edge.
"So everyone thought him good at his place."
"For a long time," said Fitzwilliam.
"And he was stealing while they praised him."
No one softened the answer. Georgiana heard it in the silence.
Her face crumpled, not quite into tears. "But how could they be so unkind? Papa helped them. Pemberley helped them. For years."
Elizabeth let the question stand a moment. Some questions deserved the dignity of not being hurried.
"At times," she said, "kindness makes people grateful. At other times, it only teaches them where the door is left unlocked."
Georgiana's eyes filled.
"That is not justice," she whispered.
"No," Elizabeth said. "It is not."
Fitzwilliam's voice was very controlled. "Mrs. Younge was part of the same danger."
Georgiana went still.
Elizabeth watched her hands.
"She was Mrs. Wickham's cousin," Fitzwilliam said. "That connection was made to do the work of character. She did not come as a stranger to be examined. She came as a poor relation already furnished with a reason to be trusted."
Georgiana's thumb stopped moving.
"She said Lady Anne would have wished me to be kind."
Elizabeth felt Fitzwilliam's pain like a change in the air beside her.
"That was a cruel thing to say to you," Elizabeth replied.
Georgiana shook her head quickly. "She was often kind."
Elizabeth softened. "Then we shall say it more exactly. Kindness in manner does not give a person the right to direct your life. Nor does one kindness excuse another injury."
Outside, somewhere in the grounds, a gardener called to another man, and the sound reached them softened by distance and leaves. It helped, somehow. The world had not stopped, though Georgiana's had shifted.
At last Georgiana said, "And George Wickham?"
She did not say Mr. Wickham. Elizabeth noticed that too.
"That is the harder part," said Elizabeth.
Georgiana looked at the book. "I should know."
"You should," said Fitzwilliam.
Elizabeth said, "At that time, your brother was still away from Pemberley, and your father still trusted the Wickhams. No one in the house understood what the law would finally prove. A marriage between you and George Wickham would have served them greatly."
Georgiana frowned.
"But I have no claim to Pemberley."
"You have a place in it," Elizabeth said. "A very important one."
"But not like Fitzwilliam."
"No. Not like Fitzwilliam. That does not mean you were useless to their design."
The book slipped lower in Georgiana's lap.
Elizabeth continued, "Before marriage, George Wickham was an old favourite, a godson, a man with claims upon your father's kindness.
After marriage, he would be your husband.
Your father's son-in-law. A man near your fortune, near your father's affection, near the household, and near every uncertainty that had been allowed to gather around your brother. "
Georgiana stared at her.
"If they did not know of the entail, they may have believed the children of such a marriage could be made Pemberley's heirs, or treated as such, should your father continue to cast your brother off.
Your brother had been sent away. Your father was hurt and angry.
George Wickham might have been placed before him daily as the man who remained: son-in-law, dependant no longer, father perhaps one day to children who could be treated as Pemberley's future. "
Georgiana's face had gone quite pale.
"And if they did know?" she whispered.
"Or suspected?" said Fitzwilliam. "Then the marriage still served them. It bought time, access, money, and confusion. It made removal harder. It placed George Wickham inside the family before the law could shut the door."
Elizabeth added quietly, "They did not need to own Pemberley outright to profit by you. They needed only to make themselves too near to remove."
Georgiana did not cry at once.
She looked from Elizabeth to Fitzwilliam, and then beyond them both, to the lowered blind and the thin line of August light beneath it. Her fingers opened. The book slid lower against her gown.
"Then it was not only me," she said.
"No," Elizabeth said. "But it was also you. And that matters. You must not make yourself small because they had larger designs."
Georgiana bent her head. Her hand shook against the cover.
Fitzwilliam crossed the small distance then, not quickly enough to startle her. He knelt and steadied the book before it could fall.
She looked at him.
He remained where he was.
"I should have reached you sooner," he said.
Georgiana shook her head at once, distressed by his distress. "You could not. Papa--"
She stopped, torn between love and truth.
Fitzwilliam's expression altered with pain, but his voice remained steady. "Papa was deceived. I was kept away. Both things are true. Neither makes what happened your fault."
Georgiana pressed her fingers to the book's edge. When she spoke, her voice was small. "I believed some of it."
"Of course you did," Elizabeth said.
Georgiana looked at her, wounded.
"Not because you were foolish," Elizabeth said.
"Because belief was what they were arranging around you.
They wished you to think refusal was ingratitude.
That kindness once shown to George Wickham had become a debt owed by you.
That Lady Anne's memory required compliance.
That your brother's distrust was pride. That your own discomfort was childishness. "
Georgiana's eyes filled again. "I thought I was being unkind."
"I know."
"I thought perhaps if I were better, I should not mind him so much."
Fitzwilliam closed his eyes.
Elizabeth felt the anger of it, clean and hot, but kept it from her voice. Georgiana did not need anger thrown into the room like another demand she must manage.
"What you felt," Elizabeth said, "was judgment before you had been given words for it."
Georgiana's tears spilled then, but quietly. She did not collapse. She sat with the book held in both hands and cried as if she were trying not to disturb anyone.
That would not do.
Elizabeth moved from her chair to the small footstool near Georgiana's knees. It put her lower than the girl and near enough to be reached.
"You may cry properly," she said. "There is no economy required."
That surprised a wet, broken laugh from Georgiana.
"I ran away," she said.
"Yes."
"It was very improper."
"It was very inconvenient," said Elizabeth. "There is a distinction."
Georgiana laughed again and covered her face.
Fitzwilliam made a sound that might have been grief or relief.
Elizabeth waited until Georgiana lowered her hands.
"You noticed wrongness. You refused to make your discomfort convenient for them.
You did not marry him. You did not stay merely because the house around you called itself safe.
You came to Portman Square. You told us enough to act.
You wrote your father in your own words.
You chose whether to come north. You did not ruin anything, Georgiana. You interrupted the ruin they planned."