Chapter 26 #2
“Georgiana,” Lady Catherine said, “you will give me your brother’s letters.”
“No, ma’am.”
The answer came before Georgiana had time to fear it. Once spoken, it steadied her.
Lady Catherine’s brows rose. “You refuse me?”
“I cannot give you letters written to me.”
“You can and you must. Your brother is my nephew. If he places his consequence in danger, I have a right to know it.”
“I do not believe he has placed anything in danger.”
“You are seventeen and know nothing of danger where young women are concerned. This Miss Elizabeth Bennet, if that is the girl, may be a gentlewoman in name, but that does not make her suitable. A country girl with a sheepdog, a vulgar mother, sisters among officers, and a house soon to pass to Collins is not fit to lift her eyes to Darcy.”
Georgiana’s face warmed, but she kept her hands still. “My brother would not thank us for discussing him in such terms.”
“Your brother will thank me when I save him from a connection beneath him.”
Anne spoke from her chair. “Has he asked you to save him?”
Lady Catherine turned on her. “You will not interfere.”
“I asked a question.”
“You asked impertinence.”
Anne lowered her eyes, but she did not apologize.
Lady Catherine returned to Georgiana. “The letters.”
“No.”
The word was quieter this time, but no weaker.
Lady Catherine looked at her for a long moment. “Then I must judge without them.”
Georgiana understood that the matter had not ended. She knew her aunt’s temper, but Lady Catherine’s sense of duty concerned her more because it would not pass with the anger.
She went to her room after being dismissed and found the drawer undisturbed. The thread was as she had left it and the letters lay in order. She touched them, then closed the drawer and kept the key in her pocket.
That should have been enough.
It was not.
Lady Catherine did not need the letters if she could gain their substance. Georgiana learned this by accident two hours later, when she came down the back stairs sooner than expected and stopped at the sound of her brother’s name from the housekeeper’s room.
Mrs. Wilcox stood near the table with the stillroom maid, who held a small stack of waste paper. Lady Catherine was not present, but her authority filled the room.
“Her ladyship said to bring any blotting paper from Miss Darcy’s grate or writing table to her before burning it.” Mrs. Wilcox said. “Not letters. Paper. You understand the difference.”
The maid looked doubtful. “Yes, Mrs. Wilcox.”
“It is family business. Her ladyship said there are concerns about Mr. Darcy, and that Miss Darcy is too young to know what she should keep.”
Both women started when Georgiana stepped into the doorway.
“There is no such concern,” she said.
Mrs. Wilcox colored. “Miss Darcy, I beg your pardon. I was following her ladyship’s instruction.”
“I know.”
The housekeeper’s embarrassment did not comfort her. Lady Catherine had not broken the lock or taken a letter but used discarded blotting paper and called the distinction propriety.
“Collect nothing from my room unless I allow it,” Georgiana said. Her voice shook once, then steadied. “If my aunt asks again, you may tell her I gave the order.”
Mrs. Wilcox curtsied. “Yes, miss.”
Georgiana returned to her room by the same stairs and sat at the writing table. The letters remained in the drawer, but their presence no longer reassured her. Lady Catherine had proved she did not need to take them to learn what they contained.
She untied the packet and separated the most recent letters from the rest. Darcy’s descriptions of Hertfordshire had seemed harmless when written to her, but now each mention of Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked exposed.
Georgiana could hear her aunt fastening upon every phrase: woman of sense, spirit, and feeling; a working dog and a flock of sheep; fewer advantages than I am accustomed to receiving.
She could burn them, she thought, but rejected the idea. Darcy had written to her, not to Lady Catherine, and destroying his letters because another person might misuse them felt like surrendering her privacy.
Instead, she found a small silk workbag in the wardrobe and placed the letters inside. She tucked the bag beneath folded shawls in her trunk and slipped both keys into her pocket.
When she came down again, Lady Catherine was waiting.
“You were speaking to my servants,” Lady Catherine said.
“I spoke to Mrs. Wilcox.”
“You exceeded your place.”
“I protected my brother’s letters.”
“You protected your own childish secrecy. I have learned enough without your aid.”
Georgiana said nothing.
Lady Catherine rose and began to pace, which in her drawing room meant crossing six steps and returning because she arranged the furniture to prevent disorder in every form except herself.
“Darcy writes of this Miss Elizabeth Bennet. Do not deny it; he writes of her with attention. A young woman whose chief recommendations are impertinence and a dog that has captured his interest. Collins confirms everything I feared of the family. The estate is entailed, their mother is vulgar, and their younger daughters chase officers. Mr. Bennet does not govern them, yet Darcy remains in their company.”
Georgiana held the back of a chair. “Mr. Collins does not know Miss Elizabeth.”
“He knows the family.”
“From report.”
“Report is often sufficient when facts are indecorous.”
“That seems a dangerous rule.”
Lady Catherine stopped. “You have grown argumentative since your brother left you here.”
Georgiana wished Darcy were present, then resented herself for it. His absence left her to face Lady Catherine without him.
“I do not mean to argue,” she said. “I mean that you should judge my brother by what he does, not by what you fear he might do.”
“What he does is the concern. He writes of a girl beneath him and stays in a neighborhood where the girl is admired. He visits her family, then permits Bingley to attach himself to the eldest sister. A man may be lost by inches and by a single disgrace.”