Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen
Lydia! Oh, heavens, I do not believe it!” Georgiana launched herself into Lydia’s arms. Happily, Lydia was as sturdy as ever, and she weathered Georgiana’s excesses easily, laughing into Georgiana’s hair.
“You live in a palace, Georgiana!” Lydia exclaimed, once Georgiana allowed her to speak.
“A palace? Oh, I suppose it looks like that. To me, it is just home.”
“Lizzy!” Lydia managed to get free of Georgiana to greet her sister.
“Lydia, it is lovely to see you. Come, give me a hug! For I have missed you every bit as much as has Georgiana.”
Lydia gladly complied, but soon she was demanding a tour of the house.
“Of course, Lydia, but Georgiana must accompany us, as I still do not know the provenance of all the artwork and furniture.”
Lydia leapt to her feet. “Yes! Show me your palace, Georgiana!”
Georgiana smiled and agreed, and the three of them soon left the room.
Lydia was not terribly interested in artwork or furniture, but she was awed by the sheer grandeur of Pemberley. The height of the ceilings, the intricacy of the plasterwork, the thickness of the rugs beneath their feet, the uniformed footmen stationed at every corridor! It was astonishing!
“You know, Lizzy,” she observed. “Had Mama any idea of Mr. Darcy’s wealth, Jane would have been thrown at him immediately.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You are absolutely right,” she said. “Charles told Papa about Pemberley soon after they had met, but Papa had the good sense to keep it to himself.”
***
Elizabeth had made certain that Lydia was given the room that shared a sitting room with Georgiana.
After dinner was over and everyone had retired, Georgiana slipped out of her bed and walked silently to the door that opened to the sitting room.
She gasped and fell back, her hand on her chest, for there was Lydia, her hand raised to knock on Georgiana’s door!
“You scared me half to death!” Georgiana gasped.
Lydia ignored this; she simply walked into Georgiana’s room and sat down on her bed. “Tell me everything,” she commanded.
Georgiana obeyed without hesitation. She poured out her fears, how she felt that she must be deficient in some way, and how very obviously stupid she was to have fallen for such a man!
Her inability to detect his faults of character!
Her fear of men! Her Uncle Henry Matlock had hugged her and she had flinched away from him!
How unfair it was that weak little Anne was having a Season, and the mere thought of being in society like that made Georgiana want to hide under the bed!
Her recurring dreams – nightmares, really – the weight of his body on hers, the foul smell of his breath, the glint in his eyes!
How wrong, how unbelievably wrong it was that this had happened to her, that no one had told her what sort of man he really was! Wrong! Wrong! WRONG!
Lydia listened in silence.
When Georgiana had finished, tears pouring down her cheeks, Lydia said, calmly, “You know, if you had not been in Meryton, it likely would have been me.”
“You?”
“Oh, certainly. I do not doubt that it would have been easy enough for him to convince me to go off into the woods with him or run off with him or anything else he wanted. I knew, no more than did you, what sort of man he was, or that such men even existed!’
“I suppose…”
“And when I think about that, do you know how I feel?” Lydia pressed on.
Georgiana shook her head, her eyes wide.
“Angry.”
Georgiana gasped. She put a hand over her mouth and then removed it.
“I am so very angry!” she cried. “I am so very angry! Angry at George, of course; also angry at myself! How could I have been so stupid? How could I have abandoned all my notions of ladylike behaviour to throw myself into the arms of the first rogue I encountered?”
“You did not know he was a rogue,” Lydia said, softly.
“I should have been warned!” Georgiana raged. “I should not have been allowed to continue to see him as a childhood friend! I am so angry at Bro –“ And here she stopped.
“Yes?” Lydia asked, softly.
Georgiana stared at Lydia. “And do you not see? That is the worst of all! How can I be angry at my beloved brother, who has been like a father to me, who has given me everything? What a wicked and ungrateful girl I am!”
“I do not think you wicked at all,” Lydia said. “I think you have every right to be angry.”
“But he told me to stay away from George!”
“And did he tell you why?”
“No, but – well, George said that they had had a falling out over a woman.”
“But your brother said nothing to warn you of his character.”
“No.” Georgiana dropped her eyes.
Lydia said, “Georgiana, look at me.”
Georgiana did so.
Lydia took her hands. “I promise you, Georgiana, that you are not deficient, not stupid, not ungrateful, not any of those things. What you are is very, very angry, and it seems to me that until you do something to get this anger out of you, you will not recover.”
“But – but –“
“Think about it, Georgiana,” Lydia advised, and then she slipped off Georgiana’s bed and returned to her own room.
Georgiana did not sleep that night. She did exactly as Lydia had suggested: she thought about it.
And she saw now, very clearly, that Lydia was quite right.
Oh, certainly Georgiana had been foolish, of that there could be no doubt.
But she was not deficient, stupid, or ungrateful.
She was just – angry. She was angry at George Wickham, who had turned out to be nothing whatever like the romantic hero she had so wished him to be.
And she could no longer deny that she was angry with her brother who, by withholding the truth, had left her vulnerable.