Chapter Twenty-two #2
“Douglas has gone today to bring a potential governess-companion for Georgiana. I am praying that she will prove to be a strong-minded, able woman, someone capable of standing up to blaggards who attempt to importune my sister. She should arrive in a few hours.”
“Will she be able to start immediately?”
“I asked that she come prepared to stay for a few days. I need Georgiana to like her, and I want to be sure of her character.”
Miss Elizabeth nodded thoughtfully. She pointed to another narrow lane. Calico shook his head, seemingly not liking the narrowness of the track.
“Calico,” Miss Elizabeth said in a soothing voice, “you can manage it, my handsome boy.”
The horse calmed down at her words and entered the lane without any more fuss.
“So, the horse is handsome?” Darcy probed.
She looked up at him, meeting his gaze with a startled one of her own. “Mr. Darcy, you must know that you are noted for being a handsome man.”
“I hoped that you thought the same.” Darcy held his breath. She blushed furiously and looked down at the guinea pig in her arms.
“I…think the same as the…as the general populace.”
The general populace?
“Well, Miss Elizabeth, I think you are beautiful,” Darcy declared.
This startled her into peaking up at him before she looked away. “Mr. Darcy, are you certain you do not mean handsome?” she asked, wonder in her voice. “Jane is beautiful.”
“Miss Elizabeth, you must allow me to know my own mind on this matter,” he replied, making his voice low and fervent.
“Oh,” she expressed, glancing swiftly up at him again, and then away once more. “Goodness.”
Darcy, about to slow the gig so they could speak in the relative privacy of the wooded lane, spied a tinker’s wagon pulled off to one side in a clearing of sorts.
An Irish cob was tied to a tree next to the wagon.
An old woman, dressed in black, with a colorful shawl tied around her shoulders, lifted a hand to them. Darcy drew up.
“What is it?” Miss Elizabeth asked, looking up at him, her eyebrows lifted.
“See, there,” he said, pointing with his chin.
Lizzy turned her head to look and felt Jeffry disappear from her arms. He’s gone again. Suddenly, she saw him sitting on the wagon porch beside the old lady.
“Thankee fer lookin’ after this rascal,” the woman said.
“Jeffry is your guinea pig?” Lizzy called out, incredulous. “We have been asking everyone if they knew whom he belonged to. We had no news.”
“I’ve been ill,” she explained.
“I would like to get down,” Lizzy said to Mr. Darcy.
He set the brake, tied off the reins, and leapt down.
As soon as he reached her, she permitted him to place his hands on her waist and lift her out of the gig.
His strong touch thrilled her. She sounded flustered to her own ears when she said, “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
Does he also sound flustered? Goodness. These feelings are so…so remarkable. I have felt nothing like them before. Do they mean that I love Mr. Darcy?
“Come closer, children,” the woman said, gesturing them toward her wagon. “Let me take a look at y’both.”
Lizzy took Mr. Darcy’s arm and they approached her. She wore a colorful kerchief over her white hair. Her skin appeared weathered and softened by experience, rather than made harsher by them.
“People call me, Aunty,” she said, petting her guinea pig. “Has Jeffry been a good boy?”
Lizzy paused, making Mr. Darcy stop. “His name is truly Jeffry?”
“It is,” Aunty said, grinning.
“Pardon me, but I am Elizabeth Bennet, and this is Mr. Darcy.”
“I knows it,” Aunty said, nodding.
“You know it?” Mr. Darcy repeated, puzzlement in his voice.
“That’s right enough,” Aunty said.
“How do you know who we are?” he asked, sounding a little suspicious now.
“Everyone knows you two.”
“That may be,” Lizzy said. “I am well known in this region, but Mr. Darcy is newly come into our society. How can you know of him?”
Instead of answering her, Aunty’s dark eyes suddenly narrowed. She straightened in her seat, and she gazed in the direction of Meryton.
“Y’must go to yer sister,” Aunty directed. “He’s there, that bastard.”
“What is this?” Mr. Darcy demanded, halting their advancement. “Georgiana?”
“Do y’have another sister?” Aunty snapped. She fixed Lizzy with a stare. “They are at yer aunt’s house.”
“Who are?” Lizzy asked as she tugged on Mr. Darcy’s arm and backed away from the wagon, absolutely certain Aunty knew something they did not. “Georgiana and Lieutenant Wickham?”
“Yer sisters are there, too, Lizzy-girl. Go, now. Georgiana will be frightened.”
Mr. Darcy grasped Lizzy’s arm, turned them around, and hurried her toward the gig. “Is it faster if we continue on this lane?”
“It is,” Lizzy said. Georgiana will be frightened? What does she mean by that? If we hurry, can we arrive before Georgiana becomes frightened? How is that possible? But, then, how is Jeffry’s mobility possible?
“Magic?” Mr. Darcy muttered as though he read her mind. He lifted her into her seat, hurried around to his side of the carriage, climbed in, took up the reins, and released the brake. “Hold on.”
*
Mary, with Georgiana beside her, and Elliot standing nearby, lifted her hand to knock on her aunt’s door. However, before she could do so, Elliot stepped forward and pounded his fist on the door hard enough so that the door vibrated.
“Uh, thank you, Elliot,” Mary said, nodding to the servant.
Her aunt’s door opened cautiously, revealing her aunt’s elderly butler. “Good morning, Stanley,” she said, smiling at the familiar face. “Is my aunt at home?”
“No, miss,” Stanley said.
“Oh. How disappointing,” Mary said. To Georgiana she said, “I should have sent a note ahead to be certain she would be home to visitors. I am sorry.”
Stanley called back her attention before Georgiana could respond to her apology.
“Miss Mary, your youngest sisters are waiting in the drawing room for the mistress to come home.”
“Are they?” Mary’s first inclination was to back away and take Georgiana in another direction.
“They aren’t alone, miss,” he said in a whisper.
Mary noticed for the first time that Stanley seemed alarmed about something. She thought his trepidation had been caused by Elliot’s hard knock.
“Do you need me to go up to them?” she asked, taking a step forward.
“Yes, miss, please,” he said, backing away and letting them into the wide entrance hall. “They have escorts, miss.” He lowered his voice further. “Officers.”
Mary’s stomach clenched. “Militia officers?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Is Mrs. Conker with them?”
“They dismissed her, miss,” Stanley admitted, appearing shamefaced. “She’s keeping herself ready to interfere, though, miss, by standing in the corridor outside of the drawing room.”
“That’s better than nothing, I suppose,” Mary said, gathering her skirts in one hand in preparation to climbing the stairs. “Georgiana, I think you should stay down here with Elliot.”
“I am not a coward, Mary Bennet,” Georgiana stated, her trembling voice firm. “But I am not foolish. I will support you, and Elliot will come upstairs to support both of us. If we should be offered some refreshment, he can wait on us. Come along, Elliot.”
He coughed behind his hand. “Beggin’ yer pardon, Miss Georgiana, but I think yer brother’d prefer y’to stay down ‘ere. Or, I could escort y’back t’Netherfield.”
“We are staying.” Georgiana waited until he gave a reluctant nod before she turned to Mary. “Shall we?”
Mary nodded and led the way up the stairs, heading to the drawing room situated directly across the landing at the top.
Mrs. Conker, the housekeeper, waited in the corridor, wringing her hands.
Her expression changed from worry to relief when she spied Mary.
Elliot stepped swiftly around them and swung the door open, standing to one side as they passed him into the room.
“Mary!” Lydia cried, leaping off an officer’s lap. He hesitantly stood up. She smoothed her skirts and glared at her. “What are you doing here?”
Incensed by her sister’s behavior, Mary glanced away from Lydia to glare at Kitty. Her next younger sister dropped her grip on another officer’s arm.
“Gentlemen,” Mary said icily. Beside the two shame-faced young officers, an older, handsome officer stood to one side, next to the unlit fireplace.
He bowed, inspiring the other two lieutenants to do the same.
Mary did not curtsy. “I must conclude that all three of you had mothers who taught you how to behave toward impressionable young ladies?”
Mary took note of the embarrassed shuffling of the two youngest officers. Georgiana grabbed hold of her upper arm and squeezed it painfully. Mary heard her frightened whisper.
“It is him.”
By him Mary surmised Georgiana meant the older officer. Lieutenant George Wickham returned her gaze with a raised eyebrow.
“Miss Darcy,” he said smoothly, bowing again. “How charming to see you again. Pray, will you introduce me to your delightful companion?”
“I am Miss Mary Bennet,” Mary said stonily. “I am aware of your identity, thank you.” She raised her eyebrows at the other men.
“Lieutenant Denny, miss,” one said.
“Lieutenant Chamberlayne, miss,” the other one said.
“Thank you for coming, gentlemen,” Mary said dismissively. “But, as you can see, my aunt is not at home today.”
“Do go away, Mary,” Lydia urged, hurrying over to her and blocking the younger officers’ attempt to leave. She made shooing gestures with her hands. “You are spoiling our fun.”
Mary looked at her hands and then up at her face. “Lydia, you and Kitty will follow Mrs. Conker to the dining room where she will bring you tea.”
Lydia stood up taller. “I will not go. You cannot make me.”
Kitty hurried over and took her arm. “Come away and have some tea, Lydia dearest.”
Mary moved to one side to clear the way to the door, Georgiana shuffling along with her, half-hiding behind her. Mary spied Elliot’s wooden expression, his person implacable and formidable.
Lydia shook off her sister. “Leave me be, Kitty. You never want to have any fun.”