Chapter 18 Holzmann Responds at Last
Holzmann Responds at Last
To Miss Mary Bennet, Longbourn, Hertfordshire
Good Lord, what a perfect rotter I am! You were right, I was ill, and then away from home for a bit—no time to explain all that now—but then my brother and I took the long way home and spent simply weeks gadding about the Lake District.
I arrived home to find all your letters in a great pile on my desk (my old nurse collected them for me—she is my Miss Figg), and I’ve read through them with mounting horror.
To think of all the weeks you spent surrounded by fire and death and dye fraud, longing for help from your dear friend Holzmann, and for so much of that time I was sleeping late in inns and attempting globby watercolors of interchangeable ponds.
You poor dear creature, I shudder to think what may have befallen you since your last letter. I shall keep you waiting no longer. I am throwing my things into a trunk as we speak. I shall be at Longbourn as soon as ever I can. Your mamma did entreat me to visit, so that’s all right.
Isn’t it remarkable that we had the same idea about pretending to be gentlemen?
I must fly. Please, please be careful until I get there.
In haste,
Georgiana Darcy
END OF PART ONE