“I-I would not c-call myself a g-great proficient, but I do love playing the instrument,” Gigi replied quietly. “Yes, I practise as much as I am able to each day. Does your sister have a master? Miss Elizabeth, William told me that your playing is very good.”
“No, Mary has not been taught by a master, but I dare say she would love lessons from one. I play rather ill because I do not practise enough. Your brother has perjured himself for some mischievous reason.” Elizabeth smiled.
“Oh no! William always tells the absolute truth, even if I think he is too complimentary to me at times,” Gigi said.
“In other words, an ideal older brother. We are five sisters, and all of us would have enjoyed having a brother to watch over us,” Elizabeth mused. “I am sure your brother has told you I have three younger sisters at home. Mary is nineteen, Catherine, we call her Kitty, is seventeen and Lydia is the youngest at fifteen.”
“I would have loved to have a sister or two, especially close to my own age like your two youngest, whose ages are either side of my own.” Gigi paused as she worked up the courage to ask a question she felt she needed to. “How is it that you are so friendly to me when you know what I almost did last summer?”
“Did your brother tell you that I fell for that prevaricator’s honeyed tongue as well?” Elizabeth asked.
She received a nod in return.
“I was twenty, and I did not see through his manipulation. You were but fifteen, and you had two adultsworking on you. Not to mention that one of those adults was employed to protect you. Should you have known that agreeing to an elopement was wrong? Certainly. You should have. However, you told your brother all as soon as you saw him. In other words, you made a small error, but the blame rests squarely with George Wickham and his paramour.”
“Thank you, Miss Elizabeth. You are the first person who has told me that I was not blameless, and that makes me feel somewhat better. Do I ask too much if I invite you to call me Georgiana or Gigi, like most do?”
“I would like that, Gigi, as long as you call me Elizabeth or Lizzy.”
The two new friends chattered away happily while Darcy looked on in wonder. He had never seen another draw his sister out as fast and as well as Miss Elizabeth had just done. Unlike Miss Bingley’s company, which made his sister cringe, she enjoyed being with Miss Elizabeth.
Darcy and Richard had discussed whether they should take Gigi with them to Meryton. They had agreed that as long as Wickham was free to roam the streets of the town, it was not worth the chance of upsetting Gigi.
It was no big surprise that Richard’s attention was mostly on Miss Bennet. Darcy would not interfere; those days were behind him.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Miss Caroline Bingley could not wait until they returned to London as originally planned. There were too many people in the area who knew them as the children of a tradesman.
Thankfully, her brother was no longer pining for that fortune hunter, Jane Bennet. He had discovered another angel here in Scarborough. It was good because it meant he had moved past Miss Bennet, but it was notacceptable because the lady was the daughter of a tradesman, which, in Miss Bingley’s mind, made her ineligible. She forgot, or refused to see, the irony that her status was exactly the same as that of the woman’s, whom she saw as unsuitable.
To make sure they would be away from Miss Cartwright’s clutches, she had demanded, and her brother had agreed, that they would depart for London on Monday, the thirteenth day of April, almost a full fortnight earlier than planned.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
In Meryton, the only one who did not run away from Wickham was Lydia Bennet. She believed his cock-and-bull story that he had been injured fighting four men who had attempted to besmirch her honour. He added that he had always loved her, even when Miss King had used her wiles to draw him in. He told her that he had woken to who his true love was, which had led to him sending Miss King away. Although Lydia had no fortune, she was good for some comfort and would help to inflate his feelings of self-worth, which had suffered a blow when he had lost Miss King’s fortune.
The fact that Miss Lydia was gently born did not make a difference to Wickham since, as she had told him, she was following her mother’s instructions about how to catch a man, and that for her, only a man in regimentals would do.
Unfortunately, the next older Miss Bennet was repulsed by his looks and did not fall for his lines, so he had to content himself with the younger one. She was in the age range he preferred anyway. It was very amusing to Wickham that the silly chit thought he was going to marry her.
At least if he did not have the young females falling at his feet, Wickham had access to credit, so he was still able to purchase anything he wanted. The fools believed that hissupposed bequest would arrive before the regiment departed, and he would settle all of his extensive debts. After all, it was their own fault for trusting him and extending him credit.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
On Friday morning, the large and extremely comfortable Darcy travelling coach arrived at Gracechurch Street. The Gardiner footmen had the Bennet sisters’ and Miss Lucas’s trunks ready, and between them and the Darcy footmen, the trunks were soon lashed in place, and the coach was off.
While Elizabeth, the Colonel, and Mr Darcy enjoyed a cribbage competition between them—Mr Darcy had a cribbage board in the coach—Maria Lucas seemed intimidated by the company and was looking out a window, Jane had time to cogitate.
As hard as it was going to be, as soon as Jane arrived home, when her mother harped—as she was sure to do—about notcatchingMr Bingley, she was going to have to be firm with her mother and make sure she could understand Jane’s reasons for not ever wanting to be with Mr Bingley.
How would Mama react the first time Jane stood up to her when she denigrated Lizzy’s, Mary’s, and Kitty’s looks? Having her stand up to Mama would be a shock of epic proportions.
Jane was certain Papa would make some asinine remark about it being good for her to be crossed in love while providing no comfort to her.
Would Papa be angry if Jane, as she intended to do, discussed the needed discipline of her youngest two sisters with him? What was it Lizzy always said? Ah yes,my courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me. Jane would have to add that topart of her new philosophy!
Of one thing she was sure; neither of her parents, nor her younger sisters, for that matter, would recognise Jane and her new personal philosophy as the woman who had left Longbourn in early January. She was sanguine with that because she was not, in fact, the same eternally optimistic, serene, gullible, and biddable person she was then.
