“He persuaded me to consent to an elopement, but when my brother arrived unexpectedly to see my health for himself, I confessed. Fitzwilliam explained to me how I had been deceived of that man’s true character, how revenge on my brother was the man’s object, and he wrote to Mr Wickham, who left Ramsgate and never contacted me again.”
“I do not understand.” Whatever Elizabeth had thought Miss Darcy might confess, this was not it. “I concede the imprudence of an elopement, but why did Mr Darcy not approve of him? Did he have no means to support a wife? What was the history between them? And how could he have revenged himself upon Mr Darcy by marrying you?”
Miss Darcy paused to take a drink. “I am already breaking my promise to speak nothing about it. I trust you not to ask me further.” Elizabeth could do nothing but promise not to press her. “What matters is before my brother arrived, I... I gave myself to Mr Wickham... but after I learnt the truth about his nature, I did not wish to tie myself for life to an unworthy man.” She took a great inhalation. “After Fitzwilliam sent him away, I learnt this guilty connexion was to have produced an offspring.”
It was an unbelievable shock. Elizabeth, affected by her story, and still more by her friend’s distress, could not speak. Miss Darcy looked at her expectantly, anticipating perhaps some scathing reprimandor for her to leave the room. Elizabeth nodded for her to continue.
“My brother planned to take me to a warmer climate for the sake of my lungs when I had to confess my condition. I had never seen so steady a man descend into the transports of rage.” Elizabeth frowned and shook her head when Miss Darcy stopped her. “No, not againstme; against my seducer. Fitzwilliam loves me the same, but it could not be known that his sister was to have a natural child, and rather than send me away to live in seclusion, he gave up his nearest connexions to stay by my side.”
“But why did you not travel abroad after all for your health and to conceal your condition?”
“I was too weak and ill from my lung ailment for an ocean voyage, and the physicians in town said I would not survive the crossing in my condition. But everyone we ever knew or loved believes us to be in Madeira for the sake of my lungs.”
Elizabeth counted the months backward and looked at Miss Darcy’s thin frame. “Did you only just deliver and give up the child?”
The tears that had been hovering on the edge of her eyelids fell. “I swore to always keep it with me! My brother thought he would argue me out of my opinion, that I would agree to give up the child and we would go to a warmer climate after I was delivered. It was his way to ensure no one need know of my ruin. But I would never, ever have given up my child! He said the choice would be mine, but he still tried to convince me. I always refused.” She took a heaving breath. “But in the end, it did not matter.”
She began to cry in earnest, and Elizabeth sat on the bed and took the weeping girl into her arms.
“I was brought to bed of a dead child, two months before I was expected.”
Elizabeth’s chest burned with all the questions she wished to ask, but she silently rocked a young girl who mourned her baby, who was, to all appearances, in the last stage of a consumption, and had been lonely for too long. She clung to Elizabeth like a child. Elizabeth’s heart was full of compassion and esteem for Georgiana Darcy. When her sobs brought on a fit of coughing, the tears subsided.
“I was ruined, Miss Bennet, by a lying scoundrel, and I will never return home. We have lied to everyone who loves us. They think we are in Madeira, but I am too ill and in too much pain to travel now, and my brother will stay with me until I die, forsaking everything for me. And I still lost the child that I wanted despite all it would cost me. We are surrounded by threat of scandal, and it is all my fault. Should you wish to befriend a fool?”
Elizabeth took a firm hold of both of her hands. “Since we are in no doubt going to be the dearest of friends, Georgiana, you ought to call me Lizzy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Elizabeth kept her countenance in front of the Darcys, but she often found her eyes brimming with tears when she thought of them over the next week. Georgiana felt both intense grief and humiliation. Such a pitiable situation, and Mr Darcy’s devotion to his young sister was greater than she would have suspected from so serious a man. Any other brother would have hidden Georgiana away in shame, taken her child from her regardless of her wishes, and perhaps never spoken of her or to her again. Elizabeth doubted even her own father or mother would sacrifice so much for any of their children.
The Darcys were recluses because they had been hiding Miss Darcy’s condition, and they were but a few whispers away from absolute scandal. She could understand Mr Darcy’s behaviour better, his abruptness and his unsocial nature, although she was not ready to pardon his outright incivility. And poor Georgiana was mourning her baby while Mr Darcy feared the exposure that she had born a child at all. Still, he stayed with her, cared for her, and forsook every connexion to preserve her reputation.Despite his ungentlemanly behaviour, he is a good man.
“I expect a very stupid ball if you do not invite everyone!” Lydiaexclaimed and disrupted Elizabeth’s reflections. “Why not invite some officers? We used to dine with over twenty families!”
“My dear, it is not up to me. I have, sadly, had to make way for Mary,” said her mother. “She does not invite any officer to dine, let alone host parties.”
Lydia and her mother had finally convinced Mr Collins of the rightness in his hosting a ball at Longbourn by appealing to his grandiose ideas as to what was gentlemanly. The drawback was that mother and daughter had yet to convince Mary that she ought to both plan a proper ball and be gracious about it.
“We will have only four couples if Mary has her way, and we can fit twice as many in the drawing room.” Lydia bounded over to where Mary was sitting. “Who will I flirt with if you do not invite the officers, too? Only the highest-ranking ones, of course, the gentlemen with an income. Mary, you are so dull and economical! We need eight families and thirty people at least!”
“I care so little for a ball that it would be no sacrifice to me to give it up entirely.”
Elizabeth decided to resolve this and save herself an hour of listening to their squabbling. “Mary, Mr Collins has agreed that a modest ballwilltake place at Longbourn. You made a vow to obey your husband. It would go against your duty as a wife to not bring credit to his home and host his most important neighbours. However, if you are unable to manage the affair, then my mother is willing to arrange every detail to spare you the trouble.”
The result was immediate: Mrs Bennet promised to supervise the whole of it, Mary refused and solemnised on her position as mistress of Longbourn, and Lydia’s wish for a ball that would not be too thin of company was realised. Elizabeth may have found life there hollow and tedious, but she loved Lydia, and if she wanted a ball, Elizabeth was happy for her to have it. She knew what it was like to have little to look forward to with pleasure. While her family were occupied, Elizabeth left to visit the apothecary shop.
She had expected to slip in quietly and ask Mr Lynn if he had received a reply from Mr Jones. A brief note of his perfect unconcern, or perhaps advice on some remedy to ease the malady. But Elizabethfound so many people before her in the shop that there was not a person at liberty to attend to her. The line at both counters was two people deep, and other ladies were sitting at the end of the counter that seemed to promise the quickest succession.
Elizabeth stopped the shopboy to ask what news was come from Mr Jones about his ill son.
“His housekeeper received a letter and it was not sealed with black wax, that is all I know.” The boy scurried off.
She smiled to herself at this happy news, but Mr Lynn would be too busy to speak with her today. Before Elizabeth could leave, the apprentice came near to take down a vessel from the wall, and she asked him, “Did Mr Jones write to Mr Lynn in regard to the care of his patients?”
“Yes, his correspondence is there, but he has scarcely had time to read it.” He gestured over his shoulder to the counter where the ladies were no longer sitting. “I know you and Mrs Baker and Miss Darcy were mentioned. We are rather hurried at the moment, but soon Mr Lynn will call at Longbourn to discuss whatever ailed you.”
That would not do. She did not want to manage her mother’s nerves if she learnt her daughter was ill or risk Mary and Mr Collins knowing about her illness; they might exploit it for their own advantage or restrict her further. Elizabeth sat near the counter and, after a careful look around her, pulled the sheets into her lap in what she knew wasa gross misstep in judgement and propriety. Fearful of being caught, she rapidly looked for either her name or the word “heart.”
