Elizabeth thought for a moment. “Your room was at the front of the house? Its curtains are closed; I will open them the day your brother leaves and close them the day before he is expected to return. Come to the mews and ask for me. Tell me what you are looking for, and I will collect them for you.”
“Oh.” Georgiana stared at her for a long moment. “Well, I cannot remember exactly what is there, and I ought to only collect what is of the most value. I will recognise them when I see them.”
It was getting late, and they had loitered by the wall for too long to escape attention. “Very well,” she said, trying to keep her patience. “You may come inside to collect your things. Good day, my dear.”
She hurried home to be ready to return wedding visits with Darcy. He would come back by one, and thoughts of Georgiana could not fluster her. It would only add to Darcy’s anxieties, and the goal of meeting with Georgiana was to ultimately ease them. How was Wickham caring for her? Was he spending his money on prostitutes and drink while his wife sat alone in a small room without enough food? What could she have said differently in Gretna Green to sway Georgiana?
If she was this out of spirits with worry for her, how must Darcy feel?
She had to preserve Darcy and his sister’s relationship by convincing Georgiana to leave her husband, regardless of theconsequences. It pressed on her heart as deeply as had her desire to chase after Georgiana to prevent her from marrying that dreadful man.
Someday, she would return from one of these meetings with Georgiana, and it would be a balm to Darcy’s heart.
After arrangingfor his gift for Elizabeth to be delivered tomorrow, Darcy had returned home for another day and evening of wedding-related activity. Returning calls slid into dinner with friends, and then to a card party at another house. Everyone wanted to invite the new bride and see her. Elizabeth was welcomed warmly or treated with distant civility by everyone. No one slighted her. No one censured her. No one despised her.
As Darcy handed her from the carriage at the end of the evening, he asked her, “Are you weary of being the newest curiosity?”
She laughed. “Hopefully in the course of another week, London society will decide once and for all if I am very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or not pretty at all. Then all the fuss will be done, and we can stop accepting every invitation that comes our way.”
If he was a more gallant and less reserved man, he might have been quick enough with praise for her prettiness, but she now handed her cloak to the footman and made her way up the stairs. To his surprise, she stopped at the drawing room door and bid him goodnight rather than walk up the next flight to her own room.
“Are you not tired?” he asked her.
“Despite your claims to Miss Bingley, I am behind hand in my work. It won’t take me more than an hour to finish. Then tomorrow I am free to walk in the Green Park with Mrs Ballston and her daughters, be seen and thought respectable, and then prepare for Lady Summerlin’s ball in the evening.”
“Are you expecting a great deal of preparation tomorrow?” he asked sceptically.
“Hours, Darcy.”
He did not bother to tell her it was unnecessary. He knew enough of ladies’ thoughts before a ball that she would prepare for it the sameway and with the same length of time, regardless of his opinion. “I will keep you company as you work, if you like.”
She looked a little surprised, but thanked him and found her work basket by a chair near the fire. Little moments like this still charmed him. He was a man with lady’s needlework in his drawing room. It did not trouble him, and it surprised him how happy it made him.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked as she pulled out pieces of linen.
“Nothing at all,” he said.
For all his reserve, he liked to be in company, especially company that did not require him to speak if he had nothing to say. He was glad to collect a few friends around him for an evening. But now he was happy to enjoy his wife’s companionship. She combined decency and elegance with a humour that could make him laugh in spite of himself.
“I have been thinking of Georgiana since we came to town, and how to support her,” she said, bending over her work.
“If she ever leaves him, I will support her.” His sister was likely in London; the letter he had not answered said they would make their way back. “I thought we agreed on weathering whatever consequence if she left her ne’er-do-well husband.” Did Elizabeth not want to risk her newly found social status by taking on the support of a woman who left her husband, even if he was a philandering gamester?
“Oh, we did,” she said. “I meant about supporting her now. She must have very little.”
“Wickham has not sixpence of his own,” he retorted, “and that is all the better because it could force Georgiana to properly appraise her situation and come home.”
“But would not a little money make her more comfortable in the meantime? For a better servant or nicer lodgings?”
He shook his head, rising to pace. “I need to end every entreaty and expectation that I will make Wickham’s fortune. He will use any generosity against us, and against her. If either of them asks you for money, you must refuse to help them.”
Elizabeth seemed to have heard him, but was too intent on her fine stitches to reply.
Her question rather surprised him. “His situation is all of his ownmaking, you know,” he went on. “He could have been a clergyman, he could have lived off the three thousand pounds I gave him, he could have been a lawyer. He is wasteful and selfish, to say nothing of his deplorable vices and how he treats women. And Georgianachosehim.”
He had thought himself calm and cool, but his voice wavered. His sister was lost to him, and he did not know how to mourn the loss.
Elizabeth raised her head and wore a sad look. “It is not your fault,” she insisted. “I only pity her circumstances. Wickham has not sued for her fortune, yet they must be destitute.”
