When we got back home, I went to my room to have my valet undress me and then went to her room, which was customary. We had been spending every night together.
But she met me at the door and said she was very tired, not tonight, if I pleased, and what could I say but to agree and leave and go back to sleep alone in my own bed?
I lay there and wondered if it was something I had done, and if so, what?
She had reason to be angry with me, a much worse reason when it came to the dinner and my lying and trying to hide herfrom my family, and she had not barred me from her bed during all of that.
So, what could I have done this evening that would have made her do such a thing?
I turned this way and that in bed, trying to piece it together, and then the answer came to me.
Richard.
She had talked to him all night, had she not?
Richard called upon us two days hence, bearing a letter from my sister, who was entirely resisting the idea of coming to stay with me. I had written her several letters, assuring her that I was not, in fact, angry with her, and that I had seen that she was vulnerable to the wiles of Mr. Wickham precisely because no one had been paying her any mind and that I wished to address this problem post haste.
But she did not want to come here and stay with me.
The letter that Richard gave me explained that she had been frightened to tell me that she did not wish to reside under the same roof as my wife.She seems pleasant enough, I suppose, but she is very loud, and I do not think we should find much to converse about, you see, and I feel that the entire experience would be very uncomfortable for both myself and her. Please, I am begging you, do not continue to push for me to come and live there.
I read through the letter thrice, each time feeling more and more angry. Was this the truth? Had my sister been telling me a polite lie in that sitting room?
I did not think so. She had been telling the truth about no one being attentive to her. I was certain of that.
So, it could be the influence of my aunt, making her send me this against Elizabeth. If so, I should fight all the harder to getGeorgiana here, under my roof, where she would be free of the burden of having to please Lady Matlock.
However, in truth, the letter did not much sound like Lady Matlock, it sounded much more similar to the way that the Bingley sisters talked about Elizabeth. I knew that Georgiana was not being influenced by them, so I had to take into account that it was possible that my wife simply rubbed other women the wrong way.
Not all other women, I supposed, but possibly certain sorts of women.
I did not think this signified anything good.
The sound of laughter startled me from the letter and I looked up to see that Elizabeth and Richard were sitting very close, laughing about something that I had entirely missed.
They both turned to see that I was looking at them and their laughter died out.
They each picked up their tea cups and took a sip.
Now, it was quiet.
There was a great deal of quiet these days, and it wasn’t the kind of quiet I liked, it was the kind of quiet that speaks of emptiness and wishes to be filled with something, but no one knows how to fill it.
The quiet stretched out between the three of us.
“What does Georgiana say?” said Richard to me.
“No, not important,” I said, folding the letter up. “She will not be coming to stay here, after all, it seems.”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth. “It’s because of me, is it not?” She let out a little laugh. “Richard here was just telling me what he has overheard being said about me in the sitting room at his mother’s home.”
“Richard,” I said. “You two are already calling each other by your first names, I see.”
Richard looked at me, furrowing his brow, and he sat back in his chair, bringing his tea cup with him, holding it in front of him like a shield. “I am sorry. I thought it only expedient. Because of confusion and all of that.”
“Yes,” broke in Elizabeth, “because I call you Fitzwilliam, and his last name is Fitzwilliam, so… for the sake of being certain who it is I mean, that is all.”
Oh, they were both very defensive, weren’t they?
