“Kitty? Let me see. She is squeezed between Lydia, my mother’s favorite, and Mary, my mother’s cross to bear, and so she can only ever get attention when she complains. Thus, she is fretful, exaggerates her every ache and pain, and in no way makes herself pleasant to be around out of the mistaken notion that any notice is better than none. I would make you a wager that, at this moment, Kitty is exasperating my father with a bitter reflection that Lydia has had the larger serving of soup, and it is likely a dish she does not even like! And that is bad—very bad—but in no wise as terrible as having a spoiled child, who is my sister Lydia, treated at once as though she were a baby and heir to the throne—the apple of my mother’s eye and the tyrant set to rule over the rest of us.”
Wiping tears from her eyes from having not ceased to laugh, Georgiana said, “Oh, I long to see her!”
“Never say so! She is incorrigible and will be the ruin of us if she has her way.Ithink she should be sent to school, taught to read, and fed bread and water until she is made sensible.” I stole a look at Mr. Darcy then, and he was staring at me—incredulous, no doubt.
“Taught to read!” cried Georgiana.
“Well, shecan,but she does not. Unfortunately, we are well past the option of school,” I hastily continued, “and it will be up to her unlucky husband to beat sense into her. I fervently hope she will attach herself to a humorless ogre who will cure her of giggling.”
To the tail end of her gales of laughter, I then interjected a statement more to the purpose than my preceding commentary. “I feel certain you would adore my sister Jane, and you have come to tolerate me well enough. But for the rest, I hope you never entertain the notion to pay us a call at Longbourn because, as I said when we first engaged this topic, you would be shocked and mortified!”
Feeling I had jumped a stone wall with a cart horse after having broken the news to Georgiana Darcy that my family was the very opposite of dignified, and in consequence we best not become too attached, I dwindled into subdued utterings and strove to place an expression of pleasurable ease on my face. In truth, I felt I could weep—that Iwouldweep if Mr. Darcy continued to look at me so…so desperately!
The gentleman, from the very first moment of our acquaintance, had the habit of staring at me. But now he seemed determined to glean something from his minute observations, to see down into the very origin of my innermost self, a place evenIcould not see in my current state of confusion. If he desired to understand me, I wished him good luck, for I had given up on the hope that the source of my oppressed spirits could be deciphered. Besides, I had been sufficiently unnerved by all I had been through to bear his looks with patience. What did he mean by watching me so constantly, byneverfailing to attend to my slightest need?
Close to shattered but still pretending to be gay, I retreated to bed.
Chapter Thirty
Worse was to come, and though I pretended not to know this, every fiber in my being waited in expectation of an invisible axe to fall. The following afternoon found me in full retreat, staring out the gallery window at the lake once again.
First, I saw the telltale movement on the horizon, and in under a moment, my heart was thumping in dread. A coach and pair came briskly down the hill on the far side of the estate. Uncle Gardiner had come to take me away from Pemberley.
I gasped, for only in that moment did I truly understand the source of my unhappiness, my disordered feelings—my grief!
I should have run down to my uncle immediately, but I stood as still as stone with the ticking of the long clock at the far end of that now-familiar hall and awaited my summons. The wait was far longer than I expected, and it was Mr. Darcy himself who came for me. As he opened the door and began the long walk to where I stood, I turned and smiled as bravely as I could.
“Is it time?” I asked.
He only nodded, but his stark, colorless expression told the tale. Under a darkening cloud of foreboding, he escorted me down the stairs and across the foyer. His presence bore me up since my pride would not allow that I show him how weak I felt. But it was all very silly, really, because Uncle Gardiner was a kind and reasonable man, and other than a short lecture, nothing would happen!
Yet, upon entering the salon, I saw a look of thunder on my uncle’s face, and when the doors shut behind me, I faced him with trepidation that was no longer silly but justifiable.
“Explain yourself,” he commanded.
“My letter—”
“I do not refer to Mrs. Jennings,” he spat out. “What in the name of God are you doing sheltering at the home of an unmarried man?”
Nonplussed, I hung my head. “I am his sister’s guest, sir.”
“His sister, who might possibly be all of sixteen years old? Did she strike you as a suitable chaperone?”
“Uncle! You do not understand!”
“I believe I understand more than you, my girl,” he said darkly. “You are partaking of a gentleman’s hospitality in the company of his sister who is your junior and your great-aunt who, by your own telling, is not in possession of her faculties. Do you think you are of the peerage class and able to behave with so little propriety as to rival the Duchess of Devonshire, to accept invitations to house parties—”
“No!”
“Then what? Who is here to stand for you, eh? Who can look out for your reputation, give you the advice and guidance any young lady should have? Who here will shield your good name?”
“Miss Darcy has a companion, a gentlewoman—”
“Who is in Mr. Darcy’s employ. That is mighty convenient, miss.”
I stood mute with shock, and after an awful pause, he said, “We shall take our leave immediately.”
“Uncle! We cannot!”
