Though I would have liked the pleasure of liberating Kitty and Mary from the gaol of Mrs Dolby’s horrible school, it fell to Mr Gardiner to retrieve them for obvious reasons. First, he was a great deal closer; second, we had agreed from the beginning he would deal with Lydia, and lastly, I did not want to be away from Elizabeth.
Thus, we waited, both of us anxious and uncertain as to how Mary and Kitty would receive this change in their circumstances.
There had been a time when I would have assumed these unfortunate young ladies would be amazed and grateful to live at Pemberley. Elizabeth had educated me to the contrary, though I do not think we ever spoke directly about it. I only knew—now—that young ladies who have been so thoroughly devastated by a freakish event cannot be expected to rejoice at any change, even a pleasant one.
Elizabeth and I were prepared for a period of adjustment, but Georgiana was thrilled by the prospect of company. Inever knew she was such a sociable girl, and her plans for the expansion of the musical mornings and any number of entertainments and diversions were too numerous to be reasonable. I wondered whether it was wise to overwhelm Kitty and Mary with the whirlwind of gaiety in store for them after the austerity to which they had so lately been subjected, and sitting in the late evening in my wife’s room, I wondered aloud if I should not hint some of these excesses out of her head.
Elizabeth put down her book and looked over her spectacles at me. “Georgiana is sensible enough to curb her enthusiasm at the first sign of hesitation, and any perception she lacks, Mrs Annesley possesses. The rule with a tribe of girls, Mr Darcy, is to let them sort themselves out.”
At long last a coach and four was spotted on the horizon, and we assembled on the steps to welcome our company. This was the first of what I hoped were many occasions I would stand proudly beside my wife to do so, and I glanced affectionately down at her as she clutched my arm in anxious anticipation.
Kitty alighted first, looking worn to a thread and on the fret. On seeing her eldest sister, she burst into tears and ran to her, leaving Mary dazed and numb on the step of the coach.
“Oh Mary!” Elizabeth said in a rush of feeling as I handed her down. Mary reached for her sister, and they too shed tears while clinging to one another.
The first to regain self-possession was Elizabeth. “Come, come. This will not do! Look, my poor husband and his sister are standing mortified while we lose our composure with such noise. Mr Darcy, Georgiana, these are my sisters Mary and Kitty Bennet. Shall we not go inside? Was that not the most beastly journey?”
Elizabeth’s eyes found mine, and we mingled, just we two, on the steps of Pemberley, as we relived the memory of that similarly miserable late afternoon when we had arrived from London in the rain.
When Jane stepped forwards to take her sisters up to their rooms, Elizabeth quietly asked Georgiana to go up on her behalf, and they all fell in with one another and disappeared up the steps.
“That was well done,” I said to Elizabeth as I took her into the parlour. “From the first moments of their acquaintance, you have made sure they are comfortable together. But would you like to go up as well?”
“Of course, but I would only be in the way. Georgiana would turn shy and Jane would defer to me as mistress.”
“And I would be feeling forlorn and forgotten down here.”
She smiled in that particular way I had come to love—against her will and striving to restrain the width of her grin.
“Would you? I rather thought you would be delighted to be excused.”
The physical recollection of our unhappy arrival lingered around us still, and because we were alone, I put my finger to her cheek and said, “Your ordeal may have worn away at your health, Elizabeth, but mine eroded my pride. Only a humble man who has rid himself of self-interest can love a woman with the whole of his heart.”
“Do you?”
“I do. Would you like me to tell you who I love?”
We were standing so near to one another I was whispering in her ear when Jane and Georgiana glided arm-in-arm back into the parlour. They were flushed with pleasure, and I noticed how much they resembled one another and how close they had become. But what choice did they have? I had forcedthem into a confederacy because if there was a seat next to Elizabeth, I was in it.
“Are they comfortable?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes,” Jane said. “They are resting. But they do not want their own rooms.”
Elizabeth squeezed my hand. She must have sensed I was about to protest, to proclaim we could house thirty guests this instant, and they need not be so modest in their demands on our hospitality. I came to my senses and squeezed her hand in return. Having been separated, I belatedly realised, they could not get close enough. I knew the feeling.
The following morning, our travellers endured an anxious breakfast. They stared at everything and spoke little.
My wife took me aside. “They are quite bewildered.”
“What should we do to put them at ease?”
“Perhaps you should speak to them, address them as their new guardian?”
“To what purpose? If anything, would that not make them more anxious?”
“What they lack is certainty. For all they know, they could be sent somewhere else and for some capricious reason. I have reassured them, but who am I? I am only Lizzy to them, and more to the point, I do not believe I should play the part of intermediary between you and my sisters.”
I was suddenly as nervous as Kitty and Mary. How was I to speak to young ladies I barely knew, much less act as their guardian upon so little acquaintance? But Elizabeth was determined and announced that after breakfast we would all—Georgiana included—adjourn to the library. Not wanting to appear anything but confident in front of my wife, I faced my duty with every appearance of ease.
