He did not dwell on the thought because he could not bear it long, yet he could not escape it.
Georgiana, who had watched him since their return with a concern too affectionate to be silent, found him one morning in the smaller drawing room, standing at one of the tall windows with a paper open in his hand and his attention nowhere upon it.
“You have not been yourself since we came back from Kent,” she said gently.
He turned at the sound of her voice, folded the paper, and set it aside. “I am very well.”
She came farther into the room and sat down, not with the timid reserve that might once have governed her in speaking to him, but with the quiet courage his affection for her had gradually encouraged. “You say so only because you do not wish me to ask again.”
Darcy smiled at that for a moment. “And will that prevent you?”
“No. It has never prevented me where you are concerned.” She looked up at him with steady gentleness. “I was very sorry that Elizabeth left so suddenly. It seemed most extraordinary. I have wished several times to ask about it, and each time thought you would tell me if you chose. Since you have not, I must conclude that I am to begin the subject myself.”
Darcy drew a chair nearer but did not sit immediately. “There is little to tell that is not already known.”
“Known by you, perhaps. Not by me.” She watched him for a moment before adding, “Why did she leave?”
He met her gaze then. “She was persuaded to go.”
A quick expression of surprise crossed her face. “By my aunt?”
“Yes.”
“For what reason?”
He sat down at last, restlessly. “Because our aunt believed Miss Bennet’s presence at Hunsford improper. She had observed enough to suspect my attachment, and instead of trusting me to govern myself, chose to interfere.”
Georgiana’s colour rose. “She has no right.”
“I must agree with you, but our aunt did not. She sent Miss Bennet home that day, in her own carriage.”
Georgiana’s colour rose with emotion. “How humiliating it must have been for her.”
Darcy said nothing.
She studied him more closely. “Then why do you look as though you blame her?”
“I do not blame her.”
“But you doubt her.”
The directness of it made evasion useless. He looked away for a moment, then back again. “I do not know what I think.”
Georgiana cocked her head to the side and said nothing, only waited.
“Our aunt acted wrongly,” Darcy said. “I know she must have brought great pressure to bear on Miss Bennet. That cannot have been easy for a young woman. But in the end, she did go.”
“And you think that must mean something against you.”
He rose then and crossed a few paces before answering. To answer without the relief of movement would have been unbearable. “I think it must mean something. If she had wished to preserve an understanding between us, she might have found some means to do so.”
“Might she?”
He turned. “You do not think so?”
“I think Elizabeth, in such a situation, may have had more to bear than you allow,” Georgiana said softly.
Her defence of Elizabeth, offered with such quiet conviction, touched him more than he wished to show. “I have not forgotten what she must have suffered.”
