Page 60 of Mr Darcy Bets on Love

Lady Catherine came down the stairs in her dressing gown and nightcap, which nobody in that house had ever seen before, and took the box from him in the hall, and opened it with a key on a ribbon round her neck, and began to go through the letters inside it one by one, standing on the marble in her slippers with Pearce holding a candle.

Chapter 17: The Forged Letter

Darcy House. Wednesday, 8th April 1812

They spread it out on the library table at ten o'clock that morning, under the tall window, with the curtains pulled back so that the light fell full on it: a single sheet of heavy cream paper, folded in three, without a seal, without a signature.

Lady Catherine had found it in less than five minutes, standing in the hall in her nightcap. It had been filed, as she had promised, in perfect order, between a letter from her steward about drainage and a letter from the Bishop of Rochester about Mr Collins. She had not put it down since. She laid it on the table now with a kind of grim ceremony, like a card she had been waiting all night to play.

"There," she said. "Look at it."

They looked: Elizabeth and Darcy, Richard in his shirtsleeves, Anne wrapped in her shawls in the big leather chair, where she had been carried down at her own insistence.

It was a short letter. Elizabeth read it over her husband's shoulder, and felt a coldness creep up her back.

Madam, a friend to your family, who cannot put her name to this, begs leave to warn you that your nephew Mr Darcy is at this moment on the point of throwing himself away upon a young woman of no fortune, no connections, and very doubtful reputation, whose family have laid a deliberate trap for him in Hertfordshire. The engagement is not yet generally known. If it is to be prevented, it must be prevented now. Your ladyship's authority is the only thing that can save him. For his sake, and for Miss de Bourgh's, go at once. Do not delay. It may already be too late.

"A friend to your family," said Richard softly. "Who cannot put her name to this. Her."

It was written in a round, careful, sloping hand, a lady's hand, but disguised, Elizabeth thought; too round, too careful, as though the writer had been making every letter separately. Nobody would have known it at a glance.

But the gs gave it away. Engagement. Going. Great. Every one of them ended in a little hook, curving up and back, sharp as a fishhook.

"I told you," said Anne quietly, from the chair.

"Many people make their gs so," said Darcy. His voice was very even. "We said so ourselves. It is not proof."

"Then get me some proof," said Lady Catherine. "Get me something she has written in her own hand, and let me look at them side by side. I have been reading letters for fifty years, Fitzwilliam. I will know."

There was a silence.

They all knew who had letters from Lady Theodosia Rowe. A great many of them. Tied up in blue ribbon in the top drawer of a writing box in the blue bedroom upstairs. Nobody wanted to say it.

It was Georgiana who said it.

None of them had heard her come in. She was standing just inside the library door, in a plain grey morning gown, with her hair pinned up anyhow and her face very pale and her eyes still swollen from the night before. She was holding a bundle of letters, perhaps thirty of them, tied with a faded blue ribbon.

"I heard," she said. Her voice shook, but she did not stop. "From the stairs. I am sorry. I did not mean to listen." She came forward to the table, very slowly, and held out the bundle, not to her brother, but to Elizabeth. "These are hers. From Theo. Since I was twelve. You may look at them."

"Georgiana—" said Darcy.

"I want you to look," said Georgiana. "I want to know. I would rather know." She swallowed. "If it is not her, then we shall all know it is not her, and I can stop being afraid it is. And if it is—" She stopped. Her chin wobbled, and then steadied. "If it is, then I would rather know that too. Elizabeth says it is better to know. Even when it hurts."

Elizabeth took the letters. Her own hands were not quite steady. She untied the blue ribbon, very gently, and took out the one on top. It was dated only three weeks before. My darling G, I am so glad you are home and so happy with your new sister. I am longing to see you. Do not forget our Thursday walk. Your ever-loving T.

She laid it on the table beside the letter from Rosings.

Nobody said anything for a long time.

The Rosings letter was round and careful and disguised, and Theodosia's note to Georgiana was quick and pretty and natural, and at a glance they were nothing alike. The capitals were different; the slope was different. But the small gs were the same. The g in longing, and the g in forget, and the g in ever-loving: every single one ended in a little hook, curving up and back, sharp as a fishhook.

Lady Catherine bent over the table with her lorgnette, very close, for a full minute. Then she straightened up. Her face was like stone.

"That is the same hand," she said. "I would swear to it in any court in England."

Georgiana made a small sound, and turned, and went out of the room.

Elizabeth went after her. She found her on the stairs, sitting on the fourth step with her face in her hands, not crying, only very still. She sat down beside her, and put her arm round her, and Georgiana leant against her without a word.