Miss Darcy cast a quick look around her, as if to ensure they were still alone in the hall, then quickly drew close. “Miss Bennet, would you like to take a turn about the garden with me? We might continue our conversation there with more ease.”
Elizabeth nodded her assent and they egressed into the lovely spring morning.
Elizabeth would say this about Kent: its reputation as the garden of England was not exaggerated. Rosings Park was veritably blooming over with the early buds of the season. Green life was bursting forth from every limb of the great park trees, and snowdrops had given way to daffodils, crocuses, and bluebells. Elizabeth could not but imagine that Lady Catherine would allow her displays to be second to none, and properly appreciated the beauty that resulted.
Miss Darcy led them down a somewhat secluded path, one that Elizabeth instantly recognized as being preferable mainly due to its complete inability of being viewed from the many finely glazed windows of the house.
Soon after they took the first turn down the path, Miss Darcy began to speak in her soft, hesitant voice. “You said you were a friend of Mr. Wickham’s?”
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “Yes. Briefly. He had recently joined the militia stationed in the town near Longbourn, and as my younger sisters were quite fond of associating with the officers, we were often thrown together.”
“I see.” The girl was quiet for a long moment. “I suppose it does not signify, seeing as how Mr. Wickham is…deceased, but in the interest of your younger sisters, and of the company that they still keep, I feel it necessary to warn you that Mr. Wickham was not as charming as he must have appeared to you. His charm masked a….careless character. I should not like it if your sisters were taken in by a gentleman of a similar type. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead,” she added quickly. “But as a man can be known by the company he keeps, I cannot guarantee that the friends of Mr. Wickham are any better than he was.”
Elizabeth nodded soberly. “I am aware from both Mr. Wickham and from your brother that there existed a disagreement between the two men.”
“A disagreement!” Miss Darcy blurted.
Somewhat chastened, Elizabeth continued. “I thank you for thinking of my sisters. They are lively girls, and I admit that when I was at home I was often in the habit of making sure they did not run wild. What is it, do you think, about an officer of the militia that can so turn a young lady’s head? The red coats, do you imagine?”
Miss Darcy’s voice was barely above a whisper when she replied. “There was no red coat when I knew Mr. Wickham. His coat was blue, and a very fine one at that.”
“Ah, a blue coat can charm every bit as well as a red one, in the right circumstances,” Elizabeth replied lightly. “For the latter denotes the bravery of a soldier, and the former the charm of a dandy, and both are pitched to cause extreme devastation in the minds of the female sex.”
“You tease me.”
“Not at all,” Elizabeth lied. “I only wish to speak of something more pleasant than a man stolen from the world long before his time. The topic proved distressing to us both, and I believe the coats of handsome gentlemen might be more to our liking.”
Miss Darcy gave her a shy smile. “I do so like your way of speaking, Miss Bennet. You remind me of my friends from school, whom I have not seen in many months. The society of my cousin and Mrs. Jenkinson is not so entertaining.”
“I am glad to hear you say so. I am afraid that everyone at Rosings thinks my opinions as impertinent as Lady Catherine does.”
“Oh, she is not amused by anyone’s opinions but her own. My brother has a positively terrible time whenever we visit. It is a relief to me that at least he was spared on this occasion.”
But at the mention of Mr. Darcy, his sister turned somber once more.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said quickly, “I know how ready your brother is with a firmly held opinion, and how little he likes to have them gainsaid.”
When she looked over, it was to see Miss Darcy smiling slightly, and biting her lip in order to better pretend that she was not.
They walked nearly the whole length of the path in an easy silence, and when they turned to go the way they came, Miss Darcy reached out and stopped Elizabeth with a hand on her wrist.
“Miss Bennet, I know you no longer wish to discuss the tragic events that occurred in Hertfordshire—”
“Oh, no,” Elizabeth insisted. “I only sought to change the topic of our conversation because I believed you to be discomfited by it.”
“My discomfort is from another source,” the girl admitted. “Yesterday, when we were walking, I was surprised to learn the name of the deceased. I had heard only ‘a man’ and knew at once the story to be the most outrageous and impossible falsehood.”
“As any good sister should.”
“My brother is the best of all men, Miss Bennet.”
Again, the only correct impression a nice young lady might have of her elder brother.
Miss Darcy went on. “I have found myself much grieved over the past few months to learn that anyone might be saying he was responsible for ordering the death of a man. That would be beyond his comprehension.”
“I believe you,” said Elizabeth, very quickly. “Whatever faults Mr. Darcy may have, I could never believe him capable of killing someone.”
Miss Darcy hesitated for a good half a minute of silence, then finally continued. “There are many ways to kill, are there not? Cold-blooded murder, or the hiring of an assassin, or the types of deaths which may come to pass in an affair of honor…” The end of her sentence hung in the air.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. Had the original rumor spread as well? “An affair of honor?”
“A duel.” Her countenance was pale, her hands clasped tight before her like a prayer. “I know that I cannot expect you to know, but you spoke so confidently yesterday, when you said that Mr. Wickham’s death was a mere accident, that I wondered if you knew aught of what befell him.”
She shook her head vehemently. “Miss Darcy. There was no duel. There was an accident. Mr. Wickham carried a pistol, and it misfired.”
“You cannot know for sure.”
It was her eyes that undid Elizabeth. Her eyes which, in that moment, somehow reminded Elizabeth of Mr. Darcy’s. Starry and pleading—not on her own behalf—but to protect someone else.
“Oh, but I do know, Miss Darcy,” she said most solemnly, taking the girl’s hands between her own. “I swear to you, there was no duel.”
A crease appeared in the center of the girl’s brow. “You saw it occur?”
She gave the tiniest of nods.
Around them, the spring wind blew, crisp and fresh, but it was as if they had entered another world entirely.
“You must not tell anyone,” Elizabeth said, her voice hardly carried over the breath of the wind. “Not even your brother, for I know he should not like to know I have shared such a violent and distressing tale.”
“I promise. I promise most solemnly!” came Miss Darcy’s hushed exclamation. “But—you mean to tell me that my brother was there, too?”
“Alas, he was. I can only imagine that this is the origin of such a vile story as has been whispered. For do not the most powerful lies contain some measure of the truth?” Elizabeth shook her head. “It was a terrible tragedy, what befell Mr. Wickham. But I shall not forget the expression upon Mr. Darcy’s face. He was as horrified as I was to realize that Mr. Wickham’s own weapon had discharged.”
Miss Darcy was not yet convinced. “There is nothing more to it than that?”
Elizabeth swallowed. “I should offend you if I said any more.”
“You shall destroy me if you do not. Please, Miss Bennett, I have suffered so greatly. Do you even know why I am here in Kent?”
“I confess I do not.”
“I should be in London, but my aunt and uncle believe it is best to avoid town while these rumors persist. I cannot ask my brother. I write to him, but I have no sense that the letters have eve
n reached his hand. He has certainly not responded.”
How singular! From all she knew of Mr. Darcy, he doted on his sister. She could not imagine a failure to correspond. “Is your brother in London, or home at Pemberley?”
“He is in neither place,” Miss Darcy replied with a sob. “He is not in England at all!”
“What?” She could not withhold her surprise.
“He was supposed to travel to Belgium and no further, but we received word that he did not go in the direction that we thought. Everyone is most worried about him. My cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, speaks of following him to the continent. He shares his guardianship of me with my brother, and thus… I come here.”
Elizabeth did not know what to say. How wild a venture it seemed, and how unlike the Mr. Darcy she had known at Netherfield. He had always been so stiff and proper, when she had known him. Able to conduct conversations as to a ladies’ accomplished screen-covering and the proper assembly at which to dance but betraying no deeper passions.
Although, that had not always been the case, had it? There had been that moment of unexamined laughter, in the rain by the yew. She’d nearly thought him possessed. And then again, the moment of unhinged anger, when he had leapt upon Mr. Wickham for insulting Elizabeth.
She had known him so little, when given the chance.
“Please,” Miss Darcy begged. “I know nothing. I am the closest relative he has in the world, but because they think I am a foolish child, they keep it all from me. And I have made foolish mistakes—I know I have—but I love my brother like my life, and I must know what has driven him from England’s shores.”
A wave of sympathy hit Elizabeth. Miss Darcy might be as young as Lydia, but there was sense and discernment in her every word. Even at the height of her distress, she could give logical and understandable reasons for her pain, and for wanting to know the information her elders were keeping from her.
Elizabeth shut her eyes, gathering her courage. “You are not mistaken. There is more to this story. Please understand that I tell you only in the hopes that it might soothe your spirits.”
The girl let out a strangled sob.
“Mr. Darcy is a greater gentleman than I had given him credit for. For Mr. Wickham was behaving in a most scandalous and appalling way toward me, and Mr. Darcy came upon us, and that is what began their argument. They—they came to blows, it is true, but it was only in the service of trying to protect me.”
There. She had shocked the girl. She must have, for what little color remained on Miss Darcy’s face had all drained away, and she stared, unblinking, at Elizabeth for nearly a minute.
At last, she appeared to come to a resolution, and her countenance smoothed over. She turned in the lane and offered Elizabeth her arm.
“Then we are sisters, and more alike than you can imagine. I thank you for telling me this. You have given me more peace than I have felt in many months.”
Elizabeth tentatively took the other girl’s arm, turning over this new information. “Miss Darcy—”
“You must call me Georgiana.” She ducked her head. “If it pleases you.”
Elizabeth smiled. “It does. And you may call me Elizabeth.”
She nodded and they walked on in silence for a while. Finally, Georgiana spoke again, her voice hushed. “It was last summer. I had gone to Ramsgate-by-the-Sea with my companion at the time. My brother was to meet us there when he had concluded some business, but before he came, I met with Mr. Wickham. I had not seen him in many years, since I was a young child. But I remembered him so fondly. He used to make me clever little boats of paper, and climb trees to fetch me nuts. Of course I worshipped him, just as I worshipped my own brother. He had grown, though, as I had. He was such a handsome young man, his conversation always so easy and charming. I had not had the opportunity to talk to many men outside my own family. That is, I believe, why it happened.”
Elizabeth listened in silence.
“I viewed him as an old family friend. And given that he had grown up at Pemberley, my companion and I saw no reason we should not associate with him. We did not even think to inform my brother of our renewed acquaintance.” She stopped speaking for a long time. “If I should fault him for anything—even the slightest part of my own behavior— it is that my brother kept secret from me that they had quarreled after our father’s death. Had I known Mr. Wickham was not welcome at home, I shouldn’t have—” she broke off.
Elizabeth squeezed her hand, ever so slightly.
“I cannot believe he is dead, even now.”
“Nor can I, sometimes,” said Elizabeth softly.
“You knew how charming he could be. He must have charmed you, too.”
“He was very amiable,” Elizabeth said. “Indeed, I thought myself half in love with him for a time. But I knew him far less than I had supposed.”
Georgiana bit her lip. “I thought myself most desperately in love with him. And I thought him in love with me. I… I nearly eloped with him.”
Elizabeth was all astonishment. But the girl was so young! She could not have been sixteen last summer. “What happened to prevent it?”
“My brother,” Georgiana confessed. “By God’s grace, he arrived at Ramsgate the day before we were to leave for Scotland. I was overjoyed to see him. I thought surely I could make him see how well-suited it all was, despite my youth. And he is all things good. Too good to me, by half. How angry he must have been—now, given what I know of their disagreements, I cannot conceive of how he kept it hidden. And yet, all he did was encourage me to wait, and remind me that my fortune would not be my own for several years yet.”
At once, Elizabeth could see the workings of Mr. Darcy’s mind. How very clever. He should not have wanted to scare his sister, for that would most certainly have sent her rushing into the arms of his enemy. And yet, he must have known what Mr. Wickham was after. Were the Darcy fortune all that she had been given to understand, Georgiana must have quite a prodigious dowry.
“I believed it only a trifle in the face of our pure and perfect love. But I had been deceived. Mr. Wickham never wanted me. He wanted my fortune. And when it became clear he’d have to wait, he relinquished both. He left Ramsgate without saying goodbye.” She blinked away tears.
“I am so sorry,” Elizabeth said, quite sincerely, as Georgiana made use of her handkerchief.
“I know not how Mr. Wickham imposed himself upon you—”
“I have little enough in the way of fortune,” Elizabeth confessed with a false sense of merriment. “As you know, my father’s estate is entailed.”
Inwardly, she cringed.
That Bennet chit has nothing, and thus nothing that can tempt me to marriage. All I was after was a bit of fun.
No wonder Mr. Darcy had been enraged enough to strike him.
“We were both used most badly by the deceased,” was all Georgiana said. “And both saved by my brother.”
“Miss Darcy!” The breathless voice of Mrs. Jenkinson carried over the hedgerows. “Oh, Miss Darcy!”
The girls hurried back into the open.
“There you are,” the woman declared. She was panting, her face all red. “Her ladyship has been most worried about you, walking about all alone.” She gave Elizabeth a most meaningful glance.
“I have just been showing Miss Bennet the garden,” Georgiana said.
Mrs. Jenkinson seemed at a loss.
“I suppose I should return to Mr. Collins,” said Elizabeth. “Her ladyship must be finished with him by now.”
“Goodbye, Miss Bennet.” Georgiana squeezed her hand. “And thank you.”
Elizabeth watched her new friend walk back into the house alongside Mrs. Jenkinson.
Soon enough, she met Mr. Collins on the path leading out of Rosings, and he scolded her some for wandering off and on the importance of allowing Lady Catherine and her family all the privilege that their rank conveyed.
“Oh, indeed, Mr. Collins,” she replied. “Which was why I thought it prudent to
acquiesce to Miss Darcy’s request to take a turn with her in the garden.”
He said very little the rest of the walk home, to Elizabeth’s pleasure. The Kentish wind was sweet and fragrant, and Elizabeth took great lungfuls of it. The mysteries that had plagued her since the night of the Netherfield ball made so much more sense to her now. She might have been mistaken in her conclusions once, but she would not allow her judgement to ever again become so clouded. The Darcys were not what she had been led to believe. Neither of them.
And to think that the man himself had left England. She would never see Mr. Darcy again, but she hoped he would approve of the secrets she had told his sister. She hoped very much that he’d understand why, and that, wherever he was in the world, he had found his own peace.
Chapter 17
Over the next several weeks, Elizabeth came to appreciate one particular aspect of the visits by the residents of the Hunsford parsonage to Rosings. Much like herself, Georgiana Darcy was no card player, and so when the others would make their tables, she was always certain to find a better means of passing the time.
In addition to her skills at the pianoforte, Georgiana was also well-read and well-spoken on many topics, despite her young age, and what she lacked in actual knowledge, she more than made up for in enthusiastic curiosity. Elizabeth had hardly to mention a title that she found intriguing but she would soon learn that Georgiana had called it up for her from the Rosings Park library, if it could be found, and once the girl even informed her that she had sent word home to her housekeeper at Pemberley to see if it could be found in that collection.
If Mr. Darcy were at all to account for her education, Elizabeth must regret her earlier teasing of his high standards. She had also to regret that she had not been so fastidious in ensuring her own sisters’ efforts. Though Elizabeth had always been encouraged to read by her father, she had the addition of an active and hungry mind, like his, to help her. His admonitions had been easy to encompass as part of her own nature. Jane and Mary, too, found a great joy and comfort within the pages of a book. But Kitty and Lydia disliked the activity and had never been given alternatives with which to whet their minds. Instead, they had been left to an idleness that, like their mother’s, bloomed into silly ignorance.
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