by Beth Poppet
At this, Georgiana relinquished her self-control in order to join Elizabeth in laughter. “I have hardly seen her above three times in the past six years,” Georgiana remarked, “but I hear much from Fitzwilliam regarding her… strength of mind and purpose.”
“What would you say to seeing her again?” Elizabeth posed.
“Why? Is she to come to Pemberley?”
“No, but she has asked you to visit her at Rosings Park. She is still unhappy with me and refuses to acknowledge our marriage. I believe she even used my maiden name when reluctantly referring to me at all.”
Georgiana’s expression betrayed her disapproval. “And you and Fitzwilliam wish me to go to her?”
“Your brother is reluctant to indulge any of her whims at this juncture, but I do take pity on her lonely estate. We thought the matter was best left to your discretion. Neither of us will press you against your will.”
“Travel to Rosings… alone?” Georgiana murmured, her thoughts troubled.
“You would not be alone,” Elizabeth consoled her. “Colonel Fitzwilliam would be your escort. Lady Catherine has practically commanded that he travel with you so that all things might be done properly.
“There is… another reason you may desire to be away from Pemberley for Easter,” she went on cautiously. “My sister, Mrs Wickham, has requested to come here. Although I would far rather have your company than hers, I fear I cannot escape my familial obligations any more than Mr Darcy can.”
“I would not be afraid to meet Mrs Wickham,” Georgiana said truthfully, “and I should be glad to know another one of your sisters.”
“Be that as it may, Lydia’s very personality can be extremely trying, and she will no doubt boast about her dashing husband by every possible expression. I would spare you that, even if I have every confidence in your courage and ability to forebear with all my sisters’ foibles.”
“It is so good of you to allow me the choice. I much prefer your version of protecting me than Fitzwilliam’s,” Georgiana smiled conspiratorially. “Though I know I should not complain. And…” she contemplated, “since I will be properly accompanied, and you say it will please Lady Catherine to have a Darcy at Rosings, I will go.”
“I confess, I had hoped you would.” Elizabeth did her utmost to appear innocent in her next declaration. “It will give me the chance to see Colonel Fitzwilliam again before you are off.”
“You are… fond of the colonel, then?” Some of Georgiana’s shyness returned and she dipped her head to conceal her eyes.
“Oh, immensely! He is everything that is gentlemanly and pleasant. He has no airs about him, nor does he pretend to be anything more than what he is. I do so hope that he finds a wife that is close to me so that I may selfishly enjoy his company more.”
Georgiana responded in little more than a murmur, “Such as Miss Catherine?”
“Kitty? No, she is not for him. But perhaps,” she said with a sly glance at a very quiet Georgiana, “Perhaps a close relation through marriage would suit. What do you think of the colonel, Georgiana?”
“Me? I… that is… he is… I like him very much.” She quickly followed with, “As a guardian, of course. He has always looked after me, and I should like… that is… well, it would not be quite proper for me to say more!”
“That is excellent news!” Elizabeth exclaimed, “I had hoped for some improper feelings to arise between the two of you.”
“Lizzy!”
She delighted to hear her most informal address uttered by Georgiana. “Well, we’ll leave it at that,” she merely grinned.
“Oh, please say nothing to Fitzwilliam!” Georgiana pleaded. “He worries so already, and I am afraid that if he suspected…”
“Suspected what? That his dear and trusted friend might have romantic designs on his sister, and she return them? I would hope such a revelation would come as glad tidings to him, but nevertheless I promise not to say a word to Mr Darcy unless otherwise instructed by either you or Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
“Oh, Arthur would never… I mean, I have no reason to suppose the colonel would…” Georgiana blushed crimson and looked exceedingly distressed. “Please forget I told you.”
“Now that I cannot do, for it pleases me greatly that you have confided in me, but I will promise not to tease nor hound you on the subject. I can be discreet in my hopes.”
“Thank you ever so much,” Georgiana said, brightening immediately. “I… have had no one to speak to of these feelings, and I am so foolish and ill-experienced in these matters that I have begun to think my feelings ignoble.”
“Nonsense,” Lizzy shook her head determinedly. “You are the dearest of young ladies, and I refuse to allow you to shame yourself over perfectly honourable affections. Why should you not love a man who has only sought your good and happiness for the whole of your relationship?”
“But what of his feelings?” she worried. “I fear he may see me only as Fitzwilliam does; a girl far too young and imprudent to form a more serious attachment.”
“I do not believe that is the colonel’s opinion of you,” Elizabeth mused aloud, “but I would rather you hear all from his own lips.” She raised a single brow in meditative scheming. “Perhaps your visit to Rosings will provide opportunities of the same nature that your brother and I had there.”
Chapter Six
Colonel Fitzwilliam stretched languidly in the carriage, his boot heels resting on the floor just shy of Georgiana’s elegantly shod toe tips. He raised his eyebrows comically when it was evidenced that she took note of his change in position.
“Might as well enjoy the breach of deportment while we can,” he grinned with a twinkle of spirited mischief in his eye.
Georgiana offered a faint smile through her discomfort. She was not overly fond of carriage rides and the nausea that came of the bumpy method of travelling, but as she could not expect to walk to Rosings Park from Pemberley she was prepared to steel herself and bear the lurching coach.
“Are you well, Georgie?” He sat a little straighter and leaned forward in examination of her strained features. “You are usually ready with a well-deserved chastisement over my carelessness.”
She shook her head, a stretch of smoother road and the pressure of placing a hand to her temple rallying her a little. “Truthfully, carriage travel makes me feel ill,” she murmured, “but I am able to endure it.” She took a deep, steadying breath and added, “Your lack of decorum is a welcome distraction.”
His frowned hardened. “Had I known, I would have scheduled more stops along the way. But how have I not known this about you?”
He turned his scowl to her attendant; a woman of Georgiana’s own chusing who seemed more concerned with the landscape outside the window than the wellbeing of her mistress. Her round face and large eyes made her appear younger than her tenure suggested. Georgiana was known to employ maids who were in more need of her than she of them, and so long as they could see to the minimum requirements of dressing and adorning his sister properly, Darcy allowed it. Currently, the lady in question was gazing blankly at the wall of trees they rolled steadily by. Her youthful face betrayed neither pleasure nor distraction to be found there, and yet she was apparently transfixed.
“Does your lady there have nothing handy with which to aid you?” he grumbled.
“Oh,” Georgiana said in a hush, “I have never burdened Polly with my travelling complaints. It is such a trifling discomfort, I did not think it necessary for her to know.”
Polly stirred briefly at the sound of her name but did not seem to realise any matters of true concern were being discussed. She returned to gazing stupidly at the greenery.
“Burdened? Georgie, it’s her responsibility to be concerned about your wellbeing. She should have noticed! I should have noticed,” he glowered at Polly, but was too ashamed of his own inattention to make much of the negligence of Georgiana’s servants.
“Do not distress yourself,” she said cheerfully, though still paler than
was usual. “I have peppermints in my bag should I feel especially unwell. Unless you object to such an unladylike display of sucking on a sweetie,” she teased.
“By all means,” he urged, “take as many as you wish. And I insist on you informing me at once if your discomfort increases so I that can have the driver make an impromptu stop. We can take a short walk to and from the carriage before heading on.”
“I think I should rather make less stops and get the worst of it over with,” she flinched in a brave attempt to hide a grimace. “The sooner we arrive, the sooner I can rest and forget all about carriage rides until the return journey home.”
“Mm. But there will be another kind of torture, I fear. For then we are to dine with Lady Catherine and our dismal cousin every night.”
Glad to be speaking of something other than her current discomfort, Georgiana asked him, “Will she approve of me, do you think? It has been so long since I’ve seen her.” A new worry formed in her head. “Perhaps she will find me… lacking.”
“You are the least likely person not to pass muster for Lady Catherine’s impossible standards,” he assured her. “And since I know you cannot bear to contradict anyone openly, she will have no reason whatsoever to dislike you.”
Georgiana was reminded of Elizabeth’s open contradictions and the objections Lady Catherine held against her brother for chusing to marry such a woman in spite of all. Georgiana did not think she was likely to speak out against her aunt, but neither did she suppose she could sit silently by if Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth were slandered in her presence. “Supposing I find myself capable of contradicting her?” she fretted. “Will I be the reason she refuses to acknowledge Elizabeth and cuts off my brother for good?”
The colonel’s outburst was a cross between a chuckle and a scoff. “If she provokes even you to open rebellion, I can only imagine it would be well deserved. Darcy and Elizabeth are more than able to fight their own battles. Don’t you fret about them.”
“What of you?” she pressed. “Will you be sentenced to a yearly journey to Rosings without company?”
“Oh, wretched prospect!” he cried. “I hadn’t thought of that. Look, Georgie,” he narrowed his eyes in an exaggerated fashion, “don’t say a single thing to displease her. It was hard enough when I had only Darcy to distract. Now that she hasn’t got him to play matchmaker with, and her new vicar came with a wife, I’m terrified of facing her alone. You musn’t leave me for a moment.”
She managed to smile through another wave of unpleasantness twisting about in her gut. “And here I thought you were come to look after me.”
“That goes without question.” His expression turned grave. “Georgiana, I do wish you would let us stop. I have never seen you so pale.”
“I think…” her breath came short and laboured, “yes, I think we should.”
The driver was bid to cease and not a moment too soon, for Georgiana stumbled directly into a copse of bushes to be sick. Colonel Fitzwilliam bade her sit some yards away while he fetched a bit of water from an obliging stream. The flask he offered had a strong scent notwithstanding its contents, and Georgiana knew he had emptied it of some stronger drink before refilling it with stream water for her.
To her credit, Polly was not entirely unmoved by her mistress’s state. She wet a kerchief in the stream for the Miss Darcy to put against her face, although it was sopping wet and required a good deal of wringing out before it was suitable for such use.
It was Colonel Fitzwilliam, however, who did the greater part of the nursing. He loosened her bonnet strings, wrung the sopping kerchief to apply to her head and neck, wet her lips with the stream water, and instructed that the top of the coach be let down while Georgiana rested and recovered. His attentive ministrations caused her to recall Elizabeth’s expressed desire for their journey to provide opportunities of a more romantic nature. These thoughts only increased her distress and confusion, for she could not be certain that there was anything smacking of love in the obligatory care of an ill and incapable charge. In fact, she could not discern a great difference between the way he looked after her now, and the way her brother tended to her as a feverish child.
Her distress over this so provoked her that when the colonel returned it was to a fully sitting and almost indignant Georgiana.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “You’ve regained some of your colour.” He stooped to assist her, presuming she would gladly be carried back to the coach. Instead of the demure acquiescence he expected from her, he was met with a stiff shrug.
“I am well enough to walk on my own,” she insisted, and made an awkward effort at standing.
“Nonsense,” he uttered, but was answered by a vehement shake of her head that resulted in her bonnet tumbling off and into the road. Both rushed to retrieve the article, and their foreheads collided painfully.
Now frustrated beyond measure, and ashamed that her attempts to appear able only caused more distress and prompted an outpouring of profuse apologies on the colonel’s part, Georgiana felt she had no choice but to relent to his carrying her after all, though her eyes filled with tears and she refused to meet his questioning gaze as he tucked his overcoat around her to prevent the open air giving her a chill.
His arms were as deft and sure in their labours of compassion as they had ever been, his attention to her comfort unmatched, and yet it gave her no solace in her current state, as it was no more than he would have done for any other young lady in distress. For he was, after all, the most chivalrous of men, and everyone who had the pleasure of his acquaintance knew this as certainly as Georgiana knew she loved him for it.
“I am so terribly sorry, Georgie,” he said yet again.
“Please,” she begged with quivering lip and lowered head, “Do not make further apologies, or I shall…” the thought was broken off by a single sob that hailed the beginning of her weeping.
Supposing her anguish to be brought about by physical discomfort and exhaustion, he was powerless to do anything but sit in silence and wait for her to have her cry.
“Is there nothing I can do?” he pressed, once she had done with her tears and was more or less composed again.
She raised her tired, swollen eyes to him. “Forget this entire dreadful journey?”
His look promised no such ability, but he said nothing aloud to declare a refusal.
∞∞∞
Their welcome to the great house at Rosings Park was stunted by the formalities of Lady Catherine which were swiftly followed by a hard chastisement of the colonel’s negligence in the care of her niece, since it was evident Georgiana had been horribly shaken in the carriage and should not even come down to dine, but was bid to go straight to bed in the chamber prepared for her. Georgiana weakly attempted to defend Colonel Fitzwilliam, but she was in no state to make any real protests, even on his account.
“This all comes of riding so often alone on horseback,” Lady Catherine’s sharp reprimands against her guardian assaulted Georgiana’s ears as she trudged up the stairs. “You are entirely unused to the accoutrements necessary for the proper comfort and pleasure of carriage travel, sir. I am very attentive to these things, Colonel, and you would do well to remember that the first rule of travelling with a young lady is…”
Georgiana cast a repentant glance over her shoulder, but Colonel Fitzwilliam caught her eye and told her through his amused smile that she need not lose rest over his current dealings with her opinionated aunt.
Georgiana was well recovered by the following morning, and she made her best attempts at diverting Lady Catherine’s attentions with her musical concerts and cheerful acquiescence to all her suggestions, both reasonable and otherwise so that the perceived transgression of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s was entirely forgotten in the wake of her apparent health. By the time dinner was served, Georgiana’s eagerness to please and have everyone in harmony with each other had set a mood for the household that was quite nearly cheerful, though the atmosphere was soon to change thanks to Lad
y Catherine’s dinner guests.
The new vicar and his wife had been asked to dine with them that evening; an unsurprising development as it was well known how seriously Lady Catherine considered her duty to men of the cloth and their families, most especially those under her own employ.
Mr Brooke was a tall, severe looking man with sharp, piercing eyes of blue, and an even sharper nose, the likes of which make a rather alarming combination whenever both were fixed in one’s direction. He said very little, but what he did say was spoken with vigour and self-assurance, usually with some troubling use of scripture that implied every opinion of his held great moral authority.
While Georgiana did not take to the new vicar at all, his wife thoroughly confused her into forming no real opinion of her whatsoever. She was a plump, active woman with greying hair who sighed audibly at intervals but didn’t seem to realise it was she who did so, as whenever Lady Catherine begged her to desist, she giggled jovially and denied having been the source of such vulgar expressions. Her husband’s censure of particular patterns in speech and decorum did not move nor shame her, nor did he look particularly mindful of the fact that his wife was everything he criticised punctiliously in other women.
Georgiana was never so relieved to be seated beside Anne at dinner, despite her cousin’s propensity to uphold a mournful silence throughout. It was then with great surprise and delight that she heard Anne’s voice; small, but distinct, addressing her between courses. “Do you see much of Mary?”
It was uttered with such an air of secrecy, Georgiana could not be certain that she had heard correctly at first. “Pardon?”
“Mary Bennet,” Anne said as dismally as if she spoke of one dead and gone. “She was my companion for a time while Mrs Jenkins was occupied with a family crisis. I thought her a rather diverting amusement, but Mama sent her away,” Anne’s voice dropped to an even lower register which made understanding her doubly challenging, “after the scandal, you know. She could not tolerate the connexion to… Well, you know of whom I speak.”
