Remorse and Reconciliation

by Don Miller

  She went to her desk in her room and took out a stack of letters. She leafed through them, taking out three of them. She then started perusing them, one by one. “In the first letter he mentions her as being a pretty and vivacious young lady whom everyone seems to like. In the second, he says she spent four days at Netherfield, while her sister recovered from a cold and fever. He was very impressed she was willing to walk three miles on muddy ground to tend her sister and how she did not let Miss Bingley intimidate her, no matter how hard Miss Bingley tried. In the third he said he had some interesting conversations with her, in some cases almost like verbal combat, and said he was looking forward to dancing with her at a ball Mr. Bingley was hosting. These statements of his may not seem like much to you, but they are the first time he has ever mentioned a woman he has met in more than one letter, and then usually just in passing. That was why I thought he must like her more than any other woman he had met. But then, as I said, when he came home, he did not mention her and when I asked about her, he said she was a fine young woman whom he would probably never see again. I remember, the way he said it, it was obvious he did not want to discuss her anymore. Perhaps he was unhappy he saw her again at Rosings, which was why he did not mention it.”

  “May I ask, would you have been upset if your brother had courted my sister and married her?”

  “Why would I be upset? If she could make him happy, I would be ecstatic. I do not think he is happy with his life as it is. He tries to hide it, but I think he is lonely and does not want to be a bachelor all his life. He wants a compatible wife and is extremely frustrated he cannot find one to suit him.”

  “But our social status and wealth are so below yours. If he married someone such as Lizzie, would that not lower your family’s status in the eyes of your peers? Are you not worried it would affect your chance of finding an acceptable man?”

  “I suppose it might have some effect, but if she is as fantastic as you say she is, I cannot believe it would affect us much. Besides, Will is not all that enamored of the ton. I think he would be perfectly happy not participating in it at all. I believe once I debut and become married, he may stop participating completely if either he is not married, or he is and his wife is not interested in participating. As for me being concerned, I am not. I am reasonably pretty, have a large dowry, and a strong family tree, and we have friends and family who are important members of high society who will not desert us. Whatever might be the initial effect of Will marrying someone of lower status, it will not affect me much. Besides, I am not sure the ton is the best place for me to find a man. There are many good and noble families in England who are not a part of the ton.”

  Kitty was quiet for a long time, considering whether she should tell Georgiana about Will’s proposal to Elizabeth. Finally she decided she would. “Georgie, I want to tell you something Lizzie told me I could tell you if I thought you believed she and your brother might be a good couple. Will you promise to keep it a secret and not tell your brother that I told you?”

  “I promise. Did she tell you that she really likes my brother?”

  “Yes, but it is more than that. When your brother first saw Lizzie, Bingley asked him why he did not dance with her, and he said ‘she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; besides I do not intend to give consequence to young women who are slighted by other men.’ He saw her sitting out one of the few dances she did not dance only because there were fewer men than women and she did not think it was right she dance every dance. Hearing that upset her and made her think she could not like him. Then Mr. Wickham convinced everybody in Meryton that your brother had denied him something your father had promised him, and that made her think even more poorly of him. And finally, when she was at Rosings Park, Col. Fitzwilliam informed her that your brother was happy he had been able to save Bingley from an inappropriate marriage, by which he was referring to a marriage with my sister Jane. This, combined with the insult and Mr. Wickham’s disparagement of your brother, convinced my sister that your brother would be someone she would never marry. The day after she learned of your brother’s part in separating Jane and Bingley, she was reading a letter from Jane, telling her how unhappy Jane was to have lost Bingley. As she was reading it, your brother visited her and confessed he was in love with her and wanted to marry her. However, he started his proposal by listing all the reasons why he should not be interested in marrying her – her low status, her lack of wealth, and her inappropriate family. Thus before he actually asked her to marry him, he basically insulted her. As you can imagine, this is not the way to ask someone like Lizzie to marry you. She, of course, refused and cited all of her reasons why she would not. She even told him he was probably the last man in the world she would ever marry.”

  Georgiana was shaking her head as Kitty finished. “So he insulted her twice, but she insulted him by accepting Mr. Wickham’s disparagement of him. However, I know what a good liar Mr. Wickham is. By what you first said, that she now thinks my brother is a good man, do you think she wishes she had accepted his proposal?”

  “She does not say that specifically, but I think her opinion of your brother is almost the opposite of what it was before. She wants to know how he feels about her now. Both he and she have high standards for their spouses, and she, at least, thinks he may be one of the few men who will satisfy her standards. Her question is: has she so turned him against her that he would never even consider courting her?”

  Georgiana was silent for a minute and then said, “Why do we not go find out?”

  “How?”

  “Trust me. I will not give him any more information that he needs to have.”

  A few minutes later Georgiana knocked on Darcy’s study and when he invited her to enter, they entered together.

  “So what brings the two of you here looking so serious? Is there a problem?”

  “Yes, there is, Will,” said Georgiana. “Kitty just received a letter from her sister, Elizabeth, and she mentions she saw you in Kent. Why did you never tell me? And why did you write to me about her when you were in Hertfordshire and then never mention her again?”

  “I did tell you when you asked me about her when I returned from Hertfordshire that she was a young lady I met whom I would probably never see again. I did happen to see her in Kent, but nothing happened about which I thought you needed to know.”

  “So you do not think she is something special? She is just like all these other women you have met?”

  “I have a feeling you know more than you are telling me about. What did she tell Kitty and what did Kitty tell you?”

  “She said she thought you disliked her, and I want to know why she thinks that, because Kitty thinks she is a very special woman whom I would like.”

  “I do not dislike her, and I consider her a very pretty, intelligent, accomplished young woman. However, she and I do not happen to get along very well. I believe the truth of the matter is that she does not like me.”

  “Then why would she tell Kitty that she thinks you are a good man?”

  “There is no conflict between her thinking I am a good man and her disliking me. I am a good man and she is a good woman, and we do not happen to get along. That is all.”

  “Then I assume you do not want me to invite Elizabeth here so she can see the beauty of Pemberley and talk with us about the curriculum we are studying.”

  After some contemplation, Darcy said, “I have to go to London in September for a few days. If you want to invite her, why do you not invite her to be here while I am gone?”

  “So you want to completely avoid her.”

  “I would prefer that. After our last, rather contentious meeting, I think it would be somewhat awkward for us to meet. If you ask her, I believe she will agree with you. I will probably leave the 12th and return the 30th. Invite her to spend a week or two between those two dates. Now, I need to get back to my books. Is there anything else?”

  “No, there is not. I will send her a letter and see if she can
come then.”

  When they arrived back at their sitting room, Kitty said, in a discouraged tone, “I guess there is no hope for your brother and my sister.”

  A smiling Georgiana said, “I think you are quite wrong. I know my brother quite well, and I believe he still cares for your sister. I think he is afraid, if he sees her, he will realize he is still in love with her and is sure she would refuse him again. I think we should invite her to be here from September 18th until at least October 3rd.”

  “But will not Will just change his travel dates when he finds out when we have invited her?"

  “He would, but I do not intend to tell him the dates we chose for her. He may be upset they are not between the dates he said he would be gone, but then again, he may not.”

  Darcy’s Journal: May 5, 1809

  Georgie and Kitty came to me today after Kitty received a letter from Elizabeth. I do not know how much Elizabeth told Kitty, but she at least told her she and I had seen each other while I was at Rosings Park and Elizabeth was in Hunsford. Georgie wanted to know why I had not told her about it, and I decided she did not know I had proposed to Elizabeth, therefore, I just told her nothing happened I thought she needed to know. They also asked me if I disliked her; I told her I did not dislike her, that she disliked me. She then told me Elizabeth had said I was good man. I wonder what she means by that. Was she sending a message by her sister that her feelings about me have changed? Does it make any difference to me? She is still not suitable for me.

  They want Elizabeth to visit, as I was afraid they would, so I told them about my planned trip to London in September. They will invite her to be here while I am gone. I am not sure I could keep my resolve about her if I see her wandering the halls or walking the trails of Pemberley. She is still, in terms of character and personality, the only woman I have ever met to whom I can imagine being married.

  Chapter 8: Elizabeth Visits Pemberley

  Darcy had agreed that Elizabeth should not have to take post coaches to Lambton, therefore, the day after he reached London, he sent his big carriage to Longbourn to pick up Elizabeth and take her to Pemberley. He had a smaller carriage at Darcy House which he usually used when he was only traveling around town.

  He also sent a maid to ride with Elizabeth so she would not have to travel alone. After three and a half rather pleasant days on the road in the most luxurious carriage in which she had ever ridden and an amiable maid named Leila for company, they arrived at the entrance to the Pemberley. About ten minutes after entering the Pemberley drive, the driver halted the carriage and the footman opened the door. “Miss Elizabeth,” said Leila. “First time visitors to Pemberley usually stop here and walk out to the overlook for their first sight of Pemberley. If you will allow me, I will guide you to the overlook.”

  Elizabeth was happy to comply and she and Leila were soon walking on a well-worn path between the trees next to the drive. When they came out of the trees, Elizabeth caught her breath. Before her, spread out over many acres, was one of the most beautiful estate parks she had ever seen. The house was a big as a castle and looked as if it had a large inner courtyard. The formal gardens immediately around it were gorgeous and transitioned into the less formal park which was further away from the house. There was a small lake behind the house and streams running in and out of it and she could see a drive all around the lake as well as a maze and trails going up into the ridge behind the house. The blend of the formal and informal was magnificent. She stood there for ten minutes, just enjoying the sight, before returning to the carriage and completing the ride to the house.

  When they reached the house, the carriage pulled under the arch in the front wing of the house and into the cobblestone courtyard. There, where the carriage stopped before the main doors which were in the back, main wing of the house, were Kitty and a young lady she presumed was Georgiana Darcy, waiting for her.

  When she descended from the carriage, Kitty rushed forward and hugged her. “Lizzie, it is so good to see you. Did you have a good trip?”

  “It was wonderful. This carriage is so comfortable, I felt like I was riding on air. And the inns where we stopped were also wonderful. I was treated like a princess. I now know what it is like to travel as a member of high society, and I must admit, it is a pleasing experience.”

  “I am glad. Now, let me introduce you to my good friend, Georgiana Darcy. Georgie, this is my sister Elizabeth.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Darcy, and since I hope we will be friends, please call me Lizzie.”

  “I am pleased to meet you, Lizzie, and you must call me Georgie. I have been looking forward to meeting you for a long time. Actually, almost a year, since my brother first wrote me about you when he was in Hertfordshire.”

  “He wrote you about me? Oh dear, I hope he was not too severe on me.”

  “Oh, no. He was quite complementary. He said you were pretty, vivacious, intelligent, and talented and he enjoyed speaking with you. He had never said anything such thing to me about any woman he had met before, so I was sure you must be someone special.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide as she heard what Georgiana was telling her. “He said that about me? I can scarce believe it. I believed he thought me quite plain and disapproved of me at the time.”

  “That certainly was not the impression his letters gave. Come in. Let me show you to your room. Since my brother is not here, I am going to put you in a room in the family wing next to Kitty. Then we can be close together while you are here.”

  The house, to Elizabeth, was as impressive on the inside as it was on the outside. She had expected something more austere, but it was decorated in a country style which seemed particularly fitting for an estate in the area in which it was located. It was exactly the kind of understated elegance she favored. There was no big glass chandelier or marble walls in the two story entrance hall, but beautifully wooden paneled walls with very old, but well-preserved tapestries of country scenes hanging on the upper half of the walls. The chandelier was a free-form wooden and copper masterpiece such as she had never seen before. She found it difficult not to gawk as they traversed the entrance hall to the main staircase. There to greet them at the bottom of the staircase were an older lady and man. Georgiana presented them as Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, and Parker, the butler.

  Georgiana then led Elizabeth up to the first floor and down the hall to her bedroom, which was larger than any bedroom in which she had ever slept and beautifully appointed in country French motif. Leila was already there, unpacking Elizabeth’s luggage.

  “Hello, Leila,” said Georgiana. “I was so excited to see Miss Elizabeth, I did not notice you were sent to be her lady’s maid.” She turned to Elizabeth. “You are lucky to have Leila assigned to be your lady’s maid. She is Mrs. Reynold’s granddaughter and one of our best, even if she is quite young.”

  “She told me she was Mrs. Reynolds granddaughter, and I was pleased she was assigned to me, because I enjoyed speaking with her on the way here. I feel I already know much about Pemberley because of her. Her descriptions made me even more anxious to see it.”

  “I guarantee you that you will be happy with her. Now, I suspect Leila has ordered a hot bath for you. Is that right, Leila?”

  “Yes, I did, Miss Darcy. It should be here soon.”

  “Wonderful!” exclaimed Elizabeth. “I have been wanting one for the last two days. When will supper be?”

  “It will be at six thirty, which is three hours away. When you are refreshed, please join Kitty and me in our sitting room, which is two doors down the hall on the right. We will plan what we are going to do for the next two weeks.”

  

  The next day, in the morning, Kitty and Georgiana gave Elizabeth a tour of Pemberley, waiting to show her the library until the end of the tour. As they stopped in front of the door to the library, Kitty said, “Now we are going to show you a room you will not want to leave, so we left it to the last. I was afraid you would not want to take the r
emainder of the tour, once we showed you this room.”

  “I assume this is the library of which I have heard so much. I was wondering when I would get to see it.”

  Elizabeth was astounded at the size of the library. It was two stories tall with a balcony on three sides and bookcases were everywhere – against the wall and perpendicular to the wall. There was a huge two-story fireplace against the outer wall with a large sitting area in front of the fireplace. There were also waist high cabinets behind the sitting area which looked like they were designed to hold maps and other flat documents.

  “You are correct. Had you brought me here first, you would have had a difficult time convincing me to leave to see the rest of the house. I could imagine spending the rest of my life in here trying to read all these books. There must be thousands of books in here.”

  “There are,” said Georgiana. “The Darcy’s have been collecting books for hundreds of years and rarely dispose of any. I believe there are handwritten books in some of our locked cabinets that are over 1000 years old. We occasionally have people coming here from some of the universities to examine some of our books: particularly the older ones.”

  “I can certainly see where I will be spending much of my time on inclement days.”

  “I expect you will have ample opportunity to be in here in the next two weeks. However, I believe it is time we headed for the dining room. We took longer than I expected on the tour, so I suspect Dr. Stewart, who is the estate physician, is waiting for us for lunch. He lives with us and has been our surrogate father since father died.”

  At lunch Elizabeth learned that Dr. Stewart had lived with the Darcy’s since before their father had died. He had been an eminent physician in London whose wife had suddenly died nine years earlier. He had been devastated by her death and decided to leave the city, having acquired over the years a sufficient fortune to retire comfortably, should he decide that was what he would do. He happened to meet his old classmate, George Darcy, the father of Darcy and Georgiana, at their club one day during the week he was closing his office and mentioned to him his dilemma of not being sure where he wanted to go and if he wanted to set up another practice. He and his wife had been childless, so he had no children with whom to live and he was not particularly close with his only sibling, a sister who lived in Exeter. George Darcy suggested he join him at Pemberley. George would enjoy having him as a companion and he could be the staff physician, which would give him something to do, but not be a burdensome position. Dr. Stewart took a day to think about it and decided it sounded like the ideal solution for him. It had, in fact, turned out to be the correct decision and had been a godsend to both him and the Darcys. He had a family life in his older years and the Darcy children had a surrogate father when their father died. Not only that, but he instituted practices that made the staff and tenants of Pemberley healthier than they had ever been.