Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites

by Linda Berdoll

  ‘How is Georgiana?’ he asked, as we left the park and began to ride back to my house.

  ‘Very well. I have sent her to Ramsgate for the summer.’

  ‘Good. It is too hot in town for her. It is too hot for anyone,’ he said. ‘I am going to Brighton next week. It is a pity I will not be able to see her, but next time I am in town I will make sure I visit her. Will you be joining her in Ramsgate?’

  ‘Not yet. I have too much to do.’

  ‘But you will be going to Pemberley?’

  ‘Later in the year, yes.’

  ‘I envy you Pemberley.’

  ‘Then you should marry. It would enable you to buy a place of your own.’

  ‘If I find a suitable heiress, I might consider it, but at the moment I am enjoying the bachelor life.’

  With this we parted; he to go to his barracks, and I to return home.

  Sunday 28th July

  At last my business in town is done, and I am free to visit Georgiana. I mean to go first thing tomorrow, and surprise her.

  Monday 29th July

  I had no idea, when I set out for Ramsgate this morning, what lay in store for me. The weather was fair and everything promised an enjoyable day. I arrived at Georgiana’s house and I was pleased to find it neat and well cared for. I was announced by the maid, the establishment being too small to allow of a full staff, and found Mrs Younge in the parlour. Springing up at my entrance, she looked at me in consternation.

  ‘Mr Darcy. We did not expect you today.’

  ‘I thought I would surprise my sister. Where is she?’

  ‘She is…out…sketching.’

  ‘On her own?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no, of course not, with her maid.’

  ‘I did not hire you to sit at home whilst my sister goes out with a maid,’ I said, displeased.

  ‘I would ordinarily have accompanied her, of course, but I was forced to stay indoors this morning. I was…indisposed. I…ate some bad fish…I was most unwell. Miss Darcy was eager to continue her sketching, however, and the weather being fine I did not like to spoil her enjoyment. She asked if she might take her maid, and I saw no harm in it. Her maid is not a young girl, but a sensible woman who will see that she comes to no harm.’

  I was mollified. Mrs Younge did indeed look ill, though at the time I did not know the true cause of her pallor.

  ‘Which way did they go?’ I asked. ‘I will join her. I can sit with her whilst she sketches, and we can return together.’

  She hesitated for a moment before saying: ‘They intended to turn right along the shore, so that Miss Darcy could finish a sketch she had already begun.’

  ‘Very well, I will follow them and surprise her.’

  I went out into the hall, but at that very same minute I saw Georgiana coming downstairs. I was startled. She was dressed for indoors and showed no signs of having been out sketching. I was about to ask Mrs Younge what she meant by such a fabrication when Mrs Younge herself spoke.

  ‘Miss Darcy, I thought you had gone out already,’ she said. ‘Here is your brother come to see you.’ Then she added: ‘Remember, a little resolution is all that is needed, and you will achieve everything your heart desires.’

  I thought her speech odd, but I took it to mean that if Georgiana applied herself she would be able to finish her sketch to her satisfaction. How wrong I was!

  ‘Fitzwilliam,’ said Georgiana, growing pale.

  She stopped on the stair and did not come down. She looked suddenly very young, and very uncertain. I was alarmed, and thought she was unwell.

  ‘What is it? Are you ill?’ I asked. ‘The fish – did you eat it, too?’

  ‘Fish?’ she asked, bewildered.

  ‘The bad fish Mrs Younge ate. Did you have some as well?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said, twisting her hands.

  ‘You are not well, however,’ I said, noticing a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and seeing how white she had become.

  I took her hand and led her into the parlour. Mrs Younge was about to follow us when I said to her: ‘Fetch the doctor.’

  ‘I don’t think – ’ she began, but I cut her off.

  ‘My sister is unwell. Send for the doctor.’

  My tone left her no choice and she departed. I shut the door.

  Georgiana had walked over to the window, and was looking paler by the minute.

  ‘Here,’ I said, taking a chair over to her and helping her to sit down.

  But she immediately sprang up again.

  ‘No, I cannot,’ she said unhappily. ‘I cannot deceive you, no matter what he says.’

  I was startled. ‘No matter what he says?’ I repeated, at a loss.

  She nodded seriously. ‘He says that if you know about it you will stop us,’ she went on miserably.

  ‘Who, Georgiana?’

  ‘George,’ she said, hanging her head.

  ‘George?’

  ‘Yes, George Wickham. Mrs Younge and I met him by chance on the seashore. He is holidaying here. We fell into conversation and he told me how much it grieved him that there has been some coolness between you lately. I, too, have been grieved by it. I liked it much better when you were friends. It does not seem right that there should be anything unsettled between you. I was relieved when he told me that it had just been a silly misunderstanding, and that it had all been cleared up, so that there was nothing now to prevent us being comfortable together. He reminded me of the time he sat me on my pony and led me round the yard, and of the time he brought me a pocket full of acorns,’ she said with a smile. ‘He said it was fortunate that we had met as it meant we could renew our friendship. I said I no longer liked acorns, so he laughed, and said that he would bring me diamonds instead.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ I asked. ‘And what did Mrs Younge say to this?’

  ‘She said it was perfectly proper for me to entertain a family friend. I would not have done so otherwise,’ said my sister.

  ‘Entertain him?’ I asked, feeling more and more alarmed.

  ‘Yes. He has dined here on occasion, and joined us in the day if the weather was wet. He plays chess as well as he ever did, but I am improving and I have beaten him twice.’

  There was some animation in her face as she said this, but she faltered again on seeing my expression.

  ‘I have displeased you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ I said, striving for my composure. ‘You have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘I did not mean to fall in love with him, really I did not,’ she said imploringly. ‘I know I am very young, but he told me so many pleasing stories about the future that I came to look on our marriage as a settled thing.’

  ‘Marriage?’ I exclaimed in horror.

  ‘He…he said he loved me, and he reminded me of when I had said I loved him.’

  ‘When did you say so?’ I demanded.

  ‘When I fell off the gate in the courtyard and he picked me up.’

  ‘But you were seven years old!’

  ‘Of course, it was just a childish thing to say at the time, but the more I saw of him here, the more I became convinced I was in love with him in earnest. Only I did not like to think of deceiving you. I wanted everything to be open. I told him he must ask you for my hand in the ordinary way, but he said you would not let us marry until I was eighteen, and that it would be a waste of three precious years of our life together. He said we should elope, and then send you a letter from the Lake District afterwards.’

  ‘And did you agree to this?’ I asked, stricken.

  Her voice dropped.

  ‘I thought it sounded like an adventure. But now that I see you, and know how much it grieves you, it does not seem to be like an adventure at all.’

  ‘It is not. It is trickery of the basest kind. He has made love to you in order to gain your fortune, and in order to hurt me! To persuade you to forget friends and family and run away with him to your utter ruin is monstrous!’

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘It is not so. He
loves me.’

  I saw the fear in her eyes and I did not want to go on. For her to learn that the rogue had never loved her must hurt her. But I could not let her continue under such a misapprehension.

  ‘I do not want to tell you this, Georgiana,’ I said softly, ‘but I must. He does not love you. He has used you.’

  At this she broke down. I was helpless in the face of her tears. I did not know what to do, how to comfort her, and in that moment I missed my mother more than I have ever done. She would have known what to do. She would have known what to say. She would have known how to comfort her daughter, whose affections had been played upon. I could only stand helplessly by and wait for Georgiana’s grief to spend itself.

  When her tears began to subside, I handed her my handkerchief. She took it and blew her nose.

  ‘I must speak to Mrs Younge and make sure she knows what has been going on behind her back,’ I said. ‘It has been negligent of her not to notice.’

  Something in Georgiana’s expression stopped me.

  ‘It was behind her back?’ I asked.

  Georgiana looked down into her lap.

  ‘She helped me plan the elopement.’

  I felt myself grow grim.

  ‘Did she indeed?’

  Georgiana nodded miserably. I was cut to the heart by the sight of it. For my sister’s happiness to be destroyed by such a worthless man!

  I put my hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Never fear, Georgie,’ I said, overcome with tenderness. ‘When you are older you will meet a man who will love you for yourself. A good-natured, charming, respectable man who is liked by your family. A man who will ask me for your hand in the proper manner. There will be no need for an elopement. You will have a grand wedding, with splendid wedding clothes and a honeymoon wherever you wish.’

  She tried to smile, and she put her hand on mine.

  ‘I have been a sore trial to you,’ she said.

  ‘Never,’ I told her gently.

  I wanted to find something to distract her thoughts from their unhappy path. I glanced around the room and my eye came to rest on one of her sketches.

  ‘This is well done,’ I said. ‘I see you have caught the fishing boats just coming in from the sea.’

  ‘Yes, I had to get up very early to catch them. The fishermen were surprised to see me sitting there,’ she said.

  I was pleased to see that she put aside my handkerchief as she took the sketch, and to hear that her voice was stronger.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to finish it. Can you do so indoors, or would you need to go out again?’

  ‘No, I can do it here. I have done enough to show me what is needed.’

  ‘Good. Then I will leave you for a few minutes whilst I talk to Mrs Younge.’

  ‘You will not be angry with her?’ asked Georgiana.

  ‘I will be very angry with her. She will pack her bags and leave this house within the hour.’

  My conversation with Mrs Younge was not pleasant. First of all she denied all knowledge of a friendship between my sister and Wickham, saying she had never admitted him to the house and indeed that she did not know such a man.

  To hear her call my sister a liar made me more angry than I have ever been and she shrank, admitting at last that she had encouraged Georgiana’s friendship with him. Upon further enquiry I found that Mrs Younge had known Wickham previously, and had planned the first meeting between him and Georgiana. She had then told him where they would be every day, so that he could arrange several further ‘chance’ encounters. After this she had encouraged Georgiana to invite him to the house, and had taught her to see him, first as a friend and then as a lover.

  ‘And why shouldn’t I?’ she asked when I berated her. ‘After he’s been so badly dealt with by you. Why shouldn’t he have what’s owing to him, and a little bit of fun besides?’

  I had been going to allow her an hour in which to pack, but I changed my mind.

  ‘You will leave this house immediately,’ I said to her coldly. ‘I will send your boxes on.’

  She seemed about to refuse, when one glance at my face told her it would be unwise. She muttered curses under her breath, but put on her cloak and bonnet, then gathering up her basket she left the house.

  When my anger had cooled, I wrote to Wickham, Mrs Younge having given me his address, telling him that he must leave Ramsgate at once. Furthermore, I told him that if he ever attempted to see or speak to Georgiana again I would ruin him.

  I am still angry as I write. That he could have done anything so underhand. That he could have used Georgiana in his schemes, his playmate of gentler times.…He is lost to all decency. I am almost tempted to expose him, but if I do so, Georgiana’s reputation will suffer. I must hope that his experiences in this matter will prevent him from ever doing anything like it again.

  Thursday 1st August

  I have brought Georgiana back to London. She will stay with me until I can find a new companion for her. After the trouble with Mrs Younge, I am afraid to leave her, but I know it must be done. I cannot be always in London, and she cannot be always travelling with me. She must attend to her studies. However, I mean to make sure I am not deceived in a companion again. I will not only follow up references, I will visit former employers and satisfy myself as to their honesty, and the prospective companion’s suitability, before leaving Georgiana in her charge.

  It is a comfort to me to know that as long as Georgiana is in London, she will have the protection of a faithful butler and housekeeper. They have been with the family for many years, and will soon alert me if anything is amiss. I do not mean to send Georgiana away from the city again, unless I can go with her.

  Wednesday 14th August

  ‘I have discovered a lady who might suit Georgiana,’ said Colonel Fitzwilliam when he dined with me this evening.

  As he is joined with me in Georgiana’s guardianship, I had told him what had happened in Ramsgate.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘A Mrs Annesley. She comes from a good family, and her time with my friends, the Hammonds, is coming to an end.’

  ‘Have you met her?’

  ‘Yes, on a number of occasions. I know the Hammonds have been very pleased with her.’

  ‘Then I will call on the Hammonds tomorrow and see what can be arranged.’

  Thursday 15th August

  I called on the Hammonds and found Mrs Annesley to be a genteel, agreeable-looking woman who impressed me favourably with her breeding and her discourse. She will take up her position with Georgiana next week. I will remain in town for a few weeks to make sure she is as suitable as she appears, and then I intend to make several unexpected visits over the next few months to satisfy myself that everything is in order.

  In the meantime, Georgiana’s school friend will be arriving soon. It will do her good to have some company of her own age.

  Friday 23rd August

  Mrs Annesley arrived this morning. She and Georgiana have discovered a liking for each other and I think the relationship will prove to be a happy one. She is delighted to know that one of Georgiana’s school friends is to visit, and she has arranged a variety of outings for the girls. I hope this will complete Georgiana’s recovery from her affair with Wickham. I am persuaded that by Christmas she will have put the whole incident out of her mind.

  Friday 30th August

  Now that Georgiana is settled I feel confident about leaving her whenever Bingley has need of me. It is fortunate, for if I let him choose his own estate he will choose one with a flooding river, or rats, or an exorbitant rent. He will declare it capital and close with the agent before he has realized what he is about, and then he will ask me how he is to extricate himself from his predicament. It is far better that I help him to begin with, rather than having to rescue him at a later date.

  I must confess I am looking forward to seeing him again. I am tired of London, and looking forward to a visit to the country.

  Monday 2nd September

 
; I have had a letter from Bingley.

  My dear Darcy,

  I have found an estate in Hertfordshire that sounds just the thing. Well placed, so that I can travel to London when the mood takes me, or to the north of England to visit my family, and it is not too far from Pemberley so that I can visit you easily, too. The agent recommends it highly, but I know very little about this sort of thing and I would like your advice. Will you meet me there?

  Monday 9th September

  I left London today and met Bingley at Netherfield Park. I had forgotten what good company he is; always ready to be pleased and always cheerful. After my difficult summer, it is good to be with him again.

  ‘Darcy! I knew I could rely on you. How was your summer? Not as trying as mine, I’ll wager.’

  I said nothing, which he took to be an assent.

  ‘Caroline has been plaguing me these last three months, but now that I have found an estate I hope she will be satisfied.’

  Bingley was, of course, delighted with everything he saw. He said how splendid it was and asked no sensible questions, but instead walked around with his hands behind his back as though he had lived there for the last twenty years. He was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, and satisfied with what the agent, Mr Morris, said in its praise. He asked nothing about the chimneys, or the game, or the lake, or indeed anything at all.

  ‘Is it sound?’ I asked Mr Morris.

  He assured me it was, but I inspected it carefully all the same.

  ‘Will it be easy to find servants in the neighbourhood?

  My friend will be bringing some of his own, but he will need maids, gardeners and stable-hands from the local area.’

  ‘He will not find any difficulty in procuring them from Meryton.’

  ‘What do you think, Darcy?’ asked Bingley, when we had completed our tour.

  ‘The price is far too high.’

  Mr Morris insisted it was fair, but he was soon brought to realize that it was excessive, and a far lower sum was settled on.

  ‘Upon my honour, Darcy, I would not like to try and stand against you when your mind is made up. Poor Mr Morris might as well have agreed with you straight away, and saved himself the effort of trying to argue with you!’ said Bingley, when he had closed with the agent.