Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth

by Greer Boyd

  Falling back into her chair, she wept quietly. Darcy felt the hot tears that had gathered in his eyes start to flow down his cheeks. “Oh. Georgiana. How I have failed you. Can you ever possibly forgive me?” He thought to himself as he bowed his head and continued to listen to her tell of having been so wickedly seduced. When he felt a gentle pressure on his arm, his head quickly shot back up, and he saw the face of his Aunt Eleanor. He did not know how long she had been standing there. Although her bedchamber was in the family wing, it was in reality not very far away from the guestroom currently occupied by Elizabeth. At first, he did not know what to do. Then, without releasing the gentle pressure on his arm, his aunt turned to lean her body and her head against the wall in a manner similar to his. They both listened as Georgiana bravely continued her talk with Elizabeth.

  “He continued to caress my breast and kiss me. Then, I suddenly froze when I felt his hand move over that most private of places. I had not even noticed it when he raised my skirts, but he kissed me again and told me that this was something that people who were in love would do. As the blood pounded in my ears, his fingers searched for a special place, a tiny little nub, and when he found it, he began to stroke me there. Heaven help me. I heard myself groan and begin to make such sounds as I would never have believed it possible that I could have ever made. Then, my body convulsed and shuddered and wave after wave of unbelievable pleasure swept over me. I know that I screamed, but he must have captured it as he quickly covered my mouth again with his kiss.

  “If I had not heard the housekeeper in the hallway, I do not know what else might have transpired at that moment. As he quickly moved away from the couch and I promptly stood up and righted my clothing, George again took my hand in his. That was when he told me that he truly loved me and wanted me to elope with him. I agreed to leave with him for Gretna Green the next morning.

  “I told him I was so happy that I could not wait to tell Wills, but George said, ‘Dear Georgiana, the surprise will be so much better if we wait until after we are married to tell him.’ Good God, Elizabeth, I must be the most ignorant girl alive in all of England, because I believed he wanted me and loved me.”

  At this point, a sob escaped before it could be caught on an inhaled breath, and with a ragged voice, Georgiana rushed on: “Fortunately, I was spared what could have been, when Wills came unexpectedly and exceedingly early the next morning to visit. When I told him about being in love with George and that we had planned to elope, the dark scowl that came over Wills’ face was truly a terrifying thing to see. His face became red with such rage as I never thought possible.

  “He immediately asked me if I had been compromised. Oh, Elizabeth, I knew I had allowed George to do things to me that I should only have allowed a husband to do. But, by the grace of God, I had not lost that which belongs to my husband alone. I still had my virtue, bruised though it was, but still intact. So I told Wills, ‘No, I have not been compromised,’ knowing in my heart that I would live the rest of my life with the shame of the things that I had willingly allowed.

  “Wills summoned Mrs. Younge and told her to leave immediately, only giving her moments to pack her belongings. I felt so sorry for her, because I knew that he held her responsible for my actions.

  “When he sat down on the couch with me, on the very same couch where George and I had been so intimate only the day before, and told me what type of a man George Wickham really was, I became physically ill. I truly understood in that moment that all George wanted from me was my dowry of £30,000. All I was to him was a vehicle . . . a way . . . a means to hurt Wills.

  “Oh, Elizabeth, when I think that what happened to your sister Lydia could have happened to me, I know that it would have killed Wills.”

  Now openly sobbing, the distraught young woman had even more to tell. “I wish that had been all of George Wickham I learned that day, but it was not to be.

  “Much later that night, after the household had gone to bed, I could not sleep and I happened to overhear my maid speaking with one of the footmen in the hallway almost directly outside my bedchamber. The footman, John Reynolds, is a nephew to Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper at Pemberley House. When I overheard George Wickham’s name being mentioned, I jumped from bed and quickly pulled on my dress robe. When I threw open the bedchamber door, I saw the chagrined look on their faces and asked them both to come into my study across the hall.

  “We had all grown up together, so when I asked them to tell me what they were talking about, they were hesitant at first. That was until I confessed to them that I had never felt so much a fool as now and part of the reason was because I did not know all that had been known by others. I explained that I knew Wills thought it best to protect me from the baser side of life, but, without knowing about it, how could I possibly prepare adequately to defend myself against it?

  “With that being said, John confessed, ‘I am so sorry, Miss Georgiana, but I sent word to my aunt about my growin’ concern with George Wickham’s access to you here in Ramsgate where there were not nearly enough servants to protect you properly to my way of thinkin.’ My aunt sent an express to me tellin’ me that she had written to Mr. Darcy in London tellin’ him to come immediately to Ramsgate on account of the reason I gave her in my letter. In her express to me, she told me to be extra diligent in my watch care over you.’

  “‘John,’ I asked him, ‘what made you feel that I needed extra watch over me?’

  “He looked to my maid, and when she nodded her head and started to wring her hands, he told me everything that he knew. He had surreptitiously followed Mrs. Younge to one of the taverns one night, wondering what she was doing going to such a place, so late at night, and unescorted to boot. Then he spotted George Wickham making room for her at his table, which was partially hidden in the far corner of the main room of the tavern. George was quite drunk, and that plus the fact that Mrs. Younge sat with her back to the door, meant John could slip into a darkly shaded seat at a table close by.

  “‘That was when,’ John remembered, ‘he started tellin’ Mrs. Younge about how all his plannin’ was finally comin’ to an end.’

  “The young man’s face took on a look of real shame when he repeated, in sharp detail, what he had heard Wickham say:

  God. It has taken years. Just like my mama said, I stayed as close to the young master Darcy and his little sister as I could . . . always there with them . . . playing with them . . . being friends with them, when all along it should have been me in Pemberley House getting all of old Mr. Darcy’s attention. When I felt that I could not wait any longer, I set fire to the stable right where the young master and miss stalled their horses. I hoped that perhaps young master Darcy would rush into the stable to try to save the animals and get caught in the fire himself. Then, Mr. Darcy would have to acknowledge me as his heir, but Darcy only got singed a mite. So I had to quickly rethink my plan to get into Pemberley House. Luckily only a few days earlier, I had overheard my real father, Mr. Darcy that is, promise good old Mr. Wickham that he would take care of me and provide me a living, should anything happen to him. So I snuck back to the Wickham house and set it ablaze, hoping they would think sparks from the fire at the stable caused the fire.

  “The entire Wickham family died in that fire except for George, and Papa did bring him into Pemberley House until it was time for both him and Wills to go to school at Cambridge.”

  Again overcome, Georgiana walked to the window and peered out at the roof of the stable, visible only for a moment as a moonbeam had broken through the clouds, but she continued to talk to Elizabeth’s inert form.

  “I admit I nearly fainted, but then John told me the rest. Drunk as he was, George was quite into his story. He extolled how he had waited in Lambton for weeks, anticipating Wills’ return from his Grand Tour to the Continent and how he had followed the three of us from a distance as we rode through the fields. Then, that day when he saw that we were heading to the stream in the woods, he had circled around us to get there
first. He told her how he fired a shot to frighten Papa’s horse, hoping that it would throw them into the stream and laughed saying that it had worked even better than he had hoped when Papa died. He finished by recounting to Mrs. Younge in detail how he had managed to put nightshade in the tea served to the rector of Kympton and, upon the man’s death, Darcy had still denied him the living.

  “Good God, Elizabeth. How stupid I was . . . how naive and how foolish to have believed myself to be in love with someone who could do such cruel and depraved things? I have been so ashamed of myself and living in fear that he would tell everyone what I had allowed him to do, but no more.”

  After a deep sobbing breath, in the quietest of whispers she concluded: “Wickham is now dead, and no one but you and I will ever know the depth of my degradation and of my shame. I have decided to take your advice as given to me through your sister Jane. George Wickham is no longer, and I will not continue to let him hold my life hostage. Before George died, I was going to run back to Pemberley and hide instead of going through with my presentation. But . . . now I feel that the best way to foil all the horrible things he has done against me and my family is for me to succeed in my life. As you said, ‘Embrace life instead of slowly fading away,’ and that is what I intend to do. In the morning, I intend to tell Wills and Aunt Eleanor that I truly want to be presented. I, Georgiana Alexandria Colton Darcy, will have MY ‘triumph’ over George Wickham.”

  Darcy had clinched his hands into fists so tightly throughout Georgiana’s talk with Elizabeth that his knuckles were white and his hands ached. His heart was virtually bleeding for her. He wanted to draw her into his embrace to let her know that he understood, and just how very proud he was of her, but he knew that he could never let her know that he, and now their aunt, had overheard her confession to Elizabeth.

  Suddenly, a very hoarse and scratchy whisper came from the direction of the bed. “A wise decision,” croaked Elizabeth, although her eyes remained tightly closed. “May I have some water? I am very thirsty, and my head is hurting terribly.” Determined as ever, she tried to sit up, but could only fall back into the bed clutching her head with both hands and groaning in agony.

  Georgiana shot up out of her chair and was standing by the side of the bed when Darcy and Aunt Eleanor rushed into the room. It was quite evident that she was more than shocked to see them, but she held her head high and did not lower her gaze from theirs. She did not know how much they might have overheard, but it did not matter anymore. She had made up her mind to live her life and let those things that she had experienced serve her instead of breaking her. She had learned her lesson well. She would be true to herself and to her family.

  Quickly recalling what was necessary for her to do, she pulled the cord to summon the maid to the guest bedchamber, and then at that moment remembered the doctor’s warning that Elizabeth would most likely become violently nauseous with any movement for the next few days. When Elizabeth suddenly flung her head over the side of the bed and retched, Georgiana was prepared with an empty washbasin and a moist cloth to wipe her mouth. A young maid, now at her side, deftly took the used washbasin and handed her a clean one.

  When another maid appeared at Darcy’s elbow with a cup of warm broth laced with laudanum, he took the cup and started to hand it to Georgiana. At the same time, Elizabeth reached her hand up to grasp it. When their fingers touched, it caused a jolt so strong that they both released their hold on the cup at the same time and simply stared into each other’s eyes. Georgiana quickly grasped the falling cup before the contents could spill and held it firmly in her hand. She thought that in all of the excitement perhaps Elizabeth was simply weak from her ordeal over the last two days and had lost her grip.

  Weak perhaps, but not without the strength to feed herself, Elizabeth was instead completely dumbstruck by the feeling that had suddenly swept over her. Lines of John Donne’s poetry flooded her mind.

  Yet I thought thee

  (For thou lov’st truth) an Angell, at first sight,

  But when I saw thou saw’st My Heart,

  And knew’st my thoughts, beyond an Angels art,

  When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when

  Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,

  I do confesse, it could not chuse but bee

  Profane, to thinke thee any thing but thee.

  She felt that this man could see into her very soul as so many emotions flooded her mind . . . love, and desire, and passion . . . yes, passion. How was it even possible that she could be so in love with someone whom she was yet to know?

  As Georgiana offered her the cup, Elizabeth smelled the contents and, turning her head away only slightly, she whispered, “No. Please, no. That stuff gives me such horrid dreams, and the ones I have just had were horrific enough for one lifetime.”

  Georgiana laughed and swiftly sought to hide her mirth behind her hand, “You sound just like William. He hates to take laudanum as well because it gives him bad dreams, but the doctor said that we were to give it to you to help against the pain.”

  “Georgiana,” whispered Elizabeth hoarsely with a smile evident in her voice, “I have had a child. I can bear the pain. Please, broth only.” Georgiana relented just as Jane, Charles, and Aunt Lilly came rushing into the room.

  When Jane saw Elizabeth, she almost collapsed into the chair Georgiana had occupied earlier, but instead, she sat quickly on the edge of Elizabeth’s bed and bent forward enough to hug her. Her voice was laced with a mixture of relief and a bit of anger when she exclaimed, “I was so worried for you, Lizzy. I thought that I had lost you, too. You gave me such a fright.” Then, suddenly a stricken look swept over her face. She stood up, clutched her stomach, and gasped as her water broke. Seeing Jane’s expression and the hold that she had on her stomach, Elizabeth knew that it was the baby.

  “It is coming, being almost a month too early,” whispered Elizabeth as loudly as she could. When she tried to rise from the bed to help Jane, she only succeeded in making herself violently sick again. Involuntarily, she grasped her head with both hands and groaned aloud in pain.

  The scene in the bedchamber that followed truly would have been funny if it had been written as a contrariwise comic performance at one of the comedy theatres of the day. But, before anyone could venture a laugh, a maid appeared with a bucket of water, cleaning cloths, and a brush. Georgiana reached for the washbasin to aid Elizabeth as she again flung her head over the side of the bed and retched violently. Darcy reached for Jane to steady her only moments before Charles arrived at her side.

  Having already asked Mrs. Wyatt to summon the doctor, Darcy turned to Charles and inquired pointedly, “Do you have a midwife selected that we can contact for you and direct her here to Darcy House?”

  Ruefully, Charles answered with a slight edge of hysteria beginning to sweep over him, “Darcy, with the baby not due for over a month, we thought we had time. We were going to talk with the doctor after Jane’s next examination and then start looking for a midwife sometime this week.”

  Darcy did not hesitate. Reassuringly gripping the shoulder of his friend, he offered, “Charles, I have sent for Dr. Crawford. May I suggest Mrs. Wyatt as a substitute midwife to assist the doctor? That is if she is up to it? She has helped with the delivery of many of the children born to the staff here at Darcy House, and I would trust her with the birth of my own child.”

  Having heard such high praise coming directly out of the mouth of Mr. Darcy himself, there was no way between heaven and earth that Mrs. Wyatt would refuse to assist the doctor with the birth of Jane Bingley’s child. “Mr. Bingley, I would be honored to help with the delivery, but we need to get her back to her bedchamber as soon as possible and begin to make preparations for the birth.”

  Charles was torn between his care for his wife and his care for his sister. Looking at Darcy, he almost pled, “Please look after Elizabeth for me.”

  “Charles,” he quickly responded, trying not to reveal the
joy that filled his heart at being asked to be of service to Elizabeth, “you know that I will do as you ask. Now tend to your wife. I will send the doctor to you immediately upon his arrival.”

  As he squeezed Darcy’s elbow in a gesture of thanks and solicitude, Charles then turned to his wife, picked her up, and began to carry her to the guest bedchamber, meeting Anne and Charlotte in the hallway. The two women were headed toward Elizabeth’s bedchamber, having been awakened by the escalating cacophony of noise coming from within.

  Mrs. Wyatt, Aunt Eleanor, Aunt Lilly, and the maid followed Charles and Jane, while the others remained in the room with Elizabeth knowing that they would not be allowed into Jane’s bedchamber until after the birth.

  “I have got to help Jane,” whispered Elizabeth with supplication. Georgiana used the knuckle of her forefinger to wipe a bead of moisture from Elizabeth’s cheek, and remarked, “Elizabeth, we both know that is NOT going to happen.”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes against the excruciating pain and building nausea, and whispered, “No. I guess under the circumstances it will not. But, I have to know that very good care is taken of her.”