“Lord! Perhaps I am better off without relations!”
Darcy tipped his glass at that in a silent toast. They each withdrew into their own thoughts, and their conversation lagged. Darcy felt the tuggings of that bleak dissatisfaction with life that had plagued him for so many months; reminding himself that he was in company, however, he fought it back down, that he might not give his friend concern. After some minutes they each came back to themselves and the conversation picked up again, passing off onto matters less charged with feeling.
By the time they joined the ladies in the drawing-room, their mood was sufficiently lifted that when Hurst reappeared they were able to meet his challenge to a game of loo with tolerable enthusiasm. The game was tight and the stakes kept improving as time wore on, so that when Miss Elizabeth Bennet joined them late in the evening she was rather intimidated by their play, and chose to read rather than join them at the table. Mr. Hurst expressed amazement that any one might prefer a book to playing cards, but for Darcy it raised her that much higher in his estimation. In his mind reading and understanding were inextricably linked, and the pursuit of understanding was the first measure of the superior person.
To Miss Bingley her arrival was something of a relief, as she had been losing steadily and felt the need of a distraction from the rigors of her pastime. On Elizabeth’s refusal to join the game, she said teazingly, “Miss Eliza Bennet despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.”
Elizabeth made a polite protest against being given such a character, and declared she took pleasure in a great many things. She drifted over to a table on which were lying a small number of books. “Miss Bennet, may I offer you a greater selection?” Bingley enquired. “You are most welcome to any and all we have in the library here. And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more than I ever look into.”
“Oh; thank you Mr. Bingley, but I assure you I can do quite well with those already here.”
“I am astonished,” put in Miss Bingley, who could never allow a conversation to stray too far from her own thoughts and interests, “that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy.” She smiled winningly at him and sought his eyes with hers.
Darcy attempted to deflect both her flattery and her gaze; the former, because he had not contributed even a tenth part of Pemberley’s collection, and the latter, as a matter of fixed policy. “It ought to be good,” he replied, unfolding and studying his cards resolutely. “It has been the work of many generations.”
Miss Bingley, however, brought the compliment back to him, saying, “And then you have added so much to it yourself; you are always buying books.”
This gave Darcy some private amusement, as he had often found a visit to the bookseller a convenient means of obtaining relief from Miss Bingley’s company in Town. He merely replied, however: “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.”
“Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place.” Darcy was certain, in spite of this assurance, that she had in mind one particular addition to his estate that would add immeasurably to its charm in her eyes: a new mistress. She continued, “Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley.”
“I wish it may,” he replied equitably, laying down a winning card with satisfaction. Hurst, who was Darcy’s partner, snorted in disgust.
They continued their discussion of Darcy’s estate for another hand, until Hurst scolded them all for their inattention. After a moment, though, Miss Bingley started yet another topic designed to demonstrate to Mr. Darcy, and perhaps to others, how deeply interested she was in all his concerns: “Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring? Will she be as tall as I am?”
“I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s height, or rather taller.” Darcy, on his side, wished rather to bring the conversation back to their guest, and give her a greater share in it.
Miss Bingley began a paean on Georgiana’s beauty and accomplishments, but Bingley also attempted to redirect the conversation into a subject of more general interest: “It is amazing to me,” said he, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.”
“All young ladies accomplished!” exclaimed his sister. “My dear Charles, what do you mean?”
“Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard of a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.”
“Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, pleased to further a topic in which all might have a share, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.”
“Nor I, I am sure,” agreed Miss Bingley. Darcy frowned down on his cards until he could free his countenance of the exasperation he felt. Would she never be still?
“Then you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman,” observed Elizabeth.
Darcy turned quickly to face her. “Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it,” he said with sincerity. But before he could expand on this statement, Miss Bingley interrupted him: “Oh! Certainly,” cried she, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.”
All the forms and none of the substance, thought Darcy disparagingly as she spoke. This is exactly the sort of pedestrian and useless course of study followed by every woman in Society: a bit of music, a few amateurish brush strokes, half-a-dozen words of French or Italian, and, of course, every woman’s delight: dancing. Add to that the affectation of superior airs, and one arrived at the common, or garden-variety, Society Miss. And, while we are on the subject, what about having manners enough not to be constantly interrupting others?
Not wishing to be discourteous himself, though, he merely said, “All this she must possess,” but with a nod towards Elizabeth’s book he added, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
“I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women,” Elizabeth observed. “I rather wonder now at your knowing any.”
Darcy was delighted to finally have something like a dialogue—how well she expressed herself, and how easily she held her ground against the field! With a smile he said, “Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?”
“I never saw such a woman,” she stated firmly. “I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe united.” And with this Darcy was forced to agree: when he added his requirements to those of Miss Bingley, he had to allow that his acquaintance failed to supply any such model of womanly excellence. Had he known such a woman, he thought to himself, he would probably have ceased to be single. The remarkable thing was that Elizabeth felt authorised to say so, and, knowing herself to be in the right, did not hesitate to stand against the others.
Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, in spite of their earlier attestations that they knew only a handful who could lay claim to accomplishment, were now quick to claim that many of their friends and acquaintances fit this description, which Darcy knew to be a considerable exaggeration. She and her sister were prepar
ing a concerted attack on Elizabeth when Mr. Hurst, who had been suffering mightily from all this conversation during play, cried foul with such vehemence that all discussion was ended. Darcy was disappointed, for he had felt an interest in the conversation that had been wanting the entire evening. Nor did the conversation ever recover, for Elizabeth left them shortly thereafter to return to her sister.
“Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when she had quit the room, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, seeing the irony of her statement, inasmuch as she was acting in a manner very like the one she was criticising. “There is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.” He held her eye long enough for her to colour and turn to her sister to start another idea.
Elizabeth re-joined them only briefly to say that her sister was worse and that she would remain up stairs with her. Bingley was alarmed, and wanted to summon the physician immediately, but Elizabeth requested that any such decision should be delayed until morning. It was so agreed, and she left the company for the night. Darcy retired not much later to his apartments, and fell asleep whilst contrasting Miss Bingley with Miss Elizabeth Bennet in his mind.
Chapter Nine
Miss Georgiana Darcy sat at the window of the upstairs salon of Pemberley House, staring disconsolately out across the lawn stretching to the river. Being on the front of the house, the room provided a striking prospect over the park, with the sharp rise of the hills on the other side of the valley, broad brown fields to the left and a stand of tall hardwoods, mostly barren now for the winter, leading away to the right. The muted ochres and browns of the salon walls echoed the colours of the landscape, and her own sombre frame of mind. The river running before the house glinted a leaden grey under heavy clouds, although there had been no rain. She had spent many of her hours seated at this window during the past months, her mood following the falling leaves. The autumnal beauty of Pemberley had held no pleasure for her this year; she could feel nothing, think of nothing, save her pain and mortification.
She came to this place whenever she felt most in need of comfort. In her memory she held many tender and soothing reminiscences of times when her mother had sat with her at that very window when she was a young child, holding her in her lap, her arms around her and her warmth a comfort against her back while they had searched for a glimpse of deer or rabbits, or made pictures in the clouds. Then her mother would make them tea, and they would sit in contented silence, or chatter away an hour, before her mother would go back to her duties about the manor. These memories, indeed, were nearly all that was left to her of her mother, who had died in a riding accident when Georgiana had been but seven years old.
Comfort had been difficult to come by since the prior summer. The man in whom she had believed with utter conviction, whom she had loved with the unquestioning certainty of first love, had been exposed as a heartless mercenary who had turned his back on her without a word when her brother had confronted him. Added to this bitterness was the fact that she had consented to an elopement with him, which, in the event of his exposure, left her shamed and repentant before her brother—a brother who had never been other than honest, honourable, and caring and tender of her sensibilities. These pains oppressed her, and at times it felt as though there was some great weight wrapped around her heart, making it hard to breathe, hard to think, and an agony to feel. No sooner would she push back the heartache of her false lover than she would be struck by the horror of what she had almost done to her ancient family’s honour and reputation. There seemed nowhere to turn where she might find refuge from her injured feelings.
To-day she was very low, indeed, for she had yet another care to oppress her: she might expect to hear back from her brother to-day. She had written to him nearly a week before, for the first time in a long while, and had asked him for a letter in return. On the day she had written him, her spirits had been at their lowest, and with a daring she wondered to recall, she had written about her pain. She had never dared do so before; her sense of shame always overcame her, even in the face of her brother’s kindness and concern. Now, however, she feared that she had said too much, and that her foolishness would anger him. That would be the worst, the most insupportable of all. She had only seen her brother truly angry once in her entire life, when he had arrived to find her lover with her at Ramsgate. His anger against Wickham had been cold and terrible, petrifying in its intensity. To have that anger directed against herself would be, she thought now with dread, the crumbling of her last support. Towards her he had never been anything but gentle and compassionate, even at Ramsgate, but, in her solitude and bitter pain, she could not but fear that now, having expressed herself with too much sensibility for one so cool-headed and rational as her brother, this last succour would fail her. One’s fears must always multiply during a period of anxious anticipation, and five days could become an eternity to one already wounded in spirit.
A soft knock at the door announced Mrs. Annesley, her companion. Mrs. Annesley was a sensible woman of middle years, recently widowed, who felt the wisdom of allowing Miss Darcy time to herself each day. Her husband had been in charge of the affairs of one of Mr. Darcy’s associates in Town, and his untimely death had left her in need of a post just at the time Miss Darcy was in need of a companion. It had suited her to leave London for a time, and so she had accepted Mr. Darcy’s offer and travelled directly to Pemberley. Georgiana felt for her recent loss and admired her resolution and strength under an affliction that must be even more devastating than her own. On Mrs. Annesley’s side, she found the young lady’s gentleness most engaging to her feelings. Knowing only that she had lately suffered a “disappointment”, she nonetheless entered into Georgiana’s cares with deep concern, and benefitted not a little by having someone to minister to other than herself.
Georgiana turned towards the door. Mrs. Annesley entered, a letter in her hand. “You have a letter from your brother, Miss Darcy, dear,” said she.
Georgiana rose from her window seat and reached out a hand which she was careful to keep from trembling. She stood with the letter in her hand, but made no move to open it. Neither spoke for a moment, while Georgiana stood quite still. Mrs. Annesley smiled at her gently, then closed the door behind her as she left the room. Georgiana then looked down at the letter: it was thick, thick enough to hold volumes of censure and disgust; yet the hand of the direction seemed normal. She turned it over, hoping to find some hint of its contents, but her brother’s customarily neat habits of execution had left the envelope a blank. There was nought to be seen from the outside—she must open it.
Netherfield Park, Herts.
November 13, —
My dearest Georgiana,
I promise I shall write to you every day, now I know you wish for my correspondence. And do not feel burdened by the need to reply; do so at your convenience, and if you have anything to say.
Dearest, are you sure that I had not better be at home with you? There is nothing here that requires my presence, and even if there were, nothing could take precedence over your slightest needs. Tell me instantly if you want me, and I shall be home before the sun rises twice.
Though I have no experience with a betrayal as deep as the one you have suffered, I do know that even the deepest wounds must heal in time, if we can but survive the initial blow. This you have done, and what is more, you have felt this to be true, which is infinitely more important than being told, no matter by whom. I refer to your realization that harming yourself is not a solution. Pain so great as to overwhelm the mind and body can, most assuredly, result from such injuries as yours. Felo de se, in these cases, is no more than a delayed reaction to the original attack; that you do not feel such an exigence is proof that you have n
ot taken mortal injury. This is why I can confidently say that you will heal. You may not have had these thoughts in mind when you wrote me those lines, but, perhaps, now that I have presented them in this light you might see them as I do. And you ought to know that I was never alarmed by any thought of your doing yourself an injury; I knew you would never have done anything rash, for I know you. Whether you made a deliberate decision, or were simply acting according to your nature, I was certain that you could never conduct yourself in a way that would harm others, as such an act must invariably do.
So, given time, you must heal. Not to the degree that you will ever be exactly the same as you were before, I know, and that saddens me immeasurably; but neither will you be crippled by the scars—that I swear. It was I who failed to protect you, and it is upon me to see to your recovery. If the path to restoring your strength leads us to the ends of the earth, if I must ransom our lands and impoverish every one of our connections, I will see you whole again. Please, Dearest, please do not hold back if there is anything you want, anything you desire, anything that holds even the faintest hope of cheering you.
Now, let me tell you the news from here. Mr. Bingley has, seemingly, managed yet again to stumble into a pleasant situation; his propensity for leaping blindly is surpassed only by his great good fortune in not cracking his noggin on landing. With no more than half-an-hour’s investigation, he has managed to secure a lovely estate. Of course, Hertfordshire is not Derbyshire, but still and all it is handsome and well-suited to his needs. Miss Bingley and Mr. and Mrs. Hurst are here with us, so Miss Bingley has a willing audience for her wit and there is no want of loo and whist. Mr. Bingley is smitten again, this time with a country miss of little standing and no connections, but a lovely girl nonetheless, whose smiles are the only ones I have ever seen that outshine Bingley’s own. She also is here, owing to having been taken ill during a visit to Miss Bingley. She is attended by one of her sisters, whose conversation and countenance have been among the brighter notes of this expedition into the country. But now, Dearest, I must leave off to post this and go down to dinner. I promise to write more fully to-morrow. Until then, know that you are in my heart and thoughts.
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