Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice Sequel Bundle: 3 Reader Favorites (119 page)

‘Of course.’

‘And you must bring Georgiana. How is she? I have not seen her for months. I must take Caroline and visit her.’

‘She is not in London at present. I have sent her to Ramsgate for the summer.’

‘Very wise. I cannot wait to remove from town myself.’

We parted after dinner. If it was still the Season, I would not hold out much hope of him fixing on a place, whatever he protests. But as London is empty of female company, then I think he may hold true to his course – unless a young lady in the north should happen to catch his fancy, whereupon he will stay at home until Christmas!

Friday 12th July

I had a letter from Georgiana this morning. It is lively and affectionate, and I am pleased I thought of sending her to the seaside. She has arrived safely in Ramsgate and writes of her pleasure at the house:

It is small compared to my London establishment, but it is very comfortable and it has a pretty view of the sea. Mrs Younge and I are going down to the beach this afternoon as I am eager to make a sketch of the coast. I will send it to you when it is finished.

Your affectionate sister, Georgiana.

I folded her letter away and I was about to put it in my desk with the others when I happened to notice the handwriting on one of her earlier letters. I took it out so that I could compare the two. She has made a great deal of progress, both in her handwriting and in the style of her letters, over the last few years. However, I confess that I find her earlier letters charming, though the handwriting is poor and the spelling atrocious.

As I reread her earlier letter, I remembered how worried I had been that she would not be happy at the seminary, but I need not have been concerned. She liked her teachers, and made a number of good friends there. I will have to suggest that she invite one of them to stay with her in London over the autumn. If I am to help Bingley find his estate, then a friend will provide some company for Georgiana whilst I am away.

Tuesday 16th July

I rode in the park with Colonel Fitzwilliam this morning. He told me that he had been to Rosings and seen Lady Catherine, and that she had appointed a new rector. For a moment I feared it might be George Wickham, knowing that if he had heard of a wealthy living at Rosings he might have tried to ingratiate himself with my aunt.

‘What is the rector’s name?’ I asked.

‘Collins.’

I breathed again.

‘A heavy young man with the most extraordinary manner,’ went on Colonel Fitzwilliam. ‘A mixture of servility and conceit. He bobs about praising everything and anything. He talks endlessly but says nothing. He has no opinions of his own, except an idea of his own importance, which is as ludicrous as it is unshakeable. My aunt likes him well enough, however. He performs his duties well and he is useful to her for making up a table at cards.’

‘Is he married?’

‘I believe it will not be long before he takes a wife.’

‘He is betrothed, then?’

‘No, but my aunt finds it tedious at Rosings with so few people to entertain her, and I believe she will soon tell him he must marry. A new bride will make a diversion for her, and then she will have someone to…help,’ he said with a wry smile.

‘She likes to be of service,’ I remarked, returning his look.

‘And she is so fortunately placed that other people have little choice but to thank her for her advice,’ he added.

We have both had a great deal of advice from Lady Catherine. Most of it has been very good, but all the same I have often been relieved that Rosings is not in Derbyshire, but that it is far away in Kent.

‘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.’