Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (46 page)

No, he could not. Nor could he quite leave the subject be.

“It is my understanding that nursing is indisputably a cabalistic calling. I beg not to suggest your sound nature would fall to such allurement, Lizzy. However, Georgiana is not so commonsensical.”

“Are you suggesting that because your sister has found an enthusiasm, she is in danger of becoming an hysteric?”

“Enthusiasms are well and good, but unrebuked they can be as intoxicating as any liqueur.”

“Pray, where do you read such absurdities?”

He drew upon his considerable hauteur to reply, “I do not find it necessary to enjoy an observation under instruction of someone else’s opinion.”

“Very well. But fear not, Georgiana’s interest is merely piqued, not obsessed. I promise you, she shall not abscond in a gingham dress and white cap to St. Bart’s.”

Stymied upon the long-abused battleground of decorum, he reasoned, “These people are proud, Lizzy. You do not want them to think themselves pitied?”

“We do not aid the able-bodied, only the ill.”

Reason overcome by logic, it was time for a full frontal assault.

“You shall become ill yourself.”

“I am indecently healthy. Dr. Carothers said as much.”

He circled the flank.

“You shall bring disease back to us.”

Capitulating that point, she said she would not tend the contagious so closely.

“I shall not enter a house sick with consumption. We shall just take them what they need and leave it upon the stoop.”

Elizabeth knew Darcy had perfected his tactics for such a campaign and that he was quite pleased with himself for it. No ultimatums were given, no shots fired, so to speak. He, obviously, did not even feel a twinge of guilt at using her love for him as a weapon. It was a victory worthy of Elizabeth’s own powers of persuasion. Given enough time, she thought he might actually rival her in these contests of reason.

He added, “And two footmen shall accompany you.”

This, perhaps, was revealing a bit of overconfidence upon his part. For she was halfway to the door and stopped when he said that, turned and stood looking at him in silent study. She did not appear to be reflecting kindly upon the wisdom of his demand (and particularly that it was obviously a demand). He had learnt, after much practise, to couch his demands to Elizabeth to appear as requests, but she saw then he had suffered a lapse.

In a moment she said, “’Tis far too pompous to ride about the lands of Pemberley in a coach waited upon by a gaggle of footmen. A waggon and driver will suffice.”

“I shall not have you out alone.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, to which he added prudently, “Please. For me.”

“For you, anything.”

And thereupon a compromise was struck. Or so he thought. Actually, she capitulated only to that of which she had already predestined. This was not pointed out to him. One should not wag the bloodstained flag of defeat beneath the victim’s nose. That was indefensible.

Of course, she knew it only prudent not to expose her family to illness. And the footmen would be quite helpful in carrying the pots of soup. They could nurse much more efficiently with such sturdy help as that.

Sovereign power of persuasion had not yet passed.

* * *

Indeed, Elizabeth thought them quite the spectacle riding about the countryside trailing maids and servants visiting poor sick, and the sick poor. Others amongst their acquaintance thought them quite unseemly (if not outright mad). Georgiana thought this well-nigh hilarious, for she had never had the opportunity nor gumption to do something denounced as truly improper. It was a giddy freedom to be thought unconventional.

“Soon my reputation shall be sullied enough to be known a novelist will lend me credit!” she whispered excitedly to Elizabeth, in obvious anticipation of such an event.

The assignment of mercy waggon driving duty fell to Edward Hardin. That her husband forsook his most dependable man (the linchpin for the entire estate, he often said) to cart her about was not lost upon Elizabeth. It was a fortuitous coupling. Hardin offered the kindly suggestion that a non-liveried intermediary should ride with them to the cottages. The people therein were much more likely to confide their need to a simply dressed and soft-spoken one of their own.

Thereupon John Christie was brought into this fold. It was he who was delegated to approach a ramshackle home. Time had not obliterated Darcy’s abhorrence of John, but it had waned to the extent that John quit leaping behind a tree if Mr. Darcy came into sight. Nevertheless, the boy was a little uneasy yet the first time he rode upon the waggon. Before long, however, he collected himself, finally believing it unlikely that Mr. Darcy might accost them and yank him from his seat.

John was considered good help by Elizabeth and Georgiana, staying at their elbows getting water, silently retrieving needed supplies from the coach. Endeavouring to coax conversation from the boy, Elizabeth told him he had missed his calling, that he might have made an excellent doctor.

He beamed at the suggestion, but said nary a word.

Hardin said, “Yer’ll not get that boy to say boo to a goose, Mrs. Darcy. Lor’ knows me and me wife have tried.”

As if taking that as a verbal gauntlet cast at his feet, John did first the expected, he crimsoned. Then the unlikely. He spoke.

“No ma’am. Not me. No. Yer needs learnin’ fer the likes of that. Aye got no learnin’.”

His candour incited the demure Georgiana to object.

“‘Learning’ is a derivation of a verb,” she announced.

He looked at her blankly.

“Learning is a derivative of the verb to learn, with the addition of a non-inflectional affixed.”

If she somehow believed this had cleared his confusion, he did not. He looked at her, for all the world, as if a toad had crawled out of her mouth. She tried once again.

“Learning is just that. To learn. An action verb. One can learn.”

Thereupon, they were at least, literally, speaking the same language again. Nonetheless, he shook his head at the absurdity of the idea and laughed nervously.

“No ma’am. Yer got ter have brains ter learn too. Don’t got that neither.”

Ignorance (as differentiated from stupidity) was rampant upon the countryside and to be unlearnt should not have shamed John. None of the grooms could read. Only those amongst the upper level servants could: Mrs. Reynolds, of course, Goodwin, and Hannah. (It was Hannah alone, though, who spent a portion of her prayers each day addressing the shortcoming of owning excessive pride in such an achievement.) Even with that understanding, upon their next missionary trip Georgiana brought a book of the alphabet and a slate.

Their lesson began by obtaining the information that John could sign his name, hence he knew those letters. From thence, the learning commenced. She compiled a list of words—anagrams—containing the letters of his full name, John Christie.

Those anagrams were to be his first lesson. He was to sound out the simple words—toe, sit, hot, tie—and read them to her the next time she saw him.

Gazed upon in fatherly pride by Edward Hardin, John recited his assignment to Georgiana.

“Smart lad, he!” said Hardin.

This entire journey of uncovering the mystery of words delighted them all. That same day he picked up a tin in one cottage and inspected it. When he read, unprompted, the word “tea” from its label, they all leapt in joy at his ingenuity. Observing that, the poor family in the house set to quivering with fright beneath their covers, never quite certain they were not being ministered by lunatics. Upon the heels of such success, Georgiana brought John primers. He devoured them all.

It was a contest of just who had more pride in her success of schooling him, Georgiana, John Christie, or Edward Hardin.

Had not Georgiana befriended another young man that same spring, nothing might ever have been said. But, as could be surmised from her enthusiasm for tending the ill and tutoring the illiterate, Georgiana had a penchant and a heart for outcast souls.

* * *

Young Henry Howgrave was hardly needy, but an outcast of sorts all the same. He was well-educated, mannerly, and not at all unattractive of face and figure. True, it might have been suggested he dressed to remind those to whom he was introduced that, howbeit left-handed, he was a gentleman’s son. A bit of a dandy he was, but his particular circumstances could offer him some justification for foppery.

The terse explanation given to Elizabeth by her husband about the notorious Howgraves suggested it was no great leap to assume that he had not spoken to his sister of their situation at all. Nor did he suspect she had heard the gossip. He had reckoned that when he had taken her onto the dance floor in lieu of the hand of Henry Howgrave at the Pemberley ball, she had not understood the implication.

However mindful was she of just why her brother had interfered, Georgiana had been mortified upon young Howgrave’s behalf at the time.

As his opposition to her nursing the sick implied, Darcy’s presumption of his sister’s innocence was compleat. Included in this conjecture of ignorance were infidelity, promiscuity, and carnal lust in general. Indeed, it extended to all elements of reproduction. Had he not shielded her at every turn from accouchement?

If queried upon the point, he most likely would have insisted she was quite oblivious to anatomical differences betwixt the male and the female as well. (There were rutting animals about, but surely she had not noticed.) This was probably the single subject upon which he looked blindly.

Which is why Elizabeth never questioned Darcy about Georgiana’s liaison with Wickham. Actually, it had never been addressed in open conversation. He had written of it in a single letter and it was never brought into conversation. Whatever abhorrence he held for the affair, in his letter he had purported it as fleeting and chaste.

Nor did Georgiana imply otherwise.

Because he held the presumption of Georgiana’s sexual innocence, Elizabeth knew her husband would not have asked Georgiana The Question. It was reasonable to -presume her honour was not outraged. She had been but fifteen years old. A very naïve fifteen. Notwithstanding, Elizabeth’s own sister, Lydia, had been fifteen when she ran off with Wickham. Lydia was not particularly naïve, but when she ran off to London with Wickham, she had been a virgin. Georgiana and Lydia were two separate understandings of young womanhood. Withal, Elizabeth did upon occasion wonder if Georgiana’s seduction had been more than emotional.

Never would she have ventured to conjecture that to Darcy, let alone Georgiana. Darcy was a man of considerable worldliness. Nonetheless, he had chosen to believe that his sister was not compromised beyond her emotions. Had he believed the affair had progressed beyond professed love, Elizabeth knew blood would have been drawn.

Uninitiated or not, Georgiana was far too intelligent to be wholly insensible to life. Hence, when she had seen Henry Howgrave in the village and he asked if she might favour a visit by him, she fully understood the implication when she answered in the affirmative.

Henry Howgrave weathered more than his share of disdain. Cuts were not unknown to him. And he was well aware of Mr. Darcy’s ill-regard. Georgiana might not have been naïve, but she was not so seasoned as to understand that when Henry Howgrave ventured to Pemberley to seek her company, he was uncovered as not some hapless knave. It revealed a calculating ambition of considerable gall.

Ambitious, but not foolhardy. The day of his visit, Darcy and Elizabeth had not been at home. Georgiana and Mr. Howgrave were accompanied upon their stroll by Mrs. Annesley. (That good lady held the most advantageous of claims that one could want of a chaperone—that of being severely nearsighted and compleatly deaf.)

A common interest in literature was discovered and from thence came most of their conversation. A few possible future meetings were suggested but nothing absolute.

It was all quite proper.

She might have been ingenuous to his enterprise, but Georgiana understood and accepted that most young men would be as attracted to her wealth as to her scintillating conversation. Not wanting to be secretive (that an improbability at Pemberley regardless) she announced his visit at supper.

Elizabeth did not lift her head from her soup, but glanced at her husband from the corner of her eye. But upon hearing that the infamous Henry Howgrave had stood upon Pemberley ground and in the company of his sister, his expression did not alter. That was alarming. Elizabeth lay down her spoon, awaiting the detonation of his temper. However, he held only the mildest of queries.

“Is he to return?”

In a wide-eyed expression of innocence, one that Georgiana perfected for just such inquiries from her brother, she replied (not untruthfully), “No.”

Conversation moved on.

* * *

That same week Darcy espied Georgiana sitting with John Christie, their heads almost touching in conference. Albeit they were in close conversation, it was in the innocence of education, for they pored over a slim book. This scene was descried upon a walk as Elizabeth held her husband’s arm. He paused thereupon and scowled. She urged his attention back to their walk, not waiting for him to speak his displeasure.

“She has been teaching him to read. He is frightfully bright.”

Darcy, however, was not so easily becalmed. “It is not proper for her to school a manservant.”

His position was that personal interest in a male in service over the age of twelve by a lady of the house, however innocent, was to be abhorred. Elizabeth believed it merely a kindness extended by Georgiana to which Darcy should see himself as over-reacting. But, Darcy beheld this sight upon the heels of learning young Howgrave had appeared again at Pemberley that day. He came thither only to leave a misdirected copy of the Quarterly Review, but that was not a particular pacification.

Little else was said about the matter, but later Darcy called Georgiana before him in his library. Elizabeth did not have to inquire what was said or the tone. She saw Georgiana immediately after, near tears.