Suddenly Mrs. Darcy(85)
Our sister Georgiana has gone from strength to strength. When, in the tail end of that humid summer in town, Fitzwilliam and I told her that Wickham was to marry my sister Lydia, she took the news better than either of us had anticipated. She nodded, exhaled, looked slightly anxious, and said, “Thank you for telling me. Is your sister well, Lizzy? I do hope she is and she, they…I wish them much joy.”
Later, when Fitzwilliam was closeted in his library, she approached me alone and owned to being embarrassed for having ever loved Mr Wickham. I took her sweet face in my palms and entreated her. “Oh, Georgiana! When we are young and foolish, we are young and foolish. We all are, and you were no worse than others have been. We have all thought the wrong thing and been mistaken in our acquaintances. It speaks well of you that you trusted him and saw the best that may have been in him. You must not reproach yourself now. He is married and far away, and you have everything before you.”
She did, as it turned out. For within the twelve-month, Georgiana had been presented at court, and within the eighteen-month, she was married to her first suitor, Lord Avery, whose estate was not fifty miles from Pemberley. When the time for Georgiana’s presentation drew near, I realised there was a matter, long dormant, that had to be addressed. I found Fitzwilliam in his study about his papers and sat in the chair opposite him.
“I know that look, Elizabeth. Am I to have a scolding?” He smiled, teasing me with my own words.
“Of course not, Fitzwilliam; for you, as you know, have done nothing wrong. No, I was just thinking of Georgiana’s coming out and how close it is getting. We only have two more weeks in Derbyshire, and then we shall be off to town. And then only a week to prepare before presenting her and hosting our own ball. There will be so much to do. Mrs Reynolds tells me that Lady Broughton’s housekeeper told her that five hundred sandwiches were eaten at Diana Broughton’s coming out…”
He leaned back in his chair, his lips turned up at the corners, and his eyes on me. “I am sure that is true, Elizabeth, but you have not come here to talk about sandwiches surely—particularly, other people’s sandwiches?”
“No, but I do mean it when I say we shall have so much to do when we get to town. We shall be so busy getting things ready, and there will be little time for conversation…for being together like this—”
“Out with it, Elizabeth! What is this great matter that requires discussion?”
“Well, it is Georgiana. She has gained so in confidence and is obviously going to sparkle in London. She will be exposed to society in a way she never has been before. She will meet people, and she will not have us standing over her. She will meet people, and they will talk… Fitzwilliam, you know what the world is, what gossips people are. If you do not tell her about the Lovelaces, then somebody else will. If you tell her now, she will have a little time to digest it, and you can give her your truth about them. She is eighteen years old, and…well, she may be a married lady inside the year.”
He turned away at this, slightly discomforted by the thought. I had prepared myself with argument upon argument and anticipated what he might say against me. I had imagined raised voices and my having to beg him to be sensible or even threaten to involve Colonel Fitzwilliam. But in the event, it was quite different. After a pause, he turned his body to mine, took my hand, and said, “Yes, Elizabeth. You are quite right, of course. Shall we seek her out now?”
When we found Georgiana with her book in the drawing room, I quietly dismissed Mrs Annesley and let Fitzwilliam do the talking. She was, I believe, very surprised, but she was not angry or resentful either at the history or at having been kept so long in ignorance of it. Her eyes widened a bit when she learned of her three sisters, but she did not seem unduly scandalised, and later, after supper, Georgiana suggested she meet them when we were all in town.