Page 9 of Bravery & Treachery

G eorgiana Darcy was waiting impatiently for the Gardiners and her new friend to arrive so they could all set off up Coast Road towards the shops and the jetty. Her impatience was not born of them being late, they were not, she just could not wait until they arrived. The more time she spent in Lizzy’s company, the better she felt. She was hoping some of Lizzy’s self-confidence would rub off on herself.

When the knocker sounded, Anna would have sprinted to answer the door herself had it not been for a warning look from Mrs Annesley to tell her it was not the way a lady comported herself. As such, she waited as patiently as she was able for the Gardiners and Lizzy to be shown in to the drawing room.

The Gardiner parents led the way into the room followed by Elizabeth and then their children, except for Peter, who no matter how much he protested he must go see the ‘ faiwy pwincess ’ had remained at the house on Privet Street with Nurse. In addition to the more than a mile each way to and from the centre of Brighton, the youngest Gardiner did not have the patience for the activity of going in and out of stores and admiring the wares.

“Mr and Mrs Gardiner, Lizzy, and children, welcome. I see you did not remove your outerwear, so we may depart directly,” Georgiana enthused after she had curtsied to her guests.

“Anna, we are as keen as you to go explore and see what Brighton has to offer,” Elizabeth returned. She smiled warmly at her new friend.

Mrs Annesley gave an almost imperceptible nod. “We just need to don our pelisses, bonnets, and gloves. Thompson and his men will be waiting for us in front of the house,” Georgiana stated. Everyone began to move back towards the entrance hall.

Soon the group were walking up the road on the side of the beach towards the centre of the city. Knowing that Miss Darcy’s footmen would be escorting her, Gardiner had left his men at the house. The four footmen with them were more than enough. In fact Gardiner could not fathom why Miss Darcy was so well guarded. He wondered if something had occurred in the past which caused the level of vigilance he was seeing now.

Elizabeth walked with Anna on one side of her and Lilly on the other. Behind them Eddy walked holding May’s hand, and they were followed by the Gardiner parents and Mrs Annesley.

“It will be another hot day,” Elizabeth estimated. “There is hardly a breeze and there are practically no clouds in the sky.” Although she hardly ever walked with a parasol, on this day Elizabeth had agreed with her aunt it would be needed. As she walked, at that moment she was pleased she had accepted Aunt Maddie’s wisdom, as she appreciated the shade it provided her.

“I think you are correct, Lizzy,” Georgiana agreed. “Look,” she pointed at the enormous structure ahead of them. “It is far bigger than I expected!”

“I read the Prince of Wales does enjoy ostentation,” Elizabeth responded. “From something I read, the Regent is planning to engage Mr John Nash to extend his Pavilion even more. When we get closer, look at the stables. In the book I was reading before we came to Brighton; it had a plate depicting them. Can you believe the stables are built in the Indian style? The future King’s horses live in more luxury than most of his subjects.”

“Look Lizzy, the building looks almost pink in the morning sun,” Lilly observed.

“It does, does it not, Lilly?” Elizabeth replied. “The closer we get the bigger it becomes. Like Anna, I hope the house is still open for visitors to tour. It would be something to be able to see the interior. If the outside looks so grand, I can only imagine what it would look like on the inside.”

Lilly turned towards her parents. “Mama and Papa, may we see if the house is open to visitors?” she requested with big, enthusiastic eyes.

Gardiner looked at his wife who nodded. “I see no reason why not. Should we enquire now, or after we have seen some stores and found a tearoom?” he addressed his wife.

Madeline looked around and saw the same excitement in Lizzy, Miss Darcy, and her three children. “The Pavilion first,” she suggested succinctly. By then they had arrived at a point close to the massive structure. “Come, Edward, we will go enquire if the house is open to the public.” With both Mrs Annesley and the four footmen present, the Gardiner parents had no concerns about leaving Lizzy and their children for a few minutes.

“I have heard our common friend extol the magnificence of Pemberley,” Elizabeth smiled. “Does this house rival yours?”

“To me it looks like the Pavilion was built to impress, and it is far larger than our home. That is what Pemberley is, a home. We, and the Darcys before us, have designed it for comfort and not for show,” Georgiana explained. “If you want to see a manor house which has been decorated to impress one with the wealth of the occupants, you need to see Rosings Park. I have not been there in many years as I am much intimidated by Lady Catherine, but William and Richard go there each Easter for about a fortnight. ”

“If I had accepted my friend’s invitation to Hunsford, I would have met your aunt this Easter past.” Seeing her friend’s quizzical look, Elizabeth gave her a brief explanation. “Based on my distant cousin’s nonsensical effusions about her, I could only imagine what your aunt is like.” Then she added, almost absent mindedly. “It seems his description of Lady Catherine as a termagant was the only true word to come out of Mr Wickham’s mouth.” As soon as she mentioned the name, Elizabeth knew she had caused Anna pain based on the look of distress on her friend’s face.

“Is that G-George Wickham?” Georgiana asked timidly.

“It is. What about his name causes you such distress? I know when I observed him and your brother seeing one another in Meryton, the former was afraid and the latter furious,” Elizabeth related.

“This is not the place or the time, but there is something I must relate to you even if it means you may refuse to see me again afterwards,” Georgiana said sadly.

“Anna, do you think me so fickle I would cast you off for any reason?” Elizabeth hissed next to her friend’s ear. “That is not who I am. If what you are referring to is too painful for you to speak of, then I do not need to know.”

“It must be done. Will you remain with me when we return to the house so I may speak to you? It is not something to be related in the street, and besides, I see your aunt and uncle returning,” Georgiana stated as she cocked her head towards the Gardiner parents who were approaching them.

“The house is not open,” Madeline revealed. “His Highness and his party will arrive by the end of this month, so the house is being prepared for the Regent. Therefore, it is no longer possible to take a tour.”

“Awww, I wanted to see the palace,” May whined. While it was unacceptable for an older child to react thusly, as she was only six, May was not chastised .

“May dear, we are here for another five weeks yet. If the Prince returns to London before then, I promise you we will visit the house before we depart,” Gardiner assured his second to youngest. Although Eddy and Lilly had very much wanted to see the inside of the Pavilion, he was proud they had tempered their reactions.

“What say you, we find a tearoom and have some treats before we go to look in the shops?” Madeline suggested. Everyone, especially her three children with them, agreed wholeheartedly.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“Mr Bennet, this is unacceptable, I demand that you return my authority over my daughters!” Fanny insisted on finding her husband in his study. “I do not accept my Lydia is no longer lively and back in. And to be usurped by this Miss Poppins, it is not to be borne.”

“Firstly, her title is Mrs, not Miss, as you have been told more than once,” Bennet responded. He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration at being interrupted from his work by the same diatribe he had heard from his wife multiple times since Lydia had come back from Brighton. “Next, and, Mrs Bennet, at the risk of a full year’s allowance, this is the very final time I will say the following. Thanks to your horrendous teaching of our youngest to flirt like a light skirt, I had to step in and make sure she was saved from your teachings,” he ignored his wife’s look of outrage. “She has finally learnt that when there were many more ladies, as there are in Brighton, the officers chose to ignore a child. You well know how she is now is how she was when she returned to us. Lastly, you have no authority other than that which I grant you. Because I erred in the past and allowed you far too much leeway with regards to our daughters, does not mean I need to keep repeating the same mistakes to the detriment of our daughters’ very respectability. ”

As she had already lost two quarters worth of pin money, Fanny was not willing to risk a full year being added to her husband’s cruel punishment. Unfortunately, he had meant what he had said to her of late, and no matter how much she harangued him, he had not relented in any of his dictates. “You love vexing me,” Fanny screeched. However she said nothing else and swept out of the study.

After seeing the changes he had been making were for the benefit of all in the family, Bennet had hoped his wife would eventually follow himself and her daughters in amending her behaviour. The instant he had admitted to himself there was no truth in his old assertion about increased profitability only advantaging Collins, any excuse he had to remain closeted with his books had vanished. He also acknowledged what he had put Lydia through could be seen as cruel, but he could not repine the results. He had gone from having some of the silliest girls in the realm to some of the more intelligent ones.

He did own they had never been silly, just unchecked and uneducated which was, after all, his own fault. Thoughts of his daughters led him to his two eldest children. He missed having Lizzy at home, but he would not have allowed himself to be so selfish as to deny her the holiday with the Gardiners. It struck him he could not order her about any longer as she was of age.

As far as Jane went, based on the conversation they had had a few days past, Bennet was inordinately proud of the way Jane had grown, and it had nothing to do with anything he had done.

She no longer saw the world through her desire to only see good, and she had arrived at the conclusion that Mr Bingley was not worthy of her. She had claimed she was not sure she had ever been in love with him, and even had she been, given how capricious he seemed to be, it would not have been a good match. Bennet grinned when he thought about how Fanny had whinged when he had ordered her to cease importuning Jane, regarding her failure to capture Mr Bingley.

That brought him back to the central question of what to do about his wife. She refused to make any changes and was becoming more irascible by the day. Sending her out to a cottage would be a drastic step, but he was afraid he would be forced to do that in the end. If only she would make the effort to change.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

By the time they reached the house on Coast Road, Elizabeth was worried about her friend. Ever since she had erred and mentioned that reprobate Wickham, Anna had withdrawn within herself. She had not rescinded her invitation for Elizabeth to remain with her, so at least it seemed there was no intention to break their connection.

“Lizzy, when you are ready to come home, Miss Darcy’s maid and one of the footmen will escort you,” Madeline informed her niece before the Gardiners made the short walk to their own rented house.

The Gardiner parents had noticed the change in Miss Darcy from the time they had delivered the news about the Pavilion being closed to callers. Neither thought it had anything to do with not being able to see the interiors of the palace which had affected the young Darcy in that way, but it was not something about which they could ask. The only way they would discover what ailed Miss Darcy was if Lizzy would be willing, or able, to share the source of her friend’s melancholy when she returned to them.

Once they had divested themselves of their outerwear, Anna led Lizzy and Mrs Annesley to her private sitting room. Before she closed the door, she instructed Thompson to make sure that no one approached the door until she told him it was allowed.

“Anna, I am not sure what I said to upset you, but whatever it was, please allow me to beg your pardon,” Elizabeth began as soon as the door was closed. “My mother always told me I was too impertinent for my own good, and that my mouth would cause trouble one day.”

“Miss Darcy, before you reply to Miss Elizabeth, would you like me to give you your privacy?” Mrs Annesley volunteered.

“Not unless Lizzy does,” Georgiana averred.

“I have no objection to Mrs Annesley’s presence,” Elizabeth added. “In fact, as she is your companion, it is wholly appropriate that she remains.”

“In that case, let us proceed. Lizzy, are you under the impression I am angry with you?” Georgiana enquired. Elizabeth nodded. “I promise you that is not the case. It was the name you spoke which destroyed my equanimity. Before you apologise again, how were you to know what hearing that name would do to me?”

Elizabeth opened her mouth to protest, but then as she thought of Anna’s words she had to admit that the younger lady made much sense in what she had just said. “So it was hearing the name of the former lieutenant?” she verified.

“Aye, so it was. If you indulge me a little, you will understand why I was so affected. First, tell me how you came to know of that man,” Georgiana requested.

Beginning with the first time she met the miscreant, to the poison he had poured in her ear at Aunt Hattie’s card party, Elizabeth told all. “Once the truth of his thievery, profligacy, and seductions in Meryton came to light, I realised what a simpleton I had been to listen to him at all.”

“William is the most honourable man I know, so why would you believe the worst of him?” Georgiana asked with a hurt look on her countenance.

“Your brother and I did not get off to a stellar start,” Elizabeth responded. Seeing the raised eyebrows on Anna, and the questioning look from Mrs Annesley, she realised only total honesty would do. Elizabeth related all. She began with the assembly and the slight, the time in company thereafter, the days at Netherfield Park, ending with the Bingley ball, and the party’s flight the next day. “I am sure the pernicious sisters did everything they could to separate Mr Bingley from Jane, but I am afraid I also suspect your brother may have had a hand in it as well. However, in Jane’s mind they did her a good turn and exposed Mr Bingley’s immaturity and capriciousness.” She paused not sure whether or not to discuss Miss Bingley’s work of fiction she had sent to Jane.

“You can relate anything, Lizzy, nothing can be worse than the way William behaved towards you. Although, based on what he wrote about you in his letters, his staring at you was not to find fault,” Georgiana stated.

“In an effort to warn Jane off Mr Bingley, Miss Bingley wrote a letter in which she claimed Mr Bingley was courting you and therefore only trifling with Jane. She also hinted at her soon receiving an offer from your brother,” Elizabeth revealed. “No one who ever saw her was unaware of her intentions, while at the same time her blindness to Mr Darcy’s indifference to her was also obvious.”

“Like I do, my brother intensely dislikes Miss Bingley, in fact…” Georgiana related what had befallen Miss Bingley thanks to her own behaviour, and the fact she was now ruined and persona non grata in London.

“It does not make me unhappy Miss Bingley has received her just desserts, but how does all of that relate to your reaction to Mr Wickham’s name?”

“All I can ask is what I am about to relate to you now, you do not relay to another, and if you decide to break the connection, I will understand.” A tear rolled down Anna’s cheek. “In August 1810…” Georgiana told the tale of manipulation and lies, as part of the campaign Mr Wickham and Mrs Younge had perpetrated against her. She did not hide th e fact that against her better judgement, she had agreed to the elopement, and how her brother’s arrival a few days earlier than he was expected, had saved her from herself. “Now you see why I said I would understand if you cannot maintain the connection any longer. I ignored the good principles I had been given all because I allowed that man to flatter me. I was silly enough to believe myself in love, and narrowly missed causing a great scandal in my family.”

“And as I said to you, I am not going anywhere! Argh! That man is so much worse than I ever imagined him,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Anna, other than not exercising the best judgement, all the fault lies with that libertine and the companion who was supposed to protect you. Your excuse was you were but fifteen at the time. What was theirs? I was twenty when I listened to, and accepted, his tale of woe, so what excuse do I have?”

“You do not know how joyful I am because you do not think me bad for what I almost did,” Georgiana smiled for the first time since hearing the hated name. She cogitated about what Lizzy had told her of the interactions with William. “At least now I understand why you suggested I not mention your presence in Brighton to William. I am not sanguine with the way he acted, and even less so that he did not warn the merchants and residents of Meryton regarding his propensities.”

“I would have preferred it if your brother had warned us right away, but I can see why he did not. He was acting to keep your name from scandal. If he had moved against the then lieutenant, I am sure that man would have blackened your name to one and all. If it had been my own sister, I am not sure I would not have acted the same way in order to protect her name.” Elizabeth stood and went to sit on the same settee next to Anna. She took her friend’s hand. “You have my word I will not tell anyone, not even my most trusted sister and confidante, Jane. ”

“I never doubted that for an instant,” Anna stated emphatically. She leaned over and hugged Lizzy. “Thank you for being my friend.”

Mrs Annesley could not have been more pleased. Not only had her charge been able to speak about her experience and see a true friend would not abandon her, but she had learnt a critical and important lesson—her brother was not infallible.

After her aunt replied to a note giving her permission, Elizabeth remained with Anna until after dinner.