Page 40 of Companions of Their Youth (Pride and Prejudice “What if?” Variations #9)

T he following four days were no easier for Elizabeth than the first had been. It was as if Georgiana were intentionally testing the limits of every boundary laid before her, searching for weak points with the tenacity of a seasoned saboteur.

On the first morning, she had come down late, only to find the breakfast table already cleared and the family mostly dispersed. She looked genuinely affronted. “Where is my food?” she demanded.

Elizabeth had met her gaze calmly and handed her a plate with a thick slice of bread and a single glass of water. “This is what is given when one arrives after the meal.”

Georgiana recoiled. “That is servant fare.”

“It is actually worse than what we feed our servants,” Elizabeth said, “but you were warned of the consequences.”

With a look of fury, Georgiana shoved the plate away. The water sloshed and spilled across the tablecloth. Elizabeth reached for the linen drawer and handed the girl a cloth.

“Wipe up your mess, please.”

Georgiana stood stiffly, glancing at the others as if expecting rescue. Mr. Bennet went on buttering his toast. Lydia looked faintly amused. Elizabeth merely waited, cloth in hand.

With ill grace, Georgiana snatched it and dabbed at the puddle. When finished, she dropped the cloth to the floor.

“Pick it up,” Elizabeth said quietly. “It belongs in the scullery basket. If you leave it, you will be asked to wash it yourself.”

With a mutinous glare, Georgiana obeyed.

Lessons that day began with another test: a discarded nightrail on the nursery floor, barely a foot from the laundry hamper.

“You may pick it up now and place it on your bed or in the hamper,” Elizabeth said mildly, “or wash it yourself on wash day.”

“But it is only Monday. You said wash days are on Wednesdays.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed. “So if you choose to leave it on the floor, you will go without it until Wednesday.”

“I will just wear another one. I have plenty.”

“I see. Did you pack them to bring with you?”

Georgiana hesitated. “No, I left them at Netherfield.”

“Then you only have the one. Unless you would like to sleep naked tonight, I recommend you pick it up.”

There was a long pause. Then Georgiana bent slowly to retrieve it—though she did not refold it—and tossed it onto her bed with contemptuous force.

The second day was worse. She arrived in time for breakfast and seated herself haughtily between Kitty and Lydia. But the moment her tongue touched the crumpet, she shrieked.

“It burned me!”

She picked up the plate containing the crumpets and tossed it across the room. The ceramic shattered.

The silence that followed was deafening.

“You will clean this room from top to bottom,” Mr. Bennet said, rising and motioning for Stephens. “And you will help Cook replace the food you ruined.”

“But it burned me!”

“Perhaps next time you will test the temperature more cautiously,” Elizabeth replied, standing. “Come.”

“I will not go into the kitchens. I am the granddaughter of an earl!”

“Today, you are the girl who ruined the morning meal.”

In the kitchen, she tried to run. Elizabeth caught her arm—not roughly, but with a strength that surprised them both. Though Georgiana was taller and had the curves of early womanhood, she had the softness of one who had never hauled a bucket or lifted a skillet.

With steely determination, Elizabeth pulled her toward the kneading board and pressed her fingers into the flour-covered dough. “This is what crumpets feel like before they are baked,” she said with exaggerated patience. “You will knead, shape, and bake them. Then you will clean the floor.”

Georgiana screamed, shrieked, and cried—but the flour caked on her hands all the same.

The third day brought another horror. The new nursery maid discovered bloodied cloths shoved into the corner of the bedroom. Mortified and infuriated, Elizabeth hauled Georgiana to the laundry room.

“I am not touching those!” the girl cried.

“You already did,” Elizabeth replied, handing her a pair of soap-wet gloves. “And you will again.”

It was a grim business, but necessary. By the end, Georgiana was silent, red-faced, and shaking. Elizabeth allowed her a moment in private to compose herself before sending her to bed.

But on the fourth day—there was quiet.

No tantrums. No broken dishes. No shrieking. Georgiana came down to breakfast on time, and though she ate very little, she did so in silence. Her face was pale, her shoulders stiff, but she did not misbehave.

It was a fragile hope.

But when she refused her morning lessons—claiming a headache and that her mind was too delicate for arithmetic—Elizabeth simply nodded and reminded her that refusal meant she would not be joining the others for their walk to Meryton.

Georgiana looked up, startled. “What?”

“You did not complete your schoolwork. That is the rule.”

“But I behaved this morning!”

“And that is good. It means you are learning. But lessons come before pleasure.”

Georgiana looked dismayed, but Elizabeth stood firm. The younger girl turned her face away and said nothing more.

The rest of the girls departed after luncheon, Lydia leading the way, two long braids cascading down her back, with Kitty skipping behind. Elizabeth walked a little apart with Jane, their arms wrapped close against the brisk autumn breeze.

The market town of Meryton was busy, its narrow main road bustling with tradesmen, women carrying baskets, and carts full of produce or firewood.

Elizabeth always enjoyed these visits—not merely for the shops or news, but for the society of people who greeted her with familiarity and good-natured cheer.

They had just turned past the haberdasher’s when they encountered a group of officers. Several gentlemen in scarlet stood on the opposite side of the street, standing about with a practiced, easy swagger that immediately caught Lydia’s attention.

“Oh! The militia has arrived!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Kitty, look—the officers! They are speaking with our aunt Philips.”

Elizabeth looked over to see their aunt in conversation from her upstairs window with three young men. Two were in uniform, but the third was not, and it was he who caught Elizabeth’s eye.

He was striking—tall and clean-cut, with light brown hair artfully swept beneath his hat and a manner that exuded confident ease.

He leaned one shoulder against the post just beneath the parlor window, his hands folded behind his back, and looked up at Mrs. Philips with a smile that seemed to charm as effortlessly as it curved his mouth.

Though he was not in uniform, he stood with the others as if he belonged among them—and yet, he looked somehow separate. More polished. More amused by it all.

Mrs. Philips, spotting her nieces below, waved her handkerchief with enthusiasm. “Girls! Girls! Come meet our gallant new protectors!”

Elizabeth winced. There was no help for it—Mrs. Philips's voice carried over the street like a brass bell.

“I am making introductions!” the older woman called down. “This is Lieutenant Denny and Captain Pratt—and this young man,” she gestured expansively out the window, “is Mr. Wickham, a particular friend of Denny’s who has just arrived from London to join the regiment.”

All three men turned toward them then, but it was the un-uniformed Mr. Wickham who stepped forward with an elegant bow.

“A pleasure,” he said, addressing them all generally, but with his gaze settling—just for a heartbeat—on Elizabeth.

Jane greeted them with her usual warmth, and Kitty and Lydia both began to giggle uncontrollably, whispering behind their hands and not even trying to hide their stares.

Elizabeth, deeply embarrassed, curtsied quickly and murmured a polite acknowledgment, determined to walk on before the scene could grow worse.

But Wickham, with a swift glance of amusement up at the window, stepped across the street and matched her pace.

“I must thank your aunt,” he said easily, “for saving me the trouble of arranging my own introduction. Mrs. Philips has been most obliging. It seems she feels a strong duty to ensure we officers become properly acquainted with the best of Meryton society.”

Elizabeth could not help a laugh, though her cheeks were still warm. “She does have a talent for hospitality. I only hope her enthusiasm has not alarmed you.”

“Not in the least. I find it charming,” he said. “And the introductions have been most enlightening already. I am told this town sells the best lace outside of London.”

Elizabeth raised a brow. “Indeed? I should like to know who told you that.”

“Your aunt, naturally,” he said with a grin. “She recommended it most fervently. And I confess I have a weakness for fine lace. There is something about it—so delicate, yet so precise. Like music, really.”

Elizabeth glanced at him sidelong. “An unusual taste in a soldier.”

Wickham shrugged, his smile undiminished. “I have found that soldiers are often more sensitive to beauty than they are given credit for. We know too well how easily it can vanish.”

There was a faint melancholy in his tone that Elizabeth could not quite place. Before she could respond, Lydia called out from ahead that they were going into the shop. Wickham gestured gallantly.

“May I? I know a thing or two about such fripperies.”

“Oh really?”

He gave her a winning smile. “Yes, although I must admit that when it comes to buckles, I am lost.”

Elizabeth hesitated only a second before nodding.

He followed her inside, offering opinions on ribbons and trimmings with such unselfconscious elegance that even Kitty was too surprised to giggle.

He complimented a bolt of Belgian lace so smoothly that the shop girl flushed and dropped her scissors.

Elizabeth studied him more closely as he spoke. He was flirtatious, yes, but not lascivious; attentive, but not presumptuous. There was something carefully curated about his every word and gesture. He was like a painting—beautiful, composed, and perhaps too perfect to be entirely real.