Page 13 of Longbourn’s Son (Pride and Prejudice Variation #22)
“Well, Elizabeth, what happened today?” Jane asked curiously as her sister changed her dress after returning from Netherfield Park.
Elizabeth glanced toward the door, which was firmly shut, and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “Miss Darcy turned completely pale and almost fainted when I mentioned Mr. Wickham’s presence in the vicinity. The lieutenant is definitely no friend of the Darcys!”
“I do hope you did not press Miss Darcy in any way regarding her reaction?” Jane inquired worriedly.
“What do you take me for? Of course I did not. Her brother came in during the discussion and I left immediately, though Miss Bingley entered the room as I exited, unfortunately.”
“What did you do then, my dear? Wander the halls of Netherfield like a wraith, or no, let me guess, you visited the library!”
“I did visit the library,” Elizabeth declared with a twinkle in her eye, picking up her brush and beginning to untangle her chestnut locks, “but not to inspect Mr. Bingley’s rather pathetic group of books, but to act as a chaperone.”
Jane, who had lifted up Elizabeth’s discarded dress and was shaking out the wrinkles, turned with a confused look on her handsome face. “Chaperone? To whom?”
“Why to Father and Mrs. Hurst, of course!”
Jane stared at her sister, who stared back, and then carefully placed the dress on the bed before turning to face her sister directly.
“Do you mean that Father and Mrs. Hurst…? Impossible!”
Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow at this. “Unexpected, yes. Impossible, no, my dear. Not that there was anything particularly amorous in their conversations. They spent a full half hour discussing, with great enthusiasm, certain details of Stonehenge and some archaic book that Father brought along. It was very clear they were enjoying one another’s company a great deal, however. ”
“My dear Lizzy,” Jane exclaimed, “I am certain you are reading far too much into this! Father was kind enough to accompany you to Netherfield so that you could speak to Miss Darcy, and he happened to remember Mrs. Hurst’s interest in the monuments.”
“He also went to Netherfield yesterday to call on Mrs. Hurst, Jane, in the morning. I saw him leaving.”
Jane’s mouth dropped open, and she suddenly tottered over to lower herself onto the window seat.
Elizabeth hurried to her side and sat down, reaching out to grasp her beloved sister’s hands in her own. “My dear! I had no idea that you would be so very distressed at my news. I thought you liked Mrs. Hurst!”
“I do, Lizzy,” Jane responded after a moment. “I do, very much. She seems a determined woman and a wonderful mother. It is just, oh, I do not know. She cannot be much more than thirty, and has a baby! She lost her husband less than a year ago!”
Elizabeth, who was gazing intently into Jane’s downcast countenance, suddenly leaned forward to wrap her in an embrace.
“Jane, I do not remotely imagine that Father is close to making an offer to Mrs. Hurst. It is still early days. If he does, that does not mean that anyone will ever replace you in our hearts, our dearest Jane.”
Jane winced and pulled away a little. “Oh, Elizabeth, that is it, is it not? I feel my role here at Longbourn is, yes, to mother the young ones and the thought of a stepmother, and one not much older than I am – oh, I am a loathsome, jealous wretch to think of such things when I ought to think of Father’s potential happiness. ”
“Well, I do not necessarily agree with you about that; Father is permitted to be happy, but not at the expense of Mary, Kitty, Luke and Lydia. I would do anything in my power to put a spoke in the wheel of his marrying a shrew or, God forbid, a pretty face without goodness or discretion. But if he should choose to admire, and wed, an intelligent woman of sense, I think it would be a good thing.”
Jane straightened herself and forced herself to smile bravely. “It would be a very good thing, of course it would!”
Elizabeth eyed her with concern, but it was obvious her sister’s remarkable distress was, if not at an end, now firmly under Jane’s control.
If Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Hurst continued to spend time in company, they would speak of it again.
She regretted bringing the matter up, but she had not anticipated her elder sister’s reaction.
“Now, I agreed to pose for Kitty’s sketch of me,” Elizabeth said, “but what should we do about Mr. Wickham, Jane? I do not know the details of his behavior toward the Darcys, but based on Miss Darcy’s distress, he is not a good man, and it is possible he is not honorable with young ladies.”
Jane relaxed a little, far more comfortable with discussing the needs and cares of her younger siblings than her own chaotic emotions.
“I do not believe that our younger sisters are much in danger,” she mused.
“None of them are especially interested in gentlemen yet, after all. I suggest that after dinner you and I gather the four younger ones together and warn them that some of the militia officers might not be particularly estimable men, and that we all need to behave decorously around them. None of us girls ought to walk alone in Meryton while the regiment is quartered in town.”
“But we should not speak of Wickham particularly?”
Jane mulled this question for a full minute and then shook her head decidedly. “It would not be right to do so, Elizabeth, because we do not know details of what passed between him and the Darcys. I would not care for rumors to begin flying which might provoke unkind talk about Miss Darcy.”
“You are absolutely right, of course.”
/
“Please excuse me,” Darcy said as he prepared to leave the drawing room. He and Bingley had just played a game of piquet together, and he felt it was safe now to check on his sister without exciting excess curiosity. “I am anxious about Georgiana and wish to see how she feels.”
“Oh, do tell Miss Darcy that we hope she recovers very quickly,” Miss Bingley cried out, “and if her headache continues, I beg you to come fetch my laudanum, which is wonderfully efficacious.”
“Thank you, Miss Bingley,” Darcy responded with a slight bow, and quickly strode out of the room.
Bingley’s younger sister had entered the drawing room directly after Miss Elizabeth departed, and had found Georgiana white and shaking.
Mrs. Annesley had gathered up Miss Darcy and guided her away to her bedroom, leaving Darcy to explain that his sister had suddenly experienced a terrible headache.
To Darcy’s relief, Miss Bingley appeared to accept this explanation and had spent the next few minutes describing, at great length, some of her own fearsome headaches.
He had listened courteously, and even interjected a few questions, intent on distracting her from any suspicions regarding his sister’s sudden collapse.
When Darcy reached the sitting room next to her bedroom, he rapped softly on the door and said, “Georgiana, it is I. May I come in?”
The door opened a few seconds later and Georgiana, now dressed in a yellow day dress, said, “Please do, Fitzwilliam.”
He did so, and waited as Mrs. Annesley, with a smile at her young charge, gathered up her needlework and silently departed. Darcy bestowed a grateful smile on her as he held the door open for the older lady; Mrs. Annesley was a comforting soul, and Georgiana looked much better.
Once the door was closed, Darcy inspected his surroundings with approval.
The private sitting room attached to Georgiana’s bedroom might have old fashioned papering and carpet, but its furniture was comfortable and the two siblings would be able to converse quietly without worrying about being overheard by the servants or, worse yet, Miss Bingley.
“Please do sit down and warm yourself,” Georgiana invited, sinking into a dark blue stuffed chair by the fire.
“Thank you, my dear. The fire is quite welcome, is it not?”
“It is,” his sister agreed, sitting down and waiting for her brother to also take his seat.
When he had done so, she said quite decidedly, “I do beg you not to worry about me, Brother. Mrs. Annesley was able to give my thoughts quite a different direction. I am ashamed of what came to pass a few months ago in Ramsgate – no, do not attempt to interrupt me! I know that I ought not to have agreed to elope with Mr. Wickham. However, it was a difficult situation...”
“It was,” Darcy said eagerly, interrupting in spite of her request. “My dear Georgiana, it was a terrible situation with your companion and so called protector, Mrs. Younge, urging you to believe yourself in love with Wickham. I am far more to blame than you are, and I praise God every day that I visited you before Wickham could sweep you away to Gretna Greene for a runaway marriage.”
He trailed off, a lump in his throat as he contemplated once again how he could have lost the most precious person in the world through his own idiocy.
He ought to have checked Mrs. Younge’s bona fides, he should have done something about Wickham earlier, before the man could get his foul claws into his dear sister.
“But do you not see, Brother? We should be thankful. I learned a great lesson a few months ago, that a charming exterior can hide a most disreputable soul. Many a young woman learns such a thing only after the damage is done and she is tied to a reprobate for life or worse yet, ruined! I mourn over my mistakes, but I rejoice that the Lord was gracious enough to send you to rescue me. I beg of you, do not allow yourself to feel guilty. You did save me, and there was no great harm done, after all.”