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CHAPTER TEN

PEMBERLEY

Darcy

W inter progressed as it always does in the country.

The branches of the trees turned bare, the drizzles and sleeting rains came and went, and when the sun peeked out, the sky over all the grey world turned a shade of violet blue.

Snow fell and melted while the work of the estate went on as though around the cogs of a clock.

Pemberley ran herself. We masters came and went, but the land breathed through its cycles, fallow followed by greening, unimpressed by our fiddling.

I kept occupied. There was still much to be done to make sure the estate continued to run tick tock year over year.

When not pouring my attention into the management of my legacy, I made sure I was close to my sister so that she might feel easier with me and perhaps even heal her guilt over Wickham.

Of Wickham, I heard nothing. This signified to me that he had escaped with his skin somehow and that for the nonce, my sister’s reputation remained intact.

All the same, I sent a note to my cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, and tasked him with making inquiries as to the disposition of our nemesis. Then I went to find my sister.

The fence I had been avoiding had to be jumped sooner or later, and I chose to ride straight at it.

Georgiana was a tall, slender girl, still sometimes awkward in her movements but beginning to exhibit those attributes society identifies as elegant.

Her face was not beautiful, but her features were regular, and there was an openness in her countenance that was undeniably appealing.

She was, to me, a striking woman in the making, if only she could find a particle of confidence.

I could never think of a confident woman without thinking of Elizabeth Bennet, and I wondered briefly how she had weathered the attentions of her ridiculous parson cousin. That the man must have smarted from a bloody refusal I did not doubt.

“What amuses you, William?” Georgiana asked. I must have smiled at these ruminations.

“Oh, nothing in particular. Will you sit down to play Commerce?”

We had long ago, out of necessity, devised a way that just the two of us could play, and Mrs Annesley, seeing us occupied, left us alone for the afternoon.

“Did I tell you I stumbled across George Wickham in Hertfordshire?” I began in the most casual voice I could conjure as I looked over my cards.

Her eyes widened, and I knew she was scouring my face with them. I kept my eyes on my cards and blithely spoke on. “He was making himself agreeable with the neighbourhood, and so I informed against him with the money lenders.”

She gasped and put her cards face down. I did not let her gather herself to speak, and still in an attitude of distraction over the arrangement of my hand, I said, “I believe he escaped, but I would imagine he is living in the rough now. I wrote to Richard to find out what he can. My best hope is the scapegrace is on a ship to New South Wales.”

After a gulp, my sister asked in an unsteady whisper, “And did he speak?—”

“Of you? No, I do not believe he did. We would have heard the tattle from our Matlock relations if he had.” I put my cards down and looked at her.

“There is a possibility he tried that ploy and was not believed, Georgiana. The word of a swindler, which is what he is at heart, is eventually disregarded. At any rate, Richard will find out what has become of Wickham, and we shall wash our hands of him, shall we?” I spoke lightly and with as much kind commiseration as I could interlace into a voice more accustomed to officious speaking.

“I-I cannot keep secret what I have done,” she said in quiet misery. Her cards too laid on the table between us.

“You do not have to. The shame is not yours to hide—it is mine for not caring for you better and Wickham’s for being a scoundrel.”

“You have always cared for me,” she said more forcefully.

“No, not always. I should have been more forthcoming. Over the years, I could have told you of my misgivings about Wickham’s character, of his dissipation, and of his desperation for money. When he came sniffing around, you would have been made uneasy and suspicious.”

“But would I, William? I-I have no confidence that I am not the stupidest gull.”

That, I realised, was the most confident thing I had ever heard my sister say. I smiled at her, a fulsome grin of approval.

“You are a Darcy, love. We are not stupid. Top lofty, proud, and disagreeable perhaps, but never stupid. Do look at your cards, Georgiana. I have a decent hand that I do not want to waste.”

That solid thud of landing safely—brilliantly—on the other side of a high wall filled my awareness. My sister seemed to feel it too, and we enjoyed the most pleasant game of cards we had ever played on that wet afternoon in January.

In the weeks that followed, my sister warmed to me and settled into a comfortable trust that I still held her in esteem. She also developed a curious and often unsettling fascination for Miss Elizabeth Bennet. She asked one day if I would describe her.

“Oh, well, she is hardly what I would call beautiful. Short. Dark-haired.”

“Has she no redeeming features?” Georgiana asked in surprise.

“Oh, she has many. Her eyes are enchanting—very fine and dark but shining too. Hard to describe. And she moves like a dancer.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has a natural grace and strength. She is a strong walker.”

“Is she?”

I indulged this fascination. We had so little to talk about over the years because of our disparate ages and circumstances, so any topic that kept us speaking I would have blown upon as a weak ember in the tinder.

Never once did I stop to consider to what end my sister pressed for information about Elizabeth Bennet, but she showed her hand by asking, “Will you go back to Hertfordshire to court her then, William?”

We were bundled to our ears and walking to the lake to see if there was enough ice for skating.

“Who? Elizabeth Bennet? No!” I protested. And then, thinking to disabuse her of this romantic notion, I said, “No, no. She is not eligible, you see.”

“Not eligible? But why not? I had the impression she is a gentleman’s daughter.”

“She is that. But she has relations in trade,” I said with finality, that being the beginning and the end of all my objections.

“So do the Bingleys,” Georgiana replied.

From the mouth of babes! My sister looked at me with curiosity, almost with a demand in her voice to have the matter explained in plain English.

“Well…um…well,” I stammered. “But, Bingley also has a fortune, you see.” She frowned a little and I ploughed on.

“The Bennet family is, in the main, a haphazard bunch. The younger girls are ignorant and wild to a fault, Mrs Bennet has the manners of a market seller, and Mr Bennet is a wit. Excepting Elizabeth and her older sister Jane, the Bennets are not relations I could be proud of.” I ended this speech on a hard note.

My sister fell silent, and I breathed a sigh of relief that she had dropped her mad notion. A match with Elizabeth Bennet! Impossible!