Page 31 of The Winter of Our Discontent (Pride and Prejudice Variations #1)
ELIZABETH DARCY, PEMBERLEY
Georgiana appeared this morning at my door as Wilson finished dressing me for the day.
“Good morning, Sister,” she said in a tentative voice.
I glanced up at her shy smile and felt the sting of unshed tears. She was coming to care for me, and I was, if not loved, held in great affection by her.
“Good morning, Sister,” I replied with as wide a smile as my feelings allowed. Indeed, I was close to sobbing out my gratitude. By rights, she should hate me for making her brother so unhappy.
“Might you spare me a moment?” she asked.
“I will spare you all day, if you wish. Wilson, would you be so good as to tell Mrs Reynolds I am with Miss Darcy and must delay our morning conference?”
Wilson agreed with pins in her mouth. She pulled my curls into a simple upward sweep and left us.
“Now, what shall we talk of? Have Mrs Annesley’s headaches come upon her again? ”
“No, no.” She looked unsure, searched the pattern on the rug as if for answers, and then pulled a paper out of her pocket. “I have written to my brother, and I wonder…” She took a sustaining breath and said, “I wish you would read it and tell me if I do right.”
I gasped in surprise, taking her arm and directing her to sit on the edge of my bed with me. “Of course you do right to correspond with him, Georgiana. What could you possibly say in a letter that would cause you such uncertainty?”
She only pushed the letter at me and watched my face carefully as I read.
‘Dear Fitzwilliam’, she began. Not for the first time was I struck by her formality in addressing her brother. Had she no pet names for him? She behaved towards him more as a ward than a sister.
We have had a merry few weeks here. I wonder how you will felicitate me, for I have come out of my little shell of late. After the events of last summer, I hope you will be gratified by my progress.
With the encouragement of Mrs Annesley and Mrs Darcy, I have expanded my music lessons to include half a dozen of our neighbours.
Miss Ivy Maunders, who is fourteen, her cousin Miss Juliana Stiles, who is nineteen and out, Lady Dagwood’s companion, Miss Easterly, a spinster of eight-and-twenty related to Lord Meeks, Miss Hodge, the vicar’s sister, and old Miss Compton have all happily agreed to come to Pemberley twice a week for our ‘musical mornings’ as we have styled them.
The noise we make is quite terrible, I confess, but Mr Tingle says we will improve with practice.
Miss Compton sings in a reedy voice that carries, and Miss Easterly does not know a flat from a sharp.
Mrs Annesley has a cough and cannot sing at all, yet Mrs Darcy is so determined we enjoy our time that we laugh merrily at our mistakes and hope for better.
When my new pianoforte arrived, for which I enclose a separate letter to express the fullness of my delight and appreciation, Mr Tingle suggested we keep my old faithful instrument so that Elizabeth and I, and perhaps Miss Maunders and Miss Stiles, can play duelling duets and compositions.
He spent the entire day yesterday tuning both instruments.
I eagerly await your return so that you can congratulate me in person for my efforts to improve my sociability. Perhaps when Lady Matlock again brings up my presentation, I will have the courage to accept her invitation to town.
Oh! I nearly forgot to mention that we have also got into the habit of having our less fortunate friends and neighbours come for dinner after church.
So far, we have included Mr Hodge and his sister, Miss Hodge, and Mr Yardley, of course, who is here without family.
I would like to invite the schoolmaster and his wife, but I apply to you for permission, since they are not precisely gentlefolk, nor are they to be classed as common.
I hope your business in London is progressing to your satisfaction.
The letter sputtered on for another paragraph, and I skimmed it to the stilted end before looking up.
“You seek to shelter me,” I said quietly .
“Do you disapprove?” she asked anxiously.
I felt the danger. My husband had warned me not to turn his sister against him. I sat silent and searched my mind for wisdom. At last, I spoke. “Georgiana, I?—”
She interrupted me. “I am not blind, Elizabeth! I see how my brother treats you. I cannot account for it. Indeed, I am grieved he is so cold to you!”
I cleared my throat. “You believe he will forbid our musical mornings if he suspects they are my doing.”
She fell silent. I heard the walnut wood of my mantelpiece crack as it expanded. I heard a faint knocking noise as the trellis below my room rocked against the house in a cold wind.
“I do not understand him. He has never acted this way,” Georgiana whispered at last, a tear etching its way down her porcelain cheek.
I felt moved to say something to comfort her, so I spoke plainly.
“I am forbidden by your brother to speak to you of our marriage. Do not ask me to explain it. But I can assure you that your distress over what you perceive is unnecessary and perhaps even unhelpful. If you care for me and wish to support me, then you will act naturally with your brother and hold him in as much affection as you ever did.”
“But I do not like that he?—”
“You are in no position to judge him, since you know nothing of the circumstance. I do not repine, do I?”
“No! And your courage does you much credit. How do you bear it? He treats you like a complete stranger in his house.”
“I bear it because I understand it. I am a complete stranger in his house. Really, love, you know nothing about it and have built up some ideas. That is all. ”
She looked downcast, interlacing her fingers this way and that.
“What is it?” I gently pressed. “Do my assurances mean nothing?”
She darted a few looks at me before she spoke. “There is gossip below stairs…”
“Oh well.” I spoke bracingly and with a wave of dismissal.
“There is always gossip below stairs. What does that have to do with me? I do not care what is said of me by people who do not know the truth of my situation, my character, my aspirations, much less the truth in my mind and heart. I wish you would not listen to it.” I paused and changed tack altogether.
“But do you really believe Mr Darcy would forbid us our company?”
“I do not rightly know. I hope he will not.” She looked up with a little fire in her eyes. “Indeed, I pray he does not because if he interferes with the most pleasure I have enjoyed in a very long time, I will be furious with him.”
I considered this and at last knew what to tell her about her letter.
“In that case, send your letter and take the blame for our musical mornings. I will write to him today as well, and in my letter, I will own to contriving our Sunday dinners. Or,” I said with mischief in my voice, “we could throw the blame for both schemes on Mrs Annesley. He could hardly argue with her .”
My new sister finally released her tension and allowed a small chuckle to escape. “You did not even notice how well I pretended in my letter,” she said.
“Oh, I noticed and with something like alarm. You pretend he will congratulate you, pretend he will approve of all your newly won social confidence, and pretend he will be overjoyed to find his quiet house overrun with guests. ’Tis a power, I grant you, this skill of pretending.
But I caution you to use it with finesse and rarely. Honesty is much better in all cases.”
“But honesty does not work in all cases.”
“Sadly,” I said, my light of amusement fully doused, “it does not. Some people will not hear the truth even when it is told to them.” I stood and looked at my image in the mirror.
That stark, pale face of catastrophe would not do.
I took a breath, turned to Georgiana, and said, “What do you say to driving out with me in your phaeton to collect greenery for the house?”
She leapt to her feet and clapped in glee, still a child when joyful. I envied her this and loved her more for it.