We have both had a great deal of advice from Lady Catherine. Most of it has been very good, but all the same I have often been relieved that Rosings is not in Derbyshire, but that it is far away in Kent.
‘How is Georgiana?’ he asked, as we left the park and began to ride back to my house.
‘Very well. I have sent her to Ramsgate for the summer.’
‘Good. It is too hot in town for her. It is too hot for anyone,’ he said. ‘I am going to Brighton next week. It is a pity I will not be able to see her, but next time I am in town I will make sure I visit her. Will you be joining her in Ramsgate?’
‘Not yet. I have too much to do.’
‘But you will be going to Pemberley?’
‘Later in the year, yes.’
‘I envy you Pemberley.’
‘Then you should marry. It would enable you to buy a place of your own.’
‘If I find a suitable heiress, I might consider it, but at the moment I am enjoying the bachelor life.’
With this we parted; he to go to his barracks, and I to return home.
At last my business in town is done, and I am free to visit Georgiana. I mean to go first thing tomorrow, and surprise her.
I had no idea, when I set out for Ramsgate this morning, what lay in store for me. The weather was fair and everything promised an enjoyable day. I arrived at Georgiana’s house and I was pleased to find it neat and well cared for.
I was announced by the maid, the establishment being too small to allow of a full staff, and found Mrs Younge in the parlour. Springing up at my entrance, she looked at me in consternation.
‘Mr Darcy. We did not expect you today.’
‘I thought I would surprise my sister. Where is she?’
‘She is…out…sketching.’
‘On her own?’ I asked.
‘Oh, no, of course not, with her maid.’
‘I did not hire you to sit at home whilst my sister goes out with a maid,’ I said, displeased.
‘I would ordinarily have accompanied her, of course, but I was forced to stay indoors this morning. I was…indisposed. I…ate some bad fish…I was most unwell. Miss Darcy was eager to continue her sketching, however, and the weather being fine I did not like to spoil her enjoyment. She asked if she might take her maid, and I saw no harm in it. Her maid is not a young girl, but a sensible woman who will see that she comes to no harm.’
I was mollified. Mrs Younge did indeed look ill, though at the time I did not know the true cause of her pallor.
‘Which way did they go?’ I asked. ‘I will join her. I can sit with her whilst she sketches, and we can return together.’
She hesitated for a moment before saying: ‘They intended to turn right along the shore, so that Miss Darcy could finish a sketch she had already begun.’
‘Very well, I will follow them and surprise her.’
I went out into the hall, but at that very same minute I saw Georgiana coming downstairs. I was startled. She was dressed for indoors and showed no signs of having been out sketching. I was about to ask Mrs Younge what she meant by such a fabrication when Mrs Younge herself spoke.
‘Miss Darcy, I thought you had gone out already,’ she said. ‘Here is your brother come to see you. ’ Then she added: ‘Remember, a little resolution is all that is needed, and you will achieve everything your heart desires.’
I thought her speech odd, but I took it to mean that if Georgiana applied herself she would be able to finish her sketch to her satisfaction. How wrong I was!
‘Fitzwilliam,’ said Georgiana, growing pale.
She stopped on the stair and did not come down. She looked suddenly very young, and very uncertain. I was alarmed, and thought she was unwell.
‘What is it? Are you ill?’ I asked. ‘The fish – did you eat it, too?’
‘Fish?’ she asked, bewildered.
‘The bad fish Mrs Younge ate. Did you have some as well?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said, twisting her hands.
‘You are not well, however,’ I said, noticing a sheen of perspiration on her forehead and seeing how white she had become.
I took her hand and led her into the parlour. Mrs Younge was about to follow us when I said to her: ‘Fetch the doctor.’
‘I don’t think – ’ she began, but I cut her off.
‘My sister is unwell. Send for the doctor.’
My tone left her no choice and she departed. I shut the door.
Georgiana had walked over to the window, and was looking paler by the minute.
‘Here,’ I said, taking a chair over to her and helping her to sit down.
But she immediately sprang up again.
‘No, I cannot,’ she said unhappily. ‘I cannot deceive you, no matter what he says.’
I was startled. ‘No matter what he says?’ I repeated, at a loss.
She nodded seriously. ‘He says that if you know about it you will stop us,’ she went on miserably.
‘Who, Georgiana?’
‘George,’ she said, hanging her head.
‘George?’
‘Yes, George Wickham. Mrs Younge and I met him by chance on the seashore. He is holidaying here. We fell into conversation and he told me how much it grieved him that there has been some coolness between you lately. I, too, have been grieved by it. I liked it much better when you were friends. It does not seem right that there should be anything unsettled between you. I was relieved when he told me that it had just been a silly misunderstanding, and that it had all been cleared up, so that there was nothing now to prevent us being comfortable together. He reminded me of the time he sat me on my pony and led me round the yard, and of the time he brought me a pocket full of acorns,’ she said with a smile.
‘He said it was fortunate that we had met as it meant we could renew our friendship. I said I no longer liked acorns, so he laughed, and said that he would bring me diamonds instead.’
‘Did he indeed?’ I asked. ‘And what did Mrs Younge say to this?’
‘She said it was perfectly proper for me to entertain a family friend. I would not have done so otherwise,’ said my sister.
‘Entertain him?’ I asked, feeling more and more alarmed.
‘Yes. He has dined here on occasion, and joined us in the day if the weather was wet. He plays chess as well as he ever did, but I am improving and I have beaten him twice.’
There was some animation in her face as she said this, but she faltered again on seeing my expression.
‘I have displeased you.’
‘Not at all,’ I said, striving for my composure. ‘You have done nothing wrong.’
‘I did not mean to fall in love with him, really I did not,’ she said imploringly. ‘I know I am very young, but he told me so many pleasing stories about the future that I came to look on our marriage as a settled thing.’
‘Marriage?’ I exclaimed in horror.
‘He…he said he loved me, and he reminded me of when I had said I loved him.’
‘When did you say so?’ I demanded.
‘When I fell off the gate in the courtyard and he picked me up.’
‘But you were seven years old!’
‘Of course, it was just a childish thing to say at the time, but the more I saw of him here, the more I became convinced I was in love with him in earnest. Only I did not like to think of deceiving you. I wanted everything to be open. I told him he must ask you for my hand in the ordinary way, but he said you would not let us marry until I was eighteen, and that it would be a waste of three precious years of our life together. He said we should elope, and then send you a letter from the Lake District afterwards.’
‘And did you agree to this?’ I asked, stricken.
Her voice dropped.
‘I thought it sounded like an adventure. But now that I see you, and know how much it grieves you, it does not seem to be like an adventure at all.’