Summer at
Pemberley
a Jane Austen fan fiction
by Lucy
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Parlor
pursuits
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Miss Bingley marched into the sitting room in a huff of
irritation, "Will this rain never cease? Three days!" she cried as
she sat down impatiently. Elizabeth and Georgiana stared at her, mildly amused
by her demonstration.
"Fortunately," Elizabeth responded, "there are
ample means of diversion indoors. Such as the library," she said,
indicating the volume she herself was perusing. "Mrs. Ashton, as you can
hear, is occupying herself practicing on the harp and the gentlemen are well
entertained in the billiards room. So you see, while we await the return of dryer
days we shall need to indulge in more sedentary schemes."
Miss Bingley, bored and irritable, was in a less than
decorous mood and shrugged her shoulders discontentedly. The last three days,
with the rain keeping all guests indoors and in generally close confederacy,
had made patent for Miss Bingley her status as adjunct in Mr. Darcy's sphere
more than anything else since his actual wedding. With the exception of Sir
Patrick's erratic attentions, she found herself reduced to secondary, nay,
tertiary importance, and she was, as a result, at turns unusually quiet and
withdrawn, at turns mildly caustic. There was no manner in which she could
garner prominence in the drawing room: Mrs. Thorney was incontrovertibly the
most handsome woman in the party and Mrs. Ashton the most skilled musician;
Jane and Georgiana were pleasingly dulcet; and Elizabeth, to Miss Bingley's
entirely loath acknowledgment, prolifically witty. Miss Bingley recalled with
painful, ironic frustration with what confidence she had once dismissed the
self-sufficient Eliza Bennet. Now she watched her surrounded by devoted family
and admiring friends, and for the first time Miss Bingley accepted completely,
in the privacy of her thoughts, Elizabeth as mistress of Pemberley, recognizing
her authority and her success. A success which seemed to depend as much as
anything else on her lack of concern for the same, and rooted in that very
independence of mind Miss Bingley had once belittled as wholly without fashion,
and therefore, to her reasoning, without merit.
After a few moments of sulky silence, she continued her
lament. "I am surprised at your patience, Mrs. Darcy, you, who so enjoy a
vigorous walk."
"We must sometimes suspend our pleasures, Miss
Bingley. In any case, if you would like to take a turn there is always the
orangery. I believe Jane and your brother are now indulging in that
pleasure."
"And Mrs. Thorney?"
"In her rooms with a headache."
Indifferent, Miss Bingley turned to Georgiana. "My
dear Georgiana, pray, what is that you are working on?"
"A design for a screen," she replied quietly.
Miss Bingley rose from her seat and examined the pretty floral pattern, taking
immediately to rapturous praise of her friend's invention. Suddenly recalled to
the calendar, she exclaimed: "How shall we be celebrating your birthday
tomorrow Georgiana? I still recall last summer what a delightful, intimate fete
your brother organized for your sixteenth. I wonder what he shall be giving you
this year? After last year's gift he cannot possibly improve. The pianoforte
was quite a striking touch."
"My brother is always generous and kind."
"But the celebration, dear Georgiana, how shall we
celebrate?"
"There is nothing planned."
"What?" she replied inelegantly. Turning to
Elizabeth she spoke in tones of allegation and dismay, her recent displeasure
making her sporadically return to the incivility so readily displayed during
the early days of their acquaintance. "Mrs. Darcy, can that be so? No
celebration? I can hardly accept that Miss Darcy of Pemberley will not have her
day properly recognized."
"I have thus requested," Georgiana offered,
astonished by the tone of voice Miss Bingley employed.
Miss Bingley, unmindful of her young friend's discomfort, set
off into a dissertation on the many benefits of celebrations and the certain
necessity that Georgiana insist upon her due. "Simply because your brother
has married does not mean that you should consider yourself as second in your
own home," she concluded. Georgiana paled at Miss Bingley's words. She did
not know how to respond to such an impolitic declaration, and stammered
clumsily in answer.
Miss Bingley's habit of trying to presume herself into a
role of effective authority over Georgiana, if not over Pemberley House itself,
by turns amused and irritated Elizabeth. Much as she tried to abide her for
Jane's sake, and recognizing as she did Miss Bingley's generally improved
manners toward herself, she found her, nonetheless, at times insufferably presumptuous.
Elizabeth could not understand how her husband--who valued forthrightness,
abhorred disguise, and suffered foolishness not at all well--could tolerate her
with such equanimity.
"Miss Bingley," Elizabeth finally interrupted,
"Georgiana is old enough to know her own mind in this matter and her
brother and I, whatever our predilections may have been, will most certainly
respect her decision." Excluding any further commentary, Elizabeth rang
for the servant and ordered that tea be served in the yellow drawing room and
that Mrs. Ashton and the gentlemen be advised of the same.
"And Charles and Jane?" Miss Bingley inquired,
irritated by the ostensible dismissal. "Shall we not advise them as
well?"
"When they have finished their walk in the orangery
they will join us. There is no need to disturb them, Miss Bingley," she
replied curtly, as she rose to adjourn to the other room.
The sound of Lord Chiltern's boisterous baritone racing
down the passageway with all the vitality of a willful stallion heralded the
imminent arrival of the gentlemen to the drawing room.
"I have avenged myself upon your husband, Mrs.
Darcy," Lord Chiltern boasted as the gentlemen entered and took up spots
about the room.
"Avenged yourself, sir? I am afraid I am quite at a loss
to your meaning."
"While Darcy has made a mockery of me at the
chessboard these last days, I have just returned the compliment at the
billiards table. Was it not a masterful victory, gentlemen? Why just look at
him, scowling with indignation. But then he is not the sort of man who likes to
lose, I take it. He was a bit more tractable as a young man, I dare say."
"I sincerely doubt, sir, that Mr. Darcy was ever
particularly tractable," Elizabeth replied wryly. "As for the rest, I
gather you might have a difficult time locating any vigorous gentleman who
actually enjoys losing, whether at billiards or cards or any other fine
sport."
"Or life," he added happily, as he made his way
to the table where Georgiana was employed in the office of serving the tea.
"I suppose at the end of the day we all like to have our own way."
With a cup of tea procured, Lord Chiltern took a seat across from Elizabeth.
"What do you think of a book, Mrs. Darcy?"
"A book, sir?"
"Yes. Thorney here," Chiltern responded, gesturing
towards Mr. Thorney who stood at his side, "he and his wife think I ought
to chronicle my exploits for posterity. What think you?"
"You are such an active gentleman. Are you sure you
have the patience for such an arduous endeavor? I confess to some
skepticism," she affirmed with a sweet smile, causing both Thorney and
Chiltern to laugh at her pretty insolence.
"You have little faith in me, I see. I am a half
clever fellow, Mrs. Darcy. What is more, if that Lord Byron fop can become
fashionable with his silly Childe Harold why could I not do the same with a
real adventure tale?"
"Ah, Lord Byron!" Thorney interjected
disdainfully. "All the talk of town since he published his dreadful Cantos
last year. Am I the only person to find all that decadence he portrays
ridiculously fanciful? Spent gods, ruined temples and other such nonsense. I
confess my wife quite disagrees with me, and I should imagine it is her
enthusiasm for the work that caused her to make her suggestion Lord
Chiltern."
"I must accede to the challenge!"
"Would you compose such extravagant verse as well,
Lord Chiltern?" Elizabeth inquired. "Or should you like a less
spectacular style? Perhaps something more like the chronicles of the peninsular
war gentlemen take such pleasure in reading?"
"I should imagine neither."
"A style all your own?"
"Not precisely. When I was in the Argentine quite a
few Spaniards convinced me their adventure tale is the greatest one of all, so
I thought I might emulate that book. I find the intelligent application of
humor so much more gratifying than grandiose histrionics."
"Oh dear me," Elizabeth laughed. "Now I am
disenchanted, sir. Do not tell me you spoke of books while in the Argentine.
You have destroyed my image of you altogether."
"She has you there, Lord Chiltern," Thorney
added. "It does no good to hear of a famed adventurer talking books in the
wilds. Hardly something I can take back to White's with me, now is it?"
"Perhaps it is not so very wild in the Argentine after
all," Elizabeth said impishly. "What say you, Mr. Darcy?" she
continued, as Darcy approached the group, positioning himself across from her
that he might take pleasure in the manner in which her amusement brightened her
eyes. "Lord Chiltern has just confessed to Mr. Thorney and myself that he
spent a prodigious amount of time in the Argentine discussing books. I was
quite confident he would have had no time for such a conventional parlor
pursuit. Does it not force one to doubt the veracity of such intricate tales as
those he has woven for us these days he has been with us?"
Darcy listened to his wife with a slight smile; he never
ceased to marvel at her unique ability to state the most impertinent opinions
without offending a soul. "I should never be so perverse as to ever
question the accuracy of your conclusions, Mrs. Darcy," he replied.
"I will question your conclusions, even if your
husband will not," Lord Chiltern cried. "My honor depends upon it. Do
you truly doubt me, Mrs. Darcy?" Elizabeth raised an eyebrow in silence.
"Well then," Chiltern continued, "I shall be required to write
my chronicles so that others less discerning might be more acquiescent to my
powers."
"And therein you will, at last, have your glory,"
she retorted with a smile.
"Acknowledged, madam." Chiltern bowed his head in
mock defeat.
Mr. Thorney chuckled at the delightful repartee. "What
book was this, Lord Chiltern, for which you have altogether destroyed Mrs.
Darcy's notion of you?"
"Don Quixote de la Mancha," he replied. Turning again
to Elizabeth he inquired whether she was familiar with it.
"Oh yes, it is a great favorite of my father, who
loves nothing so much as studying the follies, whims and inconsistencies of
humanity and there is perhaps no greater single expression of the same than the
adventures of that errant knight, although in totality our own Shakespeare
certainly is unsurpassable."
"Is it from your father then, Mrs. Darcy, that your
quick mind originates?" Mr. Thorney asked.
"While my father-in-law is an indubitably clever
gentleman," Darcy offered, "my wife's lively mind is all her
own."
"And so much the better that it be that way," she
responded gaily. "Let me only divulge, Mr. Thorney, that my father did not
censure my curiosity. Whether to my eventual advantage or not is for others to
decide, but if a book was in his library I was welcome to it."
"Oh, most certainly to your advantage, Mrs.
Darcy," her husband replied. "And I might add, to the advantage of
those of us admitted to the privilege of hearing you." Elizabeth smiled
and raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, in a confidential recognition of
Darcy's allusionÑthe vision of him standing before her at the pianoforte at
Rosings flashed through her mind and she wondered, for the hundredth time at
least, how she could have been so entirely lacking in perception.
Mr. Thorney listened to Darcy's mildly flirtatious reply to
his wife and observed the furtive communication that passed between them. A
notion regarding connubial felicity--something he himself could make no great
claims upon--which had been forming in his mind over the preceding three days,
clarified: the concept of a wife offering true companionship suddenly dawned on
him as a very attractive and possible alternative. Concerned always with the
impact of his father's negligent management of Alresford Hall and the attendant
lands, Thorney had married the former Miss Anne Woodcrest more for her fine
fortune than her fine figure; Darcy, however, had obviously married for no
other reason than to please himself. Bringing him neither fortune nor
connections, Darcy's marriage had been considered a rather risky affair among
his acquaintances. That was as far as censure went, for the most part, as
Darcy's patronage and connections were too important to discard over such a
matter. It was generally agreed that if the gentleman was inclined to take as
his bride the daughter of an obscure, comparatively poor gentleman, well, he
certainly had the freedom to be capricious where others perhaps did not. Yet
risky it was indisputably seen to beÑa marriage purely of inclination and quite
lacking in more substantive advantages could not be viewed otherwise. As
Thorney observed Darcy with his wife he began to believe the risk had been very
much worth the taking. While Thorney had, in common with most, found Mrs. Darcy
charming and amiable when she was first introduced about town, it was only over
these last few days, in which a greater intimacy with her ways could be learnt,
that Thorney came to fully respect Darcy's choice. While Mrs. Thorney was more
handsome, he found Mrs. Darcy offered to his friend qualities his own wife,
indolent and spoilt as she was, lacked; qualities which ensured a pleasure in
domestic life completely wanting in his own case. She had intelligence and
good-humor, unaffected grace, and an engaging, warm disposition that seemed to
promise daily enjoyment of her companionship. At heart, Thorney desired nothing
more than a peaceful, contented existence at Alresford Hall, and he sensed that
his friend was to have just that at Pemberley.
Mr. Thorney was not alone in his observations. Miss Bingley,
who sat with Sir Patrick across the room, also found her eyes frequently turned
to the group at whose center sat Elizabeth. Sir Patrick, for his part, had not
yet determined whether to court Miss Bingley. He had concluded it was time to
secure a suitable wife who might assist him in furthering his political
ambitions and he was by no means in search of love; nevertheless, he was man
enough to require that when he did marry he would not be second to any man in
his wife's eyes. Miss Bingley's continued admiration for his friend and
apparent high curiosity about his friend's wife had not gone unnoticed. What is
more, while he found her more than satisfactorily handsome and in possession of
the most fashionable of manners, he could not altogether neglect Darcy's words.
As he had conversed with her over the preceding days he had found that, indeed,
her essential character was difficult to discern.
"Should I be offended, Miss Bingley, that my
conversation cannot engage you enough to tear your attention away from the
other side of the room?" He spoke mildly, smilingly, and sipped his tea.
Mortified to have been captured in such observation, she replied, in a voice
heavy with pretentious indifference, something about the bad weather giving her
a headache and thus her apparent distraction. Amused by her embarrassment, Sir
Patrick thought he might as well investigate the true nature of her lingering
attachment to his friend.
"Perhaps, Miss Bingley, it is neither my lack of
conversation nor your headache which has you distracted. Perhaps you find it as
interesting as do I to watch Darcy--reserved, dignified, proper
Darcy--attempting to contain the obviously powerful feelings he harbors for his
wife?"
Sir Patrick noted a passing wince upon Miss Bingley's face,
but her tone when she responded was composed and even lighthearted.
"Whatever do you mean, Sir Patrick? Mr. Darcy appears quite as he ever has
to my eyes."
"I do not imagine everyone would notice, he is so
subtle about it, but you strike me as a keen observer, Miss Bingley. Why, look
at him now. Do you not observe how he attempts to hide his smile behind his
teacup when she speaks; has it not gone noted by you that he always stands or
sits across from her that he might watch her, and when he does how his eyes
veritably caress her features. Oh, it is not at all obvious, quite delicate in
its manner to be sure, but perhaps the more moving for its very reserve."
"I am afraid I do not make it a habit to study other
people's feelings, Sir Patrick, as you seem to have done with our friend. It
seems none of my concern at all."
She sounded a bit too defiantly unconcerned to Sir Patrick,
who had, if nothing else, determined that she was a bit of a gossip who found
amusement doing precisely what she had just forsworn. Before he could respond
his attention was drawn to the doorway of the room. "Your studied
indifference aside, Miss Bingley, I challenge you to not be curious about those feelings. They do not look quite
their usual turtle doves."
Turning her attention to where he indicated, a look of
puzzlement settled on her face. "No indeed," she replied. "How
very odd. I have rarely seen my brother appear so glum."
To be sure, the entire gathered party had observed the
entrance of the Bingleys and universally noted the uncharacteristic scowl on
Bingley's commonly cheery visage; Jane, for her part, looked composed but
pallid. Detecting that the attention of the room was upon them with prying
curiosity, Elizabeth attempted a distraction by calling on the Ashtons, who were
not directly in her group, to offer an opinion on some recently arrived musical
scores. Mr. Ashton readily acquiesced, always eager to discuss his favorite
Austrian composer. As he spoke, Elizabeth gestured for Darcy to find what was
the matter with Bingley. The roomÕs attention successfully diverted, Darcy
approached the mantle were Bingley drank his tea with resolute surliness.
"Bingley," Darcy said. "Come to the library
with me, you must collect yourself. Your countenance is an unqualified pronouncement
of censure."
Closing the door of the library behind them, Darcy took a
seat while Bingley paced the room nervously. "Bingley," Darcy said.
"I did not bring you here to force a confession, but if you should like to
unburden yourself, I trust you know you can count on my discretion."
"Yes, of course," Bingley replied absently.
"Would you like something a little stronger than tea?
A brandy perhaps?"
Bingley silently shook his head in refusal. For ten minutes
complete they remained thus: Darcy seated in silence and Bingley pacing the
room in agitation.
"Jane and I were walking in the orangery and we had a
terrible quarrel," Bingley said at last. Darcy made no answer and waited
for Bingley to choose on his own what he would wish to reveal. "We have
never had a quarrel before."
"That takes no effort to believe," Darcy
observed.
"Have you and Lizzy?"
"Bingley, I am sure that was a rhetorical
question."
Bingley did not appear to be listening for an answer at any
rate. "Apparently," he continued after more silence, "a few days
ago Jane confided something in Lizzy, and Lizzy thought it rather peculiar that
Jane had not told me." Bingley turned to Darcy, who only raised an eyebrow
in response.
"By God!" Bingley cried angrily. "You
know!" To Darcy's persistent silence, Bingley finally affirmed with
cynicism, "Well of course you do, your wife confides in you, unlike my
own."
"Are you perhaps responding to this a bit too
severely?"
"Are you mad, Darcy? A bit too severely? I think
not!" He began to pace the room again, his arms in constant, agitated
motion. "How could she not tell me that she had been with child? How in
heavens could she keep something like this from me?" His voice was now
plaintive and pained.
"If I may be so bold, in cases such as this it is not
unusual for a wife to keep such information from her husband. Until such time
as there is surety it is quite common to keep a husband in ignorance."
"Blast it Darcy! I do not much care what is usual or not
in cases 'such as this'."
"Perhaps she meant only to spare you. It would be
consistent with Jane's generous nature to wish to bear the burden for you
both."
Bingley sighed and threw himself into the chair across from
Darcy before responding with impatient ire: "I am quite weary of being
taken for such a feeble fellow, always in need of protection and
guidance."
"That is hardly the case, Bingley."
"Is it not? I think that is quite the crux of the
matter Darcy. You and my sisters have long taken me for a hapless gentleman, as
though I am unable to know my own mind, as though I ought not to be trusted to
bear my own burdens, to endure the consequences of my actions."
"I have certainly breached the boundaries of your sovereignty
in the past, but I trust I have since learnt to be respectful of your own
authority."
"Oh you have Darcy, to be sure, but I never expected
that Jane considered me as so very weak, so needing of her protection. It is
meant to be quite the opposite Darcy."
"I think you misapprehend her actions."
"I am not so sure that I do. Do you imagine your wife
would ever fail to confide something like this to you?"
"No. And I should not tolerate it if she did."
"And yet I should? That is transparently ridiculous."
"Bingley, neither Jane's silence nor her intentions
were so very shocking, so very mistaken."
"I do not doubt that. Jane is too good to ever do
anything ill intentioned, even inadvertently. It is not that which has me so
distraught. I feel a little betrayed by her lack of confidence and I am not
sure how to forgive her this silence."
Darcy stood up and approached Bingley, placing his hand on
his shoulder in a brotherly fashion. "Faults, blunders far greater than
this have been forgiven, trust me my friend. Speak with her and forgive her,
you will only be the better for it."
Bingley responded in a quiet, depressed voice. "She
has displayed such a lack of confidence in me, Darcy."
"Perhaps she has not displayed as much as you would wish,
but she has enough confidence in you that she has told you now when nothing
could come of it but your resentment. Jane may now believe that she was
mistaken in keeping this from you and is seeking to rectify that error. That
requires a certain degree of courage, Bingley, and if I may be presumptuous
enough to offer you guidance, you ought not ignore her endeavor to gain greater
understanding."
"Do you think I am exaggerating and she does in fact
confide in me as I would wish her to?" Bingley replied hopefully.
"That is a question I cannot answer. All I can offer
is my opinion, Bingley. I am of the conviction that the degree of confidence of
which you speak must be earned. If you feel she does not confide in you as you
would wish, all that remains is for you to demonstrate to her that you can be
relied upon in all circumstances and she will."
"I love her! How can she not know that I can be relied
upon?"
"Love and understanding are not synonymous, Bingley,
although each will be the richer for the other."
Bingley stared at his friend, an expression of something
like wonderment set upon his face. "And how come you upon so much wisdom,
Darcy?"
Darcy smiled. "Painfully, Bingley, quite painfully.
But the rewards are great indeed."
"Do you know Darcy, you never do cease to confound
me."
Bowing his head in acknowledgment, he replied, "Are
you more composed now? Shall we return to the drawing room?"
"Some day," Bingley said as they exited the
library, "I hope to be of equal service to you, Darcy, as you have long
been to me."
"Your steadfast friendship is more than recompense for
any paltry service I may have provided, Bingley."
Later that evening, when all the household had retired to
their rooms, Jane heard a gentle knock at the door which adjoined her own room
to Bingley's. At her quietly spoken response Bingley entered his wife's
chambers, taking a seat in the chair near the window. They did not speak;
rather they shared hesitant, almost bashful glances. He saw her blush and
believed her the most beautiful creature he had ever beheld. He wished nothing
more than a return to their easy, sweet relations, and yet he could not yet
abandon hold of his disappointment.
"Charles?" she said at last. Her voice was
yielding and honeyed with shy affection.
He looked at her with a long, steady gaze and saw such
sadness in her face that he felt himself a scoundrel. "Darcy says I am
responding to this a bit too severely."
"You told Mr. Darcy of our troubles?"
"And why should I not?" he inquired defensively.
"He is my most trusted friend. You have confided in your sister. Certainly
I have a right to such confidences as well."
"I did not mean to suggest otherwise." She wished
to speak more but felt such profound unease at this unprecedented severity
between them that tears, quiet and soft, overcame her. Bingley was powerless in
the face of such distress.
"Oh my dearest Jane!" he cried and took to his
knees in front of the settee where she sat. Her hands secured within his own,
he kissed them remorsefully. "My dearest angel, please forgive me. I have
been harsh and unfeeling. I have thought only of myself, when you thought only
of my pain, my suffering. I have not thought of your suffering at all. I am
such a brute, such an unworthy beast! My dearest, loveliest angel, will you not
forgive me?"
"Oh Charles," she replied fervently, "it is
I, only I that have been at fault."
"No, no, never my angel! You thought only of me, I see
that now. Oh, my sweetest angel! How you must have suffered!"
Raising himself to the settee, Bingley embraced his wife as
she reiterated her fault. And in such tender atonement they continued for a
time, each taking the blame from the other as they savored the painful,
bittersweet pleasure of a first reconciliation. In their eagerness to acquit
the other of fault they quite forgot the dispute that had caused them to find
themselves thus prostrate one to the other. But they were contented and when
Bingley gently kissed his wife's lips they felt all was again well. Certainly,
as they entered the breakfast room on the following morning, it seemed so to
the rest and as the meal progressed, Bingley was, if anything, more than
habitually attentive and solicitous.
Seeing it thus, Sir Patrick leaned over to Miss Bingley:
"Now that is more like it. What think you of such unguarded
adoration?"
Miss Bingley, who really did abhor her brother's manner
with his wife, finding it inelegant and undignified, answered in a tone of
amused censure. "I begin to see the point you were making last evening,
Sir Patrick. Reserve is both more decorous and more potent. It has the not
inconsequential added advantage of sparing us all such silly displays."
Sir Patrick smiled. There was something about Miss Bingley's intermittently
revealed dissatisfaction with nearly everyone and everything which he found
peculiarly amusing. How long he might find it so was a question he had not yet
confronted.
Mrs. Ashton abruptly addressed the table: "I have had
a whim and I am hoping some of you will indulge me. It appears we have a fourth
day of rain upon us. I do not believe I should like another game of backgammon
and I have written all my outstanding correspondence. Will any of you join me
in the orangery later this morning? I have a whim to take out the charcoal and
create a mythical tableau. Juno's garden, perhaps. What say you all? It would
be amusement for a while at least." A general conversation ensued wherein
it was universally declared that Jane ought to sit for Juno and Lord Chiltern
for Jupiter and the scheme was resolved.
"Mrs. Ashton has proposed an excellent
diversion," Darcy replied. "I hope you will all indulge in the
pleasure of the orangery. I am afraid that Mrs. Darcy, Miss Darcy and I will be
unable to join you until you are well into the exercise. We have some family
business which must be attended to this morning."
Securing their excuses, he then led his wife and sister to
the library where the three had a brief, private recognition of Georgiana's
birthday, in precisely the subdued manner she had requested. Darcy made a
pretty little speech expressing his affection, and then presented her with a
number of modest, thoughtful gifts.
"There is one more item," Darcy remarked, as he
handed Georgiana a small, flat box. She looked at him inquisitively. "This
was left to you in my father's will. It was to be given to you on your
eighteenth birthday, but as we have agreed that you shall debut in the season
prior to that occasion, I thought it appropriate that you receive it now. This
belonged to your mother and now it is yours."
Georgiana opened the box gingerly and her eyes grew wide in
astonishment. Nestled on black
velvet was a graceful diamond and sapphire necklace. "Brother,"
Georgiana said as she ran her fingers delicately over the stones, "is this
not the same necklace my mother wears in the portrait of her that hangs in our
uncle's home?"
"Yes, Georgiana, it is the same. I understand that she
wore this when she made her own debut and that portrait was painted
thereabouts, when she was herself but seventeen."
Tears filled Georgiana's eyes and she looked up to her
brother with a melancholy expression. "Am I at all like her?"
Darcy walked to where his sister sat, cupped her delicate
chin in his large, cool hand and lifted her face to his gaze. Elizabeth was
moved by the gaze of profound tenderness they exchanged.
"In some ways, you are. You have the same eyes, the
same docile manner. But I must confess, Georgiana, sometimes I have difficulty recalling
and I wonder if the images that dwell in my mind are in fact memories or
perhaps unreliable dreams. But yes, in some ways you remind me of her. Our
parents would be very proud of the young lady you have become, Georgiana, as am
I."
"Oh my dear brother," she cried eagerly. "If
I am a young lady worthy of such admiration it is only because I have striven
to be as good and noble as you. You have been such a kind and forbearing
brother; I should not be as I am had I not your guidance, had I not your character
to pattern."
"I hope I have always and will always conduct myself
in such a manner that you can judge me a worthy model of honor and propriety,
of loyalty and discretion. But do not mistake the matter. Your gentleness, your
kind and affectionate heart, that is all your own, my darling girl. Now come,
give your brother and sister an embrace. We ought not leave our guests
unattended any longer."
Warmly embracing Darcy and Elizabeth, Georgiana reflected
on how much she had changed in two years. Two years past, a casualty to
sentimental notions and to the inevitable loneliness of a shy girl of fifteen
who had no parents, only a much elder brother who must necessarily make his own
life, she had nearly eloped with a scoundrel who wanted nothing but her
fortune, and as she now understood, perhaps a little revenge upon her beloved
brother as well. She had made great efforts to conquer her mortification, her
shame, and her broken heart; she had accepted with resolute, willing charity
that her brother's happiness depended upon establishing a relationship of the
nearest kind with that same scoundrel. Now, two years since, she was filled
with a happiness and surety once unfamiliar to her. Her home was at last, as
she had long desired, at her brother's side, and in his wife she had found a
sister who gave her the warm and tender sisterly attentions for which her
affectionate heart had continually yearned. She looked from her mother's
necklace to her brother and sister. Georgiana felt, for the first time she thought,
every bit a Darcy, every bit a young lady of worth.
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Austen Interlude Author Directory