an excerpt from
Georgiana Darcy's Diary
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice continued
Author's Note
Of all the wonderful secondary characters in Pride and Prejudice, Georgiana Darcy has always been my favorite. In Jane Austen's original text, we never actually hear her speak a single direct word; any dialogue she has is merely summarized by the narrator. But to me, that only made her more intriguing. Just who was she, this painfully shy younger sister of the famous Mr. Darcy—a girl with a large fortune of her own, who at the age of fifteen was so very nearly seduced by the wicked Mr. Wickham?
Jane Austen herself gave her own family a few tidbits about what happened to her characters after the close of Pride and Prejudice. Kitty Bennet married a clergyman near Pemberley, while Mary married one of her uncle's clerks. But so far as is known, she never hinted at what happened to Georgiana Darcy after her brother married Elizabeth. For myself, I always felt that Georgiana Darcy ought to marry Colonel Fitzwilliam.
The modern reader may object that the two of them are cousins. But in Jane Austen's world, marriage between cousins wasn't considered at all improper—it was often absolutely encouraged. Queen Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and theirs was one of the happiest love stories and most famously successful marriages of the age. In fact, even into the modern era, Albert Einstein married his own cousin.
Of course, you'll have to keep reading to see whether, once I started writing their story, Georgiana and Colonel Fitzwilliam agreed with me that they were meant to be together!
One further note: I can't begin to match Jane Austen's immortal writing style, and wouldn't even pretend to try. That's one reason I chose a diary format for this story. I would never aspire to imitate Jane Austen or compare my work to hers. Georgiana Darcy's Diary is meant to be an entertainment, written for those readers who, like me, simply can't get enough of Jane Austen and her world.
Thursday 21 April 1814
At least I wasn’t in love with Mr. Edgeware.
That sounds as though I am trying to salvage my pride, but I’m truly not. I hate lying—especially to myself. And there’s small point in keeping a private journal if I’m only going to fill it with lies.
So, I was flattered by Mr. Edgeware’s attentions. I liked him—or at least, I thought I did. But love? No.
Though I am sure my Aunt de Bourgh would say that is neither here nor there in considering whether Mr. Frank Edgeware and I should marry.
I don’t seem to have begun this story at all properly. I’ve been keeping a diary on and off since I was ten, but I haven’t written an entry in year or more. Maybe I’m out of practice with setting down the events of the day. I’m not even entirely sure what made me pick up this notebook—a red leather-bound book of blank pages that Elizabeth gave me for Christmas. Except that the memory of what happened today feels like a festering sore inside me—and maybe writing it all down here will let the poison out.
To explain more clearly, then, Mr. Frank Edgeware is the youngest son of Sir John Edgeware of Gossington Park. Mr. Frank has been staying here at Pemberley for the last three weeks, one of the house party my aunt has imposed upon us all. He is a handsome man—really, a very handsome man, with dark hair and melting brown eyes and a sallow, lean kind of good looks.
Aunt de Bourgh—small surprise—has thrown us together a good deal, and he has been my partner at whist, has accompanied me for walks and rides about the grounds. We seemed to have so much in common, he and I. He would ask which poets I liked best, and when I mentioned Mr. Cowper, he would wholeheartedly agree that Mr. Cowper’s poems were masterpieces of language and feeling. The same with music. I spoke of Mr. Thomas Arne’s operas, he professed himself a great lover of Artaxerxes, as well.
I can see now, of course, that I was an idiot to be so taken in. Anyone would think that after George Wickham’s courtship, I would have learned to spot a fortune hunter. But at the time I hadn’t a single suspicion that Frank Edgeware was anything but sincere.
Until this morning, when I chanced to be walking in the rose garden. I was on a path screened by a thick row of bushes and overheard Mr. Edgeware speaking to Sir John Huntington on the other side of the shrubs. They couldn’t see me, of course, but I heard every word.
Sir John—he being another member of the house party, a goggle-eyed man with plump hands and greasy hair—asked Mr. Edgeware how he was progressing with Miss Georgiana Darcy.
And Mr. Edgeware laughed and replied that he fancied he would succeed in winning my hand in marriage, all right, and confidently expected to be wedded to me by the end of three months’ time.
“And thank God that when we’re wedded,” he said, “I won’t have to listen and pretend to agree while she maunders on about poets and musicians.” He laughed again. “It’s a good thing she has a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. She’s a nice enough little thing, but ditchwater dull.”
My whole body flashed hot and cold, and just for a second I wanted to smash my way through the bushes and confront the pair of them. But I didn’t. If I haven’t yet learned to judge men’s characters, I at least know my own well enough. And I’d never in three hundred years work up the nerve for a dramatic confrontation of that kind. Or if I did, I’d stand there, red-faced and stammering trying to to think of the perfect retort. Which would probably come to me at three o’clock the following morning, but not before.
Sometimes I hate being shy.
So I simply turned and walked—very quietly—away, before the men could guess they’d been overheard.
Mr. Edgeware came to sit with me on the settee after dinner this evening, just as usual, and smiled into my eyes.
I wonder, now, that I never noticed how calculated his smile is. I can just imagine him practising it every morning in front of the mirror.
At any rate, he asked me whether I would consent to play for the party this evening. He had been dreaming all day, he said, of hearing me play again on the pianoforte.
So I said that I had been practising a waltz by Mozart, and when he replied that he was absolutely enchanted with Mozart’s waltzes, I smiled at him very sweetly. “Are you really?” I said. “They are nice enough, I suppose, but ditchwater dull.”
It was some consolation, at least, to see the smile slide off his handsome face and the way he went red right to the tips of his ears. For once he had absolutely nothing to say; he just sat there, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water.
My affections truly weren’t engaged. It’s only my pride that’s hurt, not my heart. And really, Mr. Edgeware’s deceit of me is incredibly petty when weighed against the other news of the day, which is that victory has been won over France at last.
Come to think of it, I really should have made that the opening of this journal entry, not the tag end; it’s far more important than my own concerns. But—peace. It’s such momentous news that I think everyone can scarcely take it in. Britain has been at war with France since before I was born—all eighteen years of my life—and I’d come almost to take it for granted. I think many people would say the same. But it’s true—the latest word is that the Emperor Napoleon has been forced from his throne and is to be exiled. Our troops will be returning home.
I got all this from the newspapers, not from any note or letter of Edward’s. I’ve not heard a single word from Edward since his regiment was called to foreign duty more than a year ago. Not since the last night I saw him, at the Pemberley Christmas ball.
But he can’t have been killed—he can’t. I’ve read the casualty lists in the papers every day, and his name has never appeared.
Still, I wish—
But I can’t write any more. It’s very late. I’m writing perched on the cushioned window seat, watching the moonlight glimmer on the lake in front of the house. My fingers are cramped with writing, and my ink is growing thin from being watered so often.
Friday 22 April 1814
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young lady of rank and property will have packs of money- or land-hungry suitors yapping around her heels like hounds after a fox.
I said as much to Elizabeth this morning, when we were looking over my new gown for the ball next month, which had just arrived by special delivery from London.
Elizabeth laughed and said she quite liked that comparison, because she could imagine my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, as a huntswoman, cheering on the packs of suitors with cries of Yoiks! and Tally-ho!
But then she stopped laughing and said, looking at me, her gaze serious for once, “There’s no one among the young men staying here you like, Georgiana? Truly? Mr. Folliet? Or Mr. Carter, even?”
I hung up the gown we’d been examining in the wardrobe. It’s very pretty: pale peach silk with an overdress of cream-coloured gauze, all embroidered with tiny rosebuds. And I’m sure I’d like it even more were it not further evidence that my aunt has determined to see me married within the year, it being a scandal that any niece of hers should have reached the age of eighteen—and had two Seasons in London—without being at the very least engaged.
“None,” I said. “Or rather, I like some of them. But not that way. I don’t wish to marry any of them. Unless—” I stopped as a thought struck me coldly. “Does my brother … does he wish that I should?”
“Of course not! Not unless you want to, that is.” Elizabeth tilted her head to look at me from where she was perched on the edge of my bed. “Georgiana, you cannot truly think he would allow you to be pushed into a marriage just to please your aunt?”
“Yes—I mean, no, I don’t think that.”
Elizabeth said, “Listen to me. Darcy agreed to this house party scheme of Lady Catherine’s because he worries—as I do!—that you go out too little into society. That you have small chance of meeting any nice, agreeable young men. But that is all.” She watched me for a moment, her dark eyes thoughtful. Then she said, “You could speak to him, though, if you truly hate all this so much.” She smiled. “He doesn’t bite, I promise you. He wouldn’t even be angry.”
“I know.” I do know. I think. It’s just that my brother Fitzwilliam is eleven years older than I am. And he’s been my guardian since he was ten years old.
He has been such a good brother to me. But I think I’m a little in awe of him, still.
More than a little.
And I know I have already given him far more worry than he deserves.
“But it’s all right,” I told Elizabeth. “It’s just … that I’m happy here. I love it here at Pemberley with you. Unless—” my whole body flashed hot and cold all over again. “Unless you feel I’m in the way? If you’d prefer to have the place to yourselves, without your husband’s unmarried sister—”
“Of course not!” Elizabeth said. “Of course I don’t feel that.”
It seems strange, now, to think that I almost dreaded my brother’s marrying Elizabeth. Not that I didn’t like her—because I did like her very much, right from the first time I was introduced to her. It’s just that she was a stranger, moving into our family and our home. At least, that’s how it felt to me at the time.
I’ve always hated change. I think maybe it started when my mother died—but now and for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt a sick, hollow feeling every time a round of changes comes. When I was first sent away to school—and then again when I had to leave. Even last year, when a storm blew down the oldest and tallest of the Spanish oaks on Pemberley’s lawn, I felt so grieved, silly as I knew it was.
But Elizabeth isn’t at all a stranger anymore—she feels almost like the sister I used to wish for when I was small. And—though it seems disloyal to say it—I can speak to her much more easily than I can to my brother.
“I was just saying to Darcy,” Elizabeth went on, “that it’s his responsibility to vet your potential suitors for me—no men allowed who live at more than a day’s travel from here, because if you married and went too far away, I’d break my heart missing you. I’d be perfectly happy to keep you here with us always. But—”
Elizabeth broke off. “Oh, well—haven’t you ever noticed the abominable habit newly married people have of wishing to see all their friends married, as well?” She spoke lightly. But all the same there was a look on her face that made me feel suddenly lonely. They way I feel sometimes when I see her and Fitzwilliam catch each other’s eyes and smile at each other.
They’ve been married for just over a year, now, and they’re so happy together it fairly hovers like a sunburst all around them; you can’t be in the same room with them and not realise how deeply and sincerely attached to each other they are.
Even my Aunt de Bourgh has stopped resenting my brother’s marrying Elizabeth quite so much. Though of course for my aunt, that means merely that she waits until Elizabeth is out of the room to speak of ‘my nephew’s unfortunate marriage’ in the same tones you might hear at a funeral.
Elizabeth only laughs, though, and says she’s glad, for it gives her the upper hand and makes Fitzwilliam feel he’s lucky she consented to marry him, despite his horrible relations.
“Mr. Edgeware looked quite bereft last night,” Elizabeth went on. “When you asked me to turn music pages for you at the pianoforte instead of him.”
“I imagine he did.” And then I told Elizabeth what had happened, everything of what I’d overheard Frank saying in the garden to Sir John.
Elizabeth has been looking a little pale and tired, lately. Or tired for her. But her cheeks flushed bright scarlet at that, and she looked furious. She laughed, though, when I told her of my revenge, and she said, “Oh, well done! Exactly what he deserved.” Which—almost—took the sting away from the memory.
Then she hugged me again and said, “You’re not dull—and anyone who thinks you are is a blind fool and doesn’t deserve you. But Georgiana”—she looked at me—“never mind your aunt’s contenders, are there no other young men you might like? You’re not”—all of a sudden her eyes went wide and alarmed—“You’re not still in love with Mr. Wickham, are you?”
I smiled at that. Even if the smile tasted bitter on my lips. “Good heavens, no. I promise you, whatever else I am, I’m not in love with Mr. George Wickham.”
Elizabeth let out her breath. “Well, thank goodness for that, at least. But … but there’s no one else? Truly?”
I swallowed. And then I shook my head. Perhaps if I’d grown up with four sisters as Elizabeth had I might find confidences easier.
But as it was, my throat closed up and my palms went clammy at even the thought of telling Elizabeth that there was someone else. I’ve never spoken of it to anyone, not ever. But there is Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam, the man I’ve been in love with since I was six years old.
Saturday 23 April 1814
I’m sitting-up in bed with the candle on my night table lighted and flickering beside me. It’s stopped raining at long last, but I can hear the wind outside howling in the chimneys.
All the rest of the house is asleep, even my Aunt de Bourgh. She sleeps poorly and is often wakeful until past midnight. But I’ve just heard her long-suffering maid Dawson go past my door on her way to the servants’ wing and her own bed, so my aunt must be truly settled now. My aunt keeps Dawson until late most nights, making her read from a book of sermons and rub her back until she can drop off.
Two things happened today.
The first was a letter from Edward. Though it was sent to my brother, not to me.
Fitzwilliam had been up and riding out early to consult with his farm bailiff about the spring planting. But he came in for breakfast and opened the letters piled beside his place at the table. When he got to Edward’s, I felt my heart jump, because of course I recognised the handwriting on the envelope.
It seemed an eternity before he looked up at Elizabeth and said, “It’s from Edward. He says he has been wounded and granted a leave of absence, and would like to spend it here.”
I gasped despite myself and Elizabeth gave a little cry of distress and said, “Wounded? Oh, no, poor Edward, is he seriously hurt?”
My brother glanced through the letter again and said, “He says it’s nothing much, just a musket ball in his shoulder. He took it at Toulouse, he says—just before it was announced that Napoleon had surrendered.”
And Elizabeth said, “That doesn’t mean anything. Men always lie about how badly they’re hurt, and soldiers are worst of all. But if he’s well enough to write and to travel, he can’t be too badly injured.”
I didn’t say anything. My heart was beating too quickly and too hard.
I read of the battle for Toulouse in the newspaper reports. Nearly five thousand British and allied soldiers were killed. And the French lost three thousand of their own.
And all for nothing, too—because Napoleon had abdicated four days before the battle occurred. If only word had reached Toulouse in the South, all those lives might have been spared.
Still, as Fitzwilliam spoke, I drew what felt like my first breath in all the time Edward has been gone. He may have been wounded. But his letter shows that he survived the fighting, and now he’s coming home.
The second event—
I suppose today’s second occurrence is what’s keeping me awake tonight. Even more than Edward’s letter.
A travelling band of gypsies came to the house and offered to entertain us and tell fortunes after supper.
My aunt looked as horrified as though she’d uncovered a dish at dinner and found a plate of wriggling worms instead of pork cutlets. But Elizabeth had already gone to the window and looked out and seen them grouped around the front door. They looked poor and wet and miserable and there were several little children without any shoes, their feet almost blue with the cold.
Elizabeth turned to my brother and said, “Please, Darcy.” And my brother nodded and said, “Very well, let them come.”
I truly did wish, then, that I was more like Elizabeth. I had thought of slipping up to my room when no one was watching and finding some money to give to them. But I should never have been bold enough to speak up in front of everyone as she did.
The music was beautiful in a wild, lilting way. One of the men played a fiddle and some of the women played tambourines and danced. And then one of the oldest, a little, wizened old woman with a dirty red scarf wrapped around her head and with her body swathed in so many shawls one could scarcely see her shape, offered to tell fortunes.
She turned to my cousin Anne first and asked if she’d like her fortune told, and Anne sat up and looked quite bright and interested. But then, of course, she looked at her mother. My aunt couldn’t quite bring herself to look at the old gypsy woman directly, but she sniffed through her nose and said, “Anne, you are going to have a headache. You must go up to your room at once and go to bed. I will send Dawson to you with some barley water for you to drink.”
If I am honest—which I suppose I have, after all, resolved to be—I will say that I’ve never managed to like my cousin Anne very much. No one could really like my cousin Anne. My aunt decided when she was a child that Anne was of a sickly disposition. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know. I’ve never known Anne to be really ill—not with any identifiable malady, at least, nor even a serious one.
But Aunt de Bourgh has convinced Anne herself of her poor health so completely that Anne does nothing but sit in the warmest place in a room, smothered in lap rugs. She scarcely ever speaks, save to talk in a dull, colourless voice of the pains in her head or her eyes or her lungs—or whatever other part of her Aunt de Bourgh has decreed is feeling poorly that day.
Tonight, I stood up and said, “Anne, we could go and have our fortunes told together, if you’d like. You needn’t go alone.”
But all the life and colour had already gone out of Anne’s face as my aunt looked at her, and she only muttered something indistinguishable and drooped upstairs to bed.
So I went over on my own to the small table where the old gypsy woman had set herself up in a corner of the room.
Seen up close, the old woman’s face was wrinkled and leathery as a dried apple, and her eyes were rheumy. Her hands were big, though—gnarled with age, but almost as strong-looking as a man’s. And she took my hand in one of hers and looked into my palm.
“Ah.” She drew in her breath and looked up into my face, nodding and bobbing her head. She had a cracked voice and spoke almost in a sing-song manner. “A happy future here, no question of that. I see a man coming into your life, my dear. He will be handsome and brave and strong and kind and wealthy, very wealthy, and—”
I suppose I was still feeling angry with my aunt—and impatient with Anne for never standing up to her—because I interrupted the old woman before she could say any more. “Hadn’t you better stop while you’re ahead?” I asked. “There aren’t all that many more nice, promising-sounding adjectives you can use to describe this mysterious gentleman.”
The old gypsy blinked at me for a second. And then she threw back her head and laughed. Her speaking voice might be cracked, but she had a nice laugh, throaty and full.
“Ah,” she said again. And then she peered more closely into my face. “Most girls I give fortunes to”—she hawked and spat right onto the carpet, which I’m sure gave my aunt fits if she was watching. “Empty-headed little dolls. They want to hear nothing but that they will meet a man. A handsome man, very rich.” She closed one eye in a wink. “Usually pay extra if I tell them they’ll be married within the year.”
I laughed at that. I found myself liking the old woman despite myself.
“But you—very well, you I will give a real fortune.” She took my hand again and looked into my palm, her whole face twisted this time into a fierce scowl of concentration. “You are strong. Stronger than you think, and with more courage than you believe yourself to have.” Her voice was no longer sing-song, but somehow it still sent a trickle of cold down my spine. “I see a change ahead for you. A change in your life, in yourself.” She closed her eyes in another wink. “I will not argue if you pay me extra, you understand. But this I would tell you in any case. You do not trust or love lightly—you do not believe you can trust your own heart or your own eyes to tell you true.” She folded my fingers over my palm and squeezed my hand, her rheumy eyes still on my face. “But I think you may trust your heart from now on, for this I will say: I see love. I see an old love returning to you, and very soon.”
Sunday 24 April 1814
It’s occurred to me that perhaps I should have begun this journal by introducing the members of our house party properly and one at a time. Of course, no one reads this diary but me—but one never knows. Maybe some members of a future generation will come across it one day in a musty old trunk and waste countless hours trying to puzzle out who everyone is. So for the sake of my imaginary great-grandchildren—or maybe great-nieces and -nephews—I will set full descriptions of each guest at Pemberley down here and now.
Besides, it’s raining again, so that we’re trapped in the house for the morning. I’m longing to practice the pianoforte—but not with such an audience about. I’m always too nervous of making mistakes to concentrate on the music when there are too many people listening to me play.
And more importantly, the instant I stop writing, my Aunt de Bourgh will begin her inevitable scolding because I only played last night and didn’t join the others in dancing. Elizabeth said she was feeling a bit tired and not up to dancing, so she sat beside me and turned the pages. I hope she’s not unwell. She looks a little pale again today, and when I sat next to her at breakfast, I noticed she took only some dry toast and ate scarcely a mouthful of that.
At any rate, the house party: Firstly, there are my brother, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, and his wife, Elizabeth. Though perhaps they don’t count, because they live at Pemberley year-round. Still, I said I would describe everyone, and they make for an easy place to begin.
My brother is eleven years older than I am, which makes him nine-and-twenty this year. He is tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. He’s very handsome—if I can say that about my own brother.
I remember when I was small, he seemed so very grown-up to me. He’d already left the schoolroom before I even entered it, and by the time I was four, he was already off at school and only came home on holidays. I used to love those times. He’d always bring me a present—a doll or a hair ribbon or sugared lemons—home with him. And I remember when I was very little—two or three, maybe—and visitors would come to call, he would always carry me around on his shoulder, because I was too shy to speak to anyone.
But of course there was too great a difference in our ages for us to be close confidants.
Our mother died when I was six. And then when I was ten, our father died, as well. Fitzwilliam was left to become my guardian—and to run the estate at Pemberley. The park and the timber and all two hundred tenant farms.
He felt the responsibility very keenly, I know. He’d always been sober and serious, and after that he grew even more so.
He did make sure I was happy at school—and he always came home with me to Pemberley or to the London house when there was a school holiday. But I didn’t wish to worry him with my concerns, so I can’t say I ever spoke to him very much of how I felt.
And now—now he is still a truly good brother. And since he and Elizabeth have been wedded, he smiles and laughs far more than he used to. But I still … I don’t know. Perhaps he still thinks of me a little as the ten-year-old girl that suddenly became his responsibility to be almost a father for.
And I know that with him, I still feel at least in small part like a child in the schoolroom, looking up at the grown-up’s world. Even if I’m now eighteen.
Elizabeth is my brother’s wife. Though of course I said that already, didn’t I?
She was Elizabeth Bennet before she married him, of Longbourn in Hertfordshire. Elizabeth has dark hair and creamy pale skin. She has lovely dark eyes, though she’s not a great beauty—at least to anyone who first meets her. But somehow the moment she smiles and starts speaking, she is beautiful. She can light up a room just by coming into it and charm anyone from the boy who cleans the knives and boots all the way up to an elderly duke.
I wouldn’t trade places—I suppose we none of us really want to be anyone but ourselves. But if I’m being truthful, I do sometimes wish I could be more like her. Light and bright and sparkling and never seeming to worry over knowing the right thing to say or what other people will think of her.
I think Edward—Colonel Fitzwilliam—was a little in love with her before she married my brother. But of course, Edward is the younger son of an earl, which means he’s expected to marry both position and fortune. Though I asked Elizabeth about him once—it was last year when we were afraid he might be sent off to fight in the Americas—and she said that she liked Edward very much, but that if he’d been really in love with her, her lack of fortune would have mattered as little to him as it did to my brother.
But I’m wandering off the subject.
Caroline Bingley, the sister of my brother’s friend Charles, is staying with us for a while, since Charles’ wife—Elizabeth’s sister—Jane is confined with the birth of their first child.
Caroline dresses in bright colours and heavy, stiff brocades, and is handsome in a tall, imposing way, with dark-blonde hair and blue eyes, like a picture of a Viking maiden I once saw in a book. She and I are friends, of a sort.
Which means that before my brother married Elizabeth, Caroline hoped desperately to marry him herself. And she tried her hardest to ingratiate herself with me as a way of growing closer to him.
That sounds as though I resent her for it—and maybe I did at the time.
Caroline is the kind of girl I’m always a little afraid of—or at least intimidated by. She has a strong voice and very decided opinions, and a very sharp tongue when she’s speaking of anyone she dislikes—of which there are many.
I used to hate it when she would gush praises over my sketch work and my pianoforte playing, because I knew perfectly well that she’d have never said two words to me if I hadn’t been Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy’s younger sister. And I never knew what to say in return to her compliments, because I would keep imagining the things she probably said about me behind my back.
My thanks always sounded so chilly and stilted in comparison to her (albeit insincere) words that I’d feel suddenly conscious and more intimidated by Caroline than ever—and that would make me sound less friendly even than before.
Now, though—now Caroline seems to me a little like a child’s balloon toy that’s been pricked and had the air let out of it. That my brother could truly have fallen in love with Elizabeth instead of with her has left her shaken, I think, as though the ground under her feet has shifted and tipped and she’s not quite sure now where she stands.
I found her just the other day standing in the morning room and looking up at herself in the mirror over the mantle with her hands clenched and her eyes filled with tears. And when she heard me behind her she whirled round and clutched my hand and said, “I’m handsome, Georgiana, aren’t I?”
I was startled—for I’d never seen Caroline cry before. But I said, “Of course you are, Caroline. But you scarcely need me to tell you that, do you? Not when you have both mirrors and men.”
Caroline scrubbed at her eyes and said, “I mustn’t cry. It makes me look a fright. It’s only … I’ll be four-and-twenty on my next birthday, and I always thought I’d be married by now. Married and with a home and children of my own, just like my brother and Jane are going to have.”
Since then, she has seemed a little more in control. But still, I’m sure she wishes the men of the party were taking more of an interest in her.
And speaking of the men, there are four gentlemen staying here at Pemberley.
Or rather, we had four until yesterday, when Mr. Edgeware abruptly remembered a previous engagement elsewhere. I have no more faith in his engagement than in his professed admiration of Mozart. But I am relieved that I need not meet with him again.
So now there are only three men here, besides my brother.
Sir John Huntington I suppose I’ve already described, but for the sake of completeness I’ll put him down again here. He’s of course well born, or my Aunt wouldn’t have considered him a contender for my hand. He has prominent gooseberry-green eyes and small, plump hands and greasy reddish brown hair and so far I’ve heard him speak of nothing but playing cards and horses. But I suppose to be fair I shouldn’t hold that against him, he may be very nice.
Except that he laughed at what Mr. Edgeware said about me. Which means that if he has a nice disposition under all the greasy hair and talk of horses, he will be a hundred years old before I ever find it out because I would rather chew on rusty nails than ever speak to him again.
The other two gentlemen I’ve spoken to scarcely at all, since they only arrived here at Pemberley four days ago. One is the Honourable Mr. Hugh Folliet, who is the grandson of the Earl of Cantrell. The old Earl’s daughter, Mr. Folliet’s mother, and Aunt de Bourgh were at school together years ago, which is how Mr. Folliet comes to be staying here.
He looks to be about twenty-five, or a few years more. He has dark hair and dark eyes and he’s very handsome—really, one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen, like a knight in an old romance. Sir Lancelot, maybe, if Lancelot wore buckskin breeches and stiff white cravats.
The other gentleman is Mr. Carter, a friend of my brother’s from his school days. And he, at least, is certainly not one of my Aunt’s candidates, because he is a clergyman, and quite poor to judge by the threadbare collar of his coat and the cracked soles of his boots. But I like him—or at least I like what I’ve seen of him. He has sandy fair hair that is forever flopping down over his forehead into his eyes and he speaks with a slight stammer. But he looks thoughtful and intelligent, and I think he must be kind, as well. The other night my cousin Anne was sitting huddled by the fire as usual, and he sat down next to her and stayed there speaking with her for quite some time. Her usually sallow cheeks flushed with the heat of the fire and she smiled very often at whatever he said and really looked quite pretty.
I suppose that actually I’ve given a fairly complete sketch of my cousin Anne already, without entirely meaning to. But for the sake of completeness, I’ll put her down again here. She is my brother’s age, or nearly so—she will turn twenty-nine in July. But she looks far younger because she is so very thin and small. Her hair is fair, straight and baby-fine, and she has a small, pale face that might be pretty if she didn’t always look so querulous and cross.
She must be horribly bored, though, so I can’t really blame her for being petulant at times. My aunt never allows her to read, for fear of straining her eyes, never allows her to ride or go out for a walk for fear of taking a chill. She’s not even allowed to embroider or paint or play the pianoforte for fear the effort will over-tire her.
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but my aunt is Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She is the daughter of my grandfather the earl, and the widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh. She is—
How strange, I’ve known her all my life, but I’ve never thought about how to describe her before.
Aunt de Bourgh is a tall woman with a square-built, broad-shouldered frame. She never speaks of her age, but I should think she must be fifty, or perhaps a year or two more. She has bold, strongly marked features and dark hair threaded with grey that she wears piled atop her head, and she speaks with a deep voice, very loud and very firm.
I don’t suppose anyone could have read the past few entries in this diary without realising that my aunt is exceedingly proud and likes to order other people’s lives for them. And she likes to have things her own way. I was terrified of her when I was a child—I can just remember hiding behind my mother’s skirts one of the first times I was taken to visit her at Rosings Park, her estate. I can still see my aunt peering down her nose at me and booming out, “Upon my word, you seem to have entirely neglected to teach the child proper manners.”
I suppose I must still be frightened of her—otherwise I would simply have told her straight out that I don’t wish to marry any of her parade of suitors.
And yet … I don’t quite know what it is I want to say. Save that it sometimes seems to me that anyone who makes other people as miserable as she does cannot be very happy herself.
And that makes up the whole of our house party here at Pemberley. I wonder if any of my subjects would recognise themselves if they read these descriptions without the names attached. I’ve never taken anyone’s likeness in just words before. It’s more difficult than I thought.
I think I’ll try it with a picture, next. Here are all of the ladies in the morning room this morning, whiling away the hours and hoping the rain won’t last all day.
From left to right around the table: Elizabeth, my Aunt de Bourgh, my cousin Anne, and Caroline Bingley. And that’s me there at the back, writing in this book.
Monday 25 April 1814
I’ve just realised—perhaps I should have begun first of all by describing myself? That seems a little strange in my own private journal. But I suppose those future descendants I was imagining would want to know who I am?
At any rate, I’ll see if I can write a character sketch of myself here—if only because it seems only just, since I’ve done everyone else.
My full name is Georgiana Catherine Anne Darcy. Georgiana after the King, Catherine after Aunt de Bourgh, and Anne for my mother. I’m eighteen years of age. My parents died when I was small, leaving me to the care of my brother and my cousin, Edward Fitzwilliam. Though my brother is only eleven years older than I am, and Edward ten.
I am tall for a girl and slightly built—though thankfully not as spindly-legged and skinny as I was as a child. I have very dark hair—almost black, like my brother’s—and dark eyes.
This is sounding very brief and stiff, isn’t it? My hypothetical descendants will be thinking Mr. Edgeware was right, and I really am the dullest person alive.
I suppose it’s even harder to write of myself than it was the others—all the more because I’ve never tried before.
I wonder what more I can say, though? That my fortune—left to me by my father—is thirty thousand pounds?
At the moment, I feel rather as though I’d like to forget all about it.
I suppose I could claim accomplishment—but of course any girl would do that. Every young lady must be accomplished: paint and draw and play on the pianoforte—and execute embroidered needlework to perfection, as well. Because those are the skills gentlemen wish in a wife, and to attract a good match, we must all be sure to acquire them.
Which seems strange to me. In the entire history of the world has any man, anywhere, honestly cared about an embroidered landscape picture? Much less passionately desired that his wife be able to cover the walls of his home with them?
Still, after my father died, I was sent away to school and taught all the usual accomplishments just like the other girls.
I suppose this is exactly what any girl would say—though maybe it’s more believable since I’m only writing it down here in these private pages? Since I can’t worry too terribly about what my imagined great nephews and nieces think of me—but I really do love to play the pianoforte. I’ve been told I’m quite good at it, too—even by Miss LeFarge, our school music mistress, who had the worst breath I’ve ever encountered and disliked everyone, including me, on general principle.
I like to sing, too—though I like it far more when I’m alone than I do performing in public.
And I love to draw, too. And that I actually can prove, since it’s easy enough to include drawings in these pages.
And now that we’ve returned to Pemberley from the London house, I love to walk in the hushed stillness of the woods here, and watch the way the mother birds push their chicks from the nest when they’re ready to fly, and see the morning dew glinting on the spider’s webs and try to capture in crayon and paper the way the cat-tail reeds by the lake look when they’ve gone to downy seed.
Tuesday 26 April 1814
Mr. Goulding, our old parish clergyman, would call such sentiments heretical, but it seems to me that Fate has a strange sense of humour at times.
Even here, alone in my little sitting room, my toes are curling at having to write this down. But despite myself I did—I will admit it—believe just a little bit in the old gypsy woman’s fortune. She spoke of seeing an old love returning. And on that very morning, a letter had arrived from Edward, saying that he would be visiting Pemberley in a week’s time.
I know such prophesies are nonsense, of course. And yet—very well, I will admit this, too—all the time I was lying awake the other night, I was spinning equally nonsensical fairy tales in my imagination. Edward, seeing me in the garden on the day of his arrival and suddenly realising that I’m not a child anymore. Sweeping me into his arms and murmuring broken endearments the way the heroes do in sentimental novels.
Ugh. My skin is crawling with embarrassment just reading that on paper.
But this morning, Elizabeth received a letter from her sister Kitty, who is recently engaged to be married to a captain in Edward’s regiment.
My aunt and cousin are taking breakfast in their rooms, and since the rain has stopped, Caroline Bingley has gone out to take a ride around the lake with some of the men. Elizabeth and I were sitting here in my sitting room alone while she read her letters and I—finally—took the chance to play the pianoforte, for I never mind Elizabeth hearing me practice.
But then, all at once, Elizabeth said, “Oh!” in a surprised voice.
I stopped playing and looked around and asked her whether something was wrong. “Is there bad news?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No—quite the reverse. It’s good news. Or at least I hope it is. Kitty writes to say that she hears from John”—John is Kitty’s betrothed—“that Colonel Fitzwilliam is engaged to be married.”
Elizabeth glanced down at the letter again—which I was thankful for, because it meant she wasn’t looking at me. “To a Miss Mary Graves, so Kitty says. She says that he met Miss Graves in London last year, just before the regiment departed for France.”
I swallowed. “Does she”—I was surprised, but my voice sounded almost normal, if a little distant in my own ears—“Does your sister give any particulars about Miss … Miss Graves?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. You know Kitty. Or rather, I suppose you don’t, not really, for you’ve only met her once. But believe me, she’s not the most conscientious of correspondents. She only gives the news about Edward and then goes on to write about all the wedding clothes that she’s having made.” She stopped and shook her head again, still looking down at the letter. “Edward is such a dear. I’ll be so happy for him—if only this girl is truly worthy of him, and he’s sincerely attached to her.”
I said something. I have no idea what it was I said—but it must have been some sort of appropriate words of agreement, because Elizabeth nodded. Then she said she must speak to Mrs. Reynolds, our housekeeper, about tonight’s menu for dinner and went out, leaving me alone.
I’ve not cried. I’m not going to cry. I’ve already been idiot enough for one day, and I’d lose my self-respect entirely if I sat here weeping over this news.
Maybe the old love the gypsy woman told me was going to return was my little cat, Frederick, who ran away and was lost when I was eight.
All right, I would be happy to see Frederick again.
And maybe I’ll take one look at Edward and realise that what I felt for him was only a child’s infatuation. It’s been a year since I’ve seen him—maybe he’s grown bald. Or fat.
Though I have a horrible, sinking feeling inside me that it wouldn’t matter to me if he had.
Wednesday 27 April 1814
I grew up with Edward almost as another older brother—but I haven’t seen him in more than a year. Not since his regiment left to serve under Sir Arthur Wellesley in the Sixth Coalition against the Emperor Napoleon.
Of course, most commissioned army officers never actually serve in the army—not to see battle, I mean. They most often live in London, where they’re very fashionable men-about-town. And those with large enough private incomes usually agree to go on half-pay, which means that they are not even required to spend time with their regiments or perform any duties save for purely ornamental ones.
I’m sure Edward’s father expected Edward would be exactly that kind of officer, when he purchased a commission for him. But then when I was twelve, Edward’s regiment was called to foreign service to defend Portugal against the French army. And he’s fought with his regiment ever since.
Eighteen months ago, he was home in Britain for several months during a lull in the fighting. He was home for Elizabeth and my brother’s wedding a year ago at Christmastime, and he came to stay at Pemberley for Christmas, along with Elizabeth’s Uncle and Aunt Gardiner.
That was the last I saw him, at the dance my brother held in the Gardiners’ honour.
Actually, there was such a crowd of guests that I scarcely saw him all that night—not until late in the evening when I was dancing with Sir John Dalrymple. Sir John is—again small surprise—one of my aunt’s favourite contenders for my hand. I suppose I should count myself lucky that he’s not a guest here at Pemberley now.
Though that’s not quite fair to Sir John. He’s a nice young man—or rather, there’s no malice in him. It’s just that he’s loud and red-faced, has absolutely no sense of humour, and is a devoted lover of food. He’s almost as broad as he is tall, with soft, doughy features and plump hands. He doesn’t speak so much as bellow—and all through the dance he could talk of nothing but his new French cook. By the time the dance finished, he’d enumerated each dish the new cook had made for him, one by one.
I was just about to thank him and make my escape, but Sir John kept tight hold of my hand. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not much used to talking to girls. I expect I’ve been boring you silly.”
He looked so crestfallen that I said, quickly, “Oh, no! It’s been very interesting. Um, ragout of pullets and sweetbreads, did you say?”
Which was a mistake, because Sir John brightened at once and said, “I hope you’ll give me another dance?”
And that stopped me, of course. I didn’t have the heart to refuse—how could I, without hurting his feelings? But before I could utter a word, Edward was there next to me, bowing formally to Sir John.
“You’ll excuse me, Dalrymple,” he said. “But as Miss Darcy’s guardian, I can’t possibly allow her to dance more than one dance with a single gentleman.”
Edward was wearing his army uniform: red coat and white breeches. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, and he made an impressive figure, with his brows drawn and his lean face stern and grim. Sir John certainly thought so. He blanched, swallowed visibly, bowed and then beat a hasty retreat.
I turned to Edward to thank him, but he was looking at me, his mouth twitching at the corners as he shook his head. He must have heard the whole of Sir John’s and my final exchange.
“Am I going to have to give you lessons in saying no? Just to prevent my coming home to find you married to the first crashing bore who asks, just because you’re afraid of hurting his feelings?”
“I wouldn’t have married him!” I protested. But Edward was already shaking his head and pulling me from the dance floor.
“No. Not another word. I’ve been watching you all night. First you danced with Lord Waterstone, who’s a spineless fop. Then Gerald Cartright, who dances as though he’s got two left feet. And now Dalrymple. You’re going to learn to stand up for yourself if it kills me.”
No one would call Edward handsome. Not exactly. His features are too lean, too angular for that. But he has a good face. Strong and dependable, with humour in the set of his mouth and in his deep-set dark eyes. His hair is dark, too, and falls over his brow.
He pulled me with him into the hallway outside the ballroom. No one was there, save for ourselves. The guests were all dancing or talking inside, and the servants were all busy with laying out the supper things.
“All right,” Edward said. “Pretend I’m Sir John Dalrymple. I’ve just asked you to dance. What are you going to say?”
“No?”
Edward shook his head. “I’m not even going to hear you, much less believe you, if you say it that way. Try again. I’m Sir John Dalrymple.” He bowed from the waist and offered me his hand. “Miss Darcy, would you care to dance?”
I put my head on one side, pretending to consider. “I would love to, Sir John. But I should hate for you to miss the very extensive supper just being laid out in the supper room. I understand from our housekeeper that there aren’t nearly enough quail’s eggs to go around, and only those who come first to the table will be served.”
Edward laughed at that and tugged on a stray curl of my hair loosened by the dancing, and I laughed, as well.
I’ve known Edward all my life—and I’ve never been shy with him. It would be almost impossible to be so, I think—he’s so relaxed and at ease with himself that he sets everyone else at ease, too.
“All right, smart aleck,” he said. “That might do it in Sir John’s case, I grant you.” Then he sobered, and there was a new, unaccustomed note in his voice when he went on. “But what if some other man asks you?”
“Edward, I”—I hesitated, then asked, “What is all this about?”
Even as I asked, I was bracing myself inwardly, because I half expected Edward to bring up George Wickham—and I’d be happy never to hear Wickham’s name again. But Edward didn’t answer at once. He shook his head, then turned slightly to look back inside through the open door at the crowded ballroom.
“I’m going to war, Georgiana. What if … if I don’t come back? I don’t want to have to worry about you.”
I felt my heart tighten. I put my hand on Edward’s. “Edward, I—”
But Edward shook his head before he could finish, forcing a smile. “Never mind me. Just being maudlin, I suppose. Here, we’ll have another lesson so that I can march off knowing I’ve done my duty as guardian. Pretend I’m a suitor, bent on making improper advances. What do you do?”
He pulled me close to him, one arm going around my waist, the other sliding upwards to angle my face up towards his. I felt my heart contract again—but for quite another reason this time. I felt as though my skin would burst into flames at the heat of his touch. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. Edward’s breath was a stir of warmth against my cheek.
And then Edward’s look changed. He’d been laughing, smiling down at me with all his old ease. And then something seemed to shift in his eyes and the smile faded from his face.
Time seemed to slow, almost to drag to a stop. The beat of my own heart in my ears seemed unnaturally loud as Edward stared down at me with the strangest look on his face, almost as though he’d never seen me before.
And then he stepped back, away from me, shaking his head as though to clear it and clearing his throat. “Just promise me that you’ll take care of yourself, that’s all.”
My mouth had gone dry, but I managed to swallow. “Me? When you’re the one going off to fight Napoleon’s armies?”
The strange look, whatever it had been, was gone from Edward’s face. Or maybe I’d only imagined it, imagined that moment of charged stillness between us.
He grinned at me. “I’m an officer. We don’t do anything dangerous—just stalk about giving orders and looking important.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, is that why they gave you this medal?” I touched the medal on his chest, the one he won at the battle of Vimeiro. “For stalking around and looking important?”
Actually, for all I would have known from Edward, he might have won the medal that way. Edward never speaks of the campaigns he’s fought or what he’s seen and done at war. I practically had to use thumbscrews to even drag the location of the battle out of him.
And it’s only from one of his fellow officers, Captain Peabody, that I know Edward really won the medal for leading the charge up a hill to capture a French cannon position.
Edward was still smiling, but there was an edge of sadness or weariness to the smile, and something about his face, the way he held himself made me feel as though he’d abruptly stepped back behind a high wall. On impulse, I put out my hand.
“I’ll make you a bargain,” I said. “I’ll promise not to accept proposals from any unsuitable men—and you promise that you’ll come back home alive.”
For a moment, Edward’s eyes were dark and sober on mine. But then he smiled again and put his hand into mine. “Done.”
Thursday 28 April 1814
I don’t want to write this. I’ve been avoiding it. But I suppose as long as I’m writing down recollections, I should. Even if I don’t want to so much as think of it again, much less recount it here in print.
But then perhaps that is exactly why I should record it here. I can read it over again the next time I think myself flattered by the attentions of another of Mr. Edgeware’s sort.
When I was fifteen, I nearly eloped with George Wickham.
There. I’ve written it. And maybe that was the hardest part, and telling the particulars of what happened won’t be quite so bad as I thought? That seems a vain hope, but I suppose I’ll have to see as I go on.
George Wickham was the son of my father’s steward. He was years older than myself, of course. But I can remember him living here on the estate when I was small. He and Fitzwilliam often played together as boys, and they shared a tutor when they got older. And George was kind to me—in an off-hand sort of way. He was a very handsome boy, with fair hair and blue eyes and a ready laugh.
He fell in with a wild, dissipated crowd when he went away to school. But I knew nothing of that. I knew only that while I was staying at Ramsgate with the companion my brother had hired for me, George Wickham chanced to arrive there, as well. Or rather, it was not chance. But I did not know that at the time, either.
He was just as he had been when I was growing up—just as handsome, just as ready to laugh and smile. Only he treated me not as a child but as a woman to be courted and adored. We would walk along the beach—with my companion, Mrs. Younge, following a few paces behind—and he would quote poetry to me. Bits of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and Wordsworth. He usually got the Shakespeare wrong, but I was far too happy in his company to care.
Was I in love with him? I don’t really know, even now. I wished to be in love, I do know that much. He was handsome and charming and looked at me—quiet little Georgiana Darcy—as though I were the most beautiful creature in the world. Just as though we were two characters in a novel or one of the poems he recited to me. And I liked him—as I always had when I was a child.
And more than that—
It’s hard to explain. But I do hate changes. And at fifteen, growing up and entering the world of balls and courtship and marriage felt to me like the most terrifying round of changes that could be imagined. Being courted by George Wickham felt … safe, I suppose. Because he was part of that safe, secure world I’d known here at Pemberley when I was small, before my parents died.
But then George asked me to elope with him. To run away and be married without my brother’s knowledge or consent. I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say.
I said before that I hate being shy, sometimes. But it’s more than that. If I could change one quality in myself, I would wish that I could stand and fight more easily, rather than wanting to run away and hide every time I’m shocked or afraid.
And if I still struggle with it now, I was a hundred times worse at just-turned-fifteen.
While I was standing there, feeling my cheeks flush and trying to find words, George kissed me. Not on the hand or on the cheek as he always had done before, but on the mouth.
And all at once I wasn’t happy or flattered any longer. It was frightening, that kiss. He wasn’t gentle or charming, but rough and hungry.
Do all men kiss so? I haven’t exactly a wealth of experience to draw from for comparison, having only been kissed on the forehead by my father and brother.
And then that once under the mistletoe by Edward—Colonel Fitzwilliam. Though that scarcely counts, since I was only ten years old at the time.
I pulled away from George Wickham, but he only laughed and kissed me again and said I’d made him the happiest man alive. And then he told me he’d make all the arrangements for our elopement. We could travel to Gretna Green in Scotland and be married by declaration only, which of course is legal in Scotland.
I wanted to say something—anything. But I just stood there. Feeling the words lodged in my throat like sharp edged rocks. And then he left me alone in the sitting room of our lodgings house.
I did manage to speak that night to Mrs. Younge, telling her that I was afraid I couldn’t elope and asking her how I ought to tell George Wickham.
But she only said very severely that I was a lucky girl to have attracted the notice of a fine man like Mr. Wickham, and to have the prospect of being wedded at only fifteen years of age.
I lay awake all that night, thinking of how George Wickham had looked at me, how often he’d professed his admiration and love. How he’d said our marriage would make him the happiest man alive. And I actually cried at the thought of breaking his heart by telling him I couldn’t marry him after all. But perhaps if he were willing to wait a few years—if he would only speak to my brother Fitzwilliam first—
George had said he loved me, after all. And perhaps I would grow to love him in time, after we were married. Not at Gretna Green, but in a proper ceremony in the chapel at Pemberley. Surely my brother would agree, as he and George Wickham had always been close friends—
I can’t believe I was so foolish and easily gulled looking back on it. But that is what ran through my mind at the time.
And then my brother arrived at Ramsgate, too. And I was so relieved.
I suppose that doesn’t show me in a very favourable light, does it? That I was coward enough to be relieved I wouldn’t have to muster the backbone to tell George Wickham that I couldn’t elope with him. But since I’m being honest, I felt as though I could draw a full breath for the first time in days, the moment I saw my brother walk through the door.
I told my brother the whole—Wickham’s courtship, the plan he’d made to elope.
And that was when I learned that George Wickham didn’t love me—had never loved me. The whole of his courtship was merely a ploy to get at my fortune. He’d fallen into very dissolute ways and was heavily in debt, and my brother had refused to help him out of his current difficulties. George Wickham had wanted to elope with me first because he knew my brother would never agree to our marriage—and secondly because marrying me would be the neatest revenge he could achieve against Fitzwilliam.
I suppose I never did love George Wickham—because I found I didn’t feel any disbelief at all when my brother told me the truth of his character. Maybe a part of me had sensed all along that for all his charm, he was dishonourable at his core.
George left Ramsgate at once. At least I never had to see him again.
Now George Wickham is married to Elizabeth’s youngest sister, Lydia. That’s almost the only time I’ve ever seen Elizabeth look truly sad or sorrowful: when she speaks of Lydia’s marriage. Though when I told her once that I hated to think of George Wickham taking advantage of her sister’s trust, she said a little bitterly that Lydia had known full well what she was about.
No one save for Edward, Fitzwilliam, and Elizabeth knows of what happened at Ramsgate between George Wickham and I. Besides Wickham and myself, I mean.
No one can know. My reputation would be irretrievably lost if it ever were known that I had been on the brink of such an elopement—that I had been unchaperoned in George Wickham’s company, besides.
Which may be utterly unjust, but it is the way of the world.
I don’t think I ever did truly love George Wickham—and if I was infatuated, a little, I told Elizabeth the truth when I said that was long gone, now. It’s just that recounting the whole of the hateful episode here has made me feel—
But I am going to stop feeling sorry for myself. I would be happy to stay here at Pemberley—what I said to Elizabeth on that score was true, as well. I am happy here, even if I never find a suitor who actually wishes to marry me, instead of my thirty thousand pounds.
The rain is streaming down outside the windows and has been since last night; I could hear it drumming on the roof as I lay in bed. Now my brother is busy with his accounts and the running of the estate in his study. The other men of the house party are playing at billiards in the game room, and I’m with the ladies in the drawing room, sitting in my favourite place at the window seat. Caroline is looking at a book on the settee—flipping through the pages and looking sulky because the men have abandoned us today and it’s too wet outside to ask any of them to go outside and walk in the grounds.
Elizabeth is sewing, and my Aunt de Bourgh is sitting next to her making observations like, “What a pity you cannot sew as well as I could in my youth. You would need a magnifying glass to see the stitch work in the sampler I made at school.”
Elizabeth has just smiled and said, very politely, “Thank you so much for telling me. I must be sure to have a magnifying glass on hand if you should ever choose to show it to me. I should hate not to be able to appreciate it in full.”
My aunt is sitting and frowning and trying to work out whether she has been insulted or not.
And the papers today say there are to be great balls in London to celebrate the Marquess of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon.
Friday 29 April 1814
Edward is engaged.
Maybe I should write that a hundred times in a copy book, the way our schoolmistresses used to make naughty pupils copy out their faults when I was at school.
Edward is engaged. Edward is engaged. Edward is—
No, actually I don’t need to write it out. That’s just the trouble: I’m convinced enough of it already. The knowledge of it is like a black beetle in a cup of tea, completely spoiling my memory of today.
(What an elegant analogy, Georgiana, I can hear my aunt saying in tones of deepest sarcasm if she were ever to read this diary. Which of course, she never will. I either carry it in my reticule or hide it in my room under the mattress on my bed, where even my Aunt de Bourgh would never bother to look.)
The trouble is that I don’t care whether he’s engaged or not to Miss Mary Graves. Or rather, I may care, but my heart apparently doesn’t. If I were being melodramatic, I would say that my heart is at this moment aching far more than my sprained ankle, which is currently wrapped up in bandages and propped on a stool in front of me.
At least my hair has finally dried.
But I had better write it all down properly.
Edward arrived today, fully four days before we expected him. He had stayed the night in Nottingham to rest and stable his horse, and then rode out for Pemberley at first light this morning. Though since he’d sent no word, we of course had no idea he was coming.
I had slipped out for a walk, because I’d overheard my aunt speaking to Mr. Folliet and telling him how much she knew I wanted him to accompany me on a ride. In company with Dawson and two of her menservants, of course. My aunt would never suggest anything so improper as my riding out alone in company with a man.
I’ve scarcely spoken to Mr. Folliet, but he seems perfectly amiable. And not at all vain, despite looking so much like Sir Lancelot. But standing there beside the French doors in the morning room and hearing my aunt speak to him, I found myself imagining exactly what the proposed ride would be like: me feeling as though I ought to be making polite conversation with Mr. Folliet, but having no idea what to say. He either bored to tears or trying to ingratiate himself.
The two serving men looking on and probably laughing silently. Poor, long-suffering Dawson taking note of every word said so that she could report it to my aunt. Not that I blame her for it. If I were my Aunt de Bourgh’s maidservant, I would probably spy for my aunt, too, just to keep the peace.
But still, I suddenly felt I absolutely couldn’t do it, couldn’t go riding or be pushed into an acquaintance with Mr. Folliet that—unless he’s in more dire financial straits than my aunt thinks—he probably wishes for no more than I do. So I slipped out the French doors and into the garden and went for a walk.
Which was very childish and cowardly, and I was properly punished for it, because I’d come out without a bonnet or a pelisse, only my shawl, and the morning air was quite chilly. And even worse, I was wearing thin slippers instead of boots, and the ground was very muddy with all the recent rain. By the time I’d gone a hundred yards, my shoes were more black than pink. But even so, I kept going. And not just because I didn’t want to go back the the house and face my aunt.
The air was clear and the sun was gloriously bright, and the grounds of the park felt fairly bursting with the promise of spring: all the new leaves and buds on the trees, the shoots of daffodils just poking up from the soil.
Without thinking, I’d taken the usual path, through the woods and across the stream. I’d just crossed the bridge when my already mud-slick slippers slid on a fresh patch of mud. I lost my footing, tried to catch hold of the bridge railing, but my hand only slipped off that as well, and before I knew it, I’d tumbled the whole way down the embankment and landed with a splash in the stream itself.
The cold water was like a slap in the face, and I’d had the breath completely knocked out of me. But when I tried to push myself up, I found I could, so I knew I was wasn’t really hurt. My heart was still hammering, though, and I was struggling to catch my breath, so that I’d only managed to pull myself into a sitting position when all of a sudden strong arms were lifting me up, clear of the water.
That made my heart jump again, but then I recognised the voice that spoke in my ear. “Georgiana! Good God, are you hurt?”
I pushed the wet hair out of my face and looked up, and sure enough it was Edward who was holding me, one arm about my shoulders, the other under my knees so that he could carry me up the bank.
He wore his red army coat, and his hair was a little longer than I remembered. And there was a thin white line—a new scar—running down one of his lean brown cheeks.
I tried to speak but was still too much out of breath, so I could only nod.
“I was riding through the park, and saw you fall,” Edward said. I was still pressed up against him. I could feel how hard his heart was hammering in his chest. “What on earth are you doing out here all on your own?”
“Just walking,” I managed to say.
The tight line of Edward’s mouth relaxed at that. “Well, next time try to include fewer dives into freezing cold stream beds on your walks. Less dramatic, but far more comfortable.”
I would have said something indignant to that, but the stream had been freezing cold and I was drenched to the skin; even the shawl I’d had wrapped around my shoulders was soaked. I’d started to shiver and my teeth were chattering so much I couldn’t make myself form the words.
Edward set me down on a dry, grassy patch beside the path and knelt beside me, shrugging out of his army coat. “Here—take this.” He wrapped it around my shoulders. “It will be yards too big on you, but at least it’s dry.”
“Th-thank you,” I managed to say.
The first time I see Edward in nearly a year, and I’d managed to go tumbling into a stream like a clumsy six-year-old. And now I was covered in mud and looking like a drowned rat.
Fate really does have a very peculiar sense of humour at times.
And then I saw it: a stain, bright scarlet and wet on the the shoulder of Edward’s white linen shirt.
“You’re hurt—you’re bleeding!” I said. His lifting me up the embankment must have re-opened the wound in his shoulder.
I sat up. “Take off your shirt.”
Edward’s eyebrows shot up. “What—here?”
“It’s better than bleeding to death!”
Edward glanced down at his own shoulder for the first time. The stain was at least the size of my hand, and spreading, but he shrugged and said, “It’s nothing much. I’ll have it seen to when we get to the house.”
“We’re three miles from the house at least,” I said. My teeth were still chattering, but the warmth of his coat was helping and I didn’t feel nearly so cold. “Let me at least bind it up for you before it gets any worse.”
Edward’s jaw clamped shut. “I thought young ladies were supposed to faint at the sight of blood.”
“And I thought soldiers were supposed to know how to keep themselves alive!”
Edward’s mouth twitched again at that. He looked at me, then shook his head, and finally undid the ties on his shirt and slid it off one shoulder. “All right, if it will satisfy you. But it’s really not serious.”
The wound had been bound up with a thick linen pad, but the bandage was entirely saturated with blood. I untied the bindings, and Edward drew in breath through his teeth when I peeled the final layers back; they’d been stuck to his skin with dried blood.
I did feel a bit queasy at the sight of the bloody furrow in the muscle of his upper arm. I suppose the injury must be two or three weeks old by now, but it still looked ugly, angry and red and puckered around the edges.
“You should have a physician look at this,” I said. “It doesn’t look as though it’s healing properly to me.”
Edward looked down at me, eyebrows raised again. “You mean to tell me you don’t number doctoring among your varied accomplishments?”
I realised abruptly that I was sitting nearly in Edward’s lap, my drenched clothes plastered to me, and with one hand braced against his bare chest. I felt my cheeks start to heat up, even as the contact with Edward’s skin seemed to jolt through my every nerve.
“Do you have a handkerchief?” I asked, as matter-of-factly as I could. Because it was bad enough to have been pulled like a drowned kitten from the stream. It would be worse yet to start blushing and stammering like some silly schoolgirl.
“What?”
“Your handkerchief—give it to me. Unless you’ve clean bandages about you. But I need something to pad the wound.”
I did manage to make a fresh pad for the wound from my handkerchief and his. Even if I couldn’t stop my pulse from racing every time I had to touch him.
When I’d finished, Edward unclamped his teeth. “Now will you let me get you back to the house?” He started to lift me again, but I shook my head. “I’m all right, now. I can walk.”
But when I tried to stand, my ankle gave a sharp, sudden throb and buckled under me. I’d not felt it before, but I suppose I must have twisted it when I fell. I would have fallen again if Edward hadn’t been so quick to catch me.
He is very strong; I could feel the hard muscles of his arms even through the layers of his coat. And before I could argue or pull away, he turned his head—he still had his good arm around me, supporting my weight—and whistled softly, two short trills and one long. A chestnut horse stepped out of the shade of the trees and onto the path, and Edward said, “This is King. He’ll carry you with even less trouble than I could.”
We neither of us spoke on the ride back to the house, and when we drew close to the front steps Edward pulled up on the reins to stop the horse, then simply sat there, staring at the front door.
I suppose now that the immediate crisis was past, we neither of us knew quite what to say. In the space of half an hour, I’d been dunked in the stream, pulled out by Edward, then demanded his handkerchief to bandage a bullet wound.
Finally Edward swung himself down out of the saddle and reached up to help me down, as well. “So, Georgiana,” he said. “How have you been these last months?”
I couldn’t help it: I started to laugh, and Edward joined me, laughing so hard that we were both entirely out of breath. And then, all at once he stopped and just stood there, looking down at me.
He still had his arms round me from helping me off the horse, and we were so close that I could see the tiny flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the tiny laugh lines at the corners of his mouth. I could feel the steady beating of his heart, the warmth of his body seeping into mine.
I stopped shivering, stopped laughing, stopped even breathing. I felt as though I were a dragonfly in amber, trapped by the weight of his gaze.
And then the front door opened, and Elizabeth came running down the steps. “Georgiana, there you are! And Edward! But”—she looked from one of us to the other, taking in my soaking wet dress and Edward’s bloodied shoulder. “But what’s happened to you? Are you all right?”
Edward let go of me so fast I nearly fell over. He did put a hand under my elbow to steady me, but he didn’t look at me again as he said to Elizabeth, “She’s all right, just a slight fall into the stream. Though you may want to summon the local physician to look at that ankle.”
Then he tipped his hat and strode past Elizabeth into the house without once looking round.
Elizabeth wanted to summon two of the footmen to help carry me into the house, but I wouldn’t let her. My ankle wasn’t nearly as painful as it had been. And besides, I’d more than reached my limit on the number of people I wanted to see me in my drowned-rat state.
With Elizabeth’s help, I hobbled up to my room, and Elizabeth called for the servants to bring kettles for a hot bath. She stayed to help me wash the mud out of my hair. But she didn’t ask me to talk—which I was very, very grateful for—only helped me to dress and then wrap up my ankle. She asked if I wanted the physician, but I said I didn’t. It’s only a slight sprain, and he could do nothing but tell me what I already know, that it will be painful for a day or two, then gradually less so.
Elizabeth said I ought to rest and left me to sleep if I could. But I can’t, so I’ve taken up this book instead.
Would it be terribly cowardly to pretend I’ve taken a chill? Or say that my ankle is far too painful for me to go down to dinner tonight?
I’m afraid it would. Besides, I can hardly stay in my room the entire month Edward is here. I’ll have to face him again sometime.
What did he see in that frozen moment when he looked down into my eyes? I wasn’t thinking of trying to guard my feelings—I wasn’t thinking of anything. So he very likely saw little Georgiana Darcy, who he suddenly realised has a schoolgirl’s infatuation with him.
That’s probably why he left so abruptly—he realised how awkward it was going to be. My father’s will left him my co-guardian, along with my brother. And now his fond little charge fancies herself in love with him.
He’s probably even now trying to decide how to let me down gently and inform me of his engagement to Miss Graves in the kindest possible way. Because he’s fond of me. Of course he wouldn’t want to hurt my feelings.
I’ve just realised I’m grinding my teeth together so hard my jaw is aching. I have to stop. I have to stop and think how I’m going to act the next time I see Edward. I’ll have to be very polite and very cool and collected and calm. And it would help if I could convince him that he was entirely mistaken, and that I’m actually in love with someone else.
Maybe I can persuade myself to develop a violent passion for Sir John’s greasy hair and gooseberry eyes and endless talk of guns.
For one thing, I don’t want Edward feeling sorry for me.
But for another, if he truly is happy in his engagement to Miss Graves, I don’t want that shadowed by worry for me. Edward deserves better than that.
Saturday 30 April 1814
I did go down to dinner last night. I didn’t manage to fall violently in love with Sir John. But I did speak to Mr. Folliet for some time. He’s very nice. Really, as nice as he is handsome.
Elizabeth said she was feeling a little indisposed after dinner and went to lie down in her room, and my brother went with her, to be sure she wasn’t seriously ill. Sir John proposed a game of whist, and my Aunt de Bourgh allowed herself to be persuaded, though she did decree that Anne was feeling tired and sent her off to bed first.
Mr. Folliet came over to sit beside me, where I was perched in my usual place on the window seat, reading.
“I feel I ought to apologise, Miss Darcy.” He has a voice that exactly matches his face: deep-pitched and very attractive.
“Apologise? Why?”
“Because any girl who is so horrified by the prospect of going riding with me that she hurls herself into icy cold rivers to avoid it must clearly dislike me a good deal. Therefore, I must have done something to offend, and should apologise.” He smiled. “Though my apology would be a good deal more convincing if you told me what it is I’ve done.”
I could feel colour flaming in my cheeks. Of course the entire house party knew about my misadventure. I’d have been perfectly happy to have no one but Edward and Elizabeth hear that I’d tumbled into the stream. But of course I had to give some explanation for why I was limping and needed Elizabeth’s help in managing the stairs.
“Tell me,” Mr. Folliet was saying, “and I’ll apologise in earnest and we can begin again. I promise I’m not so terrible once you get to know me. You’ve only got one other ankle, and it would be a shame to sprain that one, too, by throwing yourself into another river the next time your aunt decides that you’re longing to show me Pemberley’s grounds on horseback.”
I set down my book and looked up at him. My cheeks were still burning. But in a way it was freeing to be able to speak openly, because I surely couldn’t become any more embarrassed than I already was.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Folliet. It’s surely not escaped your notice that my Aunt de Bourgh is intent on hurling me at the heads of any and every eligible young man under Pemberley’s roof.”
“Lady Catherine is certainly a force to be reckoned with,” Mr. Folliet agreed.
“But there’s no reason you should suffer for it. You should feel free to invent your own excuses the next time she tries to force us together. I won’t hold it against you, I promise.”
“What about what you want?” Mr. Folliet asked.
“Do you mean, do I want to be paraded in front of my aunt’s collection of suitors like a prize-winning horse at a show?” I felt my mouth twist. “Not especially, no.”
Mr. Folliet was watching me. “And what about your brother? Couldn’t he speak to your aunt on your behalf?”
“He would—if I asked him to. He’s one of the very few people in the world who does stand up to my aunt—and whom she actually accepts that she can’t bully.”
“But you haven’t spoken to him?”
I shook my head. Because it’s not only that I’m not accustomed to sharing such confidences with my brother. “It seems so childish, calling on my elder brother to speak for me to my own aunt,” I finally said. “I ought to be able to stand up to her, as well. It’s not as though she can actually do anything but be unpleasant if I tell her I don’t want to marry any of the men she’s chosen for me. It’s just—”
It’s just that I hate unpleasantness, and loud voices and yelling. And just the thought of the scene my Aunt de Bourgh would create if I ever did speak out so made my stomach lurch and all my nerves clench. But I recollected myself, and recalled that Mr. Folliet was almost a complete stranger. “I’m sorry—we needn’t go on speaking of this. You must think me childish indeed.”
Mr. Folliet looked away for a moment, towards the card table where my aunt was sitting between Edward and Sir John. “I think … I think that it’s not always easy to be honest, and especially with family members.” His voice had a note of something, something lonely or sad that I didn’t understand. But then he shook his head as though to clear it and smiled again. “Well, then. I’ll just have to tell your aunt that you’ve broken my heart and turned me down—and do something so spectacularly unsuitable that she finds your refusal utterly justified. Would it help if I stood under your window at night, looking mournful and reciting bad poetry? Or playing a guitar? I don’t actually know how to play the guitar, but I suppose I could learn.”
I laughed. “Please don’t do anything so drastic on my account.”
I felt my aunt look up at us when I laughed. Likely she was congratulating herself on the success of her matchmaking scheme.
I think out of the corner of my eye, I saw Edward watching us, too, but I wouldn’t let myself look at him.
Before we parted for the night, Mr. Folliet asked me to go riding with him tomorrow after church. I said I’d be delighted.
Sunday 1 May 1814
Tonight I happened to be passing my brother’s study on my way upstairs to bed, and I saw Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth together inside. I didn’t mean to spy, but the door was partway open, and as I walked past I saw Elizabeth curled up on the floor in front of the fire, leaning her shoulder up against my brother’s chair. She was wearing the short-sleeved green satin gown she’d had on at dinner, and the firelight ran golden along her face and bare arms, and twined golden highlights in her hair.
She said something—I didn’t hear what—and tilted her head back to smile up at him.
And Fitzwilliam said something low and husky and leaned down to kiss her on the mouth.
I walked away quickly—and neither of them saw me. But I can still feel a little lonely, hollow ache inside my chest.
It’s not that I’m envious. Well, I suppose if I’m being completely truthful, I do envy them a bit. More than a bit. Or rather, not them so much as what they’ve found in each other.
I couldn’t love either Elizabeth or my brother more. And I want them to be happy, truly. I’m so glad that they are.
But—
Never mind. I’m even going to irritate myself if I keep going on in this vein.
Let me think what else I can write about.
I learned several new measures of a Mozart sonata on the pianoforte today. I finally had the chance to practice alone, since I came downstairs in the morning more than an hour earlier than anyone else.
And I did go riding with Mr. Folliet. A small part of me wishes I could report that I don’t like him, just because my aunt is so determined that I shall. But I do like him, actually. He’s very charming and agreeable—and doesn’t seem at all vain of his good looks. He’s very easy to talk to, as well. I didn’t feel at all shy.
A larger part of me wishes that my heart raced and my skin tingled when Mr. Folliet speaks to me or touches my hand. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Monday 2 May 1814
I haven’t seen Edward at all today.
Which I will admit is more than partly by design, since I stayed upstairs in my room this morning until I saw my brother and Edward riding out away from the house.
Mrs. Reynolds came to speak to me about him, though, almost as soon as I came downstairs.
Mrs. Reynolds is our housekeeper—and has been since years before I was born. She’s plump and red-faced and very fierce in her manner—all the kitchen staff and the maids are terrified of her. She bullies both Edward and my brother unmercifully because she’s known them both since they were small boys and Edward used to come and spend his summers here.
This morning her face was anxious, though, as she stopped me in the front hall. “It’s Mr. Edward,” she said, when I’d asked whether anything was wrong. “He doesn’t seem a bit like himself.”
Against my will, I felt my heart contract. It would be so much easier if I could just order myself to stop caring so much about him.
“Maybe his shoulder is paining him,” I said. “We should make sure he sees the physician.”
“Aye, I’ve sent for him,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “He’ll be here this afternoon. But there’s more than that ailing Mr. Edward, I’d say. He’s so thin and brown—and he scarcely touched a bite of supper last night. And there’s more. I gave him his old room—the one he always slept in when he came to stay here as a boy.”
I nodded.
“Well,” Mrs. Reynolds said, “This morning, Mr. Edward comes to me and says he doesn’t want that room—he’d rather have one in the east wing. The east wing! I ask you. Where most of the rooms aren’t even in use, and half the chimneys won’t draw on account of it’s been so long since a fire was lighted in them.”
“What did you tell him?” I asked.
“What could I tell him?” Mrs. Reynolds spread her hands. “I told him I’d find him a room in the east wing. He’s a grown man, I reckon he can sleep where he likes. It just seems strange to me, that’s all.”
I thought of the wound in his shoulder, the new scar on his cheek. “He’s just come back from war,” I said. “Perhaps he just needs space—time to himself to adjust. And he’s ridden out with my brother this morning. Maybe he’ll speak to Fitzwilliam if there’s something really wrong.”
“Aye. Maybe.” Mrs. Reynolds nodded her head, though she didn’t look convinced.
I’m not sure I am, either. But I don’t think there’s anything else I can do. Not because I’m resolved not to throw myself at Edward—because I would risk humiliation, if I thought I could help him.
It sounds a strange thing to say about anyone so relaxed and amiable as he is, but Edward is a private person, in many ways. He doesn’t share his innermost thoughts easily.
Unless and until he decides to speak to one of us, I don’t think anyone will find out if there really is anything wrong.
Tuesday 3 May 1814
From the time I was twelve, any time Edward would go off to fight abroad, I would sit down at the pianoforte and play Robin Adair whenever I was afraid for him.
Maybe that’s a strange choice, since Robin Adair is such a sad song. And maybe it was; to be honest, at first I only played it because I was twelve years old and it was almost the only song I could play without any mistakes. But then after awhile … I don’t know. Somehow I’d play it, and it would always make me feel better. As though my worrying and missing him had been poured into the song and so lifted out of me.
That sounds as though I’m one of those romantic, sentimental girls who wander about out-of-doors quoting Wordsworth’s poems in the middle of thunderstorms. I’m not sure how to put it so that it doesn’t sound overly romantical and silly, though.
It’s just that that’s what music has always done for me, ever since I was quite small: given me a place to put the feelings that hurt most.
I was in the music room this morning, practising the Mozart sonata again. But I couldn’t seem to keep my mind on the musical score in front of me. I kept getting my fingering wrong and losing the tempo—and finally I gave up and let my hands travel, just idly, over the keys.
I hadn’t really meant to play anything in particular, but almost before I realised it, my fingers had fallen into the tune of Robin Adair. I started to sing, as well—just softly.
What's this dull town to me
Robin's not near
What was't I wish'd to see
What wish'd to hear
Where all the joy and mirth
Made this town heaven on earth
Oh, they're all fled with thee
Robin Adair
I played it all through, and then a slight sound behind me made me turn on the pianoforte bench. Edward was standing just inside the doorway. He must have been listening to me play for some time, because he was standing quite still, leaning up against the doorframe, with his arms folded across his chest.
My heart stumbled and quickened in my chest, and I must have gasped because Edward smiled a little and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just I didn’t want to interrupt you. And it’s a long time since I’ve heard you play.”
He was wearing civilian clothes today rather than his army uniform: tan breeches and boots and a maroon coat. His right arm was in a sling.
I know I resolved before to be distant and calm and cool the next time I was with Edward. But sitting there, in the same room with him, I could feel all that resolve slipping away. The war is over—and he’s returned alive.
And he is a friend, even if he’ll never be anything more.
“How is your shoulder?” I asked.
“It’s fine. A little sore, that’s all. I could leave off the sling—but Mr. Broyles threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t wear it for a day or two.”
“Old Mr. Broyles or young?” I asked.
“There are two of them?”
“Father and son,” I said. “Both physicians in Lambton; they have a practice together. Though it must have been the father you saw—I can’t imagine your having been intimidated into wearing a sling by the son. He’s a very nice young man, but not terribly imposing.”
“Wait a moment,” Edward said. “Thin? Spectacles? Ears like flying gibbets?”
“Flying gibbets is a little unkind. But they do stick out, I grant you. And yes, that’s young Mr. Broyles.”
Edward nodded. “He came to call along with his father, but I took him for an assistant.” He raised his eyebrows at me, “And come to think of it, he asked after you—and said to give you his compliments. Do I need to go charging down to their offices in Lambton and defend your honour?”
“From young Mr. Broyles? Good heavens, no, you’d scare him to death. Besides, he’s already engaged to the daughter of a local landowner. He came to the house last year when half of the servants were ill with influenza, that’s all—and I helped him with doses and heating water and all the rest because half the servants were ill and there wasn’t anyone else.”
Edward wiped his brow theatrically. “Well, that’s all right then. I was afraid I was going to have to play the stern, heavy-handed guardian and lock you in your room.”
I laughed. “Heavy-handed guardian? When you’re only ten years older than I am?”
“Ten years?” Edward turned away to look out the window as something crossed his face like a swift shadow. “At the moment it feels like I’m a great deal older than that.”
I looked at him. I know his face almost as well as I do my own, and today in the morning light filtering through the windows he looked thinner than when last I’d seen him. He’s sun-browned from living on campaign, with fine lines about the corners of his eyes.
Edward has always been of an open disposition, relaxed and easy in company and very self-assured. He and Elizabeth do have similar temperaments in that way, even if he was never really in love with her. Just like Elizabeth, Edward jokes and teases a good deal, and can laugh and banter with very nearly anyone.
He’d been speaking in almost his usual way. But as he spoke the final words, there was a new note in his voice. And there was just at that moment a hint of … I’m not quite sure. Darkness or sadness or something about the look in his eyes.
“How are you, Edward? I mean, how are you really?” I asked him.
Edward lifted one shoulder. His eyes were still fixed out the window. “It turned out there was a fragment of the musket ball still lodged in the wound that was keeping it from healing properly. Broyles the elder dug it out for me and gave me something he said would help draw any further impurities out.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “But that wasn’t what I meant.”
It’s true, what I wrote yesterday, about thinking there little point in questioning Edward unless he was ready to talk.
But there was something that looked almost … almost lost about him as he stood, staring out the window.
“Mrs. Reynolds told me you asked to change your room,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation.
Edward was silent. Then his shoulders moved again. “I didn’t … I don’t fit into the old room anymore.”
I waited, but he didn’t say anything else, only stood at the window with his shoulders tensed. “It must seem very strange to be back here, at Pemberley,” I finally said.
This time, the silence lasted so long I thought Edward wasn’t going to speak at all. But then he said, “It is … strange. I suppose that’s as good a word as any.” Edward rubbed the space between his eyes. “Strange to eat off china plates instead of my tin mess kit. Strange to suddenly sleep in a real bed again instead of a camp cot or more often muddy ground.” He turned and gave me a brief flash of almost his usual smile. “The first night after I landed in England—I was staying at an inn—and I had to pull the blankets off the bed and lie down on the floor before I could get off to sleep. The chamber maid tripped over me in the morning when she came in to lay the fire—she must have thought I was out of my senses.”
Then his smile faded. He looked out the window again, resting one hand against the pane of glass, his eyes travelling over the view of the lawns, dotted with Spanish oaks and elms. The lake in front of the house, and the woods beyond.
“It’s an odd feeling, too, to come back here and find all this”—he spread one hand to indicate the view—“so much unchanged. Everything looks as it always has. Completely untouched by anything that’s happened in the outside world.”
Edward shook his head as though to clear it, then seemed to force a smile. “Strange—but good, too, I suppose, to find it so. It makes me feel as though Pemberley is a small, bespelled pocket that the caprices of time and chance can never touch.”
I moved to stand next to him at the window. “I know—I’ve always loved that feeling about it, too,” I said.
Edward turned. He didn’t speak, though, just looked down into my eyes. And there it was again—just for that instant, the dark, shadowed look was there at the back of his gaze.
And then the door opened behind us and he instantly stepped back, away from me.
It was Elizabeth—come, she said, to summon us both to breakfast.
“Mrs. Reynolds says you’ve come back from the war all bones and need to be fattened,” she said to Edward, smiling. “If you don’t take a good enough breakfast, I think she has every intention of picking up a spoon and feeding you herself.”
Edward laughed. “I may have faced down Napoleon’s armies, but I know better than to cross Mrs. Reynolds when her mind is made up. All right, I’ll come.”
He spoke so easily and his smile was so carefree that I could almost believe I’d imagined that lost look in his eyes.
Wednesday 4 May 1814
My mother died when I was six years old. I’m glad we have the portrait in the upstairs gallery that my father had painted of her, because it helps me to remember her now. It hurts that my true memories of her are so much faded—but they are. And looking up at the portrait helps bring remembrance back, at least a little.
She was beautiful. I wish I looked like her, but I don’t, not at all. She was fine-boned and small, with golden hair, blue eyes and a heart-shaped face.
She used to sew little dolls for me when I was very small—a whole collection of them. I have them, still, in a drawer in my room. Milk maids and tiny swaddled babies and fine ladies dressed in scraps cut from the remnants of her worn-out gowns. She made a doll-sized version of our family for me, too: a little doll of my father, dressed in his breeches and his green riding coat; one of my brother, as he was at twelve or thirteen, very tall and thin and with a mop of unruly black hair; and doll versions of herself and me, wearing matching white dresses and blue sashes.
She used to take me out into the garden with her, too, and we’d read from storybooks or play at skittles and spillikins.
My father would laugh when he found us together, my mother with her hair coming down and her skirts spotted with dirt and bits of grass. And my mother would laugh, too, and say she never could learn to behave as a fine lady ought.
My father’s heart was broken when she died. He did try his best to comfort me—but he had his own grief to think of, and my brother’s, as well as mine. And all the relations who had come to stay for her funeral. And I didn’t want to see anyone—not my father, nor Fitzwilliam nor anyone else. I think I spent the entire week after the funeral hiding under furniture—tables and sofas and chairs. Hoping no one would see me, and I wouldn’t be forced to come out and speak to anyone.
That was how I came to overhear two of my older girl cousins, who were sitting together in the library: I’d crept under the library table and fallen asleep, and woke up to find them sitting on the sofa just inches away from me. So I stayed frozen where I was, not daring to move.
They were speaking of the novel they had been reading—a grisly story about an abbey inhabited by the ghost of a drowned monk that haunted any visitor who dared spend a night under the abbey’s roof. I’d never heard anything like it before. And at six, I didn’t understand that it was only a story; I believed every word.
And after that I couldn’t go to sleep at night. I was terrified that the moment I closed my eyes, I’d see my sweet, happy, lovely mother, come back to haunt us all as a horrible ghost.
It was Edward who found me sobbing under the table in the dining room late one night. My nurse was supposed to sleep with me in the outer room of the nursery, of course. But I’d waited until I heard her snoring and then crept past her, because I couldn’t bear to lie there in bed any more, waiting for my mother’s ghost to appear.
Edward was sixteen and had just received his first army commission. He picked me up and found some wine that had been left on the sideboard and poured me a glass. He watered it down so much that it was almost all water and scarcely any wine, but I didn’t know that and thought it was very grown-up. I’d never tasted wine before.
Then, while I was drinking it, he finally got me to tell him what had frightened me. And then the next day he got a whole box of the most gothic, grisly books he could find from the lending library—full of haunted castles and skeletons and swooning heroines—and sat next to my little bed in the nursery and read them to me every night.
Which sounds like a very strange sort of cure. But he made the stories incredibly comical—exaggerating all the horrible groans and gasps, clutching his forehead at the stupidity of the heroines, who would persist in going into the forbidden wings of the castle all alone, and at night.
I’d sit there with him, giggling while he read. And then afterwards I’d be able to go to sleep.
Edward stayed for a full three weeks, which was a longer leave of absence than he’d been granted by his Colonel. I found out afterwards that he would have been disciplined except that the peace treaty—the first peace treaty—with Napoleon had just been signed and everyone in the army was in a celebratory mood.
I remember watching him ride away at the end of his stay and trying to decide just how old I’d have to be before I could marry him. I think I decided on twelve—at twelve, I thought, I’d surely be old enough.
My fingers are itching to draw Edward now. But I’ll draw Mr. Folliet instead.
Thursday 5 May 1814
I’ve actually had a real conversation with my cousin Anne. Not a very long talk, true, but at least we didn’t speak only about her headaches or weak eyes—at least not entirely. Though I still can’t say it went especially well, or ended with any appreciable progress towards my knowing her better or helping her in any way.
Well, I may have stopped her throwing herself out of a second story window. I suppose that must be counted as progress.
I’ve been thinking about her since I was watching her the other night, after supper. She was sitting in her usual place by the fire, but instead of huddling under her lap rugs and simply staring at the floor as she usually does, she was watching Caroline and Mr. Carter, my brother’s clergyman friend. Caroline and Mr. Carter were speaking together. Or rather, Caroline was speaking and Mr. Carter was blushing and stammering whenever he was addressed.
But he seemed far from unhappy for all that—and he did look at Caroline as though he admired her.
My cousin Anne was watching them both, and just for a moment I caught a flash of such naked misery on her face that my own heart constricted as though a giant hand had wrapped around my ribs and squeezed.
No one should be that unhappy. Or go through her life without ever actually doing any living of it.
I wished—I still wish—that I could help her somehow. And today there seemed to be a chance, because we’ve been invited to a dinner party tomorrow by Mr. and Mrs. Herron, an older couple who live on the estate neighbouring ours.
My Aunt de Bourgh has taken a chill—a true chill, for she was coughing and shivering last night at dinner. She’s sent for the physician, who has told her to stay in bed for the next three days at least. So of course my aunt has said she would not be going along to the party.
Which I can understand, for she really is ill. But then she decreed that my cousin Anne would, by tomorrow, have taken a chill as well. And so Anne would not be able to go to dinner at the Herrons’, either.
I’d like to know how, exactly, my aunt imagines Anne would ever manage to take a chill, when she does nothing but sit by the fire in the warmest rooms of the house, absolutely smothered in shawls and lap rugs. She never goes outside if there’s so much as a hint of rain, and she never even walks through dewy grass for fear of getting her feet wet. If she or my aunt could manage a way that she could avoid getting wet even in the bath, I imagine they’d immediately put it into practice.
But I couldn’t stop remembering how miserable I’d seen her look the other night. So this morning after breakfast I went along to her room to see if I couldn’t persuade her into going to the dinner party tomorrow night after all.
Her door was closed, so I tapped on the panel. But the latch hadn’t quite shut, so when I knocked, the door popped open, and I saw my cousin Anne, kneeling on the bedroom window ledge with the window wide open, her arms outspread and her head thrown back.
“Anne!” I cried out.
Likely it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, calling out and risking startling her while she was perched so precariously like that. But her head jerked round at the sound of my voice, and she fell inside the room instead of out the window.
I let out a breath of relief. “What on earth were you doing up there?”
Anne scrambled up from the carpet where she’d landed. The fresh air had whipped some colour into her sallow cheeks. But the moment her eyes met mine, the usual sullen, discontented look slid back over her face.
She shrugged and turned to pull the window closed. “Nothing.”
Her voice was so flat and expressionless I felt the back of my neck prickle with cold. “You must have been doing something, climbing up onto the window ledge like that.”
Anne pulled a shawl—a brown, hideously ugly woollen one—round her shoulders, and wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I have a headache. I thought some fresh air might help.” She looked up at me then. “What do you want, Georgiana? I’m not feeling very well this morning. No, don’t sit down.” I’d made a slight movement towards one of the chairs. “I would prefer you didn’t stay. It will make my head ache to talk to you.”
I looked at her and wondered if this was what happened when you spent a lifetime under my Aunt’s thumb, being ordered around as though you were five years old. You never got the chance to stop behaving as though you were five.
That was what Anne reminded me of: a sulky, spoiled five-year-old, too occupied with herself to even think of good manners.
“I wanted to ask if you’d consider coming to the party tomorrow after all,” I said. “I know your mother said you’d have a chill—but you haven’t have you? You could ride in the carriage with Elizabeth and Caroline and me. My brother will be on horseback, and I imagine the rest of the men will, too. There’ll be plenty of room.”
Anne stared at me. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Why?” she asked. “Why should you want me to come? No one ever wants me to come anywhere with them.”
She said it in the same discontented voice as before. But it struck me all of a sudden that it’s entirely true. In Anne’s entire life, I doubt anyone has ever actually wanted her to be anywhere. Except maybe her mother wanting her to sit by the fire and stay in bed.
Anne was still watching me. “Admit it,” she said, almost as though she’d heard my thought. “There’s not one single person under the roof of Pemberley House who would actually want to be in my company for more than five minutes.”
“Mr. Carter seemed to enjoy speaking with you very much, the evening he first arrived,” I protested. “What were you talking of?”
“We were speaking of China,” Anne said.
“China?” I could scarcely have been more surprised if Anne had said they’d been discussing the feeding habits of sea slugs. To be honest, I wouldn’t have even thought that Anne knew where China was.
But a touch of colour warmed her cheeks. “Oh, yes! I’ve read all about it. I love travel books. All about China and Egypt and the Amazon. I don’t get to read them often—my mother thinks they strain my eyes, so I have to find ways to look at them in secret. But I’d read the one Mr. Carter happened to have taken down from your brother’s shelves, and we were talking about that. Did you know, Georgiana, that there’s a Forbidden City in China? A whole city where only the Emperor and the members of his court can walk. And the streets are paved with gold bricks, so they say. The author of the book had never been there himself. Only heard rumours, you know.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all—or maybe it was inevitable, but the instant I spoke, the spell was broken. All the animation went out of Anne’s face, like a candle flame blown out by a gust of wind.
She turned her head away. “It doesn’t matter. Mr. Carter only spoke to me that night because he didn’t know who I was. He hadn’t yet become acquainted with me and realised what a gloomy, dismal invalid I am.”
I didn’t say that she could try changing her temperament if she wanted people to like her. Anne wasn’t in a mood to listen. And besides, even I know that it’s not so easy as that.
I remember one of the girls at school telling me I should just stop being so shy. I wasn’t really friends with her, but I liked her well enough—and still, just for a second after she said it, I could have hit her with something.
“I would like you to come,” I said to Anne. I made my voice as warm as I could. “I know we don’t know each other very well. But we are cousins. I’d like to know you better. And I really would like you to come tomorrow night.”
Anne looked at me for a second. Then she said. “I couldn’t. My mother wouldn’t like it.”
“Your mother wouldn’t even have to know. She’s been told to stay in bed for the next few days.”
Just for a second, I thought I saw something wavering at the back of Anne’s eyes. She has very pretty eyes, the colour of pale cornflowers, if only they didn’t always look so dull and lifeless.
But then she shook her head again, the discontented look closing down over her features once more. “No. I’m sure a closed carriage ride in the night air would be very bad for me. And besides, the Herrons don’t know what sort of food I need. I mustn’t eat anything rich or with too many spices or too much salt. It doesn’t agree with me.”
I gave up. “All right,” I said. “But if you change your mind, let me know.”
I had started to turn to go, but then my eye caught on the now closed window and I had a flash of how Anne had looked when I came into the room: teetering on the ledge, hands thrown out like the figurehead of a ship—or like someone about to throw themselves forward into space.
“Anne,” I said. And for the first time I thought perhaps I should have left this to Elizabeth—or at least asked her to come with me—because she surely would know how to speak with Anne better than I. “You wouldn’t … you won’t really try to …” I stopped, unsure of how to go on.
Anne turned and followed my gaze to the window. And then a thin, bitter little smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t worry Georgiana,” she said without expression. “I haven’t the courage for that, either.”
Friday 6 May 1814
It’s very late—or rather, very early. I’ve just heard the grandfather clock downstairs strike one in the morning. But I can’t sleep. Again.
We all went to the Herron’s dinner party. Well, all of us except my Aunt de Bourgh and my cousin Anne. I kept hoping she might change her mind, but the hour kept getting later and later and still she stayed locked in her room. And finally just as we were gathering in the hall to depart, Dawson came with a message from Anne saying that she felt unwell and was going to take supper on a tray in her room.
I do wish I could have helped her more. But I could hardly stomp into her room, wrestle her into a gown and then drag her bodily into our waiting carriage.
So we set off: all the men of the party on horseback, just as I said, and Elizabeth, Caroline, and I in the carriage. Elizabeth had been looking a little pale again that morning, and when I offered her cold ham at breakfast she said, “Ugh, no—I mean, no thank you, Georgiana.” But she looked much recovered tonight.
She was wearing a claret-coloured silk gown with lace at the neck and hem and the parure of pearls and rubies my brother gave her for a wedding present: bracelet, necklace, and a pearl and ruby studded comb in her hair.
Caroline looked very handsome, too, in a deep orange russet-coloured gown, with gold tassels at the sleeves and waist and a spray of feathers died to match in her hair. And I wore white: ivory-coloured silk with white flowers in my hair.
The Herrons are an older couple: one of those couples who have aged together until they look almost like twins: both rounded and with rosy faces and heads of curling grey hair. Though of course Mr. Herron was wearing black silk breeches and tailcoat and Mrs. Herron a green watered silk gown that made her look a little like a cabbage. But I shouldn’t say that—it sounds unkind, and I like her very much, I truly do.
The Herrons have three daughters and one son, all grown up and married now, and with families of their own. But Mrs. Herron always says she likes to be around young people. Actually what she said to me, laughing, was, “I get enough of seeing grey hair just by looking in my own mirror. Give me some bright young faces, that’s what I say!”
So they’d invited most of the younger set in the neighbourhood, some familiar to me, others only in this area on visits.
One of those I didn’t know was a M. Jacques de La Courcelle, a French aristocrat who escaped the Reign of Terror with his life—by fleeing to England in a fishing boat, so he told us. With the recent overthrow of the Emperor, he’s at last been able to recoup some of the property he left behind. And now he’s staying at the Inn in Lambton while he looks about for a suitable estate to purchase.
He looks to be about thirty-five years of age. And he’s very handsome in a sleek, olive-skinned way, with curling dark hair tumbling over his brow and heavy-lidded dark eyes. He’s also very continental in his manners. When I spoke to him, I asked him whether he didn’t wish to return to France, rather than purchasing an estate here. He made a low bow and kissed my hand and said, “Ah, chère Mademoiselle, why should I wish to return to the land of my birth when there are sights as lovely as you in the land that has been my refuge?”
Caroline seemed very taken with him. She quite abandoned Mr. Carter and spent nearly the whole evening with M. de La Courcelle at her side. Though maybe that’s lucky for Mr. Carter, since these last few days he’s done almost nothing but blush and stammer and look thoroughly uncomfortable every time Caroline speaks with him.
The Herrons also had their granddaughter staying with them—Miss Maria Herron, the daughter of their only son. She’s pretty—really, very pretty. Plump and round-cheeked and with black hair all curled in ringlets around her face. Mrs. Herron clearly adores her—and pushed Maria and me together from the start of the evening because we’re so close in age.
When we were first introduced, Maria clutched both my hands and flashed a smile and said, “Oh, I’m so glad to know you, Miss Darcy! Or may I call you Georgiana? Please say that I may. I’ve been longing for someone to talk to! You can tell me all about the gentlemen in the neighbourhood. I’m determined that I shall not go back to my parents without being engaged, at the very least.”
Her long-lashed dark eyes roamed over the company. “But please tell me if any belong especially to you, because I never, never poach other girls’ particular young men.”
Written all down like this, its sounds as though I’m being catty. But I don’t mean it that way. Actually, I spent most of the night wishing that I could dislike Maria. But I can’t. Underneath all the giggling and batting her eyelashes and italics, she’s good hearted and very sweet. And she’s very fond of her grandparents—just as fond of them as they are of her.
It’s just that unlike Elizabeth, who never makes me feel stupid or dull, even though I’m so much more quiet in company than she is, Maria makes me feel as though I could—and should—fade into the wallpaper.
After my mother died, there would be times when I couldn’t say a word in company with anyone I didn’t know. Not wouldn’t—literally couldn’t. My throat would close up and my tongue would seem to freeze to the roof of my mouth and I’d feel as though I couldn’t breathe just at the thought of trying to speak.
That hasn’t happened to me in years. And I suppose it didn’t exactly happen tonight. It was more like being under some spell in a fairy tale—the more laughing and vivacious Maria Herron was, the more I could feel myself freezing up and wishing I could be anywhere—anywhere—but there, in the Herrons’ drawing room.
Before we went in to dinner, Maria pulled me into a corner and asked me who the very handsome gentleman in uniform was, because she adored soldiers excessively.
Edward was wearing his dress uniform: red coat with bars of gold braid.
I told her his name, Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam, and Maria said, “And he’s not married, is he? Please don’t tell me he already has a wife.”
I said, “No, but—” but before I could finish with, he is engaged, Maria was off, heading straight for Edward and begging her grandfather—who was speaking to Edward at the time—to introduce her.
And from then on, throughout the whole rest of the evening, she attached herself to Edward and chattered away to him nonstop. They were seated together at dinner, and I could hear her asking him all about how he’d been wounded.
I’m not sure whether Edward actually told her. I’ve never known him to answer questions of that kind except by laughing and changing the subject. But he must have told Maria something, because I could hear her gasping and giving little exclamations of horror and saying how very very brave he must have been.
I’ve not even heard the story. I suppose that’s partly because I’ve managed to almost entirely avoid speaking with Edward since the day of his arrival.
Though for his part, he’s made it quite easy for me to avoid him. I don’t think he’s said more than three words to me these last few days.
No, that’s not quite true. He asked me the morning after he arrived, “How is your ankle this morning?” I said, “Much better.” And he said, “I’m glad to hear it.”
Which makes … what? eleven words, all together.
After dinner, Mrs. Herron proposed dancing, and I offered to play. Because playing—even in front of so many people—was so much better than being forced to watch Edward and Miss Heron dance. Of course she’d claimed him for the first reel. And then—for I could hear them speaking together, even though I was staring so hard at my own fingers on the keyboard my eyes ached—every time Edward said that perhaps he’d sit the next dance out, she clung to his arm and said, “Oh, no, please, you mustn’t sit down. Not yet. You are such an excessively good dancer, and this reel is my favourite.”
Finally, though, Elizabeth came over to me, saying that I must take a turn at dancing, and offered to take my place at the pianoforte. She wouldn’t let me refuse.
So I danced twice with Mr. Folliet, who dances very well, and once with Sir John Huntington, who has very damp, clammy hands. And once with Mr. Carter, who stepped on my feet three times. Though he felt much worse about it than I did, and kept stammering apologies, no matter how many times I told him it didn’t matter in the least. And three others of the gentlemen there, though I was introduced to them so quickly that their names are all jumbled together in my head.
I’ve just re-read that last paragraph, and it sounds as though I didn’t enjoy myself. But I truly did. I even forgot about Edward and Miss Maria. Mr. Folliet and the other three were very good dancers, and even Mr. Carter is so truly good and good-tempered that I couldn’t help but enjoy my dance with him. Besides, it’s a relief in a way to meet someone even shyer than I am.
And I actually love dancing, if I can get over worrying over having to make conversation with my dance partner.
I overheard two of Mr. Herron’s younger footmen speaking together when they brought in more wine for the supper table. They were standing off in a corner, speaking in undertones of the women in the room, and one of them said that, “That Miss Darcy has turned into a right beauty and no mistake.” And no wonder all the men were wanting a turn to dance with her.
Which I’m sure my aunt—or Caroline Bingley, for that matter—would have taken for impertinence. But I thought it was very nice of him. He didn’t know I’d overheard, so it wasn’t as though he’d hoped to gain anything from the compliment. And he could have said instead that no wonder all the gentlemen wanted to dance with me, when I had a fortune of thirty thousand pounds.
I was going to sit down after that. Edward—just when I really had managed to almost forget about him—was there beside me, taking my hand and saying, “Georgiana, you must give me a dance.”
I started automatically to pull my hand away, but Edward smiled one-sidedly and kept hold of me and said, “Have a heart, Georgiana. Miss Maria has gone to fetch her grandmother’s evening medicine, but she’ll be back in a minute. And if I don’t have another partner, she’ll tell me that whatever piece Elizabeth plays is her favourite, as well.”
I laughed despite myself. “She’s really very nice.”
“She is,” Edward agreed. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “That’s just the trouble. You can’t tell a perfectly nice, pleasant girl that she’s making you feel like a ball being chased after by a bouncing puppy.”
He was only asking me to dance as an excuse to get away from Maria. Which meant that if I had one single solitary scrap of pride, I ought to have refused. But it was exactly as though I had a little voice, whispering in my ear. In another month, Edward would be gone, off to marry Miss Graves. I might never have another chance of dancing with him, ever again.
So I left my hand in his and let him lead me onto the dance floor.
If I’d thought about it, he’d given me the perfect chance to ask him about Miss Graves. Well, if I am honest, I did think of it.
I don’t think he’s mentioned her or his engagement at all since he arrived. Though of course, he may have spoken of it to my brother or Elizabeth without my hearing about it. And I did—just for a moment—feel the words hovering on my lips: What about your betrothed? Surely you could just mention her to Miss Maria if you’re looking for an excuse to get away?
But I couldn’t make myself speak the words. The music was playing, and Edward and I were moving through the dance. Every time he took my hand, I could feel the warmth of his fingers spreading all through me, like sunlight on my skin. My pulse was jumping in my veins. And there was a strange ache pooling in my heart.
“What are you thinking of?” Edward asked.
I realised with a jolt that I hadn’t been paying attention to a single word he said. If he had said anything. I couldn’t even be sure of whether he’d been speaking to me or not. I jerked my head back up to look at him.
“Nothing.”
The corners of Edward’s eyes crinkled in another smile. “It must have been quite some nothing. You were scowling like someone who’s just seen a toad come hopping out from between the sheets on their bed.”
His hand was still touching mine, still sending flickers of warmth down my arm, despite the fact that we were both wearing gloves. But it was no use, the spell was broken. I couldn’t keep pretending he wasn’t engaged to another girl. Or that he was dancing with me for any other reason than to sidestep Miss Maria’s single-minded pursuit.
I put my hand up to my forehead. “I think … I think maybe I’d prefer not to dance anymore. I’m”—I cast about for some valid excuse for stopping in the middle of a set—“I think I’m feeling a little faint.”
The smile was replaced at once by a look of concern. “Why didn’t you say something? I wouldn’t have asked you to dance if I’d known. Here—” I tried to protest, but already he’d put an arm around me and was half leading, half carrying me from the dance floor. “We should get you outside, out of all this heat and noise.”
The room was hot. The evenings have turned warm, lately, and the heat and smoke of the candles made the air seem hazy and thick. Edward steered me out through the double French doors and into the garden outside. There was a stone bench near some rose bushes, and Edward led me to it and sat down, his arm still around my shoulders.
“Are you all right? How do you feel now? Can I get you anything—some wine, maybe?”
That’s the trouble with inventing illnesses—you wind up being believed. What I really wanted, more than anything, was for him to go away and stop being so nice and thoughtful and concerned. There was a full moon out, turning the branches and leaves of the garden plants to silver, and the air was full of the drugged sweet scent of the early roses all around us, just beginning to break into bud.
The entire setting, in fact, couldn’t have been more romantic if a novelist had created it specially as a backdrop for her marriage-proposal scene.
Except that Edward was about as likely to propose as the moon was likely to turn into a bird and fly away.
“I’m fine,” I said truthfully. “Not dizzy at all.”
The hard, solid warmth of his arm about me was stirring up the ache in my heart all over again. I started to pull away. And then I realised that there were fine tremors running through the muscles of his arm and shoulder. And that despite the cooler air, there was a glitter of perspiration on his face.
“Are you all right, though?” I asked. “Is your arm paining you?”
“What this?” He nodded down at his shoulder. “No, it’s fine. Whatever old Broyles gave me seems to have worked. I walked into Lambton this morning to see him, and he said I could leave off the sling any time.”
“That is good news,” I said. “And there’s”—I hesitated—“there’s nothing else wrong?”
Edward stared out into the moon-silvered garden. I thought at first he wasn’t going to answer, but then he let out a slow breath and said, without looking at me, “I told you before it was … strange … to be back here, after a twelvemonth at war. Evenings like this”—he gestured back towards the house—“make it seem stranger still, I suppose. I don’t—I’m not sure I fit in with it all anymore. Dancing—playing cards. Making polite conversation. It’s been so long that I’ve almost forgotten how it’s done. And then—” he seemed to search for words. “And then there’s the heat … and the noise. That’s what you remember most about battle. The incredible noise of it all—the roar of the guns, the shouting, the horses’ screams. It’s so loud it feels like a physical force, hammering against every nerve in your body. Being inside there”—he nodded at the drawing room windows again—“with the music playing and the room crowded and everyone talking at once. Even though it’s nothing like it, really—it still brings it all back somehow.”
I felt another tremor run through his arm, and his hand clenched on the bench. But then he shook his head and said, in a different, easier tone, “All right. I’ve bared my soul. Now it’s your turn. Do you want to tell me why the toad-in-the-bed scowl?”
I smiled. “You and my brother actually did put toads into Aunt de Bourgh’s bed, remember? It was the summer we all stayed at Rosings Park for the whole of August, when you were both fourteen.”
Edward tipped back his head and laughed. Some of the tension about the set of his shoulders seemed to ebb away. “I’d forgotten about that. How can you possibly remember it yourself? You were only—what?”
“Four,” I said. “And of course I remember! That was the summer Aunt de Bough made up her mind it was time I learned to sew—she’d been keeping me at her side, hemming handkerchiefs from morning to dinner time, every day. But after she found the toads she was too busy with ordering an entirely new set of bed linens and sheets to be bothered with me. You and Fitzwilliam were my heroes!”
“And your father gave us the thrashing of both our lives for it. It’s astonishing he ever left your guardianship between the pair of us in his will.”
“I don’t know. I caught him the morning afterwards standing near the stables, laughing so hard he practically had tears in his eyes. And besides,” I added more softly. “He loved you. You know he did.”
“I know.” Edward looked down at me, moonlight reflecting silver in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken of it.”
“It’s all right. It’s been nearly seven years since he passed away.” But despite myself, I felt a lump come up in my throat and tears prickle at the backs of my eyes.
It has been seven years. But even still, remembering times like the one we’d been speaking of—times when I’d no idea how short my time with him and my mother both was going to be—had brought it all back, somehow.
I swallowed. “I don’t know why I said that—passed away. I hate that expression. Like nourish. That’s another word I can’t stand the sound of.”
I was babbling, of course, but anything was better than bursting into tears now, in front of Edward. He must have endured much worse than I could ever know or dream of on campaign. The papers said that four thousand, five hundred of the allied troops died at Toulouse alone—he must have known some of them.
And yet even so, if I did start crying like a child of six, I knew he’d either be nicer still to me—in an affectionate, older-brother sort of way, of course. Or he’d feel sorry for me, which would be worse.
Edward looked at me for a half moment. But then he raised one eyebrow and said, “All right. Tell me. What’s wrong with nourish?”
“It’s so sinister sounding! It’s supposed to be a nice, wholesome word. But it sounds menacing—if you don’t know it’s true definition, I mean. I think it’s the shhh sound at the end. Have you ever noticed that? Words that end in sh sound malevolent, somehow. As though they were suppressing some vile secret.”
Edward’s lips were twitching. Which was better than feeling sorry for me. “So—lavish?”
“Yes, you see! Definitely sinister-sounding.”
Edward’s mouth twitched again, and then he gave up the struggle and laughed. “I’ll have to remember that. If there’s ever another war, and I’m facing a line of enemy cavalry, I’ll yell out that I’m going to nourish them if they don’t throw down their weapons.”
I laughed, too. And then all at once we both stopped, as our eyes caught and held. It was just like that moment when he’d lifted me down from his horse. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even want to move or breathe. My skin was tingling, and I could feel my heart racing, so loud I was sure he’d be able to hear.
“Georgiana, I—” Edward stopped, his eyes still on mine. He rubbed a hand across his face. “God, this is insane, I—”
A footstep behind us made him break off and turn to look. It was Elizabeth and my brother. They must have been walking together in the garden and happened on us.
“Why, Edward—and Georgiana!” Elizabeth said.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. Because she had been feeling ill earlier today. I thought she really might have got dizzy with the heat inside.
“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth said. She was holding onto my brother’s arm and tilted her head back to smile up at him. “It’s just that even so liberal-minded a couple as the Herrons would be shocked if they saw a couple dancing a waltz. A husband and wife, no less, dancing with each other! So I dragged your brother out here to dance in the moonlight.”
A year ago, I think my brother would truly sooner have been dunked in Pemberley’s lake than been seen dancing out of doors, even just by Edward and me. And a waltz, yet—it’s danced occasionally at balls in London, but even there it’s considered quite shocking to see couples in each others’ arms on the dance floor.
But he only smiled down at Elizabeth before turning back to Edward and me. “But what are you two doing out here?” He looked from one of us to the other. “Is something wrong?”
Edward stood up. Stood up and stepped away from the bench so quickly he rapped his shin against a stone statuary and said a word under his breath I’m sure he doesn’t usually allow himself in the presence of ladies. “Nothing serious. Georgiana was feeling the heat in there a bit, so I brought her outside for some fresh air. All right now?” Edward turned back to me.
I nodded. I couldn’t quite manage to make myself speak yet.
“Good. I’ll leave you in your brother and sister-in-law’s capable charge, then. Thank you for giving me an alibi back there, by the way. And let me know if I can ever return the favour with any of the swarms of eligible young men panting at your heels. Though you’ve got Darcy here to play the stern elder brother. He ought to be enough to scare even the hardiest of unwanted suitors away.”
And then he was gone, threading his way through the plants and back into the house.
I suppose he could have clapped me on the shoulder and said, Jolly good, Georgiana, thanks for being such a good chum.
Or patted me on the head.
Or said, You know, Georgiana, you’re almost like a sister to me. A sister. Let me say that just once more, in case you didn’t quite hear me the first time. You’re like a younger sister to me, and I feel about you exactly the way an elder brother might.
That would have been worse.
But aside from that, he couldn’t have made his feelings any more clear. He’s fond of me; he was grateful to me for giving him an excuse to get away from Maria. And I’d probably just embarrassed him horribly by letting him see—again!—that I’m completely in love with him.
Saturday 7 May 1814
My brother and Edward have been shut up in my brother’s study since morning. It’s afternoon, now.
I think a message in the morning post must have been the cause, because Fitzwilliam was halfway through opening his letters when he stopped abruptly with one communication in his hand and simply sat, staring at the words on the page.
My brother’s expression is never very easy to read; I couldn’t tell whether it was bad news or only something that bored him. He folded the letter deliberately in half and then asked Edward to come with him, because there was something he needed to speak to him about in private. And I thought, as Fitzwilliam spoke, that there was a flash of anger in his eyes.
Though whether he was angry at Edward or only at whatever the letter said, I couldn’t tell.
I can’t think what the message can have been about. Something Edward has done? But what? I can’t imagine Edward acting dishonourably. And it’s not as though my brother is Edward’s father, to call him to account for his behaviour.
They’re still together in my brother’s study, though; I could hear their voices when I went by. They were talking too quietly for me to make out the words, but they both sounded angry.
But let me think what else I can write about.
I have at long last made some progress with Anne, I think.
This morning after breakfast, we were sitting in the morning room, all together. Anne, Elizabeth, and I.
Caroline must have been very taken with M. de La Courcelle, because first thing this morning, she volunteered to go into Lambton to pick up my Aunt de Bourgh’s medicine from the apothecary’s shop. Dawson was wondering how the medicine was to be fetched, and Caroline practically snatched the prescription out of Dawson’s hand.
Which is out of character enough for her that it made me think she wanted the excuse to take a carriage into town. M. de La Courcelle is staying at the Inn in Lambton, so he told us last night.
And then, too, Caroline came downstairs in her prettiest day dress, a pale green embroidered muslin, with a white straw bonnet trimmed with little bunches of scarlet poppies and green ribbon. And wearing her gold and silver embroidered Cashmere shawl, despite the sky being grey and heavy with the threat of rain.
I only hope M. de La Courcelle is an honourable man. Since he’s only been staying in the area a short while, no one seems to know very much about him, save what he told us himself at the Herrons’ party: he’s recently come into an inheritance and is looking about to purchase his own estate.
At any rate, Caroline was gone to Lambton and my aunt was still in her room. Anne was sitting in her usual spot by the fireplace, bundled up in all her shawls—and looking particularly sulky and bored. Because as much as Anne resents her mother’s constant harping on her health, I suppose it is attention, of a kind. And now Aunt de Bourgh has suddenly taken the place of resident invalid, which leaves Anne without anyone to fuss over her.
I sat down next to Anne, thinking maybe I could draw her out. But after half a dozen attempts at starting a conversation—and getting completely monosyllabic replies: three no’s, two yes’s, and one muttered noise of something in between—I was ready to grab Anne by the shoulders and shake her.
Elizabeth was biting her lips with trying not to smile. Not that she’s not sorry for Anne, as well, because I know she is. It’s just she’s so good at seeing the humorous side of things.
I suppose it did look funny. Anne was sitting in a high-backed settle and she wouldn’t even turn to look at me—so from the back it looked like I was trying to hold a conversation with an unsociable armchair.
At any rate, just exchanging a look with Elizabeth made me feel better. And on impulse, I picked up my drawing things—pencils and crayons and paper—from the table. I moved almost in front of Anne, or as close to in front of her as the hearth would allow, and started sketching her.
“What are you—” Anne started to say.
But I interrupted her. “Don’t move—not even a little bit! Just stay like that, exactly as you are.”
One thing about living with my aunt, it’s accustomed Anne to taking orders. She still looked sulky, but she didn’t argue. And she did settle back in the chair and sat without moving while I drew.
After awhile, she even stopped looking quite so discontented and started to look almost interested. She said—actually taking care not to move—“Will you let me see, when it’s done?”
“Of course,” I said. “You can see it now.” I handed the drawing pad over to her. “It’s only a rough sketch. I’ll go back and fill in more details later—but I don’t need you in front of me for that.”
For a moment I wondered whether I’d made a mistake, because Anne just sat, quite still, looking for a moment at the drawing in her hand. Then she looked up. “This is me? I really look like this?”
“Of course it’s you.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not really, because I hadn’t altered her features at all, just smoothed out the bad-tempered lines around her forehead and mouth and made her look thoughtful instead of sulky and cross. The result was pretty—really very pretty, if I do say so myself. And she could look that way if she tried.
Anne sat there, looking from me to the picture and then back again. And then a small smile started to play about her mouth.
“Stay there! Just like that,” I said. Because, smiling, Anne really did look as pretty as my drawing. Prettier, even. And then I had another flash of an idea. “Or no—wait, better yet, come out into the garden! The light is better out there, and you can pose for me on one of the benches.”
I could see Anne wavering, undecided. “I might take a chill.”
“No you won’t. It’s a beautiful day, all warm and sunny, you’ll see. And we’ll keep you well wrapped up in shawls. You won’t be the slightest bit cold.”
“Well—” Anne was looking up at the window.
“Come on. You can borrow my Spencer jacket, too.”
I took Anne’s hand and pulled her to her feet before she could protest any more.
I got her to wear one of my bonnets with a blue satin lining as well as the blue velvet Spencer, and the difference in her appearance was amazing.
Aunt de Bourgh sees that Anne is always dressed very well and very expensively, of course. But she always chooses the exact colours and patterns least flattering to Anne’s colouring. Dull purple satins and heavy greens, and lots of busy patterns and gold braid. The dress Anne was wearing today was stripes of mustard yellow and burgundy that made my eyes hurt just to look at it.
The blue brought out the colour in her eyes and made her hair look like fine spun gold and her skin lily-pale instead of sallow. Before she could object, I dragged her out into the garden and sat her on a bench in front of some lilac bushes.
I was so absorbed in sketching that I didn’t hear Mr. Carter come up behind me until he cleared his throat.
“Oh, Mr. Carter.” I turned around and smiled at him. “I’ve just been drawing my cousin Anne. What do you think?”
I held out the sketch pad, but Mr. Carter scarcely glanced at it. His eyes were fixed on Anne. “V-v-very nice,” he said. Then he blushed to the roots of his tousled fair hair.
And then I had a really inspired idea. “What a lucky thing you happened to come by, Mr. Carter. I’ve just been wishing for a gentleman to pose with my cousin.”
Mr. Carter hesitated. Anne was sitting close enough to hear us both, and I saw a frown start to wrinkle her brows. So I seized Mr. Carter’s arm.
I didn’t know whether he was only shy, or whether a clergyman might think it improper to pose with a young, unmarried lady. He did join in the dancing last night, which would seem to show he’s not overly strict in his views—but I wasn’t going to take chances. Not with Anne about to fall into a fit of the sulks because she thought Mr. Carter didn’t want to pose with her.
“I wanted to draw … ah, … Joseph and Maria.”
Mr. Carter looked at me blankly—as well he might, since I’d seized on the first two names that entered my head—and I hurried on, “They’re characters from an opera. By, um, Mr. Henry Purcell. Joseph is Maria’s brother, and in the scene I wanted to draw, he’s comforting her on … on the loss of their beloved father.”
Mr. Carter looked from me to Anne. “You w-w-wish me to pose as Miss Darcy—Maria’s—brother?”
“Yes, exactly!” I was still holding his arm, and let him forward to Anne’s bench. “Just sit right here beside her. Yes, that’s right. Now, if you could just take her hand?”
At that precise moment, I looked up and saw that Mr. Folliet was standing behind the lilac bushes at Anne’s back. Neither Anne nor Mr. Carter had seen him. And Mr. Folliet was looking as though he were going to burst into laughter at any moment. I made a face at him, willing him to be quiet, and turned back to Mr. Carter.
“Now , pretend that your father has died in … in the plague, and you’re consoling your sister despite your own grief and your fear of the future. Yes, perfect!”
Mr. Carter actually looked far more nervous than grief-stricken—or comforting, for that matter. But he took one of Anne’s hands in both of his, just as I’d asked. And Anne actually smiled at him.
I stepped back and started to draw. Then—after waiting what seemed the bare minimum of time to make the claim believable, I stopped with an exclamation of dismay. “Oh, no! I’ve broken the tip on my pencil. And I’ve come out without my sharpening knife. Let me just run into the house to fetch it. You two stay right here, I won’t be a moment.”
I’m not entirely sure that Anne and Mr. Carter heard a word of what I said. But they did stay there, sitting together on the bench as I hurried away back towards the house in search of my mythical sharpening knife. Well, mythical in the sense that I had my real sharpening knife right there in my drawing box.
Mr. Folliet fell into step beside me before I’d gone more than a hundred feet. He had moved away from the lilac bushes when I’d made faces at him, but apparently he’d not gone very far. His mouth was still turning up at the corners.
“Joseph and Maria?” he said. “Strangely enough, I’ve never heard of that opera.”
“Really?” I said innocently. “Well, I suppose it is one of Mr. Purcell’s lesser-known compositions.”
“Is it indeed?”
Mr. Folliet flashed a smile, and I couldn’t help but smile, as well. “Yes, a youthful effort, I understand,” I said. “Not one of his best works.”
We were both laughing by that time. Mr. Folliet offered me his arm, and I took it as we walked together towards the house.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading this sample of Georgiana Darcy's Diary! The full novel is currently available in ebook format only, at Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Illustrations include the following, which can be found, along with much useful information, at www.pemberley.com:
“Young Ladies at Home” by Henry Moses, 1823
Lord Grantham by J.A.D. Ingres, 1816