Chapter Ten

Chapter Nine

The next morning Elizabeth was woken by Mr. Darcy rolling out of bed a little before the crack of dawn and stubbing his toe in the dark against the chair in front of her little desk.

"What?" She sat up and rubbed her eyes as the clatter woke her. "What?"

"Shhhh, shhhh. No need to wake."

He opened the door between their suites, and quickly went into his own dressing room, where the sound of him moving around and changing was instantly audible.

She rose from the bed and remembered that there was to be a fox hunt today, and for some ridiculous reason the time assessed for the starting horn was only eight o'clock.

With a shake she brought herself awake, went to the water closet, and with a pull mechanism triggered a flow of water to wash away the night soil. She still was only half used to how it worked. Uncle Gardiner had one as they were more common in rich houses in London than in the countryside, but its design was from the past few years. Darcy had told her that the one at Pemberley had been installed in the 1780s, right when flushable water closets first became popular amongst the very wealthy.

She did not wish to wake Mary so early, but her maid came in anyways, seemingly alerted by Darcy's valet, shortly after she'd pulled off her night clothes.

"Morning." Mary rubbed her eyes.

"You don't need to be up so early."

"Knew you'd be," she replied. "Now sit down and let me set your hair."

"I'll just go down to see the crowd off, before having a proper breakfast."

"And a countess will be present at breakfast," was Mary's reply.

"I choose not to be intimidated by anything so like a word as a title ," Elizabeth replied in a haughty tone, and then added in an ordinary manner, "Besides, she will only be present if she also decides to wake too early because the men decided it would be a game to do so themselves."

Mary dressed her, working on her hair, and occasionally asked detailed questions about the styles Lady Matlock and Lady Susan wore. "You of course outshone them."

"That was not," Elizabeth replied dryly, forcing down a sudden retching sensation, "what they said to me."

"Course not, they are jealous — everyone would be."

"No need for false flattery," Elizabeth replied. She pressed her hand to her stomach. It seemed the nerves that had given her nausea yesterday morning had not been satisfied by the meeting with her new relations not having turned into an excessively terrible scene.

"It is not flattery," Mary said. "It is clear as day that your Mr. Darcy loves you. And to have a man like that as your husband, that is more than enough to set any woman jealous."

"Even his aunt, who is gray haired and well past fifty?" Elizabeth inquired in reply.

"Especially her," was Mary's firm reply, and there was really not much that Elizabeth could say in contrast to the lady's maid. "And there you are, your hair is perfect, my masterpiece."

Shortly after Darcy knocked on the door and entered when Elizabeth called out. He was neatly shaved, his hair trimmed. He looked ruddy cheeked and far too eager for the day. He still wore his slippers, instead of the big riding boots that were warming next to a stove in the entry hall, but in every other way he was the image of a sporting gentleman hunter — a tightly tailored red hunting coat, with vibrant colors and impeccably cut, a neatly tied brown cravat, and supple white buckskin breeches that clung tightly around his legs, letting Elizabeth freely admire his muscular legs.

"You did not need to wake," he said.

"I was not going to let you go off to murder some poor fox, while nearly breaking your neck, without a proper kiss," Elizabeth said, kissing him. "Do be careful."

He grinned at her, a boyish, handsome smirk that made her stomach flutter. "It is my solemn duty to protect the henhouses."

"Ah, that is the whole reason. If it were fun, you would simply hire a man to catch the foxes."

Darcy laughed.

They went downstairs, and a variety of gentlemen were already gathered, several of them were now introduced to Elizabeth for the first time. They made a cheerful group, full of laughter and confident tones, though they were not particularly loud. The morning chill and stillness urged a quietness that even a grand country squire whose favorite shout was "Tally-Ho" must respect.

A couple of their wives were also around, arriving for the day with their husbands. Pemberley was to be open all day to everyone who was invited to the feast after the hunt. These women stood in a small circle, chatting in low voices, and drinking cups of mulled wine, tea, or coffee.

As Elizabeth had half expected, Lady Matlock was still abed, though her husband gestured confidently in the center of a knot of other gentlemen, looking as alert as if it were noon on the summer solstice. Lady Susan had come down with Lord Hartwood, dressed in a resplendent dressing gown embroidered in silver and gold. It had a look of China about it. Lady Susan looked at once as though she had only crawled out of bed, and yet elegant and well put together.

That was a talent.

Lady Susan would not, Elizabeth thought with amusement, leave any opportunity fallow where she might put beauty into the world.

"What are you smiling about?" Darcy asked her as he took a cup of mulled wine from one of the servants milling about. He also grabbed one of the lemon tarts that Elizabeth liked very much. But as she still felt this resurgence of that nausea from yesterday, she shook her head to refuse the offer.

Darcy shrugged and took a large bite of it himself.

"Lady Susan spoke to us upon what has motivated her to make being the best dressed woman in her circle her life goal, and—"

"Oh god! Bringing beauty into the world? As though anyone cares. She is a good match for Hartwood, but I'd rather be dragged behind a herd of wild horses than marry any of the women she'd suggested would make a ‘well-matched partner' for me."

"Ah," Elizabeth hid a smile. "Were there many such women? Particularly beautiful?"

"I hardly noticed." He shrugged. "In truth our circles, while they overlap, are different."

"Oh, but they must have been particularly lovely if they could make a matched pair with a man who combines Darcy tallness with the Fitzwilliam good looks."

Darcy stared at her aghast and groaned. "She asked you to ask me."

"But only think, how much beauty you deprive the world of," Elizabeth said in an earnest sing song voice, "When a man of your gifts dresses with all the spark and flash of a fashion plate in Dull Gentleman Monthly ."

With a laugh, Darcy replied, "That cannot be a real periodical."

"We'll sponsor it," Elizabeth replied. "So that we might share with the world your notion of dress."

Darcy shook his head and grinned at her. "Do not let Lady Susan hear you teasing her so, she is in fact—"

"A fanatic for beauty." Elizabeth smiled. "It makes her more tolerable to know her to be ridiculous."

When Darcy did not reply at once, but tilted his head, Elizabeth glanced backwards, fearing that she'd been overheard by Lady Susan, and would need to apologize. No one was there.

Maybe Darcy had been offended by her calling his cousin's wife ridiculous? He asked seriously, "How did you ever forgive me for calling you merely tolerable?"

Elizabeth flushed and looked down.

Before she could come up with an answer — an answer that might have included admitting to him that she was not sure she ever had forgiven him, even now that she knew that he found her very tempting, Lord Matlock came up to them, clapped Darcy on the shoulder and said that Mr. Pearson had just arrived, and that made the whole planned party.

Soon all the gentlemen went out the door, shouting and laughing. With the lifting of the early morning fog that quietness also lifted, and the horses and dogs were brought round. The yard was filled with stamping and the baying of hounds.

The gentlemen all lifted themselves into their saddles, and while Elizabeth had an urge to grab Darcy's hand one more time before he went off for the morning, her mild fear of horses was enough to keep her on the stairs up into the house instead.

She watched him, handsome and tall, and she admired the line of his body, from the excellent black boots to his buckskin clad legs, the red coat, buttoned tight against the cold, and then to the red hunting cap on his head.

He looked at her, picked up his hat and waved it at her, and grinned.

Then the group went off with the blowing of horns, the baying of hounds, the pounding of hooves, and the happy shouts of gentlemen enjoying sport.

The breakfast had been laid by the servants in a larger room that was still not nearly so big and formal as the dining room. It also was not where the family ate when it was just the three of them, that was a cozy room that overlooked the stream, while this room faced the tall grove of trees to the back of the house.

Rather than being appetizing, the rich scent of ham, tarts, rolls, coffee, porridge, and whole cooked eggs made Elizabeth nearly vomit.

Her odd little stomach flu from the previous morning was not yet gone. Elizabeth asked one of the kitchen maids to just have a piece of dried toast brought for her, and some weak tea to drink.

She then swallowed back her anxiety, pasted a smile on her face, and happily entered the conversation, working to catch the interests of this group of wives and daughters of her husband's neighbors. Her neighbors. Her new society.

There was no hesitance in accepting her amongst the group. Except for Lady Susan, who did after all live chiefly in London, and otherwise at Matlock three hours away, the Darcy name was by the far the largest in the room. They may all have been surprised at Mr. Darcy marrying a woman with no name or fortune so suddenly. And if they had heard rumors, which of course they had , about the irregularities surrounding the engagement they likely disapproved of her for that cause.

But, in the end, their husbands depended on good relations with Pemberley. Elizabeth had come to understand that her husband was not only the leading gentleman of the neighborhood, but he was also consistently generous and willing to take on a little more than his fair share of joint projects to ensure that they actually were accomplished. And these were women living in a neighborhood that in terms of the number of gentry families that dined regularly with each other was half the size of that around Meryton. The size of Darcy's estate, and of other noble estates throughout Derbyshire, meant that there were far fewer of the middling sized families such as her own.

They all wanted their invitation to the ball that had been announced for early January to remain. And they all hoped to convince the new Mrs. Darcy to throw frequent entertainments at Pemberley. These honorable goals held a far higher importance in everyone's mind than a need to suggest to a woman who had in fact entered holy matrimony that she perhaps ought to have done it differently.

And none of them had expected Mr. Darcy to marry any of their daughters. The ones who had already been out for a reasonable period of time had been given their chance and been unable to secure him. And this regular failure over the course of the years that he had held the estate had given the women with daughters approaching marriageable age little reason to hope that their child would be the one.

Thus, Elizabeth found a community of women eager to welcome her. She was annoyed at the way that it was clear that the conversation in the neighborhood had cast her romance with Mr. Darcy in the nature of a great and dramatic tale, when the truth had more of the sordid and unpleasant, but that was by no means a reason for her to be actually unhappy.

It also pleased Elizabeth to see that whatever the attitude of those in the ton , the dress she was currently wearing, which was one of the ones she'd ordered from Mrs. Gardiner's modiste , was sufficient to make this group think of her as fashionable , and worthy of praise. Though everyone, including Elizabeth, readily agreed that Lady Susan was by far the best dressed of them all.

Of course, shouldn't Lady Susan be the best dressed?

She enjoyed clothes in the way Papa enjoyed books. That was why Papa was the best read man in the neighborhood. And if he had a snobbish sense of superiority over others due to it, all were aware that it was as much a matter of interest as of fundamental capacity.

When Lady Matlock finally came down, she wore an elegant silver dress that while it did not have bustles, evoked a tone of the fashions of her girlhood before high waisted fashions from France became popular. Despite that, the countess managed to appear fresh and fashionable.

No doubt Lady Susan had advised her mother-in-law, and Lady Matlock had not been so prickly as to refuse the good advice.

It was clear to Elizabeth quickly that all of the women here looked forward to the holiday visits when Lady Susan was at Pemberley, as an opportunity to beg her for news of what would be the latest fashion in a month or two, and to have her advise them on what best to purchase to appear a ton .

The group of women present at this breakfast spent their time begging Elizabeth in equal part for the details of how she had successfully captured Mr. Darcy, and promises of balls over the winter, strawberry picking expeditions in the summer, and her attendance at a birthday party. Their second goal clearly was listening to Lady Susan hold court on the subject of how to bring a little added beauty into the world.

Lady Matlock had just sat down to a hearty meal of eggs and rolls, at about the time the toast and tea that Elizabeth had asked for was brought to her.

She found that the toast itself was a little unpleasant to eat, but she did make herself take bites, as she was in fact, underneath the nausea, hungry.

After gnawing on it for a minute, she looked up to see Lady Matlock studying her. "You are not feeling easy?"

"Just a bit. It will pass."

"Oh," said one of the other ladies. "Did this happen before? Mayhap, you are already with child. I remember with my first, I threw up every morning for two months in a row."

Elizabeth shook her head. "I do not believe so."

She felt an odd sensation go through her. What if she was already with child?

So fast.

Long before she had an opportunity to get used to her existence as Mrs. Darcy.

No, no, it was quite unlikely. But she tried to think back to when she'd had her last monthly bleeding, but the simple fact was that she did not know , except that it was at least a week before her marriage to Mr. Darcy.

The other ladies in the room began to give her a wide range of advice, some of which she had heard from neither her mother nor Mrs. Gardiner, and some of which she was fairly certain was false, about how to tell a child was coming, how to ensure it would be a boy, how to ensure it would come to term healthy, and how to tell her husband so that he did not faint dead away, like Lady Evelina's husband had when informed about the expectation of their first child.

"I do not think," Elizabeth replied to Lady Evelina, "that Mr. Darcy is likely to faint in any crisis."

"Well, no," Lady Evelina replied with a slightly affronted tone, "I suppose he wouldn't. But one never knows, not about men. They are so much more delicate in their spirits than we are."

The tone of the conversation in the group was also oddly different in another way that it was hard for Elizabeth to specify in her own mind.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Fairhope said, "and my bosom always swelled. Every time I was increasing it became tender and painful to the touch — Especially with my first. I winced in pain every time I dressed for the whole time that the dear tiny creature was inside me, and when he came out, he latched on the breast and would not leave for three months."

Most of the women around nodded at that, with murmurs of sympathy for Mrs. Fairhope, and mutters that they'd felt that tenderness, but that it had not been so bad for them.

With a half bit of alarm Elizabeth pressed a hand to her chest. Had her breast been unusually tender to the touch last night when Darcy took her? Or was that her imagination?

Lady Matlock laid a hand on Elizabeth's shoulder. "Only pay attention to the signs. It will happen in good time, if not now then in a later month."

Elizabeth nodded.

Mrs. Harrington said to Mrs. Fairhope, "That is why you should not feed the child from your own breast."

"No, no! I could never have turned my own blood away. My darling boy, crying for his momma."

"Hear, hear," Lady Evelina said. "It has always been my opinion that there is something wrong with a mother who sends her child immediately to the wet nurse. Having a woman around to feed them at night so we can sleep is one thing, though I never did, but to simply not feed them at all, not in the way God intended. I cannot countenance it."

Mrs. Harrington's lips went thin, and she replied sharply, "You were not requested to countenance it. What matters is that the child is fed, and it does not matter if it is done by hand with gruel and boiled milk, if it is done by the wetnurse, or if you do it yourself."

"It is at the breast that a child properly learns to love her mother," Lady Evelina replied, "And without being fed at the mother's bosom, that sacred bond betwixt the mother and her beloved child will never form as it ought to have."

"Fusty nonsense, and pernicious as well," Lady Matlock said. "My children love me perfectly well, and I sent them all off to foster with a woman in the village from when they were old enough that we were sure they would not die. It was what we all did in my day. This recent notion that some have developed that a woman must feed the child from her own breast, lest she be accounted a poor mother, is an overturning of our old traditions."

"That people have always raised children in a particular way," Lady Evelina replied, "does not mean that it is the best manner in which to do so — surely you do not think that raising them by hand, as those Quakers do, is ever so good as the milk of a mother?"

"I have been told," Lady Matlock replied precisely, "that if the milk is treated properly a child will grow just as strong and as healthy as they do from the breast. And I've heard of a great many children for whom a goat was used as a wetnurse. You are a devotee bowing deep before this modern cult of nature, within which if a thing is ‘natural' it is superior. What is generally superior is the old traditions and ways of doing things, not ‘nature,' look to the cannibals and the savages if you wish to see nature."

"Besides," Mrs. Harrington said, "you can have more children if you do not suppress the monthly bleedings by nursing. How else would I have nine darlings, all healthy, when I am not yet five and thirty?"

Most of the women turned to her and stared as though she'd said something most odd. "Why would you wish ," a woman whose name Elizabeth could not quite recall, but who was the youngest in the room except for Elizabeth herself, "to be exposed to the risk of birth on more occasions than necessary?"

"I love my children, and I like to have as many of the little creatures around as I might," was Mrs. Harrington's reply.

"Is it not more difficult to see them all established in the world?" Elizabeth asked. "My father had five daughters and an entailed estate, and preparing portions for us all was not a task he enjoyed." She then flushed.

They all surely knew that her father had not in fact prepared a good portion for her.

Mrs. Harrington waved dismissively. "Things work out, they have a way of working out — besides, had your mother had nine children, likely one of them would have been a son to take the estate."

"I still say," Lady Evelina insisted, "that a woman, if she at all can, ought to feed her own child. Mrs. Darcy, for your own sake, and your children's, promise me that you will put them to breast."

"Ah," Elizabeth said, a little unsure, and not quite happy at such a demand being made to her. "I have not thought on the subject, though my mother gave all of us to be suckled by a nurse in the village, like Lady Matlock said she did. We are five girls, all healthy, so whatever can be said against the use of a wet nurse, it will not harm the child if proper care to find a trustworthy woman is taken."

"I do not speak of the healthfulness of their bodies, but of their souls," Lady Evelina replied. "I am wholly convinced no child who is not given suck by her mother can love their mother as they ought."

Lady Ravenswood said, "I did not nurse my first two daughters, as we hoped to have an heir quickly. But when my son arrived, I could not bear to not nurse him — he was ill you see, and I feared he would die — and in the end, my daughters love me twice as much as he does, though he was the one I gave suckle to."

After she said that, and as Lady Evelina opened her mouth to argue again, Georgiana came into the room, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. As they greeted her there was an instant change in the conversation, and questions of child rearing, and even more of childbearing did not return to the conversation.

Elizabeth realized that had been the difference in the tone of conversation. All the women in the room had been married, and they talked as married women, referring to matters that unmarried maidens ought to know nothing about. She had now been initiated into the secrets of womanhood, and as a fellow devotee at the altar of marriage, they could speak of the secrets of the order.

Georgiana had not yet passed through that gate, and hence no one but her mother, or some other close female relation, was permitted to speak to her in any detail of the tribulations and joys that followed entry into holy matrimony.

Over the course of that day and the next few, as she presided over the table at the feast following the hunt, played duets with Georgiana, sang Christmas songs with everyone, Elizabeth noted something odd in herself.

She was happy, or at least busy in sufficiently pleasant ways for it to not make a difference.

Also, the morning nausea had not gone away, and her breasts were in fact more tender than she could ever recall, though fortunately she was not suffering, at least not yet, in the way Mrs. Fairhope had.

On the fifth day of their stay, at which point Elizabeth was wearing the same dress for the third time of their stay, Lady Susan and Lady Matlock looked at each other, and Lady Susan then asked Elizabeth quite seriously while they sat in the drawing room as the gentlemen were out riding, "It is odd to see you wearing the same dress so many times."

"I like this dress." And that was true.

Lady Matlock waved that away as an irrelevancy. "You will start rumors that Mr. Darcy has not given you any money. It is not a good policy."

"What is not a good policy?"

"Your determination to use a cheap modiste, and to only have a tiny number of dresses for one in your station. You are no longer the daughter of a man with many children and limited money, you should not dress like you are."

"I might prefer to ensure that there is sufficient money for any of my children to be well supplied in necessities," Elizabeth replied.

"Don't you owe your children," Lady Susan said, "These children that do not yet exist, to give them a glowing example of what a woman can be? Do you not owe them beauty — more to the point, do you wish for them to act as though they are poor?"

"Yes," Elizabeth replied flatly. "Everyone would benefit, in my view, if they behaved as though they were a little poorer than they actually are."

She would not insult her father aloud with these relations by marriage, but she saw clearly now that he had done a terrible job of preparing them for the day that he would die.

He had rather been like Mrs. Harrington, shrugging at a horde of children who needed to somehow have honorable positions carved for themselves, and saying "Things will work out," while the whole time Mama had been desperately at work to get them married so they would be well.

Not , not that Elizabeth was prepared to approve of her mother's approach to the whole matter. Not in the slightest.

But at least she had made an effort.

Lady Matlock frowned at her. "The honor of a house, its dignity, it requires that all of the members behave in a particular way, dress in a particular way, and display themselves in a particular way. If we do not, if we let ourselves be seen with fewer footmen, less lace on our dresses, and behaving in a miserly manner, if our husbands cannot afford their hunting horses, our fast carriages, and to play with high stakes at cards, we will lose the respect of those around us — and when we lose that, our position as a family, our ability to influence the course of policy in England, and our ability to look our dependents in the eye and demand their obedience will decline."

"And why… what is the harm? So long as there is sufficient money, we can live as we will. Why should I care how I am looked upon by the world in general? — Besides, I think it likely that most of the world has too much good sense, and is too busy to concern itself with whether I wear the same dress twice a week, or burn each dress in solemn ceremony after I remove it for the first time."

Georgiana giggled when Elizabeth said that. She then offered, showing more bravery than she did when anyone outside of the family circle was present, "People would talk if you burned the dress after wearing it only once."

Lady Susan had a dreamy expression. "It would impress people greatly, if someone was known to do that."

"No," Lady Matlock said. "Not even we have the fortune to spend on that."

"But wouldn't it," Elizabeth replied, "convince everyone that you have money enough to recklessly waste?"

"One must not be foolish about it, nor obvious, like a nabob returned from India with more fortune than almost any house that has served the king honorably for three hundred years," Lady Matlock replied.

"You cannot convince me," Elizabeth replied.

"You still think like a small person, like your uncle the tradesman, and you do not yet think the way that you ought as the wife of a man such as Mr. Darcy."

"I rather," Elizabeth replied, "prefer the way I think to taking it into my head to be uselessly fine, and to spending money without any end simply to prove that I can do so — and I have sworn to not spend more than fifty a year on my clothing."

"Why did you do that?" Lady Susan said. "This is the second time you have said as much, so I am now convinced it is not merely some joke of yours, but where did you stumble upon such a ridiculous number."

"It is not a ridiculous number," Elizabeth replied.

"Oh, but it is, and it guarantees that you shall need to wear the same dress twice a week, and everyone will think Mr. Darcy hates you for that alone."

"Not when they see how he looks at her," Georgiana said, surprising all of them. "He loves her, that is clear for anyone to see."

Elizabeth flushed.

She did not know if she believed Georgiana. But the words of her niece made Lady Matlock nod thoughtfully.

Lady Susan said, "No, no! You cannot. Eliza, I want to see you in all sorts of dresses — and you must wish to convince everyone that it is a love match."

"I do not wish to convince anyone of anything." Elizabeth replied sharply. She rose and bowed to the company. "My apologies, but I just recalled a matter I must deal with."

That was barely a pretense of leaving the conversation for a real reason, but Elizabeth could not stay there. She was filled with a sudden tight emotion, and she was not sure if she wanted to rage, cry, or hunt down Darcy and kiss him.

Why had Georgiana said that?

Did Mr. Darcy actually love her?

No, he only felt a strong lustful desire. If he'd loved her, truly loved her, so much of his behavior would have been different.

She stomped to the library, and Elizabeth paced in circles and circles. Darcy was too difficult to think of, too confusing and tangled. So instead she thought about this endless poking, the demand that she wear clothes that were more expensive.

Why was she so insistent on keeping to that bare fifty pounds a year?

She had sworn to her father that she would not spend more, but she was not a gentleman who needed to pretend that an angry retort in the midst of a heated argument was a solemn vow before God. It was not like that vow made before the vicar when they made their marriage vows. If Elizabeth decided to do so, she could permit herself to spend more money on her clothes.

And, she ought to. No, she did not want to be uselessly fine, but it was sensible to make some effort to look the part of the mistress of Pemberley.

As that thought went through her head, a picture of her father, nodding with satisfaction, with the knowledge that he'd been proven right, went through her mind.

Elizabeth paced back and forth, angrily arguing with her father in her mind.

He'd eventually hear. He'd hear that she was famed in society for spending barely anything on her clothes, for dressing in cottons and wools instead of silks with gold embroidery. And then…

He'd sneer and tell her, the next time they saw each other when she visited her sisters and mother, that she was ridiculous, and that he knew full well that she'd still married Mr. Darcy for the money, even if she was sensible enough to focus on the enjoyment of more sensible purchases than impractical clothes.

She couldn't convince her father of anything.

Yet… yet…

Papa had accused her of being a… a… wanton, mercenary woman — just for the sake of fine dresses. Then she'd never wear those fine dresses, and she would prove that she was better than he thought she was, even if he never understood. He didn't need to understand.

He just needed to be wrong, wrong, wrong !

She walked back and forth past the thousands of books, filling the endless collection of tall bookcases that made up the Darcy library. There was a rolling ladder in a heavy dark wood.

She pressed her forehead against one of the windows, needing the cold to comfort herself.

Odd, at this moment she liked her husband — her autocratic, high handed, passionate, yet quiet, and demanding, yet generous husband far more than her father.

Did he really love her, like Georgiana thought?

Or did he merely enjoy their nightly connection? Men always did. Or at least that is what was said. She had not thought that she would come to enjoy it as something far more than merely pleasant.

Elizabeth turned around, and then she jumped in shock.

Georgiana stood there, quiet as a mouse, looking down, and wringing her hands together.

"Hello, Georgiana."

She flushed.

Elizabeth smiled and asked, "How long have you stood here quietly?"

"Oh, just for a moment."

"You tend to be very quiet."

"People always seem to forget I am there."

"You should not be so shy," Elizabeth replied. "You have a fine mind and an excellent sense of humor. But I see that your feelings of shyness will not be shattered by anything so simple as being told to be less shy — I must imagine I am not the first to try such a cure?"

Georgiana smiled a little. "Fitzwilliam often suggests I should be more bold."

"And he is always right."

"But I just… it is not so easy."

Elizabeth took her arm, and they sat on one of the sofas near the banked fireplace. "What did you wish to ask me?"

"Did… when you met him, did Mr. Wickham say anything about me?"

Elizabeth looked at her for a long time.

The girl looked down. "I only… I want to know."

"Your brother would never approve of such thoughts."

"I just wish to know if he spoke of me," Georgiana repeated, a sort of tormented tone to her voice.

"I cannot imagine that you have seen him in these past four years, you ought to—"

"I saw him once since." Georgiana's voice was very quiet.

Elizabeth waited. She was not confident that she had heard the low voice correctly.

Georgiana pulled her hands away from Elizabeth and tangled them tightly together. She stared sightlessly at her lap. "This year."

Elizabeth gasped, unable to stop herself. "If Mr. Darcy knew that, he would be very unhappy."

There was no reply to that.

"All he said to me of you, is… I believe he said that he had once devoted himself to your entertainment, but that he feared that you had grown very proud."

"Ah." Something passed through Georgiana. "I suppose, I suppose I must be. I must seem so, to him."

Elizabeth put an arm around Georgiana. It is what she would have done for one of her sisters, if they had that distraught expression.

They stayed together like this for a while, Georgiana then brushed at the tears on her face, "I should not have had it saved, but I could not bear to have the portrait destroyed."

"I understand."

"I don't look at it," she insisted. "I can't bear the thought of doing so. And it would make my brother unhappy if he knew that I looked at the portrait. But I can't… I can't forget."

"No, I cannot either," Elizabeth said. Suddenly she remembered her father, as she had always loved him, smiling, catching her eye for a joke, telling her in every way possible that he adored her, and that she was his perfect, his favorite child. "No, it is never easy to forget."

"And you and Fitzwilliam married! It is not fair! It is not! Your circumstances in life are highly unequal also." Georgiana wrapped her arms around her legs and seemed on the verge of sobbing.

There really was nothing that she could say in reply to that. Especially not given the circumstances of their marriage, and the way that she would never tell anyone besides her aunt that she had not in the slightest intended to marry Darcy.

Papa had not let her tell him, and now she couldn't tell anyone.

"I was shocked," Georgiana said, "when I heard that you married. He'd mentioned you in his letters, and it was clear that he liked and admired you, especially after you'd come to care for your sister, what is her name?"

"Jane."

"Jane," Georgiana repeated, as though committing the name to memory. She then nodded. "I look forward to meeting her someday."

"What," Elizabeth asked with a profound curiosity, "did Darcy write to you about me?"

"Oh, nothing so… secret. You must know. Just that he approved very much of you coming to care for your sister, and he described how clever you were, and that he enjoyed matching wits with you… and that you played the piano and sang very well."

Elizabeth shook her head. "My singing voice is not so bad, I suppose."

"Oh, you have something with the piano… something very good. It is not a matter of technical ability… you have enough skill that it can show, though you ought to practice more. But that is not the central thing… you have a feel for the music, for the feeling of the song."

"When I listen to you play, you are… exquisite," Elizabeth replied, "in a way that I could not imagine being."

"It… is important to me, in a way it should not be for everyone. I disappear into the music when I play. I become nothing but the music, but you, you are simply having fun. And by doing so you make everyone who watches have that pleasure as well. It is lovely to watch you play, Fitzwilliam was right about that."

"Oh." Elizabeth blushed, and could not say how grateful she was for the compliment, because she really was grateful for it, and Georgiana's sincerity shone through her words.

"Practice with me some, and we can do duets regularly. I would like that very much."

"I would as well." Elizabeth smiled at Georgiana, and Georgiana smiled back at her.

Then Georgiana added, "I am very glad Fitzwilliam married you. He is… happy. Different — I was wholly surprised, when I received his letter which informed me that when he returned to Pemberley for Christmas, it would be with his wife. In just two weeks — I hardly knew what to think. I was happy… but…"

"Confused and scared."

"I'd never imagined he would behave in such a way… so… quick. And he… he always told me about the importance of marrying well, and marrying a solid man who would make a good alliance for the family and where I would add to his fortune, rather than him living off of mine."

"And you knew I was penniless, or the nearest thing to it."

"It shocked me."

"I was exceedingly surprised as well to find myself engaged to him," Elizabeth replied quietly. She stared at the ceiling.

"You did not know that he would ask you to marry?"

Elizabeth felt the pain of that day, and even though she had begun to accustom herself to her new life as Mrs. Darcy, even though she had found a great deal to admire and like in Mr. Darcy…

It would be both impossible, and likely unwise, to give Georgiana the details of the day. Certainly she could not tell Georgiana that Mr. Darcy had never asked her if she wanted to marry him, and that if he had asked her, she would have refused him.

"Was that why you were so quiet at first? Were you worried that your brother had married a fortune hunter? I know there must have been rumors to that nature, little Julia cannot have been the only one to think that way."

"Oh, no! Not Fitzwilliam. I was surprised, but he… he…" She shrugged. "I only was quiet because I find it very hard to speak to strangers."

"I have noticed," Elizabeth replied dryly.

Georgiana laughed. "I ought to be less shy, but it is difficult."

Elizabeth nodded. It was exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible, for a person to change their nature. Though what Georgiana perhaps needed was simply confidence and the opportunity to spend more time in unfamiliar company.

"I'm always so astonished to watch you speak with people," Georgiana enthused. "I would never have been able to argue with Lady Matlock. I just wear whatever Lady Susan tells me to."

"And it looks very well on you."

Georgiana blushed, flattered. "Everyone says that my cousin is one of the best dressed women in England."

"She has devoted her life to it, like you do with the piano."

"I do love to play."

"That is how you spread beauty into the world," Elizabeth replied. "I now must determine what method I ought to use to spread it."

"Why don't you listen to her advice?"

"I have dressed myself for many years, and I will not have my clothing choices made for me. It is my choice."

"Perhaps you should try going to Madame Aubert — One does not know how they will feel about a thing until they have done that."

"Very wise."

"Fitzwilliam told me that."

Elizabeth laughed. "I still do not plan to purchase more than fifty pounds in a year of clothes."

"Why are you so insistent on that?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "It is a painful subject."

Georgiana nodded, and did not ask further.

The two sat there together for a while. Elizabeth realized she truly liked Georgiana. She was a sweet and kind person, shy but not at all proud.

"You know… youthful attachments, like what you feel towards Mr. Wickham… they are often not wise."

"I know," Georgiana said, sadly.

"I… I do not want to advise you on this, but just let me say that… I do not think Wickham is the sort of man who would make you happy. You feel deeply, and have serious thoughts, and while his surface is sparkling and delightful, I do not think that Mr. Wickham has much depth to him." Then Elizabeth paused and added, "Of course I did not have a long enough acquaintance with him to judge fairly."

They were both quiet. Elizabeth was surprised to realize that she now believed this about Wickham. She also had become quite certain that there was some absolutely essential missing part of the story he'd told her about his inheritance.

After a minute, Georgiana said, "I know he isn't! I know he isn't! Not like you. But… I can't…"

And she started crying, and Elizabeth held her while she did .