Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

ELIZABETH HAD NOT thought she’d be the person who’d have to bring the tidings to her mother about the scandal sheet, but as her mother and sisters gleefully grilled her about Jane’s wedding, it was clear that they knew nothing of it.

Eventually, she was very tired, and she did not wish to answer any more questions, and she pulled out the copy she had as much to silence everyone as to do her duty to give the information to her mother.

Perhaps she shouldn’t have done it in front of Lydia and Kitty. Perhaps she should have spared her mother that indignity. But she was very tired, and she didn’t think. She simply did it.

Kitty picked it up. “What’s this?” She blinked at it. “Oh. These, we’re throwing in the fire. Lydia, another one.” She handed it over to her sister.

“We don’t have a fire. Not cold enough for fires,” said Lydia, taking the glass cover off one of the oil lamps and holding the paper over it until it caught fire. Then, getting up, she tossed the scandal sheet in the empty fireplace, where it burned and sputtered on its own.

“You know of it, then,” said Elizabeth.

“Spurious lies,” said her mother, nostrils flaring. “Someone spoke to John’s mistress, undoubtedly. She always wanted to believe things about me, but it sprang from her own jealousy. As if I would have been so stupid as to not know that John was betrothed. As if I would have surrendered my virtue when I knew it was hopeless.”

“Wait,” said Elizabeth, turning on her mother. “It’s not true?”

“Oh, Lizzy, how could you think it was true?” Her mother was quite offended.

Well, because Mrs. Widebottom had seemed so certain. But now that Elizabeth thought about it, she realized that Mrs. Widebottom had—by her own admission—been very jealous of every single woman that Lord Benlolk had ever loved, hadn’t she? So, would she make up a story to hurt Mrs. Bennet? Elizabeth didn’t see why not. And, to sweeten it all, the story probably hurt Lady Benlolk, too. Mrs. Widebottom was likely angry at both of them, with their money and their respectability.

Elizabeth could not believe she’d been taken in by the woman. And Mary, too.

Lord, Mary had published this.

Elizabeth got up from the table. “I find myself quite tired from all the travel and I am falling asleep on my feet. Pray excuse me. I must to bed.”

“Such dramatics, Lizzy,” said Mrs. Bennet, rolling her eyes. “‘I must to bed,’” she mimicked.

Lydia and Kitty exploded into raucous laughter.

Elizabeth left without being excused. Once there, she sought out some paper and she dashed off the angriest missive she could put together, addressed to Mary. She told her sister that she’d spread lies across London, that she’d done the wicked work of a bitter woman, and she cried angry tears which splashed the ink and made it run.

When she was finished, she knew she couldn’t send it in the post. It was not the sort of letter that was sent that way. It was a private letter which must be delivered privately.

There was no way to get it to Mary.

Wait. Actually, she had pin money now. She was a wealthy heiress with a houseful of servants. She sealed the letter up, marched down to the kitchens and inquired after some young servant who could be spared for several days to go to London.

She paid the boy handsomely to deliver it directly into Mary’s hands and no other. She promised an awful fate if he opened the seal and read it.

“Oh, I can’t read, miss,” he said, guileless and eager. “No worries on that score.”

Elizabeth lay down in bed after all that, wondering if she should have been so harsh on Mary. What would Mary even do with the information now? The damage was done.

Sleep claimed her, and she dreamed she was still in the carriage, Mr. Darcy gazing at her every time she looked up from her reverie.

“WELL, IT’S ALL lies,” said Lady Matlock the next morning in the breakfast parlor. “It’s that awful Mrs. Widebottom, you know. She kept Benlolk from having an heir , do you know that? She would not let him couple with his own wife. How he managed to get that will past old Widebottom, I couldn’t say. She must have been incensed when she found it out—leaving money to anyone besides her. This is her revenge, no question. Fanny and I have discussed it, and we are of one mind about it.”

Fanny, is it? Mr. Darcy gaped at his aunt. She was on a first-name basis with Mrs. Bennet? She was defending Mrs. Bennet? What world had he slipped into?

Lady Matlock noticed. She sighed, looking contrite. “Oh, I know. She is not easy to take when one first meets her, but she grows on you. I am quite fond of her now. She only lacks a little polish, I think. She cares about all the right things and I like her. So, I am giving her the benefit of my expertise, and soon, all will be well.”

Darcy turned to look at Richard. This was somehow his doing. How had he managed it?

Richard wasn’t looking at Darcy, however, but concentrating on his plate. “How bad is it in London? The rumors?”

“Yes, how bad?” said Lady Matlock, eyeing him with concern.

“Well, I couldn’t say. There’s practically no one in London,” said Mr. Darcy.

They both regarded him assessingly.

“You went to the wedding of the eldest Bennet daughter,” said Lady Matlock. “Did you not? You can’t tell me there weren’t whispers there.”

“I suppose,” he said. “I don’t pay these things any mind.”

“Yes, such is a privilege of a man,” said Lady Matlock, sighing again.

“Well, that isn’t really true, Mama,” said Richard. “We are all ruled by our mothers and sisters and wives, men are. You set the scene for who it is that we can interact with and who we cannot. We rely on you to keep society running.”

“Yes, true,” said his mother, reaching over to pat his hand. “Here’s what we need to do, I think. We must simply drown them in weddings. How many girls are left? Four, yes, and you have decided to marry the second oldest, haven’t you, Fitzwilliam?” She nodded at Darcy.

“Yes,” said Darcy.

“Very good,” said Lady Matlock. “You should marry one of them, Richard, don’t you think?”

Richard raised his gaze from his plate and pressed his lips together as he looked at his mother. He seemed too overcome to speak.

“What?” said Lady Matlock. “I thought that was your design, really, when you introduced me to them in the first place. Don’t you wish to marry one of them? You could stand the money, I think.”

“They are not simply interchangeable,” said Richard tightly.

“Oh,” said his mother, rolling her eyes. “Yes, I’d forgotten. It’s very much in fashion these days to be in love. It’s the second eldest, isn’t it? What’s her name? Evelyn?”

“Elizabeth,” said Richard and Darcy at exactly the same time, nearly in unison.

Lady Matlock tipped back her head and laughed. “Well, then. I see how it is.”

How had she not seen how it was thus far? That was what Darcy wished to understand. Perhaps it had been confusing with Elizabeth not having been there, he supposed.

Lady Matlock set her fingertips down on the table and spoke in a very grave and important voice. “You must understand, my son, that love fades. It is a madness that comes upon us and takes us over. It can be quite nice, quite lovely, but it always, always turns to wretched pain. It’s no foundation for a marriage, that is for certain. Marriage is about duty, family, children, loyalty, mutual respect, all of these things. Marriage lasts. Love does not. I have said again and again that I don’t hold with this idea you young people have to marry the sort of person you’d be much better off having a love affair with.”

Darcy didn’t want to be subjected to this tired lecture over breakfast. He said casually to Richard, “If you ever touch my wife, I will kill you.”

“Oh, that is not what I meant,” said Lady Matlock. “I wasn’t saying to have an affair with her later on, Richard, though, truly, your cousin will get bored with her. Men always get bored with women.”

“Always?” said Darcy, raising his eyebrows at her.

“Always,” she said, shrugging.

“Yes, but not always,” said Darcy. “Not always, because look at Benlolk. Look at the money he settled on Mrs. Bennet. Look at how devoted he was—by all accounts—to his mistress. So, not always.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Richard, pointing his fork at Darcy. “And I must say, I think most men do eventually settle down with one woman and stop straying.”

“In old age, we tire of love,” said Lady Matlock. “Your father and I are quite settled these days with each other, and neither of us chases anything any more. Youth makes the blood boil, I suppose. Eventually, all that quiets.”

“Of course, some men don’t,” said Darcy. “Some men are out there with younger and younger courtesans in their laps at the clubs. Some men never seem to quiet at all.”

“Or some women,” said Richard. “There are widows out there with a revolving door of lovers.”

“True.” Lady Matlock shrugged.

“Do you think it’s a personality quirk?” said Richard. “Some people are meant to love only one person and some people need variety?”

“No one is meant to love only one person,” said Lady Matlock. “What an idea! To cut yourself off from experience? No, there is a way to such things, and it is to marry young, have your children, and then have your explorations. By the time you’ve had two or three of a man’s babes, the bloom is off the rose, let me tell you. Every woman I’ve spoken to about this agrees.”

Mr. Darcy felt queasy. He looked Richard over, thinking of Elizabeth tiring of him, wanting to have Richard, and he felt the urge—again—to punch Richard very hard.

“I don’t think so, Mama,” said Richard.

“Oh, you may hear differently from women, but they don’t reveal this to men,” said Lady Matlock. “Depend upon it, however, women are no more given to fidelity than men. We do not have the chance to do any exploration when we are young because men snatch us up and marry us when we are but idiot children, unable to decide what we might like. Then, they are miffed when we are mature mothers and not ready to go sit on the shelf and gather dust. You’d do well to remember that women are not your playthings, Richard. They have inner lives and desires and hopes as well. They are not all for our husbands and children either.”

“I know this,” muttered Richard.

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Darcy.

“Well, good,” said Lady Matlock. “Many men do not. At any rate, Richard, you can marry another of them. There are ever so many of those Bennet girls. Pick someone else. What about the Lillian one?”

“Lydia,” said Richard. “She’s just turned sixteen, I’m afraid. And she brays when she laughs.”

“Oh, but she’s the tallest,” said Lady Matlock. “She looks quite grown. It’s that way with girls sometimes. I’m glad you’re aware, my son.” She patted his arm. “There’s many a man who treats a young girl who looks mature as if she is mature, and I don’t hold with such things.” She turned back to her breakfast plate. “Well, then the other one. Or… we’re missing someone.”

“Mary,” said Mr. Darcy. “She stayed back in London.”

“How? Her father’s here.”

“With relatives,” said Mr. Darcy.

“What relatives?” said Lady Matlock.

“They have some relations who live on Gracechurch Street,” said Mr. Darcy.

“Oh, heavens.” Lady Matlock dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter. “Gracechurch Street? Truly?”

Mr. Darcy nodded.

“She concealed that from me,” said Lady Matlock with a disdainful expression. “I wonder what else she’s hidden. What if we find out they’re secretly Catholic? Or that she’s harboring highwaymen in her barn? Or that she is, even now, involved in an elaborate scheme to turn children into cripples for the purpose of getting more money out of them when they beg on the streets?”

“Mama,” said Richard, shaking his head at her.

“No, no, the maiming bit? It’s done,” said Lady Matlock, nodding seriously. “Gracechurch Street,” she repeated under her breath, disgusted.

Richard turned to look at Darcy. “I think you should postpone the wedding.”

“Of course you think that,” said Mr. Darcy. “You simply wish to attempt to talk her out of it.”

“Well, if I could, you wouldn’t wish to marry her, would you?” said Richard.

Darcy furrowed his brow, trying to think that over and make it make sense.

“That may not be an awful idea,” said Lady Matlock.

“I seem to remember,” said Darcy, “you were just recently saying we must marry all the Bennet girls at once.”

“I think in the spring, though, really, just a series of weddings, during the Season, all of them decked out in lovely dresses, and in the most fashionable of the churches. By then, there will be some other scandal, and people will be moved to be envious of the lovely weddings instead of thinking about where the money came from.”

“Spring,” said Darcy, shaking his head. “No, definitely not. I can’t wait that long.”

Lady Matlock laughed.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. Bawdy jokes at his expense made by his aunt—first thing in the morning, no less—were unbearable.

“Not until spring,” said Richard. “But some delay, at any rate. Give the gossip at least a bit of time to dissipate.”

“I am not delaying my marriage for your pleasure, Richard,” he growled. He looked around. “Where is Georgiana?” Seeing her was the entire reason for the trip here, after all.

“Oh, she never comes down until quite late in the morning,” said Lady Matlock. “I was the same as a girl, sleeping until mid-morning every day, then staying up into the night. It’s normal behavior for someone her age, Fitzwilliam.”

GEORGIANA DARCY HAD been in a state of ennui for what felt like her entire life, but what could likely be traced back to Ramsgate.

However, she didn’t like to think about that, because it put her in such an awful mood to consider it. It was so embarrassing, that was the thing. Embarrassing to think that she had fallen for that scheme. Embarrassing to think that she had been even remotely attracted to that awful Wickham. But most embarrassing to think that she’d thought he was in love with her.

Obviously, no one was in love with her and no one ever would be.

Even if someone was, she’d never be able to trust it, that was the real truth of it. She’d always think he was pretending, because of her money.

She was supposed to have a household that she was running on her own. Fitzwilliam had wanted it for her, and she had been set up in that manner, with her own servants and all of that. Mrs. Younge had been ostensibly in charge of everything, though Georgiana had known that Mrs. Younge was truly in her employ, a servant as well.

But after the business at Ramsgate, everything got difficult.

She made up other reasons, and sometimes she even got herself to believe them, but it all came down to this in the end: she was unlovable.

She had thought herself so very lovable, that was the embarrassing bit of it, the part that ate at her, like a wasp that stung and stung and stung again, not satisfied with its infliction of pain. She had thought she was so very lovable that she hadn’t even questioned the idea that George Wickham, ages and ages older than her, so very handsome, and capable of seducing any number of women who were full grown, had fallen madly in love with her.

She hadn’t even questioned it.

It was a scheme. He was lying. He hadn’t loved her.

She fell for it so easily, that was the worst part. Why hadn’t she understood then that she was not lovable?

Before her brother had come, when she revealed to Wickham that she’d sent the letter, Wickham had gotten so angry, and then he’d raged at her, telling her exactly what he really thought of her.

That she was a child. That he had lied when he said she was beautiful. That she was haughty and proud and spoiled, given to getting her way, but in possession of a disposition displeasing to anybody who was not forced to interact with her. That she was, in short, ugly and difficult, and that she would never find anyone who could bear being around her. It is lucky you have so much money, Georgiana, or you would always be alone, he had said.

It was odd, Georgiana found, that certain insults cut you in a way that others didn’t? It was likely because sometimes, she thought, you sensed the truth of them underneath it all. She had been told that she was slovenly and lazy, and she brushed these things off. She was nothing of the sort. Didn’t she practice piano diligently? Hadn’t she always done what was expected of her in her schooling? No, that was not her character.

But this, she sensed its truth.

She was unlovable.

And the truth was, no matter if she were surrounded on all sides by people, for the rest of her life, she would actually always be alone, as Wickham had said. Because none of those people were really with her because they liked her . They were only there because they liked her money.

Sometimes, she managed to brush this thought away, to think of other things, sometimes even pleasant things. However, the thought seemed waiting on the edge of her consciousness, ready to sink its hooks into her and drag her down into the depths of the abyss.

She tried to argue with it, sometimes.

She would point out that her brother cared about her and he didn’t care about her money.

Yes, a sly voice in her head would say, but you are his obligation only. He must deal with you, and you are a burden. If you had not been so stupid as to fall for Wickham’s scheme, he would not think of you as he does.

The same was true of her cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam, of course. She was a burden to him, too, and to her entire family, all of whom were worried that the story of her and Wickham would come out and ruin her chances for a good marriage.

This was the reason that Georgiana had taken to sleeping as much as possible. Sleep was the only time she could silence the deep well of pain that raged inside her body.

Now, Georgiana awakened to the sight of her brother standing at the foot of her bed. She squinted in the light that poured in through a window across the room, a window that she was quite certain she’d had covered with a quilt to block out the sun. Why was the window uncovered? She was sleeping, and it was really the only thing that she enjoyed doing anymore.

“It’s after one in the afternoon,” said her brother. “It’s time you got up.”

She groaned. “I didn’t think you were coming until next week.”

“No, I’m here now.”

“But not until September, they said.”

“Georgiana, what day do you think it is?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s still August, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s been September,” he said. “How much sleeping have you been doing? Is something bothering you?”

“No!” She sat up in bed. “You don’t have to worry over me. I am fine. I don’t want to be a burden to you.”

“You’re not a burden,” said her brother.

She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I know just how you think of me.”

Her brother put his hands on his hips. “Up,” he said. “And I don’t want to hear anymore of that sort of self-pitying talk.”

So, her self-pity was a burden, too. Well, she wouldn’t pity herself anymore. No, she would simply accept her lot in life as an unlovable person. She could never be happy, of course, but she would never complain. She would bear up silently, nobly, burying her pain so that no one would ever know. She lifted her chin, awash in the sheer power of such a thing.

“Up,” he said again.

“I am getting up,” she said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed.

“Good,” he said. “Join me downstairs when you’re dressed. We’re going to visit my intended.”

She turned to look at him. “You’ve proposed to someone? But who?”

“I told you about her, actually,” he said.

Sometimes he did tell her things, but it was hard to listen to him when she was struggling with the unbearable knowledge of her extreme unlovableness. The pain of such a deep, awful truth was too much to bear. He didn’t understand, thinking his problems as bad as hers. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“I did. I told you that a woman refused my offer of marriage, and then—”

“Oh, you asked her again?” She was astounded. “But she humiliated you, you said.”

He laughed, rueful but smiling. “Perhaps a bit of humiliation is good for me, Georgiana.”

She drew back, the idea of such a sentiment foreign to her. How could he bear it, the horror of such a rejection? How could he even be near her again? Why, if she saw George Wickham, she would fall apart. “You want me to meet her? You can’t be serious.”

“She and I are going to be married,” he said. “It would mean a lot to me if you’d attempt to form a friendship with her.”

Friendship, ha. As if anyone could be friends with her. No one would love her, not romantically and not any other way either. It was futile. But she wasn’t supposed to let on that she was bothered about this, was she? No, she was to bear her difficulties in silent strength. “Of course,” she said. “Of course I shall.”

Her brother looked her over. “Well, good, then.”

Georgiana smiled faintly, imagining a sad smile that did not quite mask the pain concealed in her gaze. People would see her sad smile and wonder why it was she was so sad. They would find her sad but beautiful, a tragic kind of beauty that they would admire. She’d likely die young, she thought, but she’d leave a beautiful corpse, and that was some compensation.

If her brother noticed, however, he didn’t let on. He just left her room.

She glared into his wake.

No one understood the way she suffered.