Georgiana Darcy's Diary: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice continued

Georgiana Darcy's Diary: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice continued Page 3

by Anna Elliott

  Thursday 5 May 1814

  I have actually had a real conversation with my cousin Anne. Not a long talk, true, but at least we did not speak only about her headaches or weak eyes— at least not entirely. Though I still cannot 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 have 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 has 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 should 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 would immediately put it into practice.

  But I could not stop remembering how miserable she looked the other night. So this morning after breakfast I went along to her room to see if I could not 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 had not 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 was not 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 had 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 would not 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 would not 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 did not say that she could try changing her temperament if she wanted people to like her. Anne was not in a mood to listen. And besides, even I know that it is not so easy as that.

  I remember one of the girls at school telling me I should just stop being so shy. I was not 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 di
scontented 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 would not … you will not 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 have just heard the grandfather clock downstairs strike one in the morning. But I cannot 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 dyed 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 should not 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 did not 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 has at last been able to recoup some of the property he left behind. And now he is 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 is very handsome in a sleek, olive-skinned way, with curling dark hair tumbling over his brow and heavy-lidded dark eyes. He is also very continental in his manners. When I spoke to him, I asked him whether he did not 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 is lucky for Mr. Carter, since these last few days he has 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 is 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 are 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 am being catty. But I do not 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 is good hearted and very sweet. And she is 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 am 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 could not say a word in company with anyone I did not know. Not would not—literally could not. My throat would close up and my tongue would seem to freeze to the roof of my mouth and I would feel as though I could not breathe just at the thought of trying to speak.

  That has not happened to me in years. And I suppose it did not 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 had been wounded.

  I am not sure whether Edward actually told her. I have 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 have not even heard the story. I suppose that is partly because I have managed to almost entirely avoid speaking with Edward since the day of his arrival.

  Though for his part, he has made it quite easy for me to avoid him. I
don’t think he has 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 Herron dance. Of course she had 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 would 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 would not 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 did not 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 did not 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 is 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 had overheard, so it was not as though he 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. But then 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 had 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 has 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 could not 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 could not even be sure of whether he had been speaking to me or no. 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 her 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 of course is 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 bloom.

  The entire setting, in fact, could not 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 is”—I hesitated—“there is nothing else wrong?”

  Edward stared out into the moon-silvered garden. I thought at first he was not going to answer, but then he let out a slow breath and said, without looking at me, “I t
old 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 battle, really—this 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 would either be nicer still to me—in an affectionate, older-brother sort of way, of course—or he would 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 its 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 is danced occasionally at balls in London, but even there it is 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. “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 does not 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 could not 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 did not quite hear me the first time. You are 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 could not 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 had probably just embarrassed him horribly by letting him see—again!—that I am 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 is 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 could not 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 could not tell.

  I can’t think what the message can have been about. Something Edward has done? But what? I cannot imagine Edward acting dishonourably. And it is not as though my brother is Edward’s father, to call him to account for his behaviour.

  They are 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 quite taken with M. de La Courcelle, because first thing this morning, she volunteered to go into Lambton to pick up 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 has 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 has 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 noes, two yeses, 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. “Do not move—not even a little bit! Just stay like that, exactly as you are.”

  One thing about living with my aunt, it has 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 a while, 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 was not a lie. Not really, because I had not 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 along. 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 did not 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 have 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 did not 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 is 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 did not 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 is 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 led 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 had 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 had gone more than a hundred feet. He had moved away from the lilac bushes when I had made faces at him, but apparently he had 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 could not 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.

  Sunday 8 May 1814

  Edward is gone.

  He did not even say good-bye to me; I only learned of his departure this evening, when he did not come in to dinner. Elizabeth asked where he was, and my brother said, dividing his answer between Elizabeth and the rest of the dinner table, “I’m afraid I had some disquieting news. The youngest son of one of my tenants, old Mr. Merryweather down at Riggs Farm has decamped from his army regiment. Young John is a sergeant with the 11th Light Dragoons—it’s a great grief to his father to see him abandon his duties. Edward has gone to see whether he can find the young man and talk sense into him before he gets himself into more serious trouble.”

  That could be true.

  That could have been the nature of the letter that angered my brother yesterday morning—a communication from old Mr. Merryweather about his errant son.

  And it would explain the conversation I overheard between my brother and Edward this morning. I was just finishing dressing, and they were walking past my door.

  My brother said, “You’ll take care of it?” He still sounded angry. “You’ll have to find him first.”

  And Edward said, his voice harder than ever I’d heard from him before, “I’ll find him. You may depend on it.”

  At the dinner table, Fitzwilliam did not hesitate, did not stammer or flush or even pause in giving his answer about where Edward had gone and why.

  So why do I have the strongest feeling now that my brother was telling a deliberate untruth?

  Monday 9 May 1814

  My aunt got up from her bed for the first time today. And I should be glad that she is no longer ill. I am thankful that her illness was not more serious than a passing chill. But now that she is up and about once more, she is more determined than ever to see me safely engaged to one of her candidates.

  Today she ordered us all to go out for a walk. A very long walk, she said, fixing me with an imperious eye.

  Though Anne, of course, was not allowed to come and had to stay sitting in the morning room by her mother’s side.

  That is the other effect of my aunt’s recovery—now that Aunt de Bourgh is no longer ill, Anne is firmly under her thumb once more.

  Elizabeth begged off going on the walk, too, saying that she had a headache. I am beginning to be a little worried about her, she’s had headaches or been otherwise indisposed so often of late. Though when I asked her whether she was truly ill, she laughed and said, wiggling her eyebrows, “You can’t pretend with me, Georgiana. You’re hoping I’ll succumb to a wasting illness so that you can inherit … well, actually I can’t think what I own that you might want to inherit. But I’m sure there’s something.”

  As long as Elizabeth can tease and joke, there cannot be anything seriously—

  I’m stalling. Writing on and on about my aunt and Anne and Elizabeth so that I will not have to write about what happened on the walk. Which is stupid. It’s all over and done with. And yet somehow it has left a nasty feeling clinging to me like sticky cobwebs all over my skin.

  With Anne ordered to stay home and Elizabeth’s headache, it was just myself, Caroline, Mr. Carter, Mr. Folliet, and Sir John who went on the walk.

  We started out on the path round the lake, all together at first. But then the path grew narrower. I can’t even tell quite how it happened, but somehow when we had all shifted around, Caroline was walking in between Mr. Folliet and Mr. Carter, and Sir John and I were together, walking behind them.

  At least I was not required to think up topics for conversation, because Sir John was perfectly content to do all the talking. He seemed intent on telling me about every single animal or bird he had ever shot in woods just like ours. There was that rabbit two years ago—fattest fellow you ever saw. Got him with my second size double-barrel.

  And all he really wanted was for me to say, “Really?” or “How extraordinary!” every time he paused for effect.

  He walked excruciatingly slowly, though—so slowly that almost before I knew it, Caroline and the other two men had drawn so far ahead of us that I could not see them any more around the twists and turns of the path. There was nothing I could do, though—I could hardly cut Sir John off in mid word and go sprinting off after them.

  Well, actually, now that it is over, I wish I had done exactly that. But at the time I was just thinking darkly that I would not be surprised to see snails passing us on either side when I realised Sir John had paused again in whatever he had been saying.

  “Really?” I said. “How perfectly extraordinary!”

  Sir John gave me an odd look, and it was only then that I belatedly realised what it was he had said. I had been half listening without really realising it, and my mind had only just now registered the words: You know, Miss Georgiana, I admire you immensely.

  My stomach lurched and my heart tried to drop into my boot soles. But before I could move or even think what to say, Sir John had taken hold of my hand. His prominent eyes were staring earnestly into mine.

  “You’d make me very happy if you’d consent to be my wife.”

  I ought to have expected it, of course. I could imagine my aunt pulling him aside before we left and practically ordering him to propose. But it caught me off guard enough that I could not manage to frame a polite refusal, but just stood there, staring at him.

  Sir John took my silence for hesitation. “I know we don’t know one another very well. But all that’s for after the wedding, eh?” He gave me a broad wink, then spread his arms. “Still, if there’s anything you’d like to ask me before accepting, go right ahead. I’m a baronet—but you knew that already. Got an estate in Yorkshire. Once we’re married, you’ll be Lady Georgiana Huntington all right. And I’ve got a cracking fine stable, too, if you’re keen on riding at all. In fact, I’ve got a nice little filly I picked up at auction last year that might just suit you, if you—”

&n
bsp; Good heavens, I thought. Next he’ll start talking about the guns in his collection.

  He did not, as a matter of fact—he kept on with describing his estate in Yorkshire. But I could not stop expecting him to, and the thought of Sir John earnestly itemising his various fowling pieces as part of his marriage proposal made a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in my chest.

  “And I’m a great huntsman, too. All in the name, eh? Huntington. You’d never want for fresh game for the dinner table with me—”

  It was too much. I must not have absorbed Edward’s lessons from a year ago, because I found I still hated having to say no, even to Sir John Huntington. I was actually cold with nerves, trying to think of how I was going to break into all this flood of information and politely refuse him. And that, coupled with Sir John’s assurance about fresh game made the laugh I had been trying to hold in come out in a very unladylike snort of mirth.

  “Are you—are you laughing?” Sir John reared back, affronted, his brows instantly drawing together in a scowl.

  I was. And what was worse, I could not stop myself. It was not even so very funny, it was more just nervousness and the sheer awkwardness of the whole situation that made it impossible to stop laughing once I had begun.

  “Now see here.” Sir John was still scowling. “Your aunt as good as told me that you’d undoubtedly accept my proposal if I were to make it today. Trying to make a fool of me, are you? See if you can string me along into proposing another two or three times before you finally deign to accept me?”

  I stopped laughing. It was not funny at all any more. Sir John’s grip on my hand had tightened painfully and his cheeks were darkening with anger.

  “No, no,” I stammered. “That’s not it at all. I’m sorry, but I—”

  “You teasing, spirited girls just need to be mastered, that’s what it is.” Sir John pulled me closer to him, slipping one of his arms around my waist.

  I tried to pull away, but his hold on me was like iron. I was not really frightened. Reason told me—or should have—that he wouldn’t actually assault me on the grounds of my own brother’s estate. At worst, he’d manage to kiss me, after which I’d slap his face for him.

  But his mouth was now inches from mine, and I realised from the reek of brandy on his breath that he must have been bolstering his courage before coming out on the walk. And the more I tried to wrench myself free, the more he only sneered and held me tighter still.

  “Sir John.” I did my best to sound commanding. “Let go of me at once!”

  Sir John shook his head like a bull driving off an irritating fly and pulled me closer. I turned my head, at least, so that the kiss he’d meant to land on my mouth slid off my cheek, but I still felt his breath, moist and hot in my ear. “I’ll show you a real man—”

  And then all at once he was flying backwards through the air, landing spread-eagled on the mossy, leaf-strewn ground.

  “I believe the lady asked you to release her,” Mr. Folliet said.

  Sir John’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish gasping for air, but it was several seconds before any sound emerged. Then his face darkened again.

  “So. Folliet here got in before me. I see how it is. You’re already engaged to him, but the two of you cooked up this little stunt to make a fool out of me. Well, I’ll show you.” He looked from one of us to the other, his lips drawn back. “I’ll show you who’s a fool.”

  “Good. Why don’t you do that,” Mr. Folliet said pleasantly. He offered Sir John a hand, but Sir John scrambled up from the ground on his own. He threw one last, angry glance at us over his shoulder and then started off back towards the house, walking very fast and smacking viciously at the underbrush with his walking stick.

  I drew in a shaky breath and straightened my bonnet, which Sir John’s embraces had knocked askew. “Thank you,” I said.

  Mr. Folliet nodded. “Not at all.”

  My heart was still beating rapidly against my ribs. I drew another breath. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but how did you come to be here just now?”

  Mr. Folliet shrugged. “I overheard your aunt speaking to Huntington before we all left and thought you might need a bit of rescuing at some point in the walk.”

  So it hadn’t been just imagination—Aunt de Bourgh really had taken Sir John aside and ordered him to propose.

  “Unless you really were just toying with Sir John and are of a mind to accept his proposal after all? In which case, I’ve not only robbed you of Sir John’s company, but I’m afraid I’ve also just ruined your chances of becoming Lady Huntington for good.”

  He spoke lightly, still smiling, which helped combat the lingering unpleasantness of the scene with Sir John. I felt as though I could still smell Sir John’s hot, brandy-reeking breath on my clothes.

  “No, I promise you, I’ve no aspirations to being Lady Huntington,” I said. “And I much prefer your company to Sir John’s.”

  Mr. Folliet raised an eyebrow. “A dubious compliment, perhaps, to be preferred over an amorous drunken lout—but I will choose to be flattered, nonetheless. Will you walk on with me—or would you rather return to the house?”

  I could feel my pulse gradually slowing. “No, I will come on with you. I would only have to face my aunt—or worse yet, Sir John himself—if I went back to the house now.”

  Mr. Folliet clapped a theatrical hand to his heart. “And I thought it was the irresistible appeal of my company you wanted. Crushed again. Still, I will not be disheartened—you have at least agreed to walk with me.”

  I laughed. “I will. Unless you decide to tell me that you are madly in love with me, too. In that case, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

  The moment the words left my mouth, I realised it wasn’t the most tactful thing I could have said. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “I’m just—”

  Not that I imagine Mr. Folliet really is madly in love with me. A handsome, charming son of a very wealthy landowner in Kent—he must have girls everywhere setting their caps for him.

  And as it happened, he waved my apology away with an easy smile. “No declarations of undying passion.” He pretended to make a note in an imaginary book. “Right. Got it. You’re safe now.” He smiled again and offered me his arm, and we walked on. Over and past the bridge where I’d fallen the day Edward arrived.

  Mr. Folliet looked more handsome than ever in a green riding jacket, buckskin breeches and gleaming black Hessian boots, with the spring sunshine bringing out russet tints in his dark hair. And when we reached the house, he even walked with me all the way up to the upstairs hallway, nearly to the door of my room, so that there was no chance of my meeting Sir John again alone.

  It was very kind of him.

  Tuesday 10 May 1814

  Sir John Huntington departed the house this morning. I am so relieved.

  I suppose I should not have felt so awkward about the prospect of being under the same roof with him—but I did, and I am so glad that I need not set eyes on him again. He did not even bother to invent some excuse for leaving, just told Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth that he wouldn’t stay another night where he was no longer wanted, demanded his horses and curricle from the stables, and rode off.

  Elizabeth was teasing me about it tonight after supper. My brother was sitting up late over some letter writing, and so Elizabeth came into my room, wrapped in her rose silk dressing gown, and perched on the edge of my bed while I brushed and braided my hair.

  “That’s two suitors you’ve successfully driven off,” she said, laughing. “If you keep on this way, the house party will dwindle down to just ourselves before the next week is out. And then who will you dance with at the ball next week? Don’t blame me if your aunt takes to advertising in the papers. Wanted: any unmarried, eligible young men of good name and fortune. Must be willing to endure personal interrogation by none other than Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

  She was very indignant, though, when I told her everything that had happened with
Sir John.

  “You should tell Darcy!” she said. “Or I will. The presumption Sir John had! Not to mention the abominable manners!”

  “Tell my brother? Oh, no, please don’t,” I begged her. “He’d only be angry.”

  “He would probably ride after Sir John and take a horsewhip to him,” Elizabeth agreed. “And richly Sir John would deserve it, too.”

  “But I don’t want him to!” I was getting alarmed, because Elizabeth’s dark eyes were still fairly sparking with ire. “Please, don’t tell him. I don’t want any more unpleasantness. And anyway, Sir John is gone, and I’m sure he won’t be back.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “You are far too sweet-tempered and generous, Georgiana.” Then, slowly her mouth started to curve upwards. “He really listed the horses in his stables and his skill as a huntsman as an inducement to accept him?” She was laughing by that time. “I thought I’d heard the height of absurd marriage proposals from Mr. Collins. But Sir John may have just established a standard of the ridiculous at which all other men may shoot in vain.”

  I started to laugh, as well. Now that it was all over, it was far easier to see the funny side of it again. Finally, Elizabeth shook her head and said, “All right. I will not tell Darcy about Sir John’s behaviour, if you’re sure that’s what you wish. Does anyone else know?”

  “Only Mr. Folliet. He was the one who stepped in and rescued me from Sir John, as I told you.”

  “Mr Folliet, yes,” Elizabeth said. She adjusted the belt on her dressing gown and then said, carefully not looking at me, “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

  I picked up one of the small pillows on the bed and threw it at her. “Stop! You’re beginning to sound exactly like my aunt.”

  Elizabeth caught the pillow, laughing. “Heaven forbid! And all I said”—she widened her eyes in exaggerated innocence—“was that Mr. Folliet is very handsome.”

  “He is,” I agreed. “Handsome and charming and good-humoured. And kind, as well. And—”

  I stopped. Mr. Folliet is, in fact, exactly the sort of man I should be able to fall in love with. Perfect in every single particular as far as I can tell.

  And I look at him, and my heart does absolutely nothing at all.

  It does not seem fair.

  Wednesday 11 May 1814

  I am afraid that Caroline really is smitten with M. de La Courcelle.

  Why do I say ‘afraid?’ I am not even sure myself. We may not know much of him, but everything we do know is perfectly respectable. I will set what happened today down and try to decide whether I really do have cause for concern, or am only being fanciful.

  Caroline begged me this morning to come into Lambton with her, because she had broken the lace on her boot and wanted to buy a new one. She may have broken a lace, but I do not believe that buying a new one can really have been the sole reason for her trip into town. It sounds uncharitable, but I do know Caroline. And being Caroline, she would far more likely have sent her lady’s maid to buy the lace if she had not wanted to go into Lambton herself.

  Once we were in the milliner’s shop, she flitted from one item to another, picking up a pair of gloves, fingering a bolt of muslin, examining some dyed blue feathers, talking quickly and nervously all the while. Thisisquiteprettydon’tyouthinkGeorgiana—Ohlookatthisitmightjustdoformygreenbonnet.

  And she kept stealing glances out the shop window as though she were hoping—or expecting—to see someone in the street outside.

  She kept pressing me to try on bonnets and gloves and hold up bolts of fabric in front of the milliner’s glass, as well. I did not want anything—after my aunt had her say about my wardrobe for this season, I have more clothes than three of me could wear—but eventually I gave way just to placate her.

  I was trying on a straw bonnet with a ruched satin brim that Caroline had thrust into my hands and insisted would exactly suit me. And then when I turned around to tell Caroline that it was very pretty but I did not think I would buy it, she was gone. The shop was entirely empty, save for the milliner and myself.

  I ran to the door—I am lucky that Mr. Jones, the shop owner has known me all my life, otherwise he might have thought I was trying to steal something—and looked out into the street, but Caroline was nowhere to be seen.

  “If you are looking for your friend, Miss Darcy,” Mr. Jones said, “she went out while you were tryin’ that there bonnet on. She was looking out the window and must have seen an acquaintance of hers, because she bolted out of the shop like someone’d lit a fire under her and latched onto a gentleman out there in the street. I saw them go off together—that way.” He gestured up the road.

  I asked what the gentleman had looked like, and Mr. Jones frowned and polished his spectacles on the front of his smock. Mr. Jones is an old man—sixty, maybe—with white hair that grows in tufts over his ears, a bit like an owl. And he is very kind. I can remember him giving me sweets when I was small.

  “Well, now. I don’t see as well as I used to—eyes not being as young as they were. But he were tall. And he had dark hair. I did see that much.”

  That more or less settled the matter. It must have been M. de La Courcelle with whom Caroline went off.

  She had gone without paying for her boot laces, too. So I paid Mr. Jones for them myself and waited while he wrapped them up into a parcel for me.

  “Can’t hardly believe you’re a grown up young lady, now, Miss Darcy,” Mr. Jones said as he folded the edges on the brown paper and cut a length of string. “Seems like only yesterday your good lady mother was bringing you in here.” His eyes had gone distant behind the lenses of his spectacles. “Ah, she were a rare fine lady, were Lady Anne Darcy. There’s many a woman of her rank as wouldn’t be seen buying from a simple country shopkeeper like me. But she always said my muslins were as good as any she could get in London and better, as often as not.”

  That was true. My mother always bought from the merchants in Lambton and Kympton; she said she would far rather pay her money to those who lived about us and whose faces and families she knew than some rich London tradesman she knew not at all.

  “And the poor of the parish loved her, too—and with good cause, for Lady Anne did a fair bit of good amongst them,” Mr. Jones went on. “Many’s the time I’ve seen her going to visit a poor family with the wife a widow or the husband sick in bed.”

  That was true, too, and it pricked my conscience, because there are several poor families my mother helped and took an interest in, and I have not visited them as much as I ought of late, what with spending so much of this past year in London and only coming down to Pemberley a few weeks ago for my aunt’s visit.

  “Ah, she’s missed, is Lady Anne Darcy, she’s missed around these parts still.” Mr. Jones tied off the string with a neat knot and handed me over the parcel. “Still, the new Mrs. Darcy, your brother’s wife, looks to be another such as Lady Anne was. A very nice young lady, we all think her. If it’s not an impertinence to say so.”

  “I’m sure Elizabeth will be very glad to hear it,” I told Mr. Jones. “And I’m sure she’ll be in to your shop herself before too long.”

  Before we parted, Mr. Jones gave me a handful of peppermint candies. “Because I remember how partial to them you always were when you were small.”

  I actually detest peppermints—if I ate them before, it was only because I was too shy to refuse. But I would never hurt Mr. Jones’s feelings, so I put one in my mouth and thanked him and said my good-byes.

  And then I went out into the street to look for Caroline.

  There was no sign of her. I walked all up and down Lambton’s market street and looked into every single shop, from the confectioners to the tiny lending library on the corner. I even looked into the butchers shop, where Caroline could have had no earthly reason to go unless she discovered a sudden urgent need for a rack of mutton or lamb.

  But Caroline was nowhere to be seen, and neither was M. de La Courcelle. I had asked Jem, our coa
chman, to meet me at the Rose and Crown Inn. And it was there—after what must have been more than an hour of searching—that I finally found Caroline. She was coming out of the stable yard, where the inn keeps its carriages and horses for hire.

  Caroline’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright and she gasped when she saw me—then tried to pretend she had been searching for me all along. “Oh, there you are Georgiana! What on earth’s kept you? You’ve been such ages.”

  “I’ve been such ages? You ran out of Mr. Jones’s shop without even paying!”

  At least Caroline had the grace to blush at that; the flush on her cheeks deepened. “Oh, well, I—thought I saw an acquaintance in the street. But I was … mistaken. Then by the time I’d got back to the milliner’s shop, you’d gone. So I came on here to wait for you.”

  I was tempted to say that anyone who can not tell lies better than that should give up trying. But Caroline looked really happy, which is more than I’ve seen her look in months, and I hated to be the one to try to dampen her spirits.

  So instead I only said, “This acquaintance wouldn’t happen to have been M. de La Courcelle, would it?”

  Caroline tossed her head. “It might be—or it might not.” Then she lowered her voice and took me by the arm, pulling me towards the coach that Jem had by that time brought round to the front of the inn. “Can you keep a secret, Georgiana? If I tell you something, will you swear not to tell a single soul?”

  “Well—” but it didn’t really matter what I said. She was too bursting with the news to keep it to herself, though she waited until we were safely inside the carriage and rolling and jouncing back over the roads towards Pemberley.

  “M. de La Courcelle took me to see the estate that he is thinking of buying! He said he wanted a woman’s opinion on it before settling the matter and asked me to come and look at it. He hired a horse and carriage for the ride from the Rose and Crown—that was when I met you outside the stable yard, we’d just got back.”

  “A house?” I was so surprised I scarcely knew how to reply. “And M. de La Courcelle took you to see it this morning?”

  Caroline nodded. “Yes, it’s a big old stone-built place to the north of here, just past the village of Kympton. Do you know it?”

  I nodded slowly. “I think so. It must be Kennelwood Hall, I think, it’s the only property of that size and description near Kympton.”

  “Kennelwood. Yes, I believe that was what Jacques—M. de La Courcelle—called it. It’s a beautiful old place.” Caroline was still speaking so quickly that the words fairly tumbled out. “Old fashioned, of course, but as I told M. de La Courcelle, you could soon put that to rights. Dig up the garden—maybe put in a lake. And maybe build a conservatory onto the house—there’s plenty of room for one, if you were to cut down some trees.”

  I was frowning. “But Kennelwood Hall belongs to the Duke of Claridge,” I said. “He’s hardly ever in these parts, for he spends most of the year on his estates in Hampshire. But even so, I hadn’t heard that he intended to sell Kennelwood. And,” I added, “why should it be a secret that M. de La Courcelle wants to buy it? He could just as easily have called at Pemberley and arranged a proper outing if he was so anxious for you to see it.”

  Caroline sniffed. “Honestly, Georgiana, you’ve no sense of adventure! M. de La Courcelle only learned today that the property was for sale, and he couldn’t wait—he wanted to see it at once! And as for secrets, it appears there’s another buyer interested in the property. Jacques—M. de La Courcelle—doesn’t want this other buyer to hear of his own interest, for fear the other buyer will get a bid in ahead of him.” She sighed. “It’s so cruelly unfair! M. de La Courcelle has only been able to recoup a bare tenth of all his family once owned. They were once one of the most wealthy families in all France. Now all the rest of his family are dead, fallen to the guillotine. And Jacques is reduced to surviving on only a fraction of the riches he was born to.”

  I managed not to point out that a man contemplating buying Kennelwood Hall is hardly to be pitied for his poverty.

  “Are you—” I hesitated. I did hate to be a damper on Caroline’s good spirits. But I said, “Are you sure it’s … wise, to go about alone with M. de La Courcelle, when we’ve only just made his acquaintance? And unchaperoned?”

  Caroline tossed her head again. “We were not unchaperoned. M. de La Courcelle’s manservant was with us, to see to the horses. There was nothing improper. Well—” She smiled a small, secret little smile, colour coming into her cheeks again. “Not much improper, at any rate.”

  Caroline certainly knows her own mind. And then, too, she is hardly likely to accept advice from me or anyone else. Still, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You will take care, won’t you Caroline? Don’t do anything reckless or hasty?”

  “Why not?” A line of temper appeared between Caroline’s brows. “I think I would rather like to be reckless and daring for a change. Besides, it’s all very well for you to talk, Georgiana. You’re monopolising the only handsome man staying at Pemberley.”

  “Mr. Folliet?” Despite myself, I could feel my cheeks colouring. “He’s very agreeable. But I don’t mean to … to monopolise him, I promise you. And besides, there’s Mr. Carter—”

  I’d hoped he and Anne might really strike up a better acquaintance, but now that my Aunt de Bourgh is up and about again, Anne seems to have lapsed into all her old ways. She’s scarcely spoken a word to anyone this last day or so.

  “Mr. Carter!” Caroline sniffed. “As if I’d want a stammering parson for a suitor!” I started to protest that Mr. Carter was very nice, and intelligent, as well, but the lines of temper on Caroline’s face only deepened. “Oh, do leave me alone, Georgiana!” she said crossly. “And stop lecturing me. Do you not think I deserve to be happy?”

  Thursday 12 May 1814

  I spoke to Elizabeth about Caroline last night. Elizabeth said she will speak to my brother Fitzwilliam about writing to Charles—that is, Charles Bingley, Caroline’s brother. He and Fitzwilliam between them will make enquiries about M. de La Courcelle.

  I suppose Caroline will be very angry with me when she finds out. But I feel much easier knowing that someone besides me is aware of her association with M. de La Courcelle. And sooner or later Elizabeth and my brother would have learned of it in any case, because this morning Caroline slipped out of the house very early, before anyone else but the servants was awake.

  She told Mrs. Reynolds, our housekeeper, that she was only going out into the garden to cut some flowers for the breakfast table. But that cannot have been true, because breakfast time came and went and there were no flowers—nor any sign of Caroline, either. She did not come back until well past one o’clock in the afternoon.

  Her dress was all stained with grass and dirt—she was wearing a white muslin with a blue sash, and every mark showed plain. But she only said that she had gone for a walk and had lost her footing and fallen. Luckily for her one of the cottagers on the estate took her in and let her rest awhile and gave her a drink of water from their well.

  She had one ankle all wrapped up in rags, just as mine was last week. The cottager had done it for her, she said.

  But she has not been limping at all. Or rather, she limps only when anyone asks her how her ankle is. And when I asked her for the family name of the cottager who had helped her—so that we could offer him and his family some suitable thanks—Caroline only looked blank and said she had not asked him for his name.

  No other news. And no word of Edward, wherever it is he has gone.

  Friday 13 May 1814

  A (small) miracle has occurred: I actually managed to drag my cousin Anne out of the house again today. I was pleased, because it seemed as though even the small amount of progress I had made with her while my aunt was ill was doomed to go to waste. But until today, I could not think of a way of prying her away from Aunt de Bourgh again—unless it was by slipping a dose of sleeping medicine or
syrup of ipecac into my aunt’s morning tea. Which might have been effective, but too unkind a trick to play, even on Aunt de Bourgh.

  It was Caroline who finally put the idea into my head with her talk of the cottager yesterday. I mightn’t believe that she encountered any such person on her walk—unless M. de La Courcelle has decided against Kennelwood Hall and bought a cottage on my brother’s estate instead.

  But there are in fact several families that I have been meaning to visit, as Mr. Jones reminded me in Lambton the other day. And this morning looked to be perfect weather for it; when I got out of bed, the morning sky outside my window was clear blue, streaked with the gold of the sunrise.

  My Aunt de Bourgh often stays abed late in the morning, on account of her sleeping so poorly at night. Often she does not come down to breakfast at all, but only takes tea and a tray of dry toast in her room.

  So first thing, as soon as I was dressed, I went along to my cousin Anne’s room. She was dressed, as well, in a morning dress of twilled olive green silk, the hem double-flounced and the sleeves ruched and the whole dripping with so many yards of lace that Anne’s slight frame was almost entirely lost to sight.

  Her lady’s maid—a young, scared-looking girl named Janet—was just brushing Anne’s hair, and Anne was saying fretfully that Janet must take care to be more gentle, else she would give Anne a headache.

  After I had told Anne good morning, I said, without any preamble, “I’m going to ask Mrs. Reynolds to make up a hamper of jellies and jars of broth so that I can take them round to the poor families in the parish. Will you come with me?”

  “Go out? And among the poor?” Anne looked at me as though I had just asked her whether she wouldn’t like to strip down to her shift and go for a roll in the home farm pig pen. “I mean, I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Which part couldn’t you possibly do?” I asked her. “Go out of the house? Or give food to those who haven’t enough to eat?”

  “Both … either. I mean, I’m sorry for them, of course.” Anne sounded sulky. “But my mother always pays tithes to our parish church at home, you know, and—”

  “There you are, then,” I interrupted her. “I’m sure your mother would approve of your extending the reach of her charitable work by visiting the poor here.”

  Anne’s eyes darted back and forth as though she were looking for some means of escape. “I … I think I might be going to have a headache,” she muttered.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Anne,” I said, exasperated. “Is that honestly how you want to spend your day today? Sitting in your room here alone and trying to decide whether you’re going to have a headache or not?”

  Without even entirely meaning to, I looked at the bedroom window, the same window I’d found Anne kneeling in front of, all those days ago.

  Anne followed my gaze—and whether it was the reminder of that day or just sheer boredom I don’t know, but she hesitated another moment then said, still sounding sulky, “All right, I’ll come. But it will be your fault if I take a chill.”

  I asked Jem to bring the horses and carriage around to the front of the house again, because some of the families I wanted to visit live too far even for me to walk, much less Anne. And we had the food hamper Mrs. Reynolds had prepared to carry, besides.

  Despite the sunshine, Anne insisted on wearing her warmest pelisse, a hideous garment made of mustard yellow velvet and lined with dark sable fur. She had a matching sable muff, as well, to tuck her hands inside. But she did get into the carriage with me without any argument—and she didn’t even complain that Jem had brought out the barouche instead of the closed carriage—and left the top on the barouche down, besides, so that we rode in the open air.

  It is only in fiction, I think, that the poor are more honest or noble than the richer classes, or that their cottages are quaint and picturesque. They are not at all.

  But I do like all the families we visited. Even the two Miss Abdy’s, who are a pair of unmarried, elderly sisters and the most prying, avid gossips in the village. Before I had left the small, rented lodgings they share over the butchers’ shop, I’d heard all about which boys had pilfered chickens from which hen yards and which husbands were spending all their week’s wages on drink at the Rose and Crown and knocking their wives down when they came home.

  Anne wouldn’t come in with me to any of the cottages, but waited in the carriage while I paid my calls and left jars of calf’s-foot jelly and jars of beef broth everywhere we stopped. Finally we came to the last name on my list, old Mrs. Tate, who lives in a tiny, down-at-heels cottage on the outskirts of Lambton. She used to make a little money selling herbs and simples to the villagers for cures. Though the rheumatism in her hands and legs has made it harder and harder for her to dig in the garden.

  And she has grown a bit forgetful, besides, so that her cures tend to be more hazardous than helpful to take. I know Mr. Broom, the village apothecary has had to be summoned to quite a number of her customers who have felt the full effects of one of her tonics.

  Mrs. Tate was outside when we drove up, and she hobbled over to the side of the barouche to greet us. She is a tiny figure, much bent and wizened, with a leathery, wrinkled face and an almost toothless mouth. She was wearing a brown skirt and bodice so ancient as to be almost worn through in places, and a blue kerchief on her head, with a few wisps of snowy white hair straying out from under the kerchief’s edges. Her eyes, though, have somehow stayed almost young-looking. They are dark dark brown, bright and keen and very shrewd.

  “And when are we going to hear the bells rung for your wedding, Miss Georgiana?” she asked me after we’d exchanged all our greetings. “Pretty girl like you must have the men round her like flies on the jam pot. Though mind”—she winked at me—“doesn’t do to give any man what he wants too easily, like. Start as you mean to go on, I say, and unless you mean to let your husband have his way all the years you’re married, don’t say ‘yes’ when he asks, ‘will you?’ right away.” She nodded her head. “I had three husbands, you know. And every one of ’em would come to heel when I called, right enough. Though”—she winked again—“of course there do be ways of keeping a man in line once you’ve wedded him that I shouldn’t speak of to a pair of unmarried misses like you. Wonderful what just the threat of separate beds will do to a man.”

  I nearly choked trying to swallow a startled gasp of laughter, and beside me I heard Anne gasp outright. Mrs. Tate smiled broadly—and toothlessly—at both of us. And when I had my voice back, I asked her how she was faring these days.

  Mrs. Tate bobbed her head and lifted a gnarled, age-spotted hand. “Ah, well, can’t complain, can’t complain. Still alive, and with a roof over my head and two sticks to make a fire on cold nights, and that’s a sight better than some in this world. And I’ve got my garden.” She nodded behind her at the tiny plot of turned earth set against the cottage’s southern wall. “Seems like a body can’t help but be happy if she’s got good, rich soil to root around in and make things grow from.” And then she peered from me to Anne. “And who’s this, then, Miss Georgiana? Friend of yours?”

  “My cousin, Anne de Bourgh,” I told her. I had assumed Anne would die of horror if I tried to introduce someone of Mrs. Tate’s lowly rank to her. But as it happened, Anne utterly shocked me by making Mrs. Tate a little half-bow, half-nod of her head and saying, “How do you do.”

  Mrs. Tate looked her up and down. “Well, now, you are a little thing, aren’t you? And kind of peaky-looking.” She peered into Anne’s face. “In a little un, I’d say the mother ought to eat a mouse every morning for a month. But someone your age … I’ll tell you what.” Mrs. Tate bobbed her head decisively again. “You come back here in a week’s time, and I’ll have a tonic made up for you of hawthorn berries. That’ll soon put some colour in your cheeks.”

  Anne actually said, “Thank you,” and Mrs. Tate smiled again, clearly pleased. “You come along, too, Miss Georgiana,” she said to me. “And I’ll show t
he both of you a love charm for catching the man of your choosing. You just bake a little cake or something sweet—with your own hands, mind—and spit in the batter while you’re stirring it up, and say the words I’ll tell you. And just like that”—she snapped two fingers together—“the man you give it to will be yours for life.”

  Anne was very quiet as we drove back towards Pemberley, and I looked at her a little anxiously. She had taken more fresh air and sun today than she likely has in this last month put together.

  “Are you feeling all right, Anne?” I asked her. “You haven’t got a headache, have you?”

  “Just don’t try to tell my mother that she ought to eat mice for breakfast,” Anne said.

  I looked at her, astonished. Because in all the years I have known Anne, I have never known her to make a joke. I was not even certain she was making one now.

  Anne was smiling, though—so she had indeed meant to be funny. Then she said, “Will you let me come back here again with you?”

  “To Mrs. Tate’s?” I asked. I was surprised. “Why? For the hawthorn berry tonic?”

  “Actually it was the trick of spitting into a cake-batter love charm that I wanted to learn,” Anne said, with a perfectly straight face.

  And then we both started to laugh. When Anne had finally stopped, she wiped her eyes with the edge of her fur muff and said, a little hesitantly, “No, really, Georgiana, I would like to come out with you again. To all of the families you saw. May I, the next time you go to visit them?”

  So actually I suppose that makes two miracles that occurred today.

  Saturday 14 May 1814

  The Herrons and Miss Maria came to a dinner party here tonight; the reciprocal visit in thanks for their hospitality last week. M. de La Courcelle was invited, too.

  Elizabeth came to my room while I was dressing to tell me that M. de La Courcelle would be present. She looked even lovelier than usual in a new gown, a peach silk with an overdress of ivory net, trimmed all round the hem with deep pink satin rosebuds.

  When she told me about M. de La Courcelle, I asked her whether she was certain that was wise. Elizabeth frowned, unusually serious. “Your brother wants the chance to speak with him and know him better,” she said. “Darcy is an excellent judge of character”—she smiled fleetingly—“his tendency towards hasty first impressions aside.” Then she sobered. “No one here has any authority over Caroline,” she said. “We can write to her brother, but their parents are dead, and she’s a grown woman. We can’t forbid her to see M. de La Courcelle. And she can leave Pemberley at any time if she doesn’t like it here. Much better to give her legitimate chances for seeing M. de La Courcelle. Flouting convention is all very well, but she may do herself serious harm if she keeps slipping off to see him in secret.”

  Elizabeth is right, of course. And as it happened, M. de La Courcelle and Caroline were together for very little of the evening.

  With Edward gone, Maria was forced to devote her attentions to Mr. Folliet and M. de La Courcelle equally, chattering to them, asking them to dance with her in turns.

  That sounds spiteful now that I have written it down—though it did not in my head. Words are strange that way, aren’t they? Your own thoughts can sound unfamiliar and strange when they are out there, spoken in the world, as though they have taken on a life of their own.

  But I do like Maria Herron, actually. There was real friendliness and warmth in her greeting to me—and she’d brought both Elizabeth and me little gifts, as well, of needle cases she had sewn herself. I told her I would make a drawing of her in return, and she seemed truly thrilled.

  M. de La Courcelle, when he was not with Maria, was making himself agreeable to the rest of the party. He is very charming, I suppose. I had offered to play the pianoforte so that the others might dance, and M. de La Courcelle came over to me and bowed over my hand, clicking his heels together smartly. “But why should a young lady so charming as yourself be consigned to spend the evening here, slaving at the keyboard to entertain us all? Surely your sister-in-law so agréable would favour us with her playing so that you may dance instead of work.”

  I had a French governess when I was small—and of course, we were taught French at school. So I smiled and said, in his own tongue, “Le travail éloigne de nous trois grands maux: l’ennui, le vice et le besoin.” Meaning, of course, Work delivers us from three great evils: boredom, vice and want.

  M. de La Courcelle looked at me blankly for a moment. Then he said, “Ah, but alas, chère Mademoiselle, I have sworn never again to speak the language of the land that has betrayed me and broken my heart.” He clapped a hand to his breast. “From now on, I speak the good King’s English alone. The English of my adopted home. Though I assure you”—he took my hand again—“if anything could rekindle my love for my mother tongue, it would be to hear it on the lips of you, Mademoiselle Darcy.”

  I was tempted to ask him for more details about the Revolution, out of a sort of morbid curiosity to see whether he could turn talk of the guillotines, too, into extravagant compliments. But I only smiled and nodded, and he left me with another low bow.

  I suppose a French aristocrat might not be expected to appreciate quotations about the value of work.

  After that, M. de La Courcelle devoted himself to my Aunt de Bourgh. He seemed to be laying himself out to be especially charming to her. So charming, indeed, that I wondered for a moment whether he had made a mistake in the relationships and thought that Caroline was my aunt’s niece or daughter. Or whether he had decided to abandon Caroline entirely and make a play for Anne.

  Caroline has a fortune of her own, but it is nothing to the inheritance Anne will have. And if what Caroline told me about M. de La Courcelle’s reduced fortunes is true, I cannot imagine he would not prefer to have Anne’s.

  Which also sounds spiteful. I suppose I should not be biased against him. For all I know, M. de La Courcelle may be sincerely attached to Caroline.

  But he did devote himself very attentively to my Aunt de Bourgh. He sat beside her throughout the latter half of the dancing, and must have spent a quarter of an hour at least adjusting the fire screen to her liking. Though the days have been warm, the nights are chilly, still, and my aunt has insisted on fires in the grate every night since she recovered from her cold.

  I should have thought she would have small patience with M. de La Courcelle’s heel clicking and hand kissing, but she actually seemed to enjoy his company. They spoke together for quite some little time, and twice at least I saw Aunt de Bourgh smile at something M. de La Courcelle had said. Which is doubly surprising, because—as I suppose I might have expected—my aunt has not been in the best of tempers since Sir John Huntington’s departure.

  I have not told Aunt de Bourgh that I outright refused Sir John. I’m despising myself for cowardice even writing this. But she was furious enough about his departure already without my telling her the whole tale. She has of course realised that a match between us is not likely, though, and has told me several times in freezing tones that it must surely be my fault.

  And then I compounded the sin by taking Anne out with me yesterday.

  Aunt de Bourgh read me a little lecture on the subject yesterday evening, of which the words feckless, hoydenish behaviour were the mildest terms she used to describe what I had done.

  Since she usually lectures me for being too shy, I could have pointed out that I can’t be a wallflower and a hoyden, both. But I doubt it would have served any purpose except to make her angrier still.

  And as much as I may indeed despise myself for cowardice, my hands felt clammy at the thought of prolonging the scene with her.

  At least M. de La Courcelle’s attentions to Aunt de Bourgh tonight left Anne free for much of the evening. Aunt de Bourgh didn’t even order Anne to bed when the clock chimed nine.

  I saw Mr. Carter go over to Anne and ask her if she would care to dance. Anne hesitated, then darted a quick glance at her mo
ther’s back—Aunt de Bourgh was facing away from the dance floor—and regretfully shook her head. Mr. Carter sat down beside her, though, and stayed there talking with her all the rest of the night.

  They were sitting near the pianoforte, so that I was nearer to them than anyone else in the room, and I overheard Mr. Carter say, when I was taking out some new music to play, “I’m m-m-much obliged to you, Miss de Bourgh, and so are all the partners whose feet I would have stepped on if I’d joined in the dance.” And then he coloured. “I’m afraid that came out wrong. I didn’t mean to imply that I was merely looking for an excuse not to dance. I … I enjoyed talking to you very much, Miss de Bourgh.”

  And then I realised that I was nearly falling off the pianoforte bench trying to overhear Anne’s reply. I could not catch all the words, but I think it was something like, “Thank you, Mr. Carter. I’ve enjoyed your company, as well.”

  Monday 16 May 1814

  There was a letter this morning for my brother from Edward; I saw it lying beside Fitzwilliam’s plate on the breakfast table when I came down. But I have scarcely had time to think of it or even wonder about what he said.

  I am sure Aunt de Bourgh would hardly be pleased at my regarding what has happened in terms of my own inconvenience. Though—something else I would not have expected—I really am very sorry for her.

  I would be even more sorry for her if she had not upset the servants so much. Joan, one of the chamber maids, just came into my room to draw the curtains and rake out the fire in the grate, and she was still sniffling and red-eyed. Though at least the house is quiet, now that the physician has been and given Aunt de Bourgh something to make her sleep. I would not have believed it possible in a place as spacious as Pemberley, but all the morning, the entire place seemed to echo with my aunt’s screams.

  But I’ve just re-read what I’ve written so far, and I seem to be making no sense at all. I suppose the morning’s events have left everyone off balance.

  I had just come down to breakfast—and recognised Edward’s hand on the topmost letter in my brother’s pile of morning messages—when a high, keening scream sounded from one of the bedrooms upstairs.

  I was sure someone must have been hurt, though I could not tell who. I couldn’t recognise the voice, and even when I’d run upstairs and found that the screams were coming from my Aunt de Bourgh’s room, I couldn’t believe it was she who was making such an outcry, for I’d never heard my aunt sound like that before.

  The door was half open, so I went inside, and found my brother and Elizabeth there before me, one on either side of Aunt de Bourgh. She was still screaming. Though now that I was inside the room, I could make out a few words. “Theft! Robbery! My pearls!”

  Elizabeth put an arm around her. For all Aunt de Bourgh has always been so horrible to her, Elizabeth was as kind as could be. She asked me to run down and fetch a glass of brandy, and once I had brought it back, she put it to my aunt’s lips and coaxed her to drink.

  “That’s right,” Elizabeth murmured, when Aunt de Bourgh had taken a few swallows from the glass and her ragged breathing had slowed. “Now, please try to tell us what’s the matter.”

  My aunt had recovered herself at least a little by that time, for she shrugged off Elizabeth’s touch and spoke to my brother.

  “You must search the servants’ quarters at once!” Her voice was quivering, though with anger, not tears. “I demand it. And see that they are questioned, too. I have never liked the look of that chamber maid—the girl who comes in the mornings to start the fire. She has a sly, insolent look in her eyes.”

  That is poor Joan, who is a truly sweet, good-hearted girl, but born a little simple in her wits, so that she is more like a child of five than a woman of twenty or twenty-one. Her worst enemy—though I cannot imagine her even having one—would not call her sly.

  My brother raised his eyebrows, but said, very patiently, “If you could just tell us what all this is about, Aunt?”

  Aunt de Bourgh drew in a long breath and took another swallow of the brandy and then did finally consent to explain.

  It seems that when they spoke last night, M. de La Courcelle admired a pearl and garnet ring that my aunt was wearing. He’s something of an expert on antique jewellery, or so Aunt de Bourgh said. Before the revolution, he was making a study of the many historic jewels that had been passed down in his family. Though now that the collection has been almost entirely lost, he makes a hobby of studying and sketching any jewels of particular history or interest he comes across.

  Since he had admired the ring so much, Aunt de Bourgh thought to show him the pearl necklace that is part of the same matched set, one that has been in her family since it was made for a distant ancestress during the reign of Charles I. But when my aunt opened her jewellery box this morning to take out the pearl necklace, she found it gone.

  “Some good-for-nothing, dishonest wretch has clearly stolen it,” she finished, holding out the empty velvet pouch where the pearls were kept. “So I demand you organise a search of the house. The necklace must still be here—there has not been time for the culprit to have made an escape.”

  I had been standing by the door, and I am not sure my aunt even realised fully that I was in the room. But I said, “You think the necklace was taken by one of the servants, Aunt?”

  Aunt de Bourgh sniffed and drew her brows together. “Of course. One can never entirely trust members of that class. The chamber maid—”

  I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have spoken out of turn in my aunt’s presence, still less ventured to interrupt her. She has a way of fixing you with a look that seems to stab clear through to the bone, and always makes me feel as though the words were rocks lodged in my throat.

  At least it’s not only me. I remember her lawyer, Mr. Evens, visiting her once when I was at Rosings Park. He is a silver-haired gentleman, very stately and dignified, and Aunt de Bourgh reduced him almost to tears.

  Still, I broke in to say, “Have you searched the room? Surely it’s possible you may only have misplaced the necklace?”

  Aunt de Bourgh gave me a withering look and sniffed again. “You may search the room if you wish, Georgiana. I am going to demand of your brother that he interrogate his servants and search their quarters. I want no door or drawer left unopened until my pearls are found!”

  Elizabeth and I hunted about the bedroom together while my brother continued to speak with my aunt and rang the bell to summon Mrs. Reynolds. Elizabeth was still very calm and collected as we looked behind the big clothes press and opened drawers and even looked under the bed. But she looked worried, all the same, with an anxious furrow between her brows.

  “What are we going to do if the necklace really has been stolen, Georgiana?” she asked me. “It will be horrible enough if it really was one of the servants. But even worse if the necklace can’t be found and they all of them have to go about with the suspicion of the crime attached to them.”

  I had not any answer to that—I have not still. And all our searching of my aunt’s bedroom turned up only dust and an old, chipped button that must have broken off someone’s dress and rolled under the bed.

  By the time we were finished, Mrs. Reynolds had answered my brother’s summons. She was splendid. She faced Aunt de Bourgh without flinching and said that there wasn’t a single servant on staff here at Pemberley whose character she wouldn’t vouch for. My brother said the same, but said that since he wasn’t going to have any doubts cast on his servants’ honesty, he would see that the search my aunt demanded was made, if only to prove her wrong.

  Which I suppose it did. Prove her wrong, I mean, for the servant’s wing has been searched, and all the other rooms of the house besides, and there’s still no sign of my aunt’s pearls.

  I think my aunt would have liked to go on raging at the servants herself, but my brother stopped her and told her she was only upsetting herself and should retire to her room while he summoned
the physician.

  And that was when I did start to feel sorry—truly sorry—for Aunt de Bourgh. Those pearls have been in her family for generations, and she was very proud of them. And maybe their being stolen isn’t much of a tragedy in the larger scheme of things, but it is a tragedy to her. And one that Aunt de Bourgh has been ill-prepared to meet, since she is so accustomed to always being able to order the world to her own specifications.

  I remember Edward once vowing—and I do not even think he was teasing me—that he once heard Aunt de Bourgh say in the summertime that she was most displeased by the lack of rain and would have to speak to someone about it. And Edward laughed and said that he assumed by ‘someone’ she meant God, and that he could just see Aunt de Bourgh including a stern lecture on the summer weather in her evening prayers.

  I’m not sure I am explaining myself very well. It’s just that it seems to me that what is a terrible hardship to one person may seem trivially small to another, but that does not necessarily make the hardship any the less hard to bear for the one who suffers it.

  Elizabeth and I both went with Aunt de Bourgh to her room and helped her to unlace her stays and lie down while we waited for the physician to arrive. And she really had exhausted herself with anger, because she scarcely protested at all. Her face was all grey-tinged and her mouth drooped, and she looked ten years older than she had at dinner last night.

  After Mr. Roberts, the physician, had come and given my aunt a dose of laudanum, I offered to sit with her until she fell asleep. But Elizabeth shook her head.

  “You had better see if you can go and soothe down the servants, Georgiana” she said. “They’ve all known you for far longer than they have me. And we don’t want them all giving notice and leaving because of this upset.”

  Aunt de Bourgh was almost asleep, her eyes half-closed, but she still murmured fretfully and turned her head against the pillow. Elizabeth put a hand on my aunt’s forehead and spoke softly and soothingly until she quieted.

  My brother had come into the room to see how my aunt did, and he put an arm around Elizabeth, kissed her forehead, and said, “You’re an angel. You know that?”

  Elizabeth leaned against him, but then she smiled and said, “Oh, no. Impudent and headstrong as ever. I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security, that’s all.”

  I did speak to the servants and assured them that we didn’t suspect any of them of wrongdoing. Except—my aunt’s necklace is missing. And who did take it?

  My brother questioned everyone in the house, and I asked a few questions of Mrs. Reynolds and the upstairs maids, too. But no one seems to have seen anything; no one observed an intruder creeping into my aunt’s chambers or anything of that kind. My aunt could not remember definitely when she last saw the necklace. It was kept inside the velvet pouch, which was kept inside her jewellery box. And the velvet pouch was left behind, so that she may not have realised the pearls were gone for some days.

  But she thinks that she last opened the pouch and saw the pearls sometime before—

  Oh. Oh my.

  I remember once I was standing in the morning room during an autumn storm. The force of the gale blew the garden door open when I was standing in front of it and hit me with an icy gust of rain.

  The idea that’s struck me as I sit here writing this now felt just the same.

  I think I may know exactly who stole Aunt de Bourgh’s pearls.

  The only trouble is that now I am going to have to nerve myself to tell Aunt de Bourgh.

  Tuesday 17 May 1814

  I have done it.

  I went to my aunt’s room first thing this morning and told her my theory about who had stolen her pearls. I may be a coward about defying Aunt de Bourgh—but I could not let suspicion fall on an innocent person. And I must say, my aunt took the news far better than I had expected she might.

  She was sitting up in bed when I entered, still in her nightdress and lace cap. Beneath the cap, her hair still hung down in its nighttime braids. Her eyes were still a little heavy, I suppose with the effects of the laudanum, and just for that moment, I could see a fleeting glimpse of how she must have looked when she was young. She must have been very handsome.

  Then she straightened and rapped out a “Well, Georgiana?” and the impression shattered.

  I drew in my breath and willed myself not to sound nervous while I told her the whole of the episode of Sir John’s proposal. Every unpleasant detail; I forced myself to leave nothing out.

  “He said, at the last, I’ll show you who’s a fool,” I finished. “And I may of course be wrong. But I think Sir John was the one who stole your pearls, Aunt. You said yesterday that you’d last seen the pearls on the night before Sir John’s departure from Pemberley. I think he must have slipped into your room sometime on the morning he left and taken your necklace as a means of revenge on both of us. Me for refusing him, and you for …” I stopped, trying to think of a way to put it that would not give offence. “For encouraging him to propose,” I finally finished.

  I had braced myself for anger, recriminations, even renewed screams—in short, for my aunt to hold me to blame for the loss of her pearls.

  Instead she listened in silence, then when I had finished, she nodded her head decidedly. “You were quite right to refuse him, Georgiana,” she said. “Such manners! Such low-breeding. I had expected better things from Old Sir John Huntington’s son. However,” she pushed back the coverlet and sat up straighter. “However, I shall write his mother a strongly-worded letter about her son’s behaviour. You may fetch me my writing box, Georgiana. I will have the letter ready to mail by breakfast time, and one of your brother’s menservants may take it into town to be mailed without delay.” A small, grim smile touched the edges of her mouth, “Lady Arianna Huntington is an old acquaintance of mine. I make no doubt she will see to it that her son returns my pearls without delay. She will make his life unfit for living until he does.”

  Aunt de Bourgh’s letter has now been written and safely posted. I’ve had the occasional small twinge of conscience for fear I am mistaken, and Sir John didn’t take the pearls after all. But then, I suppose Sir John is more than capable of defending himself if he is innocent. And to be honest, if I am right and he is guilty, I am relieved to have the matter so easily resolved.

  Without mentioning names—because of course we do not have definite proof of Sir John’s guilt—my brother gave the servants to understand that they were not under suspicion. He asked them not to speak of the theft, but some of them must have, for M. de La Courcelle came to pay a call this afternoon. He had heard of the theft in town from the barman at the Rose and Crown and come at once to pay his condolences on my aunt’s so-grievous loss, or so he said.

  “Ah, chère Madame,” he said, bowing low over Aunt de Bourgh’s hand. “What courage you have in the face of such a blow. Truly, you are an inspiration to any of us poor mortals who have suffered at the hands of Fate.”

  Elizabeth and I were sitting with my aunt in the drawing room during M. de La Courcelle’s call, and I did not dare even glance in Elizabeth’s direction for fear she would make me start to laugh. Aunt de Bourgh inclined her head and thanked M. de La Courcelle very graciously, though.

  I wonder why he really came to call.

  Though maybe I am being unfair again. Maybe M. de La Courcelle is simply one of those unfortunate people who sound like frauds even when they’re being perfectly sincere.

  He can’t have come to see Caroline—or at least I don’t think he can, since he did not seem disappointed in the slightest to hear she had gone out. Caroline had persuaded Mr. Carter and Mr. Folliet to walk into Lambton with her, I am sure in the hopes of seeing M. de La Courcelle. She, on the other hand, will be wild with disappointment when she learns that he actually came to Pemberley while she was gone.

  Oh, and I very nearly forgot. I finally managed to speak to my brother and ask what news Edward had sent in his letter. But there was nothing, re
ally, of note. Edward hasn’t yet succeeded in finding Mr. Merryweather’s son. But he hopes to have settled the matter in time to return for the ball at Pemberley in two weeks.

  Wednesday 18 May 1814

  Have I mentioned the intended ball yet? I suppose perhaps I have not. Without entirely meaning to, I have been avoiding even thinking about the subject, much less writing about it.

  My aunt insists that my brother and Elizabeth give a ball here at Pemberley in my honour. I have never had a grand ball to mark my entrance into society, she says, though I was presented at Court last year.

  Of course, my brother would have refused if I had asked him to. But it seemed too selfish and ungrateful to refuse when he was offering to host a ball just for my pleasure. I know he is not over-fond of such occasions, but for my sake he was perfectly willing to host one here at Pemberley. And then, too, I knew Elizabeth would love the idea of a ball here, because it gives her a chance to invite her parents and younger sisters to stay.

  She misses Kitty and Mary a great deal now that she lives so far apart from them. And Kitty, of course, is already engaged to be married. But I know Elizabeth would like to give her sister Mary the chance of finding a match, as well.

  And even her father, who is decidedly not over-fond of travelling, would be forced to make the journey to Pemberley for an occasion like a ball. I think Elizabeth misses her father most of all.

  At any rate, I agreed to a ball being given here in two weeks. Though I confess I’m dreading it more than looking forward to the night.

  I do love dancing. I even like going to balls. It’s just the thought of one being given in my honour … of so many eyes being on me throughout the evening … of having to talk to so many people I don’t know very well, and having the whole assembly of guests look on while I lead in the first dance that makes me feel ice-cold.

  But none of this is actually the reason I set out to write about the ball today. It was because I found my cousin Anne crying this morning.

  I had got up and gone downstairs earlier than usual so that I might spend an hour or two practising the pianoforte. But when I opened the door to the music room, I heard a rustle of fabric and a quick, unevenly drawn breath. My heart jumped, for I was remembering the loss of my aunt’s pearls and thought that perhaps there had been an intruder, after all—and now the intruder had returned.

  But then I saw my cousin Anne, curled up on a chair in a corner of the room with her eyes red and her face all splotchy and tear-stained.

  “Why, Anne, whatever is the matter?” I asked her. “Are you ill?”

  Anne shook her head and scrubbed furiously at her eyes. “No.” Her voice was a ragged whisper. “No. I’m not ill. Just … just go away, Georgiana. I’m perfectly well.”

  Perhaps a month ago, I might have gone away as she asked. But not now. Instead I dragged the pianoforte bench over and sat down beside her. “You don’t look perfectly well to me,” I said. “Please, Anne. Won’t you tell me what’s wrong? Maybe there’s something I can do to help.”

  Anne stiffened and for a moment I thought she was going to order me away again. But then her thin shoulders drooped and she brushed again at her cheeks. “Very well. I’ll tell you.” Her head lifted, and she blinked angrily at me, her eyes still swimming. “And then you can laugh at me for being so foolish. I want to dance at the ball.”

  I was startled. But Anne’s voice had broken on a fresh burst of crying, so I put my hand on her arm. “I don’t think that’s foolish,” I said. “But I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t you dance at the ball if you want to?”

  Anne looked down at the floor again, and said, her voice so low and uneven I scarcely heard her. “I don’t know how to dance.”

  “You don’t—”

  “No! I don’t know how to dance. I never learned.” A bitter note crept into Anne’s tone. “My mother wouldn’t hear of it—she said it would be too taxing for me and that I mustn’t tire myself with trying.”

  “Let me teach you, then.”

  Anne’s head lifted again and she looked at me in astonishment. “What?”

  I had spoken on impulse, without stopping to think. And because the thought of Anne, twenty-eight years old and never summoning the will to insist on learning to dance had made my skin prickle with a sudden chill.

  But it seemed more and more possible, even when I considered the idea. “Let me teach you,” I said. “We’ve thirteen days until the ball is held. I’m sure I can teach you at least some of the more common figures in that time.”

  Anne was still blinking at me, and I could see the indecision wavering behind her reddened eyes. “Well,” she said.

  “Come.” I stood up and held out my hand to her. “We’ve an hour before anyone is likely to come into this part of the house. I’ll teach you the figures for a quadrille first. If you can master that, you can master them all.”

  To my surprise, Anne actually agreed—I had thought it would take far more persuading than that. But she stood up and followed my instructions as we went through the steps. Coupe balote, glissade, pas de basque, and all the rest.

  We went through the quadrille three times, and Anne did very well—which also surprised me, though I tried not to let it show. She is actually very graceful when she isn’t huddling up under rugs and shawls. And she did not even seem tired at the end, only a little out of breath and flushed.

  “Meet me here again tomorrow morning at the same time,” I told Anne when we parted, “and I’ll teach you the steps to the cotillion.”

  And Anne agreed to that, as well.

  Thursday 19 May 1814

  Mr. Folliet has been enlisted into helping with Anne’s dancing lessons. I realised yesterday afternoon that Anne would need to practice with music before she is truly ready to dance at a ball. And since I cannot partner her and play the pianoforte at the same time—and since I do not really know the men’s part of the dances very well in any case—I spoke to Mr. Folliet last night after dinner.

  My aunt had retired to her room to write letters, so she said. I think she intends on writing her lawyer, Sir John’ Huntington’s mother—and likely anyone else she can think of—every day until she secures the return of her pearls. And Caroline had gone to her room, as well. With a headache, so she said.

  Elizabeth was playing and singing for us, and my brother had eyes only for her. Anne and Mr. Carter were speaking quietly together.

  And I drew Mr. Folliet to the windows. “If I ask a favour of you,” I began, “will you promise me not to speak of it to anyone else?” And then realising that sounded more than a little forward, I hurried on, “It’s not a favour for myself—at least, not really. And it’s nothing improper, I promise you.”

  One of Mr. Folliet’s eyebrows rose, but he smiled a little and said, “I assure you, the possibility of any impropriety never even entered my mind. And how could I refuse a request as intriguing as this one?” He placed a hand over his heart and made me a little bow. “I promise you, tell me whatever it is you need, and my lips are sealed.”

  “Oh, thank you!” I let out a breath of relief. “That’s why I asked you. I knew you could be depended on. It’s my cousin Anne. She wishes to learn to dance.”

  Both Mr. Folliet’s eyebrows went up this time. But he listened while I explained the whole to him. And when I had finished he assured me gravely that he would happily join Anne and me in the music room—risking Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s displeasure and his toes being trodden on—so that my cousin might have the pleasure of dancing at the ball.

  For all his good-natured teasing, Mr. Folliet did come to the music room this morning. Actually he was there even before Anne and myself, already waiting when we went down. Wearing his evening pumps instead of boots, which was very foresightful. And he was utterly kind and patient with Anne in leading her through the steps of both the cotillion and the quadrille, while I played the piano for them.

  We practised for over an hour, and when we had finished, Mr. Folli
et bowed and said to Anne, “You are a natural dancer, Miss de Bourgh. If you’ll permit me to say so.”

  Anne’s cheeks were already flushed with the exercise, but they went pinker still at the compliment. She stammered out a shy thanks, and then Mr. Folliet said, “There’s a masquerade ball to be held at the Lambton assembly rooms in two days’ time. What do you think of attending?” He looked from me to Anne. “Both of you. It would give Miss de Bourgh the chance of practising in company. And anonymously. More or less. All those in attendance will be masked.”

  Anne’s jaw dropped open at the very thought of attending such a function. “I don’t know … that is, I’m not sure …”

  I had not really expected her to say yes; I was astonished that we had managed to draw her into dancing in the privacy of the music room.

  Mr. Folliet only said, though, that we needn’t decide at once, and could make up our minds tomorrow.

  I haven’t done much sketching of late. But here are Anne and Mr. Folliet, going through the steps of the quadrille.

 

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