“Billing must manage with Rachel’s assistance,” said Elizabeth. “After a day or two Mason will be able to give some help with her needle. How has Rachel been behaving of late?”
“I have had no more complaints of her, ma’am, and I do begin to think a little better of her, if only her looks were more modest. After you spoke to her, and so kind as you were, she seemed to improve.”
“I am not yet perfectly satisfied that she is a reformed character,” said Elizabeth gravely. “Her attendance upon me will give me an opportunity of observing her. I feel a special responsibility towards that girl which I cannot go into now, Reynolds. However, you may remember the circumstances of her coming into our service. At this moment I have no time to say more than that I rely on you to acquaint Billing of the temporary arrangement.”
As soon as Reynolds had gone, Elizabeth went in search of Georgiana and Kitty with the idea of telling them what had happened. At this time of morning the girls were usually to be found with the rest of the party in the hall where plans for the day would be devised, talked over and arranged to accord one with the other. On this occasion Mrs. Gardiner and Jane, Mr. Bennet and Bingley were gathered at the farther end of the hall looking through a window, Kitty was nowhere to be seen, and Georgiana stood apart by herself deep in thought and lost to all that was going on around her.
In curiosity to know what was engaging the attention of the group at the window Elizabeth first moved in that direction. Turning round at her approach, Mrs. Gardiner told her that Kitty was walking in the park with Mortimer.
“Jane and I caught sight of them,” she said, “and really they do make a pretty promising couple.”
“It seems a shame to watch them,” said Jane, “but perhaps at such a distance as this they would not mind.”
Elizabeth’s private opinion was that Kitty would have not the least objection. Drawing near the window she saw the interesting pair for herself as they walked slowly up a grassy slope, keeping to the shade cast by a line of great trees. Mortimer was bending towards Kitty in the very attitude of making a declaration, while Kitty hung her head as bashfully as a young girl should in so delicate a situation.
“It will really be an excellent match for Kitty,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “He is a very good young man, though perhaps not as clever as some. But then to live at Clopwell Priory! I have taken a wager with your father that they will come back engaged.”
“And quite time too,” said Mr. Bennet. “Of all things I do detest the worst is a long-drawn-out courtship while your shy and timorous swain works up his courage to the proposing point. What have they been waiting for all these days? Mortimer must know he is caught.”
“For shame, Papa,” exclaimed Elizabeth half-laughing, but apprehensive too of what he might say next.
“I do not agree with you at all, my dear,” he replied coolly. “There is no shame in any natural process such as procuring a husband. It is every young woman’s proper business and the sooner she accomplishes it the better. For that I have the highest authority—your mother.”
“I am sure,” cried Jane, “Kitty would never marry unless her heart prompted her.”
“Fiddlestick, my love. You would not perhaps, and that is as much as you can say. Consider the example of Charlotte Collins, and her sister Maria Lucas, and a lot of others I could name. What has prompted them? Nothing but the desire of being married. For that any man will do.”
“Very true, sir,” said Bingley, “but Jane will never believe you. She lives in a world where folly and wickedness occur, but never in any of her friends.”
“Well, Jane, be happy in your own way,” said her father. “For my part any young man who takes a daughter off my hands is an object of gratitude. Now there will be only Mary to settle in life.”
“Then it is a pity you did not bring her where there were still two unattached young men,” said his son-in-law.
“I am certain Acworth would not have bestowed a single glance at her after the first. If ever there was a connoisseur of female beauty, it is that young gentleman.”
“You might have had better hopes of Wakeford, then. I do not think he would consider it proper in a wife to be very pretty.”
“Charles,” cried Jane, really scandalised, “how can you?”
“Oh, my dear, there is no harm in a joke which everybody understands.”
“Everybody may understand it, but it does not follow that it is in good taste.”
“There is nevertheless some sense in what Bingley has said,” observed Mr. Bennet seriously. “Wakeford is evidently one of those puritanical persons who sees danger in delight and perversity in beauty. He would regard a handsome woman as a temptation to be resisted. But then—for I suspect that like all puritans he has strong passions—though he resisted he might fall.”
“I agree with Jane that in charity one should not discuss the absent,” said Elizabeth quietly, for mention of Wakeford recalling Georgiana’s presence in the hall, she felt for the embarrassment or worse that any further stroke of unconsidered speech might inflict on tender nerves. She turned after speaking to look for Georgiana, but she had gone—to her room probably to practise. Having still to inform her about Mason’s accident and the new arrangement of sharing maids, she quitted the hall and went upstairs after her.
Georgiana was discovered walking up and down the room with her hands tightly locked together and staring before her with a look of such anguish that Elizabeth was struck dumb with amazement and dismay. For a moment or two they gazed at one another. On trying to pronounce her sister’s name Elizabeth found her lips trembling. Georgiana seemed turned to stone, but suddenly she was so overcome that she burst into sobs which racked her frame. Elizabeth stood quietly beside her, knowing that until she had wept awhile she would not speak; but by a touch, a gently uttered word, she strove to soothe her.
“What is the matter?” she murmured. “Tell me if you wish to—if you can. I long to help you.”
At last Georgiana said brokenly, “I do wish to tell you, Elizabeth. It is all so dreadful that I thought I never could—and yet I must. I can bear it no longer.”
Stammering and confused, at times incoherent and barely comprehensible, she told her story, but Elizabeth, her faculties stretched to the utmost, began at last to piece it together into an intelligible sequence of events.
On Major Wakeford’s coming to Pemberley Georgiana had at first shrunk from him less on account of his austerity of manner and speech than because of his crippled and maimed condition. Her solitary pursuits had preserved some childishness of thought which, with her extreme sensibility, made her regard such misfortune as she witnessed for the first time as dreadful and beyond possibility of mitigation. Major Wakeford was an object of pity, but more of awe, and for some time she could not overcome her shyness of him. Then as he gradually regained the use of his leg and began to enter into the life around him, her fear of him diminished and she found herself talking to him as naturally as to anyone else in the house and taking some pleasure in his society. His reserve, too, began to melt; he would seek her out of his own accord and converse of things in which she avowed an interest. They discovered tastes in common—a love of all natural objects, of birds and beasts, and all the varieties of vegetation, of the light and sparkle of running water and the silken surface of a lake. In exploring each other’s minds they drew insensibly nearer, without any of the constraint that so often marks the intercourse of two persons of the opposite sex in the course of mutual attraction.
Elizabeth imagined that Wakeford did not suspect himself of harbouring any feeling towards Georgiana but that of brotherly affection, and perhaps—though a doubt did remain in her mind—it was no more. But in his esteem she had risen high; he admired her for her gentleness, her modesty and seriousness as well as for her accomplishments, and she probably inspired in him the idea of an almost flawless character. Such men seeking moral perf
ection and persuaded that it can be found do exist, and Wakeford was one of them.
Then suddenly all was changed. A difference in Wakeford’s manner became discernible from the evening when Georgiana and Acworth had performed their duet. Thence-forward he ceased to address her except in observing the forms of civility, and no longer approached her voluntarily as he had been used to do. Georgiana was first surprised, then hurt; she searched her conscience for any cause of offence, and finding nothing to repent of, almost resolved to ask him what she had done to displease him. But no opportunity came her way and her courage was not equal to making one. Not only her courage, but her confidence in herself failed her; she felt powerless against his set purpose of shunning her society.
At last, however, they met one day by chance in the picture-gallery. Wakeford instantly made a movement of withdrawal, but Georgiana, rendered desperate, stood in his path and impulsively uttered the question she had so often rehearsed in secret. He replied awkwardly that she was mistaken—he was not in the least offended, having indeed no cause. “Then why do you avoid me?” she demanded next. He seemed to hesitate, she related, whether to answer or not, and while he delayed, Mr. Bennet appeared at the entrance to the gallery and came strolling through it, as he often did, to admire his daughter Elizabeth’s portrait. The matter was thus decided; nothing further could be said between them, and covered with confusion at having betrayed herself unavailingly she got away as quickly as she could.
The nature of her self-betrayal was never explicitly stated, but Elizabeth understood well enough that she had discovered herself to be in love with Wakeford. No other inference was possible. Wakeford, modest though he was, must have guessed as much, and from a scrupulous sense of honour had acted in such a manner as to discourage any hopes of requital.
She had leisure for these reflections; for Georgiana broke down and wept again, and it was some minutes before she could go on. Nothing further had happened until the day of the expedition to Clopwell. At mention of Clopwell Elizabeth was moved to ask how Acworth had behaved in the attic. She was unable to collect much more than she had heard and observed for herself, for Georgiana had scarcely heeded him in the unceasing flow of her own wretched thoughts, and had imputed whatever was strange or even preposterous to the habitual extravagance of his speech when alone with her. Acworth in her opinion was on the whole a pitiful figure of a man.
“I am sorry for him,” she said. “He has great gifts but no proper means of using them. I do not think he intends any harm at all to anyone; but he makes enemies. It is his constant theme that he is so often misunderstood.”
“He invites misunderstanding,” said Elizabeth dryly.
Georgiana went on to describe the scene when her brother and Major Wakeford burst into the attic and Elizabeth had fainted. Her brother had been wholly occupied in attending to his wife; Wakeford had avoided looking directly at Georgiana, but she felt him to be very angry, and the knowledge of having exposed herself to his disapprobation and contempt made her utterly miserable. The rest of the day—the return home in the rain, Lady Catherine’s unexpected arrival, the necessity of appearing her usual self throughout the evening made all seem like a bad dream. She passed a sleepless night.
The next day she came downstairs to breakfast hardly knowing how to support the ordeal of being in the same room with Wakeford. On quitting the breakfast-parlour she was pursued by Kitty and, unable to shake her off, had to listen to a stream of chatter about Mortimer. In the course of comparing him to other young men—greatly, of course, to their disadvantage—Kitty embarked on a tirade against Wakeford for his silence, his gloom, his assumption of moral superiority to everyone else and a host of other unamiable qualities. Georgiana defended him, and this led to an exchange in which Kitty’s incautious tongue ran away with her. She said as usual a great deal to no purpose, but among other opinions without rational foundation she asserted that Wakeford was in love with Georgiana, and having become jealous of her apparent preference for Acworth, was now sulking.
Kitty may or may not have been serious; she may have said what she did to raise a laugh, but the idea of such jealousy having never before been conceived by Georgiana, it made a powerful impression on her mind as affording an explanation of everything that had distressed and perplexed her. A light was thrown upon words, looks and actions which had been incomprehensible at the time, but now arose in her mind to confirm the flattering supposition. Among the more trivial details thus recalled, the circumstance of being found alone with Acworth in the attic at Clopwell gained an importance not to be dismissed. It must have given material support to the view that Acworth was to be favoured.
Hope dawned once more, for a cause having been assigned to the misunderstanding, it could now be set right. She had seen Wakeford quit the house after breakfast and walk off into the rain; from an upper window she had observed the direction he had taken. Without any positive assurance of meeting him abroad she resolved to go out into the grounds as soon as the rain ceased on the chance of doing so.
For some time she rambled about, keeping within sight of the house and all the paths leading to it that she might not miss him when he returned. But at last, becoming sensible of the impractibility of the scheme from the little privacy it would afford for any intimate conversation she gave it up, and with it all hope of an encounter, and walked away into the woods.
At a distance of about two miles off she came out of the trees on a road which ran beside the park boundary and there met Wakeford face to face. She was unable to say whether Wakeford had showed perturbation, the turmoil of her own sensations having left her without the power of judgment. In such a place they could hardly pass without speaking, and after standing awhile with averted eyes to utter a few commonplace observations on the weather and the state of the paths it was inevitable that they should turn together to go homewards.
Not much was said in the beginning of their walk. Georgiana’s heart was beating wildly and she could not control her voice. Wakeford seemed unwilling to converse. Had he exerted himself to talk they might have reached home without incident, but Georgiana began to interpret his silences as a determination not to have anything to do with her, and this had the effect he would probably most have wished to avert. Her indignation reached a point when further reticence suddenly became intolerable and she asked him abruptly what he had against her.
For a moment, she related, he appeared overcome by astonishment and confusion—it was evident that he did not know what to say. Then he replied harshly that she must be mistaken, he had no feeling of that sort whatever. “Then why,” she cried impetuously, “do you never speak to me now? Why do you avoid me? Your behaviour to me has so changed that everybody must notice it. What have I done? It is only just that I should know.”
Wakeford seemed at a complete loss. He repeated in a low voice that she was in error, but his countenance was giving the lie to his statement. Georgiana was now almost frantic; she had reached a pitch of agitation when she cared not what she said.
“A week ago,” she continued with the same vehemence, “we were able to talk freely, without reserve. Then suddenly all was different. If I had been guilty of some crime you could not have shown greater aversion. My conscience is clear; I have done nothing to merit such treatment. But I can guess what has offended you, though altogether unjustifiably. You think I am partial to Mr. Acworth because I allowed him to come to my sitting-room on several occasions to play his violin with me. It is no such thing; I have no feeling towards him; he has no power at all over me, only yourself—”
Having blurted out this admission Georgiana was unable to proceed. Wakeford said no word; she dared not so much as glance at him and the silence became dreadful. Then in a voice of the coldest constraint he began to assure her that she was mistaken; he had the highest opinion of her—the very highest. He added gravely that he did not think Acworth the best companion for a young lady, but he was relieved to know that
he could not influence her. “I beg you to believe that I have your truest happiness very much at heart,” he said steadily.
Tortured by shame Georgiana walked on without speaking, while Wakeford said not a syllable more. The longer the silence between them lasted the more difficult it was to break it until it became impossible. The final words had in fact been uttered, for they avoided each other during the rest of the day and next morning Wakeford had taken his departure.
Such was Georgiana’s story. It was now for Elizabeth to administer what consolation she could.
“I know what you must be suffering, poor child,” she said. “At present you believe your unhappiness will endure for ever and that life can hold out no prospect that will make it worth living. But time is indeed a great healer and not long hence you will begin to experience some relief. For when hope is dead, resignation takes its place, and in resignation there is balm. You may even find that your attachment was after all only transient. Seriously,” she continued, “I do not think you would have been happy with him. I doubt whether you would have suited each other. He is much older than yourself—older indeed than his years. He lacks cheerfulness. He would have taken you away from all you hold most dear, from your beloved home and the friends that love and understand you to surroundings which by all accounts are of an old-fashioned rusticity, where your gifts would have remained buried and forgotten. For the violence of first love does not last, Georgiana. Either it becomes something higher and nobler founded upon a deep harmony of thought and feeling between two beings, or it departs, leaving behind it only certain ties of interest and custom.”
Much more she said to the same effect while Georgiana listened with bowed head and became calm and composed. Resignation was perhaps already doing its work.
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