Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2

by Elliott, Anna

  What Hugh actually said when he spoke to me of it last spring was that he'd meant to tell his grandfather the truth. But then the old earl's health began to fail. And after that, Hugh didn't dare tell him. The shock might have been enough to kill him outright. And besides that, dying as he was, the earl would never have had time to grow accustomed to the news--to accept it, if he could. He'd only have died angry and bitterly disappointed in the boy he'd raised almost as a son.

  And yet he so much wished, before he died, to know that his grandson would marry and have a family of his own. So seven months ago, I told Hugh that he had my free and full permission to tell his grandfather that he was engaged to me.

  "Here." Hugh dug in the pocket of his waistcoat and came out with a small, paper-wrapped parcel. "It was my grandmother's. My grandfather said"--he stopped and cleared his throat--"that it would have given her great happiness to know it would one day be worn by my bride."

  There were no strings tying the parcel, so when he handed it across to me the paper fell open to reveal a necklace, made of diamonds, set in a pattern of silver filigree to form the tiny leaves and flowers of some delicate climbing vine.

  I drew in my breath and started to shake my head. "I can't possibly accept--"

  Hugh stopped me. We had sat down on chairs opposite one another, and he leaned a little towards me, his hands loosely clasped between his bent knees and his dark eyes intent on mine. "Please. Take it. You gave the old man ... you gave him very great happiness, letting him think we were engaged. He had known your mother, when she was a small girl. He and your mother's father were old friends. My grandfather was ... his wits wandered a good deal, towards the end. And for the last two months he was entirely confined to his bed. But he would sometimes be aware enough to recognise me. And he told me several times that I'd done well to"--Hugh pushed a hand through his hair and had to clear his throat again--"to win your hand. He wanted you to have the necklace. As do I."

  For a moment, he looked so sad that my chest ached for him, wondering what it must be like to have to keep part of yourself always hidden, even from those you love best in the world. On impulse, I reached forwards and touched Hugh's hand. "I'm so truly sorry," I said again.

  Hugh squeezed my hand in return. But then he looked up and said with a gleam of his old smile, "And just at the very end, my grandfather was himself enough to say that he wished he might have met you--but that he promised to come back and haunt me if I ever let you down. So you see, you really have no choice but to take the necklace. You don't want to be responsible for my grandfather's uneasy spirit rising from the grave."

  I laughed at that. "Well, in that case, thank you. I'll wear it and think of him--and of you."

  It was at that precise moment that--apparently sent by the god of social awkwardness, if there is such a one--Edward walked into the room.

  I felt myself jump--and Edward stopped dead just inside the door, his straight dark brows shooting halfway up to his hairline.

  Not that I could in all fairness entirely blame him. He had only arrived the night before. And this morning, the first he sees me, I'm alone with a handsome man, holding his hand and accepting an obviously very expensive gift of jewellery.

  "Edward," I said quickly. "You remember Lord Cantrell. You met him here at Pemberley last spring." I got up and crossed to Edward and took hold of his arm. It was like holding onto a marble statue, his muscles were so tensed, and I tightened my grip, afraid--

  I'm not sure what I was afraid of exactly. It's not as though I truly believed that Edward might take one look at Hugh and challenge him to a duel with pistols on the spot. But I suppose I was afraid that Edward might lose his temper.

  He didn't, though. The muscles under my hand were still tight and hard as stone. But he didn't move or try to pull away, only nodded and greeted Hugh with painstaking courtesy. I'm not sure anyone who didn't know Edward well would even have been able to tell he was angry.

  Hugh had risen to his feet, as well, and returned Edward's greeting. A little warily, I thought. Though I couldn't in all fairness blame Hugh, either, since the last time the two of them met, Edward--mistaking him for someone else--had punched him in the face.

  And then Hugh said that he must go, he was expected at a house party near York, and must journey on directly if he was to arrive in time.

  Since I do know Edward, and I could tell that he was angry, I didn't argue or press Hugh to stay, only said that I would see him to the door. I half expected Edward to move or make some protest when I let go of his arm, but he didn't, only stayed stock-still where he'd been.

  Hugh was silent, too, as we walked together back into the entrance hall and to the front door where Thompson was waiting with Hugh's hat and greatcoat. Then Hugh bowed, though he didn't take my hand. "Thank you again. With all my heart." He looked up at me, dark eyes once more earnest and intent. "And please if there is any way I may be of service to you, you have only to ask."

  When I went back to the drawing room, Edward had crossed to where the diamond necklace had slipped down to lie on the cushions of the chair I'd been sitting in. He was motionless again, standing and looking down at the jewels with an expression I couldn't read at all on his face.

  "Edward." My heart was beating quickly, but only because I wanted to have the explanations over with as quickly as possible--and because I was sorry I'd caused Edward even a moment's unease. "The necklace--it's not from Lord Cantrell. He was only delivering it. It's a gift--a bequest, rather--from his late grandfather."

  Edward looked up. "A bequest from his grandfather," he repeated. His brows had risen again, but that was the only show of expression on his face, and his voice was curiously flat. He looked at me, his eyes, too, still unreadable. And then he said, "Why?"

  "Because--" and then I stopped dead. It was only then that I realised I couldn't explain. Not without Hugh's permission. He scarcely knows Edward. And besides that, according to the law, men like Hugh are criminals, and treated as such--jailed, even sometimes hanged. "I ... I can't tell you," I finally said. "Not because I don't want to, but because it involves a story that isn't mine to tell."

  "You can't tell me." Edward's voice was still flat, deadly calm, and his expression was so completely impassive and controlled--so utterly unlike his usual one--that I felt suddenly afraid. And suddenly angry, as well--because I couldn't even tell whether he believed me or no.

  "No, I can't," I said. "But I told you last spring when you asked that I have never been in the least in love with Lord Cantrell, nor he with me. Do you think I lied to you? Do you honestly know me so little that you think there might be something improper between Lord Cantrell and me now?"

  Edward closed his eyes briefly, raising one hand to brace his fingers against the space between his eyes. It was only then that I saw the fine tremor running through his arm, making his hand shake slightly, and the slight tick of a muscle in his jaw. Something I'd not seen since last spring, when he first came back from the fighting in France, and his nerves were so much damaged by all the death and destruction he'd seen.

  And all at once, all the little signs from the night before seemed to fall into place. The shadows under his eyes--even Edward's behaviour, his not wanting to talk. I was too happy to realise it before, but he was unlike himself.

  A part of me wanted to run across to him and slide my arms about him. But the spark of anger still felt like a glowing coal, burning a hole under my ribcage. I narrowed my eyes at him instead. "Something is wrong. Something apart from Lord Cantrell's visit, I mean. Something has happened. Was it in London? Or in Ireland?"

  Edward didn't look at me. But neither did he deny it, just shook his head. "It's nothing." The muscles of his jaw were still tight. "And besides, that's not the point. I--"

  "That's exactly the point!" The glow of anger in my chest kindled to a sudden blaze, as though the coal had been touched to dry wood. "You're angry because I can't share a secret that isn't even mine. And yet you won't even share your own w
ith me. You could have told me last night whatever it is that was troubling you--that's troubling you still. You could still tell me, now. But you didn't--and you haven't. Because you're still shutting me out. Treating me as though I were a child who couldn't possibly understand your worries or cares."

  Because that's why Edward and I aren't married yet--the year-long engagement was his idea, not mine. He wanted time, he said, to put the scars of battle behind him. Which I could understand. I could even accept that he doesn't wish to speak of whatever memories still haunt him. But they obviously haunt him still, and yet he won't let me even try to share them.

  "How--" Edward's chest rose and fell, and he spoke through gritted teeth. "How did we suddenly get from this"--he gestured towards the necklace on the chair--"to whether or not I'm talking to you enough?"

  "Because the answer is the same in either case." All of a sudden I felt tears stinging my eyes, and my throat tighten so that I could barely speak the words. "All you had to do was trust me."

  Edward stood very still, the line of his mouth grim and tight, his muscles still tensed--this time I thought because he was trying to keep his hands from shaking again. And then he took a step backwards. First one, then another. And then, without another word, he turned and went out the door.

  Tuesday 20 December 1814

  I'm supposed to be dressing for dinner again. But I wanted to write this down, since I'm still so utterly surprised by what I learned today.

  Nothing about Edward. Last night he agreed to accompany Kitty to the latest of Mr. and Mrs. Herron's endless Christmas parties. And this morning when I came down, he and Fitzwilliam had already ridden out early--more business on the estate, Elizabeth said. So in fact I haven't seen Edward since he walked out of the drawing room yesterday morning.

  And maybe the best thing about this morning's discovery is that it's distracted me from thinking of Edward more than half a dozen times. Every hour.

  It really was an astonishing discovery to make, though. After breakfast this morning I went up to the nursery, since I'd promised Thomas and Jack that I'd come and play pirate ships with them again. When I arrived, they were already playing at knights, though, beating at each other with wooden swords.

  Kitty was there, too, kneeling next to an open trunk of old clothes that we use for a dressing-up box now. She had what looked like a folded-up piece of paper in her hands, and she looked up when I came in and said, "Georgiana, come here! You must see this!"

  I had barely slept the night before; all the angry words Edward and I had spoken to each other had kept echoing through my mind like hammer strikes. But I crossed to take the paper from Kitty, thinking that if it was a letter from one of her 'beaux'--or worse yet if she was planning to tell me about the party she and Edward had gone to the night before--I really was going to scream.

  But then my eye fell on the first line of the letter Kitty had handed me--for it was a letter, the ink slightly faded and the paper a little curled at the edges, as though it were several years old.

  My dearest Ruth, it began. I've begun this letter half a dozen times, but everything I try to write seems to go flat and lifeless on the page.

  Maybe I should go out into the garden and try looking at flowers and butterflies until I can think of better rhymes than 'moon' and 'June.' Your young charge once informed me gravely that all young ladies like to have poetry written for them. But since I'm trying to tell you my feelings, not send you into fits of laughter, I'll merely say that you have my heart, now and for always. With every breath I take, I'll be thinking of you until I can see you again.

  Yours ever,

  The letter was signed only with initials: G. T.

  I looked from it up to Kitty. "Where did you find this?"

  Kitty gestured to the trunk of old dressing-up clothes. "In there. It had slipped down behind the lining, and I felt it when I was rummaging around looking for pirate costumes for the boys. So I fished it out. Isn't it perfectly thrilling? A love letter! Not a very long one, to be sure." She wrinkled her nose slightly. "I think he should have written her poetry; it would have made it much more romantic. But still, that last part is quite nice. I wonder who 'Ruth' was?"

  I was looking down at the letter in my hand, reading it through a second time, still feeling utterly surprised. "I know who she was. Ruth Granger. She was my governess until I went away to school in London."

  "Oh." Kitty looked disappointed. "That makes it much less exciting. I thought perhaps Ruth was one of your ancestors, and the letter had been lying here forgotten for a hundred years. If she was only some old dried-up stick of a governess, that makes it much less romantic."

  She moved off to settle the boys before they smashed any windows with their wooden swords, but I stayed where I was, still staring down at the written words. G. T., whoever he had been, had had nice handwriting, I thought: not overly careful, maybe, but bold and strong.

  I folded up the letter abruptly and looked up at Thomas and Jack. "What do you think of taking a walk into Lambton, boys? We can always play pirates later this afternoon. And we could call at Mr. Todd's confectionary shop."

  Miss Granger was my governess from the time I was ten until I turned thirteen and was sent to school, just as I told Kitty. But she wasn't at all a dried-up stick. In fact, Miss Granger was quite young when she had charge of me--just twenty when she came to Pemberley. So she's only twenty-nine now.

  In the ordinary way she would of course have taken a post with another family after leaving us. But just before I was to leave for school, she fell terribly ill with scarlet fever. And it left her with a weakened heart. She couldn't work to support herself, clearly, and so my brother gave her a pension and a small cottage on the outskirts of Lambton.

  She lived very quietly there for two or three years, her health making her still very nearly an invalid--and then quite by chance, an uncle of hers in the East Indies died and left all his fortune to her. Not a vast fortune, but enough for her to live on, and to buy the cottage outright. My brother tried to tell her it was already hers, of course. But Miss Granger is quite as proud as he is, in her way, and she insisted on paying him the full amount. So now she owns her own cottage free and clear.

  And she lives there still: a small, stone-built house with a thatched roof, standing back from the main road in the midst of a grove of birch trees.

  I expected Kitty to at the least notice the name was the same as the one on the letter when I told her I wished to call at Miss Granger's on our way into Lambton. But then the letter was addressed to 'Ruth' only; I was the one who supplied the 'Granger' and Kitty probably scarcely heard me, or at least not to remember the name later on.

  And besides, between keeping a watch to be sure the boys didn't run under the wheels of any carriages or farm wagons, and telling me all about the gown she planned on wearing to the ball we're to have at Twelfth Night, Kitty didn't even ask me why I wanted to make the call.

  When we arrived, she looked at the tiny cottage with its neatly swept front step and white curtains in the windows. Everything clean and spare and not in the least fussy, but very neat. Kitty said, "Oh good heavens, the boys will be like bulls in a china shop in there. Why don't we wait outside for you? There's a field over there." She gestured across the lane. "Thomas and Jack can play at running races until you've finished your call."

  It was very nice of her--and so I told her, and asked if she was sure she didn't mind. To which Kitty made a face and said, "Mind? I can tell just by looking at the place that I'd as soon find a horse in the middle of the ocean as anyone worth talking to in there." By which of course, she meant any young men. She waved her hand at me to go. "You go on and enjoy your stuffy visit, I'll be much happier out here."

  So it turned out that I was alone when I knocked at Miss Granger's front door.

  Miss Granger's--Ruth, she insists I call her now that I'm no longer her pupil--health has improved very much in the last few years. She still grows tired on a long walk and can't lift anything te
rribly heavy. But she's well enough that she can take in a few day-pupils from the town for French and music lessons--not that she needs the income, but she says she likes the diversion teaching provides. And she doesn't look an invalid anymore at all.

  She was frowning a little when she opened the door, but the look cleared when she saw me. "Why, Georgiana! What a nice surprise! I thought you might be old Mrs. Prouty from up the road, come to tell me my dog had been digging in her flower beds again." The dog she'd spoken of--a big, shaggy-coated sheep dog she calls Pilot--was behind her, pressing against her skirts and whining trying to see who was at the door. "But this is much nicer. Come in, please."

  Ruth's cottage has only the two rooms downstairs: a kind of kitchen/dining room at the back, and the sitting room/parlour at the front. And everything inside is the same as out--simple and clean and as unadorned as a place can be without feeling stark or barren. The only incongruous note is Pilot, who sprawls untidily on the hearth and sheds hair on the furniture. Though I know Ruth doesn't mind; she loves all dogs. I am sure she would keep more, if her cottage weren't so small.

  She offered me tea, but I only shook my head, knowing that I was staring at her, and yet not being quite able to help myself. I was thinking how you can know someone for years--and yet suddenly discover that obviously you haven't really known them at all.

  Ruth is tall and slender, with curly, russet-red hair and grey eyes. She's quite lovely, really--though she looks a good deal like her cottage: very plain and sensible and unadorned. Today, for example, she was wearing a gown of dark-brown muslin with a high collar and long, straight sleeves, and her only jewellery was a small silver locket at her throat.

  She asked after Elizabeth, and I told her the news--or rather, lack of it--that the baby hadn't come yet, but was expected any day. And then I reached into the lining of my muff, where I'd put the folded-up letter. "I have to confess that this isn't entirely a social call. I came to return something of yours. Something we found this morning in the nursery. And I thought ... I thought you might like to have it back."