Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife

by Linda Berdoll

  Their lesson began by obtaining the information that John could sign his name, hence he knew those letters. From thence, the learning commenced. She compiled a list of words—anagrams—containing the letters of his full name, John Christie.

  Those anagrams were to be his first lesson. He was to sound out the simple words—toe, sit, hot, tie—and read them to her the next time she saw him.

  Gazed upon in fatherly pride by Edward Hardin, John recited his assignment to Georgiana.

  “Smart lad, he!” said Hardin.

  This entire journey of uncovering the mystery of words delighted them all. That same day he picked up a tin in one cottage and inspected it. When he read, unprompted, the word “tea” from its label, they all leapt in joy at his ingenuity. Observing that, the poor family in the house set to quivering with fright beneath their covers, never quite certain they were not being ministered by lunatics. Upon the heels of such success, Georgiana brought John primers. He devoured them all.

  It was a contest of just who had more pride in her success of schooling him, Georgiana, John Christie, or Edward Hardin.

  Had not Georgiana befriended another young man that same spring, nothing might ever have been said. But, as could be surmised from her enthusiasm for tending the ill and tutoring the illiterate, Georgiana had a penchant and a heart for outcast souls.

  *

  Young Henry Howgrave was hardly needy, but an outcast of sorts all the same. He was well-educated, mannerly, and not at all unattractive of face and figure. True, it might have been suggested he dressed to remind those to whom he was introduced that, howbeit left-handed, he was a gentleman’s son. A bit of a dandy he was, but his particular circumstances could offer him some justification for foppery.

  The terse explanation given to Elizabeth by her husband about the notorious Howgraves suggested it was no great leap to assume that he had not spoken to his sister of their situation at all. Nor did he suspect she had heard the gossip. He had reckoned that when he had taken her onto the dance floor in lieu of the hand of Henry Howgrave at the Pemberley ball, she had not understood the implication.

  However mindful was she of just why her brother had interfered, Georgiana had been mortified upon young Howgrave’s behalf at the time.

  As his opposition to her nursing the sick implied, Darcy’s presumption of his sister’s innocence was compleat. Included in this conjecture of ignorance were infidelity, promiscuity, and carnal lust in general. Indeed, it extended to all elements of reproduction. Had he not shielded her at every turn from accouchement?

  If queried upon the point, he most likely would have insisted she was quite oblivious to anatomical differences betwixt the male and the female as well. (There were rutting animals about, but surely she had not noticed.) This was probably the single subject upon which he looked blindly.

  Which is why Elizabeth never questioned Darcy about Georgiana’s liaison with Wickham. Actually, it had never been addressed in open conversation. He had written of it in a single letter and it was never brought into conversation. Whatever abhorrence he held for the affair, in his letter he had purported it as fleeting and chaste.

  Nor did Georgiana imply otherwise.

  Because he held the presumption of Georgiana’s sexual innocence, Elizabeth knew her husband would not have asked Georgiana The Question. It was reasonable to -presume her honour was not outraged. She had been but fifteen years old. A very naïve fifteen. Notwithstanding, Elizabeth’s own sister, Lydia, had been fifteen when she ran off with Wickham. Lydia was not particularly naïve, but when she ran off to London with Wickham, she had been a virgin. Georgiana and Lydia were two separate understandings of young womanhood. Withal, Elizabeth did upon occasion wonder if Georgiana’s seduction had been more than emotional.

  Never would she have ventured to conjecture that to Darcy, let alone Georgiana. Darcy was a man of considerable worldliness. Nonetheless, he had chosen to believe that his sister was not compromised beyond her emotions. Had he believed the affair had progressed beyond professed love, Elizabeth knew blood would have been drawn.

  Uninitiated or not, Georgiana was far too intelligent to be wholly insensible to life. Hence, when she had seen Henry Howgrave in the village and he asked if she might favour a visit by him, she fully understood the implication when she answered in the affirmative.

  Henry Howgrave weathered more than his share of disdain. Cuts were not unknown to him. And he was well aware of Mr. Darcy’s ill-regard. Georgiana might not have been naïve, but she was not so seasoned as to understand that when Henry Howgrave ventured to Pemberley to seek her company, he was uncovered as not some hapless knave. It revealed a calculating ambition of considerable gall.

  Ambitious, but not foolhardy. The day of his visit, Darcy and Elizabeth had not been at home. Georgiana and Mr. Howgrave were accompanied upon their stroll by Mrs. Annesley. (That good lady held the most advantageous of claims that one could want of a chaperone—that of being severely nearsighted and compleatly deaf.)

  A common interest in literature was discovered and from thence came most of their conversation. A few possible future meetings were suggested but nothing absolute.

  It was all quite proper.

  She might have been ingenuous to his enterprise, but Georgiana understood and accepted that most young men would be as attracted to her wealth as to her scintillating conversation. Not wanting to be secretive (that an improbability at Pemberley regardless) she announced his visit at supper.

  Elizabeth did not lift her head from her soup, but glanced at her husband from the corner of her eye. But upon hearing that the infamous Henry Howgrave had stood upon Pemberley ground and in the company of his sister, his expression did not alter. That was alarming. Elizabeth lay down her spoon, awaiting the detonation of his temper. However, he held only the mildest of queries.

  “Is he to return?”

  In a wide-eyed expression of innocence, one that Georgiana perfected for just such inquiries from her brother, she replied (not untruthfully), “No.”

  Conversation moved on.

  *

  That same week Darcy espied Georgiana sitting with John Christie, their heads almost touching in conference. Albeit they were in close conversation, it was in the innocence of education, for they pored over a slim book. This scene was descried upon a walk as Elizabeth held her husband’s arm. He paused thereupon and scowled. She urged his attention back to their walk, not waiting for him to speak his displeasure.

  “She has been teaching him to read. He is frightfully bright.”

  Darcy, however, was not so easily becalmed. “It is not proper for her to school a manservant.”

  His position was that personal interest in a male in service over the age of twelve by a lady of the house, however innocent, was to be abhorred. Elizabeth believed it merely a kindness extended by Georgiana to which Darcy should see himself as overreacting. But, Darcy beheld this sight upon the heels of learning young Howgrave had appeared again at Pemberley that day. He came thither only to leave a misdirected copy of the Quarterly Review, but that was not a particular pacification.

  Little else was said about the matter, but later Darcy called Georgiana before him in his library. Elizabeth did not have to inquire what was said or the tone. She saw Georgiana immediately after, near tears.

  Georgiana was alternately incensed and hurt. And expressed it vehemently.

  “He does not trust me to make my life my own! I am to spend my time as he thinks I should, take company with those that he chooses! In his eyes I shall ever be a naïve and should look to him for my every decision!”

  Her rant vented, she looked at Elizabeth who made no becalming assurances that her brother’s intentions were not all that unreasonable. Neither did she offer qualifications to soften his dicta. No apologies, no excuses.

  “That, I should say,” Elizabeth said, “is exactly correct.”

  Hence, Georgiana stood looking petulant for a moment until she and Elizabeth both began to smile and eve
ntually laugh.

  Georgiana finally asked Elizabeth, “Then, how shall he ever react to this?”

  Out of the folds of her dress, she produced a letter. It was addressed to Georgiana and the seal had been broken. Newton Hinchcliffe had fulfilled his promise. A publisher wrote inquiring if it might be agreeable that the first printing of her book be at least fifteen hundred copies.

  Their collective delight exceeded the joy at the word “tea.” After a jubilant, if silent pantomime of euphoria, they sat in a laughing heap. Her bosom heaving with merriment, Georgiana shook her head in defeat.

  “Brother will never allow it.”

  Elizabeth plucked the letter from her fingers as she swept passed Georgiana and out the door.

  Over her shoulder as she went in search of Brother, she trilled, “We will see, will we not?”

  Darcy sat behind his desk in his library, ledgers open. But he was not at them, intent as he was upon mending his pen. However busy he made himself look, Elizabeth was certain he was still trying to justify his stern ultimatums. His affection for Georgiana was deep. He would regret wounding her, no matter how righteous he thought his position. Guilt, his wife believed, might just be the most advantageous chain to yank for this particular application.

  “You have made your sister weep,” she accused.

  “I expected no less than for you to come, Lizzy,” he said, then hurried toward -absolution, “You know I cannot allow her to see such a man as Henry Howgrave. He is an affront. His entire family is an affront…”

  “’Tis not only that. You tell her she must not see to the sick. She must not school a groom. She must not speak to those who offer her friendship. What of her own will have you left to her? You have thwarted her every interest, her every pursuit. Will you not be satisfied until she ends up a Miss Bingley?”

  That stung, she knew. Contrition nibbled at her a little, but not unduly. He did not reply, but sighed. Apparently, this was expended in dejected martyrdom. It fell upon his abused shoulders alone to make Georgiana unhappy. If compunction be served, who else would do the deed?

  In silence, Elizabeth unfolded the letter from the publisher and set it before him. He read it, but did not look up.

  “You must allow her something. Which shall it be? The poor? A groom? Mr. Howgrave? Or the anonymity of ‘A Derbyshire Lady’?”

  Darcy sat there a moment longer. She cringed ever so slightly and even gave a start when he abruptly reached out. Unnecessarily, for he grabbed her by the wrists only to draw her onto his lap. Wrapping his arms about her waist, he kissed her wetly upon the neck. Her entreaty was going better than she ever anticipated.

  Quite solemnly, he thereupon asked, “Do you fancy Georgiana has any idea the intrepid ally she has in you?”

  Georgiana’s alliance with Elizabeth was endangered by only the mildest of complaint. It was not spoken of, however, for it was one in which Elizabeth had no voice. Does not all mankind suffer under the inability to select whom one has as relations?

  *

  Georgiana’s book was published to modest acclaim. Word quickly circled of the identity of “A Derbyshire Lady” unwittingly by way of Elizabeth. For she told Jane, who told Mrs. Bennet, who told everyone including Lady Lucas, who told her daughter, Charlotte Collins. Charlotte, always in search of conversational topics in her husband’s company (or he would hold the floor relentlessly), told him. Georgiana was by turns pleased, skittish, and mortified by all the clamouring attention.

  Far too often mortification and fear overwhelmed her, and Elizabeth fretted the fame (even in so small a dose) might frighten her from society compleatly. This, unknowingly, was preparation for collision, for soon one May day, providence was so unkind as to find Georgiana with Elizabeth at Kirkland Hall when the Collinses’ visit to Jane overlapped theirs. It could be appreciated, owing to a good understanding of Mr. Collins obsequious nature, that coming into company with the exceedingly well-stationed (and thereupon prominent) authoress, Georgiana Darcy, he was almost prostrate with admiration.

  Cornered in the parlour partaking of afternoon tea, Georgiana sat captive in a chair. For facing her on the sofa opposite was Mr. Collins. Thus, so suddenly in need, Mr. Collins newly applauded himself that he had taken the necessary time to rehearse. For he entertained many a carefully thought-out tribute to those of station and bestowed them most generously upon Miss Darcy. (Betimes he did have to draw a tiny, judiciously pre-folded piece of paper from his pocket with the proffered compliment to remind himself of the exact wording. But otherwise, such enterprise must be congratulated.)

  Marshalling these snippets was a more complicated endeavour than the casual observer might suspect. For his compliments were divided not only by gender, but social strata as well. Left waistcoat upper pocket, men of rank. Left lower, men of lesser. Upper waistcoat right, ladies of rank. Lower waistcoat right, other ladies in general. The waistband of his breeches he saved for all-purpose adulations, mostly about the superb weather. (There was that unfortunate incident when one compliment upon the cloudless sky did work free of his waistband and insinuated itself in many-cornered discomfort in Mr. Collins nether region, thus initiating a provocative leg-waggling jig from him that incited a great deal of mortification amongst those in his company at the time.)

  After expending all other notion of laudatory statement upon Georgiana’s behalf in regards to her beauty and refinement, he hastened also to effusive praise for her new occupation as a woman of letters. Those exhausted, Mr. Collins leaned over and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Not many know this Miss Darcy, but, I also have had pretensions to publish. Alas, my Christian work has left me little time to pursue such a worthy pursuit.”

  From her seat upon the far side of the sofa, Elizabeth had been talking to Charlotte, but her attention was snatched as soon as Collins lowered his voice.

  Elizabeth had issued a somewhat blanket apology to Darcy’s family about her cousin, the vicar, but was more than usually concerned when she could not hear what he was saying in such a secretive manner. (Those mortifications of which one is witting pale in the presence of those imagined.)

  She excused herself to Charlotte, stood, walked to the tea table to refill her half-empty cup, and returned only as far as to the left of Georgiana’s chair. This manoeuvre was preparatory in defence of the expected onslaught to her sister-in-law’s delicate sensibilities.

  Mr. Collins barely glanced at his cousin, so enthralled was he in his confidences with Miss Darcy. (His profuse adulations for the wife of Mr. Darcy were abandoned as soon as he espied, shall we say, new opportunistic waters to troll.)

  He said, “I cannot tell you what fortune it is, Miss Darcy, that indeed, I just happen to have upon my person a few story notes I had once considered elabourating upon myself. I should not flatter myself to think, had I the time, that I might do them the justice as one of your talent. But I should be most honoured if you did me the honour of taking them under advisement for your own use.” (Occasionally, Mr. Collins’s enthusiasm for station lapsed into repetitious use of gratitude.)

  Until only recently blessed with a mere nodding acquaintance with the vicar, Georgiana said politely, “I thank you, Mr. Collins, how kind.”

  Had she known him better, she might well have fled the room. As it was, she sat still as a stone, betrayed only by her eyes, which commenced to blink with rapidity. Mr. Collins pressed a handkerchief to his perpetually moist upper lip and glanced to either side before continuing, perchance to make certain there was no nefarious blackguard skulking about Kirkland in employment of stealing his plots.

  With great foreboding, Elizabeth put a hand of reassurance upon Georgiana’s shoulder. For Mr. Collins pulled a stack of notepaper thick enough to pad a sofa from beneath his waistcoat (scattering a few tiny little tributes to men of rank as he did). Did he, Elizabeth wondered, actually carry these about in the unlikely hope of finding such an opportunity? Apparently. And she could not argue his perseverance, for
opportunity was surely thrust before him.

  Holding the first page up, he announced, “My first is a story of a virtuous but poor vicar, of chaste heart and pure thoughts, who falls in love with the daughter of a villainous earl.”

  He took that paper from the top of the stack and moved it with an impressively silly flourish to beneath. At that, Elizabeth’s fingers dug ever-so-slightly into her sister-in-law’s shoulder in obvious mortification of her cousin’s unceasing, and newly appreciated, gall.

  “How nice,” Georgiana said.

  A keen lack of interest from his audience was understood by Mr. Collins to mean he should lengthen his recitation rather than desist. This, because he was under the profound misconception (one of many it would seem) that if one is operating at a loss, doubling one’s effort will increase one’s profit, not double one’s depletion.

  He read from the next, “This one tells of a poor but virtuous” (as opposed to virtuous but poor) “vicar who is thwarted from literary aspirations by a depraved plagiarist, persecuted by society envious of his refinement, and forced to flee civilised society…”

  Mr. Collins had to take a breath here, for his chest was actually obliged to heave as his words conjured for him the vision of the aggrieved, virtuous, and literate clergyman of his story.

  There were many, many more. As he read from each and every single piece of paper, it was obvious, had one had the poor judgement to hope otherwise, that there was a profound similarity betwixt his heroes and heroines. Beyond honour, valour, virtue, beauty, and abhorrence of the tithe system, they all had an unrelenting deficit of wit. This was undoubtedly inherited by them from their author who had the same deficit, but, alas, none other of those sterling qualities he bequeathed his characters (save objection to the tithe question).