Thirteen
“MrsBrown,youcalledthe lady?” Georgiana Darcy dropped heavily on the sofa and looked blankly at the wall. “No, I do not know her. You met her?”
“Twice now. The first time, I thought her manners were peculiar but not alarming. Today, she claimed to happen upon me ‘accidentally,’ but no one ever takes that path unless they know it is a favourite of mine. I suspected that someone told her where I might be found and that she means to ingratiate herself to me.”
“And you said she knew Mr Wickham?”
“I do not like to distress you by asking such a question,” Elizabeth said as she sat by the girl’s side. “I understand you are not… not friends with Mr Wickham, but I am becoming concerned and you are the only one I can ask. When I first met George Wickham, he recommended two ladies to my notice. One was the Mrs Godfrey we met in Lambton, and I am already suspicious of her.”
“So was William,” Georgiana interjected.
“Yes, he said that,” Elizabeth confessed. “What troubles me is the other lady commended by Mr Wickham was this Mrs Brown. I wonder what your brother would have to say about her.”
“What did she look like?”
“Short in stature, green eyes and fair hair. A face that looks mature but lacks any lines of age. And she had a small mole on her left cheek.”
Georgiana shivered and reached for Elizabeth’s hand. “That sounds like her—yes, it does! Mrs Younge, I mean, my old companion. But why would it be she?”
“She must have been friends with George Wickham. I believe it would not be inappropriate this time to fancy what you may, after the fashion of your novels. But if it is true, and it is she, I wonder what reason Mr Wickham had for recommending two such women to me as companions. What could he be seeking?”
Georgiana’s mouth turned down in a severe pout, almost a scowl. “Money. That is all he ever wants, and he thinks you have what should be his. You do not think he would mean to trouble you or your sisters, do you?”
Elizabeth pursed her lips and blinked. “I wish I knew.”
“William will know,” Georgiana assured her friend. “I shall write to him at once.”
“Oh, please do not!” Elizabeth protested, but before the words had died from her lips, she understood their futility. Mr Darcy must be told of her suspicions—to fail to do so would be an abdication of her post and a betrayal of the trust he had placed in her. “That is,” she added slowly, “perhaps… perhaps I ought to write to him.”
“Why you?”
“Because…” Elizabeth felt her chest tighten and forced herself to take a steady breath. “Because if you wrote to him, he would be concerned about your security and peace of mind. That would be inappropriate in this case, would it not?”
“But how are your concerns not my own?” Georgiana objected. “William has always taken an interest in the troubles of others, so why should I not?”
“You forget—” Elizabeth smiled affectionately—“I am hardly without a voice of my own, as I have found occasionally to my regret.”
Dear Sir,
If you have broken the seal of this letter and learned who writes to you without casting the pages into the flames, I congratulate you on your forbearance.
Be assured that Miss Darcy is in good spirits and I have done nothing terribly shocking, save for taking up my pen to write to an unmarried man. Though you know my character well enough to understand that I delight in absurdity and am by no means a suitable counsellor for an impressionable young lady, my purpose in writing to you was neither to offend nor to astonish. However, I am not writing in a professional capacity, which might have been seemly.
I seek your advice on a matter of personal concern, and as you have relayed pertinent information by means of a letter, I shall do the same. Recently, I made the acquaintance of one Mrs Brown, who represented herself to be a farmer’s widow. She was not remarkable in herself, but for some oddities in her manner and the defamatory way in which she spoke of a certain landowner.
This alone should not give pause, for I know quite well that this self-same landowner is a perturbing fellow with a terribly aggravating habit of provoking me to words I frequently regret afterward. No one could feel anything but sympathy for another woman similarly burdened by proximity to this nettlesome individual, but for the fact that Mrs Brown’s acquaintance had been recommended to me by the calumnious lips of one I am obliged to call my lawful brother.
Perhaps it is illogical—indeed, most probably indicative of a suspicious and unbalanced mind—but the association made me uneasy. I hope you will now do your proper duty and terminate my employment when I confess that yesterday I took my qualms directly to Miss Darcy, even while knowing that speaking a particular gentleman’s name would rightly unsettle her. I fear the ensuing conversation did nothing to comfort either of us, for neither she nor any of your servants had ever heard of the good and virtuous “Mrs Brown” of a certain miscreant’s fabrication.
Before you conclude—possibly rightly—that I have cast my reason out with my dignity and am now little more than a flighty widow who forever clutches at her lace and trembles at the slightest hint of intrigue, I pray you recall that you are not the only being in possession of a younger sister. As mine are tripled in number and yet have considerably less discretion than yours, I must be even more vigilant in their associations. When I received a note from my eldest sister not half an hour ago that this well-known rascal made a social call on my family with yet another rum cake, courtesy of this Mrs Brown, I settled it with myself that my discomfort over the matter exceeded my reluctance to write a letter to a gentleman. It is my first such transgression of modesty—what do you think of my effort? Have I sufficiently breeched the bounds of all that is polite and demure?
I shall await your appropriately outraged reply. Shall you desire me to pour ashes over my head and go on bare feet when you demand my removal from your house? Pray, spare me no portion of your just umbrage for my audacity in all these matters, for I shall now pen yet one final, and most shocking (I suppose I did intend to astonish and offend, after all) confession. I find it most entertaining when you are vexed. Surely, that is all the evidence necessary that mine is a thoroughly irreverent character.
I do, however, ask that with your response, you would include some advice. If I have learnt one thing of your character, it is that you always know, or at least appear to know, what is to be done.
Not in the least yours,
EW
