“Will you tell us what happened after – after Gretna Green?” Mr. Darcy asked.
“I will, but – well, now?”
“Yes.”
The Countess rose; she closed and locked the drawing room doors.
Georgiana began her tale. The boarding house. Mrs. Younge. The housework. Her hands. Her clothes. At some point, she began to cry, but she continued her story through her tears. Finally, she spoke about finding the paper in Mrs. Younge’s bottom drawer.
“Where is it?” Mr. Darcy spoke for the first time since she had started her tale.
The Countess reached into her skirt pocket and gave the paper to Mr. Darcy. He studied it carefully and then passed it to Richard.
“Very well; go on.”
She then spoke about Mrs. Cartwright, and how she helped Georgiana escape, then her frantic hunt for Matlock House and the unkindness of everyone she met, and how she had taken a desperate dive under Mr. Robeson’s arm to find her aunt. When she finished, there was a long silence. Darcy’s face was in his hands.
He finally looked up and asked, “Has she been seen by a doctor?”
The Countess shook her head. “We have been waiting for your arrival.”
“Dr. Phillips should be consulted; he will come here, so that she is not seen in his practice room.”
The Countess nodded. “I agree. He is our physician as well as yours; he can be trusted. She then added, “There was another mention in the newspaper, which you might not have seen.” She reached again into her pocket and took out the article.
Mr. Darcy read it and then handed it to Richard.
“Your thoughts?” the Earl asked.
“Doubtless both the articles were fed to the newspaper by Wickham,” Mr. Darcy said.
“We thought this latest one might be the work of a neighbour who observed Wickham banging on the door and shouting.”
“Either way, it should be easy enough to have the newspaper print a retraction.”
Richard said, “I do not think it will be that easy.” His glance rested on Georgiana’s mid-section.
“If we hide her away until the babe is born?” Mr. Darcy asked.
“And then what?” the Countess demanded.
“Give it away, of course,” Mr. Darcy said.
“She wants to keep the child.”
“She wants to – what?!”
All eyes turned to Georgiana. “It is not her fault,” she said, her voice shaking. “I will not give her up.”
Her brother stared at her. “But it is Wickham’s child!”
“It? SHE is alsomychild!”
“Your stubbornness on this subject makes the situation far more difficult, and it is already difficult enough,” Mr. Darcy said, icily.
Georgiana shivered at his tone. It was as if Brother no longer loved her! Perhaps he no longer evenlikedher.
The Countess intervened. “She must marry someone who will be willing to claim the child, and then we will have the newspaper run a correction stating her husband’s name, along with their apologies for printing that she had run off with a servant’s son.”
