The Colonel had left Netherfield Park that morning, having made his farewells to his cousins and extended his appreciation to his host and hostess.
He was welcomed by his parents, and then made to sit down at once and tell them everything about his visit.
“Mr. Bingley’s house is respectable enough, I suppose?” the Countess asked.
“It is a fine, modern building and quite comfortable.”
“Were Mr. Bingley’s sisters in residence?”
“Yes; the eldest acted as the hostess. I did not see Miss Bingley at all, come to think of it. I heard something about her being confined to her room.”
The Earl snorted. “Just as well; her manners are dreadful.”
The Countess leaned forward. The Colonel grinned to himself; now they were getting around to what they really wanted to know. “How is Georgiana?”
“She seems quite well.”
“And Darcy?”
“Also quite well.”
“I do not understand,” the Countess said, blankly. “When I last saw him, he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And Georgiana would not leave her room.”
“They have found new society, and that new society seems to have lifted everyone’s spirits.”
“New society?” Now the Countess sounded suspicious. “You mean that family that Darcy wrote about?”
“Yes; they are landed gentry, so you need not fear that they are consorting with lower orders. It appears that Georgiana is their special pet.”
“Do they know…?”
Here the Colonel hesitated.
“Never tell me that her secret is out!” the Countess sputtered.
“Not ‘out,’ precisely,” the Colonel replied.
“But?”
“Darcy and I spoke about the possibility of Georgiana being…” he trailed off.
“With child, yes,” the Countess said impatiently, motioning him to continue.
“We could not think of any way to determine if she was or if she was not. We agreed that if she was, a good many plans would have to be put in place. So we asked the mother of this particularfamily, a Mrs. Bennet, to see what she could find out from Georgiana directly.”
The Countess sat back in her chair. “So a complete stranger now knows the family secret. I cannot believe that you allowed this to happen, Richard.”
“Thanks to that newspaper article, the entire world knows the so-called family secret, Mother,” the Colonel reminded her. “In any case, Mrs. Bennet sat with Georgiana and prised the entire story out of her. There is no possibility that Georgiana is with child.”
The Countess laughed aloud in relief. “That is the best news I have heard since this whole mess started!”
“Yes; evidently Georgiana herself was worried about it, having not the faintest idea of how children are conceived. Her discussion with Mrs. Bennet set her mind at ease as well as mine and Darcy’s.”
“Can she be trusted? This Bennet person?” the Earl demanded.
“I believe the entire family can be trusted,” the Colonel insisted. “You should see how Georgiana is with them! She laughs, she plays the piano, she tries on their dresses – she is an entirely different girl from the quiet, self-contained creature we have known her to be.”
“She needs friends,” the Countess realised. “Friends of her own age and sex. Of course she does. We should have thought of this long ago.”
