Page 67 of A Quiet Affection

Jove, were those tears on the sides of Papa’s eyes?

“You really mean that?” Papa asked again.

“Why do you insist on this? But yes. I shall not ask your shade if he approves of what I do as master. I shall ask my conscience, aided by Lizzy’s wisdom ifitapproves when I make decisions.”

“Then I can tell you this.” Papa looked directly at him. “Fitzwilliam, you have never disappointed me. Never. Not once. You have always been the son I wanted. I wish you both very happy. I know you both will be very happy. And Elizabeth—I cannot understand for myself why you have been so struck by her. But I have never understood love. Since you are determined choose a woman to make a fool of yourself over, to pick a ridiculously poor match, well, amongst the girls of modest fortune who you may have selected, I know that you have chosen exceedingly well.”

Chapter Twenty

Mr. Darcy died three weeks later, a few days before Christmas.

His daughter was on the road for Pemberley for the holidays when he died, and Georgiana’s carriage came up to the great estate a little after noon the next day to find every curtain in black, and her brother wearing a deep mourning suit.

The girl felt little grief at seeing that the long-expected event had occurred. Her chief emotion at seeing her brother, now Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, was delight at the news she had received by letter from both parties, and that had been confirmed in person the time Elizabeth was permitted by the mistress to visit her at her school, about his engagement to Elizabeth Bennet.

Upon the carriage stopping, she jumped into Fitzwilliam’s arms and embraced him tightly. It was only seeing the grief and somberness on his face that reminded her that he must be sad.Hehad loved Papa dearly, though Georgiana barely understood why anymore.

She hugged him tightly, and he squeezed her back.

Despite Georgiana’s delight at returning, the estate was a somber and quiet place. The usual joy was missing.

This was not because of the black that everyone wore and the way that the servants spoke in quiet voices, and how everyone Georgiana met, who was not part of the family, made a solemn speech about how they felt her grief.

First, Lizzy was gone.

Georgiana could barely recall a time when her dear, dear friend did not sleep in the bed on the other side of the nursery. Pemberley was not properly home without her.

Certainly, they received letters from Lizzy every single day, at least a paragraph or two about what little Fanny Gardiner was doing, or how the baby had started to babble. But it wasnotthe same. Not in the slightest.

It was even worse than at school, since then the letters were only a day old before they were received.

And Miss Wilson was missing.

And both Jane and George. Georgiana was not told the details, but both Lizzy and Fitzwilliam insisted to her that she should not trust George or ever be in the same room as him alone.

And Fitzwilliam tried, but he simply did not have the time to properly attend to her. The funeral. The funeral calls. He met one by one all of the principal tenants and all of the servants. Several times he visited old Mr. Wickham who had taken sick with a complaint in his chest three days after Papa died.

Georgiana was lonely, and Pemberley did not feel right.

It was only the day after Papa was buried that Fitzwilliam had a chance to really talk to her at length. He sat next to her in the drawing room, and listened to her play, and then he asked about everything that she’d learned at her school.

Georgiana described the flower arrangements, the lessons on geography, history, and chemistry that Miss Wilson had long since made her memorize, and the endless practice with embroidery, comportment, and speaking properly.

“Do you like it?” Fitzwilliam asked seriously when she had finished.

“No!” Suddenly Georgiana cried and cried. She hugged Fitzwilliam tightly. “I don’t want to go back.”

He hugged her back. “There, there.”

“And I miss Lizzy! I miss her so much. She loves me. None of the girls at the school even like me. They steal my things, and Lady Georgette found and burned all of my letters from Lizzy when she was struck with the ruler after I complained to Mrs. Castle about how she’d ruined my necklace, and Mrs. Castle seemed to be angrier with me than with Lady Georgette. And—after Lizzy visited, they were all so sneering about her, because she was blind, and because she lives with a tradesman, ‘in Cheapside, hehehe, in Cheapside’—I hate them. And they said that it is a very lowering marriage for you, and they laughed about Lizzy’s scars, and I hate them. I hate them all. I don’t want to stay there. And I miss Lizzy.”

“I do as well,” Fitzwilliam said solemnly. “You do not wish to return?”

“No, no. Please don’t—” Georgiana recognized from his tone of voice that there was some hope to convince him. “Please don’t. I promise, I’ll listen to any lessons anyone gives me about comportment. And I’ll memorize every flower arrangement. And I’ll learn to dance perfectly. Just don’t send me back.”

Fitzwilliam sighed. “The principal reason to send you to school was so that you would make friends with other girls of your station, not so that you would learn flower arrangements.”

“Oh, but theyaren’tmy friends! I hate them.”