Page 83 of The Longbourn Bloodline

Confusion and consternation were etched on Georgiana’s brow as she looked toward Darcy for guidance. He gently patted her hand and whispered to her, and she nodded, returning her attention to Elizabeth.

“It started with George Darcy, a boy who was sent to Longbourn to be the second heir after our great-grandfather, Thomas Bennet, and Alice Bennet, one of Thomas’s sisters who lived until 1775.” Elizabeth withdrew the letters from the oilskin packet. “What I thought was an unrequited love story took an unexpected turn. I found this yesterday hidden in the steward’s cottage, a packet Alice left behind.”

Georgiana’s eyes went to the packet, then to Elizabeth’s face, then to her brother’s rigid back. “What is it?”

“Letters, and a confession.” Elizabeth’s voice was steady, though her hands trembled slightly. “Alice discovered that George Darcy was born George Bennet. Her mother told her after she fell in love with him. And George was sent away.”

Jane gasped, eyes wide and stricken, and Georgiana’s face colored. “Brother, is this true? Did you not say George, our great-grandfather, was sent here to Longbourn to learn estate management? To prepare him in case the Bennet heir died?”

“Yes, it is what we believed.” Darcy’s voice was choked. “But Alice has proof. There is a page torn from the family Bible, and a miniature of the baby.”

“The one Elizabeth showed me? The baby with the eyebrows that connected in the middle?” Georgiana exclaimed. “I knew it was not one of ours, for it had no date, and no artist’s signature.”

Elizabeth produced the miniature and set it on the table between them. No one picked it up, staring at it as if it were a live serpent.

“There is more,” Elizabeth said. “Years later, George’s wife had died, and he wrote a letter to Alice. He still loved her, and he wished… if there was any hope…”

“But, if this is true,” Georgiana picked up the torn page from the Bible, reading the name, George Bennet, “she cannot marry him because he is her brother.”

“He did not know.” Elizabeth unfolded George’s letter. “And Alice could not answer him, because she could not take him away from the home he knew, his heritage, his name, the Darcy name, and Pemberley. He died believing Alice did not love him.”

Georgiana made a small sound—not quite a gasp, not quite a sob, but in between. She reached for George’s letter and blinked as she took in his sorrow.

“But Alice! How utterly sad,” Jane said softly, taking Alice’s confession and unfolding it. “Papa, no wonder you said she was the most unfortunate Bennet.”

“I had no idea,” Mr. Bennet said. “I came across her writings when she was but a girl. Joyous, fun, and playful. Every book or unfinished story ended in the summer of 1711. My mother said she suffered from a shattered heart. A boy who left without looking back.”

“Except he did look back.” Georgiana had finished George’s letter and refolded it. “He mentions his sister Mathilda, and he must have grown old waiting for a reply that never came.”

“How could Philippa have done this?” Mr. Bennet set his pipe down. “Her own son, sold like a horse.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Elizabeth didn’t know why she felt the need to defend Philippa, except perhaps that she felt her pain and saw in her commonplace book the tinctures and balms she used to treat illnesses and save other infants. “Longbourn’s crops failed several years in a row, and the Darcys had money. They wished to borrow a son, but their own George died, an infant, and they took him one fine morning. Perhaps it was meant to be temporary, or for a few years; we don’t know. But they did return him every summer when he was older to learn how to manage Longbourn. She describes her heartbreak with these words. He did not cry. He was too young to understand. He went with them smiling, because they gave him a wooden horse to hold. I pray God forgives me. I do not think I shall ever forgive myself.”

“Oh!” Georgiana was weeping now, tears streaming down her face, and Darcy’s arm was around her shaking shoulders. “Poor George. He never knew his mother’s love. He died believing Alice did not love him.”

Darcy’s face was ravaged, his eyes hollow, but he was looking at his sister with an expression of such desperate love that Elizabeth felt her own eyes sting.

“Georgiana,” he said. His voice was rough, barely audible. “I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

“Alice.” Jane had finished reading her letter. “Alice could not tell him, because he was her brother by blood.”

“But she could have at least replied by way of Mathilda!” Georgiana’s protest was too hot. “She didn’t have to let him suffer.”

“Except she suffered with the knowledge,” Mr. Bennet said. “Heavier and weightier. I knew Alice. She died when I was sixteen. A small, fierce woman who walked faster than any person I have met, save one.” His gaze moved to Elizabeth, and the bend in his brow made her chest ache. “She told stories to the tenant children and kept bees. She never married, and my mother said it was because she had been disappointed in love. My mother was correct, although the nature of the disappointment was rather more profound than any of us imagined.”

“Georgie.” Darcy’s voice was soft, consoling. “Alice held the secret to protect our George. She was his sister. She could not have married him.”

“But she could have… oh, she could have recognized him as her brother. She could have--”

Mr. Bennet had finished the letter. “She could not have. She writes here that she sees no path forward that did not end in ruin, and she is correct. Both families would have fallen. Not because of the inheritance—though that would have been ruinous enough—but because of the love. A sister in love with her brother. A brother who wrote to his sister after his wife passed, asking for her hand. The world would have seen scandal, the taint of an unnatural sin, and the gossip would have destroyed all of us: Alice’s younger sisters, and my grandfather, Thomas, the natural heir. And it wouldn’t have changed a thing. She still could not marry George. She could not write through Mathilda, because neither Mathilda nor George knew George was a Bennet, so she did the only wise thing. She let sleeping dogs lie, and she hoped for a better future, for another Bennet girl who would…”

And here, he stopped, turning to Elizabeth, his gaze shining with emotion.

“Papa…” Elizabeth said to the sound of sniffling around the room. “I am not as brave as her.”

“Nor do you need to be, dear. Your Darcy is a third cousin. Hers was a full brother. I say we thank Alice, for she loved her Darcy enough to let him believe she did not.”

Georgiana looked up at her brother. “I believe Alice and George are together now, brother and sister, and George knows the love of both families. He belongs to both of us.”