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As if the situation was not trying enough, Lizzy gained new difficulties when Harriet acquired a beau. Colonel Biddleston was the younger brother of a baronet—though he was not young. His age bothered Harriet not at all—she had set out to make a respectable match, and the indulgent colonel fit her ideal well enough. Her dowry was ample. She was pretty, and Mrs Morris was shrewd enough to ensure the integrity of any nuptials. It should not have made any difference to anything, but the change in Harriet was immediate.
She had never been overly friendly, and Lizzy understood; Lizzy had not fulfilled the liveliness nor the fun Harriet had expected to have with Lydia. But suddenly, she actively pushed Lizzy away from attending anything, encouraging her to stay home and ‘care for her health’. The mystery of her new coolness was solved by Martha, who called on her whilst Harriet attended a seaside picnic arranged by a Ramsgate society matron, an event wherein Lizzy’s presence was, once again, not welcomed. Martha was in angry spirits because she had not been invited, either, and was in the mood to criticise.
“Harriet says you are too eccentric, but I do not think that at all,” Martha explained bluntly, and as if Lizzy had asked for her opinion on Harriet’s newly frost-filled manner. “She is jealous.”
“Surely you jest,” Lizzy vehemently disagreed.
“Oh, not of your looks, of course. It is rather that you are…too interesting.”
“That makes little sense.” Lizzy shook her head at the other girl’s spite. “I am hardly noticed.” I make sure of it.
“At large parties, yes, you sit with the matrons,” Martha agreed. “But in smaller groups, talk can turn to nearly any topic but never one you are unable to converse upon. Old men such as Biddleston like that sort of thing. I watched his attentiveness to your conversation and his smiles at your cleverness, and I saw it soon enough. Harriet is well off, pretty, and laughs easily, but at her heart, she is simply dull and stupid. She truly cannot be anywhere beside you without the obvious truth of it shining into her colonel’s face.”
“Unbelievable!” Lizzy protested, and she tried very hard, thereafter, to be as dull as a moth beside Harriet’s butterfly…but all to no effect. Harriet’s hints regarding the conclusion of Lizzy’s visit increased, even though Lydia’s original invitation had been to stay until the summer’s end. Lizzy wrote to Mrs Hurst at Netherfield, including a sealed letter for Jane and asking that it be forwarded to Mrs Bingley immediately, boldly begging for a place with them as soon as Jane would allow it.
Although she watched daily, she received no reply.
* * *
Lizzy made the early-morning walk to the secluded spot just off the cliff path where she daily met with Georgiana. She could tell by the dejected stance of the girl that Lady Catherine had not, as yet, replied.
“Perhaps there was a delay in receiving your letter,” Lizzy suggested.
“Or as is more likely, perhaps she thought it only the foolish imaginations of a foolish girl and paid no attention to it whatsoever.”
“Have you had any luck in delivering a note to your brother?” Lizzy asked, trying to distract her from this line of reasoning.
“No,” she said more glumly still. “Or rather, I do not believe it. I begged Mrs Younge to give him my letters. She said she would see to it, but there is a smirk in her expression that tells me she only humours me, as one would a stupid child. And why should she think anything else? I have been nothing but her tool.”
Mrs Younge!Lizzy thought. It was the first time Georgiana had ever called the mystery woman by name—the very same name as the doctor who held her brother. At last, Georgiana had let down her guard.
“Is Mrs Younge a relation?”
She tried to ask the question casually, but Georgiana immediately paled.
“I should not have mentioned her!” she cried.
“Georgie, dear, you must know you can confide in me. Please say you trust me that far, at least.”
Georgiana looked away, and for some time, they walked in silence; Lizzy thought she would say nothing more. But then she said, “Mrs Younge is no relation. She is my hired companion. It is her dead husband’s brother who holds Fitzwilliam in his ‘hospital’.”
Too much power,Lizzy reasoned. All this Mrs Younge need do was threaten Mr Darcy’s care in order to get her own way. Several moments passed. “What if you wrote to Lady Matlock? I would happily post it for you. Tell her that Mrs Younge is incompetent and coarse. Tell her that she has threatened to speak of your brother’s illness to all of society if you reveal her shortcomings to your family. I cannot believe the countess would stand idly by, and perhaps a new companion would be more sympathetic and helpful. She could hardly be less.”
Georgiana bit her lip. “Or perhaps she would confront Mrs Younge, who could tell her the most awful things about me. And…and, Elizabeth, they would be true. I have done wrong, very wrong. I do not know what my family might do if they learnt of it, but it could not help my brother’s case. They might even hurry me to the altar without my consent, if not to Colonel Fitzwilliam, to someone else of the earl’s choosing. The earl has no incentive to see my brother healed or me happily married. None at all.”
Lizzy, of course, had no idea what wrongdoing of Georgiana’s could have been so heinous, but that Mrs Younge would exploit it seemed clear. She had always seen the girl’s sorrow, her anxiety, her despair, but she had failed to fully comprehend her fear, not until just this moment.
That the earl would push a marriage upon this child was reprehensible, but the situation was beginning to make a kind of sense. She had understood the Darcys to be wealthy, but now she understood just who would control those riches if Mr Darcy remained unwell. She must assume that the earl would be a dominant influence in that control, perhaps through the wife he planned to force upon Darcy, and the husband he planned to foist on Georgiana. Undoubtedly, she was her brother’s heir; she was neither daring nor confident and would likely always be easily manipulated by her uncle.
No wonder there seems no real attempt at communication or treatment for him!The Darcys were at the mercy of too many unscrupulous people who only cared for themselves.
* * *
At breakfast later that morning, however, Lizzy’s own troubles increased beyond simply concern for the Darcys.
“It is too, too bad you missed last night’s party,” Harriet said in dulcet tones.
Lizzy only nodded at the disingenuous remark.
