Georgiana
Indeed, Miss Darcy was a great deal more congenial than her brother. (Under her present situation, it might be suggested that her brother thought she had been a little too congenial.) In truth, she was more agreeable than congenial. At one time, those of her acquaintance would have believed her the most agreeable and malleable of young women, most unhappy to cause anyone undue distress. Consequently, when that most agreeable, malleable, and proper of young ladies took leave of her home and family without a word and in the company of a stable boy of questionable birth to follow the army like a common camp-follower (although there were very few brave enough to utter that slander even in the privacy of their own homes), everyone—to a person—was utterly aghast.
As assiduously as had this intelligence been guarded, word of it had leaked out. The fabrication that Miss Darcy had merely taken herself upon a scheduled visit to relatives on the Continent was publicly accepted without comment beyond the offering of felicitations for her safe journey. It was, however, commented upon in private. That she returned engaged to Colonel Fitzwilliam, a gentleman of the highest calibre and exceptional family was the saving grace on the entire scandalous affair. Had she returned to England under any other circumstances, even the Darcy name may not have saved hers from ruin.
Georgiana had pined for her cousin with considerable dedication in ever-increasing gradations through the whole of her life. She had never exposed her regard to anyone. Yet when she was confronted by the possibility that he might actually die without knowing of her love, the shy, sheltered Georgiana took leave of her hearth and home (and possibly of her senses) in daring pursuit of his regiment, determined to save him from himself. Her brother, under the misapprehension she had eloped with a servant, was fast on her trail.
Georgiana, however, found Fitzwilliam first. So consumed was she with nursing his wounds, contrition for her rashness was largely ignored.
The entire impetuous episode culminated (as many an impetuous episode) in an unforeseen alliance of a fertile nature.
But once returned to Pemberley, and much to her brother’s displeasure, Georgiana behaved for all the world not like a ruined virgin, but as if she had somehow scaled an insuperable peak (so to speak). Contrarily, Fitzwilliam sat about, patch over one eye and gripping a forked staff, with a seriously stupid expression. The understanding that his sister was with child and by Fitzwilliam due to the intimacies undoubtedly undertaken by her whilst nursing him through an extended recovery of battle wounds remained unmitigated for Darcy by the passage of time. For weeks he continued to take his own personal umbrage with the situation. So distressing was it to him, upon occasion he still pondered the feasibility of calling Fitzwilliam out, saying if necessary he would prop him up to do it. Nothing is less ungentlemanly or more demanding of retribution than having one’s sister defiled, he groused. Ruining one’s sister is unworthy of a gentleman, said he.
He said that to no one save his wife. After Elizabeth’s initial gentle observation that the invalid Fitzwilliam could hardly have seduced Georgiana, she need not have repeated herself. He would glance in her direction, eyebrows knitted, eyes brooding, with a vein in his temple threatening to explode, but it took Elizabeth only to remind him by means of one upraised eyebrow to cool his rekindled ire.
Despite all the tribulations surrounding her indecorous escapade, Georgiana was truly in love. Whether or not Fitzwilliam had been somehow ensnared in a web of Georgiana’s making remained unexplored. Still, a wedding was demanded post-haste. The Darcy name could weather only so much prattling before it began to take its toll. So far no one knew of Georgiana’s condition. She was of tall frame like her brother, that and empire fashion would conspire to conceal her pregnancy for several months, but time was still of the essence.
Once she knew Elizabeth—not her brother—would see to the plans, Georgiana waltzed about Pemberley in a manner previously unknown to her. Having experienced the throes particular to impending motherhood, Elizabeth was more than sympathetic. Defending her moods to Darcy was not productive.
“I dare say she moons about with her head in the clouds and feet barely touching the earth! She is quite oblivious to anyone or anything but her everlasting love, Fitzwilliam.”
Darcy had spoken with more than a small amount of exasperation and was compleatly oblivious that he had employed the words “everlasting love, Fitzwilliam” in falsetto—a first for him in Elizabeth’s recollection. She had to stifle a smile, knowing full well that he was in no mood (nor often was) to be a target of mirth.
Perhaps collecting himself, he eschewed his mocking tone, but continued to complain, “These, of course, are on the days she is here at Pemberley...”
This was quite true, for as often as not she spent her days at Whitemore, where she lovingly tended to Fitzwilliam’s rehabilitation. The one thing that she was not was any semblance of her former self. Gone, seemingly forever, was the shy, reticent, and uncertain girl that they had all known. This turn of events was not included in her brother’s wishes.
After the first uneasy conversation about her condition upon her return home, when it fell to Elizabeth to tell Darcy of what had happened (apparently under his very nose) whilst they were stranded across the water with Fitzwilliam, Elizabeth and Darcy rarely spoke of it. Indeed, it was all but ignored. Elizabeth supposed that in choosing to ignore it, Darcy hoped in vain that it might all vanish from the horizon. Elizabeth knew too, that when he caught sight of her in her morning-gown in the parlour looking at dress patterns for Georgiana’s trousseau, the truth had been horribly apparent. His distress was as much over her overburdening her strength as in facing what lay ahead for her.
Georgiana loved her brother with all her heart. She would bear his disapproval for, in time, she believed that with the happiness she would bequeath Fitzwilliam, eventually she would be forgiven her rashness. Her greatest fear was not her brother’s disapproval, but his disappointment.