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Chapter FiveIf Elizabeth had suffered any concerns overnight about Georgiana worrying herself into a decline over Colonel Fitzwilliam, they were lessened the next morning. Georgiana was in high spirits at breakfast, and even exchanged some teasing words with her cousin, who pinched her chin and called her a minx. Once Elizabeth had tended to her own morning duties--receiving Mrs. Reynolds' housekeeping report and approving the menu for the evening meal--she convinced Jane to take a turn in the shrubbery. Elizabeth ran to her room for her pelisse and muff, which a maid would have brought her had she been in the habit of asking, and the two ladies were soon outside, the soles of their boots crunching on the raked gravel and their breath blowing before them in frosty gusts. They walked arm-in-arm, talking of everything in their old way, though Elizabeth was conscious of a new reserve; there were some things she could not share, even with Jane. She glanced sideways at her sister and wondered if Jane was keeping secrets of her own. As they emerged from the shrubbery, a carriage laden with luggage came up the drive. Lackeys emerged from the house and began to unload the luggage as children poured out of the carriage and capered upon the steps. "That will be the Gardiners," said Elizabeth, and broke into a run, arriving breathless and laughing in the midst of the crowd. A gentleman was dismounting his horse with the help of one of the lackeys; when he turned around, Elizabeth stared at him in disbelief, and then ran into his outstretched arms. "Hello, Lizzy," said her father. "I hope you have no objection to me showing up without an invitation. With you and Jane gone, you could not very well expect me to stay in Hertfordshire." He held her away from himself and looked her over. "You seem well enough. Darcy must be taking care of you. Hello, Jane," he added, kissing his eldest daughter. Elizabeth clung to her father's arm. She had not realized until that moment how much she had missed him. "You are welcome, sir. Mr. Darcy will be glad to see you; but how do you come to be here?" "Oh, Gardiner looked in at Longbourn on his way north, and I attached myself to his party. Are you glad to see me, then?" Elizabeth smiled. "Yes, sir." "Good. See to your other guests, Lizzy." She recalled herself then, and kissed her aunt and uncle and whichever of the children she could catch long enough, and then stopped in surprise at the sight of a young lady standing shyly by the carriage. Elizabeth knew who she was, since Mrs. Gardiner had written that she was bringing the children's new governess; but she had not said that the governess would be quite the most beautiful woman Elizabeth had ever seen. She was young, about Elizabeth's age. Her skin was like rose petals of the most delicately tinted hue; her eyes were large, and the colour of cornflowers. Her hair was light brown, with golden lights that glistened in the late afternoon sun; it hung in curls that framed her face, and to Elizabeth's eye seemed to require nothing of papers or heated tongs to achieve them. The only thing that marred her perfection was a mouth that was slightly too wide, though some might consider her full, red lips quite as lovely as could be wished. "Lizzy," said Mrs. Gardiner, "please allow me to present Miss Thomas to your notice." The young lady made a polite curtsy, and her eyes met Elizabeth's. There was a sparkle and an intelligence there that made Elizabeth think that, under other circumstances, Miss Thomas and Mrs. Darcy might have been quite good friends. The governess took the children up to the nursery, and the rest of the party was soon seated at tea. Jane proved no less curious about Miss Thomas than Elizabeth, and they pressed Mrs. Gardiner to give them her history. "Her father was a curate in Surrey," their aunt told them. "She kept house for him until he died last summer; her mother died when she was a girl. What little the father left her went to the doctors who had tended him, and Miss Thomas was in need of a respectable situation. I heard about her when I made enquiries amongst our acquaintance for a governess. Miss Thomas came highly recommended. She is teaching the girls French and music and supervising the boys' reading and writing." "But she is so lovely," said Jane. "Why has she not married?" "I dare say because she has no fortune, Jane." Elizabeth exchanged a look with her sister; the Bennet girls had had no fortune, but the two eldest had married well despite that unhappy circumstance. That evening began more successfully than the former; Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed to feel an obligation to the company, and would not allow Miss Bingley to monopolize his attention as she had the previous night. Darcy offered to get out the card tables, but no one felt like playing, so Elizabeth organized them into two groups that competed against one another in writing and guessing charades. She had a moment's doubt over which group should include Colonel Fitzwilliam; she did not wish to expose him to the obsequious attentions of Miss Bingley, but to place him in a different group might be construed as a purposeful slight against Caroline, and Elizabeth would not place Jane and Bingley in the uncomfortable position of having to choose sides. Colonel Fitzwilliam was a grown man and could look after himself; besides, he had not seemed to mind Miss Bingley's attentions the previous evening. But where to put Georgiana? It would be cruelty to expect her to sit meekly by while her cousin flirted with Caroline; yes, better to keep her in Elizabeth's own group, along with Kitty. Georgiana and Kitty were not in a forgiving mood. They seemed to take a perverse delight in quickly guessing Miss Bingley's charades and in confounding her with their own; in this endeavour they were unwittingly assisted by Darcy, who enjoyed a pure intellectual exercise, and by the extreme good nature of Bingley and the Colonel himself, who could see it as nothing more than a silly parlour game. Caroline herself was not fooled in the slightest, and her civility toward Georgiana only increased as the game progressed. More than once Elizabeth was forced to step in and say something innocuous to excuse or explain a comment by one of the ladies so that the other could not claim offense. By the time that Reynolds brought out the tea and muffins, Elizabeth felt as limp as a worn-out muslin dress that would fall to tatters with the lightest touch. Mr. Bennet had not participated in the charades, but sat nearby with a book, Darcy having placed his library at his father-in-law's disposal. However, he seemed quite interested in the proceedings, watching over the top of the volume with a dangerous sparkle in his eyes. When the company began to retire, he came to kiss Elizabeth good night. "I fear the entertainment was not to your liking, sir." "On the contrary; I have been vastly entertained tonight. You did not tell me there was to be a Cheltenham tragedy enacted in your drawing room." Elizabeth sighed. "I assure you such was not intended." "Oh, come, Lizzy! Surely Mrs. Darcy has not grown so respectable that she cannot appreciate such delightful absurdity as that provided by several ladies vying for the favour of a single man; a single man unaware of their machinations, mind you." "It would be easier to appreciate in a drawing room not my own, Papa." "Now, Lizzy. You are merely the hostess. You provide the chessboard, but the pawns move entirely under their own power. My advice to you is to calm yourself and learn to enjoy it. Your guests will take their cue from you; Jane already feels it." "Dear Jane! Very well, sir, I will endeavour to laugh at my guests, of whom I am mostly quite fond, after all." "That sounds more like the Lizzy I know." He kissed her on the forehead. "Good night, my dear." "Fitzwilliam," Elizabeth said to her husband that night, "I would like to invite the Gardiners' governess to dine with us for the rest of her visit. It seems a shame to keep her cooped up in the nursery with the children while we are making merry." "Very well," said Darcy, yawning. "But perhaps she would prefer to stay in the nursery. Some governesses do." "Perhaps; but I shall invite her in any event. I feel sorry for her," Elizabeth added, nestling closer to him. "I cannot help but think that there but for the grace of God go I. Or perhaps it should be, there but for the grace of Darcy, for you are a rather godlike figure, sir, at least in the environs of Pemberley." "Your situation was rather different, Elizabeth." "If my father had died, it would not have been much different. Would you have married me had I been a penniless governess forced to make her living?" "That argument has no merit, for you were not a governess, you were a gentleman's daughter; though you had no fortune, you came from a good family. Miss Thomas's father, I apprehend, was merely a country curate." There was the Darcy pride again, maddeningly close to the surface. There was a time when he had expressed a rather different opinion of Elizabeth's connections. "Yet Mr. Thomas was a man of education, who raised a daughter with more accomplishments and learning than I can boast." "Perhaps he realized she might have need of them one day." "Perhaps. And perhaps so might I have, had I not had you." She shivered at the idea. His arms tightened around her. "Are you cold?" "No; a goose walked over my grave." Darcy yawned again. "You have me, Liz'beth." His lips brushed her forehead. Elizabeth lay in her husband's arms, marveling at the fate that had brought her to the ancestral Darcy bedchamber and the ancestral Darcy bed, and the beautiful and accomplished Miss Thomas to a guest room in the nursery wing. She could not imagine her life without her husband; could not imagine being so alone in the world. She reached up to touch Darcy's face. "Pemberley means nothing to me without you; I could give it all up in a moment, and live in the humblest cottage, as long as you were with me. I love you, Fitzwilliam." The master of Pemberley snored in response; the mistress, her sense of humour restored, laughed to herself and went to sleep. ~
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