“I am so glad you are here,” I greeted Georgiana with real pleasure.
“Oh, I had to come as soon as I received your letter,” she replied. Within a few moments, as we were walking alone together, she asked, “How is Mrs de Bourgh?”
“Not yet recovered,” I replied. “She lost the sight in one eye and is in a great deal of pain. The fevers come and go. The doctor says she must not yet travel.”
Georgiana nodded soberly. “How horrible a thing to witness! I cannot imagine her behaving in such a manner. She has always been so dignified.”
We had been walking towards my favourite parlour, but on impulse I said, “Oh, come with me.” She followed me, incurious but willing, as we went to my sitting room—but we did not stop there. I went directly through my rooms and into my husband’s bedchamber.
“I saw keys here once,” I explained as I opened the drawer of the bed-chest, “and I wonder whether any of them fit the doors leading into the upper floor of the cliffside wing.”
I looked at her as I said this to see her reaction. Her eyes widened. “Oh, dear…Fitzwilliam would not like that. He wants no one up there.”
“I know. But I wish to show you something.”
She said nothing further, and I grabbed the ring of keys. I wondered whether she would even follow me, but she did, keeping up as I strode purposefully to the nearest stair, our half-boots echoing loudly upon the steps leading upwards.
The door, as expected, was locked. The second key I tried, however, opened it, and we quickly found ourselves in the corridor nearest the mistress’s chambers.
“It feels strange to be in here again,” Georgiana said, almost whispering. “It all seems so…lifeless now.”
She was correct. While it did not smell especially musty, one could tell that this floor no longer gleamed with precision spotlessness. The niches no longer contained empty vases and dust had collected in some of them; the rugs had vanished and the floors no longer shone.
“The last time I was here, it was pristine,” I replied. “But Mrs Reynolds has since made it clear that none of the servants will be directed up here by other than herself or me. Let us see whether there are any other changes.”
“You were up here before?”
“Oh, yes. It was…disturbing. I am almost happy to see it growing dusty with disuse,” I said absently, counting doors. I did not enter my husband’s former rooms, instead going directly to Anne’s bedchamber.
This time when I entered, I was more prepared for the sight, but the changes were eerie ones.
“Oh my,” Georgiana said.
Vases of flowers were still in place, but they were all dead and drooping. The rose petals scattered over the bed were blackened. A négligée was still draped across the foot of the bed, a different one this time, black, instead of pink, and matching the dead flowers. A silver brush set lay on the dressing table, as before, but the various cosmetics had all been tidied, their lids closed. The brush contained several golden hairs, as if its owner had just laid it down. I shuddered. I was certain that brush had been clean the last time I’d seen it.
“I wanted to show you this,” I said soberly. “Mrs de Bourgh kept it all as it was when Anne was alive. She replaced the flowers daily, but of course, she has been ill so they have since died. I know Mr Darcy took her key from her, but plainly she had another. She is unhealthily obsessed.” I gestured to the dressing table, telling Georgiana how it had appeared the last time I was here with its open cosmetic pots. I told her about breaking the figurine, and how Mrs de Bourgh had tried to embarrass me with its absence. And lastly, I told her about the unhappy surprise of George Wickham’s appearance in the parlour to taunt me, though mentioning nothing of his affair with her brother’s wife.
She turned white, and I thought she might swoon.
I shepherded her out of doors onto the terrace. Once again, the view struck me, and with it came the feeling, almost, of flying into the vast sky. There was no furniture out here, but I wished there had been a bench to sit upon and absorb the sight. On the other hand, it was chilly, and my companion looked quite pale.
“I am sorry to have mentioned him,” I continued. “Your brother told me how he took advantage of you.”
She appeared shocked, and then hurt at this betrayal of her secret. I placed my hand upon her shoulder. “I only wanted you to know that I understand, and why he shared with me your distressing experience.” Then I told her of Lydia, and what her association with Wickham, ultimately, had cost her. And me.
“I am so very sorry, my sister,” she said, immediately casting aside her own embarrassment. “Do you believe Mrs de Bourgh knows everything? But of course, she must, or else she would not have known to bring you to him. I wonder how she knows him?”
I admit to having been surprised by this question, although I should not have been. Possibly because of the way Wickham had spoken so boldly of his affair with Anne, and how plainly my husband had admitted their longstanding history, I had somewhat blithely assumed that Georgiana had at least suspected Wickham’s involvement.
“They are distant cousins,” I explained. “Wickham stayed with them in Ramsgate when he was, er, courting you. Mrs Younge is another cousin, and they set her up to deceive you and Mr Darcy.”
Georgiana shivered, and I did not think it was entirely due to the cold. “But he had rooms in Ramsgate,” she said in weak protest. “My brother wrote to him there.”
“As I understand it, they disguised the connexion until much later. Your brother did not know until after the wedding.”
Georgiana stepped slightly closer to the low wall, looking out over the valley floor, and I moved beside her. “All that time. This explains many things,” she murmured. She glanced over at me, then back out at the peaks. There followed a long silence, broken only by a hawk’s echoing cry.
When she spoke again, there was a definite bitterness to her tone. “Did Fitzwilliam also tell you that my husband is—was—in love with his wife?”