Their first visit was to the nursery where they were greeted by Fitzwilliam and Charles with squeals and jumps of delight and spent some time hearing Mrs Donovan’s news. So much had happened during the week in London that it felt to Elizabeth that she had been absent for months. Then it was time for Mrs Reynolds to make her report. She said, “Please be assured, madam, that I have nothing distressing to tell you, but there is a matter of some importance about which I must speak.”

Elizabeth suggested that they should go as usual to her private sitting room. Mrs Reynolds rang the bell and instructed that tea should be brought for them both, and they sat down in front of a fire which had been built more for comfort than for warmth, and Mrs Reynolds began her story.

“We have, of course, heard of Will’s confession in connection with Captain Denny’s death and there is much sympathy for Mrs Bidwell, although a number of people have been critical of Will for not speaking earlier and saving Mr Darcy and yourself, and Mr Wickham, from so much anguish and suffering. No doubt he was motivated by the need to have time to make his peace with God, but some feel that it was purchased at too high a price. He has been buried in the churchyard; Mr Oliphant spoke most feelingly and Mrs Bidwell was gratified by the large attendance, many people coming from Lambton. The flowers were particularly beautiful and Mr Stoughton and I arranged for a wreath to be at the church from Mr Darcy and yourself. We were confident that that is what you would like. But it is of Louisa that I must speak.

“The day after Captain Denny’s death, Louisa came to me and asked if she could speak to me in the strictest confidence. I took her to my sitting room where she broke down in great distress. When, with much patience and difficulty, I was able to calm her she told me her story. She had no idea until the colonel visited the cottage on the night of the tragedy that the father of her child was Mr Wickham and I am afraid, madam, that she was gravely deceived by the story he had told her. She never wished to see him again and had also taken against the baby. Mr Simpkins and her sister no longer wanted him and Joseph Billings, who knew about the baby, was not prepared to marry Louisa if it meant taking responsibility for another man’s child. She had confided in him about her lover but Mr Wickham’s name has never been divulged or, in my view and that of Louisa, must it ever be in order to spare Bidwell’s shame and distress. Louisa was desperate to find a good and loving home for Georgie, and that was why she had come to me, and I was glad to help. You may remember, madam, my speaking of my brother’s widow, Mrs Goddard, who for some years has kept a successful school in Highbury. One of her parlour boarders, Miss Harriet Smith, married a local farmer, Robert Martin, and is very happily settled. They have three daughters and a son, but the doctor has told her it is unlikely that further children can be expected and she and her husband are anxious to have another son as playmate to their own. Mr and Mrs Knightley of Donwell Abbey are the most important couple in Highbury, and Mrs Knightley is a friend of Mrs Martin and has always taken a keen interest in her children. She was good enough to send a letter to me, in addition to those I received from Mrs Martin, assuring me of her help and continued interest in Georgie if he came to Highbury. It seemed to me that he could not be better placed, and accordingly it was arranged that he should return as soon as possible to Mrs Simpkins so that he could be collected from Birmingham rather than from Pemberley where the coach sent by Mrs Knightley would almost certainly be noticed. All went exactly as arranged; subsequent letters have confirmed the child has settled well, is a most happy and engaging boy and greatly loved by all the family. I have, of course, kept all the correspondence for you to see. Mrs Martin was distressed to learn that Georgie had not been baptised, but this has now been done in Highbury church, and he now has the name of John after Mrs Martin’s father.

“I am sorry I could not tell you earlier, but I promised Louisa that all of this should be in absolute confidence although I made it plain that you, madam, must be told. The truth would have greatly upset Bidwell, and he believes, as does everyone at Pemberley, that baby Georgie is back with his mother, Mrs Simpkins. I hope I have done what is right, madam, but I know how desperate Louisa was that the child should never be found by his father, and that he should be well cared for and loved. She has no wish to see him again or to have regular reports on his progress, and indeed does not know with whom he has been placed. It is sufficient for her to know that her child will be loved and cared for.”

Elizabeth said, “You could not have acted better and I shall of course respect your confidence. I would be grateful if I could make one exception; Mr Darcy must be told. I know that the secret will go no further. Has Louisa now resumed her engagement with Joseph Billings?”

“She has, madam, and Mr Stoughton has lightened his duties somewhat so that he can spend more time with her. I think Mr Wickham did unsettle her, but whatever she felt for him has turned to hatred and she now appears content to look forward to the life that she and Joseph will have together at Highmarten.”

Wickham, whatever his faults, was a clever, handsome and engaging man, and Elizabeth wondered whether, during their time together, Louisa, a girl whom the Reverend Oliphant considered highly intelligent, had been given a glimpse of a different and more exciting life, but undoubtedly the best had been done for her child and probably also for her. Her future would lie as a parlourmaid at Highmarten, wife of the butler, and in time Wickham would be no more than a fading memory. It seemed irrational to Elizabeth, and rather strange, that she should feel a twinge of regret. 

Epilogue

On a morning in early June, Elizabeth and Darcy took their breakfast together on the terrace. The day was bright with the prospect of friendship and shared enjoyment. Henry Alveston had been able to take a short break from his London responsibilities and had arrived the previous evening, and the Bingleys were expected for luncheon and dinner.

Darcy said, “I would be grateful, Elizabeth, if you would take a walk with me by the river. There are things I need to say, matters which have long been on my mind and which should have been spoken of earlier between us.”

Elizabeth acquiesced and, five minutes later, they walked together over the greensward to the riverside path. Both were silent, until they crossed the bridge where the stream narrowed leading to the bench put up when Lady Anne was expecting her first child to afford her a convenient resting place. It gave a view across the water to Pemberley House, an aspect which Darcy and Elizabeth both loved and to which their feet always instinctively turned. The day had begun with an early mist which the head gardener invariably prophesied presaged a hot day, and the trees, which had lost the first tender sprouts of the lime-green leaves of spring, were now in full luxurious leaf, while the banks of summer flowers and the sparkling river combined in a living celebration of beauty and fulfilment.

It was a relief that the longed-for letter from America had arrived at Longbourn and a copy sent by Kitty to Elizabeth had been delivered that morning. Wickham had written only a brief account, to which Lydia had added a few scribbled lines. Their response to the New World had been ecstatic. Wickham wrote chiefly about the magnificent horses and the plans of Mr Cornbinder and himself to breed chasers, while Lydia wrote that Williamsburg was in every way an improvement on boring Meryton, and that she had already made friends with some of the officers and their wives stationed in an army garrison near the city. It seemed probable that Wickham had at last found an occupation which he was likely to keep; whether he was able to keep his wife was a question from which the Darcys were grateful to be separated by three thousand miles of ocean.

Darcy said, “I have been thinking of Wickham and of the journey he and our sister have faced, and for the first time, and with sincerity, I can wish him well. I trust that the great ordeal he has survived may indeed lead to the reformation of which the Reverend Cornbinder is so confident, and that the New World will continue to fulfil all his hopes, but the past is too much part of what I am and my only wish now is that I never see him again. His attempt to seduce Georgiana was so abominable that I can never think of him without repugnance. I have attempted to thrust the whole experience out of my mind as if it had never happened, an expedient which I thought would be the easier if it were never spoken of between Georgiana and myself.”

For a moment Elizabeth was silent. Wickham was not a shadow on their happiness, nor could he damage the perfect confidence, spoken or unspoken, that existed between them. If this was not a happy marriage the words were meaningless. Wickham’s previous friendship with Elizabeth was never mentioned out of a delicacy which they both felt, but they were united in their opinion of his character and mode of life, and Elizabeth had shared her husband’s determination that he could never be received at Pemberley. Respecting the same delicacy she had never spoken to Darcy about Georgiana’s proposed elopement, which he saw as Wickham’s plan to get his hands on Georgiana’s fortune and avenge himself for past imagined slights. Her heart was so full of love for her husband and trust in his judgement that there could be no room for criticism; she could not believe that he had acted towards Georgiana without thought or care, but perhaps the time had come when the past, however painful, had to be confronted and spoken of between brother and sister.

She said gently, “Is that silence between you and Georgiana not perhaps a mistake, my love? We have to remember that nothing disastrous happened. You came to Ramsgate in time and Georgiana confessed all, and was relieved to do so. We cannot even be sure that she would, in fact, have gone away with him. You should be able to see her without always recalling what is so painful to you both. I know that she longs to feel that she is forgiven.”

Darcy said, “It is I who am in need of forgiveness. Denny’s death has made me face my own responsibility, perhaps for the first time, and it is not only Georgiana who has been injured by my negligence. Wickham would never have eloped with Lydia, never have married her and been brought into your family if I had subdued my pride and told the truth about him when he first appeared in Meryton.”

Elizabeth said, “You could hardly have done that without betraying Georgiana’s secret.”

“A word of warning in the right quarters would have done it. But the evil goes back much further, to my decision to remove Georgiana from school and place her in the care of Mrs Younge. How could I have been so blind, so uncaring, so neglectful of the most elementary precautions, I who am her brother, who was her guardian, who was the one my mother and father trusted to care for her and keep her safe? She was only just fifteen at the time and had not been happy at school. It was a fashionable and expensive academy but there was no loving care, and it inculcated pride and the values of the fashionable world, not sound learning and good sense. It was right that Georgiana should leave but she was not ready to have an establishment set up for her. She, like me, was shy and unconfident in society; you saw that yourself when, with Mr and Mrs Gardiner, you first took refreshments at Pemberley.”

Elizabeth said, “I saw, too, what I have always seen, the trust and the love which existed between you.”

He went on as if she had not spoken. “And to set her up in an establishment, first in London, and then to sanction a move to Ramsgate! She needed to be at Pemberley; Pemberley was her home. And I could have brought her here, found a suitable lady as her companion, and perhaps a governess to further an education which in essentials had been neglected, and to be here with her to provide the love and support of a brother. Instead I placed her in the care of a woman whom, even now that she is dead and beyond any earthly reconciliation, I shall always think of as the personification of evil. You have never spoken about it, but you must have wondered why Georgiana had not remained with me at Pemberley, the only house which she knew as home.”

“I own that I did wonder from time to time, but after I met Georgiana and I saw you together I could not believe you had acted with any other motive than her happiness and well-being. As for Ramsgate, it could have been that medical men had recommended she should have the benefit of sea air. Perhaps Pemberley, where both her parents died, had become too imbued with sadness and your own care of the estate might have made it difficult for you to devote such time to Georgiana as you would wish. I saw that she was happy to be with you and could be confident that you had always acted as a loving brother.” She paused, then said, “What of Colonel Fitzwilliam? He was joined with you as guardian. Presumably you interviewed Mrs Younge together?”