Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (14 page)

He was perfectly well when we all retired to bed. Elizabeth refused to have a nursery maid, so James sleeps in a small cradle next to her and Fitzwilliam's bed--or bundled into the bed between them, Elizabeth says. Because they both like to have him close.

But tonight--or I suppose I should say last night, since it's nearly dawn now--James woke up crying and coughing at once. Short, harsh, barking coughs that made my own chest ache to hear them. Elizabeth came to my room, holding him, and asked me to go and fetch Mrs. Reynolds. And my brother went to wake one of the footmen and send him for Mr. Broyles, the physician. Fitzwilliam was doing his best to reassure Elizabeth, but I could see how worried he was.

Babies
do
die. Especially in winter. And looking at James' small face, all scrunched up with the effort he was making to breathe, his life seemed so fragile--barely three weeks old. Even a slight sickness could be enough to snatch him away. And this was not slight at all. Besides the cough, I could hear a whoop of air with every one of his laboured breaths.

The whole house wound up being roused, Edward and Frank and Caroline, as well. And it was decided that Edward and Frank would ride out for Mr. Broyles. They could take their own horses and cover the distance to Lambton more quickly than one of the footmen. And it was safer for two of them to go than one, in case one horse foundered or lost its footing in the snow.

They left just as Mrs. Reynolds came bustling into Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam's room. I know she was worried, too. But she was splendidly calm. She took one look at baby James, clasped tight in Elizabeth's arms, and said, "Ah, it's the croup, that's what ails the poor lamb. I'll go and tell the kitchen maids to start boiling water. We'll need clean towels and a great deal of steam."

When the copper kettles of boiling water arrived, she fixed a kind of tent using the towels and two chairs, and directed Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth to sit inside with James, letting him breathe the moist air.

While my brother took a turn with James under the tent, Elizabeth came over to Caroline and me. She was terribly pale, but she tried to smile. "There's no need for the two of you to go without sleep for tonight," she said. "I'm sure he'll be all right. My youngest sister Lydia had croup when she was one or two, and my mother treated it just this way. Which I would have remembered if I'd not been so panicked before."

Her eyes still looked dark with fear, though. Because of course there is a great deal of difference between a baby of just three weeks and a child of one year or two. I took her hand. "Of course I'm not going back to bed. Unless you'd rather I didn't, I'll stay right here in case there's anything I can do to help."

Elizabeth squeezed my hand and said, "Thank you."

I would have expected Caroline to leave. I was a little surprised that she had come out of her room in the first place. But she said, her voice only a little awkward rather than snappish or short, "I have some camphor in my room. I always travel with it in the winter time. I'll fetch it if you like, and you could add it to the boiling water. I've heard friends of mine--the friends who have children--say that it's very effective in cases of croup."

Elizabeth's eyes widened slightly with surprise, as I'm sure did mine. But she was too distracted by worry for James to say anything but, "Thank you. Yes, please fetch it." She turned to look back at the steam tent, where Fitzwilliam was holding James cradled against his chest. "Thank you, that's very kind."

Caroline must have run all the way to fetch the camphor from her room, because she was back in what seemed no time at all. "Here you are." Elizabeth had gone back under the towels to sit with my brother and James, so Caroline gave the packet of camphor powder to Mrs. Reynolds. But then instead of leaving, she crouched down to kneel beside the steam tent on the floor and touched Elizabeth's arm. "He really will be all right, I'm sure of it," she said. She spoke quietly and more gently than I'd ever heard Caroline speak before. "My school friend Maria Gibbon's little daughter had croup when she was not much older than your little boy. And she recovered perfectly well. She's three years old now."

And the camphor or the steam or both did help at last. Fitzwilliam looked down at James, still curled small as a kitten against his chest, and said, "I think--" He stopped and cleared his throat. "I think he's breathing more easily, now."

He was. The laboured rasp of his breathing was nearly gone, and his tiny face was relaxed, peaceful in sleep.

Edward and Frank returned a few minutes later with Mr. Broyles. Who had nothing to do but examine his small patient and say that James was well on his way to being cured, and that his treatment had been exactly what was required.

Everyone broke into gasps and exclamations of relief. Mrs. Reynolds started to cry, and Elizabeth laughed, her eyes bright with tears, too. My brother drew her to him with one arm, resting his forehead against hers, with James cradled close in between them.

And then all the commotion woke baby James, who blinked indignantly at us from Fitzwilliam's arms, as though wondering why we were disturbing him, just as he'd finally got to sleep--which made everyone laugh. Even Caroline. Though it was just after that that she ducked out of the room and into the hall.

I was standing next to Edward, leaning against him. Edward was saying something to my brother. But I saw Frank turn and go after Caroline a moment later.

I murmured, "Excuse me a moment," and went out into the hall, too.

Caroline and Frank were standing together at the head of the stairs at the far end of the hall. Frank's back was to me, and his voice was too low for me to make out the words. But I could see Caroline's face, pale and icy-hard as she shook her head. "No. I'm not listening to any more."

She whirled and ran away down the hall, back towards her own room. And Frank stood still a moment at the top of the stairs, watching her. He hadn't noticed me. But I could see the mixture of anger and pain on his handsome face, the bleak unhappiness in his eyes. And then he passed a tired hand across his face and started down the stairs, his shoulders bowed.

I hesitated. And then I went after Caroline.

I caught up with her just around the corner of the passage to the east wing. It was as though once she was out of sight of Frank, all her energy had abruptly deserted her. She had not even reached her room, but was sitting slumped on one of the velvet benches that lined the hall. Tears were running in silent tracks down her face.

She looked up at my approach. But she didn't bother to hide or even try to check her crying.

"Caroline--" In that moment, I did begin to feel sorry for her. She looked the picture of exhausted misery. I sat down beside her on the bench and said, "Can you tell me what's wrong? What did Frank say to you just now?"

A flicker of resentment crossed Caroline's gaze as she drew the edges of her dressing gown more tightly together. "Why should you care? It's not as though you even like me. Why should you? I've been horrible to you--to all of you. You and your brother and Elizabeth." More tears slid down Caroline's cheeks, and she dashed them impatiently away with the back of her hand. "I don't mean to behave so. But I'm so unhappy, all the time. It makes me feel as though there's something terrible inside me, goading me to be rude and spiteful. As though I want to ... to lash out at the whole world." Caroline's breath went out in a hiccuping sob. "But what does it matter? You've every reason to despise me"

I suppose that's one of the saddest truths of life. That so often people who are the most in need of friendship and kindness are the very ones who behave in a way calculated to drive everyone around them away.

I said, "I don't despise you. And Frank is my cousin. He'll be my brother-in-law in a few months' time. And I saw his face just now when he you left him. He looked ... he looked more unhappy than I've seen him since the girl he was betrothed to died. Is he unwilling to marry you, despite the child?"

Caroline looked at me, and then her breath went out in a long sigh and the small spark of defiance in her gaze seemed to fizzle and blink out. She dragged the sleeve of her dressing gown across her tear-streaked face and said, "No. Just the opposite. He keeps asking me to marry him. And I keep telling him no."

"You keep telling him
no
?" I stared at Caroline. "But why on earth? Frank is ... I mean, I should have expected you to--"

Caroline's mouth twisted up. "To jump at him?"

I'd been too much surprised to speak tactfully. But it was true. Frank is his father's eldest son, wealthy and heir to the title of earl, besides. He is exactly the kind of man I should have expected Caroline to jump at. To be honest, I should have thought Caroline would leap at the chance of marrying a great deal less handsome and good an earl's heir than Frank, if only for the prospect of being a countess one day.

Caroline stared straight ahead, the words tumbling out in a flat, exhausted rush. "Last spring, when I fell in love with Jacques--and then he married your aunt, solely for the sake of her fortune--I decided that I was through with love. Or with trusting men or anything they say. When I went to London--I was staying with my sister Mrs. Hurst and her husband--I made up my mind that I was going to do anything to get myself a husband. Who it was didn't matter, so long as he was rich and had a position in society. I told myself I was willing to do anything--anything at all--to force some man into marriage."

Caroline scrubbed at her eyes again. "It seemed a means of getting revenge on Jacques, in a way. Punishing the entire male race by forcing one of them into marrying me. And then"--Caroline's voice wavered and she swallowed--"then I met Frank. He was ... different from the other young men of the
Ton
. He made me laugh, for one thing. And he was ... was
real
, when all the other men were just pride and manners and false compliments--" She stopped, looking down at her clenched hands. "But that doesn't matter. I told myself that he was the perfect candidate--an earl's son, and wealthy besides. And connected to your brother--but outranking him at the same time. It felt as though marrying him would be the perfect way of ... of punishing your brother for choosing Miss Elizabeth Bennet for his wife instead of me. So I--" Caroline stopped and swallowed again. "I deliberately got myself with child. I set out to seduce him--I planned the whole thing. And then ... three weeks ago, as soon as I was sure, I went to Frank and told him. And he offered to marry me, straight away."

I shook my head. "Then why--"

Caroline interrupted before I could finish. "Because in that moment when he said that he would marry me, I realised what I had not been willing to let myself admit to before." She turned to look at me with dull, reddened eyes, and took another hiccuping breath. "I love him. I do. And I've done my best to entrap him into marriage--by the most dishonourable means imaginable. Frank said he would marry me, because ... because he's a good, honourable man. But how can I say yes? How can I? He doesn't love me. He's only offered me marriage out of duty, of obligation. And if I married him--" Caroline's hands balled themselves into fists. "If I married him, I'd be a burden to him. An unpleasant duty--and one he'd come to resent. How could he not?" She let out her breath again. "I won't do that to him. I love him too much to let him tie himself to me for the rest of his life, just because of my bad behaviour."

"Is that why you got my brother to invite you to Pemberley?" I asked.

Caroline nodded. "I wanted to get out of London, and--" She broke off. "I never in a hundred years dreamed that Frank would follow me here. But he did. Because he feels sorry for me--because he thinks it his fault about the baby, his fault that I'll be ruined in the eyes of the world." Caroline's voice shook. "A few days ago, I even told him the truth--that I had planned the whole thing, hoping to entrap him into marriage. I hoped it would make him despise me enough that he'd leave here, stop asking. But he only said it didn't matter. That the child was still his, and he still wanted to give it his name--"

Caroline pressed her eyes shut and her chin jerked up and down as she struggled not to cry. Finally, she looked up at me again. "Did you see the way your brother looked at the two of them just now--at Elizabeth and little James?" she asked. "They're his whole world. You can see it in his eyes, every time he looks at them. Hear it in his voice when he so much as mentions one of their names. And that's--" Tears leaked from Caroline's eyes again, but this time she didn't even bother to brush them away. "Seeing them together tonight, the three of them, I realised--more clearly than I've ever realised anything in my life--that that's what I want. A husband who looks at me and my baby that way. I'll never have that, now--never. But if I can't have that, I'd still rather bear the scandal and have this child alone than watch Frank grow to hate me, to hate how I manipulated him into marriage."

Caroline stopped speaking and was silent. And I sat beside her, wondering what I should say. What
could
I say? I didn't--I don't--blame Caroline for feeling as she does. In her place, I wouldn't go through with marrying Frank, either. And yet I couldn't see any other solution.

"I'm sorry," I finally said. "I wish there was some way I could help."

"That's all right." Caroline passed a hand across her eyes. Her voice was dreary. "You have helped, in a way, just by listening. Thank you. I think--" She stopped. "I think I'll leave Pemberley tomorrow. First thing. I don't think I can face your brother and Elizabeth. Not after the way I've behaved. Will you ... do you think you could convey my good-byes to them? And tell them how sorry I am?"

I said that of course I would. And Caroline thanked me again and went back along the hall to her room.

Friday 13 January 1815

I've so much to write that I'm not sure I know where to begin. Caroline did leave Pemberley at first light this morning. The whole household was still asleep and quiet after last night's scare with James. But I woke to the sound of gravel crunching on the drive, and looked out the window to see Caroline's carriage--or rather her brother-in-law's carriage, emblazoned with the Hurst family crest--rolling away.