Page 140 of Homeless

Oh, no, it was too late. The tears were already stinging the backs of her eyes and making her throat swell. “He is all goodness,” she whispered.

“He misses you terribly. But I suppose you know that, because he writes to you every day. I have seen how he waits on the courier and rushes off to read your notes. I can see by your eyes when I speak of him how you care for him. That is very nearly the dearest thing to a sister’s heart, you know. A woman who loves my brother must be a fine sort of creature.”

Elizabeth tried to laugh at the girl’s sweetness, and it came out as a sob instead. “Oh, dear.” She had to sweep something from her eyes. “You must excuse me, I… I am not usually a watering pot! Oh, do say something cutting and irreverent, or I am afraid I will make a fool of myself.”

“There, that is exactly something Fitzwilliam would say! But I expect you… oh, no, you said not to run on so. Do you like to read, Elizabeth? Perhaps one day, we can explore Hatchard’s and pull every book from the shelf, buy as many or as few as we like, and then lie in our pile of plunder like a pair of laced up dragons. What say you to that?”

She dashed another tear from her eye and found that she did, after all, have a smile worth putting on. “I think that sounds lovely.”

Georgiana stayed above half an hour. Elizabeth knew she ought to cut the visit short, but she could not find it in her to send the girl away. If this was to be their only meeting, it deserved what heart she had to give it.

She was so glad. That was what slowly ground Elizabeth’s brittle heart down to sand. The sheer, uncomplicated gladness of the girl, who had no notion she was sitting with a woman counting the last minutes of a marriage, who spoke of the future as though it were a settled and shining thing. She said she had always wanted a sister. She said she had loved Elizabeth already, and now that she had met her, she loved her twice as much and meant to be the best sister anyone ever had. She asked shy, eager questions about Spain, which Elizabeth turned gently aside. She said she could not wait until they might all be together properly, until Elizabeth came home to Grosvenor Square where she belonged and they might be a family.

And through it all, whenever the opportunity arose, Elizabeth kept coming back to the one thing she needed known.

“You must tell your brother I love him,” she said, the first time, as though it were an ordinary message. “Will you tell him that? Tell him Elizabeth sends her love.”

“Of course, I shall!”

And a little later, when the girl had said something about how happy her brother would be to hear she and Elizabeth had got on so well, she said it again. “Tell him I love him. You will not forget? It is important to me that he hears it. That he hear it particularly, today.”

“I shall tell him the moment I see him.” She laughed as if it were the most charming thing she had ever heard. “You are as bad as he is — he charged me with the same message for you, three times over, before he would let me out of the house.”

“Did he? Then you must give me his, and carry back mine, and we shall keep you very busy running love between us. Tell him… tell him as often you can bear to say it. Tell him I said it, and meant it, and shall always.”

When at last the girl rose to go — reluctantly, with a dozen promises to come again soon, to bring her music, to sit longer next time — Elizabeth held her hands once more at the door, and looked into Darcy's eyes in that young face, and made herself say how glad she was to have met her.

“And Miss Darcy, I have a favour to ask. Will you carry something to your brother for me?”

“Oh! You have your note already? Fitzwilliam will be so pleased.”

She smiled tightly. “It will save the courier his legs, since you are going the same way, and it is silly to send a man across town when you are bound for the very door. Wait but one moment — I have it upstairs. Do not go without it.”

“Of course,” said Georgiana, glad to be of use, suspecting nothing.

Elizabeth went up to her room and took the sealed packet from the table. The ring and the marriage lines and the letter that ended everything folded small inside it, and she stood a moment with it in her hand. She closed her eyes and let herself feel, once, the hideous betrayal of what she was about to do. And then she carried it down, because there was nothing else to be done.

Georgiana was waiting in the hall, pulling on her gloves, bright and untroubled, entirely unaware that she was about to be made the instrument of her brother's heartbreak by a woman who loved them both.

“Here,” Elizabeth said, and held it out.

Her hand shook. She could not stop it. She had held steady through the whole visit, through the girl's gladness and the four repetitions of tell him I love him; she had held steady through everything — and now, at the last, handing a sealed paper to a smiling girl, her hand betrayed her and shook so plainly that she saw the girl's eyes flick to it.

“Elizabeth, are you quite well?”

“I am well.” The tears were looming again, and if she did not hurry, she was going to crumple right there at the door. “We have had much grief in this house today, and it is nothing to concern yourself with. Give this to him yourself, into his own hand, if you can. He deserves… it would come better from you.”

Georgiana took the packet. “Of course. May I come see you again tomorrow, Elizabeth?”

“I think…” Her hand shook as she smudged a tear from her cheek. “I think not. I have some calls to make tomorrow.”

“Very well.” Georgiana embraced her then, the sort of hug Jane and Lydia used to give, without reserve or even good manners. Elizabeth held her back, squeezing tightly, and just as Georgiana was about to pull away, she kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you, Georgiana. Thank you for coming. Tell him —”

But she had told her four times already, and could not trust her voice for a fifth, and so she only pressed the girl's gloved hand around the packet and held it there a moment.

“I will, Elizabeth.”