I am also looking about me for a companion for Georgiana. Her governess has left her to marry and I think that a companion would be more suitable as Georgiana is now fifteen. She will still continue with her masters so you need not fear that her studies will be neglected, but she needs a woman who can show her, by example, how to behave in company. She is too young to come out but she is starting to attend small parties I hold at Pemberley, where she can learn adult manners amongst friends.

And speaking of friends, Henry writes to me that he will be home in a few weeks on leave and he will be coming to Pemberley, where I know he will be pleased to see the improvement in Georgiana. He has promised to bring her a collection of pressed flowers from Spain, species which flourish there but are not to be met with here, and she is planning to use them to decorate a screen. She has already made the design and although I have a brother’s partiality, I think it very well done.

Henry has written to you, too, I know, but the mail being uncertain from the Continent he has asked me to say that he will call on you at Rosings in July. It is very hot in London and I am thinking of sending Georgiana to the coast following his visit, as I am persuaded it would do her good. Perhaps Anne would like to go with her? The two of them are good friends and they would be company for one another.

Your affectionate nephew,

Fitzwilliam Darcy


Lady Catherine de Bourgh to Mr Darcy

Rosings Park, Kent, June 20

You need not trouble yourself over the matter of Georgiana’s companion. I have found you one, a very respectable woman by the name of Younge. She just happened to be mentioned to me the other day by Mrs Campbell, a very genteel woman whose husband is in the diplomatic corps. Mrs Younge is lately widowed and as her husband did not leave her very well provided for she is in need of a position. Mrs Campbell gave her friend the highest references and of course Mrs Younge will be only too delighted to find herself as companion to Miss Georgiana Darcy.

Your idea of sending Georgiana to the coast is a good one and with Mrs Younge to guide her she will be able to make the most of the opportunity to sketch and paint the coast. Anne, alas, will be unable to go with her. Mr Feather is quite wrong when he says the sea air would be beneficial to her health; it would certainly be ruinous to her.

You must send two menservants with Georgiana, as it would be highly improper for her to travel otherwise: Miss Darcy, the daughter of Mr Darcy, of Pemberley, cannot appear with propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those things and you must be attentive to them as well.

I have arranged for Mrs Younge to call upon you on the twenty-second of June at ten o’clock, when you will confirm her appointment.

Your aunt,

Lady Catherine


Miss Anne de Bourgh to Miss Georgiana Darcy

Rosings Park, Kent, June 22

Dear Georgiana,

Mama says you are going to the coast. You must promise to write to me, for I do so like to hear from you. I get out very little and although we have people to dine they are always the same. We will have some variety soon, however, for Mama has just appointed Mr Collins as the new rector of Hunsford. He was ordained at Easter and seems very grateful for the preferment, which pleases Mama. He is also very agreeable and does whatever she asks him to do, as though it is his greatest pleasure on earth. He is an educated man, having been to university, but is not puffed up with conceit like so many young men nowadays, or so Mama says. He has a suitable humility, and a becoming gratitude towards her. She invited him to dinner yesterday, and he spoke at length on the duties of a clergyman and of the obligation he feels towards her for having given him such a splendid preferment so early in life.

Mama said, ‘Mr Collins, I have chosen you for the living and I am a superb judge of character. I never judge wrong.’ Mr Collins said that he had known as much from the moment he laid eyes on her, and Mama was impressed by his honesty and sense. He will be moving into the parsonage next month.

I hope you like Mrs Younge. Mama says she is a very agreeable woman and will make you an excellent companion. I believe your brother is seeing her today. I hope he likes her and that Colonel Fitzwilliam approves. Tell me, have you heard anything from Colonel Fitzwilliam recently? I must confess…but I had better not say any more.

Your loving coz,

Anne


Miss Georgiana Darcy to Miss Anne de Bourgh

Darcy House, London, June 30

Dearest Anne,

Mrs Younge has been appointed and I like her very much. Do you know, when Ullswater knocked over my screen this morning, instead of saying she was a horrible beast who ought not to be allowed in the house, Mrs Younge simply picked it up again, dusted off the footprints and said, ‘No harm done.’

I am sorry you are not to come with me to the coast as it is now certain I am to go. It is so hot in London that I feel like a cut flower which someone has forgotten to put in water. I am to go to Margate or Ramsgate, just wherever Mr Hargreaves manages to find a suitable house. Poor Mr Hargreaves! He is having to do everything at the moment. My brother has not only instructed him to find me a suitable house by the sea, but also to supervise Pemberley until a new steward can be found. It is a pity that my brother has had a falling out with George Wickham, otherwise he could ask him to be the new steward. But when I ventured to mention it, Fitzwilliam became quite cold and said that it would be most unsuitable.

I hope to see Colonel Fitzwilliam when he comes home and I will tell you all about it. I am very fortunate to have him as my guardian. He always has some present for me, and I always make sure to give him something in return. I have painted a screen for him and I mean to present it to him when next we meet. I wish he did not have to go away to war, but someone must do it, I suppose, and all his life he wanted to be a soldier so I cannot complain.

Your affectionate cousin,

Georgiana

JULY


Mr Wickham to Mr Parker

London, July 4

The biggest stroke of luck! I was walking in the park yesterday and who should I see but Belle. You remember Belle? Of course you do! We went to many parties with her and her friends when last we knew her, and you surely will not have forgotten them! If you remember, I told you that the last time I saw her she was thinking of turning respectable. Well, she has. I took her for an ice and she told me all about it.

It seems she happened to run across an old school friend who had seen nothing of her for years, and so of course she said nothing of the recent past. She drew a veil over her string of protectors and said only what she wanted her friend to hear: that she had married a good man, a Mr Younge, that he had tragically died and that she was left in difficult circumstances. This friend, a Mrs Campbell, gave her a glowing reference and helped her to a position as a companion to an heiress.

Ah! I thought that would make you sit up! But the best of it is, she is not just the companion to any heiress, she is the companion to Georgiana Darcy!

You can imagine how I felt when she told me. My heart leapt! An heiress, one I could approach and scrape an acquaintance with, and then reminisce about our happy childhoods with, for although I am some ten years older than her I was always kind to her when she was a little girl. Better yet, she is being sent to the coast by her brother for the summer, and what better place for me to approach her, where there will be no old servants watching, and no Darcy House to present a forbidding aspect? Only a promenade and many sheltered coves, with no friends or relatives nearby. A companion to guard her, of course—and that companion to be Belle!

I intend to run away with her to Scotland, where we can be married over the anvil, and then her thirty thousand pounds will be mine. Not only will I have a rich wife, but I will be revenged on Darcy for his contemptuous treatment of me.

Belle intends to work on Georgiana, encouraging her in romantic thoughts, so that she will be susceptible to my advances. I am to bump into them by chance when they are settled and then Belle will suggest I am invited to dinner. Before long, I will have Georgiana eating out of my hand.

I am going to buy a new suit of clothes but I will write to you again when I know where I will be spending the summer. Come and join me and we will celebrate: you, me and Belle together.

Wickham


Mr Parker to Mr Wickham

London, July 6

They say the devil looks after his own and it seems they speak truly. A rich wife and revenge into the bargain! By God, Wickham, you’ve fallen on your feet. Make the most of it!

Parker


Miss Georgiana Darcy to Mr Darcy

Ramsgate, July 8

Dearest Brother,

We arrived in Ramsgate yesterday evening and we are very happy with the house. Mrs Younge says it is very convenient. It is small compared to my London establishment, but it is very comfortable and it has a pretty view of the sea. Mrs Younge and I are going down to the beach this afternoon as I am eager to make a sketch of the coast. I will send it to you when it is finished.