At Pemberley, Georgiana could occasionally find diversion and companionship in her cousin, the kind and agreeable Colonel Fitzwilliam. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s father, the Earl Hallendale, and step-mother, Lady Sarah, had an ancient seat within Derbyshire not above twenty miles from Pemberley. Lady Sarah had inherited the charge of her lord’s two young boys, Viscount Dunfield and George Fitzwilliam, upon her marriage. The Hallendales were fond of their niece, and encouraged her happiness by every means in their power, but, Lady Hallendale, being every season preoccupied with the care of the estate and His Lordship’s two sons, was not able to visit at Pemberley as often as she would have liked, or indeed as frequently as she thought was necessary for the comfort of the motherless Georgiana. The eldest son, Viscount Dunfield, was only with the family occasionally, it being his habit to spend his time chiefly in London. His younger brother, George, not having the means of an elder brother, was at Pemberley more frequently. It was George Fitzwilliam who played hide-and-seek in the shrubberies in fine weather, and spillikins by the hour when it rained; who watched Georgiana ride on her pony in safety; who posed for Georgiana’s crayons and exclaimed over her drawings; heard her music, and praised her childish copying-out; encouraged her journal, and guided the little hand making its letters; and when any volume was sufficiently complete, sent all of these works of genius off to London to be handsomely bound, with her cipher on the spine.

All who made the acquaintance of Colonel George Fitzwilliam found him to be everything that was gentlemanly and good in person, manners and address. He required some little association before his qualities could be discovered, yet his manner had a very engaging humility that rarely failed to prepossess every acquaintance in his favour within the first few minutes in his company. In appearance he was not as handsome as Mr. Darcy, but his conversation was a charming combination of wit and quickness, gentle and soft-spoken kindness. He possessed the happy ability to converse with equal readiness and ease with those to whom he was a superior, as well as those who looked down upon him as being the younger, untitled son of an Earl. Further, his judgement was sound, his mind rational, and his disposition liberal. Despite his birth, he was remarkably unaffected by rank or fortune, much preferring country air to the stuffy atmosphere of a card room, and more inclined to walk than use a carriage. His chosen vocation was the army, and, most unusually for a man of his rank in life, he had acquitted his commission with valour, and a strict adherence to honour and duty.