Mrs. Bingley’s Sister (The Austen Novels)

Chapter 40

April 1820

Sedgwick House

Derbyshire

Lydia Wickham was a widow now, and she was at the mercy of her wealthy Bingley relatives.

Thankfully, Jane had remained her selfless, angelic self—not much had changed on that score. Lizzy seemed more or less the same, except there was, Lydia had to admit, something different about her. Lizzy seemed almost like someone who have loved once but then lost her love at sea.

But Lydia knew this was nonsense.

Lizzy had no interest in marriage. She turned down that buffoon Mr. Collins so many years ago. Mrs. Bennet said something about some widower that had been in the neighborhood at some point—Mr. Elliot or Ellison or something like that—but nothing came of that, either. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that Lizzy never fell in love at all, and she was perfectly content to remain at Jane's side for the rest of her days.

At least, that's what Lydia thought until they moved to Derbyshire.

Lydia had been vaguely aware of Darcy throughout her marriage to his “nemesis” Wickham. Indeed, she never forgot the way Darcy tackled her husband to the ground when they discovered them at the inn they had been staying at after their romantic romp out of Brighton (to be honest, it was the first time Lydia realized she might have been making a mistake, choosing the handsome Wickham; seeing him get pummeled to the ground was not an endearing image, not in the least—it made Darcy seem more attractive, though).

Wickham was very kind to her through the wedding ceremony. Indeed, he was as jolly as could be, acting as if neither of them had been discovered so scandalously and shamefully living as husband and wife out of wedlock. Then they took off north, with a fistful of some three thousand pounds and a military commission purchased and waiting for him. Wickham bought himself tickets into bigger and bigger gambling games, and while he made some good money for a time, trouble would eventually follow. He quit the commission that had been purchased for him after a year and off they went, with a bouncing baby on Lydia's lap, from one village to the next, always outrunning whatever enemy Wickham had somehow made.

Lydia never knew many of the details, she simply knew of two things: the marriage bed and its consequence. She had their son, George, barely nine months after their wedding. Then she was pregnant again less than a year later, and it was seemingly endless after that—pregnancy, newborn baby, pregnancy, newborn baby, over and over—her fifth babe having been born just this past November. Moving in with the Bingleys had been a godsend. What help it was to have a nanny! What a relief!

In some of the villages they lived, Lydia would be lucky enough to win over the sympathy of some neighboring woman or other who would help her a bit, here and there. But generally, she was raising the children by herself. She barely had enough money saved away (from stealing small increments out of Wickham's stash whenever he was passed out from drink, usually after performing her wifely duties for him) to be able to pay for the first half of the journey down the Hertfordshire (rightfully concluding the Bingleys would cover the rest upon her arrival). She arrived at Netherfield Park with five children in tow: a newborn babe Mary, a barely two-year-old Elizabeth, a nearly four-year-old Lydia, five-year-old Thomas and a nearly seven-year-old George. The Wickhams were here to stay; thank God for the Bingleys and their generosity.

But now that they had sojourned to Derbyshire and Darcy's name had been mentioned on occasion, Lydia was recalled to remember something she had forgotten long ago...

September 1816

Tontitown Inn

Newcastle

"George, what are you chuckling about?" Lydia said groggily after having woken up, tired from last night: staying up with the two toddlers and a newborn who never seemed to want to sleep, and then performing her marital duties after that. She was utterly exhausted.

Wickham was sitting at the rickety old writing desk in the room, reading some correspondence.

"Anne de Bourgh has died."

Lydia made a face in disgust. Of course her loveless husband would laugh at some lady's untimely demise.

"Who is Anne de Bourgh? And why does that name sound so familiar?"

"Lady Catherine de Bourgh's daughter. Your sister Elizabeth met her once, when she traveled to Hunsford."

"Oh, that's right," Lydia said, "that dreadful Mr. Collins would not cease his endless babbling over his 'esteemed patroness' Lady Catherine de Bourgh."

Wickham chuckled. Lydia smiled a little. How she missed when Wickham would laugh more, before everything became so hard and difficult for them.

"What happened? Was it a tragic accident?" Lydia's mind filled with a scene of a wild carriage accident, like from a novel. Wickham shook his head.

"She was always ill. She got sick and died, I suppose. It happened last month." He shook his head and chuckled. "Darcy was supposed to marry her."

"Mr. Darcy? I always forget about him."

Wickham turned and smirked at her. "Well, I daresay, you shouldn't."

"I shouldn't?"

"He's the reason we're married."

Lydia knew money had been the reason, but it still didn't make the admittance of it sting any less. She frowned a little.

"I thought Bingley gave us the money to start our married life."

"Oh, Bingley took credit,” Wickham said matter-of-factly, “but I am very well sure Darcy paid me my three thousand pounds—"

"Which you squandered within a year," she muttered under her breath bitterly as he went on,

"—Darcy had the marriage settlement and everything written up. I was stuck at his home in London for days, if you'll recall. Weren't you at Netherfield? Anyway, Darcy should have married Anne de Bourgh and been miserable with her. I should have laughed to have seen it! But it looks like she never became Mrs. Darcy after all."

He shrugged and stood up, dressing to leave.

"Where are you going?" Lydia asked, as she soon started to hear the waking cries of her newborn daughter and the answering calls of her toddler boys in the other room. Wickham flashed her a devilish smile—somehow, even in poverty, he was still superbly handsome.

"Business matters, my dear. I shall be back this evening, at some point."

And he was gone before she could say a word. Then all the children were crying; she had no choice but to get up and attend to them.

Darcy paid for the wedding? Not Bingley?

The thought soon left her mind, however, and she wouldn't recall it for years.