Chapter 13 #2
Darcy heard that familiar name like a blow and refused to show it. He moved to the desk and rested one hand upon it, keeping his eyes on hers. “If you are here to speak of Mr. Wickham, I have nothing to say to you. You may state your business and be done with it.”
She hesitated, then seized upon the opening.
“You know he is gone, then, sir. He was taken from me after a very short and violent illness. I nursed him with my own hands, without sleep, without assistance, but all would not do. He died in my lodging, and I am left with everything—the surgeon, the apothecary, the cost of the room, the very burial—”
Darcy could not restrain a short, contemptuous breath.
Her fingers crushed the handkerchief. “I have nothing, sir. Nothing. I have spent what small sum I possessed in caring for him. I am a lone woman. I cannot pay what is owed. Yet they have put him in a pauper’s ground, sir, a common pit, with the vilest company.
I could not prevent it. I have not the money.
He, who was once the favourite of your father—” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief that showed no trace of tears.
“I am not in the least surprised that you come bearing falsehoods. You were not left with his body,” Darcy said, his voice very quiet.
“Nor does he rot in some nameless pauper’s pit, despite your eagerness to see his wretched remains so disposed of.
If you had cared enough to enquire, you would know that I have seen to his burial in a proper plot, at my own expense.
I have paid the surgeon. The undertaker is satisfied.
Did you claim that his corpse merely walked out of your lodgings?
Whatever appeal you meant to found upon his supposed neglect fails at the outset. ”
She stared at him, colour coming and going in her cheeks.
“Then I am left with nothing, sir, nothing but his debts and my ruin. I cannot live upon air. I must have something for what I have suffered, or I must make use of what I have.” Her voice dropped, the fretful whine giving way to a far harder tone.
“There are persons in town who would be much amazed to hear how a young lady went off last autumn with a man. A young lady of good family, remaining alone with Mr. Wickham in a lodging house, with every appearance of being his wife. That must surely ruin any chance she has for a decent match. I do not desire scandal. Heaven knows I do not. Yet I have something by me that would make people listen.”
Mrs. Younge extended her hand. In her palm was a small gold locket. Georgiana’s locket.
He looked at her steadily. “I see you have added theft to your many offences,” he said. “You, who now threaten to expose a scheme of your own contriving, undertaken for hire, against a girl placed under your care.”
Her lips parted.
“You permitted a scoundrel to call upon a young girl in your charge,” he went on, each count laid down with calm.
“You removed her from her proper guardians under false pretences. You knew her age. You knew the dependence in which she stood. You knew what he meant to gain. You knew enough to flee when your plot failed. Now you would have me do what? Redeem my sister’s property, which you stole?
. Pay you to hold your tongue? Do you imagine you would fare well if I lay all this before a magistrate? ”
She swallowed convulsively. “I acted only as I was directed. I was misled. I believed he meant her well. I thought—”
“You believe there is money to be had,” he said, with a contempt that made her shrink. “Do not flatter yourself that the world will see you as a dupe. You were his accomplice. You will find little comfort in presenting yourself so, if you wish to excite the compassion of the law.”
“You threaten me, sir,” she burst out. “You, who have all the world on your side, threaten a poor woman who has lost every thing. It was for Miss Darcy’s sake that I came.
I thought you would not wish her story to be talked of in tea rooms and card rooms. I am the one who can keep it so, or make it worse. ”
“On the contrary,” he said, “your power to injure her is near its end. My sister is among friends who know enough to judge justly of what she suffered and to place the blame where it belongs. Any attempt you make to revive the matter will oblige me, in justice to her, to declare the whole truth to a magistrate. You have confessed to robbery, as well as to attempting to carry off your charge. Consider whether that story will best serve your interest.”
She opened her mouth, closed it again, and looked away. The hectic colour had begun to fade. Fear, plain and unadorned, took its place.
“I will not purchase your silence,” he added.
“I did what duty required in seeing Wickham buried. I shall do no more. You have no claim upon my purse, upon my name, or upon my family. You will never seek my sister, nor any member of my connexions, nor any young lady who has been in their company. If I hear that you have done so, I shall, without hesitation, put into writing for all concerned the part you played in Meryton, and take whatever steps are necessary to see that you are imprisoned, or transported.”
For a moment she stood still, her hands clenched. “So this is a gentleman’s honour,” she said at last, with a bitter little laugh. “You are all very fine whilst the world looks on. When a poor woman is left to pay the price, you call it her fault and turn her from your door.”
“If you believe that,” he replied, “there is nothing more to be said between us.”
He crossed to the door and opened it. The footman, who had been stationed outside by his orders, straightened at once.
“James, you will see Mrs. Younge out,” Darcy said, without looking back at her. “She is not to be admitted here again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mrs. Younge hesitated only an instant. There was nothing in his face to encourage a further attempt. Gathering her cloak about her with shaking hands, she swept past him into the passage. The door closed behind them with a soft, irrevocable sound.
Darcy stood where he was for a few seconds, his hand still upon the latch, then drew a breath and let it go. He rang the bell.
The same footman returned. “Shall I have your carriage brought round for Miss Bennet, sir?”
“No. I shall take Miss Bennet myself.” He paused. “You were at your post the whole time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will do.”
He went then to the little sitting-room. Mrs. Nichols rose at his entrance. Elizabeth, who had been gazing into the fire, started up as well.
“I must beg your pardon, Miss Bennet,” he said. “You have been kept waiting longer than I intended. Mrs. Nichols, you have been very good. I shall not detain you longer.”
The housekeeper curtseyed. “I am sure it was no trouble, sir.” With a respectful glance at Elizabeth, she withdrew and closed the door behind her.
For a moment there was only the small, steady crackle of the fire.
“Mrs. Younge has done what harm she may,” Darcy said at last. “She will not trouble my family, or yours, again.”
Elizabeth searched his face. There was a gravity there that told of effort, but a certain lightness too, as of a burden shifted at last from his shoulders. “May I ask,” she said, “whether she sought to injure Georgiana anew?”
“She sought to trade upon my sister’s name,” he replied, “and upon what was attempted in Meryton. She believed herself still to hold a weapon. She does not. I have made it plain that any attempt to revive the story will oblige me to lay the whole truth before those whose opinion could matter to her, and that I would rather endure whatever talk might follow than purchase her silence at Georgiana’s expense. ”
Elizabeth drew a breath. “Then she finds in you a very different man from the one she last deceived.”
He looked away for a moment, as if the recollection stung.
“She finds in me,” he said, more quietly, “a brother who knows where his duty truly lies. I have done what I ought to have done long since, and if there is any comfort in the business, it is that my sister need no longer fear the shadow of either of them.”
“I am sorry you have been obliged to see her at all,” Elizabeth replied. “But I am glad—very glad—to know that she can do no further mischief.”
He inclined his head. “If you are ready, we shall return you to Longbourn.”
She took up her cloak. A few minutes later, Elizabeth stepped out once more into the cold air at Mr. Darcy’s side.
If He Ever Married
When the house was quiet and his correspondence at last despatched, Darcy found his thoughts running back, with a pertinacity he could not command, to the afternoon’s walk.
It had been a trifling matter – a tenant’s cottage, a damaged roof – such business as any man who let an estate might be called upon to transact.
That the impressions of so simple a visit should press more strongly on his mind than even the interview he had lately endured with Mrs. Younge astonished him, yet nothing in his past dealings with stewards and cottagers had resembled the ease with which Miss Elizabeth had moved among them.