Chapter Twenty
LYDIA
Since she had tired of poetry, Lydia read aloud from Evelina on the journey home while Miss Jane worked again on Mrs Bingley’s wrap.
Mr Bennet, unable to concentrate properly on his volume while the ladies distracted him with fiction, leaned his head back against the squabs and slept.
When they had read as much as they wished, they took a notebook and a pencil, and Miss Jane made a list of recommended books for Lydia to read, both novels and educational.
“How will I know that I am learning what I ought?” Lydia asked. “Who will answer my questions when there is something I do not understand?”
“You will discuss them with your father, and he will amend and add to your list as he sees fit.” Miss Jane folded the list and handed it to Lydia, who placed it in her reticule.
“What if he refuses?” Lydia said nervously.
“He cannot refuse,” Miss Jane replied. “It is his duty. Until now, your lack of education has been blamed on your own disinclination to learn. If you present yourself in his library and demand to be taught–as your father–he must do so. And if that fails, you will have to turn to your sisters, Elizabeth and Miss Mary. It might slow your pace to discuss your reading by post, but if that is your only option, you must do so.”
“I will,” Lydia insisted firmly. Suddenly her father began to cough, and the two women looked at him suspiciously. Lydia suspected the man to be hiding laughter.
“Thank you for the reed grass ring. That was very kind of you, I think everyone was touched.” Miss Jane fingered the grass ring upon her finger. “I shall put it in a special box, and cherish it as a memento of a lovely afternoon.”
“It was lovely, wasn’t it?” Lydia sighed. “I wish everyone had truly thought so, but I saw Kitty throw her ring down before she boarded Mr Darcy’s carriage.”
“Your sister will remember herself ‘ere long,” Miss Jane promised.
“Halt! Stop right there, or you will all be shot!”
Lydia was startled awake a half hour later.
She and Miss Jane had both nodded off during a lull in conversation.
Her father was sleeping in earnest now, he had not even been awakened by the shout from outside, but Lydia had.
Suddenly, there was a shot from outside the carriage, which had come to an abrupt stop.
That woke Mr Bennet, who was prevented from pulling a pistol from under his seat when the carriage door was yanked open and a pistol entered, pointing directly in his face.
“No getting excited there, sir, we would not wish for anyone to be hurt. Please step out of the carriage.” The voice commanded.
It was obvious that whoever was speaking was attempting to speak in a rough tone to disguise his voice, but was doing a poor job of it.
He had the unmistakably smooth drawl of a gentleman.
Lydia’s father, not having any other alternative, complied with the order. “You too, ladies. Step down, please.”
Why would he disguise his voice if he is unknown to us? Lydia wondered to herself as she obeyed.
Lydia and Miss Jane stepped down to see a man in a tricorn hat with a kerchief over his face. His hair was pulled back, but his eyebrows were light in color, and his eyes were a handsome blue. Lydia had the strangest feeling that she ought to recognise him.
Another man was directing Colonel Fitzwilliam and the other ladies out of Mr Darcy’s carriage.
There was a man near the trees, holding a gun to the head of Mr Bingley’s stableboy, who had been riding on the back of Mr Darcy’s carriage before he was snatched by one of the men as the others pulled guns on the grooms who had–by now–been pulled down from the carriages, along with the passengers.
Mr Bennet did not travel with outriders, only his groom, and on this short journey with her guardian, it had not been deemed necessary for Miss Darcy’s small, unmarked carriage.
Only her footman James had ridden up top with the groom, who did have a pistol under his seat, but he had seen and heard the highwaymen too late to pull it out.
“Here all of ye’, no funny business! No one’ll be hurt, so long as you ladies give over yer jewels an’ reticules.
You men, we’ll have yer purses an’ watches, an’ if you have signet rings, we’ll have them too.
Anyone makes a move, and little Johnny here gets it!
” The man holding young Oliver Farnum, Mr Bingley’s stableboy, shouted.
Oliver was terrified, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“You will find that my pockets hold little of value, that is of course, unless you have a fondness for stale peppermints.” Colonel Fitzwilliam drawled menacingly. “I warn you sir, I served under Wellington. If you shoot, you will do well to ensure you do not miss.”
“We will have less cheek from you, Colonel,” the man holding the Darcy carriage said, shifting his weapon to point at Kitty.
“Point that pistol at the lady again, and I will show you how an officer dispatches a coward, and to hell with the damned boy!” Colonel Fitzwilliam growled in a terrifying tone.
Oliver moaned from near the trees, praying for his life.
Kitty shrieked as she was shoved roughly towards Mrs Annesley, and the armed man swung his weapon directly at Colonel Fitzwilliam’s head.
“Better?” the highwayman asked.
“Much,” the colonel said menacingly. “Little good will it do you when I finally catch up with you.”
The highwaymen appeared few in number though everyone understood that there might be more hiding in the woods.
It appeared that there were only four of them, three armed men and a young boy, who wasted no time entering the carriages to plunder them rapidly with his sack while the travellers were held by the armed men.
The man holding the party from Mr Bennet's carriage was distracted by the party from the other carriages, Lydia noticed.
He looked, then squinted closely at Colonel Fitzwilliam and Georgiana.
His eyes darted back and forth between them and the unmarked carriage they had travelled in.
“I’ll be damned,” the man muttered in disbelief.
Lydia glanced at Miss Jane, who was staring at the same man with intensity, her brow furrowed as if she felt she should know him too.
Suddenly, the boy tumbled out from Mr Bennet’s carriage, waving Mr Bennet’s pistol.
“‘Ere, now. No waving that about, put it in the sack with the rest.” The highwayman holding Oliver waved at the bag with his pistol. “Ye know the rules. No guns for you. We don’t need ye goin’ off and killin’ folks, boy. ”
The lad went about and quickly collected everyone’s valuables, as the ladies from the Darcy carriage wept in terror, and Colonel Fitzwilliam glared with loathing at the highwaymen.
“‘Ere, now! You all stay ‘ere and wait! If you come after, we’ll shoot you!” The man holding Oliver shouted.
Before the first man could push the boy away from him, the other man holding the Bennets announced, while still attempting to disguise his voice. “Just a moment, my friend. I believe we will take another guest with us this time.”
“Another ransom?” the one holding the Darcy carriage scoffed.
“Something like that,” the man answered him with an evil glint to his eye.
“Yer gonna get us all killed, doing tha’. There’s no need!”
“No need for you. You have no idea what my needs are,” he snarled. “Besides, we’ve killed no one. Everyone has made it home unharmed.” He eyed Georgiana with a strange look in his eye.
“You will take no one from this party while I am alive!” roared Colonel Fitzwilliam in a rage.
“Your death can be arranged, Fitzwilliam!” The highwayman returned hotly. In his distraction, he dropped whatever disguise he was attempting with his tones, then gave up entirely. “Georgie, you will come away with me, just as we planned, darling.”
The effect was immediate. Miss Darcy swooned, Colonel Fitwilliam’s eyes flew wide in rage, and suddenly Lydia bellowed, “George Wickham, you fiend!” as she pulled from her pocket the large piece of puddingstone she had found on the banks of the River Lea, then brought it down hard on the back of the villain’s head. The man crumpled instantly.
Colonel Fitzwilliam exploded into action faster than anyone might have ever thought possible. He spun and grasped the head of the highwayman close to him–who was gaping in shock at his wounded accomplice–and crushed the man’s skull against the frame of Darcy’s carriage.
It was quite astonishing, the speed at which the other man and the young boy abandoned Oliver and disappeared into the woods.
Mr Bennet quickly relieved Mr Wickham of his pistol and pulled his kerchief down.
It was instantly clear to everyone but Miss Jane that Lydia Bennet’s identification was correct.
Colonel Fitzwilliam was upon Wickham in an instant as Kitty and Mrs Annesley rushed to tend Georgiana.
“Wake up, damn you, so I can give you the beating you deserve!” Fitzwilliam shook the unconscious scoundrel like a rag doll, then dropped him back to the ground. Georgiana’s footman James darted forward and kicked Wickham in the ribs the moment he struck the ground.
“We have waited too long, James, but we must wait a little longer until he is conscious, before we beat him.” Fitzwilliam clapped the servant on the shoulder.
“That is if he ever wakes up,” Mr Bennet observed. “Have you ever seen such a deep gash in a skull? Well… I am certain you have, Colonel. But I have never seen one so bad that was not fatal. Is he even breathing?”
“Did I kill him?” Lydia squeaked. Miss Jane put her arm around her shoulders supportively.
“No, he is only unconscious,” Colonel Fitzwilliam stood and made his way to Georgiana. “James, Oliver, secure him, and the other. I will come to check their bonds in a moment.”
Mrs Annesley was on the ground next to Georgiana, whose head was in Kitty’s lap. “I do not have a vinaigrette, sir, they took my reticule!”
“It is all right, Mrs Annesley, we are not staying here, it is not safe.” Colonel Fitzwilliam scooped Georgiana into his arms and lifted her into the carriage as Kitty leapt in to help and support her. “Mr Bennet, where is the closest magistrate?”
“Flitwick Hall is perhaps a quarter hour back.” Mr Bennet looked up and down the lane.
“I know Lucas better, but Sir Gregory Sayles is probably more intimate with the matter. The robberies all happened much closer to Ware than this, but I was of the impression there have been none for some weeks. The authorities insisted the villains had moved on, and no one believes Miss Jane’s appearance is related to the robberies, or we would not even have come. ”
“This’un’s dead, sir. Won’t be needin’ no bonds.” Oliver brought the fate of the other robber to Fitzwilliam’s attention.
“Tie him to the back of Bennet’s carriage. James, you ride on the back of Darcy’s with Wickham. Do not allow him to escape. We finally have him properly this time.” Fitzwilliam did a sweep of the area, and once everyone was in the carriages, he boarded Darcy’s and the party began to move again.
The carriages were turned about, and travelled back to the previous turn in the road, which brought them to Flitwick Hall.
The prisoner was taken into custody, Miss Darcy was tended and put in bed by Lady Sayles, who insisted that the poor ladies could not possibly travel any further that day.
One of Flitwick Hall’s grooms was sent on horseback to Netherfield, to inform them that no one had been hurt, but their party had been robbed on the road–and the robbers caught–and so they would not return to Meryton until after breakfast the following day.
Colonel Fitzwilliam and James personally attended Mr Wickham when he woke, and easily obtained the identification of his accomplices.
Wickham was not even in possession of enough of his faculties to use the information to make his sentence less severe, his only object was to save himself from being beaten to death by the colonel and James, whose sister he had defiled years ago in Lambton.