Chapter 28
“You’re here to call on Mr Wickham, are you?” said the stout landlady suspiciously as Darcy presented his explanation at her front door. “Well, I want no more trouble here. There’s been enough already today, and this is a decent house.”
“I am not here to call on Mr Wickham, I am here to deal with him,” Darcy returned impatiently, stepping past her at the front door and mounting the stairs before she had time to protest. “He has the rooms on the top floor, does he?”
“He has been nothing but trouble for all his smiles and soft words,” the landlady shouted after Darcy’s back, an observation that Darcy could quite easily believe.
Arriving in Meryton and going straight to the principal inn where Miss Bingley had apparently taken refuge in a private parlour, they had learned from a stable boy that the officer at the centre of today’s outrageous incident was indeed George Wickham.
The inn’s landlady and a local constable told them more of Miss Bingley’s unfortunate tale.
Although angry and self-reproachful, Darcy was unsurprised. He had warned Elizabeth Bennet of Wickham’s wickedness, but he had not made the man’s behaviour more widely known, and this was the result.
Overruling Bingley’s initial protestations, Darcy instructed him to collect his sister from the parlour and return her home immediately. No good could come of any confrontation between the furious but earnest-hearted Bingley and the devious, black-souled Wickham.
Darcy would have thought that Miss Bingley herself would have been sharp and worldly enough to avoid Wickham’s wiles.
Everyone had their weaknesses, however, and Wickham was skilled in uncovering and making use of such vulnerabilities.
Regardless of Darcy’s low regard for the lady, both his friendship with Bingley and his past knowledge of Wickham meant he had a responsibility to try and extricate her from the man’s snares.
Having reached the landing at the end of the stairs, Darcy rapped once on the wooden door of the top apartment. The moment the door was unbolted, Darcy shoved it back and forced his way into the rooms, as their occupant swore and hopped on one leg.
“Mind my damned toes, Darcy,” Wickham exclaimed. “What are you at? I have no shoes on, for God’s sake.”
Darcy pushed his disordered adversary into a chair and stood over him, glowering. Wickham was in his shirt sleeves, without shoes or socks, his jaw unshaven and his hair evidently unbrushed. The overall effect was that of a man who had just got out of bed, or wished to give that impression.
His appearance was a distinct contrast with Darcy’s own well-cut suit, his combed hair and polished shoes.
Darcy had been dressed to go out courting Elizabeth, and now he was stuck here again, in this dingy attic room with his greatest enemy.
How did Wickham manage to taint or obstruct everything in Darcy’s life, curse him?
“What am I at?” Darcy threw back at him. “Your nerve is undiminished, I see. What are you at, Wickham, you serpent?”
“Me? Well, thank you for asking, Darcy,” Wickham returned with faux innocence and suffocating smugness. “After we parted ways in Ramsgate, you said you would take no further interest in my affairs, and yet here we are again.”
“Yes, here are are again,” Darcy said through gritted teeth. “And if I am not much mistaken, you are still at the same game.”
“Trying to marry a rich woman, you mean? Of course I am. What choice do I have in life, placed as I am? What other man in my position would not do the same? We cannot all be master of Pemberley.”
“My father would have established you in the church, in the law, or in any other respectable profession you chose,” Darcy told him angrily.
“Any decent man would have taken such an opportunity and become a useful member of society, and yet you choose to disgrace yourself and all who come into contact with you. You are an abomination to my father’s trust.”
“Preaching, law, banking… Ugh! I’d rather be an abomination, as you call it, marry a rich woman and have my fun too,” Wickham retorted with an infuriating grin. “You can’t stop me this time, Fitzwilliam Darcy. I don’t think anyone can stop me.”
“Don’t be so sure. Caroline Bingley is not a child like Georgiana, or a fool like Mary King. She might well prefer being a social outcast to owning a husband like you.”
“Ha! I don’t think so. The lady likes the luxuries and privileges of her position in society far too much,” Wickham chuckled, sitting back with his hands behind his head.
“I’ll wager she’d do anything to keep them, even marry me.
Incidentally, I ought to thank you for making it so easy, Darcy.
Without you, I never could have pulled this off. ”
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked warily.
“Can’t you guess?” Wickham taunted him. “Do you think Miss Caroline Bingley would really have come here to private lodging rooms in secret to meet me? No, never. For a private meeting with you, though, she would have risked far, far more.”
“For me?” Darcy asked with amazement and horror, unable to deny the unfortunate fixation that Wickham had somehow identified. “Why should Miss Bingley think she was meeting me?”
“Because I told her so,” replied Wickham with great satisfaction, rubbing his hands with glee at his own cleverness.
“You were my bait, Darcy. I saw Caroline Bingley all over you at the Meryton Assembly Rooms and guessed how the land lay with her. Some women must like the taciturn, arrogant type, I suppose — or perhaps she simply likes your money. All it took was a few secret notes in your name and one assignation.”
“You blackguard!” Darcy exclaimed. “You brought her here, thinking that I would be waiting for her?”
“Waiting for her with a marriage proposal, no less,” admitted Wickham with no trace of shame on his laughing face.
“Her hopes seemed to neutralise her critical faculties, frankly. From your amazement, it seems that Miss Bingley also completely obeyed my instruction never to mention the notes to you at Netherfield for fear of alerting her brother.”
So, Wickham had been the source of Miss Bingley’s many letters this week.
In Darcy’s name, Wickham had been building up her hopes, feeding her poetry and promises, to the point where she agreed to the meeting that had compromised her so completely.
It took iron self-control not to strike the man where he sat.
“Every time I think you cannot sink lower, you surprise me with some greater level of dishonour,” Darcy said in disgust. “Miss Bingley might yet deny everything, might she not? Why are you so confident that your word will be believed over hers, especially if influential friends speak for her?”
“Oh, there were far too many witnesses for Miss Bingley to walk away unscathed,” Wickham replied airily. “I made sure of that, Darcy. My landlady, my neighbours, some fellow officers, guests at the inn across the street… They all saw her.”
“As I understand it, Miss Bingley cannot have been in here for more than a few minutes and spent most of that time abusing you,” Darcy challenged him. Even the brief accounts he had already received at the inn had made that much clear.
Wickham shrugged. “Some people might say so, but others might swear that she was there for an hour and that we were overheard exchanging lovers’ vows or even cries of passion,” he laughed.
“You know how gossip is, Darcy, especially where a lady is concerned. By tomorrow, she’ll likely be carrying my child, according to some, twins perhaps. ”
He guffawed heartily at his imagined wit. The complete absence of morality in a man who had been raised beside him made Darcy sick to his stomach.
“You really wish to marry a woman who despises you?” he asked the nonchalant Wickham. “You are really such a rogue as to ruin Caroline Bingley’s whole life for money?”
“Well, her brother could always pay me off instead, I suppose,” Wickham mused. “I’d consider that, if he were generous enough to make it worth my while. I’ve heard that Bingley is worth five thousand pounds a year, so he could afford something pretty substantial.”
“That would still leave Miss Bingley compromised and unmarriageable,” Darcy pointed out dryly. “It is no solution.”
“Well then, you could always play the white knight and marry her yourself,” Wickham proposed with dark mischief, laughing uproariously as soon as he saw Darcy blanch at the very idea of leading Miss Bingley to the altar.
“You’re a single man, so why not? Ha, you do not care for that idea, do you?
I thought as much from seeing you together. ”
“That would be quite impossible,” Darcy said stiffly. “It can never happen.”
Quite apart from his cool feelings for Miss Caroline Bingley, there were other reasons that precluded any consideration of such an idea.
There was only one woman in the world Darcy was willing to lead to the altar, and he would not speak Elizabeth Bennet’s name before this man, regardless of his gibes.
“Your honour only goes so far and no further, doesn’t it, Darcy?” Wickham taunted him. “Look at it this way: if she takes me, at least Miss Bingley will be marrying a man who does not wince at the very idea of her.”
“This is your last chance to be a gentleman, Wickham,” Darcy warned him.
Yet even as he spoke, he knew he had little leverage left.
“If you have even a trace of the honour my father imagined in you, you must announce publicly that this has been a terrible misunderstanding and make it clear that nothing improper passed here between you and Miss Bingley.”
This speech only made Wickham laugh all the harder.
“Why in the world should I do that, Darcy? No, thank you. I’ll take the very handsome lady and her money rather than honour that comes with no reward. Tell your friend Bingley that I am ready to discuss the terms of the marriage contract whenever he likes.”
Restraining his urge to pummel the rogue to the ground, Darcy turned to leave. Wickham rose to accompany him to the door as though he were merely seeing out an expected guest.
“Cheerio, Darcy. I’m sure I’ll see you at the wedding,” he called insouciantly at Darcy’s departing back.
∞∞∞
Hiring a horse from the inn, Darcy rode back to Netherfield Park with a heavy, angry heart.
If he married Caroline Bingley, Wickham would prey on her brother forever.
Darcy knew too well how expensive Wickham’s tastes were and how dark his vices ran.
The lives of both Bingley siblings would be made utterly miserable by such a connection.
Caroline Bingley did not deserve that, and Darcy would save her from it if he could find a way, any way but the one that Wickham had so jokingly suggested.
As a purely mental exercise, Darcy thought through the case for marrying Miss Bingley. His friendship with her brother and enmity with Wickham were both strong calls for even so radical a measure, as was Darcy’s sense of honour, so roundly mocked by Wickham.
Yet marrying Miss Bingley was also impossible, both for the sake of the love he bore Elizabeth and for honour of another kind.
With another woman held so deeply in his heart, marrying Miss Bingley would make him almost as bad as Lord Grantchester deceiving Jane Bennet, and only slightly better by virtue of Miss Bingley being less innocent.
The thought of John Tellington while riding up Netherfield Park’s drive seemed to conjure the man himself; only moments later, Darcy saw Lord Grantchester handing off his horse to a groom a little way ahead. When he saw Darcy, he waited for him at the bottom of the steps.
“Grantchester, I thought you were in London,” Darcy greeted his friend as he descended his mount.
“We came to pack up the house,” the other man replied, although his well-groomed appearance was slightly at odds with this explanation. “Then, I heard what happened in Meryton this morning and had to come over. It is a bad business, isn’t it?”
“Very bad,” Darcy concurred as they came up the steps. “I’ve spoken to Wickham, and there seems no way out of it. Bingley will be devastated.”
Lord Grantchester laid a hand on Darcy’s shoulder and stopped him on the top step before they could reach the front door.
“I might have a way out,” he said, his face serious. “That is, Miss Elizabeth Bennet made a suggestion, and I have talked it over with Matthew. We are now resolved to act, although I may need your assistance in persuading the Bingleys.”
“Explain,” Darcy demanded. Having known Wickham for many long years, it was difficult to believe there was anything he could have missed. “I would not want to give Bingley false hope.”
There on the doorstep, Lord Grantchester explained Elizabeth’s idea and the resulting plan in a low voice and then looked to Darcy with earnest eyes.
“What do you think?” he asked.
Gradually, Darcy felt the frown that had weighed down his features and his spirit melt away, to be replaced by a smile of both amusement and considerable relief.
And all, all was due to his Elizabeth. Her lovely face and playful temper were nothing compared to her quick wits and resourcefulness.
If Darcy had not already metaphorically laid his heart at her feet, he would have done so at the moment he heard of her plan to slice through the Gordian knot that bound them all.
“I think of Miss Elizabeth Bennet with great admiration,” he replied to Grantchester and then slapped his friend across the back.
“I really think that might work and would be for the best all round… Yes, I shall support you, if Bingley and Miss Bingley need any persuasion. The case is so desperate that they might jump at the idea.”
Once through the front door and in the hallway, Darcy and Grantchester could hear the voices of the Bingley siblings from the drawing room, exchanging anguished words.
“I cannot let that scoundrel, that rake, ruin your life, Caroline. I shall call him out!”
“What good will that do, Charles? You might die, and I will still have to marry Wickham if he lives, or die an old maid in disgrace. What other choice is there?”
Approaching the door, the two men paused there and looked at one another. Then, Darcy knocked and entered, Grantchester at his shoulder.
“Darcy, thank God! What news?” cried Bingley, his faith in Darcy’s powers both touching and misplaced, while Caroline Bingley’s face looked utterly defeated.
Darcy shook his head. “Wickham will not be moved,” he told them. “Nor is he willing to change his story.”
“Then I am ruined!” Miss Bingley cried out in despair, dropping into a chair and covering her face with her hands. “I will have to marry that, that…creature.”
At that, Lord Grantchester cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Miss Bingley, if you will consider what I have to say carefully, I may be able to offer you a more palatable choice.”