Chapter 23 #2
Mr. Bennet considered this. “Both may be true.”
“They may, but he did not present them as parts of the same history. He offered each as the cause of his loss.”
“And you dislike causes that multiply.”
“I dislike stories that change with the listener.”
“That is a useful dislike.”
His mild tone irritated her. “You seem very willing to find amusement in this.”
“I am willing to find it in most things. It does not follow that I fail to see them.”
Jane sat beside Elizabeth. “Should we prevent Kitty from seeing him?”
“If I forbid it now, she will conclude that everyone has turned against Wickham and that she alone is loyal enough to understand him.”
“She said as much today,” Elizabeth replied.
“Then we must avoid making the delusion more attractive.”
“What will you do?”
“Speak to Colonel Forster.”
“Mr. Darcy has already done that.”
“Yes, and you objected because he would not tell us the result. I shall try to conduct my secrecy in a more acceptable fashion.”
Elizabeth looked at him, but he had returned his attention to the book.
Mary sat near the window throughout the conversation, copying music. Elizabeth assumed she was not listening until she set down her pen.
“Mr. Wickham said something else at Aunt Phillips’s,” she said.
Bennet looked over the top of his book. “Mary has entered the inquiry. We may now expect order.”
Mary ignored him. “He said he had prepared for the church because the late Mr. Darcy wished it. He described giving up another course of study in obedience to his godfather.”
Elizabeth remembered the evening. Wickham had spoken at length, and everyone had listened because he spoke well and they disliked Darcy.
“Yes,” she said. “He said Mr. Darcy’s father intended him for the living from boyhood.”
“He also said he did not learn that Mr. Darcy meant to deny him until after the old gentleman’s death,” Mary continued. “I remember because he spoke of having no time to choose another profession before his resources were exhausted.”
Jane understood first. “Then Mr. Darcy could not have prevented him from taking orders before his father died, not unless Mr. Wickham already knew he would not receive the living.”
Mary nodded. “Kitty’s account places the injury earlier. His first account placed it later.”
“Did he give dates?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. He spoke of the events in sequence. His godfather died, Mr. Darcy refused the living, and then Mr. Wickham had to abandon the church. Kitty says he abandoned it because Mr. Darcy had destroyed his prospects.”
Bennet closed his book. “A contradiction without a date remains a useful creature. It cannot prove much, but it can bite.”
Elizabeth went over both accounts in her mind. Memory could shift, and Kitty might have misunderstood a confidence offered in a passage while she was eager to be trusted. Wickham might have shortened one explanation and enlarged another. None of it proved that Darcy had told the truth.
Yet Mary had no reason to favor Darcy, having spoken to him only once or twice. Her recollection came from the same evening on which Elizabeth heard Wickham’s story and accepted it because it agreed with her opinion.
“Are you certain?” she asked.
Mary looked offended. “I do not often forget the arrangement of an argument.”
“No,” Bennet said. “Its substance may suffer, but never its arrangement.”
Mary took up her pen again.
That afternoon, Bingley called at Longbourn with Darcy. Mrs. Bennet received them with pleasure, and Bingley’s attention to Jane soon displaced every other concern.
Kitty remained in the drawing room, though she kept her eyes on the drive whenever wheels sounded beyond the windows. Lydia tried twice to provoke her and, receiving no answer, turned her efforts toward Bingley.
Darcy spoke little at first. Elizabeth thought he looked at Kitty more than once, with the attention of a man measuring the effect of a warning. She resented his knowledge of the matter, then resented herself for assuming that his knowledge was superior to hers.
When Mrs. Bennet proposed that the gentlemen view a new gate Bennet had ordered near the south meadow, Bingley agreed before discovering that Jane was not joining the walk. He recovered by suggesting that everyone go.
The party divided before they reached the lawn. Lydia and Kitty walked ahead, while Mary remained with Mrs. Bennet, who had decided the air was too sharp and stopped beneath the shelter of the portico. Bingley and Jane moved at a pace that left Elizabeth beside Darcy.
For several minutes neither spoke.
“You were in Meryton today,” Darcy said.
She looked at him. “And how did you learn that?”
“Bingley mentioned that Miss Bennet went there this morning.”
“Then you know less than I supposed.”
His expression sharpened. “Has something occurred?”
“A bootmaker discovered that your name is poor security.”
Darcy stopped.
Elizabeth took another step before turning back. His face had lost the reserve she associated with him. What replaced it was not surprise, but recognition.
“What did Wickham purchase?” he asked.
“A pair of riding boots, charged through another man. He said you would answer for the account, or that money due from your estate would soon settle it.”
“Who is the tradesman?”
“Mr. Pritchard.”
Darcy looked toward the road, though he could see nothing beyond the hedge. “I spoke with him last week.”
“You knew of the debt?”
“I knew Wickham used my name in his shop. Pritchard would not tell me the amount because Wickham did not open the account himself.”
“Did you pay it?”
“No.”
She had expected the opposite. “Why not?”
“Because payment would confirm the promise Wickham invented. It would also encourage every man he misled to extend him further credit in the belief that I will settle it.”
“That leaves Mr. Pritchard to bear the loss.”
“I offered to buy the boots from him if he returned them unworn. Wickham had used one pair and ordered another.”
Elizabeth remembered the boots beneath Mr. Pritchard’s arm, one marked by wear and the other almost new.
“Why order two?”
“One was for himself. The second was for another officer who denies asking for them.”
The explanation was plain, and therefore more difficult to resist than an accusation.