Chapter Six
Mr. Bennet called upon me that night, but it wasn’t truly a call, for he came to the servants’ entrance and had me summoned and then we went walking alone on the grounds together, and I told him this was not the way to do things, that this was the way to get people talking about him, talking about us both, and that if he came again, I should turn him away.
He was chagrined. “My apologies,” he said as we walked in the spring twilight.
“Truly, I never thought that any of these things would really happen to me. I thought they were all vain and utter fantasies on my part. I had nothing but a dalliance with a farmhand before whatever it is with Bingley. I never thought to be with another gentleman in this fashion. It is difficult and there are a number of obstacles, and I am not very intelligent about people, I do not think.”
“Why are you here to see me?” I said.
“I want to get a number of things clear about you, I suppose,” he said. “I would have asked on the street, but I did not wish your cousin to overhear. I realized you had not told him about my secret.”
“I wish I never knew your secret,” I told him. “I wish I had never seen you coming out of Bingley’s bedchamber that morning. I wish I had remained in blissful ignorance of it all.”
He sighed, lifting his shoulders. “Perhaps I wish that, too. I like not the idea of your being out there knowing all about me, with the capacity to destroy me, destroy my entire family, right there in the palm of your hand.”
“I would not do that,” I said.
“Bingley trusts you,” said Mr. Bennet. “But I think Bingley’s trust is tied entirely too closely to how pleasing he finds the cut of a man’s shoulders.”
I grimaced. “Ugh. I dislike thinking about Bingley thinking about me in that way.”
“Apologies,” said Bennet as we walked. “I ask you, though, what of Mr. Wickham?”
“Well, what do you think of him?”
“Oh, I do not know,” said Bennet. “My sister and I, we have been ever so close, all our lives. We are but ten months apart, and we grew up together. When we were children, I don’t know that either of us quite understood there were differences between us.
Furthermore, she is my father’s favorite, and he indulged her in anything and everything.
She sat in on all my tutoring sessions. She was allowed to read anything that I was reading, to know anything and everything.
My father treated her like a second son, only one he found quite adorable and sweet and his own little daughter, do you know what I mean? ”
“I suppose,” I said. “Not that I have quite seen what you’re saying, but I can picture it.”
“Well, perhaps I thought of her that way, too, or perhaps it’s because of the both of us finding men pleasing or something, but we have always seemed equals in certain ways, and then…
lately…” He drew in a breath. “Things are different now. This relationship I have with Bingley, it has changed things between us. I thought, for some time, that perhaps she was jealous, and that was why she was pursuing things with Wickham.”
“She is pursuing Wickham?”
“Oh, he is pursuing her? She is allowing herself to be pursued? I don’t know.
It’s simply nothing like her.” Bennet stopped walking.
He fixed me with a look. “She and I have a pact, you see? Neither of us are going to get married. We made it some time ago. When I went off to school, she went off to be Lady Susannah’s companion.
When we came back together, it became clear that I was hopeless in whatever way I am made—I knew it after spending all that time in the company of other boys, you see. ”
“Spare me this,” I said, grimacing.
He laughed. “It’s funny that I thought you were one of us.”
“Yes, it bothers me quite a bit, but let us move past that.”
His laughter deepened.
“Your pact?” I prompted.
“Right,” he said. “Well, Lady Susannah has no children of her own, and it has been her dearest wish to leave her property to a young lady, to give a woman the freedom not to be joined in marriage. So, my sister and I decided that she would not get married and I would not get married and we would combine the lands she inherited with Longbourn and live that way all our lives. It was perfect for both of us, because she should have access to some income from Trawlings—that’s Lady Susannah’s estate, you see—and we could use this to travel, the both of us.
She would never need worry about needing an appropriate chaperone, for as her brother, I could accompany her everywhere.
We could move together through society with propriety, and it would be a camouflage for my…
shortcomings. It would give her more freedom than she’d ever have in a marriage.
It has been our plan since we were quite young.
She has never wished to get married. But now, Wickham. ”
“She wants to marry Mr. Wickham?”
“She has not said so, and he has not offered,” said Bennet. “But she walks to town with Miss Lucas, and they talk to the officers and Mr. Wickham tells her all manner of tales, like the one he told of you, for instance.”
“Which was?”
“That you prevented him from an inheritance from your father.”
I laughed softly. “That is not at all the way of it.”
“No?” said Bennet.
“No, my father wished him to take a position in Derbyshire as the local parson, but when it came time for that, Wickham did not wish to do it, and so we settled on an alternate form of payment, and I gave him quite an inheritance, I most certainly did. Now, what he did with all of it, I could not say. My understanding is that he spent it, and I must say it was a bit of a feat to spend that much money as quickly as he did.”
Bennet made a face. “That fits more with the impression I have of him. He wants Lizzy for the inheritance she will get from Lady Susannah, not because of any real regard for her.” He turned and began to walk again.
I fell into step with him. “Yes, I fear it is so. What is more, I told her this myself.”
“Yes, I know. She told me,” he said. “We are quite close. We tell each other everything. Well, we used to. Obviously, I keep certain personal things to myself. And since more and more of my existence is personal, I think she has felt that as a bit of a blow. She is left alone, and perhaps she wishes her own little romance with Wickham as some compensation.”
“But you do not wish her to marry him,” I said.
“If she marries some man, I am left with Longbourn,” he said.
“I shan’t have the money to travel or to do what we planned on my own.
I shall need to take care of my parents, obviously.
Her getting Trawlings, it was our freedom, hers and mine.
If she marries, the estate is essentially her husband’s. ”
“Yes, well, we wouldn’t want Wickham to get his hands on it,” I said. “But I think it is entirely unfair what you are saying, not allowing your sister to marry while you are free to dally with Bingley or other men.”
He considered that. “Perhaps not. It is only that I don’t think women are nearly as preoccupied—”
“Not because of that,” I interrupted. “Because you are denying your sister the chance to fall in love.”
He sighed. “Well, if that is the way of it, then I suppose I must stand aside for Wickham and allow her to have that experience. If he is what she chooses, who am I to say anything?”
“You can say something if you know he does not truly love her, but is only using her for her fortune,” I said.
“You think that, and I think that, but I have no way to sway her thinking to ours.”
I licked my lips. “If I tell you something, it must remain a secret between us. You cannot tell Miss Bennet.”
“We tell each other everything, sir. I do not know if I can promise that.”
“It must not get out is what I am saying. It concerns my sister and Mr. Wickham.” Well, there, I had as much as told him all with those words. Dash everything.
“Oh,” said Bennet, “oh, I see.”
“He attempted to elope with her for her fortune,” I said. “I prevented it just in time, but you see, there is little doubt what sort of man he is.”
“Yes,” said Bennet, looking troubled.
“You must prevent any union between her and Mr. Wickham,” I said. “You cannot allow a man like that to take advantage of her.”
He gave me a stiff nod. “You can be assured that I will protect your secret, sir. I understand its gravity. We both have a secret to hold against the other now, and it puts us on equal footing. I appreciate that you’ve told me. Perhaps we may someday count each other friends.”
I shook his hand.
He took his leave of me.
The next day, Richard and I presented ourselves at Lady Susannah’s house in the afternoon during normal calling hours.
When we were shown into the sitting room, Richard went on his little spiel about how her ladyship could not be expected to welcome us to the area and that we must needs come to introduce ourselves to her, but I said nothing.
For I was staring at Elizabeth Bennet, who was more beautiful than I had remembered. She was seated on a couch, looking both of us over, and Lady Susannah was on an easy chair at the front of the room, her cane in hand.
“Well,” she said, when Richard had finished speaking, “whyever it is you are here, I must say it is nice to have guests. Will you both sit down? We would offer refreshment, but we have a strict schedule here of having nothing until teatime.”
“Of course, you were not expecting us,” said Richard, “and we should be quite willing to observe whatever traditions the house has, of course.”
We sat down.
Richard smiled at Miss Bennet. “You must be Miss Bennet, then.”
“You have heard of me, sir?” said Miss Bennet.
“Quite,” said the colonel.
“From Mr. Darcy?” she said, turning to take me in. “I would not think I would rouse much interest to Mr. Darcy.”
“Madam, of course I think you quite interesting,” I said.
Richard turned to me, giving his head just the barest of shakes, as if I should not have said that.
I bowed my head.