Chapter Eight
Mr. Bennet did not come to see me at the servants’ entrance, but he did have someone deliver me a letter that said he would be waiting for me on the grounds at an appointed time, and so, grudgingly, I went out to meet him.
“You know, I do not think it is wise for us to keep meeting this way,” I said. “Why do you not come and call upon me in the afternoon, like a normal person.”
He set a pace as he walked through the darkness, the spring air brushing over our bodies. “I suppose because your cousin the colonel will be there, and I do not wish to tell him everything there is to know about me. Does he know about Wickham and your sister?”
“He does,” I said. “He shares guardianship with me over my sister, so we were both apprised of the incident when it happened. He was away, at the fighting, so I took care of it on my own. I daresay he doesn’t approve of what I did, but he seems to always have some bloodthirsty solution to everything these days. ”
Mr. Bennet nodded carefully. “Yes, I can see how that might have that sort of an affect on a man, the fighting. At one point, I thought to go myself, but I knew that I could not risk myself, what with my mother and sister needing my protection upon the death of my father.”
“Right, right,” I said. “Just so.”
“I wonder if it is simply an excuse for cowardice, however,” he said.
“No,” I said. “I do not think so.”
“Well, but we would not, for we would not wish to appear cowardly,” he said. “But this is neither here nor there. I truly came to speak to you about my sister. Are you in love with her?”
I cleared my throat. “Clearly not.”
“Clearly not?” he said.
“Well, she is not an appropriate match for me,” I said. “I could not marry her. I need to marry someone with better connections, someone who will be right at home with my social circle, a woman who would have no difficulty mixing with the peerage or even the Queen.”
“I see,” he said. “But you seem rather preoccupied with her.”
I sighed heavily. “I know she is your sister, so I do not wish to make this all very uncomfortable, but you are correct. I have a, um, a preoccupation with her.”
“But what are your intentions towards her?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I intend nothing. Truthfully, I came her to try to put her from my head.”
“You traveled to the country to be closer to her and thought this would mean you would think of her less?”
“Well,” I said, feeling uncomfortable, “this truly wasn’t my idea, and the person who presented it to me made it sound more reasonable, I must say. I thought perhaps she had grown in my imagination, larger than life, and that if I saw her, I would realize she was not so very extraordinary.”
“Oh, I suppose I can see that,” said Bennet. “You really cannot marry her?”
“No, definitely not,’ I said. “I thought you didn’t wish her married at all.”
“I do not,” said Bennet, “but if I must choose between you and Wickham, I choose you.”
“Has Wickham asked for her hand?”
“Not yet, but when I tried to speak to her, to warn her, to say that I had been told, in confidence, of Wickham’s behavior towards another young woman, that he was a known fortune hunter, she was quite dismissive.
She wanted the young lady’s name, and I was disinclined to say it, seeing as I knew you would not like it.
She said that if there was no name put to it, it was only vicious gossip. ”
“She did not believe you,” I said.
“No, she had absolutely no interest in believing me, and we got into a bit of a row over it all. I pressed her about her marriage plans and she said something quite similar to what you said, that it was not fair that she should never know the touch of a man whilst I was off, erm, touching men.”
“Must you have put it that way?” I said.
“No, I apologize,” he said. “All I mean is, perhaps she should get married. But I will not have it be Mr. Wickham. I know not what to do. What of your cousin? Could he marry her?”
“Richard is not marrying Miss Bennet!” I snapped.
Mr. Bennet looked me up and down. “Well, I think someone is going to have to. I don’t see how else we’re going to get her away from Wickham.”
But the following day came with the happy news that the regiment intended to decamp for Brighton within the next fortnight, and all of the officers would be gone, Wickham included.
This pleased me, and I told Richard that we would simply wait until Wickham was gone and determine that Miss Bennet had forgotten him and then we could go.
“You’re not going to ask her to marry you?” Richard said.
“I have told you Richard, again and again, I cannot marry her!”
I am not certain if this really would have come to pass. I liked to tell myself that it, in fact, would. It was reassuring to give it thought and to come out concluding that soon the business would be over and I would leave her behind.
But in my most honest moments, I knew that absolutely nothing had changed.
I had come to see her, had essentially no more time with her at all, no way to know who she was or what she cared about or anything of that nature, had still only been bowled over by her beauty, and would leave without having resolved a thing.
I thought Miss Bennet’s visage might haunt me through the rest of my life, that I might spend my marriage to whatever practical and proper choice I eventually made closing my eyes and picturing it was Miss Bennet kissing me back.
Well, as unpleasant as such a thing sounded, I supposed I had little choice in the matter. As soon as I had ascertained that Miss Bennet was safe from the wiles of Mr. Wickham, I would be on my way.
Three days passed, three days full of Richard teasing me that I must go and present myself at Longbourn and ask Miss Bennet to marry me, and on the fourth day, very early, Mr. Bennet came galloping to our house, out of breath.
He leaned off the horse to tell us that he had not a moment to lose and that he had only come to find us because he knew that I might be concerned, given everything.
“Lizzy was not in her bed this morning and there was a note from her, saying she and Mr. Wickham are bound for Scotland.”
“Oh, God,” I said. “Truly?”
“She says she wished to have it done before the regiment went to Brighton, that she could not wait.” He shook his head. “It does not sound like my sister, I must say. This is not the sort of thing she would do!”
“Are you going after her?”
“Yes, though they have been gone overnight and they have quite a head start on us. My mother thinks there is nothing that can be done in this case, that it is all over and done with, but Lizzy is my father’s favorite, and he is quite out of sorts. He seems to think we could prevent it all.”
“I shall come along,” I said. “Let me get my horse.”
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”
“This is my own fault,” I said. “I am the one who let Wickham run free and unmolested all over the country. I knew what he was. You must allow me to assist you, Bennet.”
“Very well,” he said. “But I cannot wait. You may catch me up if you can. I must go on after my father.”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
He rode off without any goodbye, and I sprang into action.
Once Richard had heard the way of it, he insisted on coming, too, and we set out on horseback after Mr. Bennet and his father.
We never did catch up with them, not after hours, which led us to stop and discuss whether we had taken a different route, and if we must have gotten ahead of them or something.
During this pause, I asked Richard if we thought that Wickham might have stopped over at an inn he knew about that my father used to have us stay in when Wickham and I were boys.
He said it was worth inquiring there, anyway, so we headed that direction.
We alighted at the inn, and we were recognized straight off by the innkeeper, who said, right away, “Your own Wickham was here, but he has caused quite a commotion, I must say.”
“Commotion?” I inquired. “Whatever do you mean?”
“Well, I know he is your companion, but I always found him to be a bit of a squirrely type, I may say,” said the innkeeper.
“I think he was often making off with things, though your father always said it was a mistake and would just pay us for whatever it was we lost. When he showed up here last night with a young woman in tow, I said to myself that I wasn’t sure what this was all about. ”
“This is, in fact, why we are here,” I said. “We are wondering about that young woman.”
“Well, she’s right there in the taproom,” he said. “Not a proper place for her, admittedly, but Sadie’s keeping an eye on her, and she’s been a bit out of sorts since it all happened.”
“Since what happened?” said Richard.
But I was already hurrying into the taproom, where I saw her immediately.
She was perched on a stool in front of the bar, wrapped up in a quilt, so that only her face appeared at the top. Her hair was down and long and wavy and dark and beautiful.
Heart in my throat, I rushed to her. “Miss Bennet.”
“Mr. Darcy?” She was entirely surprised. “What are you doing here? I was trying to think how I might get together the coin to ask someone to go back to my family and tell them where I was, but I have nothing. He took everything.”
“Mr. Wickham?”
Her lower lip trembled as she nodded.
“What has he done, madam?” I said.
“Oh, Lord in heaven,” she said, shaking her head. “Oh, Lord.”
“Never mind that,” I said instead. “It matters not right now. You tell me where he is—”
“He is gone,” she said. “He left me here, and thank heaven, because I do not know what I would have done if he had stayed. I wanted him to go.”
“All right,” I said. “All right, that is good, then.”
Richard was in the taproom, hurrying over to us. “Miss Bennet, you are quite the brave woman, I understand,” he said.
“I do not know about that,” she said, hunching into the quilt.
“She apparently beat him off with a poker from the fire,” said Richard, laughing. “He ran off screaming and bleeding, they say.”
“You hit him?” I said.
“He hit me first,” she said, nostrils flaring.
“Monstrous,” I said.
“Monstrous indeed,” said Richard. “All right, Miss Bennet, up. I have rented us a room so that we can all retire there and get you out of the taproom, which is, of course, no place for respectable ladies. We shall go there and discuss what happens next.”
“Oh, I could have paid for that,” I said to Richard.
“You have,” he said. “When I say I rented it, I don’t mean I paid for it.”
Miss Bennet stayed wrapped in the quilt and sat on the bed.
“All right, so what we are going to do,” said Richard, “is come back for you as soon as we have found and dealt with Mr. Wickham. You must stay in this room, Miss Bennet, and do not open the door to anyone you do not know. Tell servants to leave food at the door. Mr. Darcy will leave enough coin to keep you here and fed for some time. If we come across your brother or father, we will tell them where you are. Otherwise, we will collect you on our way back after we have dealt with him.”
“Wait a moment,” I said. “We can’t leave her here alone.”
“Well, we can’t stay here with her,” said Richard. “What, are we all going to sleep overnight in this room? God, Darcy, what are you thinking?”
“She’s already ruined,” I said. “I think we get a carriage and take her home.”
“Ruined,” whispered Miss Bennet and suddenly burst into tears.
I cringed. I had to say that, did I?
“He didn’t do anything to me, you know,” said Miss Bennet.
“Yes, Darcy, you haven’t heard the story. She went after him with the poker for a reason, after all.”
I turned to her. “What did happen, Miss Bennet?”
“I shall tell you on the way,” said Richard. “We haven’t a moment to lose. We must get after Wickham and—”
“And what?” I said.
“Well, perhaps we’ll leave that discussion for something away from this poor woman’s delicate ears,” said the colonel.
Because he wanted to kill him, like he had said before. My whole body turned cold.
The colonel shook his head at me. “Lord, Darcy are you a man or are you a snail?”
“A snail?” I said.
“You have said already that it is your fault he was free to go after this woman, and you refuse to do anything with him. Why is that?”
I walked out of the room.
Richard came with me. He shut the door on her, and we stood in the hallway together and spoke in low voices.
“We do not know where he has gone,” I said.
“If he came here, we may indeed have some idea. He was bleeding when he left, and there is that bawdyhouse in Givston. You remember it. We went there all together, and the girls there were fond of him. He would have gone there and gotten them to tend his wounds. He might still be there, in fact. Some of those strumpets seemed incredibly tenderhearted towards him. You know how he can be.”
I made a face. It was the last place I wished to go.
We had gone before, of course, but I certainly was not going to avail myself of bawds like that.
Strange women in strange beds? It didn’t sound…
clean. So, it had been a very long night for me, sitting up alone in the sitting room whilst everyone else was busy.
“I think, in fact, you should be the one to do it,” said Richard. “It would be good for you, Darcy, to do it.”
“To kill him,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
I grimaced, but then I nodded. “Yes, all right.”
He gave me a look and then he laughed. “I thought I should have to work harder to convince you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. Miss Bennet’s trembling lower lip had done that.