’I will see him, Ravenshaw.’ ’Yes sir.’
“Sir, a gentleman requests a few minutes of your time on a matter of some significance.”
Fitzwilliam Darcy glanced at the card. He did not know the visitor, but the man was hardly the first to call unannounced on business.
The address signified a tradesman, and though the name was unfamiliar, it was likely someone he had business with and hardly the first he did not know personally.
Since his butler referred to him as a gentleman, he was at least well dressed and well spoken, or he would be waiting in the courtyard.
Darcy was not disposed to entertain callers and was in a relatively foul humour. However, doing just about anything was an improvement over yet more brooding over Elizabeth Bennet—as if the previous two months had not established the fact.
“I will see him, Ravenshaw.”
“Yes sir.”
Moments later, two men entered. One appeared every bit the gentleman, though his address indicated he was a tradesman, albeit a successful and well-educated one.
The second appeared of subordinate rank from his clothing and demeanour—not a servant, but not the former’s equal.
He had the look of a steward or manager.
The butler introduced the men, asked about refreshments, and immediately summoned a waiting footman with a tea-tray. He poured the tea, then quietly left the room.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” Darcy asked politely, though whether in genuine curiosity or relief at a reduction of his tedium was difficult to determine.
“Is that he?” the leader of the two men asked his companion.
“As we feared—no,” the factor replied.
“Pity,” the gentleman replied, then turned to Darcy.
Displeased, Darcy asked, “Am I who, exactly?”
“I believe, sir, I am the victim of a swindle,” the man said, drawing a sheet of paper from his coat.
“I have a note for three hundred pounds from Fitzwilliam Darcy. As we have just ascertained, you did not sign it. Ordinarily, I would not allow such a large credit, but the man matched your description exactly; he had a pronounced Derbyshire accent, answered several pertinent questions about your estate—and for the coup de grace, his handwriting matched yours, which I have on bills from a previous sale. Your reputation is sterling, so we allowed it.”
“I hope you do not expect me to discharge the debt!” Darcy snapped angrily.
His companion was unmoved by the outburst. “Of course not! Why would I ask a man to pay another’s debts? That would be absurd!”
Darcy composed himself and became embarrassed that he had lost his temper and disgraced himself with unwarranted accusations—though his visitors did not appear the least bit distressed.
“Who made the error, if I may ask?” he enquired out of curiosity, and to give himself a moment to recover from his misplaced anger.
“It was I, sir,” the other man said quietly.
“And what will become of you?” he asked, slightly curious yet despising himself for intruding where he did not belong.
“Nothing,” the master said nonchalantly. “Wroxton is my manager, and he makes dozens of decisions every day. Some win; some lose—but he succeeds far more often than he fails.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, much to his own surprise.
“Our principal reason for calling was to see if you have some idea who the culprit might be. Many years of experience have taught me thieves are almost uniformly lazy, and this plot suggests a repetition. The fact that he could mimic your handwriting so faithfully indicates there is a good chance this is not his first visit to your well.”
Darcy rubbed the bridge of his nose and stared at his ink pot, feeling the onset of what promised to be a pounding headache.
He turned to Wroxton. “Is the man two inches shorter than me, dressed in clothing meant to approximate mine but not as fine nor as well cared for, with wavy brown hair slightly longer though less curly, and the sort of demeanour that would charm the birds from the trees?”
“Yes sir,” he replied without hesitation.
Darcy gave a long groan.
“The man you seek is George Wickham. He is the son of my father’s excellent steward of many years, and my father’s godson, upon whom he liberally bestowed his generosity—”
He went on to describe the rest of the story about the man’s hidden proclivities, his wasting four thousand pounds in just a few years, his using Darcy’s name to gain credit, and demanding the living when it became vacant.
He naturally said nothing about Georgiana’s folly, as it was hardly necessary to convince the pair.
“Have you a likeness of the scoundrel? I imagine with such a long association you must.”
Darcy searched a drawer behind his desk and produced a small miniature that had been a pair with the one his father kept in his study at Pemberley.
“Is this the man, Wroxton?” his employer asked.
“Yes sir.”
All business, the gentleman asked Darcy, “Might we borrow this for a few days? I have a visiting niece who has adequate skill with a brush. She can make copies good enough for my thief takers. I shall return it by the end of the week.”
“What do you intend?” he asked with some trepidation.
Without hesitation, his companion said, “The man deliberately cheated me of three hundred pounds, sir. He may as well have stolen food directly from my children’s mouths.
My business cannot allow this sort of transgression to stand, lest I be abused by every miscreant in London.
I have enough trouble bringing the aristocracy to pay their debts, and I cannot allow this to go unpunished.
The man will pay his debt in pounds or his neck. ”
The matter-of-fact manner in which the man spoke about the end of Darcy’s oldest companion made him start in consternation, though he could not argue the sentiment.
His cousin Fitzwilliam had begged him on more than one occasion to allow him to call the rogue out, but he had never been willing to countenance either the killing of his father’s favourite, or more likely the death of his favourite cousin because Wickham would almost certainly cheat.
“Three hundred pounds is enough to consign him to debtors’ prison for the rest of his life, and I would be happy to provide you more vowels—but it is insufficient for the rope or transport ship unless you have some influence in Parliament.
Naturally, a man of your resources could probably have him impressed into the Army or Navy as well—but I cannot see how he will hang. ”
“That is because you focus on the wrong laws—unsurprising for an estate owner. Debt is one of the few non-capital crimes in England—probably because most of the ministers rarely pay their bills. Debt will not suffice, but forgery is a capital crime. My experience tells me men who leave such debts usually also leave ruined maidens and bastard children in their wake, so I will watch him hang, return to my lovely wife for dinner, and sleep soundly. I once saw a fourteen-year-old boy hang for stealing apples from a lord’s estate that would have otherwise rotted on the ground.
I can assure you that I will not regret Wickham’s fate, and neither should you.
Your father did enough—probably far too much. ”
“Out of curiosity, if I offered you five hundred or a thousand pounds for the debt, would you accept it?”
“That would hardly teach the proper moral lesson, would it?” the man said with an infectious grin. “Aside from that, he would return within the year and another of my men might fall prey to his wiles—not to mention whomever else he cheated in the meantime.”
Darcy nodded his approval. “As I expected—I cannot blame you.”
“It appears you had him in your power more than once yet stayed your hand… perhaps out of love for your father, or pleasant memories from childhood? I can assure you I suffer no such weakness.”
Darcy sighed. “The man has certain leverage on someone especially important to me. Ladies’ reputations are quite fragile. I need to ensure he has no opportunity to spread rumours.”
“Depend upon it, sir. He will go to court bound and gagged and may remain that way through his trial, which will be short and to the point. It will not be my first visit to a capital court, nor likely my last.”
Darcy marvelled at the nonchalant way the man spoke of dispensing death, but then reflected that his cousin did much the same to men who committed no sin worse than being born under the wrong king—or emperor, as it turned out—and the colonel had to dispense the measures personally.
He rubbed his chin a few moments in contemplation, as his sense of honour made him admit that he would also be guilty of the death of his childhood friend and a man his father loved.
Finally accepting the responsibility for both his present actions and any harms visited on innocents while he had dithered, he reached his decision.
“You need not trouble your niece. The man is in a small market town a few hours north of London, just off the Great North Road. He enrolled in the militia under a Colonel Forster in a town called Meryton, a few miles from Harpenden.”
His companion fixed him with a stern gaze. “You knew this all along?”
It sounded like a question, but they both knew it was not.
“I was protecting my sister.”
“I understand and we shall forget you said that. I would do a great deal to protect my daughters. My sisters never had a drop of sense between them, but I imagine I would have done the same for them, whether they deserved it or not. It is the nature of brothers.”
Darcy nodded, accepting the implied rebuke, strongly suspecting he had just betrayed his secret unthinkingly.
“How do you know he was in Meryton?”
“I saw him.”
“Did you warn anyone? Fathers? Merchants? His commanding officer?”
Darcy merely shook his head and felt the shame of his failure to act exceedingly.
“I grow tired of following the man about warning people, and to be honest, the second-worst man in that regiment will take his place overnight.”