Chapter 14
NINE
Netherfield.
Darcy
Darcy brooded for hours over what was troubling him. It had taken everything he possessed to maintain a civil countenance through dinner, for Georgiana, for Elizabeth, and for the general obligations of an evening that deserved better than a distracted him. He had managed it. Barely.
The moment the Bennet carriage disappeared down the drive and the house settled into its evening quiet, the pretence ceased to serve any purpose.
The last name he had expected to hear in Hertfordshire was George Wickham.
Colonel Forster had mentioned it in passing between one unremarkable observation and another.
Several new officers had recently joined the militia, he had said, all of them doing their part to keep spirits high.
This Wickham in particular had distinguished himself.
Charming. Agreeable. The sort of man who could win a room without appearing to try.
It sounded exactly like the Wickham Darcy knew.
He told himself it might not be the same man.
England was large enough to contain more than one George Wickham. A name alone proved nothing.
Yet he could not put the matter from his mind.
During the luncheon he had been sorely tempted to ask Forster to produce the man at once.
To single out one name from several, however, would have invited questions Darcy had no desire to answer.
He had therefore held his tongue, finished the meal, and carried the knowledge home with him like a stone lodged beneath his ribs.
Darcy rose and crossed to the window.
The grounds of Netherfield lay dark and silent beneath the night sky and offered him no answers.
His thoughts turned inevitably to Georgiana.
She was somewhere in this house, sleeping peacefully.
Only a month ago she was still trapped within the prison Wickham had built for her. Her confidence had been systematically undermined. Her sense of her own worth made dependent upon fears that had not yet come to pass and might never do so. Now she was improving. Truly improving.
Even that evening she had spoken with a lightness he had not heard in more than a year. She had repeated portions of her conversation with Elizabeth, reflections upon confidence and self-possession and entering society without surrendering oneself to it. She had been animated.
Happy.
And now a George Wickham had appeared in Meryton.
A George Wickham whom Darcy had sought for nearly a year without success, finding only the traces of debts left in his wake. Debts Darcy had quietly acquired and now held himself. Debts sufficient to send Wickham to a debtor's prison the moment Darcy chose to act upon them.
Could it truly be the same man?
And if it was, what then?
What would become of the progress Georgiana had fought so hard to make?
What would happen when she learned he was nearby?
Darcy's jaw tightened.
No.
He would not permit Wickham near her again.
The decision settled something within him.
He turned from the window, crossed to the writing desk, and sat down.
This time he did not hesitate.
Taking up a quill, he began a letter to Colonel Fitzwilliam.
Richard,
I write to you tonight on a matter I would not commit to paper were it less urgent. I trust you will read this with the discretion it requires.
You will be glad to know that Georgiana is considerably better than when I last wrote.
I will not say she is fully herself — I do not think either of us expected that so soon — but there has been a marked improvement these past weeks, in no small part due to a friendship I took some care to encourage.
A lady I met here in Hertfordshire, a Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourn, has proven herself to be everything I could have hoped for in a companion for Georgiana.
She is intelligent, warm, entirely without affectation, and possessed of a quality of confidence that I believed, when I first observed it, might do Georgiana more good than anything I could say myself.
I was not wrong. You must therefore understand why what I am about to tell you concerns me as much as it does.
This afternoon I spent some time in company with your friend, Colonel Forster. In the course of conversation he spoke casually of several new members recently joined to the regiment, remarking on their good conduct and general impression. Among the names he mentioned was George Wickham.
I need not tell you what that name means to me, nor what it would mean to Georgiana were she to hear it.
I have said nothing to her and I do not intend to until I know more.
I am aware that the name George or Wickham is not exclusive to that particular scoundrel — I myself once met a Fitzwilliam Darcy on a journey to Hull, which gave me a moment's pause I can assure you. It may well be nothing.
However, I cannot in good conscience dismiss it. I intend to keep a close eye on wherever the militia men are gathered and to make further visits to Colonel Forster on the pretence of renewing the acquaintance. I do not wish to raise suspicion by asking him to produce the man directly.
I ask only that you make enquiries through whatever channels are available to you. I need to know whether this is the same man. If it is, I will require your assistance in managing the matter quietly and without public exposure. Georgiana's name must not enter into it under any circumstances.
Come to Hertfordshire if you are able. I would rather have this conversation in person than on paper.
Your cousin,
F. Darcy
He folded the letter, sanded it, sealed it, and set it upon the corner of the desk.
The candle had burned low. Darcy sat for a moment in the quiet of the room and thought of Wickham.
Unwilling to surrender the remainder of the evening to thoughts of the scoundrel, he forced his mind elsewhere.
It turned naturally to Georgiana, to the happiness in her voice that evening, to the ease with which she had spoken, and to the girl he remembered slowly returning by degrees.
Two encounters with Elizabeth Bennet had accomplished what a year of his own efforts had not.
He did not know whether to feel grateful or humbled. In the end, he settled on both.
He would find more opportunities to bring them together. Whatever else remained uncertain, that much was within his power.
He reached towards the candle snuffer and stopped.
Elizabeth Bennet's eyes came to him unbidden, as they had been doing with increasing frequency these past weeks.
Dark and direct and entirely unimpressed by him, which he had long since ceased pretending he did not find remarkable.
He thought of the way she had looked at him across the dinner table that evening, steady, composed, entirely herself, and of the fact that he had noticed despite everything else occupying his thoughts.
Darcy exhaled slowly.
This was about Georgiana. That had always been the purpose.
He snuffed the candle and retired for the night, firmly resolved to think no more about Elizabeth Bennet.
An hour later, still awake in the darkness, he was forced to admit that the resolution had met with very little success.
? ? ?
Longbourn
Elizabeth
Elizabeth sat at her dressing table long after Jane had come and gone from her bedchamber and the house had settled into its nighttime quiet.
She had been turning the dinner at Netherfield over in her mind since the carriage ride home, which Jane had spent in happy silence and Elizabeth in considerably less peaceful contemplation.
Miss Bingley's remark had been a slight.
Elizabeth knew a jab when she felt one. The woman had not known, could not have known, what she was truly saying, and yet the words had landed regardless, with the precision of something thrown without aim that found its mark anyway.
A very selective listener.
Elizabeth had answered it well enough. She always answered such things well enough. That was rather the point.
What she could not account for quite so easily was Darcy.
She thought of how he had defended her. There was something about it she could not shake.
It had been too deliberate, too precisely aimed at the right thing, for a man who did not know what he was defending.
She was certain of it now. He knew. And from everything she had observed of him, he appeared entirely untroubled by it.
For a gentleman of his station, and one whom society insisted upon calling proud, she would have expected some alteration in his manner.
Surprise, perhaps. Pity. At the very least, curiosity.
Instead he behaved as though the knowledge changed nothing at all.
Elizabeth pressed her fingers lightly against the edge of the dressing table.
She did not know what to make of it.
What she did know was that whatever remnant of ill opinion she had once harboured against Mr. Darcy had vanished entirely that evening.
He was a good gentleman. There could be no denying it now.
He was considerate, spoke with intelligence, cared deeply for his sister, and possessed a steadiness of character she found herself admiring more with every encounter.
And he is exceedingly handsome.
Elizabeth sat up straighter.
That line of thought was considerably less useful than the others.
She rose from the dressing table at once, as though physical movement might prevent her mind from wandering any further in that direction.
Then there was the other matter. The worry she had seen in him all evening beneath the civility and the conversation.
The same quality she remembered from the Meryton assembly, when she had mistaken it for pride and indifference.
She did not make that mistake now. Whatever occupied his thoughts, it was not indifference.
She wondered briefly whether it would be too forward to ask him about it, then nearly laughed at herself, for she could not imagine the conversation at all.
Mr. Darcy, you appeared distracted this evening. Is something troubling you?
No. She would have to do what she always did. Wait. Observe. Draw her conclusions when the evidence presented itself. In time it would. She was fairly certain of that. She would see him at Oakham Mount soon enough, or perhaps on Friday—
Friday.
Elizabeth's mouth rounded into a silent O. She had agreed to Georgiana calling at Longbourn not three hours ago, entirely forgetting that Mr Collins was due to arrive the very same afternoon.
Then she blew out the candle, climbed into bed, and decided that a gentleman whose letter had announced his own foolishness so thoroughly was unlikely to improve upon acquaintance.
At least Georgiana would be there on Friday.
That, she thought, would make meeting her cousin considerably more tolerable.
And Mr. Darcy, of course.
For reasons she chose not to examine too closely, that thought was unexpectedly reassuring.