Chapter 3 Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man #2
“Cyril is everyone’s idea of a gentleman, is he not?” Jane enthused later that night, her eyes shining with adoration for her betrothed.
“You might benefit if you stand firm to your principles, not simply your sweetness. Jane, you will be a part of the ton. Can you manage the hounds that will sniff out new blood?”
Jane giggled. “Oh, Lizzy, you must not speak so, else you will make me afraid to marry the viscount.”
Elizabeth kissed her sister on the top of her rose-scented head. “Just be sure to remind Cyril your spinster sister will teach your ten children to play the pianoforte ill indeed.”
“Oh, I do not think you will be. Mr Wickham likes you a great deal.”
Jane’s comment did nothing to ease the worry in Elizabeth’s breast. Wickham was well-mannered, but she was certain she felt no love for him.
It was strange that, as she thought of her future husband, intense eyes and a noble mien appeared before her.
How odd that her heart raced only when she recalled Mr Darcy to mind!
But never would she allow such a proud, disagreeable man to hold any dominion over her. She would rather be an old maid.
Jane and Elizabeth went to London to purchase Jane’s trousseau and meet her future husband’s family.
Jane’s gentility and beauty won over the gruff earl.
The countess adored Jane, but, as Elizabeth noticed, she dropped hints that she had another son, Richard, a colonel in the Regulars, who would do well for her, as they had a similar cheerful disposition.
Time flew, and soon it was February.
Lizzy sat on the windowsill of their bedchamber at Longbourn, hugging her legs to her chest as she rested her cheek on her knees, contemplating her sister’s serenity one last time.
It was Jane’s last morning waking up as a maiden, and Lizzy wanted to soak up all she could of her best friend and.
confidante before Jane married the viscount.
The hint of spring could be felt in the blue sky, and the sun shone on the crocuses and snowdrops scattered amongst the emerging grass. It promised to be a beautiful day for Elizabeth’s favourite sister to wed.
The bride blushed as she walked down the aisle on her papa’s arm.
Mrs Bennet cried, and her father teased how he wished for some lawful impediment to halt the nuptials.
No one protested, and after the pronouncement that they were man and wife, Viscount and Viscountess Wessington signed the church register along with their witnesses Miss Elizabeth Bennet and Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam.
Only four members of the family refrained from attending the Viscount’s wedding. Mr Darcy, Miss Darcy, Lady Catherine De Bourgh and her daughter Anne were all conspicuous by their absence.
“I think it is marvellously unfair that Lizzy should get thirty thousand pounds and an estate,” Lydia pouted. “Now all the officers are frightfully in love with her, and none of them look at me at all!”
“Nor me,” Kitty whined.
“You may intervene any time you wish, Lydia, for I have no desire for their attention,” Lizzy remarked.
Mrs Hill entered the room: “Lieutenant Denny, Lieutenant Wickham, and Captain Carter to see you.”
Lydia bound from her seat and rushed to the officers. She grabbed Wickham’s hand, but he said, “As much as you delight me, I wish to take a walk in the garden with your sister.”
Insulted, Lydia pursed her lips and stomped to her chair, pointedly sulking her displeasure over Lizzy monopolising the attention she deserved for being the livelier Bennet daughter. Lydia watched through narrowed eyes as Wickham led Lizzy from the drawing room.
Mr Wickham gallantly offered Miss Elizabeth his arm. “Miss Lydia does not seem pleased with you at the moment!”
Elizabeth laughed. “Lydia is at that trying age where if the attention is not on her, then she is displeased with everyone.”
“Ah! I am sure she shall grow out of it.”
She smiled up at him. “I am sure she shall.”
He grinned, an action that should make her weak at the knees. Instead infuriatingly Mr Darcy’s face crept up in her mind, the vision smiled as Lizzy recalled that Mr Darcy had dimples. “Is Colonel Forster keeping you busy?”
“You cannot know how gruelling it is to wake up while it is still dark and toil all day when one is meant to have a more sedate life. I am certain that the employment of the church would have been a good life for me.”
She frowned. “Are you sure you cannot seek legal redress?”
They strolled around a bend in the path that bordered what would be a bed of roses in the summertime. He led her to a bench against the wall of a modest folly. “I am not built for confrontation, Miss Bennet, nor do I have the funds to fight against men of Darcy’s calibre.”
“I sympathise.” She sighed. “I could help you gain your living?”
“No, Miss Bennet. Save your funds for you and your sisters.”
Again, Elizabeth was impressed by her new friend’s equanimity. “I could not be as forbearing as you in the same circumstance.”
“I understand you are for Hunsford in a few weeks?”
“I am indeed,” she said. “I am invited by my good friend Charlotte to visit her and my cousin, her husband, Mr Collins.”
“The vicar under Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s patronage?”
“Quite so.”
In the weeks to follow, Mr Wickham visited Longbourn often, particularly Elizabeth, a situation that vexed Lydia and perplexed Elizabeth.
Darcy spent the intervening months in London brooding over a pair of fine eyes in the face of the handsomest woman of his acquaintance. Even with his cousin Wessington tied to the Bennet family, Darcy could not countenance the thought of Mrs Bennet as his mother!
His cousin Richard returned from the wedding still under the influence of the gay festivities and swaggered into Darcy House, whistling a jaunty tune. His constant grin and laughter annoyed Darcy. “What makes you all sunshine and smiles?”
“What makes you storms and scowls?” Richard said carelessly. “I liked Meryton well indeed, full of lovely young women. I met one. An heiress. Further, she was marvellously pretty and has Mother’s approval. You even know her.”
Suddenly, lead filled Darcy’s stomach at the thought of Elizabeth Bennet with his cousin.
The colonel let out a long, wistful sigh.
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth Bennet is a handsome woman,” Darcy managed to say.
Of all the women, his favourite cousin had to fall for Elizabeth! Instead of speaking more of the enchanting Miss Bennet, Darcy added, “I understand Lady Catherine was not pleased with your brother’s wedding!”
“Neither were you, if you could not even attend, I suppose. Honestly, Fitz, you should marry Anne. I am sure Aunt Catherine is the perfect mother for you, so alike in pride.”
“You know that will never happen.”
“You have to marry somebody, might as well be Anne. By the by, when do we leave for Rosings this year?”
Darcy dreaded that journey.
How could he face his aunt in his ill humour? He could not trust himself to speak without giving offence, for each mention of that wretched, so-called engagement to his cousin Anne set his teeth on edge.
“We shall be leaving in the middle of March.”
“Beware the Ides of March.”
“Superstitious nonsense.”
“Maybe.” Richard shrugged.
“Enough foolishness.” Darcy gestured to a stack of correspondence. “I have work.”
The colonel offered Darcy a mock salute before he left the study. “I am off to find my amiable cousin, Georgiana.”
However, Darcy did not return to the mountain of post and business papers he had to look over. His mind was more agreeably engaged as he thought of fine eyes, dark ringlets, and rosy cheeks from walking three miles…
March the fifteenth brought rain. But that did not deter his or Richard’s determination to fulfil their duty to their aunt.
Would marrying Anne be so wrong? Was he shirking his duty by not fulfilling the desire of all the family? Pondering these questions, he was haunted by a pair of fine eyes. Darcy was so preoccupied with his contemplations that he hardly noticed his cousin, who seemed in a dark study as well.
While Jane Bennet’s wedding festivities took place, George Wickham lay low, knowing Colonel Fitzwilliam was in Meryton—such rotten luck. A pretty heiress who excited him, and he could not go near her.
Well, he was known as Wily Wickham amongst his school friends for a reason. He waited patiently until he was at liberty to work his charm on Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
He kept himself warm all winter with thoughts of how he would marry her, what a sweet wife she would make.
It was wonderful that she had been chosen to inherit out of all her sisters, of anyone in Meryton, for the only other chick to pluck was Miss Mary King, a nasty, freckled little thing with nothing to say for herself but her ten thousand pounds.
Lieutenant Wickham had informed Colonel Forster that he had a dying aunt and was begging him to join her side.
Once he was given leave, Wickham had wasted no time in going to Hunsford where he booked a room at Frog and Toad on the outskirts, a place of ill repute that he had stayed in before.
Once Wickham had secretly observed the day-to-day goings-on in the parsonage then he would act.
It vexed him that she seemed to be in company with either Darcy or the Colonel, but he patted his gun that he kept concealed at his hip by his brown coat.
Wickham was ready and would begin his campaign on the morrow. Soon he would be drinking fine wine, in fashionable attire, in a comfortable study with his rich wife—just how it should be.
The poet Thomas Grey said ignorance was bliss, and his wit did him credit.
Mr Darcy and Richard were ignorant of Wickham’s presence. Elizabeth was ignorant that three different men were courting her, and all three were unaware of the serpent writhing in the grass.