Chapter 16
Dining Room
Later
Elizabeth nodded her thanks as Mr. Darcy held out her chair and assisted her into it. After several hours of dancing, she was relieved at being able to sit down. She was also hungry, and the fragrance of white soup and roast beef was undeniably enticing.
“Wine, Miss?” a servant asked courteously, and she lifted her glass to let the man fill it.
“Would you care for some soup, Miss Bennet?” Mr. Darcy asked.
She nodded and smiled, and he used the available ladle to scoop some of the thick liquid into her bowl before putting it on the table in front of her.
She took a sip of wine and then a sip of soup, and she was especially pleased with the latter.
White soup was expensive, and even Mrs. Bennet rarely ordered it.
“I hope you are enjoying the ball, Miss Elizabeth,” Mr. Darcy said after allowing a minute for her to eat a few bites.
“I am, very much,” she said, looking around the room with satisfaction. “I love to dance, especially with good friends and lovely surroundings.”
Mr. Darcy was, she noticed, staring at her with a strange intensity. She frowned and anxiously glanced down at her dress. Had she spilled her white soup or gotten some bit of food stuck in her teeth or…
“You do not mind if we sit here, do you?” a familiar male voice asked.
Elizabeth looked up to see Mr. Bingley with Jane on his arm standing a few feet away, while Mary and Mr. Collins lurked a few feet farther.
“Of course not!” Elizabeth exclaimed, gesturing toward the available seats.
The couples sat down, and the conversation, after a few short-lived topics, settled on Rosings and Hunsford. Elizabeth could tell that Mary was pleased to discuss her future home with Mr. Darcy, who knew far more than Mr. Collins about the history of the estate.
***
Dining Room
“I hope you are both enjoying yourselves tonight,” Captain Denny said to the two youngest Bennet daughters.
Lydia could not answer as she was in the midst of cramming an entire buttermilk roll into her mouth, but Kitty answered, “Oh yes, so very much! I declare I have never had so much fun in my life!”
“Mmhmm,” Lydia responded rather thickly around her roll.
She picked up her glass of wine and drained most of it, and then she said more clearly, “The ballroom is wonderful, and the London musicians are the best I have ever enjoyed at a dance, but the most glorious thing of all is to be able to dance with so many handsome officers!”
Lieutenant Smythe, who had partnered Kitty for the supper dance, said, “Thank you, Miss Lydia. And we are all very pleased to have the opportunity to dance with such lovely ladies.”
Lydia and Kitty giggled at this, and then the latter looked around the room with a slight pucker on her forehead.
“Where is Mr. Wickham tonight?” she asked innocently. “I thought he would come to this ball.”
The two officers exchanged quick glances, and Lieutenant Smythe lowered his voice, leaned forward a trifle, and said, “He had some business in Town and left only yesterday. We anticipate his return to the regiment on the morrow.”
“Was his business truly so urgent? Could he not have waited a few days?” Lydia demanded.
Again, the men looked at one another, and Captain Denny said carefully, “Mr. Wickham likely would not have gone, but he is desirous of avoiding a certain gentleman here.”
Lydia’s eyes flared wide, and she turned a bewildered look on the lieutenant. “Avoid someone? Whatever are you talking about?”
Smythe leaned forward a little more, dangerously close to dipping his cravat into the white soup, and said, “Have you not heard of the feud between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham?”
***
Later
Fitzwilliam Darcy stopped on the dance floor with his partner and came to a halt. The music for the second to last dance of the evening would begin in a few minutes.
He looked around and watched as Miss Elizabeth, on Lieutenant Smythe’s arm, walked in his direction. He wondered if she had the last dance of the night, the Boulanger, still free? Probably not.
Even if she did, he could not dance with her again. It would raise too many questions. No, he would dance with Miss Lydia, who was standing next to him, and would sit out the last dance before finally being able to take to his bed.
“Mr. Darcy,” Miss Lydia said suddenly.
He forced himself to turn away from the second Miss Bennet to consider the fifth. The girl was the tallest of her sisters, though still at least six inches shorter than he was.
“Yes, Miss Lydia?” he asked patiently.
“Why did you refuse to give Mr. Wickham the church living that your father intended him to have?”
Boredom gave way to incredulous shock. Miss Lydia had a naturally loud voice, and her question was spoken with sufficient volume to be overheard by the dancers nearby.
“I beg your pardon?” he demanded, frowning down at her dangerously. He had heard her the first time, of course, but assumed that one of his famous glares would quiet her.
He had not taken into account her spoiled, defiant nature.
“I said,” she repeated, even more loudly, “why did you deny Mr. Wickham the church living that your father left for him in his will?”
“Lydia!” a familiar feminine voice exclaimed from his left.
He turned to discover Elizabeth Bennet standing nearby with Lieutenant Smythe. The former wore an expression of horrified embarrassment, while the latter was staring at Miss Lydia with a look of disbelief.
“Lydia!” Miss Elizabeth hissed. “This is not the time or the place…”
“I think it is exactly the time and the place,” Miss Lydia said with a shake of her dark curls. “It is not fair that a rich man like Mr. Darcy should mistreat Mr. Wickham merely because the lieutenant is poor, and Mr. Smythe said…”
“Miss Lydia,” the lieutenant interrupted, “if I had known that you would repeat casual words in such a manner, I would never have mentioned the situation!”
Darcy had always prided himself on his ability to control his own temper, but this moment was so humiliating and outrageous that his first inclination was to stalk off the dance floor and retire for the night.
His eyes turned, as they so often did, to Miss Elizabeth, and the mute misery on her face was enough to scotch that idea.
The music had started and with it the dance, and Darcy said, “We cannot speak freely here. Shall we retire to a sitting room to thrash out the matter?”
Lydia frowned and said petulantly, “I want to dance!”
“Well, then you should not have brought up a sensitive topic on the ballroom dance floor,” Miss Elizabeth snarled, reaching forward to grasp her sister’s arm and pull her ruthlessly toward the door.
In the midst of Darcy’s outrage, he was aware of a flicker of amusement. Miss Elizabeth was, in spite of her diminutive size, a woman to be reckoned with.
He followed the pair of sisters, with Lieutenant Smythe trailing in his wake.
To his surprise and relief, the various attendees of the party merely parted to make way for the Bennet sisters without any obvious concern.
Perhaps, Darcy mused, it was not the first time one of the older Bennet girls had been forced to drag a younger one out of a room.
They proceeded to a side door which led into a corridor, and from thence to a small sitting room. It was cold, but a fire had been laid, and one lone candle was lit on the mantle, which allowed Darcy to light two additional candles and the fire.
When he had stirred it into a fine blaze, he turned to discover the two Bennet ladies seated side by side on a settee, while Lieutenant Smythe remained standing, his face pale in the soft light of the flames.
“Mr. Darcy,” the latter said, “I apologize profusely for speaking out of turn regarding Mr. Wickham and…”
“Sit down,” Darcy ordered, interrupting his apology. The man did so, and Darcy took a turn up and down the carpet before stopping to look at his companions.
“I do not know exactly what Mr. Wickham has told you about our relationship, but I will tell you my perspective, and then you can ask questions as you desire, though I do not promise to answer.”
He waited to see if Miss Lydia was capable of being silent. The girl actually looked genuinely unsettled, which was an improvement over overweening confidence.
“George Wickham is the son of a very fine man who served as steward of my family’s estate of Pemberley for many years,” Darcy continued.
“Wickham is less than a year younger than I am, and we grew up together. My father was very fond of him and stood as his godfather and benefactor. Mrs. Wickham, who died some six years ago, was regrettably a spendthrift, and while my father paid his steward well, the elder Wickham was always poor. My father thus paid for his godson’s education, first to Harrow and then to Cambridge. ”
“That was generous of him,” Miss Elizabeth said softly.
“It was, but as I said, my father cared for the Wickham family deeply. George Wickham and I were up at Cambridge for two years together, and I realized during that time that he was becoming more and more like the foolish fellows around us. He drank too much, and gambled with money that he did not have, and so forth and so on.”
“But surely,” the younger girl began, only to have her sister interrupt firmly, “Wait until Mr. Darcy is finished speaking, Lydia.”
Rather to Darcy’s surprise, Miss Lydia obeyed, though her lower lip was now thrust out truculently.
“I did not tell my father about his godson’s ungodly propensities,” Mr. Darcy continued.
“My father’s health was already failing, and I did not wish to grieve him so.
When he passed away, he left instructions that I set aside a valuable living in Kympton, near Pemberley, for Wickham if he took Holy Orders. ”
“Then why did you not?” Miss Lydia demanded indignantly.
“Because he did not take Holy Orders,” Darcy replied, gazing down into the young woman’s petulant face.
“Furthermore, six months after the death of my father, Wickham wrote me to say that he had resolved against such a path and declared that he would instead study law. He pointed out, reasonably, that the Kympton living had substantial value, and he asked that I award him three thousand pounds in lieu of any expectation of ever being awarded the living. I acceded to this happily enough, as I knew that Wickham ought not to be a clergyman given what I had observed of his character in recent years. I sent him the money along with an additional thousand pounds which had been left to him in my father’s will.
Papers were signed, and I thought no more of the matter.
Three years later, which is to say about a year ago, the incumbent of the Kympton living died, and Wickham wrote demanding that I give him the living, with the assurance that he would eventually become ordained.
He was, he told me, completely out of money and desperately in need of the living.
I refused, which I think is entirely reasonable. ”
He stopped and looked at Smythe, who appeared thunderstruck, and then at Miss Lydia, who appeared more bewildered than anything else, and then to Miss Elizabeth, whose eyes were flashing with fire.
“So he lied,” the older lady said angrily. “He claimed that you refused him the living for no reason, leaving out the truth that he had been paid to give it up, and at his own request no less.”
“Yes,” Darcy said simply.
“If this is true,” Lieutenant Smythe began, and then hurriedly added, “and I do believe it, because you are sensible enough to … in any case, you could hardly have given him the Kympton living, anyway. Becoming ordained is not a matter of a day or a week or even a month. It takes significant time!”
“I gather that Wickham thought I ought to find a curate to serve at Kympton, and pay the man, no doubt, while Wickham obtained the necessary qualifications,” Darcy said drily.
“But that would not have taken too long, correct?” Miss Lydia said. “I mean, your father did wish for Mr. Wickham to…”
“Lydia,” her older sister said irritably, “Mr. Wickham took three thousand pounds and gave up all rights to the living. That is an enormous sum, and if he had behaved sensibly, he could have lived off the interest of three … no, four thousand pounds for the rest of his life. But he foolishly spent it all in a few short years! He had no right to that living, none at all, and Mr. Darcy was right to deny him. A clergyman is supposed to care for the people in his flock, and it seems that Mr. Wickham is not the sort of man to care at all about the needs of the poor and needy in his midst. He is a taker, not a giver.”
“That describes the man exactly,” Darcy said.
Lieutenant Smythe coughed once, bowed his head, and said diffidently, “I am sorry for my own part of this, Mr. Darcy. I ought not to have believed Wickham, and certainly not ought to have gossiped about it. I apologize.”
“Mr. Wickham is blessed with such charm and happy manners that many people have trusted him when they ought not to have done so,” Darcy said. “I will add, sir, that I would be cautious about trusting him to pay any gambling debts.”
Smythe’s eyebrows rose at this statement, and he said, “Surely Wickham will, that is, it is a matter of honor for a gentleman.”
“In my experience, Mr. Wickham is hardly an honorable man,” Darcy said. “He leaves debts wherever he has gone.”
“Gambling debts?” Miss Elizabeth asked alertly, “or debts to tradesmen, or…”
“Both,” Darcy said. “I paid off hundreds of pounds of debt in Lambton, the town near Pemberley, on Wickham’s behalf when he left the area.”
Smythe choked at these words and said, “Hundreds of pounds? You could send him to Marshalsea for that!”
Darcy took a moment to reply to that. He could do that, of course, but Wickham held his sister’s reputation in one well-manicured hand, so…
“I could,” he said aloud, “but I have not been able to take such a step. My father loved him dearly, and I cannot imagine casting him into such a dreadful place.”
“I understand that,” Miss Elizabeth said gravely. “For all Mr. Wickham’s faults, he was your father’s godson, and he was loved.”
“Yes,” Darcy agreed.