CHAPTER 8 #9
“Indulge me, Darcy. I have been made a fool in my own house by a man whom I received with favour and defended with confidence. I think I have earned the right to hear his explanations without an audience, and perhaps he may discover that privacy is less agreeable when it belongs to someone else.”
There was something in her expression which made further argument not only useless, but faintly absurd. Darcy hesitated only a moment longer, then inclined his head with visible reluctance.
“As you wish, Aunt. I shall remain immediately outside the door, and I do not pretend the distance will recommend itself to me.”
“I do not doubt it,” Lady Catherine replied, with a dryness that proved her temper had not entirely abandoned her. “Indeed, I should be astonished if you trusted him at a distance of more than twelve feet, and I should think less of your judgement if you did.”
Even now, the severity retained enough of herself to make Darcy’s mouth almost move toward a smile, though it vanished before becoming one.
Mrs. Fairfax withdrew first, pale and deeply offended on behalf of the household itself, as though theft were not merely a crime but an insult to domestic order.
The two footmen followed with that solemn discretion servants adopt when scandal has exceeded curiosity and entered the realm of family history.
Mr. Darcy was the last to leave, and before he did, he looked once at Wickham—not with anger, but with that settled contempt which no defence can soften and no apology can repair. Then the door closed behind him.
Lady Catherine remained standing beside the open trunk, one gloved hand resting lightly upon its lid, as though the mere contact helped preserve the distinction between judgement and outrage.
Wickham, deprived at last of spectators, straightened slowly and adjusted his cuffs with deliberate calm, as if elegance itself might still function as a species of defence.
His colour had altered, but not enough to be called fear; he was too practised for that.
Yet there was now in him the unmistakable awareness of a man who had discovered that performance no longer governed the room.
For several moments neither spoke. The silence lengthened until it ceased to be awkward and became instead a deliberate instrument.
Lady Catherine had always understood the uses of silence when humiliation required assistance.
At length she spoke, and the quietness of it made every word land harder.
“I confess, Mr. Wickham, I had believed you merely ambitious. It would have been vulgar, certainly, but vulgarity is common enough and can often be corrected by proper distance, proper refusal, or proper marriage elsewhere. I did not immediately suspect you of being stupid, which was perhaps my only real error.”
Wickham inclined his head slightly, preserving the outline of civility even when substance had become impossible.
“Your ladyship is severe. I had hoped, at least, for the courtesy of being considered ambitious before I was condemned as incompetent.”
“No,” she replied, without raising her voice, “I am precise. A clever rogue steals elsewhere. He does not steal from the woman whose table he dines at, whose patronage he solicits, and whose daughter’s dowry he has already begun dividing in his imagination.
That is not villainy, sir. It is vanity with bad arithmetic, and I dislike bad arithmetic almost as much as I dislike ingratitude. ”
For the first time, something sharper entered his expression, for contempt, when deserved, wounds far more deeply than accusation.
“You speak as though I had planned to rob you like a highwayman upon the Dover road. Surely even appearances deserve a little refinement. I sought advancement, not burglary. Many gentlemen of excellent family have done as much with considerably less elegance and considerably more success.”
Lady Catherine’s eyes flashed, though her voice remained composed enough to make the anger more dangerous rather than less.
“Do not mistake me for society, sir. Society forgives a handsome liar because it hopes to be entertained by him and later excused by him. I do not require entertainment. I require obedience, discretion, and the absence of embarrassment. You have failed in all three, and failure, unlike charm, leaves a lasting impression.”
She moved a step nearer, not dramatically, not loudly, but with the terrible composure of a woman who has entirely ceased to care whether she is feared and is interested only in whether she is obeyed.
Wickham, for all his ease, did not retreat, but the effort of remaining still had become visible.
“You came here with recommendations, humility, and that polished gratitude men wear when they intend to be dangerous later. You courted my confidence, installed your woman in my house, encouraged the removal of Mrs. Jenkinson by inconvenience rather than dismissal, and believed that if you smiled long enough, Rosings would simply become yours by habit. It was not an unambitious design. It was merely a badly judged one.”
Wickham’s smile returned, though it had become harder now, and less useful even to himself.
“And if it had succeeded, your ladyship would very likely have called it prudence. Success improves morality in the opinion of most families, and advantageous marriages have long been forgiven where affection was absent.”
“No,” she said, with perfect contempt, “I would have called it marriage, which is the usual respectable name for theft among ambitious men. But even thieves ought to possess judgement. I was never in love with you. My daughter never liked you. My nephew never trusted you. My servants disliked you and it was entirely your fault. You had against you every warning except your own vanity, and vanity, I observe, is a very deaf adviser.”
“There was a time, I think, when you did not find my company so intolerable. I believed you had feelings for me, my lady.”
“You mistook my favour for surrender, and my loneliness for permission. I trusted you where I trusted no one else, and you repaid that trust by making it ridiculous.”
Wickham said nothing then, because silence had become safer than wit.
Lady Catherine continued, and now there was in her voice something colder still—injured pride, which in her ranked above morality and only slightly below rank itself.
“You have not merely stolen silver. You have made me ridiculous. Do you understand that distinction? You have turned my hospitality into gossip, my judgement into comedy, and my house into a cautionary tale for every dinner table in Kent. Had you stolen only candlesticks, I might have forgiven you sooner. Candlesticks can be replaced. Public absurdity is much more expensive.”
At that, even Wickham’s composure thinned. He folded his hands behind him, less from calm than from the need to keep them still.
“What is it you want, then, Lady Catherine?” he asked, and for the first time the lightness had gone from his voice.
“Confession? Repentance? A public humiliation for the moral improvement of the servants? I should like, at least, to understand the ceremony before I am expected to participate in it.”
Lady Catherine looked at him as one might regard an insect that had begun, unexpectedly, to negotiate terms with the gardener.
“No, Mr. Wickham. I want efficiency. You will gather your personal belongings and be gone from this house within the hour. You will take Mrs. Younge with you, together with the stableman you brought here, for I will not have Rosings left to remember either your presence or your arrangements.”
She allowed no interruption, and the force of certainty in her tone made interruption seem childish.
“You will also write, tonight, resigning every expectation connected with Hunsford. You will provide the names of every broker, creditor, and accomplice foolish enough to trust you. And if a single object belonging to Rosings or the parish is discovered elsewhere by surprise, I shall ensure that the magistrate learns your name before the post does. If a constable finds even the shadow of your presence within ten miles of Rosings after tonight, I shall take it as a personal insult and see that you are sent to prison and forgotten there for as many years as the law can be persuaded to provide.”
She let the words settle fully before adding, with terrible calm: “Do not imagine that I threaten for effect. I dislike scenes. I prefer results.”
Wickham looked at her for a long moment and, perhaps for the first time since arriving at Rosings, understood that his charm had entirely ceased to be useful. When he answered, the lightness was gone, and what remained was something colder and far more honest.
“You are remarkably like your nephew, Lady Catherine. I begin to suspect the family resemblance is strongest where neither of you would care to admit it.”
She gave the faintest, iciest smile, and in it there was no triumph at all—only conclusion.
“No, sir. My nephew Darcy still possesses patience. I possess only memory. Do not mistake the difference. One forgives. The other remembers precisely where to strike.”
Lady Catherine looked at him with the finality of a door closing.
“Do not come back, Wickham. Ever. I have endured your presence once. I do not repeat expensive mistakes.”
***
The door to the private chambers reserved to Wickham opened at last, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh emerged with a composure so exact and unyielding that only those who had lived beneath her shadow for a lifetime could have perceived how dearly such a display had been purchased.
Her countenance was a shade paler than was customary, and there was in the rigid set of her mouth something so perfectly controlled that it spoke far more of a violent will restrained than of a spirit restored to its former tranquility.