Prologue Part 1 C
A few days after the meeting in the study, Darcy was riding towards a tenant’s farm with his steward for company.
“Mr Darcy, if it is not an impertinence, may I ask a question regarding your meeting with my son?” Wickham queried. He saw the master nod his head. “Why did you not mention that you had changed your will and taken George out of it?”
“To tell him what I have done was a serious consideration,” Darcy responded. “I decided not to mention it because I am allowing for the possibility that your son will change. If he does, and it is genuine, then I may reinstate the money bequest I intended to leave him.”
Wickham wanted to tell the master that in his opinion George would never change.
After they had returned to the steward’s abode, George had unleashed his temper and wanted to know how Mr Darcy could do that to him after all the time he had wasted charming his former godfather.
George was a man of eighteen, and he had had a temper tantrum like a lad.
It was at that moment that Wickham owned his failure in allowing his late wife to educate and inculcate George to want and expect that which was not due him.
It was the first time he had begun to wonder if George would try to avenge himself on those he decided had wronged him.
He had suggested to George that he not go to the manor house if he was so disappointed in Mr Darcy.
Wickham’s son had dismissed that suggestion out of hand.
He said he would still entertain Miss Darcy from time to time, as she should not suffer for the sins of others.
George also stated that he knew he was still in line to receive a bequest from Mr Darcy.
In Wickham’s mind, George was not an appropriate person to be around a young and very impressionable girl, but it was not his place to say anything as long as Mr Darcy allowed it.
“Do not be disappointed if that does not happen,” was all Wickham said in reply. As it was, he trusted it would be decades before Mr Darcy’s will would need to be read.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Some days before the return to Cambridge for the Lent Term, which began on the second to last Monday of January 1802, the Darcys joined the Fitzwilliams at Snowhaven on the Tuesday before Twelfth Night.
The latter family had no lavish, debauched ball planned like so many in the Ton.
In fact, both families rejected many of the mores of so-called polite society, the shenanigans at said balls being one of them they abhorred.
It was a very enjoyable time with family, and never having to see Wicky—as Richard and William had begun to call George—sulking around Pemberley after he had been taken down a peg or two by his former godfather, was an added bonus.
The cousins were more than pleased that uncle to one and father to the other had finally had the scales fall from his eyes with regard to the dissipated man.
With Gigi lamenting their departure as she always did, after farewelling their parents, Richard and William departed for Cambridge at first light on the Friday before they were to begin the new term.
They would pass the Sabbath there because had they left a day later, they would have had to travel on the Lord’s day or arrive on Monday missing that day’s lectures.
They made good time and arrived by dusk on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, the cousins, along with all the fellow students who attended their college, made their way to King’s College Chapel to attend the Sabbath church service[1].
It being an unseasonably pleasant day, Richard and William took a walk past St Joseph’s College on their way to a tavern to enjoy the after-church meal.
They noticed one man surrounded by three others against a wall of the college, far away from the entrance or the front where the dons had offices. The three were knocking the one around.
“It is not our business,” William claimed as Richard made his way towards the group.
“Then stay here!” Richard spat.
As the antagonists had not seen him approach and upon reaching the group of brave men who were attacking one man when there were three of them, Richard cleared his throat.
The three turned towards him while one of them held the man with strawberry blond hair against the wall.
There was some blood trickling down from the victim’s split lip.
“Move along; we are trying to remove the stench of trade from this one. If you know what is good for you, you will leave us and mind your own concerns,” the ringleader hissed. “Besides, we are three and you are one.”
Richard shot his fist out with lightning speed and great force, laying one of the bullies on his back. “Now it is two against two,” he growled.
“Actually, it is three against two,” William said as he stood behind his cousin.
“How could you do that when we were only having some sport with a tradesman’s son? You must be one of his ilk as well,” the ringleader blustered with false bravado.
“Not that it is yours to know; I am one of the sons of the Earl of Matlock, and the tall fellow is a Darcy of Pemberley. Tell me, do any of your fathers have investments?” Richard saw nods from all three, including the one groaning on the ground.
“Then, you are hypocrites; your own fathers make money from trade.”
“That is not the same thing,” the man who had been holding their victim returned without very much conviction.
Richard Fitzwilliam grabbed the ringleader by his cravat and lifted his feet clear of the ground without any effort.
“Let me hear that you and your men do this again, to this man or any other, and I will challenge you to a match in pugilism. You will not be fit to be seen for weeks after I am finished with you.” Richard looked at the two cohorts.
The other one, who had just stood, was holding his nose.
“That goes for all of you. Am I understood?” He put the ringleader down.
There were three nods after which the bullies left at a run.
“It pleases me that you decided to join me and do the right thing,” Richard said to his cousin. He turned to the man who was pulling his coat straight. “I am Richard Fitzwilliam, second son of the Earl of Matlock, and this is my cousin, William Darcy, from Pemberley in Derbyshire. And you are?”
“Bingley, Charles Bingley from Scarborough, in Yorkshire. My father’s business builds ships for the Dutch East India company,” he stated as he used his handkerchief to wipe the blood from his lip.
“Jolly decent of you to help me, especially when you are related to nobility, and I am the son of a tradesman. Although there have been no physical attacks like today, since I began here last term, many of my fellow students have made their disdain for how my father makes his money very clear, even though, as you said, some of their fathers invest in his business.”
For some reason, notwithstanding he was wary because this Bingley man was from trade, William decided he was worth knowing.
The man was amiable and jovial in the face of the abuse he had suffered at the three cowards’ hands.
He was not gently born and was far below William in rank and status.
However, he seemed gentlemanlike. What harm would it do to come to know him here at Cambridge?
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Once word spread that Charles Bingley was accepted into the circle of friends which included Richard Fitzwilliam and William Darcy, no one attempted to harm him again.
By the time the academic year ended on the first Tuesday of July 1802, the three men were fast friends. Richard and William accepted that Bingley was not a resolute man, bordering on being capricious, and was someone who had a hard time not bending to the will of others.
Bingley had issued more than one invitation to Scarborough, which the cousins had declined.
They had heard him speak of his two sisters.
His descriptions, especially of the younger one’s character, were enough to discourage the cousins from accepting his invitations.
William had issued an invitation for Bingley alone, for three weeks in August after writing to, and receiving permission to do so from, his father.
He ignored Richard’s hints that it was not a good idea and that Bingley would not be alone.
William could not think that anyone would arrive at his father’s estate without invitation.
This summer, rather than stopping at Snowhaven, the cousins made their way directly to Pemberley. They arrived in the afternoon of the eighth of July, two days before William’s nineteenth birthday.
Except for his Aunt Catherine and Anne de Bourgh—she was too sickly to travel such a distance—who had not been invited, and Hilldale, who was still on his grand tour—he would return to England in March of 1803—the family were present to celebrate William’s birthday.
Gigi, who was now six, was very excited to have her brother and favourite cousin home for the summer. She also missed George, who would entertain her when she was alone and he was at the estate.
George Wickham arrived at his father’s cottage from Oxford on Wednesday of the following week, again in a rented carriage, not a Darcy conveyance.
As much as it had irked him, knowing that Mr Darcy had him on a short leash, George Wickham kept his nose clean for the rest of the academic year.
He was sure with good reports reaching Mr Darcy, he would be able to charm him into becoming his godfather once again.
There was a certain cachet being able to say he was Mr Robert Darcy’s godson, and George missed that.
What had been particularly vexing was having to live within the constraints of the allowance his father gave him. Mr Darcy no longer added any funds to what George’s father sent, and if he opened a credit account, he could not do so in that prig William’s name, as they were not at the same school.