Chapter 16
The atmosphere in the Bingley family carriage was very sombre.
Caroline sat in a front facing corner with a pinched look on her face as if she were the aggrieved party; Louisa was sitting in contemplative silence; Mrs Martha Bingley was crying quietly; Charles was looking out of the window wondering if Caroline had been adopted; and Mr Bingley had a thunderous look as he calmed himself enough to speak. Before he did, his wife did.
“Oh, Mr Bingley, what have I done?” she asked plaintively between her tears.
“Of what do you speak, madam? I do not know of what you speak,” he said with a level tone that did nothing to hide the anger in his voice.
“It was me that put all the ideas of advancing in society into our daughters’ heads without teaching them the way to go about it as it was something that I did not know myself,” Martha said, as the full weight of her folly became evident to her.
“Mother of what do you talk, you have always…” Caroline began to say, horrified that her mother seemed to be abandoning her now.
“You will be silent until I give you leave to speak!” Oscar Bingley growled at his youngest daughter, leaving her with no illusion that he would not be gainsaid.
“You were saying before that impudent child interrupted you, Mrs Bingley?” Caroline made to protest but the look from her father, and for that matter the rest of her family, caused what she was about to say to die in her throat.
“I was so enamoured with raising our position that I never learnt the behaviour that is acceptable to members of polite society. When I remember how we fawned over Master Darcy when he visited us, and then his parents and their relations at Pemberley, I am mortified at what I allowed myself to become.” The more Caroline heard, the more she lost respect for her mother.
“By rejecting our roots, I see now that I was rejecting you and your life’s work.
If it were not for trade, we would have no fortune and our girls would not have twelve thousand five hundred pounds each. ”
“Twelve thousand five hundred pounds!” Caroline screeched. “We were to have twenty thousand each!”
“Do not cause me to have to warn you to be silent again, you petulant child! As your mother knows, thanks to acquiescing to the demands to leave my business, which I regret to this day, my income dropped, and I was not able to fund the dowries to the level that I had planned.”
Caroline could not believe what she was hearing; the only thing she heard was that her dowry was far less than what she had been boasting it was.
The shame of it! The two Bennet chits had five and twenty thousand pounds each, and if she had read correctly the founding was rumoured to have double that amount! Everyone was failing her!
“We were happy before I got those lofty and unattainable goals in my mind,” Martha owned. “I apologise to you, husband, and to all of my family,” she said as she looked at her feet.
“We will get past this, Martha,” Oscar said as he reached across the space between the seats to take his wife’s hand.
It had been many years since he called his wife by her informal name.
“Even if we wanted to rise in society, it is moot. Caroline could have very well ruined us.” Seeing that she was about to protest, he addressed her directly.
“You just insulted the daughter of an Earl, one who is the darling of the Queen, and in front of her entire family, no less. If you think that there will not be repercussions from your actions, Caroline, then you are completely delusional! In that case, we will need to head to Bedlam and not Scarborough!”
If Caroline were waiting for someone in her family to refute what her father had said, she would be waiting a lifetime.
“What did I do to make you behave the way that you do?” Martha asked rhetorically.
“When I think of the lies, the airs and graces that we put on to try and make ourselves look superior to those above us in society, I cannot think of my behaviour without abhorrence!” If Caroline had felt betrayed before, it was nothing to the feelings that she had as her mother spoke the vile words about their status.
“You will have a lot of apologising to do when we return to Hertfordshire after we look at prospective estates in Wiltshire. Speaking of which, I would like to go over the estates that we will see with you this evening while at the coaching inn where we will spend the night,” Oscar said, knowing now that he could take his wife into his confidence and that he would have her full support to place Caroline at Dark Hollow School.
“If you have damaged my friendship with either of my friends, I will never forgive you Caroline,” Charles spoke for the first time.
“Do you have any idea what a joke you are to them? Do you think Darcy was interested in a girl of thirteen who has no clue how to behave? Did you not notice how seldom he was in company with you; only the times where it could not be helped; and every time that you attempted to attach yourself to his arm, he dropped your arm like it was poison!” As her brother talked Caroline’s face became more and more pinched with displeasure.
What did Charles know? “If you were the last lady left in the world, Darcy, and I dare say his cousin the Viscount who you looked at like a prime cut of meat you were about to devour, would never marry you for any reason!”
Caroline was crying after her brother’s speech, not from sadness or shame but from anger. How dare Charles lie to her in such an infamous fashion? She would show them all! Her thoughts were interrupted by her father’s voice.
“For the fortnight that we are with my brother and his family, you will stay in your chambers, Caroline. I will have a footman on duty at the door at all times and you will take your meals in solitude in your chambers. I will not subject your aunt, uncle, or their children to your vitriol,” her father delivered his edict.
“If I were able to leave you somewhere and not take you with us to Wiltshire I would, but unfortunately that is not a possibility. The day of our departure will be the first and only time that you will exit your bedchamber. Before you think of taking your anger out on the furnishings and decorations in your chambers, know that any damage will be paid from your allowance, and I care not how long you go without until all is paid.”
“My apologies will have to start with our family in Yorkshire,” Martha noted quietly mortified as she remembered how she treated their family members.
“I will need to join you in apologising, Mama,” Louisa stated.
Other than Caroline, it was a much happier family that travelled on toward Scarborough.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
When Jim Wickham walked into his abode at the end of the day, he was met with a chilling sight.
George was sitting and waiting for him, with one of Jim’s pistols resting in his lap.
The hammer was cocked so the senior Wickham knew that the weapon was loaded and ready to fire its deadly missile with a light squeeze of the trigger.
“George! What on earth are you doing, Son?” Jim Wickham asked as he slowly advanced into the small sitting room.
“Do not call me ‘Son’, Mr Wickham,” George spat out. “I am a Darcy, and you will show me the respect that I deserve.”
“As it was me who raised you, you are, in fact, my son regardless of who your natural father was, and as you have been told multiple times by myself, Mr Darcy, and the Earl of Matlock, you are not the natural son of the master of Pemberley. I am afraid that your mother prevaricated, for what reason I will never know, but a prevarication it was nevertheless, and there is nothing in the world that will change that fact. Your wanting it to be such or murdering me will not change the truth, George,” Jim said, as he sat down hoping to talk his son off the mad path on which he had set himself.
For the first time since his mother had poured her poison into his ear, George Wickham started to doubt her tales. “Do you know who my natural father is, if it is not Mr Darcy?” George demanded. “My mother always told me that was why I was named George, after my natural father.”
“Your natural father died some years ago and you were named for my father. You are free to look in the family bible; it is notated there on the day of your birth. In my mind, you were my son in every way, and I felt it a befitting honour to name you after my father.” Jim informed his son, hoping that he was finally reaching him.
George stood and reached for the bible on the shelf next to him, keeping his eye on his adoptive father in case he tried to move against him.
He opened the cover and there he saw the proof that Jim Wickham had claimed he would.
Next to his date of birth it read: ‘George Jim Wickham, named for his paternal grandfather and father.’ Rather than calm him, George became very agitated as he realised that the bulk of his beliefs about who he was were built on lies.
One thing would never change; he would extract his revenge on those he believed wronged him.
Knowledge that George Darcy was not his natural father did not change his plans.
His revenge would start here and now; Jim Wickham had whipped him multiple times and he would not allow that to stand.
The man he had called father had done nothing to petition Mr Darcy when that man withdrew as his godfather.
If the man was not loyal to him, then what value was he?
Jim Wickham saw the cold look in his son’s eyes as George looked at him like he was nothing, then deliberately George raised the weapon and without hesitation discharged at the man sitting opposite him.