Chapter Four #2
Lydia could scarce believe what had just transpired; arriving in the inn yard to see Wickham being taken up by two troopers and apparently arrested had been shocking enough, but then to run into Colonel Fitzwilliam had been the most ghastly piece of bad luck.
She fully expected him to ring a peal over her, but instead he had spoken quietly and gently once he recovered from whatever fury had initially seized him, even insisting he would escort her home and nobody would be the wiser as to her attempted elopement.
Of course, running into several officers who recognised him had been another dreadful stroke of ill fortune, and it was fortuitous that General Lewes had happened along to defuse the situation.
She still wasn’t entirely sure what the general had done exactly to silence the men once she had been unmasked; in truth she had thought herself to be ruined at that moment, the full enormity of what she had done breaking over her when the whispers began.
The general did not speak on the short walk back to the Forsters’ house, leaving Lydia to stew in her self-recriminations.
“I take it you slipped out a side door?” he said at last, making Lydia startle.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered, barely able to get the words out through a throat thick with tears.
“Then you must go back in the same way, and get back to bed with nobody seeing you. Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“Good girl. Say nothing to Forster or his wife, but do not leave the house tomorrow until I come to see you, do you understand? Plead a sick headache or something and get Mrs Forster to stay with you. I’ll keep Forster too busy to overhear any gossip.”
“Thank you.” She honestly didn’t know what else to say.
“Don’t thank me yet, girl. You’ve landed yourself in a pickle, and the way out of it may not be quite to your taste, unless I am much mistaken.” The old general gave her arm a little squeeze. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” Lydia told him.
“Then you are far too trusting, for you scarcely know me. Which is a trait I daresay has landed you in this particular mess, hm? Young girls, haven’t enough sense to fill a stirrup cup.
” He harrumphed, then shook his head and pushed her gently towards the side door.
“Go to bed, Miss Bennet, and remember, not a word to anyone!”
Fitzwilliam paced anxiously before the fire.
General Lewes had a suite of rooms in the Grand Hotel at the seafront in Brighton; his batman had looked surprised when Fitzwilliam arrived but permitted him to wait in the general’s sitting-room.
He seemed to be waiting an interminably long time, which left him far too much time to think.
Lydia Bennet was compromised. He kept returning to that inescapable, overriding fact.
And while yes, she had crept from the Forsters’ house to run away with Wickham in the middle of the night, Fitzwilliam knew exactly who was to blame, and it wasn’t a sixteen-year-old girl with stars in her eyes and dreams of a sparkling future.
No, George Wickham was at fault for this catastrophe.
Undoubtedly, he had filled Lydia’s ears with half-truths and outright lies, convincing her that as his wife she would be feted and adored, when it was far more likely that Wickham never planned to marry her at all.
No, Wickham would have taken her to London, convinced her of some reason to delay departing for Scotland, stolen her innocence and then.
.. Fitzwilliam shuddered to think of it.
Lydia had no dowry and no powerful relatives, no compelling reason for Wickham to wed her.
Once he tired of her, she’d have been out on the street, unable to return to her family because of her disgrace - and the other Bennet girls would be dragged down with her.
One reckless decision by the youngest sister, and the rest of them would never again be considered respectable.
Which was deeply unfair and, to Fitzwilliam, absolutely unacceptable.
Lydia Bennet was sixteen years old and had been deliberately deceived by a man who knew precisely what he was doing.
That she had been foolish enough to be taken in was beside the point; Wickham had been counting on exactly that foolishness.
Whatever happened next, the fault was not hers.
And then there was Darcy to consider. His cousin was head-over-heels in love with Elizabeth Bennet; Fitzwilliam was quite certain of it whatever Darcy might say to the contrary, and this one reckless act could drag the whole family into a scandal from which none of them would recover.
That was reason enough to act, even had there been no other.
“Well, this is a fine mess,” General Lewes’ voice interrupted his reverie, and he turned, startled. He hadn’t heard the old man enter the room.
Lewes eyed him shrewdly as he divested himself of his coat and hat, handing them off to his man.
“Bring us some brandy, Shaw,” he instructed, “the good stuff, thank you.” Sinking into a comfortable chair, he sighed.
“Well. Thought I was just going to have a pleasant night playing a few hands of whist with Montgomery and Pierce; I didn’t expect to find you, of all men, compromising a young lady. ”
“It wasn’t me!” Fitzwilliam defended himself immediately, and nonsensically, he realised, when Lewes gave him raised eyebrows and waved him to a chair.
“I think you’d best explain, my boy, because as things stand I think your mother will be very disappointed.”
Fitzwilliam winced as he took the indicated seat. Shaw returned then with the brandy, pouring both of them a generous snifter before quietly leaving them alone.
“The story begins with a man named Wickham,” he began, “who was the son of the steward at my cousin Darcy’s estate of Pemberley in Derbyshire.”
General Lewes heard him out without comment until Fitzwilliam reached the events of that evening. “What’s this Wickham doing in Brighton, then?” he asked at last.
“That is something I will discover in the morning, sir, when I have him before the magistrate, but it appears he is with Colonel Forster’s militia regiment, lately removed here from Hertfordshire, which is where he first became acquainted with Miss Bennet.”
“Smart move, buying up his debts like that. You own him now.” Lewes gave him a nod of approval, and Fitzwilliam felt a small amount of the load on his shoulders lighten.
“The simplest thing to do would be to send him off to Scotland with Miss Bennet and a couple of good men to make sure he gets there,” Lewes mused, and Fitzwilliam started up.
“No!”
“Why ever not? Miss Bennet becomes Mrs Wickham, her reputation is recovered, and you no longer have to worry about your cousin.” Lewes’ bushy white brows raised up as he waited for Fitzwilliam to formulate a reply.
“What sort of life would I be condemning her to, though?” Fitzwilliam said.
“Quite apart from the fact that Wickham is far too profligate to ever support a wife, I do not doubt that in his disappointment, he will treat her badly. Perhaps even dispose of her, as an obstacle to his plans. Frankly, sir, even if I had a woman I called my enemy, I would not wish to see her married to Wickham. No woman deserves such a husband, least of all a girl like Lydia Bennet.”
“Like Lydia Bennet?” Lewes queried.
“Innocent. She is barely sixteen, sir, and though she plays at flirting, I have no doubt she knows nothing of men’s perfidy. She is sheltered and yes, a little spoiled, but I think she is a sweet girl at heart.”
“Exactly my impression,” Lewes mused. “Well, then, I see only one honourable alternative. Don’t you agree?” Sharp blue eyes pierced Fitzwilliam, skewering him where he sat.
He had already come to the same conclusion.
“Yes, sir. I intend to visit Colonel Forster tomorrow once I have dealt with Wickham, and then I will write to Mr Bennet to ask him for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”