Chapter 7 #2
After the old man’s passing, and despite the clear wishes expressed in his will, the promised living near Pemberley had not been given to Mr Wickham, but to another man chosen by Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.
His expectations dashed, and without other resource or prospects, Mr Wickham had been left penniless and unsupported to make his own way in the world since then.
“How truly awful,” she told Mr Wickham, Mr Darcy’s character now fallen even further in her already limited estimation of him. “How could he do such a thing? How was it even possible when his father’s will expressed his intention so clearly? Why was he not publicly censured?”
“An expressed intention is far from a legally binding order, I suppose,” replied the officer with a shrug.
“As for public censure, my respect for old Mr Darcy was such that I could never expose his son, nor let his actions be widely known. It is only with a disinterested friend of good understanding that I can be so honest about the truth.”
Elizabeth was touched, both by this story of woe and by Wickham’s trust in her as his chosen confidante.
“I promise you my discretion,” she assured him, and Wickham looked suitably grateful.
“Thank you. Mr Darcy will doubtless receive his just deserts one day, but it must not be at my hand.”
“Hi there, Wickham, did you say you knew Mr Darcy?” interrupted a somewhat tipsy fellow-officer, his cheeks rosy with brandy and merriment. “Is it true what they are saying around here about his father? A certain young lady just told me something very juicy about his parentage.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Denny,” Mr Wickham said with becomingly calm dignity. “Why not take some tea and cake?”
“But is it true?” the other young man insisted, seeming unaware either of Elizabeth’s presence or Mr Wickham’s reluctance. “Is it true that his father wasn’t really his father?”
Elizabeth gasped and then looked across the room furiously for her younger sisters, guessing that Lydia was the one responsible for spreading this pernicious gossip.
Mr Wickham, meanwhile, frowned and stiffened.
“I have never heard such rubbish in my life,” he stated firmly. “Never repeat that again in my presence.”
Taken aback, the officer Mr Wickham had called Denny seemed to recall himself and notice Elizabeth for the first time.
“Ah. Pardon me,” he said with an unsteady bow and walked away toward the card table under George Wickham’s narrowed gaze.
“I am sorry you had to hear that,” the lieutenant told Elizabeth. “My colleague Denny is young and cannot hold his drink. I beg that you will think no more of what he said.”
“Then he is rather like my younger sister in that regard,” returned Elizabeth, still shaking her head as she watched the laughing and blissfully unaware Lydia playing a triumphant hand to round applause at the card table.
“I must say, Mr Wickham, that your reaction to such evil gossip does you credit. I wish that others without your provocations could be as circumspect.”
At this compliment, George Wickham’s sunniest smile returned to his face, and if his principled comportment had not already raised him in Elizabeth’s esteem, his handsome countenance might well have done.
“I will listen to nothing ill about old Mr Darcy, who showed me and my family such kindness,” he said firmly. “Nor need I rely on falsehoods to explain a failed friendship or my personal opinion of Mr Darcy, when my own experience already provides ample justification for both.”
This seeming to draw a line under the uncomfortable matter, their conversation then turned by mutual consent back to the ball at Netherfield Park in a week’s time. By now, Mary had been induced to take to the pianoforte, and the carpet rolled up at the other end of the room for dancing.
“Will all the officers be in attendance at the Netherfield ball, Mr Wickham?” Elizabeth enquired. “I know that my younger sisters are most anxious that you should. There is not always a good supply of capable and energetic dancing partners in this neighbourhood.”
“With all the Miss Bennets in attendance, how could we not?” George Wickham returned gallantly. “The invitation to Colonel Forster included all his officers and I, for one, intend to accept it.”
“You will not allow Mr Darcy’s presence there to influence you?” Elizabeth wondered, pleased to hear of Mr Wickham’s intentions but uncertain whether this would be wise. “After what I have heard this afternoon, I could not blame you for keeping away.”
The smiling lieutenant shook his head and spoke with great firmness of resolve.
“My own behaviour has been blameless, and it is not for me to be driven away. If Darcy wishes to avoid me, let him keep away from the ball. I shall only try to stay out of his way.”
“I am glad to hear that,” Elizabeth told him. “Like my sisters, I am keen that amiable dancing partners should not be in short supply. We cannot expect a man of Mr Darcy’s dignity to condescend to dance with us, after all.”
Mr Wickham smiled again at this implied compliment to himself and mild slight to Mr Darcy, indicating that he would not be at all averse to dancing with Elizabeth and her sisters at Netherfield Park.
“It is a shame, is it not, that a man with all Darcy’s advantages of rank, fortune and person should have such a deficient character?” Mr Wickham put to her then. “How much I should have done in the world, if I had been born to even half of his good luck!”
Elizabeth had to agree. She could not say that Mr Darcy was a wicked or vicious man, but from what she had seen herself, and now what she had heard from Mr Wickham, it did seem that he had paid life back poorly for all the graces it had bestowed on him.
As Mr Wickham had said, Mr Darcy possessed high rank, considerable fortune, a quick mind, and a person that was not displeasing in its essential measures, being tall, well-made and fine of feature, despite his scowls.
He might have been universally known and liked wherever he went, and used his influence generously for the benefit of George Wickham and others less fortunate, rather than disdaining them.
“Do not envy Mr Darcy,” Elizabeth urged. “A fair character is worth more than all the advantages you list.”
“But it does not pay the bills,” said Mr Wickham with a smile, and they both laughed.
∞∞∞
“How red-faced and cross you look, Lizzy!” remarked Charlotte Lucas with a smile when the two young ladies met in the retiring room an hour later. “Have you not been lucky with your cards? Or have Lydia and Kitty been testing your patience?”
Elizabeth examined herself in the mirror and sighed.
“I do look cross, don’t I? Oh, if only Mr Collins would let me be. He seems everywhere I turn this afternoon, and I cannot get away from him.”
“His visit has been a long one, I think,” said Charlotte tactfully.
“Far too long!” Elizabeth replied. “He will stay another week yet, until the day after the Netherfield Park ball.”
“Your cousin enjoys dancing?” enquired her friend. “Not all clergymen consider it fitting to their professional dignity.”
“Sadly, Mr Collins is not such a clergyman,” came Elizabeth’s gloomy answer.
“He has already asked me for the first two dances, Jane for the third, and then the younger girls for later dances too, much to their disgust. I had much rather dance with someone like Lieutenant Wickham, who has sense, conversation, and understanding.”
“What hardships you endure, dear Lizzy,” her friend teased her, and Elizabeth laughed a little.
“I should not take small things so much to heart, should I? At least I am not obliged to dance with Mr Darcy, I suppose. Now that would be an even worse fate than dancing with Mr Collins, especially after what I learned from Mr Wickham tonight.”
After checking that there were no other ladies outside the room’s door, Elizabeth narrated the tale of Mr Wickham’s suffering at Mr Darcy’s hands, with great indignance for all that young man had endured and praise for his forbearance.
To Elizabeth’s surprise, Charlotte’s first reaction was one of amusement.
“Do you not think it a very dreadful way to behave?” she demanded, wondering if she had not stated the unfairness of Mr Wickham’s disappointed hopes in sufficiently strong terms. “I cannot see what there is to laugh at in this story.”
“I laugh only at you, Lizzy,” Charlotte explained, piquing Elizabeth somewhat in this stance. “Why should you take Mr Wickham’s side so easily on so slight an acquaintance? Are you as swayed by a handsome face and a red coat as your younger sisters?”
At this, Elizabeth reddened, but rather than disputing Charlotte’s attitude, she had the sense to re-examine her own.
“I do not believe so, Charlotte,” she declared after some consideration.
“In purely objective terms of features, you must concede that Mr Darcy is far more handsome than George Wickham. The lines of his face are classically drawn; his brow is fine, and his eyes are bluer. It is only a pity that he so rarely smiles enough to invite any appreciation of his looks.”
“You seem to have made a study of Mr Darcy,” her friend noted now, and Elizabeth blushed a little deeper.
“I had ample opportunity to observe him while at Netherfield Park with Jane,” she explained.
“It took no great effort on my part. Likely, I could describe all the household in similar detail. My point is that I am swayed by the relative characters of Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham, regardless of their forms. Mr Wickham’s personable manner and open nature speak to the truth of his story. ”
“Do they indeed?” laughed Charlotte. “Look at yourself in the mirror now, Lizzy, and see how self-satisfied you look when talking of how ably you can ignore a man’s handsome countenance.”
Elizabeth joined Charlotte in her laughter, with some chagrin.
“I do sound rather complacent and over-proud of my virtue, don’t I?” she conceded. “Never mind. You have pricked the bubble of my pride, and I shall recover myself soon enough.”
As they tidied one another’s hair, Charlotte grew thoughtful.
“The more I think about it, Lizzy,” she said slowly, her eyes meeting Elizabeth’s in the looking glass, “the more I would urge you to caution in your attitude to both Mr Wickham and Mr Darcy.”
“I promise I shall not think of either one with undue partiality or enmity,” Elizabeth assured her with a smile. “You have already shown me the folly of that.”
“It is more than that, though,” continued her friend. “In believing and passing on Mr Wickham’s story, even if only to me, you run the risk of becoming exactly the same kind of destructive gossip you previously railed against.”
This was an alarming notion that gave Elizabeth real pause for thought.
“But surely real and personal histories like that of Mr Wickham are very different from the dubious fictions circulating about Mr Darcy?” questioned Elizabeth pensively. “Are not they?”
“We cannot know for sure,” Charlotte said. “We can only take care that we are not led astray from good sense by appealing manners.”
Elizabeth nodded, although uncertainly. George Wickham made it almost as easy for others to think well of him, as Fitzwilliam Darcy made it easy to think ill of him. Yet, in truth, how substantial was the case for or against each man?