Chapter 18 #2
“I have just been assuring Mr Darcy that you came away with me of your own free will,” Wickham told her with an attempt at a winning smile that was rather marred by his bloodied nose and swollen lip.
“Oh, you mustn’t be too severe with poor Wickham, Mr Darcy!” Lydia asserted, coming to sit on the arm of the chair where Wickham had dragged himself. “When he said that he was running away from the regiment because of his debts —”
“Lydia!” Wickham protested, but was no more successful in prevailing upon her than he had been in prevailing upon Darcy.
“You did say that! Anyway, I couldn’t bear the thought of being without my dear Wickham.
When you offered to take me away with you, how could I resist?
But I still don’t see why we couldn’t have gone straight to Scotland.
It is dreadfully tiresome, hanging about here in these mouldy rooms for so long. ”
As she pouted over this question, and failed to grasp her lover’s bad faith or its deleterious consequences, Darcy saw all of the girl’s youth and foolishness. He saw, as Lydia did not, that Wickham had never planned a flight to Scotland. He had never planned to marry Lydia at all.
Yet this marriage must take place if Lydia was to be rescued, and with her, the rest of her family.
It would not be a question of personal benefit.
Elizabeth had refused his hand so vehemently that Darcy could entertain no hope that she would marry him.
Yet he found that her happiness and well-being were paramount to him, however little connection they might have in the future.
To be separated from Elizabeth was painful; to know that she was suffering was impossible.
Such guilt by association, such degradation could not be permitted to touch her — not if any effort of his could stop it.
“We have been talking of your wedding to Mr Wickham, Miss Lydia,” Darcy told her gravely, watching the twitch in Wickham’s face at this reference to marriage, an honourable state in which that blackguard had no interest unless it came with significant pecuniary advantages.
“Weddings are expensive affairs, Darcy,” Wickham spoke up a few seconds later, confirming Darcy’s judgement of him. “I would need…assistance, if we are to be married sooner rather than later.”
“Costs can be negotiated, I understand,” returned Darcy with contempt in his voice. “It depends very much on wider considerations.”
“As we are talking of wider considerations, Lydia already mentioned the small debts of honour in my regiment that should be settled before I marry…”
Of course, there would be gambling debts, thought Darcy grimly.
There always were. Wherever Wickham went, debt and dishonour followed him.
He turned to the girl, who was happily toying with a lock of Wickham’s hair as its owner smiled vaguely at her.
How it would break Elizabeth’s heart to see her sister like this!
He nodded his understanding to Wickham and then directed his gaze to Lydia Bennet.
“Mr Wickham and I must work out some legal matters that need to be arranged with your family before the wedding, Miss Lydia,” Darcy said in as neutral a tone as he could manage. “They can be of no interest to you. Perhaps you had better wait in the other room for a while, do not you think?”
“Oh, certainly,” she accepted with no hesitation, jumping to her feet and skipping away back towards the bedroom. “I would far rather plan my wedding dress than listen to the two of you droning on.”
“My wife must have a fine dress,” agreed Wickham, as magnanimously as if he planned to pay for it himself, receiving an appreciative smile from Lydia before she closed the door on them again.
“You will get what you are given and like it,” Darcy told the other man brusquely as soon as they were alone. “Any assistance from me also depends on your wider cooperation. To begin with, I want to know about those stolen letters.”
“I’ve already told you, Darcy,” answered Wickham wearily. “Years ago, after he died, I did take a quantity of your father’s old correspondence from the study at Pemberley, along with some other small items from the house.”
“Small items?” Darcy asked.
“A paperweight, a silver letter opener, a bottle of port, a few cameos from a display case…”
“What on earth for?”
This admission of petty pilfering was easy to reconcile with Wickham’s loose character, but made little sense in itself.
“Oh, I don’t know. Some of it I took for sentimental value, other things because I resented you. I suppose the rest was…for fun. It was so easy to do when old Reynold’s back was turned — that judgmental old bag! I couldn’t help myself.”
“You enjoy stealing,” Darcy stated bluntly, and Wickham shrugged.
“Doesn’t everyone, when they can get away with it? Honest men are rich men, in my experience. You simply wouldn’t understand.”
“No,” said Darcy, in repudiation of every one of Wickham’s last assertions. “Where are the things you stole now?”
“I sold much of it when I needed money,” admitted Wickham. “You don’t get much for a silver letter opener, but times have been hard for me.”
“My heart bleeds,” Darcy responded through gritted teeth. “What about the items you took for sentimental reasons? Did you sell them too?”
“Well, I had to. Cameos are pretty enough, but they don’t pay bills.”
“What of the correspondence? How much of that did you take?”
“It was all old sentimental stuff, Darcy, love letters and so forth. I just scooped up a drawerful of letters into my bag one day. I honestly had no idea it would be of any value to anyone.”
“‘Honestly’? Ha!” Darcy scoffed at the irony of this word on Wickham’s lips. “Do you still deny that you are the person who gave some of my father’s letters to Pinnock & Sons?”
“I absolutely do!” said Wickham stoutly. “I can return most of the correspondence from Pemberley, for a price, aside from what I sold on. They’re safe in a case I’ve stored at a friend’s house.”
“You sold some of my father’s letters? You just said they had no value.”
“No value as far as I could see, no. But when I once mentioned the letters to someone I know, they showed great interest in acquiring some of them. I really didn’t understand why, at the time, although I now see the use they’ve been put to.
I am sorry about that, Darcy, for your father’s sake if not yours, but I really can’t be blamed. ”
“Will you stop bringing up my father?” Darcy snapped irritably, sick and tired of Wickham’s excuses. “Who bought those letters from you, Wickham?”
Wickham closed his lips.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I’ll support the Bennets and your colonel in whatever legal cases they choose to bring against you: seduction, breach of promise, non-payment of debts…”
Darcy’s threat seemed to have its intended effect, and after several moments more thought, Wickham looked to Darcy again, a familiar insolence in his eyes.
“Very well, I’ll give you a name and all the remaining letters, if you buy me a commission in the regular army, pay my debts, and settle a certain sum on Lydia as my wife.”
“How would I even know if you’ve given me the right name?” Darcy pointed out. “You expect a high price for what you’ve described as sentimental old correspondence.”
“You’ll have to trust me, won’t you? In your present situation, it’s a cheap price for letters that likely make your birth entirely clear and legitimate, I would have thought.”
“If you had a shred of honour, you would surrender my father’s property to me without such extortion,” Darcy retorted, flushing deeper with anger at this manoeuvring.
“Well, I don’t, do I? According to you. You’ve painted me a villain, and I may as well act the part.”
Wickham never changed. All he wanted was quick money and easy pleasure, and nothing was ever his fault.
There was no long term view for Wickham and no wider world beyond his own wants.
Darcy thought of Aesop’s fable about the frog and the scorpion.
As with the scorpion, it was foolish to expect his former childhood companion to ever act contrary to his nature.
This man would lie, cheat, and swindle every day of his life, and think nothing of it.
The same nature made him incapable of a scheme of the type executed against Darcy since last autumn.
However much Darcy resented Wickham, he had to accept that his search for his hidden enemy would not end in this cramped little apartment in an insalubrious district of London.
“Very well,” Darcy stated after a time. “I will consider your requests, although I tell you now that any money settled on Lydia will be bound in a trust. I will take her away to her uncle’s house in Gracechurch Street with me now, and you will retrieve the letters.”
“You’re taking Lydia? Surely it can’t make any difference now?” Wickham objected mildly to the proposed removal of his pretty companion. “She has been living with me for a week already.”
“Lydia will go to her uncle’s house,” Darcy repeated implacably. “You and I will meet here again tomorrow morning, and I will inspect the correspondence —”
“I can’t get the letters tomorrow,” Wickham broke in. “It’s a day’s ride there and back to where they are stored.”
“Wednesday morning, then. Fetch them and return here at eight o’clock on Wednesday morning if you want your money.”
“You really think I might run?” Wickham questioned him with an injured expression.
“If you didn’t want your debts paid, a commission in the army, and something extra for returning my property, I dare say you might try,” answered Darcy drily.
“On Wednesday morning, I will bring my lawyer with me to start drawing up terms for a marriage contract and all relevant payments, as long as I receive the letters and name from you as agreed.”
Rising to his feet, Darcy went to the bedroom door and rapped against it.
“Be ready to leave in five minutes, Miss Lydia. I am taking you to your uncle’s house to make arrangements for the wedding.”
“But my uncle and aunt are in Derbyshire with Lizzy,” said Lydia as she opened the door. “I don’t see how I can go to them.”
“They have all returned, due to your escapade. My agents tell me that your uncle has been back in Gracechurch Street since last night. I am sure Mr Gardiner will be immensely relieved to see you. Come along.”
Briefly, Lydia seemed ready to object to this abrupt removal, but Darcy’s expression was adamant and possessed of a steady authority she had rarely encountered in her short life.
Lydia seemed to instinctively grasp that she and Wickham were now in Darcy’s hands and that there was no advantage to be gained from resisting.
“We can go now,” Lydia told him. “I have only my coat, hat, and a wash-bag. Darling Wickham promised me we would buy all my outfits once we were married.”
“Indeed,” Darcy remarked tightly on hearing this further example of Wickham’s perfidy, and then led the way to the front door.
Outside, the sight of several gaudily dressed young women soliciting for custom on the street corner near Wickham’s lodgings made Darcy’s blood run cold.
Their faces were only the age of Lydia or Georgiana, but their eyes were horribly old.
How many of them had been deserted by treacherous lovers who promised them the world and then betrayed them?
“How funny they look! It’s like they’ve dressed for a ball before breakfast,” giggled Lydia, with little idea of how close she might have come to joining their number. “Look, that one has feathers in her hair!”
“We must get to Gracechurch Street,” Darcy muttered, and opened the door to his hired coach.
∞∞∞
“My aunt Gardiner does dress well, far better than Mother, I suppose,” Lydia prattled as she looked out of the carriage window. “It will be better to have her help with my wedding dress.”
Darcy acknowledged this remark only with a flicker of his eye, it being only the latest in a stream of naive and excited jabbering that had not ceased since the moment they left Drury Lane.
“I shall want all my sisters there as my bridesmaids, of course. Imagine, me, the youngest, being the first to marry! How jealous they will all be!”
She bounced on the seat with excitement at this absurd idea. There would be no bridesmaids at her wedding, certainly not her sisters, Darcy knew. When he thought of how Elizabeth would feel about this wedding, it was not jealousy he expected, but worry, anger, and dismay.
“Wickham must buy me a ring too. He said he would, but we had to wait…”
It was too much to be borne, and Darcy’s patience ran out.
“Can you stop talking of weddings for five minutes?” he said severely. “You might think instead of what you have done and the anxiety and trouble it has caused your family.”
“You are such a cross-patch, Mr Darcy, with no sense of fun whatsoever,” Lydia retorted, putting her nose in the air. “I can’t say I’m surprised that you are still unmarried with such a sour temper. I don’t know why you should be so angry with me, anyway.”
“I’m not angry with you,” he told her, finding that this was true. “I am angry with George Wickham. One day you will understand why.”
Lydia pretended to ignore him for a minute, but could not hold onto either silence or resentment for long. Her childishness only made him more appalled at Wickham.
“Why have you never married, Mr Darcy?” she asked curiously. “Have you never been in love at all? I’ve been in love dozens of times.”
Darcy came close to groaning aloud at this intrusive question from such a foolish and unthinking young person, but turned it into a sigh instead.
“There is only one woman I have ever truly wished to marry,” he said truthfully, “and she will not have me.”
The second part of his sentence was spoken so softly that Lydia paid no attention to it.
“Only once, at your age? How very funny you are.”