Chapter 20
Wednesday morning arrived swiftly, largely because the preceding days were so full of planning and negotiation with Lydia Bennet’s relations. Aside from sleeping, Darcy had scarcely spent five minutes in Darcy House since arriving back in London.
Both Darcy and Mr Gardiner knew well enough that Lydia’s father could not afford to meet George Wickham’s financial demands.
Her uncle, however, believed initially that the responsibility should fall to him next, even though such an outlay would be a burden on his shoulders.
It took considerable effort to convince Mr Gardiner that moral responsibility for making the marriage lay with Darcy.
He argued it was he who had not warned the world at large about Mr Wickham’s character, largely from pride and a wish for privacy for his own family affairs. While Mr Gardiner could not be entirely convinced of Darcy’s culpability, nor could he overcome his determination.
It was only when Mrs Gardiner added her voice, telling her husband that he must let Darcy follow his heart and conscience, that the case was made. Darcy’s confidential role in the proceedings was therefore agreed, and Mr Bennet’s authorisation sought for all that must come to pass.
Now, it was time to pin down the semi-willing bridegroom. Not without trepidation, Darcy put on his gloves and hat and prepared to leave Darcy House for his next meeting at Wickham’s unfortunate lodgings.
Darcy was reasonably sure that Wickham would be there, given the money at stake and his financially parlous situation.
He was equally sure that Wickham would bring the letters, or at least a large part of them.
It would be in character for him to hold something back in hope of further payment in the future.
What worried Darcy more was the question of the buyer’s name.
Whoever had purchased that particular selection of old Mr Darcy’s letters from Wickham was either behind the campaign against Darcy or in league with its instigator. Who could it be? And what should Darcy do once the name was given to him? Both questions troubled him greatly.
Deep in thought on this subject, Darcy barely noticed the butler answering the door to a messenger and then passing him two express messages.
Neither looked to be from Pemberley, both being written in an unfamiliar hand, one in writing so spidery that Darcy imagined the shaking fingers of an old man crossing the page.
He slipped both letters into his pocket for later reading once his dealings with Wickham were done. Even if either message concerned Colonel Fitzwilliam – God forbid! – they must wait a little longer.
∞∞∞
“Mr Deringham, Mr Moreton,” Darcy greeted his lawyer and agent, waiting together outside the building where Wickham was lodging.
Both men nodded and returned his greeting.
Wickham was inside, looking somewhat cleaner and more respectably dressed than on their previous meeting earlier that week, although the bruising on his face was still evident.
The table in the sitting room that had been covered with empty glasses and dirty plates on Darcy’s last visit was now clear, apart from a large wooden box in its centre.
“Before we begin, Wickham, Mr Deringham will summarise the arrangements that Mr and Mrs Gardiner have made for your wedding to Lydia Bennet,” Darcy told George Wickham shortly. “You will agree to everything, pending settlement of financial matters as previously discussed.”
Wickham nodded dutifully both to this instruction and then to every particular that the lawyer set out for him on the marriage licence, time, date and place.
He even attempted to smile and crack a joke with these two long-standing Darcy family retainers, but both Mr Moreton and Mr Deringham remembered George Wickham too well to be drawn in.
“Now, the letters,” Darcy ordered, his eyes going to the box.
As anticipated, Wickham opened the lid and took out a bound pile of yellowing letters from among several such piles inside the box.
“You should probably read these ones first,” Wickham told Darcy, sliding them across the table and leaving him to unfasten the ribbon that bound them together.
“They’re from my mother,” Darcy told his representatives after a first quick perusal.
From Anne Darcy, then Lady Anne Fitzwilliam, daughter of the previous Earl of Matlock, these letters were the counterparts to those from Darcy’s father, written in the same period and corresponding with those of George Darcy.
Lady Anne’s letters spoke of their upcoming wedding in joyful terms. They then, however, took a dramatic turn when the future Mrs Darcy’s father fell seriously ill and the wedding was suddenly brought forward at the wish of the dying Earl of Matlock, who longed to see his daughter married.
It was brought forward to exactly ten months before Fitzwilliam Darcy’s birth…
Darcy laughed aloud, if rather grimly, and showed Mr Deringham the letter where this new date was discussed at length, with all the advantages and disadvantages it entailed.
“All is now clear,” remarked the elderly solicitor with a satisfied smile before sharing the letter with Mr Moreton beside him, who also nodded his approval and relief at such a simple, neat explanation.
“You have earned your commission, Wickham,” Darcy said. He leaned across the table towards his boyhood companion, now turned into so untrustworthy and dishonourable a man. “Almost, that is. Now I want a name. Who bought those other letters from you?”
“Are you sure you want me to tell you in front of witnesses?” Wickham asked with large, innocent eyes that made Darcy want to strike him again.
“Mr Moreton and Mr Deringham are both in my confidence, as they were in my father’s. Give me the name now, Wickham, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Very well, then. I sold them to Ludlow Fitzwilliam, Lord Hexham, eldest son of the Earl of Matlock.”
Mr Deringham dropped his spectacles onto the table, and Mr Moreton uttered an oath. Darcy’s mind reeled, the answer leaving him temporarily speechless. Having truly set the cat among the pigeons, Wickham sat back in his chair looking rather pleased with himself.
“Ludlow…” Darcy repeated incredulously. “Ludlow? Ludlow?!”
He could not understand. Was this a trick, a stupid game that Wickham was playing? Or could it be true?
His older cousin had certainly lived through a phase of youthful dissipation.
Darcy vaguely recalled that Ludlow and Wickham had even been drinking companions for a time when they were all at Cambridge.
But that was back when neither Darcy nor anyone else suspected the full extent of Wickham’s immorality.
Their connection was part of the distant past, not the present – or so Darcy had always thought.
Ludlow’s younger brother presumably believed the same. There was no way Colonel Fitzwilliam would have suggested making his brother Georgiana’s guardian if he had known of any present-day friendship between Ludlow and George Wickham.
Deringham and Moreton also seemed struck dumb by this announcement, or perhaps they were only waiting for Darcy to react first.
“What possible motive could my cousin have for such actions?” Darcy demanded.
“It puzzled me at first, too,” Wickham acknowledged with a sly grin. “But I have put all the pieces together since. Out of the goodness of my heart, I will speed your slow and over-conventional thinking.”
While Wickham’s attitude was maddening, Darcy did need to hear what he had to say and nodded for him to continue.
“Ludlow is broke, and if you think my debts are huge, you ought to see your cousin’s. He has spent all the money he has, and leveraged money he does not have against his expectations.”
Darcy thought of the dilapidation of Matlock Castle and Ludlow’s rather sorry excuses for the condition of the place. How shameful to keep his ailing father like that and pretend the situation was of the old man’s choosing!
“Now he needs a rich wife, as rich as possible,” Wickham continued. “Just because I cannot benefit from marrying Georgiana does not mean that no man can, especially if they go to Scotland.”
“Until my sister is one-and-twenty, all her affairs are in the hands of her guardians…” Darcy began, and then turned pale and sick as he realised his sister’s potential danger.
Wickham was looking at Darcy as though Darcy were the dunce in a schoolroom, far too slow in learning his lessons even when his teacher was explaining everything.
“Don’t you see? Ludlow plans to marry Georgiana and take everything for himself.
As her guardian, he might be able to do it.
He’s aiming even higher than that though, by hoping to get you disinherited in Georgiana’s favour.
It seems rather a long shot to me, but Ludlow is a desperate man who owes money to some very dangerous people. ”
Mr Deringham cleared his throat, seeming to have recovered the power of speech.
“Any such legal action to disinherit Mr Darcy is highly unlikely to succeed, even if brought by a blood relative. Only a child’s own father would ever have a realistic chance of success in such a case.”
The elderly solicitor spoke with quiet confidence, and Darcy nodded.
“Can we then discount the possibility of such a case even coming to court, Mr Deringham? Or ought we to prepare for it?” Darcy asked.
“I do not know Lord Hexham as well as Mr Wickham and cannot comment on the desperation of his character. However, it seems more likely to me that Lord Hexham might seek a large financial settlement from Mr Darcy, in return for avoiding the courts and publicity and restoring his reputation,” Deringham said.
Mr Moreton nodded.
“That’s often the way with any more personal legal actions, isn’t it? Neither party really wants to come to court, but someone is forced to pay to prevent it.”
At a knock on the front door, Wickham opened it to reveal Mr Gardiner, red-faced and looking harried, but brandishing a document in a satisfied manner.