Chapter 7
After two days in excruciating pain from his flogging and riding on the hard-wooden bed of an ox pulled cart, George Wickham felt very sorry for himself.
He was missing his four front teeth, and had many bruises on his face and chest after he ‘fell’ into the fists of some of his escorts, men he had borrowed money from, and to whom he owed large debts of honour.
The men felt somewhat better as the very generous, and extremely rich Mr Bennet, would cover money that Wickham had borrowed from them, and in some cases, stolen from them.
That man was to be considered no better than a common thief.
Debts of honour would not be covered by Mr Bennet or their Colonel, but at least they were not out the money that they had been gulled into ‘lending’ the dissolute wastrel.
On the evening of the second day, the cart entered the camp of the Welsh Infantry Brigade.
When it stopped, Wickham saw his worst nightmare standing with some of the infantry officers chatting away jovially.
Cowering and scared, and in more pain than he had ever suffered, George was unceremoniously dragged out of the cart and stood up in front of the Colonel.
“Well well, Wickham, a long-time coming but finally you are getting your just desserts.” Colonel Fitzwilliam smirked down at him from far enough away the stench of him did not overpower.
“It seems your debts this time were paid by the Army and thus must be paid back.” Colonel Fitzwilliam chuckled at the fear in Wickham’s eyes.
“Oh no. Your life is not worth enough to pay it off. You will now be a foot soldier in the infantry. No, not as an officer, as a private.” The Colonel chuckled.
Wickham was experiencing his new reality.
‘This is all Darcy’s fault, if he had given me my due, all would have been well,” Wickham railed to himself silently.
The truth, had he dared face it, was the opposite.
But when one always blames another, changing their perspective requires one to be honest, and Wickham was not known for his honesty.
“Gentlemen,” Colonel Fitzwilliam addressed the men who had escorted Wickham, “I have good news that you can pass onto your fellow officers, my cousin, the much lied about Mr Darcy will cover ALL debts of honour.”
The officers expressed the deep gratitude on their own behalf and that of their fellow officers in the Derbyshire Militia, saluted and started their return journey to convey the best of news to their comrades.
Wickham would remain in irons to ensure that he did not try to run until the ship had landed on the continent, and there he would be under constant guard until the unit went into action.
Just as he started to plan how to make his escape, or more truthfully dessert, as soon as they went into action, he was disabused of the notion.
He was told that he would be watched by multiple soldiers, and that if he did anything but his duty he would be summarily shot.
A very dejected Private Wickham was led away and the Colonel, after thanking his fellow officers, mounted his horse and pointed it toward London, unable to check his smile the whole of the way.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The same day that Lady Catherine’s perfidy was brought to light and possession of Rosings Park was assumed by its rightful owner, Mr Thomas Bennet, who had returned from Town with the documents that broke the entail on Longbourn, was sitting in his office pondering how he could placate his wife after she had found out that he had withheld information about their wealth from her for so many years.
He had always been able to deal with her nervous flutterings and sometimes ridiculous utterances, but the silence was something he had no idea how to break through.
At least he could say he had pleased one of his ladies, as he had taken Lizzy’s suggestion to heart and put in safeguards that would discourage fortune hunters and attempts to compromise his girls into unwanted marriages.
He was a master at chess with a brilliant strategic mind, but he was stumped as to how to grovel before his wife and beg her forgiveness.
He could offer her anything money could buy, but he knew that this was not a problem that he could throw money at.
He would have to leave his book room and seek his wife out, talk to her and even beg for her forgiveness as many times as was needed.
He found her in solitude in the drawing room.
Mary was busy in the music room practising on the new grand pianoforte that had arrived that morning, and she was assisted by a master that had been employed to help her playing.
“Fanny, might we speak? Silence will not settle anything; we have to find a way to move forward.” She did not look at him, and he could see that she was silently crying, something she had been doing a lot of since he admitted their wealth to her.
“Please Fanny, I am begging you. I will apologise as many times each day for the rest of my life if that is what you want, but please speak to me.” After what seemed like a long time, she turned to him as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
“I know that I am not an intelligent woman, Thomas, and I know that I can carry on and be silly, but was that reason enough to let me humiliate myself in front of you, the girls, and all of our friends and family? Do you think so little of me? Am I naught but an object of sport for you?” She asked, her voice lacking too much emotion meaning there was too much to hide.
She was about to get up and bolt from the room, as fast as the mother of five could.
As she stood Bennet drew her into a hug.
“I was wrong Fanny, I am so very sorry, I was wrong,” he offered, over and over again.
At first his crying wife tried to push away from him, but after he had repeated his mantra ten or fifteen times, he felt her starting to relax into him.
Soon after she lifted her hands and put them around his neck then rested her head on his chest and cried like a baby.
After a while, neither paid attention to how long, the sobs started to subside and eventually stopped altogether.
Bennet somehow got his wife and himself back over to the settee that she had been sitting on and then gingerly lowered himself onto the cushions with her on his lap.
“Promise me that you will never withhold information from me again, Thomas, and that you will treat me with respect. If I do not understand something at first, swear that you will explain it to me patiently until I do. We all know that I am not intelligent like you and our Lizzy, but I am still a person, not an object for you to make fun of. I want to know that you will no longer make sport of me and that you will not hide from me and the family in your book room any longer. You need to promise me all of this on your word of honour Thomas,” she challenged.
“You have my solemn oath, Fanny. On my life I swear to you that I will be a good husband to you and I will tell you all. Ask me anything that you want to know,” he encouraged as he rubbed her back.
Fanny Bennet slipped off her husband’s lap but still held onto his arm as she sat on the settee next to him, so close that there was no daylight between them.
“How many years after we married did you know that we would be very wealthy?” she demanded.
“It was after Jane was born but before Lizzy’s birth that the company began to make enormous profits.
Just after we were betrothed, I had provided most of the money that Edward needed to start Gardiner and Associates.
He had the vision and business sense, so rather than take the money back I asked him for fifty percent of the company.
He offered me seventy percent to match my investment, but I only accepted the fifty in shares.
There was a legacy left to me by a distant uncle who had no other relatives that was almost five and seventy thousand pounds and other than the five thousand I settled on you, that I may have omitted telling you about, I gave all of it to Edward to start Gardiner and Associates.
” He explained how it all started, waiting patiently as his wife considered what he had said.
“Why did you not put the money into Longbourn, or keep it to provide dowries for any daughters that we may have Thomas? I know that the investment ended up turning into a gold mine, but you could not have known that at the time.” She frowned.
“That is a very insightful question, Fanny,” Thomas was genuinely impressed at the well thought out consideration.
‘Perhaps Fanny is smarter than I, or even she, have given her credit for. Do I have so much more to make up to her than I had thought?’ He noticed his wife looking at him expectantly as he had gone silent.
“My apologies, Fanny, I was trying to regain my thoughts from four births ago. It takes an old man a moment to recall his exact reasoning,” he teased, relieved she gave a small smile, even that strained one.
“Let me address each, though first Longbourn.
If there had been no entail, I would have invested money to enlarge and enrich Longbourn.
Knowing my illiterate, malcontent and miserly Cousin Collins as I did, there was no way I could envisage investing the money in Longbourn to pass on to the Collinses if we had no son.