Chapter Twenty #2
“If you have been to see John Knightley, I daresay your information corroborates much of what I discovered when I raided Rosings,” Richard said to his mother.
The dowager countess nodded ponderously. “I should like to know what Lady Catherine holds over you, William. What I have to tell you is likely worse, but I should prefer to be in possession of all the facts.”
Darcy’s stomach twisted. Whatever it was, it must be something dreadful. Richard gave him a grim nod, but Darcy hesitated. Sir Edward held up his hands and shook his head. “I need not be told anything, sir, so long as it is not injurious to my niece.”
Elizabeth and Darcy exchanged a communicative look. “It could affect your sisters,” he said softly.
She pressed his hand in hers once more. “You are a dear man to think of them.”
Darcy felt as if his heart had expanded in his chest. She had an entire family he scarcely knew, sisters whose faces he could not remember and new connections he had never met before, and yet he loved and cared for them all because they were a part of her, and they had played their part in shaping her into the woman who had shone brilliant light into the darkest time of his life.
With a swell of resolve at the responsibility before him, he gravely addressed his aunt.
“It has been a tradition, since the death of my father, that I have taken Georgiana to the seaside every summer. Two years ago, I took her to Ramsgate. I remained a few days to see her settled with her companion before I journeyed to Rosings at my aunt’s request, to aid in some matters of business there, and to again deflect her demands that I marry Anne.
I departed abruptly after quarreling with her, and when I reached Ramsgate I discovered that I had been entirely deceived in the character of Georgiana’s companion, Mrs. Younge, who was in fact in league with George Wickham.
They had conspired to compromise my sister, and only my early return prevented their elopement.
I was too late, however, to prevent the worst. The following spring, when we were in Scotland, she bore his child in secret, and we found a family to adopt the baby girl. ”
Lady Margaret had listened with a look of mounting shock, and when Darcy finished, his aunt let out a string of oaths that caused Sir Edward to gape and then look upon her with even greater admiration.
“Those Wickhams are the worst thing to ever happen to your family! Poor Georgiana, what an awful ordeal! But that wastrel’s father has done much worse to your family,” Lady Margaret said.
Darcy tensed at the mention of his late father’s steward, whom he had always thought well of. “Old Wickham?”
His aunt nodded. “As you know, I was sick with grief after my husband died, and seldom left Bolswick Abbey. It was more than a year before I began to sort through my husband’s things as Rupert sought to make Matlock House in London more his own.
Early this spring, I uncovered what appears to be evidence he was compiling against his sister—a scheme of Catherine’s in collusion with old Wickham.
I suspect that the harpy was leveraging some secret knowledge against poor Robert, too, and he died before he could free himself from her treachery. ”
Darcy blinked at his aunt in disbelief. “Are you suggesting that my aunt and old Wickham were embezzling from Pemberley?”
“I am not suggesting it; I am stating it as a fact. Between 1799 and 1806, from the time your mother took ill, until your father’s death, they were involved in an illicit affair and they diverted more than fifteen thousand pounds from your estate.
It seems the steward became more careful after you took over the management of the place. ”
Darcy shot up from his seat and began to pace the room, determined to suppress his furious wish to burst into the next suite over and strangle his aunt. “Fifteen thousand pounds!”
Richard nodded, gesturing to the documents he had taken from Rosings. “She has claimed in the ledgers you once helped her with that the funds came from an elderly aunt of Sir Lewis, but there are letters from old Wickham that support what my mother says.”
“And she preyed upon my father’s distraction during my mother's illness, and then his own! It is beyond the pale!” Darcy shuddered, wondering at the true depth of her cruelty to Anne, if Lady Catherine could stoop to such evil as this.
“And my uncle knew of it? You have known of it since the spring?”
Lady Margaret looked stricken. “My conjecture is that Robert discovered this just a few months before he died. He visited you a few times that summer, before you travelled away, and my guess is that he obtained these documents from wherever old Wickham had concealed them.”
She rose and crossed the room, reaching out to him in a conciliatory gesture.
“When first I learned of it, I had just seen you at Bolswick Abbey for Christmas. You were so attentive to Anne, so loving and eager to please her. I believed her to return your affection despite the afflictions of her health, and I did not wish to sour your attachment with such a revelation. I had resolved to think carefully about how best to tell you when Pemberley burned, and then I did not want to compound your misery. I am glad that the truth has come out at last; I am sure I would have told you before you actually married her.”
“Fifteen thousand pounds,” Darcy sighed.
Sir Edward blew out a great huff. “That is an unfathomable sum! It would take the Tremont five years to earn such a sum, Lizzy.”
“Nearer to six, I think,” she murmured, looking at Darcy in horror.
Lady Margaret took Darcy by both hands and looked earnestly at him.
“I am terribly sorry, William, and beg your forgiveness for my delay in telling you what I know. I hope it is some consolation to you that had I been more timely, you may not have pursued Anne here to Sanditon and met your estimable Miss Bennet.”
Darcy bowed his head in wistful agreement and looked over at the woman who did indeed make all his tribulations bearable. He sat down on the sofa again, and she leaned in with a look of concern. “William, are you well? Is there anything I can get for you?”
He bestowed a look of grateful adulation on his future bride as her kindness eased the sharp edges of his ire. And then Richard handed him a flask, saying with a hard look, “I fear there is more.”
Even Lady Margaret looked surprised. “More, Richard? Oh dear.”
Darcy waved away the flask, and Richard poured a little of its contents into his mother’s tea, which she held out with an expectant look, before returning it to his coat pocket.
“Did you not think it strange that Lady Catherine would have kept such damning evidence of her misdeeds? Such things ought to have been burnt at once.”