Chapter Seventeen #2
“Mr Darcy handled it,” Mrs Reynolds said.
“Our Mr Darcy. He gave the Wilsons a better farm, found a decent young man willing to marry Sally and raise the child as his own. A farrier’s son from Lambton, Joseph Cooper, who had always been sweet on Sally and did not hold another man’s actions against her.
Mr Darcy settled money on the child, and Sally married Cooper within the month, and the child was born respectable.
” She paused. “Mr Darcy had been master of Pemberley only a few months then.”
“The father of Sally’s child,” Elizabeth said. “It was George Wickham.” She did not phrase it as a question, and Mrs Reynolds did not ask how she knew.
“Yes. It was George Wickham.” Mrs Reynolds said the name flatly. “He was the old master’s godson, and he had been given every advantage a young man could ask for, and he repaid it by preying on a girl who could not defend herself.”
“Did the old Mr Darcy know? Before he died?”
Mrs Reynolds was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Mr Wilson told me something once, years after. He said he had gone to the old master about Sally. That he had spoken to him directly, told him everything. Just before he died.”
Elizabeth’s hands were still in her lap. She made them stay that way.
“Mr Wilson said the master believed him at once. Said he went white as chalk, asked Mr Wilson to tell him everything, every detail. When Mr Wilson had finished, the master thanked him and said it would be dealt with. He summoned Mr Wickham home, spoke to him privately in his study, dined with him. They were all smiles and I thought, Wickham must have agreed to do the right thing. But then the next morning, the master was dead, and Wickham went away without marrying Sally. The physician said it was Mr Darcy’s heart, and Mr Wilson said to me once that he felt guilt, that perhaps the strain of learning his godson would behave so badly brought it on. ”
Elizabeth sat with this. She had the thread now. It was real, it was solid, it connected to a living man who could confirm it.
“I should like to visit the Wilsons,” she said. “With Mr Darcy. I should like to meet them.”
Mrs Reynolds nodded. Then she said, quietly, “I have been carrying this feeling for six years, Mrs Darcy. That something was not right about the master’s death. If you find what you are looking for, I hope you will tell me. I should dearly like to set it down.”
“When I can,” Elizabeth said. “I promise. When I can.”
She told Kitty that evening, in her parlour, with the door locked.
“Sally Wilson had a child,” Elizabeth said.
“Wickham’s child. Darcy handled it after his father died.
Found her a husband, settled money, gave the family a better farm.
But the important thing is this: Mr Wilson went to George Darcy and told him about Wickham and Sally.
George summoned Wickham to Pemberley, spoke to him.
Mrs Reynolds thought that because they were smiling, seemed amiable, Wickham must have agreed to do the right thing. But by morning, George was dead.”
Kitty was staring at her. “You have this from Mrs Reynolds.”
“From Mrs Reynolds, who had it from Mr Wilson himself. A living witness, Kitty. Not a ghost. A man who went to the old master and told him the truth, and who has spent six years wondering whether it killed him.”
“It did kill him. Just not the way Mr Wilson thinks.”
“No. But the point is that Mr Wilson can testify that George Darcy knew about Wickham’s character while he was still alive.
That George was angry enough to confront him.
That is motive, Kitty. Wickham had every reason to want George dead before he could act on what he knew.
Mr Wilson can say all of this to Lord Matlock, or to a magistrate, or to anyone who asks, because he was there. Mrs Reynolds can corroborate it.”
Kitty drew a breath. “This is the first real evidence you’ve had, that doesn’t come from a ghost.”
“Yes.”
Kitty looked at her, and Elizabeth could see the calculations running behind her eyes: the same fierce, practical intelligence that had been holding Elizabeth back for weeks, now turning toward a different question. Not whether to act, but how.
“You’re going to visit the Wilsons.”
“Tomorrow. With Darcy. I shall ask him to take me, and see if I can lead the conversation to what I want him to know. He has spent six years believing his father died blind to Wickham’s true nature.
Learning that George saw the truth at the end, that he tried to act on it; that will shift how Darcy understands his own father. ”
“And it will make him ask questions.”
“Yes.”
“The right questions.”
“I hope so.”
Kitty was quiet. Then she said, “You’re not going to tell him about the murder.”
“No. I’m going to provide the facts and let him reach his own conclusions.
If Darcy looks at the timing, if he sees that his father confronted Wickham the evening before he died, he may begin to wonder whether his father’s death was what the physician said it was.
And if he reaches that conclusion himself, from evidence, from the living world, then I haven’t revealed the ghosts, and the suspicion comes from a place that can be acted on. ”
“That is a fine line, Lizzy.”
She knew it. But it was the first thread she had pulled on that might lead to something tangible, so it was a line she must walk nevertheless.
She found Darcy after the household had retired, in the sitting room they shared. He was by the fire, not reading, simply sitting. He looked up when she came in, and some of the tension in his face eased at the sight of her.
“You have been quiet today,” he said.
“I have been thinking.”
“That is usually my failing, not yours.”
She sat in the chair opposite him, drew her feet up beneath her skirt, because it was late, they were alone, and she was tired of sitting like a portrait.
“Mrs Reynolds finally told me what she meant, that day I first toured Pemberley with my aunt and uncle, when she said Wickham had turned out very wild.” She watched his face. “A girl named Sally Wilson?”
Darcy set down his glass. “Sally Wilson,” he said. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“Wickham.” He said it without inflection. “The child is Wickham’s. Sally was seventeen. Her father came to me after mine died. He was wretched about it, ashamed, as though it were his fault his daughter had been preyed upon.”
“What did you do?”
“What I could. I gave the Wilsons a larger farm, one that had come vacant that autumn. I found a young man willing to marry Sally and raise the child as his own. Joseph Cooper, a farrier’s son from Lambton.
I settled an income on the child. Sally married Cooper within the month, and he works with Joseph Wilson on the farm; they do well. ”
“And you did all of this at two-and-twenty.”
“Who else was there? My father was dead. Georgiana was ten. I handled it because it needed handling, and because Wickham was, in some wretched sense, still my responsibility.” He paused.
“I’ve never told anyone about Sally. Mrs Reynolds knows because she was here and because nothing escapes her. But I have never spoken of it.”
“You are speaking of it now.”
“Because you asked. And because I’m tired of carrying things alone, Elizabeth. I’ve been carrying things alone since I was two-and-twenty, and I find that I no longer wish to.”
Elizabeth felt the weight of that, and the ache of knowing she was still keeping from him the thing that mattered most.
“I should like to visit the Wilsons,” she said. “With you. I am mistress of Pemberley now. Sally is one of our tenants, and I should like to meet her, see that she and the child are well.”
“We can go tomorrow, if you wish.”
“I wish.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “You are still building something, Elizabeth. I can feel it. Every question you ask, every conversation with Mrs Reynolds, with my aunt. You are gathering threads, and I cannot yet see the pattern, but I know it has to do with my father.”
“Yes,” she said. “It does.”
“Will you tell me?”
“Soon. I promise you. Soon.”
He studied her face in the firelight. Then he stood, crossed the room, held out his hand.
“Come to bed,” he said. Not a demand. Something gentler.
Elizabeth took his hand and let him draw her to her feet. He did not release her. His thumb moved across her knuckles, and he was looking at her with an expression that had nothing to do with Wickham or secrets. He was looking at her as though she were the only real thing in the room.
“Darcy,” she said, and he kissed her. She kissed him back, and for a few minutes the weight of everything she carried lifted and there was nothing but this.
He led her through the connecting door to their bedroom, and closed it behind them, and the rest of the evening belonged to no one but themselves.