Chapter 26 #2
I would have gone to your husband directly, but men of his temperament tend towards pride where they ought to tend towards prudence.
You might reason with him more clearly. You are newly arrived in that family and have, I think, more to lose than anyone by a scandal attaching to the Darcy name.
Or the Bennet name, for that matter. Should Darcy prove obstinate on the matter of his sister, you have many still at home, each as lovely as you are yourself and very accommodating.
I am at present in Meryton, where any reply may be directed through the militia.
I am offering you the opportunity to end this quietly. You should take it.
George
The room closed in on her. The effrontery of the man to address such a letter to her and then to sign it with naught but his Christian name! She felt a little ill.
Elizabeth could feel the presence of the footman awaiting instruction as well as the concern of her aunt and sister.
Mr. Wickham, whom she had seen only once, had calculated that she would fold quietly.
That she would go to her husband in private and beg him to protect her by paying for silence, and that Fitzwilliam, confronted with ruination of all his sisters, would acquiesce.
Mr. Wickham expected to collect his fortune without ever making a public claim.
Which meant that he did not know her at all. However, it might also mean that while he had no evidence to provide in Georgiana’s case, he would be certain to create some with her sisters.
Jane and Mary would not be fooled, but Kitty and Lydia were all too vulnerable. Elizabeth folded the letter. “Please ask my husband and the colonel to join us here.”
The footman bowed and was gone.
Elizabeth looked at her aunt, and then at Jane. “The man I told you about yesterday? His name is Mr. Wickham, and he is now threatening not only me, but our sisters in Meryton, Jane.”
“Mr. Wickham?” Jane exclaimed. “Oh, but Lizzy—he joined the militia regiment in Meryton some weeks ago. He attended Mr. Bingley’s ball last week. Kitty and Lydia both danced with him there and are very fond of him.”
Elizabeth looked at Aunt Gardiner, and she saw a flash of real fear cross her aunt’s face before she mastered herself.
“The colonel believed this was why he engineered the compromise in the first place,” Elizabeth said. “He did not think Fitzwilliam would marry me, and that it would damage the Darcys’ standing.”
Aunt Gardiner hesitated, then spoke again. “Lizzy, this man wishes for money, to be sure, but if he is going to such lengths to involve your sisters, perhaps you have been their target all along? You were the one who alerted Mr. Darcy and broke up their scheme. They may have discerned that.”
It was a very real possibility, and Elizabeth was embarrassed she had never considered it.
Her husband arrived with a degree of discomposure unusual in him.
Elizabeth realised that she had never before summoned him so abruptly, and after what had passed between them the night before, he could scarcely be blamed for feeling some apprehension.
His eyes found hers and issued a silent question.
She held the letter out to him. He looked down at it, up at her, then took it. Elizabeth watched as understanding dawned, before he had read a word, that it was addressed to her. His countenance darkened, and she wondered if he had recognized the hand. Then he read it.
“He wrote to you,” Fitzwilliam said, and Elizabeth blinked. She had never before heard him sound so . . . implacable.
“He says he presumes I will be easier to persuade.”
He looked at the letter for a long moment. “At Ramsgate, he was certain I would abandon you to ruin. And now that I have not, he thinks to use you to gain my compliance.” He glanced towards the door.
“He has misjudged us both,” she said quietly, touching his hand. “Let us not hand him a victory through hasty action. When your cousin arrives, we can devise a plan together.”
The colonel arrived a few minutes later. He came in, read the room, and sat. Fitzwilliam handed the letter across to him without preamble.
He read it. He gave very little away, except that when he reached the end there was a gravity to him that had not been there before. He set the letter down.
“He wrote to you directly,” he said.
Elizabeth nodded. “And Jane tells us this is not an idle threat. He has already been in Meryton for some weeks with the militia. He attended Mr. Bingley’s ball last week. Kitty and Lydia danced with him there.”
The colonel looked at her husband. Something passed between them that Elizabeth did not have the history to understand.
“My aunt raised a question,” Elizabeth said. “If Mr. Wickham placed himself in Meryton before even sending this letter, was I always the target?”
The colonel lowered himself into a chair.
“Wickham wants revenge. That has never been in question.” He looked at the letter.
“Mrs. Younge wanted money, and Wickham gave her a scheme that would pay them both handsomely and achieve a complete revenge against Darcy for all his imagined wrongs. That plan required Georgiana, and they were very close to achieving it.” He paused.
“But Elizabeth, you disrupted that plan and made enemies of them. We have been so caught up with the past dealings between Wickham and my cousin that we did not properly consider he would continue to want you ruined.”
“If he were sensible of his own good, he would not. Elizabeth is now also a Darcy,” Aunt Gardiner pointed out.
“Sense is not something he often employs, I am afraid,” Fitzwilliam said.
“Does he not see himself as doing any wrong?” Jane asked.
“He does not care, Miss Bennet,” the colonel said directly.
“In his mind,” Fitzwilliam said, “this letter is an offer, not a demand. If you pay him of your own free will, he has committed no crime. If he seduces a willing girl in Meryton, he cannot be blamed for her willingness.” He paused. “He never takes any fault upon himself.”
He rose. Elizabeth saw it begin, that long-established habit of protection, the I will handle this already gathering itself within him—but then he stopped short and mastered it.
He turned to look directly at her.
“Elizabeth,” he said, and she could see it took some effort, though she did not think him reluctant, “what do you wish done?”
It was so plainly the right question that for a moment no one spoke. Jane looked from one person to another. Mrs. Gardiner set down her teacup with a clink. The colonel, seeming to recognise a difficult manoeuvre successfully executed, simply waited.
Elizabeth folded her hands in her lap. “I wish Wickham prevented from speaking to my sisters, writing to them, or presenting himself in any society where he may advance his acquaintance with them.”
“Then it shall be done,” her husband said at once.
“And Mrs. Younge must be found before she has warning enough to disappear.”
“Leave that to me,” said the colonel.
Elizabeth looked at him. “I shall leave nothing to either of you without first hearing what, precisely, you mean to do. I have provided broad strokes, but you gentlemen must have more detailed stratagems.”
The colonel’s mouth twitched. Fitzwilliam did not smile, but she saw that he understood very well what she was about.
“I plan to ride to Meryton immediately,” he said.
“Your father must know enough to keep your younger sisters under close watch, though not do so much as to spread alarm beyond the family. Wickham must be denied every opportunity of private access to them, and if it can be contrived, he must be . . .” his frown deepened, “encouraged to quit the neighbourhood altogether.”
“That is an excellent plan,” said Elizabeth. “Thank you. Only keep me informed as you are able?”
He nodded once. “I shall.”
“And I,” said the colonel, “will find the men most likely to know where Mrs. Younge is lodged, whether she has remained in town, and whether she has lately received visitors or money. If she means to run, I would rather know the direction before she takes it.”
“That is very well considered,” said Elizabeth. “I thank you. You will keep me apprised of what you learn as well?”
“Certainly,” said the colonel.
Fitzwilliam crossed to the bell pull, then paused and looked back at her. “I will send word from Longbourn.”
“You will first put on your coat,” said Elizabeth.
He blinked. “My coat?”
“Yes, your greatcoat. You may ride to Meryton in a state of righteous urgency if you must, but not in the November cold without half your outer garments.”
The colonel took a sudden interest in the mantel.
“Elizabeth,” her husband said with a huff.
“Mr. Wickham has been in Meryton for weeks. He will keep for five minutes longer while you dress for the weather.”
The corner of her husband’s mouth shifted and he smiled at her. “Very well.”
“And gloves.”
He took her hand. “You ask a great deal.”
“I do,” said Elizabeth. “Marriage is full of obligations.”
He kissed her hand. “So I find,” he said, and went out.
The colonel looked away with an expression of such conscientious neutrality that Elizabeth might have laughed, had the matter been less grave.
She was well aware that Franks would never allow her husband to leave the house half-dressed; but in a room full of relations, it was the only way she could bid him take care.
Within minutes the house was in motion. Orders crossed the hall. A footman was dispatched for the mews. Jane went with Aunt Gardiner to write a line to Longbourn, that her husband’s speed might not entirely outrun the explanation.
Elizabeth stood at the drawing-room window and watched the horses brought round.
Fitzwilliam came around the corner of the house first, gloved and booted, every line of him composed and intent.
The colonel followed close behind, speaking to him as they moved to the mews, and though Elizabeth could not hear the words, she saw her husband answer his cousin with a brevity that meant his thoughts were already on the road.
He took the reins from the groom, mounted, and looked up. He saw her at the window.
For a moment neither of them moved. The street, the groom, the colonel, all seemed to fall away.
Then Elizabeth raised her hand a little, and he touched his hat with a gravity that felt almost like tenderness before turning the horse into the street.
The colonel followed, though he turned his mount in the opposite direction, and within seconds the sound of hooves was carrying them away.
Elizabeth remained where she was until the noise had faded.
Behind her, Jane let out a breath she seemed to have been holding for several minutes.
“My dear Lizzy,” she said, “I think you and Mr. Darcy may actually quarrel yourselves into a perfect understanding.”
Elizabeth turned from the window. “May we?”
“I hope so,” Jane said, with her sweetest seriousness. “For if not, I do not know what is to become of either of you.”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled into her teacup. “It is astonishing how happily some people agree, provided they are first allowed to dispute everything thoroughly.”
“You are laughing at me,” said Elizabeth, though she truly did not mind.
“No,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “Only feeling easier.”
“Because my husband has just ridden off in pursuit of a blackguard?”
Her aunt’s smile deepened. “Because if your marriage is occasionally a trial to the nerves, it will at least never want for animation.”
Jane, still looking towards the door, said gently, “I am sorry, Lizzy, but that sounds rather fatiguing.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “But what is happiest in marriage is not always what is most restful.”
Elizabeth glanced at her aunt and received, in return, a look of such innocent serenity that she was not deceived by it in the least.
She thought of the look on Fitzwilliam’s face when he realised he must pause; of the effort with which he had turned back; of the simple sincerity of What do you wish done? Command was a part of his nature. How unusual for such a man to share that command.
It was entirely a different set of problems than she had experienced with her father, but were she required to choose one or the other, the more active man was the one she would select.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was the most decisive man she had ever known. Plainly, he was also a man who would have to learn—carefully, repeatedly, and perhaps for the rest of both their lives—that a wife must have her share in directing the course of their lives.
It was an intimidating prospect.
It was also, she thought as she left the window and came back to her sister and aunt, one she could very likely live with.