Chapter 16
ONE GOOD DEED
S he let herself in to the little cottage when her knock was answered with a thin, reedy voice, telling her the door was open. It was dark inside, and her old eyes did not immediately adjust to the gloom.
The occupant was at no such disadvantage. “Look at what the wind blew in.”
Mrs Reynolds peered into the corner of the room to where a vague form filled a chair, though swathed in enough shawls and blankets as to better resemble a pile of laundry than a person.
“How long has it been?” came the same, quivering voice. “Four years? Five? You look much older.”
“You look the same as always.”
“What do you want, Agnes?”
Mrs Reynolds chafed that she should presume to still use her name, but she let it pass. That was not the battle she had come to fight. “I need to find George.”
There was a pause, followed by a wheezy cough. “Now why on earth would you want to do that?”
Mrs Reynolds did not answer.
“You cannot expect me to help you without knowing why.”
“It matters not why.”
“You may think not, but I cannot agree. I am sure I can think of no good reason why you should wish to renew the acquaintance of a person you make no secret of despising.”
“Why are you protecting him? For heaven’s sake, he tells people you are dead.”
“You’ve not changed a bit, have you?” came the sullen response from the mountain of blankets. “Does it give you pleasure, lording it about the place, belittling the likes of me for what we’ve lost? Well, it gives me none, so take your Pemberley airs and leave me alone.”
Mrs Reynolds bit back several rejoinders, not least that Mrs Wickham had lost very little that she and her son had not themselves squandered.
Instead, she pulled a chair out from the table beneath the window and sat down defiantly.
“Believe me when I say that I take no pleasure in this errand whatsoever, but it must be done. Your son has persuaded a young girl of but fifteen years to leave all her friends and run away with him. You and I both know she will no longer be intact, yet he is refusing to marry her.”
“Can’t say as I blame him. She sounds wanton.”
“Then they ought to be well suited,” Mrs Reynolds retorted without thinking. Then, hastily, she added, “Lucy, please. Her whole family is in disgrace. Can you not see, George must be made to marry her.”
“What is this girl to you that you care so much?”
“My interest in the matter is irrelevant. A young girl’s life is about to be ruined, and you have the opportunity to do something good for a change and save her.”
Mrs Wickham made a clicking noise with her tongue and leant forward in her chair.
“Agnes Reynolds, I don’t care how important you think you are, but there is plenty you do not know, and you have seriously miscalculated here.
It makes no difference that George has forged his own path away from me, nor that he is imperfect.
He is still my son. You could not possibly comprehend a mother’s love, being childless yourself, but I’ll not give my boy up to goodness-knows-what-fate just because you’ve waltzed in here and demanded it without explanation or inducement.
Either you tell me why it matters to you that he marries this girl, or my lips will remain shut. ”
The childless slur never failed to wound; Mrs Reynolds sat quietly until the sting faded. At length, and with waning energy, she said, “I have reason to believe the girl’s sister is close to securing an offer of marriage from Mr Darcy.”
“Oh? And since when did Pemberley’s exalted housekeeper involve herself with the family’s private business?”
Mrs Reynolds baulked. Mrs Wickham was right; it was not her place.
Never in all her years serving them had she presumed to interfere in the Darcys’ private affairs.
But it was simply unthinkable that Miss Elizabeth Bennet should be mistress of Pemberley!
Over her dead body would she allow the master to ruin himself over such a woman, from such a family!
Regrettably, that did not leave her much time to act.
“She does not love him. She has drawn him in with her arts and allurements. I would ensure he is not ill-used.”
Mrs Wickham crowed disdainfully. “Now it becomes clear! You believe that if George marries the one sister, your lord and master will have nothing to do with the other, and by that means, he will be kept safe from her money-grabbing schemes.”
Mrs Reynolds made no attempt to deny it.
Mrs Wickham sucked in her breath between what few teeth remained in her gums. “Very sly. Very unlike you.”
“Perhaps, but unlike you , I happen to think Mr Darcy is worth protecting. I ought not to be surprised that you do not. You never cared a whit about him. No matter that he was the best friend George ever had. No matter that he took beatings for your son’s wickedness.
No matter that it drove a wedge between him and his father that they never overcame.
All this you and your sorry husband knew, and yet you said nothing because it profited you to stay quiet. ”
“Bah! Mr High-and-Mighty ought not hold grudges over childhood squabbles.”
Mrs Reynolds slapped the table angrily. “They were not children last summer! But I suppose you know nothing about what happened then, what with George never speaking to you. Your precious boy is still scheming to ruin Mr Darcy’s happiness, so now you tell me who is bitter?”
She took a deep breath and fought for a measure of composure.
In a calmer voice, she asked, “How can you not care, Lucy? Sitting here in your comfortable cottage with your widow’s pension, all courtesy of his good will.
” She pointed to an upholstered chair with a scene of Pemberley embroidered upon it.
“You have even furnished your house at his expense.” Indeed, the more Mrs Reynolds looked around, the more items she saw that seemed familiar.
A pair of ornate candlesticks that had once adorned the sideboard in the breakfast room; a framed architectural drawing that had used to hang in the late Mr Darcy’s study; a fire screen whose twin stood in the Lady Anne room. “None of this is yours!”
Mrs Wickham’s shawls moved in a way that suggested she had shrugged. “’Tis only what he owed us.”
“He owed you nothing, then or now! But you and your son owe him everything. I am not asking much. George chose to run away with the girl—I only wish to make sure he sees it through.”
At last, there appeared a trace of hesitation in the wall of obstinacy before her.
“I cannot make him marry if he opposes it,” Mrs Wickham said grudgingly.
“I can well believe it. You could never make him do anything.”
“I do not see how you think you will manage any better.”
“At least I will have tried. But I need you to tell me where I can find him.”
“Are you going to hurt him?”
“Do not be ridiculous. I am a sixty-year-old woman.”
“Are you going to have someone else hurt him?”
“Of course not! I only want to make sure he does the right thing. The girl is a gentleman’s daughter.
He will have a far better outcome than he deserves, I assure you.
” She shuffled forward in her seat and poured all her fears for the master into her plea.
“Do this, Lucy, I beg you. Do this to atone for all the times you stood by and did nothing. After all the misery your family have given him, will you not help me save Mr Darcy from yet more?”
Against her expectations, Mrs Reynolds left the cottage with a list of all George Wickham’s most recent addresses in her possession.
They were not many, and the latest was over a twelvemonth old, but it was a start.
Her parting words to her erstwhile friend were not warm, but since she was not wholly without gratitude that Mrs Wickham had, at the last, conceded to do this one good turn, she had not demanded that the embroidered chair be returned.
She hobbled slowly into town, weary in both body and mind, and after a bit of a struggle, pushed open the heavy door of the goldsmith’s.
Mr Lynton looked up from his work, over the top of the magnifying spectacles that made him look forty years older than the strapping young man that he was. “You have excellent timing, Mrs Reynolds. I finished your chatelaine not half an hour ago.”
“You are very good, sir.” Mrs Reynolds reached into her reticule and withdrew her purse.
“Now, now,” he objected. “I told you—the honey was payment enough.”
She smiled and did not attempt to prevent her fatigue from showing in it. “Yes, but I have another favour to ask of you, and this problem requires a good deal more than a trifling repair. Honey will not suffice.”
“I am intrigued. But I am thoroughly in your debt, for goodness knows you pass enough work my way from Pemberley. If I can help, I shall, most willingly.”
“It gives me great comfort to hear you say so. I wonder, sir, when your work will next take you to London?”