CHAPTER EIGHTEEN #2
“Wickham!” he roared, the name a curse torn from his lips. “What in God’s name are you doing in this house?” He took a menacing step forward, his entire body radiating with rage, intent on laying hands upon him with all the fury he could muster.
“Colonel, no!” Elizabeth cried, her own voice ringing with alarm, stepping swiftly to place herself partially between the two men. “They are here at my…my sufferance, until Mr Darcy can be apprised of the situation.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam halted, his face flushed a deep, apoplectic red.
His furious gaze remained locked on Wickham, who, though visibly paling, managed to hold his ground with a spark of defiance.
Georgiana let out a small, terrified whimper and shrank further into the settee, her hand flying to her mouth.
“Mrs Darcy, you cannot possibly understand!” the colonel thundered, his voice shaking with suppressed violence. “This man, this viper, has no right to breathe the same air as decent folk, let alone set foot within Pemberley! If Darcy — ”
“I am aware of Mr Wickham’s past, Colonel,” Elizabeth cut in, her voice surprisingly steady.
“And Mr Darcy will be informed of their presence and their purpose very shortly. Until then,” she fixed him with a stern look, an authority she hadn’t known she possessed rising to meet his fury, “I must insist that you remain here. With our guests. And you will maintain the peace. Am I absolutely clear?”
Colonel Fitzwilliam stared at her, his anger clearly warring with his astonishment at her resolute tone, and perhaps, with his engrained respect for the lady of the house.
“As if you could trust this scoundrel to remain here alone!” he spat out, “But I make no promises regarding my civility. Or his continued well-being, should he offer the slightest provocation.”
“Your forbearance will be all that is required. I will return with Mr Darcy as soon as I am able.”
And with a final, pointed glance at the colonel, a glance that silently conveyed the absolute necessity of his restraint, Elizabeth swept from the room, her heart pounding with a sense of impending confrontation. She had to find Darcy. And she had to make him listen.
Elizabeth hurried through the echoing corridors of Pemberley.
The audacity of Wickham and Georgiana’s duplicitous arrival, Darcy’s inevitable anger, and now, her own part in permitting them an audience – it was a maelstrom threatening to engulf the delicate peace she and Darcy had so recently begun to forge.
She was uncertain its fragility would weather the storm.
But she had no time to fret about that.
She made for the stables first, a logical starting point if he had ridden out. A young stable lad, methodically working saddle soap into a fine piece of leather, looked up in surprise at her hurried approach.
“Has Mr Darcy ridden out this morning?” Elizabeth enquired, her voice a little more out of breath than she intended.
“Yes, ma’am. He took Apollo out towards the north woods, not an hour past.”
The north woods. That was a considerable distance. Elizabeth’s heart sank. Should she send riders after him? The thought of the delay, of leaving Wickham and Georgiana under the colonel’s volatile supervision for any longer than was strictly necessary, was intolerable.
Just as she was contemplating possible actions, a figure appeared at the far end of the stable yard. It was Darcy, leading Apollo by the reins, walking at a careful pace. He was returning far earlier than she could have dared to hope.
Relief almost buckled her knees, and with it, an undeniable thrill at the sight of his solid, capable form.
Unthinking, driven by the urgency of her news and the sudden abatement of her immediate anxiety about finding him, she gathered her skirts and hurried towards him, almost running across the cobbled yard.
He looked up as she approached, his brow furrowing slightly in surprise as he tipped his hat. Apollo, she noted, favoured one foreleg, and Darcy’s grip on the reins was gentle.
“Elizabeth?” he enquired. “Apollo threw a shoe — ”
His explanation abruptly stopped as he studied her face. He was seeing her distress, she realised, the pallor of her skin, the frantic look she knew must be in her eyes, the way her breath came in short gasps.
With a swift, almost impatient gesture, he thrust Apollo’s reins into the hands of the stable lad who had hurried forward at the master’s approach. “See to him,” Darcy commanded, his attention already wholly diverted.
Then, turning fully to Elizabeth, he took a quick step closer. “Elizabeth, what is the matter? You look truly ill.” The horse, the thrown shoe, the interrupted inspection of the wards – all seemed entirely forgotten in the face of her evident agitation.
“Mr Darcy,” she began, her voice shaking slightly despite her best efforts, “we must speak.” She glanced towards the stable lad, who was now attempting, without much success, to appear entirely absorbed in his duties.
Darcy’s gaze followed hers. Without a word, he took her arm, and gently guided her out of the stable yard, away from prying eyes and curious ears.
“Please tell me what has occurred to cause you such evident distress.”
There was no gentle way to deliver such tidings. Elizabeth braced herself, then said, “Mr and Mrs Wickham are at Pemberley.”
Darcy went completely still. Elizabeth felt a shiver trace her spine as the atmosphere around them turned ice cold, the unseen energies he held so tightly within him crackling like a suppressed storm.
“Here?” he said, his voice deadly quiet, “Wickham. And Georgiana. In my house?” He did not stir a muscle, did not betray any hint of impulsive action, yet the air suddenly thrummed with a dangerous current.
“They will be removed. Immediately. And Brooks,” his voice dropped even lower, a steely precision in his tone, “There is no conceivable way he did not recognise them. He has deliberately betrayed my trust. I will dismiss him.”
He made a slight movement, as if to turn towards the manor house, his intent clear despite his stillness, when Elizabeth, acting on pure instinct, reached out and laid a hand on his arm. “Wait! Please.”
Her touch, her plea, seemed to momentarily arrest him. He did not look at her, but the tension in his body eased by a fraction, not dissipating, but perhaps, momentarily contained.
“Elizabeth, there is nothing to discuss,” he said, his voice still tight, still dangerously controlled, “Their presence here is an abomination. They cannot stay.”
“Your sister is ill, truly ill,” she said softly, “But despite this, they have come from Newcastle seeking help. According to their account, the city is consumed by the Blight, with widespread famine and disease. Their plea for assistance is not just for themselves; it is for everyone suffering there.”
Cynical disbelief hardened his features. “Wickham? Pleading for others? The notion is preposterous. He is a master of deceit. He would feign any suffering, concoct any tale, to serve his own nefarious ends.”
“And Georgiana?”
She could see pain written all across his face, just beneath the fury, but he did not reply.
She took a gamble.
“I know about the commission, Mr Darcy.”
He stiffened imperceptibly, his eyes narrowing, a wary defensiveness in their depths, though his outward composure remained. “What do you mean?”
“The matter of Mr Wickham’s captaincy,” she said, “It was you, was it not? You purchased it for him, for Georgiana’s sake.
You took the effort, after everything, to track them down, to offer them some means of respectable existence, however distasteful it must have been for you.
You did not entirely abandon her. You could not. ”
He looked away, a muscle working in his jaw, but he did not deny it.
“You would not be the man I know you are, if you were to throw them out without at least hearing their story. Georgiana is your sister. She is desperately ill. And she is here, at your door, pleading for your help. Can you truly turn her away? Will you not at least receive her plea?”
Darcy stood there for a long, agonising moment. His pride, his anger, his grief, all seemed to war with this unexpected appeal to a compassion he had, perhaps, long since tried to bury.
Then, a spasm ran through his frame, a tremor that seemed to originate from some deep, internal fracturing of his resolve. It was as if a lifetime of rigid principles, of unyielding judgement, was being forcibly, painfully, re-examined.
He exhaled a breath, a sigh laden with the weight of his reluctant concession, and said, “Let us return to the house. I will hear them out.”
The words unexpectedly unmoored her. Her heart began to pound a new, unsteady rhythm, filled with an overwhelming respect for this man with the rare strength to meet her challenges, to listen, and to trust her judgement over his own misgivings.
It was in that moment that Elizabeth saw the true measure of him, a character defined not by one act, but by a consistent pattern of quiet honour.
She saw the man who could withstand her most articulate cruelty, find the sliver of validity within it, and resolve to be better. Darcy had made this change despite believing her heart was lost to him, an act of self-improvement for no reward other than the mending of his own character.
She saw the man who had secretly provided for the one who had wronged him, all for the sake of the sister who had betrayed him. When she had accused him of being a man devoid of compassion, he had allowed her to believe it, never offering up his own secret generosity as a defence.
It was a pattern she was only now beginning to see: an unwavering honour that asked for no praise and offered no justification. It was simply how he acted, as he always did.
The truth was so plain that all her former, intricate judgements now seemed utterly absurd.
He was a good man. Perhaps even the best of men.