CHAPTER 67 #2
“Precisely. He made a great fraud out of small truths, small lies, and small sums. We may show the architecture. Before a court, we must carry it stone by stone.”
Bell said, under his breath, “God help us.”
No one corrected him.
Fitzwilliam’s hand closed once on the table, then opened.
“Above ten thousand pounds,” Fitzwilliam said, “and we are to creep after him with shillings.”
“If we pursue every shilling,” said Mr. Latham, “we shall spend more than many of them are worth.”
“That cannot be the measure.”
“No. But it is a measure.”
Fitzwilliam looked at him then, and Elizabeth felt, absurdly, the wish to stand between them, though Mr. Latham had done nothing except tell the truth in the most civil manner available.
“The expense?” Fitzwilliam said.
“Considerable. Clerks, copies, witnesses, travel, tenant examination, old accounts, professional time. Each charge will require its own proof. Different farms, different years, different labourers, different entries. For some, the cost of proof will exceed the sum recovered. For others, we may do no more than establish that an error existed, at which point Mr. Wickham may repay it with injured dignity.”
“Injured dignity,” Fitzwilliam repeated.
“He has been a trusted steward for many years. He may plead age, confusion, subordinate mistake, old custom, a tenant’s memory, bad copying, an allowance made and not entered, an entry made and not settled.
If pressed too hard upon the smallest matters, he may appear less like a thief than an old servant pursued by an angry heir. ”
Elizabeth felt that one sharply.
An angry heir.
Not a wronged son. Not a husband defending a sister. Not a man whose whole life had been twisted by the very family now hiding behind pettiness. An angry heir.
That was what the world might see if permitted to look only through small charges and old service.
Fitzwilliam’s face did not change, but she saw where the words struck.
Mr. Latham saw it too, and looked regretful without withdrawing.
“The danger is not prosecution itself,” he said. “The danger is disproportion. We know the scale. The court may see only fragments. If those fragments are small enough, severity may look ungenerous.”
Bell burst out, “Ungenerous!”
“Bell,” said Fitzwilliam quietly.
Bell’s mouth closed. His face had gone red.
Elizabeth was glad of it. Not because Bell should speak out of place, but because someone in the room ought to look as angry as the subject deserved.
Mr. Latham continued, “I do not advise inaction. I advise care. A demand for repayment upon the clean deficiencies. A civil account where we can sustain it. Dismissal is already accomplished. The first provisions have already been withdrawn. What remains is to give the severance a form that cannot be softened into misunderstanding.”
Elizabeth looked up. “Because much may still be misrepresented.”
“Yes, madam. Mr. Darcy Senior knows there were irregularities. He acted upon that knowledge. What he has not yet seen is the architecture.”
“The architecture,” Fitzwilliam repeated.
“The design,” said Mr. Latham. “The progression. The use of real improvements to conceal theft. The steady income where there should have been growth. The manner in which small errors became system. Dismissal answers misconduct. It does not, by itself, answer a scheme of this duration.”
Fitzwilliam looked down at the papers. “Then he must be shown the comparison.”
“Yes.”
“Not the charges alone,” Elizabeth said. “The shape.”
Mr. Latham inclined his head. “Precisely.”
That distinction mattered.
George Darcy already knew enough to have withdrawn his hand from John Wickham.
He had dismissed him. He had allowed provisions to be struck out where they could be reached.
He had ceased, in the immediate sense, to shelter him.
But irregularity was a smaller word than design.
It could be made to sound like looseness, confusion, a servant’s failing, an old man’s disappointment.
This was not looseness.
It was an education in theft.
“Mr. George Wickham is not in these books,” said Fitzwilliam.
“No,” said Mr. Latham.
“Nor Mrs. Wickham.”
“No.”
“Then we must not put them there by anger,” Elizabeth said.
Fitzwilliam looked at her.
So did Mr. Latham.
She had not meant to speak so plainly, but the sentence had arrived before prudence. Perhaps the child had stolen some of her tact along with her tolerance for gravy.
Mr. Latham, after a moment, said, “Just so.”
Elizabeth looked down at the paper before her and thought of debts spoken of in London, of a journey north, of money returned with too much convenience.
She and Fitzwilliam knew what such facts suggested.
But suggestion was not ink, and suspicion was not a witness.
The son had been careful, or fortunate, or protected by a father who understood paper better than honour.
“If money passed outside the books,” she said carefully, “then the books cannot show it.”
“No,” said Mr. Latham. “And I cannot build a charge upon what the books do not show.”
There was a bridge. Every person who knew the timing could see the bridge. But the law would not cross it without proof.
“So Mr. Wickham may have spent what his father stole,” Elizabeth said, “and still remain outside the charge if no one can show the coin changing hands.”
“In law, we must be careful how far we say it,” said Mr. Latham. “In reputation, there is more room. But that room depends upon the plain withdrawal of Pemberley’s countenance.”
“And Mrs. Wickham?” Elizabeth asked.
“No paper connects her to the accounts.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “She was too wise for paper.”
Bell looked at her quickly. Mr. Latham did not smile.
“Perhaps,” he said.
Fitzwilliam’s mouth tightened.
That, too, was part of the cruelty. Mrs. Wickham had not needed ink.
She had dealt in access, family claim, old affection, softened suspicion, and influence laid down so gently that it left no mark a lawyer could hold up in court.
Elizabeth had seen women do much with less, though not usually to such ruin.
“No paper,” she said, “and yet a house arranged around her usefulness.”
Mr. Latham looked at her with more attention.
Fitzwilliam did not. He kept his gaze on the paper before him, but his hand moved beneath the table and covered hers.
It was not a display. Bell could not see it. Mr. Latham might have guessed. Elizabeth felt the warmth of his palm and was at once steadier and more painfully inclined to cry.
This was becoming intolerable.
She was not a watering-pot. She was Mrs. Darcy of Pemberley, which, though a new office, surely ought to provide some dignity against tears.
But her body, with great disloyalty, seemed to have formed opinions of its own.
Any kindness became larger than it had any right to be.
Any frustration lodged beneath her ribs.
Any look from Fitzwilliam could undo an hour’s composure if she was careless.
She turned her hand beneath his and held him back.
If he felt her need, he did not expose it. He only kept his hand there, steady and warm, while Mr. Latham spoke of notices, letters, and the terrible insufficiency of proof.
At last Mr. Latham gathered the comparative schedule and two supporting sheets.
“These are sufficient for Mr. Darcy Senior’s review,” he said. “The schedule of expected yield, extraordinary charges, and net remittance. The charges from Wharton’s lower meadow and Hatherside. The summary by year.”
“Mr. Grant should decide the length of the meeting,” Fitzwilliam said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Latham. “I have already asked him to remain within call.”
Elizabeth looked up. So did Fitzwilliam.
Mr. Latham’s expression did not change.
“You anticipated us,” Fitzwilliam said.
“I anticipated the evidence,” said Mr. Latham. “It has become impatient.”
Elizabeth liked him very much in that moment.
Fitzwilliam rose. “Then we go now.”
The walk to George Darcy’s apartments was not long, but it had, to Elizabeth, the peculiar length of a passage in which no one can say what matters most. Mr. Latham carried the papers. Fitzwilliam offered Elizabeth his arm without comment. She took it without pretending she had not wanted to.
Mr. Grant met them outside the sitting room. He glanced first at Fitzwilliam, then at Mr. Latham, then, with professional displeasure, at the papers.
“Short,” he said.
“Yes,” said Fitzwilliam.
“No raised voices.”
Fitzwilliam did not answer at once.
Elizabeth pressed his arm.
“No raised voices,” he said.
Mr. Grant looked unconvinced but did not yet open the door.
“Your father may sit for part of the morning now,” he said. “He may speak for longer than he could a fortnight ago, provided he does not mistake force for strength. His hand is steadier, but not steady. His temper is improved only in the sense that it has more room in which to injure him.”
“That is not improvement,” said Fitzwilliam.
“It is the commonest kind,” said Mr. Grant. “He walks the length of the room twice a day. He eats better. He sleeps badly. He is less ill and more offended by illness. Therefore, short.”
George Darcy was not in bed, which itself felt like news.
He sat near the window in the smaller room adjoining his chamber, wrapped in a dark morning coat despite the mildness of the day.
The fire was unlit. The chairs had been placed with such severe judgment that Elizabeth suspected Mrs. Reynolds of having arranged them as if furniture might assist recovery if only sufficiently commanded.
A cane rested within reach. One book lay open on the table beside him, though not, Elizabeth thought, because he had read much of it.
He looked much improved.
He also looked far from well.
His face had recovered colour; his speech, when he greeted them, had recovered force; his right hand, resting against the chair, still bore too much witness to the stroke. He looked less like an invalid than he had before, and more like a man deeply offended by the terms of his own improvement.