Chapter 33 #2
Bingley sat beside the desk. “I shared the error. Wickham entered our society through the regiment, and I accepted his manner as proof of character.”
Bennet opened the packet. The first pages contained accounts from a tailor, a saddler, two tavern keepers, and a jeweler in Meryton.
Each named a debt Wickham had contracted after invoking Darcy’s friendship or implying that payment would come through Pemberley.
Other statements traced the same practice through towns where the militia had stayed.
Darcy had settled several smaller sums to protect tradesmen who could not survive the loss, but he had refused debts tied to gambling and luxury.
Bennet read without comment until he reached a letter from Colonel Forster. “This concerns Kitty.”
Elizabeth leaned closer, though she did not touch the page.
“Wickham borrowed money from Lieutenant Denny after suggesting that he expected an advantageous connection in Hertfordshire,” Darcy said.
“He named no woman, but the dates match his attentions to Kitty. He also asked a Meryton jeweler to extend credit for a trinket and said a Bennet marriage would settle the account.”
Bennet’s mouth hardened. “Did he give the trinket to her?”
“No. The jeweler refused him.”
“There is more,” Bingley said. “Denny states that Wickham laughed about keeping one Bennet sister pleased while he waited to see whether another prospect improved. Denny came forward after Colonel Forster confronted him with the debts.”
Elizabeth looked to the window. “Kitty believed his preference sincere.”
“Some part of his attention may have pleased him,” Darcy said, “but that did not make it honest. He encouraged her because the admiration served his vanity and gave him welcome at Longbourn.”
Bennet closed the packet. “You spared the tradesmen immediate loss, preserved Bingley’s standing, and avoided turning Meryton into a court of public opinion. All sensible aims.”
Darcy waited.
“And while you protected everyone from discomfort, Wickham found fresh credit and my daughter found reason to trust him.” Bennet’s tone held no cruelty, but it offered no escape. “Incomplete evidence was not no evidence. We all preferred the less troublesome conclusion.”
“I did,” Darcy said.
“So did I.” Bennet rang the bell and asked Hill to send a message to Colonel Forster. “We shall correct what remains within reach.”
Colonel Forster arrived before noon with Wickham under orders to accompany him. The officer entered the book room wearing the same expression that had carried him through Meryton for months, but it faltered when he saw the papers arranged across Bennet’s desk.
“This appears formal,” Wickham said. “I hope no one has mistaken a few private obligations for honor.”
“Debts contracted through another man’s name concern honor,” Colonel Forster replied. “So do false statements made to obtain credit.”
Wickham looked at Darcy. “I might have known where this began.”
“It began with your conduct,” Darcy said.
“Your resentment has followed me since boyhood. Now you bring tradesmen and tavern accounts into a gentleman’s house to disgrace me before people who have shown me kindness.”
Bennet tapped the letter from Denny. “You repaid that kindness by treating my daughter as a convenient amusement.”
Wickham’s smile faltered. “Miss Catherine and I enjoyed a harmless friendship. I never made an offer or promise.”
“You allowed her to expect one,” Elizabeth said.
“I cannot answer for the hopes of every young woman who mistakes courtesy for devotion.”
“No,” Darcy said. “You answer for telling another officer that her admiration preserved your welcome here while you waited for a better prospect.”
Wickham turned to Colonel Forster. “Denny resents me. He has taken private conversation and shaped it to please Mr. Darcy.”
Forster drew another paper from his coat.
“Denny signed his statement before two witnesses. The jeweler confirms your reference to a Bennet marriage, and three tradesmen heard you claim that Mr. Darcy would answer your debts. You will remain under restriction while I submit the matter to my superiors. You will also provide a complete account of every debt contracted in Meryton.”
“My creditors will accept time.”
“They have given you enough.”
Wickham saw no opening in Forster’s face. His charm receded, leaving irritation and calculation beneath it. “Then I assume I have nothing more to say.”
“You have said enough,” Bennet replied.
After Forster took him away, Darcy gathered the papers without satisfaction. Elizabeth watched him restore each statement to its place.
“You expected relief,” she said.
“I expected an end to uncertainty. They are not the same.”
“No.” She looked toward the ceiling, where Kitty’s room lay above them. “Now we must tell her.”
Kitty came downstairs between Jane and Elizabeth, already suspicious of the solemn summons. Lydia followed without invitation, while Mrs. Bennet entered behind her and demanded to know why Colonel Forster’s horse had stood at the door.
Bennet gave Kitty the truth without reading every insult Wickham had spoken.
He explained the debts, the false use of Darcy’s name, and the evidence that Wickham had encouraged her affection without intending marriage.
Elizabeth added that his deception reflected his character, not any defect in Kitty’s worth.
Kitty stared at them. “He said I understood him better than anyone in Meryton.”
“He may have enjoyed being understood,” Jane said. “That does not mean he deserved your trust.”
“He asked whether I preferred Derbyshire to the south. Why would he ask that if he meant nothing?”
“To keep your interest,” Elizabeth said. “He offered possibilities because they cost him nothing.”
Color rose across Kitty’s face. “You all think me ridiculous.”
“No,” Bennet said. “I think him practiced and you inexperienced. I also think your father should have paid greater attention.”
Mrs. Bennet lowered herself into a chair. “A man with debts and no fortune had no business speaking of Derbyshire to anyone. I always distrusted the ease of his manners.”
Lydia stared at her mother. “You called him the handsomest officer in the regiment.”
“Handsome men may still have debts.”
Kitty covered her face. “I shall never go into Meryton again.”
“That seems inconvenient,” Lydia said. “The regiment remains there.”
Elizabeth gave her a warning glance, but Kitty lowered her hands with fresh outrage. “I do not care where the regiment is. I shall never speak to an officer again.”
Lydia looked alarmed by the scale of the sacrifice. Jane took Kitty upstairs before the argument could grow, and Mary followed after a moment, carrying a handkerchief and a cup of tea that Kitty had refused in the parlor.
She found her sister seated beside the bedroom window, her face turned toward the glass though the curtains blocked most of the view.
“Jane said you wished to be alone,” Mary began.
“I do.”
Mary placed the tea on the table. “Then I shall not remain long.”
Kitty waited, but Mary did not leave.
“There is a passage in Fordyce about misplaced confidence,” Mary said. “It argues that disappointment can instruct the judgment when vanity has obscured reason.”
Kitty swung toward her. “You came to tell me this is good for me.”
“No.” Mary considered the answer and corrected herself. “I chose the wrong beginning.”
“You always thought him false.”
“I thought him charming, which is not the same as false, though I distrusted how much he enjoyed being admired.” Mary sat on the edge of the other bed. “I also envied the attention he gave you.”
Kitty’s anger paused. “You did not.”
“I did. Envy does not become impossible because one recognizes it as a fault.”
The admission left Kitty without the answer she had prepared. She looked back toward the window. “He made me feel chosen.”
“That was real for you.”
“And false for him.”
“His purpose was false. Your feeling was not.” Mary folded the handkerchief across her knee. “You trusted him because you lacked experience, not because you lacked sense. He possessed more practice in deception than you possessed in detecting it.”
Kitty’s mouth trembled. “Everyone will know.”
“Some will know that Wickham was at fault. Anyone who turns that into your disgrace confuses the person deceived with the person who deceived her.”
“That sounds like a sermon.”
“That is possible, but I do not know how else to say it.”
Kitty wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. Mary offered the handkerchief, and this time she took it.
“I thought I might marry him,” Kitty said.
“You lost the man you believed him to be. You did not lose a husband, a home, or your last chance at happiness.”
“How can you know it was not my last chance?”
“I cannot. I know only that you are seventeen, the regiment remains in Meryton, and Lydia has decided that she cannot allow your vow against officers to stand.”
A sound escaped Kitty that fell between a sob and a laugh. She pressed the handkerchief to her face.
Mary rose and moved the tea closer. “It will grow cold.”
“I do not want it.”
“Then we can let it grow cold.”
They sat without speaking until voices carried from the road beyond Longbourn. Kitty shifted the curtain enough to see a file of red coats passing toward Meryton. She drew back, then looked again through the narrow gap.
“Is Lieutenant Chamberlayne with them?” she asked.
Mary followed her glance. “I cannot tell one officer from another at this distance.”
“He wears his hat at an angle.”
“That seems an unreliable system of identification.”
Kitty let the curtain fall, but her despair had lost its claim to permanence. She reached for the tea, tasted it, and frowned.
“It is cold.”
“I warned you,” Mary said, and remained beside her while the regiment passed from sight.