20. Matters of the Heart
twenty
Matters of the Heart
Elizabeth had not meant to neglect Jane.
The discovery came upon her in a shameful little rush one morning when Mr. Bingley’s curricle appeared in the lane, his groom behind him, and Jane, who had been sitting quite serenely over a piece of work by the window, colored before the sound of wheels reached the front door.
Elizabeth paused with one hand upon the back of a chair.
“Oh,” she said.
Jane’s needle moved with suspicious care. “Oh?”
“You are expecting Mr. Bingley.”
“Mama is expecting Mr. Bingley. I am merely aware that he sometimes calls at this hour.”
“Sometimes?”
“Lizzy.”
“How many times have I missed this?”
Jane’s mouth trembled with suppressed amusement. “Enough that I began to wonder whether Mr. Darcy had carried off your powers of observation along with your peace of mind.”
Elizabeth dropped into the chair opposite her. “That is unkind.”
“It is true.”
“I thought you were incapable of such cruelty.”
“I have been saving it.”
Elizabeth laughed despite herself, then sobered. “I am sorry, Jane. I have been selfishly occupied.”
“You have been in love and vexed and uncertain. That is a great deal of occupation for one person.”
“I would rather be in love.”
“That would be simpler.”
“It would also leave me less aware of Mr. Darcy’s every contradiction.”
Jane set her work aside. “You are still troubled.”
“How can I be otherwise? Mr. Wickham sits in our drawing room and appears every inch the reformed man he claims to be. Mr. Darcy, whom I trust, insists he is dangerous. And both gentlemen speak with such conviction that I sometimes think the truth has played us a very unkind trick.”
Jane’s expression gentled. “Perhaps the truth is merely waiting for someone patient enough to find it.”
“I am not feeling patient.”
“No. I had observed that.”
Before Elizabeth could reply, the door opened and Mrs. Bennet entered in a flutter of satisfaction.
“Jane, my love, Mr. Bingley is come again. Lizzy, do not sit there looking astonished. A gentleman may call more than once where he is well received. Indeed, he ought to do so, if he has any sense.”
“I am persuaded Mr. Bingley has sense enough to call where Jane is,” Elizabeth said.
Jane blushed fully this time.
Mrs. Bennet kissed her cheek, declared her the loveliest creature in Hertfordshire, and hurried away to ensure tea was made with sufficient consequence.
Mr. Bingley was received with universal goodwill, though not without scrutiny.
Elizabeth, having discovered her neglect, made a study of him for the next quarter hour and found very little to disapprove.
He spoke to everyone, laughed with Lydia, praised Mary’s new music with a sincerity that made Mary sit straighter, and addressed Jane with an attention so open it seemed innocent of strategy.
When he leaned toward Jane to ask whether she would walk if the weather held, Jane’s face answered before her words did.
Elizabeth felt affection and remorse together.
Her own courtship had filled too much of her mind. Not because it was happier than Jane’s, but because happiness in it had become entangled with a question she could not set aside.
Mr. Darcy did not come with Mr. Bingley that morning.
Elizabeth told herself she was glad of it.
She did not believe herself.
The day might have passed pleasantly had Mr. Wickham not arrived shortly after Mr. Bingley departed.
He was shown in by Hill, carrying a folded paper in one hand and a look upon his face Elizabeth had never seen before. Lydia, who had been lively enough after breakfast, rose.
“Mr. Wickham?”
He bowed to Mrs. Bennet, then to the room, but the motion lacked his usual ease. “Forgive me. I had not meant to call at such an hour, but Mr. Philips is with a client, and I thought... that is, I wished to ask Mr. Bennet’s advice, if he is at leisure.”
Mrs. Bennet’s delight in any gentleman seeking her husband’s advice warred with alarm. “Good heavens. Has something happened?”
“Nothing dangerous, ma’am.”
“That is not the same as nothing.”
“No,” he admitted.
Elizabeth crossed to a chair near Lydia, aware that her sister had gone pale.
“My father is in his library,” she said. “Shall I send for him?”
“In a moment, if you please.” Wickham unfolded the paper and then seemed to dislike the sight of it. “Perhaps I ought not have come at all.”
“You ought,” Lydia said with immediate conviction. “If something has troubled you, then you ought.”
Wickham’s eyes moved to her, and some of the strain in his face eased. “You are very decided.”
“I am often right.”
“Lydia,” Kitty murmured, half scandalized and half admiring.
Elizabeth held out her hand. “May I?”
Wickham hesitated, then gave her the paper.
It was a bill, written in an impatient hand, demanding payment for a sum large enough to make Lydia gasp when Elizabeth read it aloud.
“Forty-three pounds?” Mrs. Bennet cried. “For what?”
“Wine, lodging, and cards,” Wickham said. “At an inn in Ramsgate.”
The room went very still.
Elizabeth looked down at the paper again. Ramsgate. The word seemed to darken upon the page.
Lydia moved closer to Wickham. “But you were not there.”
“No.”
“Then it is a lie.”
“I hope it is error.” He frowned. “Though it is a very particular error.”
Elizabeth examined the bill more closely. “It names you plainly.”
“Yes.”
“And the date?”
He nodded. “June.”
Lydia turned to Elizabeth, triumphant in her distress. “There. You see? Someone is doing this. Someone is making it appear he was where he was not.”
“Lydia,” Elizabeth said.
“No. Why should I be calm? Mr. Wickham was not there. He said he was not. Uncle can write to his lodgings. There are people who saw him elsewhere.”
“I do not dispute it.”
Wickham took the bill back from Elizabeth. “The oddest part is that I have never seen this innkeeper’s name. I know no establishment by it. I have not been in Ramsgate these many years.”
“Could another gentleman of the same name have incurred the debt?” Jane asked gently.
“Possibly, though George Wickham is not so common a name as John Smith. And this was sent to Mr. Philips’s office after inquiries were made in Meryton.”
Elizabeth’s eyes lifted. “Someone knew where to find you.”
“Yes.”
The thought sat unpleasantly in the room.
Mrs. Bennet sank into the nearest chair, fanning herself with a napkin because no proper fan was within reach. “This is very alarming. Very alarming indeed. Mr. Bennet must hear of it. Hill! Hill!”
“There is no need to summon the household,” Elizabeth said, though Hill had already appeared in the doorway. “Please ask Papa if he can join us.”
Hill departed.
Lydia stood close enough to Wickham that propriety almost required correction, but Elizabeth had not the heart to give it.
He did not take Lydia’s hand. He did not lean toward her or seek comfort he had no right to claim.
He merely stood with the bill folded between his fingers, his expression caught between anger and confusion.
“I cannot understand it,” he said, more to himself than anyone. “A false debt would be easy enough to invent, but why Ramsgate? Why now?”
Elizabeth knew precisely why Ramsgate mattered.
She could not say so.
That restraint chafed more cruelly than before.
Mr. Bennet entered, and the bill passed into his hands. He read it once, then again, with an expression Elizabeth knew well: indolence withdrawn, intelligence awake.
“Mr. Wickham,” he said, “can you account for yourself on the dates named?”
“Yes, sir. I can provide the name of my lodging in Surrey and the gentleman with whom I studied during that period. Mr. Philips also knows when I entered Hertfordshire.”
“Good. Then we shall write.”
“I had intended to do so myself, but I thought it wiser not to answer such a matter without guidance.”
“That is sensible.”
Lydia exhaled in relief, as if her father’s approval were already proof enough to overturn every accusation in England.
Mr. Bennet folded the paper. “Leave this with me. I shall speak with Philips. Until we have an answer, you will neither pay nor protest too loudly. A man who shouts innocence before he is accused in public may persuade fools that he fears something.”
Wickham bowed. “Thank you, sir.”
Mrs. Bennet declared Mr. Bennet the wisest man in the county, which made him look briefly pained.
Mary observed that truth, though pressed to earth, would rise, provided one did not bury it beneath imprudent speech.
Kitty said she did not understand why anyone would want forty-three pounds of wine, and Lydia looked ready to defend Wickham against every innkeeper on the coast.
Elizabeth sat very still.
Darcy arrived before the conversation had recovered.
Hill announced him, and the change in the room was immediate. Lydia stiffened. Wickham’s hand closed around the back of a chair. Jane gave Elizabeth a pleading glance, though whether for calm, charity, or sense, Elizabeth could not tell.
Darcy stopped just within the doorway.
His eyes moved from Elizabeth to Wickham, then to the paper in Mr. Bennet’s hand.
No one spoke.
Elizabeth rose.
“Mr. Darcy,” she said, “you have come at a difficult moment.”
His face altered, caution replacing whatever greeting he had prepared. “So I gather.”
Mr. Bennet held up the folded bill. “Indeed. We have just received an interesting document concerning Ramsgate.”
Darcy’s gaze sharpened.
Wickham’s face remained pale but controlled. “A bill has been sent to Mr. Philips’s office in my name.”
“For a debt allegedly accrued in Ramsgate,” Elizabeth added. “In June.”
Darcy said nothing.
That silence did more to unsettle Elizabeth than any exclamation would have done.
She crossed the room before pride or fear could stop her. “May I speak with you?”
His eyes met hers. “Of course.”
“Here,” she said. “Or near enough. I will not ask Mr. Wickham to leave the room as if he were a criminal.”
Darcy inclined his head.