Chapter Fourteen
MR. DARCY KNEW that the regiment was in Newcastle, because they had passed by on their way north. He did not strictly follow Wickham’s whereabouts, but if he heard tell of them, he made note of it.
So, he knew.
It was to the north, a journey that could easily have been four days in a carriage, but he did it in two, switching out horses often, sleeping only a few hours at night, not stopping in inns, but bundling himself up with a fire on the ground and eating only what he’d brought with him.
He spent the entire time in a kind of incandescent, maddened rage.
He did not know who he was more angry with, however, himself or Wickham.
For he did not like to examine his behavior with Elizabeth. She was ravaged, a victim of violence—perhaps not physical violence, but a violence against her will and agency. It was horrible. Who could imagine it, waking from sleeping to find oneself being invaded in that manner?
He thought of her, so vulnerable, so confused. He had held her in his arms in that bed, and she was small. She was tiny and graceful and her wrists were small and her neck was small and she was this precious, perfect, beautiful—
How dare Wickham?
How could he do it?
How could he treat her like she was just some thing for him to use in that manner?
But in the end, Darcy hadn’t been much better, truly.
He had discovered her, and he assumed—and perhaps she had made unflattering assumptions about his character, but he had made assumptions as well—that she’d had a tryst (or a series of trysts) with a man, that she had wanted it, that she had thrown caution to the wind and spread her legs for some other fool.
But this was only because he wished her to spread her legs for him. He wanted her to be that sort of woman so that he could take advantage of her.
The number of people who had taken advantage of her, the sheer force of it, it made him want to weep.
And yet she was standing. Yet, she was still even capable of making jokes from time to time. Yet, she was ever so strong.
Well, he had to fix all of it, because there were other elements of this that were all his fault.
He knew what Wickham was. He knew what Wickham had done to his own sister.
If there had been questions about the extent of things with Georgiana before, this had answered them.
And questions or no, it hardly mattered.
Darcy had known for some time about Wickham, and Darcy had concealed it.
He knew that man was walking amongst women of all walks of life, that he had access to them, and he knew that Wickham was the sort of man who thought only of himself, who would use women as if he was entitled to them—well, truly, perhaps there were a number of men who were this way.
Perhaps I am this way, he thought.
No, no, he was not. He had restrained himself.
It had not been easy when it came to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, but he was not the man who planted that child in her womb.
He had never invaded her in that manner, though he had treated her as if she was his personal whore, he supposed, assumed she would warm his bed, made all sorts of plans for it, and been adamant that she agree to it.
And all along, this woman, this innocent and aggrandized woman, who had done nothing wrong, nothing at all, who had been the victim of that blackguard Wickham’s villainy, had borne his treatment of her, simply borne it, as if some part of her thought she deserved it.
It made him want to retch again, as if purging his stomach could purge him of all the things he’d done to bring this about.
One thing that Mr. Darcy knew was that he had responsibilities.
A number of responsibilities, more responsibilities than many other men might have, but such was the burden of being a man like himself.
He had estates, he had servants, he had investments, and there were people, a vast group of people, who depended upon him.
It had been his responsibility not to loose Wickham on the world.
And what had he done?
He had been a coward, a wretched coward, and he had felt soft on Wickham, because they had been boys together, and he had let him go, and he had not told anyone to steer clear of him.
Of course, warning people off him would have been insupportable, as he could not have done anything to damage Georgiana, but it was not any excuse.
He had let this man run roughshod over the countryside, and this was the consequence.
Wickham was his responsibility.
He was going to kill him.
DARCY THOUGHT A lot about the way he was going to do it.
Some part of him craved a confrontation with Wickham. He would like to tie him to a chair and walk round him, raging at him, making sure that Wickham understood why he had to die.
But the more that Darcy thought that through, the more he thought that if he really thought Wickham had to die, the confrontation was pointless. If one confronted a man, it was so that man could change, could see the error of his ways, could correct it. Wickham was incapable of such things.
In truth, he wanted to confront Wickham because he wanted Wickham to admit that the lion’s share of the blame lay on Wickham’s own shoulders, that Wickham was responsible for all of this.
But that wasn’t the truth.
This was Darcy’s responsibility. He was to blame.
And that was why killing Wickham was akin to killing a wolf that was attacking the flock. It had to be done, and it wasn’t really about the wolf itself—after all the wolf was just obeying its nature. Wickham had to be done away with, and there was no point in talking to him about it.
Darcy arrived at the regiment on that second day quite late, just as daylight was waning.
The men were in their winter encampment, which meant that the private soldiers were in tents round fires, but that the officers, amongst whom was Wickham, were sleeping in a small building that constituted the officers’ barracks.
The men in the encampment were up late, round the fire, singing songs and drinking ale. Darcy paid one of them to go into the barracks and fetch Wickham, telling him to come to a point in the nearby woods.
Darcy then went off there, loaded his pistol with shaking hands—he had never killed anyone before—and then waited.
Wickham came on his own, clearly drunk, calling out jocular “Halloo”s and “Who goes there”s.
Darcy didn’t show himself. He raised his pistol, took aim, and shot.
Wickham stopped short, grunting, and he wavered for what seemed like long moments.
But then simply crumpled.
Darcy went over to examine him.
Wickham was motionless.
Darcy turned him over. He couldn’t see where the bullet had gone in. He felt for breath. None. He felt for a pulse. It was there, faint.
He got up and went to get the pistol again. As he was moving, he saw the bullet wound, saw the blood that was gushing out of Wickham’s chest.
He came back, felt for a pulse again.
Nothing now.
He looked down at the man, whose eyes were open, vacantly staring out at the November night sky, at the tree branches overhead.
Darcy closed Wickham’s eyes.
Perhaps he should shoot him again, just to be sure.
Distantly, he heard someone calling Wickham’s name. “Old chap, where are you? Who wanted you out in the woods, then?”
Darcy got up, moving out of sight.
The voice grew louder. “Wickham. Georgie, where are—” And the man broke off as he came on Wickham’s motionless form. “Good God.”
Darcy did not know if he wanted to see this.
He had not thought about the fact that killing Wickham would hurt others, not just Wickham himself, that Wickham had family who would be pained.
The old steward did not work at Pemberley anymore, but he was still alive, and he would take Wickham’s death with grief.
“Georgie,” said the man, shaking Wickham. “Oh, bloody hell, you’re shot.” The man pulled back, blood on his hand. He ran off, screaming, “Wickham’s been killed! Someone’s shot Wickham!”
And Darcy fled before anyone came to the sound of the man’s cries.
IT TOOK HIM many more days to get back than it had to get there in the first place. He did not push the horse as hard, neither did he change out horses as often.
He did not feel better.
He felt…
It wasn’t guilt exactly. No, perhaps it was.
It wasn’t about Wickham, though. He didn’t think Wickham deserved anything better, and he didn’t think removing Wickham from the world was any great evil.
But it was sort of the principle of the thing, he supposed.
There was a commandment, and it was all very clear, and he had just done it. Thou shalt not kill. He had killed a man, and he did not know how he felt about it now.
He thought through it all, and he didn’t know how else he could have behaved.
What was he supposed to have done? Given Wickham a stern talking to?
That had been tried, numerous times, and Wickham kept getting worse.
He had threatened Wickham, taken things from Wickham, exiled him, refused him any help, and nothing had made any difference. There was no reaching him.
He could not expose what Wickham had done, not without ruining women he cared about.
So, he’d had little choice.
But he felt… different.
It settled against him uncomfortably, what he’d done.
He felt now that the fact he’d simply shot Wickham down unawares seemed cowardly and dishonorable.
Perhaps every man deserved his last words, deserved the dignity of knowing he was going to die, of understanding why. He had treated Wickham like a dog.
It was beneath him.
He should have done better.
He had been blindly angry, that was the thing.
And it had seemed so clear before he did it. But afterwards…
So much blood.
He was cold when he slept on the hard ground on the way back, cold in a way he had not been when his anger was burning bright enough to keep him warm.
He wanted to take comfort in an inn, but he was not certain he should give himself comfort on this errand he had undertaken. He was not certain of that at all.