Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen
The next morning at breakfast, Georgiana was silent. Upon being questioned, she assured Elizabeth that nothing was wrong, she was perfectly well, perhaps just a bit tired. Lydia, too, was quiet; she watched Georgiana from under her lashes.
“Where is Brother?” Georgiana asked, having crumbled her toast to pieces.
“In his study, I believe.” Elizabeth replied. “But he is to go out –“
Georgiana heard no more. She slipped from her chair and made her way, unsteadily, to her brother’s study. She opened the door and walked in without knocking.
Mr. Darcy looked up in surprise upon hearing the door open, but then smiled when he saw his sister. The smile froze, however, when he saw the expression on her face.
She turned, and very carefully, deliberately, closed the door behind her. Then she walked, slowly, softly, on cat feet, to her brother’s enormous desk. She stood before it, her eyes on him, and began to cry, soundlessly.
“Georgiana –“ he began and started to walk around the desk to go to her.
“Stop!” she said. She backed up two paces and held up a hand. “Do not come near me.”
“Whatever –“
“This is not my fault,” she whispered.
“I never said –“
She took a deep breath and screamed “This is YOUR FAULT!”
“Mine?” His eyebrows shot up.
“You should have told me! You should have warned me! How was I to know?”
Mr. Darcy’s brows drew together. “I told you to have nothing to do with him. You should never have –“
“I thought it was romantic!” she spat. “I did not know that such evil existed! I did not know that anyone could try to – to take advantage of a stupid young girl! You knew, and you did not tell me! I will never forgive –“ And with that, she crumpled into a heap on the floor and sobbed.
Mr. Darcy ran to his sister and held her, sitting with her on the floor. She fought against him, hitting his shoulders with her fists, but he held on. Finally, her rage subsided and the sobs lessened.
“You are right,” he whispered to her, tenderly tucking damp tendrils of hair behind her ears.
“I should have told you. You needed to know and I kept you in ignorance.
I cannot tell you how very much I regret –“ His voice faltered and he stopped speaking.
He held his sister, there on the Aubusson carpet, and rocked her gently, back and forth, as he had done when their father had died.
Finally, she sighed, “Lydia says that if I had not been there, it would have been her. George would have convinced Lydia to do whatever he wanted. And what would have happened to her? Who would have saved Lydia?”
“I do not know,” he whispered.
“At least she was spared,” Georgiana murmured. “At least Lydia was spared.”
The two of them huddled together on the carpet. Finally, Georgiana said, “Tell me about him. Tell me about George. And tell Lydia. And Lizzy. Tell all of us about him.”
“It is so difficult to speak of it –“
“You owe us this, Brother. You owe it to all of us.”
***
At Mr. Darcy’s request, the family gathered together in the drawing room with all the doors closed.
Mr. Darcy took a moment to gather his thoughts.
When he rose and cleared his throat, all eyes were on him.
“Georgiana has asked me to tell all of you about George Wickham. She says that by keeping his secrets all these years, I left her vulnerable. And not just her; I left you vulnerable as well, Lydia, and for that I am very sorry.”
He sat down and pushed his hair back with his hands.
Then he rose again and stared out of a window.
“It is true that we were childhood friends. We fished together, we climbed trees together, we flew kites. We even cut our wrists and exchanged blood and called ourselves brothers. He treated Georgiana as though she was his own little sister, and had a good deal more patience for her than had I.”
Elizabeth watched him with a good deal of concern. She rose and went to him, putting her hand on his arm. “Fitzwilliam, if this is too painful, you need not –“
“No, Elizabeth. I must. Georgiana is right. I should have told her ages ago. It is just so hard, so damned hard.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened and she caught her breath. Her brother had never sworn in front of her before!
Mr. Darcy went on. “But one day, our butler at the time, Danforth, took him to task for calling Georgiana and myself by our first names. You should have more respect, he said, for the young master and his sister. George objected, saying that we called him by his first name, so why was this any different? Danforth answered that George was the son of a servant, and we could call him anything we liked.”
“Mr. Wickham did not like that, I suppose,” Lydia said, softly.
“No, he did not; and it made no difference that I immediately told Danforth that friends could call each other by their Christian names regardless of their station. Wickham changed from that day forward. He became angry at me, and took his revenge in small ways, making certain that I took the blame for any pranks, and doing his utmost to beat me in any game or competition.” He stopped again, and passed a hand over his eyes, as if overwhelmed by memories.
Elizabeth went to a small cabinet, from which she took a bottle of brandy and a glass. Pouring two fingers of brandy into the glass, she put it on the table beside her husband.
Mr. Darcy looked at her, nodded his thanks, and took a sip before continuing.
“He had never before paid much attention to my parents, but this too changed, for he now made every effort to charm my father. And my respected father, so astute in matters of business, was completely taken in. He thought George so very clever, so very athletic, so very…everything. Inevitably, George and I were sent to Cambridge together.”
“I remember that he was there with you,” Georgiana murmured.
“Yes,” Mr. Darcy said. “And he might have done well enough, had he contented himself with befriending students of his own class, but instead he made every effort to ingratiate himself with those high above him, particularly the sons of peers. He thought they were his friends, while in truth he was merely being used by them.”
“Did he really think he could be friends with the sons of dukes and earls?” Lydia asked, astonished.
“He did, yes. He was sent into town to procure drink and women of a…certain type for his so-called friends. He had no money, so he used my name to pay for such items.”
“You paid his debts?” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“No; as soon as I understood what was happening, I went to the merchants and told them who I was and who he was, and that his debts were his own. Once his so-called friends discovered that he could no longer be useful to them, they snubbed him.” Mr. Darcy took another sip of the brandy.
“Wickham was furious, and blamed me for it. He returned to Pemberley before completing his studies, saying that he had missed my father so much that he could not focus on his schoolwork.”
“And our father believed him?” Georgiana asked. “Did you not tell him the truth?”
“I sent him a letter with an explanation, of course, but our father would not believe my account of things. Wickham was here and I was not, and our father was completely taken in.”
Mr. Darcy stopped speaking. Restless, he stood up, walked to the window, walked back and sat again. “When Wickham left Cambridge, he left behind a young woman with a baby. She was one of the bedders.”
“Bedders?” Lydia asked, in a small voice.
“Yes; they are women hired to take care of the students’ rooms. Change the linen, sweep the floors, tidy the desks. Some are old, some are young.”
Elizabeth said, in a colourless voice, “I take it that her baby was Wickham’s.”
“Yes. He boasted about bedding the bedder, you see. It was something of a joke to him. Then when she became pregnant, he boasted about that as well.”
Elizabeth had gone pale. “What happened to her?”
“She was let go for loose morals, of course.”
Mr. Darcy sat down, still holding the brandy glass.
“When I got word that my father was ill, I went home at once. I sat with him and allowed only Georgiana and Mrs. Reynolds to be in the room with us. My father told me, his voice shaking with weakness, that he hoped I would forgive whatever grievances I had against my childhood friend, and gift Wickham with the Kympton living when it became available. I merely smiled at my father; I could not promise it, of course, as I knew that Wickham ought not to be in the church. But he died with George’s name on his lips.
Not mine, not my sisters, but George’s.” Mr. Darcy’s voice was hoarse.
Georgiana buried her face in her hands.
He went on. “My father’s solicitor, Mr. Stanley, came to Pemberley when my father died; Mr. Stanley told Wickham that he was a beneficiary, and so he had to be present for the reading of the will.
He sat there, smiling widely, expecting something …
something enormous, I expect. But my father had left him only a thousand pounds. ”
“He was furious, I imagine,” Elizabeth said.
“Furious does not begin to describe it. He stood up in the middle of that room, right there in my father’s study, and began to speak about my father and myself in terms so very foul that Mrs. Reynolds had him escorted from the room.
There were a number of bequests to servants but, of course, Pemberley and all the smaller estates were left entirely to me. ”
“As was proper,” Elizabeth murmured.
“Yes. As soon as the will had been read and everyone had left the room, I sat in my father’s chair for the first time.
My head was reeling with the enormity of the responsibilities that had suddenly been thrust upon me.
But the first thing I did was to have Wickham brought in.
He swaggered in and sat down. I wrote him a cheque for a thousand pounds. ”
“Then he told me that he knew about the living at Kympton; my father had evidently told him about it. I offered him three thousand pounds in exchange for giving up any claim to it, and he agreed at once, saying that he preferred to study law. I wrote out a paper for him to sign, formally relinquishing any rights to the living, and he signed it. I wrote him another cheque, this time for three thousand pounds, and told him I hoped never to see him again. He laughed and left the room. I rang the bell and had a footman follow him out to make certain that he was gone.”
“Four thousand pounds! That is a good amount of money,” Lydia exclaimed.
“Yes, and a prudent man would have made good use of it, but I have no doubt that he gambled it away quickly.” Mr. Darcy stopped to take a deep breath.
“The next day, one of the merchants in Lambton came to see me. He was uneasy, turning his cap in his hands this way and that, and when he was finally calm enough to speak, he told me that George Wickham had seduced his daughter, and she was with child.”
Georgiana gasped.
“I did not want to believe it. Even now, after everything I knew about him, I still did not wish to believe it. I asked him to bring her to me, and he did, and she told me – she told me –“
“He forced her,” Elizabeth, said, flatly, seeing that her husband was unable to continue.
He looked at her with gratitude. “Yes, and she had his child. I give her money every month. Also, my solicitor found that bedder at Cambridge, and I send her money every month as well.”
“What a very good man you are, Mr. Darcy,” Lydia said, softly.
Georgiana whispered, “So you had not seen him from the day he got the cheques from you until the day of the Lucas’ card party, when I begged you to shake his hand.”
Mr. Darcy looked at her. “Not quite; when the parson who held the living at Kympton died, Wickham appeared on my doorstep once again. He had not found law to his liking, he said, and was now ready to take on the living that had been promised him.”
“Surely you did not give it to him!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“Certainly not; I showed him the papers he had signed, and told him to leave at once. He did so, and I hoped then to have seen the last of him. And then, yes, there he was at the Lucas’ card party.
” He turned to Georgiana. “He claimed that he had changed and, Elizabeth, you were right. I had always hoped that he would. We were blood brothers, after all. But that hope, that vain hope, is what kept me from speaking up, kept me from warning my sister as I should have. I have been a fool, and in so being, I have allowed my own sister to come to harm.” His voice broke and he had to look away.
Georgiana rose to her feet and ran into her brother’s arms. Elizabeth went to Lydia and hugged her close.
It had begun to rain outside. The wind picked up, and the trees murmured to one another, but inside Pemberley, all was safe and calm.