Chapter 32
Darcy had resumed Elizabeth’s riding lessons though he was aware she hardly required them now.
One morning when they rode side by side, she asked,
“May I ask you a delicate question, Mr Darcy?”
“Delicate?” He chuckled, “how delicate?”
“Very delicate,” She smiled.
“That is very ominous, Miss Bennet.” He teased, “Please do not make me blush.”
“What is your story with Miss Julia Buchanan?” She blurted out before she lost her courage.
First he looked shocked, then he looked away discomfited, “why do you wish to know about Miss Buchanan and what causes you to believe that I have a history with her?”
“Do you not?”
He sighed, “Why do you wish to know?” He repeated.
“Firstly because I have heard snippets here and there and they are very unsatisfying and secondly because the lady herself has accosted me and I wish to know why she seems to hate the very sight of me.”
“Because she is foolish, you should pay her no mind.”
“Unfortunately, that will not work for me, Mr Darcy. I need to know what my enemy has in terms of ammunition before I risk any confrontation, even if it is sudden or unplanned.”
“Confrontation?”
“I have a feeling… should Miss Julia encounter me again, she will not hold back the dislike she has developed towards me.”
Darcy sighed, resigned.
“What I am going to tell you is not my secret but it is a secret nevertheless. The only people who know of these details other than me, are my mother and Richard. Although I trust you, unreservedly, I would ask that you repeat this to no one.”
“You have my word.”
He nodded satisfied, “The Buchanans have been our neighbours my entire life,” he declared, “My father’s family when they settled in this part of the country, many generations ago, met the Buchanans who likewise settled here.
My father and Mr Buchanan attended Cambridge together as young men.
So, like our fathers, Miss Julia, Miss Emma, Georgiana and I had always been close friends.
We played together growing up, including my cousins Bradley, Richard, Emily, Anne de Bourgh whom you have not met yet, and,” he paused and looked pained, “George Wickham.”
“George Wickham?”
“Yes, the officer you met in Meryton with the Militia.”
“Ah.” She said and turned to him again, expectantly.
“I… I mean, Miss Julia and I became very close. I thought I admired her more than anybody else.”
He looked towards her and waited to see if she had some comment or a question, but she remained quiet, just watching him. So he continued,
“Miss Julia is only three years younger than me and I thought I wished, at the time, to marry her. Her situation in life is not that different from yours: their estate is on the small size, it was entailed upon a distant cousin since the Buchanans had failed to produce an heir and neither she nor Miss Emma has any dowry to speak of.”
He paused again.
“Were you in love with her?” Elizabeth asked quietly.
“I think so,” he sighed again, “although I have not been in love very often and it is hard to determine what degree of affection I felt towards her.”
“I see.”
After a few moments of heavy silence, he continued, “About five years ago, Mr Buchanan turned up at Pemberley unexpectedly and informed us that they had decided to remove themselves from Derbyshire for some period of time, as his wife was not feeling very well. They were on their way to a run-down, small estate they still have in Scotland outside of Arbroath, north of Dundee, until his wife recovered her health.”
He raked his fingers through his hair in a clear demonstration that such memories were still painful.
“I could not go and visit them immediately, since I was still in deep mourning for my father and utterly buried in estate business trying to learn how to be the master of all we had without my father as my anchor.
But I did eventually manage to take some time off and go to Scotland. My intention was to propose to Julia, marry her in Scotland and bring her back to Pemberley with me. But when I finally arrived in Arbroath, I found Miss Julia heavy with child. In fact her time was almost upon her.”
Elizabeth gasped, “Oh, my goodness, surely not?”
“Yes,” he said looking down, “I never thought she would...”
“How...” Elizabeth asked looking utterly stupefied.
“Yes... You can scarcely imagine what I felt when the truth was at last drawn from Julia. Her parents confessed that their daughter had fallen under the influence of George Wickham, who had never entertained the slightest intention of making her his wife.”
“I thought she loved you. Did he force her, did he hurt her?”
“No,” his voice was strained and laboured, “he worked his charm on her.”
His pain was raw as he, once again, was forced to look through a window into the past and relive that nightmare.
“For years, whilst we were children growing up upon the same estate, Wickham regarded me as a friend. But after Cambridge, he began to regard me as a rival. Whatever I undertook, he immediately resolved to prove that he could surpass me. Whether it was rowing upon the river, playing cricket at the university, or paying his addresses to a young lady whom he knew had already engaged my affections, he was never satisfied unless he believed himself the victor.”
“Oh,” said Elizabeth quietly mirroring his sad expression.
“He told lies; he bought on credit under my name and left the debts behind. He slandered my name everywhere he went. Then he became incensed when my father left only one thousand pounds for him as his legacy. But my father also bequeathed to him a living which his godson proceeded to reject. He demanded and received immediately, three thousand pounds in lieu of the living.”
“What a scoundrel.” Elizabeth said hotly.
“Yes, he is. But by far his greatest villainy was the seduction of Julia, after which he vanished without leaving the slightest trace. His object, I have little doubt, was to prove that he could take her from under my very nose and effect her ruin. I believe he even hoped that I should marry her, only to discover afterwards that she was carrying his child. Had that child proved to be a son, Wickham’s own offspring would have become the heir to Pemberley.
He knew I would never expose Julia to public shame, nor abandon her to disgrace. ”
“How could she have been so stupid? How could she, knowing you as she did, be taken in by a man with a honeyed and poisonous tongue like Mr Wickham?”
“It is a question that I have asked myself thousands of times, but then Wickham knows how to charm a woman and Julia was not the first. I just hope his days of wickedness are behind him.”
“What happened after you confronted the Buchanans?”
“Mr Buchanan sought to thrust Julia upon me, but I would not be persuaded.
Once they perceived that their scheme for concealing her condition had failed, he extracted from me a promise that I would never reveal the child to be Julia's. They had determined to adopt the infant and present him to the world as their own. Fortune, it would seem, favoured their deception, for the child proved to be a boy breaking the entail on White Oaks.”
“My goodness, if they should ever be discovered…”
“They will not as I never wish to see them again, let alone spread news about them. They are beneath me in every way. Once, they were simply our poor neighbours but respectable people nevertheless. Now, as far as I am concerned, they are no better than Wickham.”
“Did Julia ever try to explain to you how she fell under the power of Mr Wickham?”
“Oh yes, she tried whilst I was in Scotland, with tears and solemn protestations of undying affection. But her duplicity, her utter corruption of principle, struck me with all the force of an icy deluge, and in that instant every vestige of affection I might once have entertained for her was extinguished. Her tears and lamentations did nothing to soften me, for there was one thing of which I had long been certain: George Wickham has never sought to force a woman to his bed. He is indeed a scoundrel, utterly devoid of honour; yet he is no man of violence. He is merely a rake, deriving satisfaction from seducing virtuous women and glorying in their ruin, as though each conquest proved the irresistible power of his charm.”
“Would you have forgiven her, had she not tried to deceive you?”
“I do not know what I would have done had the circumstances been different. But one thing I ask myself is: once a woman misleads you, what is there to stop her from doing it again and again?”
Elizabeth simply nodded lost in thought.
“No, Miss Bennet, I see what happened as absolutely providential. God saved me from a fate I do not think I deserve. Whatever my flaws, I am not a dishonest man and had I married her and discovered my wife’s fraudulent scheme afterwards, it would have destroyed me.”
They rode a little further and then they turned their mounts towards Pemberley and talked about more pleasant subjects.