Chapter 11
Eleven
Afew days after the Wickham incident, Bingley watched Darcy peruse yet another express. Darcy’s serious face became grimmer, and when he flicked a glance his way, Bingley asked, “Wickham?”
“Yes. An eyewitness at Dover Castle saw Wickham kill the guard, and the second body was confirmed as being Lieutenant Morris. No more prison for Wickham—he will hang.”
“I thought maybe transportation,” Bingley said.
“It is wartime. Wickham killed an officer and then posed as that officer. Death penalty for sure.” Darcy inhaled audibly and then shook his head a bit.
“I believe that, if Wickham were actually in the military, he would face a firing squad. But the note indicates that they are keeping him in heavy chains for a short while until he can be hung.”
Bingley studied Darcy’s face, looked down at his fist clenching, and finally decided to say, “I know he is awful, but Wickham was a friend when you were both children. I hope you feel more relief than sadness over this punishment.”
“Thank you, Bingley. I am attempting not to feel a thing, on the grounds that he is not worth the trouble, although I suppose I will not succeed…. Right this moment, I suggest you and I visit some of your tenants. They will provide more distraction than will columns of numbers.”
“Good idea, Darcy.” They abandoned the breakfast room to change into riding gear and soon set off.
That morning, Elizabeth received a letter from Mrs Johnson, née Garfield, the Netherfield leaseholder who had taught drawing to the neighbouring ladies. She had left Netherfield when she married an estate owner who lived near Hertford.
Mrs Johnson was slower than her other regular correspondents to respond to letters.
So much had happened since Elizabeth had last written that she struggled to remember what she had asked and related in that letter.
Oh! she thought. She had enclosed a rather daring picture in which she had played with proportions rather than recording forms faithfully.
Eager to see her drawing teacher’s comments after all the likenesses of her beloved sisters she had sent in the past, Elizabeth hurried upstairs and opened the letter, swiftly scanning it for words about the drawing.
Mrs Johnson wrote precisely zero words in regard to the drawing.
Disappointed, Elizabeth re-read the letter more slowly. The entirety of the letter was a response to Elizabeth’s mention that the new leaseholder’s guest was a gentleman named Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy is one of my favourite humans on earth, which seems quite mad when one considers that I only spoke with him briefly some three years ago, when he and his sister came to my home after the death of my parents left me badly in debt.
I had let it be known amongst the musicians who had admired my father that I would be selling several compositions that had not yet been played publicly, because I hoped that a true music enthusiast would pay more for these original works than an average person.
My uncle was to do the honours of the actual sale, but the Darcys arrived precisely on time, and my uncle was dreadfully late. So we ended up speaking directly.
Mr Darcy’s much-younger sister is quite a musician; after I met the Darcys, I asked Mr Fortescue about her, and he said that, as young as she was, her compositions are brilliant.
At any rate, they offered to pay for my father’s written music so generously, I was stunned.
Then Mr Darcy saw my framed sketches I meant to offer for sale at a public auction, and he loved them.
He bought close to half of my works and again paid generously.
I made more money from the Darcys than I had expected to make from the entire estate sale, at the public auction, even though I had planned to offer every stick of furniture and most of my mother’s jewellery.
Thanks to the Darcys’ generosity, I decided to keep some more pieces as family heirlooms.
The thing that made this brief encounter even more incredible was that Mr Darcy asked for my new direction, saying that his sister wished to report to me her responses to my father’s compositions, and he wished to properly credit him and send me any further payments I was due.
I was embarrassed to reply that I did not know where I would live.
I asked him to contact me through a solicitor.
A mere two weeks after this encounter, my solicitor received a letter from another solicitor asking if I would consider acting as an older, more experienced companion to a young lady who needed support as she grieved for her last remaining relative, the aunt she had lived with.
She would be living at Netherfield Park but needed someone to help pay for the lease.
The amount needed was incredibly reasonable, and I was excited to snap up the opportunity.
I am certain you remember that I met my husband at one of the assemblies held near Netherfield.
The thing is, I had given that solicitor’s name and direction only to the Darcys, so I am positive that I owe them not just for the generous terms of the sales that day, but also the pleasant interlude during which I lived near you—and therefore, also, the chance to meet and marry the man of my dreams.
So you see why I claim Mr Darcy as one of my very favourite humans, though I have only known him for a half hour at most!
Elizabeth found it beyond belief that Mr Darcy had done secret good deeds for Mrs Popkins and for Miss Garfield, and both of these ladies had ended up leasing Netherfield Park.
Mr Darcy was also in the middle of doing a not-so-secret good deed for Mr Bingley, in the form of teaching him how to run an estate, and Mr Bingley, too, was leasing Netherfield.
Either Mr Darcy did good deeds for almost every person in England, or, perhaps…
could it be that he owned Netherfield Park and used it as a way of helping people by renting a decent property for a very low amount?
Although that did not fully make sense, because Mr Bingley had a lot of money and did not need a reduced rate.
Almost an hour later, Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy arrived for their daily call.
Elizabeth asked Mr Darcy if he wished to walk, and Mr Bingley and Jane joined them in putting on their outer things and walking around to the gardens. Once Elizabeth and Mr Darcy were far enough to speak in relative privacy, she suddenly said, “I just found out that you know Mrs Johnson!”
“I know two ladies by that name, I believe. Which one do you speak of?”
“The Mrs Johnson who used to be Miss Garfield. She leased Netherfield, and she taught other ladies and me quite a bit about drawing and sketching.”
“Oh! You have mentioned the lady before. Her companion taught you some vocal techniques, I believe.”
“Yes, and you knew Miss Garfield, and you did a good deed for her.”
She watched Fitzwilliam tap his lips with one upraised finger; then he said, “I believe you speak of the young lady who sold Georgiana several original compositions her father had not publicly performed.”
“Yes, exactly!”
Fitzwilliam waited. Elizabeth was not certain exactly what she wished to convey about coincidences, but he spoke first:
“As I said before, I know a good many people. For example, I have many friends whose family name starts with ‘B’—in addition to the Bennets and the Bingleys, I know the Bakers, the Babingtons, the Bagnells, the Baileys, the Barkers, the Baldwins, the Banbridges, the Barbonnells, the Barrington’s, the Bates—hmm, let me see.
I know the Beachams, the Beardmores, the Beckinghams, the Becks, the Beams, the Beadles, the Bignalls, the Bishops, the Blanchards, the Bloomes, the Blunts, the Bogemakers, the Boltons, the Blackbourns, the Boddingtons, the Bonds, the Bonningfields, the Bradfords, the Bowers, the Bradburys, the Bradys, the Bransons, the Brewers… .”
“Enough, enough, enough.” Elizabeth was laughing but also feeling faintly frustrated. “It is not so much that you know too many people…it is that you not only know every family who leased Netherfield Park, but you also did massive favours for every one of the three most recent lease holders.”
“Is there a question in there?” Fitzwilliam asked. He grasped both of her hands, gently stroking the knuckles with his thumbs, and she felt her thoughts start to evaporate.
“No….?” is all she could breathe out.
“If you come up with a question, I will answer it. I am always honest with you, although I do not—no one could—necessarily say everything I know about a person or family, or about a place or event. But if you have a particular question, ask it, and I will answer honestly.”
Looking into her intended’s deep eyes, seeing the sincere care for her, she could not come up with a single question. “Thank you,” she finally said.
He said, “You are very welcome,” and he squeezed her hands.
Unsurprisingly, later, when Fitzwilliam was not distracting her with his touch, she did come up with questions.
She decided to record the questions so she would be able to ask even if he was chuckling in his delightfully rumbly way, or looking so warmly at her with his deep, dark eyes, or shaking that one dark curl off his forehead for the tenth time, or using any of the other thoroughly unfair distraction tactics on her.
She wrote, “Do you own Netherfield Park?” That one was just silly—she knew who owned it, a man named Bertrand Harrison.
Thinking a bit, she wrote, “Did you tell the Gardiners that you would be coming to Hertfordshire?”
One of the things she had wondered about a while ago was the coincidence of Fitzwilliam travelling with especially gentle horses at this time. Had she written to Georgiana about her fear of riding?
She wrote, “Did you know I was afraid of riding?”