Chapter XV #3
“She said she could arrange everything for me. She warned me that I could not return home now in any case – that I was ruined already.” Lydia’s voice broke almost entirely upon the word. “She said no respectable family would receive me after… after…”
Unable to continue, she pressed one trembling hand against her mouth.
Darcy felt his composure strained almost beyond endurance. Not merely because of Lydia herself. But because he could now imagine with terrible clarity exactly what Elizabeth must have suffered in learning all this while powerless to prevent any part of it.
She stared at him helplessly. “I thought…” She broke off with a choking sob. “I thought Wickham only meant us to hide a little while until Papa became less angry.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly.
Of course she had believed him.
“Did you send no word to your family?”
Lydia looked up at once. “But I wrote!”
The desperation in her voice startled him.
“I wrote twice.” Fresh tears gathered in her eyes. “I was ashamed at first. But then I wrote.”
“No one came?”
She shook her head. “I thought Papa would come.” Her lip trembled violently. “I did not understand why nobody answered. I was told they would not know me now.”
Darcy could say nothing at all for one terrible moment. Of course, those letters were not sent.
Good God.
She truly had expected rescue. She had been foolish rather than wicked. Only recklessness. Ignorance. Trust placed in a man wholly unworthy of it. He understood everything now.
Lydia wiped at her eyes clumsily with the back of one hand, though fresh tears continued gathering almost as quickly as she brushed them away.
Darcy gave her his handkerchief. She accepted it with trembling fingers.
Tea and food arrived shortly afterwards. Darcy himself carried the tray towards her and poured a cup with steady hands, though he felt in need of something far stronger himself.
After several moments, he spoke again.
“Miss Lydia, I must ask you something difficult.”
She looked at him with alarm.
“You are not… untouched?”
The colour fled violently from her face.
For one dreadful instant, he believed from her expression that the worst had already occurred.
Then Lydia shook her head rapidly.
“No! No.” Fresh tears rose instantly. “I would not let him.”
Darcy stared at her.
Lydia coloured uncomfortably, evidently mortified by the very subject and yet too distressed now for proper delicacy.
“He was angry sometimes,” she confessed in broken embarrassment. “Or laughed at me. But I told him I would not-not before we were married.” She swallowed hard. “I thought… I thought it improper otherwise.”
The words, awkwardly spoken and entirely artless, affected Darcy far more strongly than any studied defence could have done.
Even now, after all her folly, she had still attempted to preserve some boundary between reckless romance and complete surrender.
And Wickham –
Darcy felt his anger deepen almost beyond restraint.
Lydia, meanwhile, continued haltingly, not quite able to meet his eyes.
“When I was brought here, they left me alone for a short time… then, they made me sit with the gentlemen. I had to smile and talk to them. Laugh. Sing.” Her voice trembled violently.
“The lady said I must be agreeable if I wished to repay what I owed.”
Darcy’s expression grew colder with every word.
“But lately…” She stopped entirely.
The silence itself became terrible.
“Miss Lydia,” he said gently, “you need not continue unless necessary.”
“No,” she whispered. “You ought to know.”
Her hands twisted together so tightly they had begun to redden.
“She said the debt grew larger every week. That gentlemen would pay more for private company.” Lydia’s voice nearly disappeared altogether. “I refused. Truly, I did. But she said I had nowhere else to go now, and that nobody respectable would receive me again.”
Darcy closed his eyes briefly.
“And tonight…” Lydia’s breathing faltered again. “She said I must begin properly. That I had already been foolish long enough.”
The full meaning struck him with immediate horror.
Lydia looked at him through tears and humiliation so complete that she only just resembled herself.
“You would have been…” She stopped, unable to force the words out at first.
Darcy felt physically sick.
But because he now understood with dreadful vividness how narrowly she had escaped complete destruction. Another week – perhaps only days – and nothing might have remained recoverable at all.
Even then, he would have found some way to help her.
“Then you have not…”
Lydia shook her head. “No.”
“Thank God.” The words escaped him with quiet sincerity.
Lydia stared at him uncertainly, as though unable fully to comprehend that he was relieved rather than disgusted.
Something softened very slightly in Darcy’s expression then. Not amusement exactly, but the first trace of gentleness she had yet seen from him that evening.
“You are exhausted,” he said more quietly. “And I suspect you have eaten very little.”
Almost as if reminded by the words themselves, Lydia looked down at the untouched tray which had meanwhile been brought into the room.
“I am not hungry,” she whispered automatically.
Darcy looked at her. “Miss Lydia, you must eat something.”
The firmness of his tone carried so naturally the expectation of obedience that she reached almost instinctively for the cup of tea nearest her. Her hands still trembled badly enough that some of it spilt into the saucer.
Without remarking upon it, Darcy moved the plate of bread and cold meat nearer. He himself took a bite.
“You as well.”
For the first few moments, she obeyed only timidly, plainly more from nervous submission than appetite. Yet gradually, hunger overcame agitation, and Darcy realised, with growing anger, how long she must have been neglected.
Lydia broke off a small piece of bread, though her hands still trembled slightly. She looked at Darcy. “You are not at all like what Wickham and Lizzy said about you.”
Darcy glanced up briefly from his untouched wine. “No?”
She shook her head. “Wickham said you were proud and resentful. Lizzy, too, at first.” Lydia hesitated awkwardly. “But… not cruel.”
Something faintly weary passed across Darcy’s expression.
“Lately,” said he quietly, “I have learnt that I did not always behave as I ought.”
Lydia looked down again, turning the bread nervously between her fingers. “He said you owed him money.”
Darcy’s mouth hardened slightly. “I paid him several thousand pounds in lieu of the living intended for him. I owe him nothing.”
Lydia stared at him. “Then he lied even in that.”
Darcy inclined his head once.
For a few moments, neither spoke. The fire settled softly behind them while Lydia continued eating with increasing hunger, as though only now remembering how long it had been since she last felt safe enough to do so.
Meanwhile, his own mind had already begun moving rapidly ahead.
The essential matter now was speed and secrecy.
Lydia could not remain there. That much was certain.
Nor could she yet be returned openly to Hertfordshire while Wickham remained undiscovered and the circumstances uncertain.
Gossip travelled too quickly in London; one careless movement might still ruin everything irreparably.
And Wickham himself –
Darcy’s expression darkened slightly at the thought.
The scoundrel must be found.
Not merely for the family’s sake now, but because Darcy intended personally to see paid for what he had done.
Nearly two months had already passed.
Lydia, watching him anxiously over the rim of her teacup, seemed almost frightened by his silence.
“You despise me now,” she said in a small voice.
Darcy looked up at once.
“No.”
She blinked rapidly.
“But I have been so foolish.”
“Yes,” he answered with calm honesty. “Very foolish.”
Fresh tears rose instantly in her eyes.
“But not wicked,” he continued more gently. “And there is a difference.”
Lydia lowered her face and began crying again, though more quietly now.
Darcy let her weep.
For the first time that evening, he thought she perhaps truly understood the precipice upon which she had stood.
He rose at length. “You will remain here tonight only because it is too late to remove you safely elsewhere.”
Lydia looked up in alarm. “I cannot stay here!”
“You shall not remain longer than necessary,” Darcy assured her. “I will settle the matter before morning.”
The relief which crossed her face at those words alone was almost painful to witness.
Darcy moved towards the door and rang again.
When the mistress of the establishment appeared several minutes later, all traces of gentility had vanished from his manner entirely.
He did not sit. He did not invite her farther into the room. Instead, he stood beside the fireplace with such cold authority in his countenance that the woman herself became cautious before he spoke a word.
“You will provide an exact accounting of every debt claimed against this girl.”
The woman attempted a smile. “Sir, the young lady has been expensive to maintain…”
“I did not ask for commentary.”
Her expression faltered. A calculating pause followed.
Darcy continued with icy composure. “You will also understand this clearly. She leaves this establishment tomorrow morning under my protection.”
A flicker of calculation passed across the woman’s face.
“Sir, there are arrangements…”
“Whatever arrangements exist,” said Darcy quietly, “will end tonight.”
The woman’s eyes flickered briefly towards Lydia, then back again to Darcy.
She had already understood enough to suspect that the situation might profit her considerably.
“I fear,” said she slowly, naming at last a sum so excessive that even Lydia looked up in startled disbelief, “the debt has become rather substantial.”
Darcy’s expression did not alter in the slightest. “You shall have the money tomorrow.”
The calm certainty of the answer seemed almost to disappoint her.
“However,” he continued quietly, “you will understand me very clearly.”
The woman hesitated.