Chapter Nine
“Have you made your decision, Wickham?”
The filthy, bearded man sitting in the straw of the cell bore little resemblance to the suave soldier he had been just a few days earlier. He lifted his chin and spat at Darcy, but the spittle didn’t even reach the barred door. Darcy, standing outside the cell, didn’t flinch.
“It is, of course, entirely your choice. I’d recommend you consider my offer, though. I understand a few of your former comrades are quite keen to apply the lashes that military justice would require, before you are dragged off to debtor’s prison.”
Wickham glared, his jaw working soundlessly. And then he saw, behind Darcy, the figure of a tall, slender woman, cloaked and hooded, her face in shadow.
“Georgiana,” he croaked, “do not let him do this. You cared for me, once…”
Darcy laughed bitterly. “Do you seriously think I would let my sister within twenty miles of you, Wickham? No, this is someone who has waited to see justice done for a long time. She feels I am being too merciful, but she has agreed to help you on your way, to ensure you do not have the chance to spread your lies about Georgiana here in England.”
The woman stepped forward, drawing down her hood, and Wickham’s breath expelled in a hiss as he recognised Madeline Gardiner.
“You.”
She smiled tightly at him. “Hello again, Mr Wickham. I’m ready to go, Darcy,” she looked up at her cousin. “Have him loaded.”
“Wait,” Wickham choked out, panicking. “You offered me a choice. Don’t let her take me – she’ll have me killed!”
“My cousin has given me her word that she will see you onto the ship bound for the Americas safely. Your money will be held by the captain and handed over when you debark.” Darcy shrugged.
“Once you are there, Wickham, I don’t care what you do.
As long as you never darken England’s shores again, you and I are done. ”
They stared at each other in mutual hatred for a while, and then Wickham nodded, defeated.
Darcy gestured, and a moment later his cell door was being unlocked and he was being dragged out, still in his shackles, and loaded into a closed carriage.
Two armed soldiers sat on the other seat, watching him intently.
Before the door closed, Wickham saw Darcy lifting Mrs Gardiner’s hand to his lips before handing her up into a much finer carriage.
A moment later, the two vehicles rumbled into motion, heading south towards London.
They drove straight to the docks, and Wickham was hustled into a small, empty warehouse, unshackled and handed some clean, if rather shabby, clothes.
He put them on gladly, happy to be rid of his bloodstained rags, and followed the two soldiers out to the pier where a large ship was tied up, evidently preparing to set sail.
A pair of burly sailors came up, nodded to the soldiers and took custody of Wickham.
He went with them, aware of Mrs Gardiner sitting in her carriage a little further down the pier, watching him, no doubt.
Clearly he wasn’t going to be given any opportunity to escape, and Wickham took a deep breath and prepared himself to face his new life.
He put on his new, close-mouthed smile – damn Darcy for knocking out his front teeth, anyway!
– and walked up the gangway onto the ship.
“Wait there,” one of the sailors ordered gruffly, pointing to a coil of rope. “Cap’n will speak to you aff’n we sail.”
Wickham was about to argue that he wanted to go below and see his bunk, but the sailor caressed a long knife sheathed at his side, and he thought better of it. He sat down instead on the coil of rope.
The ship cast off not thirty minutes later, but it was some three hours after that, when they had escaped the river Thames and were sailing out into the open sea, when the captain came to speak to Wickham.
“You’re Wickham?” he said tersely.
“Yes, sir, very nice to meet you.” Wickham stood and offered his close-mouthed smile, speaking in as gentlemanly a manner as he could manage.
“I have yet to learn, what fine ship is this, and for what port are we bound?” He was hoping for Jamaica.
There had to be plenty of opportunities there, with bored plantation owner’s wives.
Or maybe New Orleans. He had heard good things about that city.
“I have instructions to put you off at our first port of call, which is St John’s.
” Seeing Wickham’s befuddled look, the captain smiled tightly.
“Newfoundland.” Wickham still looked none the wiser, so he elaborated further.
“It’s an island off Canada’s east coast. Long way north.
Bloody cold in the winter. We’ll be dodging icebergs to get there, I dare say. ”
“I didn’t think the packet boats sailed to Canada in the winter,” Wickham said, beginning to feel the first stirrings of dread.
The captain cocked his head, and gave a very slight smile.
“Did you think this was a packet boat, Mr Wickham? No, no, those sail out of Falmouth for the Atlantic crossing. This is the Scarborough Star. She is owned by Bingley Shipping, and once we have deposited our cargo at various ports along our route, we will be collecting goods to return to England – for Gardiner Imports. Every man on my ship works for Bingleys or Gardiners, Mr Wickham. You’ll want to be very careful aboard the good ship Scarborough Star. ”
Left alone on the deck as the captain walked away, Wickham turned about and stared at the receding shores of England.
He wondered, briefly, if he would have a better chance of survival if he jumped now and tried to swim for shore.
Better that than being thrown overboard in the middle of the Atlantic in the dead of night, he supposed.
But the waves even now were grey and churning, and he never had learned to swim.
In the end he sat down on the coil of rope again. What else was there to do?
Mr Bingley returned to Netherfield after an absence of six days, and found, to his pleasure, that Mr Hutton had stayed on and was not at all inclined to leave.
Darcy was absolutely delighted as it meant the two of them had been able to spend their time occupied with male pursuits, which primarily involved avoiding Caroline Bingley as much as possible, and spending a goodly portion of every day at Longbourn.
Fortunately, Caroline was blissfully unaware of this fact.
She was annoyed enough that they went out every day ‘riding or shooting’.
Mr Hurst was too lazy to go with them, so she never knew that the two men would divert in Longbourn’s direction directly they were out of sight of Netherfield.
They rarely returned until dinnertime – and sometimes not even then!
– so she was greatly disgusted and quite keen for her brother to encourage Mr Hutton to leave so she could ‘have Darcy back to herself’ as she put it.
Mr Bingley listened very patiently to his sister’s tirade, silently thinking what a fool she was making of herself.
“Certainly not,” he said at last when she wound down, “it sounds like marvellous fun and I am so glad I am back so that I can join in!” He was well aware of what Darcy and Hutton had really been up to, having received a letter from Jane just the previous day in which she had mentioned, with amusement evident, that her sisters were being quite assiduously courted by his friends.
Bingley thought it was a marvellous idea.
Darcy was his closest friend and Hutton was a wonderful chap; to have them as his brothers, as far as Bingley was concerned, would be the icing on the cake of his marriage to Miss Bennet.
Now if he could just find someone to take Caroline off his hands, preferably someone who lived really far away – Wales might do – or Ireland…
“Charles? Charles, are you listening to me?”
“Cornwall?”
“What?”
“Never mind, never mind,” Bingley said hastily. “Sorry, Caroline. I did tell you that you would be bored here if you insisted on coming,” he tried to placate her. “I told you Darcy and I planned to use the house as a hunting lodge!”
Caroline huffed. “Ghastly place! A hunting lodge is all it is fit for! I can’t imagine why you’d want to buy it…”
“I don’t plan to buy it. I have a six-month lease, Caroline, and I daresay I shall not renew.
While I greatly enjoy the society hereabouts, and I shall always be fond of Netherfield because it was while living here that I met my dear Jane, it’s not the kind of estate that will suit us.
Hutton has told me about a very nice place he knows of for sale in the West Riding, I intend to go and look at it in the spring. ”
Caroline let out a little scream. “Yorkshire?”
“That’s where the West Riding is, yes.”
“But that’s – that’s in the North!”
Bingley cocked his head at her. “So is Derbyshire,” he pointed out, “but I’ve not yet heard you complain of Pemberley’s location.”
Caroline was too upset at the thought of being dragged off to live in the wilds of the north to think of a suitable retort for that, and by the time she had finally come up with one, Bingley was gone.
He ordered his horse saddled and headed out, glad that he no longer needed an excuse to make directly for Longbourn.
Jane’s reaction when he was shown into the parlour was everything he might have hoped. Her smile lit up the room, and her eyes sparkled as she gazed at him. Bingley crossed the room to her, seized her hand in his and kissed it.
“I have missed you very much,” he told her softly.
“I missed you too,” Jane said, gazing her fill of him. He looked very handsome with his curly blond hair ruffled by the wind. “I have been kept busy, though, chaperoning my sisters.”
“Indeed?” Bingley took his eyes from her for a few moments and glanced around the room.
Mr Hutton and Mary were at the table together, heads bent over some old tome.
Mr Darcy and Elizabeth sat by the window, a chess-board set up between them.
Jane, sitting by the fire with her needlework, was indeed obviously there in the role of chaperone.
Mr Bingley looked at her and gave a slightly roguish smile.
“But who will chaperone you and I, Miss Bennet?”
“I heard that, Mr Bingley,” Elizabeth called from her seat, though she did not take her eyes from the chess-board. “Behave yourself!”
He laughed, not at all abashed, and went about the room greeting everyone exuberantly, saying how happy he was to be back.
“Your business is all concluded?” Darcy asked.
“Yes, yes. The Scarborough Star sailed the day before yesterday,” Bingley gave Darcy a reassuring nod.
“All her cargo well settled aboard.” He glanced across at Mr Hutton, and then at Darcy, and turned back to Jane, grinning mischievously.
“Miss Bennet, I must ask you. What is it that your mother puts in the tea here at Longbourn? I can think of no other explanation as to why your house has broken out in such a rash of lovesick fellows.”
Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Mr Bingley, if my mother indeed knew of such a secret ingredient for tea, we would all be dowered like royalty!”
Hutton and Darcy were both looking abashed, but not at all offended, and even Mary was smiling. Jane rang the bell to call for tea, and Bingley drew up a chair to sit beside her. Jane laid aside her needlework to give him her full attention, and he could not have been happier.
Their peace was shattered not five minutes later when the sound of a coach was heard coming up the drive. Elizabeth peered from the window.
“That is a very grand equipage; but I do not recognise it. I wonder to whom it can belong?”
Mr Darcy turned his head to look out too, and a moment later shot to his feet, pale-faced. “That is my aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh!”