Wickham’s Shadow
Wickham’s Shadow
Little Anne reached Georgiana before the footman had closed the door.
“Mama! Grandmama said you were coming today.”
Georgiana bent and gathered her daughter against her. George stood beside the stairs in his nightshirt, one hand clasped around Nurse Thomas’s fingers. He looked from his mother to Darcy, then towards the open door.
“Is Papa with you?”
Georgiana did not answer at once. The Earl dismissed the footman with a glance. Nurse Thomas brought George forward, and Georgiana held out her free arm. Darcy turned towards the door.
“Stay,” Georgiana said.
He stopped.
“Please.”
Darcy closed the door. Georgiana knelt before the children.
“I have something very difficult to tell you.”
Anne’s arms tightened around her neck. George watched her with solemn attention.
“Your papa has died,” Georgiana said. “There was an accident, and he cannot come home.”
Anne stared at her. “Ever?”
“No, my love.”
George looked towards Darcy. “Did you see him?”
Darcy crossed the room and crouched beside them. “Yes.”
“Was he frightened?”
“No. He was not frightened.”
George considered this. “Did it hurt?”
“Only for a moment.”
Georgiana closed her eyes, though her arms tightened around both children.
“He cannot come home?” Anne asked.
“No, my love.”
Anne began to cry. George leaned against his mother without speaking, one hand still curled around Nurse Thomas’s fingers. Darcy remained beside them.
After a time, Anne lifted her face from Georgiana’s shoulder.
“You are staying with us?”
“Yes,” Georgiana said. “I am staying.”
“And Uncle Darcy?”
George looked at him before Georgiana could answer.
“For as long as you need me,” Darcy said.
Nurse Thomas bent and gathered Anne into her arms. George resisted her offered hand and remained beside his mother.
“I shall come upstairs directly,” Georgiana promised.
Only then did he allow Nurse Thomas to lead him away. The Earl waited until their footsteps had faded.
“Arrangements must be made.”
“At Thornton,” Georgiana said.
“Of course.”
“A small service. Family and those from the estate who ought to be present.”
The Earl nodded. “I shall write to the rector.”
“The children will remain with me. Anne and my aunt also, if they are willing.”
“They will be.”
Georgiana looked towards the staircase. “We shall receive everyone at Thornton afterwards.”
“I shall see that the house is prepared.”
“Thank you.”
“Thornton belongs to George now,” she said.
“Yes.”
Georgiana turned to Darcy. “Then we must go back.”
“When you are ready.”
Wickham had preferred Pemberley whenever its doors stood open to him. Since Pemberley had passed to Darcy, Georgiana and the children had scarcely spent more than a few weeks together at Thornton.
“George hardly knows the house.”
“He has time to learn it.”
“The funeral will be held there. Afterwards, when the house is ready, the children and I will return.”
“You will not go alone,” Darcy said.
“I shall have the children, Nurse Thomas and Thornton’s household.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“I know.” She reached for his hand. “Fitzwilliam, you have arranged your life around mine. Around him.”
Her gaze moved towards the door, as though she still expected Wickham to enter and object to every decision being made without him.
“I know what he did,” she said. “I know what I saw at Rosings. Yet some part of me still expects him to come home.”
Darcy closed his hand around hers.
“I will not ask you to spend the rest of it in Wickham’s shadow. Go to Hertfordshire. Build your own household. Let Thornton become ours again, and Pemberley yours.”
“If you need me—”
“I shall send for you. I promise.”
She released his hand.
“George will be waiting for me.”
Darcy watched her climb the stairs. She did not look back.
The Earl remained beside him.
“She is right.”
“I know.”
“Knowing it and acting upon it have seldom proved the same thing with you.”
Darcy turned towards the library door. “Edward found further payments.”
“Then we shall examine them together.”
Richard and Edward were already inside. Finch’s ledger lay open upon the table beside the reports Richard’s men had sent from the north.
Richard pushed one of them towards Darcy.
“Wickham may never have gone north.”
Darcy looked down at the closely written pages. “Your men followed him.”
“They followed his horse and a man using his name,” Richard said. “No one who reported seeing him knew Wickham personally. They remembered the coat, the luggage and the name entered at each inn.”
Edward turned the ledger around.
“Georgiana brought this from Rosings. Finch recorded two payments to a John Pritchard as travelling expenses. The first was made the day before the northern trail began. The second was made on the day it ended.”
“Who is he?”
“A former groom at Thornton,” Edward said. “His name appears in an old wage book among the papers Georgiana brought.”
Darcy looked between the ledger and Richard’s reports. “You believe Pritchard impersonated him.”
“I believe Wickham paid him,” Edward said. “The reports suggest what the payment may have purchased.”
“It is not proof,” Richard added. “We must find Pritchard before we can know when Wickham left London or where he went afterwards.”
Darcy looked again at the route his cousin’s men had so carefully traced.
“He expected us to verify the journey.”
“Yes,” Richard said. “And he made certain we would find it.”
Edward drew a blank sheet towards him.
“Pritchard is one name. Finch is another. The remaining entries must be treated with care.”
“Why?”
“Because a payment recorded by a dishonest man does not make its recipient dishonest. Some may have performed ordinary work. Others may have accepted money without knowing what it purchased.”
Richard placed three papers side by side. “We find Pritchard, secure Finch and send trusted men to Pemberley. No one is dismissed until we know what he did.”
“I shall go myself,” Darcy said.
The Earl leaned back. “No.”
Darcy turned to him.
“You believe that every burden becomes yours merely because you see it first,” the Earl said. “I will not have that begin again the moment Wickham is in the ground.”
“Edward will go to Pemberley. He has the accounts in his head and the authority to compel answers. Richard will find Pritchard, because finding men is what Richard does.”
“I am not a child, sir.”
“No. You are a man of nearly one-and-twenty who has, within the last two days, watched a man take the woman he loves at pistol point.” The Earl’s voice softened.
“You will remain here until the funeral. Afterwards, you will go to Hertfordshire and settle what is unsettled there. You will trust the rest of us to manage what remains.”
“There may still be men at Pemberley drawing wages from my estate.”
“Which is why Edward is going.”
Darcy looked at the traced route north.
“Pritchard. When you find him.”
“We shall send word at once,” Richard replied.
“And if he refuses to speak?”
“If our inference is right, he was paid to wear another man’s coat and enter another man’s name in inn registers. Wickham can no longer reward his silence. He will speak.”
“Very well.”
The Earl looked at him.
“Say it properly.”
“I shall remain until the funeral. Afterwards, I shall go to Hertfordshire and leave the investigation to you.”
“An encouraging beginning,” the Earl said.
Edward closed the ledger.
“There is another question. Why Rosings?”
“He knew Miss Bennet was there,” Richard said. “The watcher had followed her movements.”
“He came seeking me,” Darcy said.
“Perhaps,” Edward replied. “He questioned Miss Bennet about your whereabouts. That suggests he did not know you were there.”
“He knew legal action had begun,” the Earl said.
“Or suspected it. We still do not know who warned him.”
Richard drew a line beneath Finch’s name. “We trace every message leaving Pemberley and London. Someone told him enough to bring him south.”
“He knew Elizabeth was at Rosings,” Darcy said. “He knew she mattered to me.”
“Then we begin with the watcher,” Edward said. “If he followed Miss Bennet for several days, someone housed him, fed him and carried his reports.”
“And Finch?”
“Will tell us what he knows,” Richard said. “Willingly or otherwise.”
The Earl rose and gathered the papers into a single pile.
“That is enough for tonight.”
Darcy glanced towards the ledger.
“You have agreed to leave it with us,” his uncle reminded him.
“I remember.”
Richard moved the reports beyond Darcy’s reach. “Besides, you have another question to ask.”
Darcy looked at him.
“One which, I hope, will require fewer ledgers.”
“I have not yet asked her.”
“Then I advise you to begin there before arranging the wedding journey.”
Darcy rose. “The funeral first.”
“Yes,” the Earl said. “Then your own life.”
* * *
Three days later, Elizabeth stood in the parsonage drawing room while Mr Collins bowed for the fourth time.
Sir Alexander received each expression of gratitude with patience. Lady Selbourne waited beside the window until Charlotte persuaded her husband that the baronet had understood him perfectly the first time.
“We shall leave for Hertfordshire tomorrow,” Lady Selbourne said when the door had closed behind him. “Miss Lucas may travel with us, and we shall take you directly to Longbourn.”
Elizabeth looked between them. “You cannot mean to carry us so far out of your way.”
“We do,” Sir Alexander said.
Lady Selbourne came towards her. “Anthony is alive because of you. Please allow us to do this.”
“You put it in terms I cannot refuse.”
“Yes,” Lady Selbourne said. “I know. I learned it from my mother.”
Charlotte smiled from her place by the door.
“Then I accept, with thanks, and with the understanding that my mother will make a very great deal of your kindness and you must not hold it against me.”
“I have a mother of my own,” Lady Selbourne said. “I am not easily alarmed by the enthusiasm of one belonging to someone else.”
That afternoon, Lady Catherine sent for Elizabeth. She received her alone in the smaller drawing room, one foot resting upon a stool and her stick within reach.
“You leave tomorrow.”
“Yes, Lady Catherine.”